They gathered their packs and set off again, into the valley that had a stream at its base that ran with clear and burbling water. There were flat areas like grassy meadows and several large trees like willows hanging over the brook, trailing long thin branches into the languid water. For some insane reason, Mike thought it would have made a nice place for a picnic.
They decided to follow the streambed as it provided cover of their movement, but had to be traded against the chance they would encounter some creature that decided to come down to drink, or worse, lay in ambush waiting for some dumb or oblivious animal who itself had come down for the water.
Mike was once again carrying Katya in his arms and noticed the gold locket around the woman’s neck. She had a bony arm looped around his shoulder and she squeezed his neck. Mike looked down at her.
“If I get too heavy, you can just leave me. Maybe I can slow them down.”
He grinned. “You’ll fight them?”
“To the death.” She grinned back. “But I know there are more hardships to come, and I will not countenance my slowing you down.”
He shook his head. “Not a chance.”
“Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light.” She raised her eyebrows.
He nodded. Mike recognized the quote from Milton’s Paradise Lost as Virgil started his escape from Hell. Right now, it could not be more apt.
“But the caves above us will be the real test of our metal,” Katya said softly.
“That they will,” Mike replied, trying not to think about them.
They broke free of the tree cover as the brook vanished below ground as swiftly as if it fell into a drain. In only another half mile the trees too became sparser, and when topping the next rise, the group saw the featureless plain laid out before them.
“There,” Jane said.
In the far distance, rising through the shimmering heat haze, they beheld the column mountain, and potentially their way home.
“About five miles, give or take,” Ally said.
“Yep.” Harris turned and narrowed his eyes back along the way they’d just come. “But you hear that?” he asked.
Concentrating, Mike could just make out a constant background noise like grinding that was reminiscent of a locust swarm feeding on dry husks in an old cane field.
“What is it?” Jane asked.
“That’s the sound of feet, lots of them. Seems our pursuers are a little faster than we expected.” He turned back to the plain. His mouth turned down and he shook his head. “Not good, no cover, not for miles.”
The plain was a rocky desert and extended to the horizon. Mike didn’t know how much head start they had on the approaching horde, but they had no choice but to try and stay ahead of it.
“Any other options?” Jane asked.
“Hide, or run, or fight,” Harris replied. “But, we don’t have the firepower to hold off an army. And there’s no real cover to stay hidden for very long. So that leaves one option.”
“Run,” Jane said and sucked in a deep breath.
“Like jackrabbits.” Harris repositioned the pack on his back, and Ally also tightened the straps on the Russian weapon pack she had slung over one shoulder.
“Reach deep, people. Let’s do this.” Harris set off at a fast jog.
The five people ran out onto the stony plain. There was little to no cover, and without any vegetation, and with the red heat beating down, Jane was reminded of some sort of alien landscape, and they were astronauts running to find their spaceship before it left without them.
The red heat beat down from above and was radiated back off the dry, rocky surface under their feet, creating an oven effect. Jane already felt the start of a dehydration headache and knew the others would be feeling the same. She looked across to Mike carrying the small woman. He ran with his mouth open, and his face ran with precious perspiration.
“Smell that?” Ally shouted over her shoulder.
“Oil,” Mike yelled back.
As they jogged, they had to leap over streams of black liquid that were spaced several dozen feet apart like bands. Jane was no geologist, but had no idea how it could have formed, and wondered about it simply being a natural phenomenon down here, where raw oil ran in rivers after it had somehow bubbled to the surface.
Harris turned to look over his shoulder to check on the group, and then began to run sideways for a while.
“We got company, people. Time to lift it up a notch.”
“They’re coming now,” Katya said as she looked over Mike’s shoulder.
Mike also looked back and saw that breaking from the tree line were hundreds upon hundreds of the Y’ha-nthleian creatures. They were far enough back that any projectiles they slung wouldn’t reach them yet, but even in the few seconds he watched, he saw them begin to scuttle forward, kicking up dust as they ate up the distance between them far too fast.
“We’ll beat them,” Mike said to her.
Katya nodded, and her disbelieving eyes went from his to once again look back at the horde.
Mike’s back and neck screamed at him as, even though Katya must have only weighed about the same as an eight-year-old kid, she was now starting to drag on his arms, back and shoulders. He knew he had no more sprint bursts left in him. For now, he simply put his head down and ran on like an automaton.
He glanced at Jane and saw her face was beet-red and her cheeks were puffed as she sucked in and blew out breaths.
She saw him watching. “How’re you doin?” she gasped.
“Walk in the park.” He tried to grin back but stumbled and nearly fell flat, on top of Katya. He managed to catch himself and continued on. He bet if he fell on her he’d actually feel her bones break like dry twigs snapping.
“Yeah, some park,” Jane said. She turned to yell over one shoulder. “Nadia, okay back there?”
Ally and Harris were in the lead, then Mike, Katya, and Jane, followed by Nadia who had fallen back a dozen paces from the main group. The woman nodded and waved, but her running style was ragged and she seemed to have developed a limp.
As Mike watched her, he started to see arrows fall to hit and stick in the dirt not more than a hundred feet behind them. It wouldn’t be long until they were in range.
He turned back to the front. There was no wall of jungle, rocky outcrops, or anything for miles. It was starting to look like their last stand was going to be one where they were simply run down or speared by oversized arrows.
One thing he knew: there was no way he was going to end up lashed to a cross frame, or being fed to some behemoth from the underworld.
He knew Harris would fight to the death. And he kinda had a feeling Jane would be thinking the same; to surrender was to be handing themselves over to torture or being a plate of food.
Mike’s foot struck something that sounded hollow, and he glanced down and back but saw nothing other than rocks and dirt.
It was only minutes more before an arrow sailed past him to nick his ear. “Shit,” Mike yelled. “We’re in range.”
Harris turned and fired about twenty rounds back at the approaching creatures. Mike shot a glance back just in time to see shell fragments fly in the air, and even some of their limbs be shattered and blasted away after the soldier’s volley. But he guessed creatures with a totally different nervous system had little to fear. For all he knew they’d simply grow the limbs back in a few days.
“Harris, can you give them a blast from the pulser?” Mike asked.
“I think they’re too spread out,” Harris yelled back. “But I don’t think we have a choice.”
He started to veer to the largest thing around: a mound of rock only about three-feet high.
“We get run down and speared in the back. Or we make our stand,” Harris said. “I know what I vote for.”
“Let’s give ‘em hell,” Ally said and was first to the rocks. In seconds Mike, Jane and Katya had joined them. Harris put Jane onto working the pulser, and he and Ally took to aimin
g and firing at the approaching horde. They also laid out their grenades in easy-to-reach rows and emptied the Russian weapon and ammunitions sack.
Nadia came in last, gasping like a fish, and Harris immediately handed her a gun.
The Russian woman looked at it for a moment, and then pointed it at Harris. “For Sasha.”
Harris simply stared back, waiting. He didn’t look afraid or even surprised. He laughed darkly. “Save it; bigger issues right now, comrade.” He reached out to push the weapon’s muzzle to the advancing horde.
Katya sat with her back to the rock and seemed to simply close down. Jane and Mike readied the machine and aimed at the throng of hard-shelled bodies bearing down on them. The things were jammed together so tightly and there were so many, that even if one of the vibration blasts took out a hundred, there were thousands more.
“I got a funny feeling that blowing a hole in their god meant we’ve declared war on their entire nation,” Mike said.
“Can’t understand why.” Jane grinned as she pressed the button. “Fire in the hole.”
In front of them, a column of distortion flowed forward. It struck the group leading the charge, and they exploded into wet fragments no bigger than a quarter.
It cleared a path twenty feet wide, and hundreds of feet long, and the beam continued on before the power waned.
“Hell yeah, that’s what I’m talking about,” Ally whooped.
“Well the rest of them don’t seem to give a shit, so fire that sucker back up and blast ‘em again.” Harris picked off the lead attackers, but they all found that unless you achieved a perfect headshot, just winging them didn’t do much damage, even if you punctured their exoskeleton.
“Hurry up there. This piece of real estate is gonna get real crowded soon.” Harris pushed his gun over his shoulder and took a grenade in each hand. He pulled both pins and threw them a good hundred feet into the horde.
The orange bloom of the explosion and the percussion destroyed around a dozen more. But still on they came.
“Damn thing won’t….” Jane began.
“It needs to recharge,” Nadia said. “I think maybe takes ten minutes.”
“Ten minutes?” Jane’s mouth dropped open.
“Ah, for crying out loud,” Harris yelled. “We won’t be here in ten minutes.”
The first arrows began to land around them, and both Mike and Jane took to picking off individual targets. Though they weren’t crack shots, the things crowded the field making it impossible to miss them.
By now they could hear the excited squeaks, pops, and chittering of the things that bore down on them.
Jane reached out and took Mike’s hand. She looked from his gun and then back up into his eyes.
He shook his head. “Don’t worry, we’re not there yet.”
“Keep firing,” Harris yelled.
There was a grunt of pain from their side and Nadia went down, with an arrow embedded in her shoulder.
“Shit,” Harris roared. He grabbed the woman and dragged her behind the rock. As he did, more arrows struck his back with a deep thumping, and he coughed in pain but kept dragging the woman to safety.
Once Nadia was out of the firing line, the tough soldier let her go and lifted his rifle again. He ignored the two arrows that stuck out from his body.
But dishearteningly, Mike saw there were arrows now sticking from the pulser.
Harris and Ally fired in full auto mode, spraying bullets over the field, and when empty, snapping in another magazine and commencing firing again. Mike and Jane now picked their targets. But it was hopeless, and he knew their ammunition would soon run out.
Mike paused momentarily, suddenly wondering whether to wait until the bitter end and hope to die in the fight, or if they should turn the guns on each other to ensure they weren’t taken alive.
The thought of Jane being held captive to be tormented and tortured made him feel shaky all over. But he also knew if he took the easy way out, then he would be taking with him some of the group’s firepower and would leave Harris, Ally, and Nadia to be quickly overwhelmed.
Mike gritted his teeth, pointing and firing as the monstrous shelled creatures came ever closer and he tried to ignore the giddiness-from-fear sensation threatening to make him panic and lose it completely.
The huge crustacean people towered over them and up close he could see their mottled green color, the thick bristles on their multiple legs, the twitching feelers around their mouths and the buzz saw-like pieces working behind them, and even the tiny dots in their bulb-like eyes that were fixed on them, now with triumph.
Jane’s gun clicked empty, and she reached for her belt and found no spare magazines. She just sat holding the gun in her hand and then looked up at him. They both knew she didn’t even have time to try and make a grab for the Russian’s spare ammunition bag to try and thread more bullets into the empty magazine. All she had left was her knife. Useless against things that were naturally armor-plated and more than three times as strong as they were.
Mike kept firing, and Jane came to him to put an arm around his waist. She buried her face into his side, not watching anymore.
The ground shook beneath their feet from the approaching monstrosities, and Mike swallowed down his fear. He put an arm around her and fired until his gun also clicked on empty.
I hope it doesn’t hurt, he wished.
CHAPTER 32
The chance that now seems lost may present itself at the last moment ― Jules Verne
From beside and in front of them the ground exploded open as dozens of trapdoors were thrown back.
A roar went up and a cacophony of human-sounding voices rose in a war cry. Hundreds of people poured from their hiding places, launching fire-lit arrows and swinging what looked like balls of flaming material on rope around their heads and then releasing them to sail into the massed crustacean people.
“What the hell?” Ally spun between one group to the other, not knowing yet if the new arrivals were friend or foe.
“Insane,” Harris shouted back at her. He knew those primitive weapons had little chance when the advanced firepower he and his team had used caused little damage.
But then it became obvious what they were doing; they weren’t aiming for the creatures, of course, but instead for the rivers of oil they had obviously laid down themselves.
Several arrows hit their target and curtains of fire reared up fifty feet into the air. It became clear now that the way the oil rivers had been positioned wasn’t just to create a barrier, but the staggered design was to actually trap hundreds of the creatures within the fire zone and roast them alive.
“Of course,” Jane said. “All creatures fear fire.”
From within the barriers of fire, squeals of pain and fear erupted. The mottled green of the arthropod people began to turn a brilliant fire engine red as they cooked in the blasting heat.
“Yeah,” Ally yelled.
“Who are these guys?” Harris kept watch on them and his gun up even with two large arrows protruding from his back.
A group of the people approached Mike and Jane. They were around four and a half feet tall, had brilliant red skin that seemed natural and not dyed or stained, and also shoulder-length, coal-black hair with a sheen like shimmering insect wings.
They gently took Jane’s hand and began to lead her to one of the trapdoors. They did the same to Ally, Katya, and Mike, and when they got to Nadia and Harris, they chatted in their burbling language and began to take greater care when they saw the arrows stuck in their bodies.
Now they knew what the hollow-sounding noise they heard was when they were running across the plain; it was probably one of the trapdoors that were dotted along their perimeter. Perhaps they had been preparing for war, or been at war with these creatures for decades or centuries, or even forever.
The small race of people finished by collecting up the human’s goods and then the trapdoors were shut and sealed behind them. Jane saw they were no mere gates but he
avily vaulted closures. When locked, massive bolts were slid into the rock walls. It would take explosives or significant force to open one.
The smell below ground was of oil, sweat, and cooking. But the first thing they noticed was that the cave they were taken into was lit in a magnificent blue.
“The crystals,” Jane said and approached an alcove containing a foot-high rod crystal. She noticed this one was set in an iron base like a form of candlestick, except the wax was the glowing mineral. And it looked old, ancient old.
“Down here these things might keep glowing forever,” Mike said.
Harris groaned, finally giving in to the pain, and the small race hurried them on. One of the red warriors who seemed to have more adornment than the others shouted commands in a tongue that was incomprehensible, but on hearing it the group were split; Mike, Jane, Katya, and Ally were ushered down one corridor, and the wounded Harris and Nadia down another.
They even came in closer to check on Katya and once seeing the ulcers on her face and body, cried out in their pleasant-sounding tongue and then she too was taken with Harris and Nadia.
“No freaking way.” Ally went to go after Harris. But a wall of the small people stopped her. One made motion to his back, and then took one of his own arrows from a quiver, mimed pulling it out of his back.
Ally stopped. “You’re going to remove those?” She touched her back and also made the tugging movement. “You make them better?”
The small warriors nodded and then hurried on their way.
Mike, Jane, and Ally were taken to a larger vestibule and inside there was a long and wide room blessedly cool after the oppressive, arid heat of the rocky plain. The walls looked like raw stone but magnificently carved and polished to a mirror sheen, and everywhere there were objects of artistic design or perhaps religious iconography. In addition, there were small statues of men and women in vain, glorious poses.
The room was lit a bright blue and as they waited, members of the small, red race soon followed them with bowls of food, water, and flowers. The smell coming from the cooked food was delicious, and Mike only then remembered how little they’d eaten over the last few days.
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