Soultaker

by Duperre, Robert J. ;

  “Y’know,” Meesh said, “you’d think the Crone would’ve warned us about that.”

  Meesh watched in awe as massive, spiked limbs ending in curved talons rose from Folsom’s Crater like the sprouts of giant man-eating plants. The legs crashed down, talons driving into the earth with a thunderous crash. The creature bellowed again, like ten thousand bullhorns blown at once, and pulled itself out of the deep, wide pit.

  A great shell appeared, covered with jagged crags and valleys as if a city had grown on its back. Twelve alien eyes peered out from a gap within the shell, and globs of yellowish fluid oozed to the earth between a pair of enormous mandibles. All twelve eyes turned toward the sheep, which had stopped their mad dash and now ran parallel to the crater. The shelled demon emerged fully from the crater, revealing all eight of its tree trunk-sized legs. One of its appendages rose and fell as if in slow motion. The talons ripped through a sheep, shearing the thing in half. The monster inclined forward, a tilting, monstrous, creaking disk, and its mandibles speared the two halves of dead sheep and stuffed them into the gap in its shell.

  “Damn,” Abe said.

  “No kidding. That thing’s, well… damn,” Meesh said. He and his brothers had come up against hellbeasts twice before over his six years of life—once in the rocky plains around Po-Po, and that time in Sal Morrow when Shade had almost gotten them all killed by the Red Riders. The only other one he had seen was the dead beast Abe spotted near the Rocklaw Mountains. Hellbeasts were the largest and rarest of the demons to wiggle their way out of the Wasteland’s many fissures, giant things that looked somewhat like sand spiders, only fifty times bigger. They were lumbering and constantly hungry, indiscriminate about what they stuffed in their maws, but they had been relatively easy to kill in the past. Unlike other demons, silver wasn’t needed to destroy them. All you had to do was pulverize their legs until they couldn’t support their own weight, then put a slug through their giant brains.

  Easier said than done, Meesh thought. This hellbeast, which had just speared a second sheep, had to be twice as big as any they had seen before, at least seventy feet from one ridge of its great shell to the other. Its legs looked to be twenty feet long.

  “See why we needed you?” Bertram said. Out in the field, the remaining two sheep scurried this way and that, growing perilously nearer to the laughably useless rock wall.

  “I do,” Meesh said. He saw Abe’s lips tighten.

  “We actually had a run-in with another one a few months ago,” Bertram went on. “Near the Rocklaws. Killed it damn good, only lost three men. But this one… it appeared last week, out of the blue, ate a couple shepherds and a hundred or so sheep before we got out there to stop it. Well, stop it’s kinda an overstatement. All we could do was hurt it, force it down to the crater, and we lost another twenty men just doing that. The shell’s too thick. Can’t pierce it with bullets, and our blades… Ha! Let’s just say they bounce off like they’re made of straw.”

  “And it’s been here ever since?” Meesh asked.

  Bertram nodded. “We feed it every day, shoot at it, keep it where it is. But… well, we don’t got an infinite number of sheep or ammo, and the thing’s getting more brazen.” His mouth twitched. “It ate another two of our people this morning.”

  “That’s why the woman on the road said we’re late,” Abe muttered.

  “Exactly,” said Bertram.

  “Ye-hah,” Meesh said.

  For a moment there was no talking; two hundred men and women stood in eerie silence as the hellbeast bleated and clumped toward the last remaining sheep. Talons fell, flesh ripped, entrails spilled and were sucked up. The hellbeast seemed to shudder, its many eyes scanning the flatland for more food. Its gaze fell on the gathered men and women behind the wall, and it paused. Another glob of fluid leaked from its hidden maw.

  “Dammit, enough of this,” Meesh said, hopping onto the low wall and pivoting to face Ronan Cooper. The brigand prophet stared directly at him, inclined his head, spoke to the woman to his left, and then, after giving Meesh another knowing nod, tugged on the reins. Cooper spun his horse around and made his way toward the rear of the crowd.

  Abe and Shade joined Meesh atop the wall. “What’s that about?” Abe asked.

  “He’s a coward,” Shade said, seething.

  “No, brah,” Meesh said. “I don’t think so. I think he just gave us command.”

  “Command?”

  Meesh faced the throng of Outriders. More than two hundred faces looked up at him, hopeful, expectant, nervous.

  “Yeah, command. Over them.” He nudged Abe. “Go ahead, wise one. They’re waiting.”

  Abe swallowed, and for the briefest of moments his face was a mask of uncertainty. Then an eclipse passed over his features; the eldest knight’s brow furrowed, his eyes narrowed, and he radiated confidence. Meesh hopped down from the wall along with Shade, and joined the crowd of onlookers in staring up at the imposing black man.

  “All of you with ranged weapons,” Abe shouted, “hop the wall and stand just in front of it. I will be joining you there. Be ready, but do not fire until I tell you!” He pointed to his left, where Cooper’s three lieutenants on horseback still lingered. “You,” Abe told them, “If you have something long, grab it. Spear, polearm, a tree branch, anything. You will be distractions. You will be bait. Use the poles to keep the beast’s talons at bay. Try not to get gored.” The three lieutenants grimaced, looking like they did not like this plan in the slightest, but when Abe hollered for them to move their asses, they did just that.

  Meesh loved every minute of it. This was Abe’s element—when times were toughest, he was at his best. No hesitation, no doubt, only action.

  Abe turned his attention to Meesh and Shade. “Brothers, you know what to do. Shade, take Greenie. He’ll treat you right.”

  Shade grunted, expressionless. Meesh clapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s have at it, brah. It’s go time.”

  Shade rolled his eyes.

  The hellbeast’s angry bleating provided the soundtrack as Meesh darted back through the throng of crimson-clad Outriders. The horses awaited them twenty feet behind, and Asaph wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Smart move, Meesh thought. He found it hilarious that the man had known Cooper and counted the Outriders as friends, but he was certain Shade wouldn’t share in his amusement.

  He hopped up into his saddle, and Pam shuffled beneath him. “Good girl,” he uttered, rubbing her thick neck. “You ready for this?” The mare snorted and kicked out a hoof. “Yeah, me too.”

  He saw that Shade had mounted Abe’s horse, and Meesh didn’t need to ask why the eldest knight had chosen to forego the charge; Abe’s railgun had much greater range, while Shade’s shotgun, ideal for close combat, was nearly useless at a distance. And Shade knew it, for the weapon remained slung over his shoulder. From his belt, he grabbed his Eldersword, and with a flick of his wrist, the blade extended. His confidence caused a brilliant cobalt glow that lit his eyes with cold fire.

  Meesh followed his lead, the Rush bringing his blood to boil, and all traces of his prior headache vanished. The sword’s humming echoed in the base of his skull, the blade loosed green sparks of excitement.

  “It’s time.”

  The brothers guided their horses along the inside of the low wall, while those Outriders with guns, about seventy of them, took position on the other side. Nearly every face was drawn with concern. Meesh stared out across the field at the hellbeast as it took a huge, lumbering step forward, its numerous eyes still fixed on the line of scurrying humans. Meesh wondered what they must look like to the hellbeast’s eyes. Would it see them as insects, insignificant creatures running to and fro, seemingly helpless before its superior size and strength? I can deal with that, Meesh thought with a grin. After all, most apex predators ignored bugs, considered them nothing but a nuisance.

  But some bugs had a deadly bite.

  Like us.

  Meesh and Shade reached the gap in the wall, where the thre
e lieutenants anxiously awaited them holding six-foot-long hafts unsteadily in their arms. Meesh could only hope the hafts’ wood was solid; otherwise, the hellbeast’s powerful legs would snap them like twigs.

  “Ride ahead,” Shade told the three riders, his voice emotionless. “Circle the beast. Avoid the talons. Annoy it.”

  “Annoy it?” said the woman with golden hair who had been talking to Cooper.

  “Yeah, annoy it. Like you’re doing to me now.” A tiny stream of soft pink light flowed along the shaft of Shade’s sword. Better get moving, guys, Meesh thought, before he gets really angry.

  When they didn’t hop to it right away, Shade hollered, “GO!” and they took off, their horses rumbling through the gap in the wall. The hellbeast’s giant frame swung slowly in their direction. Meesh and Shade waited until the riders were twenty feet ahead before kicking their horses into motion. Meesh braced his feet in the stirrups and lifted his rump from the saddle as Pam’s hooves pounded the flat, rocky ground. He raised his Eldersword above his head and let out a yawp. The Rush had him entirely now, and all he could see in his mind’s eye were the varying paths he could take to reach the hellbeast’s appendages.

  The sound of Abe’s shouted, single-word command reached his ears, and the air was filled with raucous gunfire. Meesh kept his focus on his larger-than-life target; tiny sparks rose from the hellbeast’s shell as bullets bounced off it. The repetitive rat-tat-tat of Abe’s railgun came next, and a series of impacts glinted on the creature’s lower carapace. The three riders up ahead veered wide around the hellbeast, their hafts pointed toward it, their horses kicking up the rocky soil in a cloud. Two of the beast’s legs rose and hovered there as if it didn’t know what to do. Its twelve black, empty eyes seemed to see nothing and everything at once.

  The monster swung gradually to the side and brought down its heavy, armored limb. The talons gouged the terrain and sprayed dirt, barely missing one of the riders, who tugged his reins in a panic.

  Meesh locked stares with Shade for a half-second, then veered to the left while Shade took the right. The hellbeast had fully turned now, its unwieldy movements unhurried as it followed the three riders. Meesh dug in his heels and bent down, Eldersword held out wide. Pam rumbled beneath him as they careened toward one of the hind legs.

  The hellbeast took another great stride, its leg rising from the ground before Meesh could swing. Pam stumbled and swerved, and he had to collapse against her neck and hold on with his free arm for dear life to not fall off. Shit, he thought, a bit of yellow showing on his blade before he recaptured his bearings. That was close.

  The mare had turned inward instead of outward, and when Meesh lifted his head he found himself staring at the creature’s segmented underbelly. A gunshot struck the plate-like substance and sent a chip of carapace flying. Meesh pulled back and forced Pam to slow, his head on a swivel. He couldn’t find Shade anywhere, though he spotted two of the three lieutenants racing breakneck in the distance. The hellbeast’s snapping mandibles caught his eye, aimed toward the west as the hellbeast moved sideways across the field. Another slow step by the giant beast, another minor earthquake as the talons sank into the dirt.

  Perfect.

  Meesh took off toward the recently planted appendage while the corresponding leg lifted behind him. This close, the width of the leg was huge, big as a pillar, and the plating that covered it seemed impenetrable. Meesh again rose in the saddle, braced himself, and brought back his Eldersword. His mind sang with violence, his eyesight centered on his target—the creased joint just above the bottommost knuckle.

  He came upon the leg at dizzying speed. His blade shot out as if on its own, humming in his grip, nary a bit of resistance to be felt as the vibrating edge sliced easily through the joint. The great beast trumpeted in pain as its leg buckled, stinking pinkish liquid pouring from the wound. The beast faltered a bit just as Meesh shot out from beneath it, howling at the sky.

  One down, seven to go.

  Pam skirted the lip of Folsom’s Crater and followed alongside the hellbeast as it continued its slow journey. The horse leaped, and it took Meesh a moment to realize that she had cleared half the body of a horse. Looking toward the creature, he saw one of Cooper’s lieutenants impaled on the hellbeast’s front left appendage. The monstrosity took a step, lifting the flopping corpse, and then back down it came, crushing it further. The thing tilted to the side and lashed out at another of the riders, the blond woman, but she deftly ducked beneath the huge talon and jabbed at it with her haft.

  The hellbeast abruptly tipped to the other side, its mandibles clacking in panic. It dropped so low the ridge of its shell dug up a great swath of earth. Shade suddenly bolted into the open with that sickening pink blood streaming off his sword. Two down, Meesh thought. With the creature faltering, its unwieldy crab-walk progressing even slower, he dove back into the fray.

  With the second-to-last appendage on its right side useless, the hellbeast’s rear leg folded under its own weight. Meesh was there in a heartbeat; he squeezed his knees around the mare’s flanks and took a two-handed hack at the exposed, glossy tendon that showed between the intersecting plates. “Yargh!” he bellowed, teeth gritted, as the blade cut through tendon and carapace with ease, trailing ichor. The hellbeast collapsed to its side, the great disk of its shell digging into the ground and enveloping both Meesh and his horse with a tidal wave of dirt. Pam stumbled and pitched forward, shrieking. Threeeee! Meesh found himself thinking as he flew from her back.

  He landed hard on the side of his head. His neck craned back and sharp agony rocketed through his spine, but he still held the Eldersword, and its song rose in volume to swallow the pain. Meesh got up on his knees and saw Pam a dozen feet away, struggling in vain to get back on her feet. She collapsed back onto her broad chest. Blood poured from her snout; a long red gash ran the length of her side. Her innards spilled across the brown grass, and heaped atop them were seven shimmering squares. The mare had been gouged by one of the crags on the hellbeast’s shell as it toppled, which had also sliced open the bag of Heartcubes. Meesh looked at his own leg, where his breeches flapped open, but luckily there wasn’t even a scratch. He turned away from his dying horse, and watched Shade and the remaining two riders circle the mostly-immobile hellbeast. Meesh thought about gathering up the Heartcubes, but then one of the riders was knocked from the saddle by a swinging appendage. No time. He scrambled to his feet and offered one last look at a shuddering Pam as the mare bled out.

  “Damn,” he muttered. “I actually liked that horse.”

  The carapace crags that had killed his horse were facing him, and Meesh broke into a sprint just as Shade hacked away at the third leg on its right side. The smaller front appendage, mostly used for jabbing at food, wasn’t enough to support the hellbeast’s girth, and it fully collapsed. Shade yanked back on the reins and circled around, his Eldersword raised in triumph. Not yet, Meesh thought. Still alive.

  He reached the edge of the shell and leapt onto it. The surface groaned beneath him, rolled from side to side as the injured monster tried hopelessly to rise. Meesh worked his way along the shell—it was like maneuvering up a steep cliff face covered with fish-stinking rock—and a couple times he almost lost his balance. He found a handhold and clutched it for dear life as the beast shifted to the other side. When it bleated, the sound was so loud Meesh thought his eardrums might burst.

  He climbed the tallest peak on the demon’s shell and braced himself. When he found stable footing, he glanced toward the low wall. The whole platoon of Outriders was now gathered in front of it, hands bladed over their eyes as they watched the hellbeast flail and flail. Thankful they weren’t shooting any longer—the last thing Meesh needed was a bullet to hit him, well, anywhere—he took off toward the front of the beast. The shell leveled out, like a gully, before rising up again. Meesh retracted his Eldersword and clipped it to his belt as he ran, undid the snap on one of his holsters, and yanked the revolver free.

  “T
his is it,” he hissed.

  He reached the edge of the shell and allowed himself to fall. His left hand grabbed hold of the lip, halting his descent. Sharp ridges dug into his palm and drew blood, and there he dangled, staring at the hellbeast’s twelve glistening black eyes. The mandibles came together with a crunch behind him, and he angled his head downward. There, hidden beneath the gooey sinew of the beast’s nest of eyes, was a circular maw filled with rows of spiraling teeth. Slime leaked out of the opening and dribbled over the edge of the bottom shell. “Disgusting,” Meesh said. Still swaying, he looked the thing in its eyes and raised his revolver.

  “Bye.”

  One shot after another cracked through the late morning air. Each bullet punched through a black orb, which popped like overfilled cow bladders and belched stinking gray fluid. Meesh fired and fired, until his revolver was empty. Those twelve eyes, now destroyed, spat and hissed as pressure released. One last riotous bellow left the hellbeast—the sound didn’t come from its compactor-like mouth, but seemingly from its sinewy flesh itself—and it lurched forward. Meesh hung on for dear life, somehow able to sheathe his pistol and grab onto the lip with both hands as the ground came up to greet him. Great billows of dust puffed out from below the dead beast. Meesh swung inward, planted his foot on the sticky remains of what passed for the demon’s face, and then kicked out, letting go of the lip and falling backward just as the great shell flattened with a sickening, squishing crunch.

  He landed on his heels and teetered to his rump with a yelp. The hellbeast’s splayed and useless limbs twitched their death throes. Meesh looked up at those twelve ruined eyes and, despite the loss of his horse and the return of the pain from his fall, he laughed.

  Shade rode up to him, looking mighty atop Abe’s stallion. He tipped back his wide-brimmed hat, folded his hands over his knees. Meesh could feel a smile stretch across his grime- and blood-splattered face.

  “Well, that was easy,” he said, and then cackled.