by Toby Frost
‘Bollocks,’ Wainscott snarled. ‘They’re in the building.’
A human soldier fell back, clutching his chest. The M’Lak threw a suit of armour over the balcony, braining several Yull with a terrible crash. For a moment, the sheer weirdness of the scene bewildered Smith: it looked as if someone had rammed a model aeroplane through a dolls house and followed it with a ceaseless tide of mice.
Chaos broke out at the rear of the lemming men. Some turned, others were tossed aside. A huge shape bounded through them, roaring and shaking its metal head. A great squol hung dead in its metal jaws, and the mechanical maneater dropped it by the staircase.
‘Ravnavar?’ it called. ‘Are you with me, Ravnavar?’
And Smith’s voice answered it with the others. Cheering, they rushed down to fight.
* * *
The Yull were in the lower passages now and the great cool vaults under Mothkarak echoed with gunfire and squeaky battle-cries. The tunnels were simply too complex to defend; on the other hand, they were almost impossible to storm. A fair number of the lemming men were lost not to gunfire, but to being mislaid. In the dim stone corridors the Yull were ambushed and slain: by fierce squads of defenders and their own confused comrades. The robot spiders that carved and repaired the castle caught several lemming men and scrimshawed them to death.
The Yull were inside, but at terrible cost. Their enemies fought with a fury that they had not anticipated. Had any of them dared to tell their superiors, or survived to do so, General Wikwot might have suspected that he no longer had a monopoly on not giving up. Instead, he ordered another wave of lemmings into the cellars. After all, he thought, tunnels were a rodent’s home from home.
* * *
‘We can hold the front,’ Wainscott said, as a wallahbot brought up a massive urn of tea. ‘You lot go up and find W.’
Smith turned from the balcony and led his crew upstairs. They picked their way up a winding staircase that smelt of damp and linoleum, climbing up the spine of the castle. Guns boomed through the walls.
Smith let himself think about Suruk. Surely he couldn’t be dead: Suruk was too tough and too crazy to be killed by the Yull. He seemed immortal, the way Wainscott did. But then, people weren’t. He hoped Rhianna had been able to send help to Suruk: being hit on the head with Suruk’s own spear probably hadn’t helped her psychic abilities.
He realised suddenly that, without the skulls, violence, bladed weaponry and occasional requests for bail money that being Suruk’s best friend entailed, life would be a much emptier place.
They emerged onto a narrow landing. Floorboards creaked and dust trickled down from above. Cannon fire rippled like thunder through the walls.
An open side-door led into one of the smaller libraries. Two women manned a tripod-mounted laser, the barrel poking out of the French windows. The nanibot stood beside them, and as Smith approached, she lowered her rifle and deactivated the sights.
‘Well, hello there,’ she said. ‘Goodness me, isn’t it noisy?’
‘We’re looking for W.’
‘Of course.’ She pulled up the rifle and took a shot out of the window. ‘It’s a terrible mess, isn’t it? Did you know, cleaning up can be fun? I’m taking out the trash with my rifle, and it’s ever so jolly.’
Carveth muttered, ‘Well, she’s flipped her switch.’
‘Don’t be impolite. He’s right this way.’
She pointed, and they hurried through. At the back of the library, the spymaster stood behind a table covered in maps. A bank of military display screens flickered behind him, flashing with muted gunfire.
‘Wainscott’s holding the front entrance, sir,’ Smith said. ‘Looks like we might be able to keep the Yull back.’
W shook his head. A roll-up stuck out of the corner of his mouth like a mummified twig. ‘’Fraid not, Smith. We’ve got lemmings in our underworks and ammo’s not looking good. Some of the M’Lak are down to knives already, although I think they might have just thrown their guns away. Look at this.’
He pulled one of the screens down on a jointed brass arm. It showed forest, the canopy rippling like the surface of a lake. ‘Here,’ he said, pointing to two large shapes. They moved forward, stately as ships, sending the trees around them swaying.
‘Ravnaphants!’ Rhianna said. ‘Aren’t they majestic? Wait a minute. Are they ours?’
‘No,’ said the spy. Under his thin moustache, his mouth was hard and set. ‘They’re enemy, and they’re stampeding this way. If those things reach us, there won’t be a castle left to protect.’
‘Good God!’ Smith exclaimed. ‘Can we stop them?’
‘Maybe,’ W said. He bent down and picked something off the floor. When he stood up, he was holding an immense shotgun, the barrels wide enough to accommodate a fist. ‘This is my ravnaphant gun. Thought it might come in handy.’ He reached to the table, picked up a teacup and took a large gulp of the contents. ‘There’s a tunnel leading out into the grounds,’ he said. ‘If I hurry, I might be able to come up just before them and bag the buggers. Thing is – well, you’d better take my place after that. There’s a whole lot of lemmings out there.’
Rhianna ran a hand through her hair. ‘So you’re going to go out there, shoot the ravnaphants and then die? You can’t do that! Ravnaphants are nice.’
‘Not a lot of choice,’ W said. ‘If I don’t make it back, tell everybody that I thought they were – well, pleasant company. Remember: the mildness of the British people is their greatest strength. And all tyrants must die. I think that covers it.’
He started for the door.
‘Wait,’ Smith said. ‘I’ve got a plan. What if we distracted the Yull?’
‘How? They’re crazed. All they want is blood.’
‘Then we’ll give it to them. Do those monitors transmit as well as receive?’
‘Yes, but the image is terrible.’
‘The worse the better. I’m going to need a camera, some white sheets, a lot of red paint, timed explosive, a Yullian dictionary, a bottle of helium and several women in nurses’ uniforms. Do you think we can find all that?’
‘Almost certainly.’
‘Rhianna, you can help me. And Carveth?’
An explosion, muffled but huge, shook the windows. Dust rained from the ceiling. She looked round. ‘Yes?’
‘Fetch Gerald.’
* * *
Wikwot watched the ravnaphants advance from his vantage point in the treehouse. The beasts lumbered towards the castle walls like slow torpedoes. They would smash straight through, once they had got up enough speed, like a drunken uncle falling onto a wedding cake. Of course, with each step they crushed a dozen of the Yullian footsoldiers that swarmed around them, but that was war for you.
‘General!’ an adjutant called up. ‘An outgoing transmission from the Space Empire.’
‘Excellent.’ Wikwot slid down the tree, his bulk conveying him quickly to the ground. ‘Do they beg for mercy?’
‘Yes, my lord. Look!’
The minion held up a screen. The image was blurry, but Wikwot could make out a confused looking woman in a white outfit with a big red cross on the front.
‘Um, hi,’ she said. ‘Look, lemming guys, could you not attack the big shed out the back where we used to keep all the aviation fuel? Because we’re using it as a hospital, and it’s full of women and children – you know, civilians – and it would be totally bad if –’
She was abruptly shoved out the way. The camera shook: a whiskered face appeared close to the lens. A voice squeaked ‘Huphep Yullai!’ and the screen went dead.
Wikwot looked at the adjutant. ‘Well,’ he said, a grin stretching across his chops, ‘looks like our boys have found the good stuff. To the big shed! Kill the unrodents – kill them all!’
* * *
Smith peered over the windowsill. ‘Looks like it’s working,’ he said.
Rhianna carefully removed her improvised white hat from the chaos of her hair. ‘Do you think they’ll go
for it?’
‘Of course. The lemming man may fight fiercely, you see, but in his heart he is a bully and a moral coward. His base masters have ordered him forward, and, drunk with cruelty, he has no option but to obey. Our noble soldiers, on the other hand – why are you both smiling at me?’
‘The helium’s not worn off,’ Carveth said. ‘And I’ll have my hamster back, while you’re at it.’
Smith passed Gerald over. Anyone sane would never have mistaken a blurry hamster for a member of their own species, but then the lemming men were not sane. He had given them what they wanted – the opportunity for a massacre – and they would be powerless to resist. At the far end of the library, the mounted laser was firing again.
‘You know,’ he squeaked, as Rhianna removed her improvised uniform, ‘you look quite nice dressed as a nurse.’
‘Uh-oh,’ said Carveth.
‘At least it’s not a Bronte sister,’ Rhianna replied.
Carveth gawped. ‘God, that’s wrong. Which one was it?’
Rhianna shrugged. ‘All of them, I think.’
‘When you’re finished, Carveth,’ Smith chirruped, ‘we have work to do.’ He picked up the map. ‘Rhianna, Carveth, give it a few minutes and have the ladies on the gun back there shoot the shed up. That ought to do the furries a bit of no good. I’m off to help W.’
‘I’ll go with you,’ Rhianna said.
‘I won’t,’ Carveth added. ‘I mean, I would, but Gerald here deserves a rest.’
Smith looked at Rhianna, reflecting that she wasn’t the best person to take on a hunting trip. He wondered how he would dissuade her, especially since his voice was currently several octaves higher than usual. He’d think of something by the time they got out of the castle, by which time he might sound less like a bird. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’
They took one of the many sets of back stairs. Rhianna held the map and Smith went first, sword out. They hurried down the steps, boring deep into the castle. The air seemed to thicken and chill; the boom of explosions became a distant rumble.
The construction robots had passed through here a long time ago, carving useless side-passages and storerooms that now housed nothing except dust. Smith and Rhianna ducked behind a statue that depicted a fat angel in a bowler hat.
‘Look,’ Rhianna said, pointing downwards, and for a moment Smith thought she meant her sandals. Then he saw the bootprints in the dust.
The passage ended in a staircase. The steps seemed to rise into the ceiling: as they got closer, Smith saw a hatch in the roof. ‘Here we go,’ he trilled, and he pushed it open.
They climbed out into the forest, into the sound of gunfire and yells. At one time, Smith realised, the place had been an outpost of the castle: broken walls still ran across the ground, overgrown with creepers. Smith closed the hatch, feeling the heat like a weight on his back.
‘Where’s W?’ he said.
‘I don’t know. Maybe I can sense him –’
Something huge exploded to the right. Smith dropped down, tugging Rhianna’s hand. A fireball flew into the sky, preceded by a squeaking wave of lemming men. They sailed into the air, about half of them still in one piece, and crashed down upon the wreckage below with an unpleasant sound like wet cement.
Then he realised: Carveth must have blasted the fuel store. ‘It’s raining lemming men,’ he said. ‘Hallelujah.’
‘Smith,’ a man whispered. ‘Smith, is that you?’
They shoved through the undergrowth. W lay on his back. He wore a combat helmet: the visor had been ripped and twisted away, as if it had exploded from inside. The spy’s mouth and hand were bloody.
He was pinned down by the corpse of the biggest squol that Smith had ever seen. It was a brute; a scarred, sandy-yellow rat-hound with a spiked collar and a tail that had been broken in so many places that it resembled a lightning-bolt. Smith grimaced and helped Rhianna to heave the body aside.
W coughed weakly and sat up. ‘Bloody thing jumped me. I managed to stab it in the brain with a fountain pen.’ He stared glumly at his wounded hand. ‘Via its mouth, unfortunately. The gun’s yours, Smith. I’d be lucky to bag groceries, let alone a ravnaphant.’
Smith picked up the gun and broke it open. The cartridges were the size of tin cans.
‘Solid shell on the right, lead shot on the left. Use the shot to get its attention, and then aim at the head. You’ll only get one chance. The only thing worse than an angry ravnaphant is a randy one.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Their arses go red in the mating season. It’s very bad news for everybody.’
Deep in the forest, Smith heard the stomp of huge feet like drums.
‘Isambard?’ Rhianna said.
Smith looked around. She had taken a deep breath, which meant that trouble was on the way. ‘You’re not about to tell me that hunting ravnaphants is wrong, are you?’
‘Actually, yes. Totally wrong.’
Smith took a few steps away, towards the ruined walls, and Rhianna said, ‘Maybe we can make friends with it.’
‘How? If you want to pat it on the head, you should have brought some scaffolding.’ Desperation made him sound bitter.
‘Them, Isambard. There’s two of them.’
The ground began to shake. The footsteps sounded more like artillery than drums now. As Smith looked at Rhianna, the gun seemed to shrink in his hands. ‘God,’ he said. ‘What’re we going to do?’
‘Maybe I can contact their minds.’
‘They’ve got two brains. Each. And neither’s very clever.’
‘I could make them friendly.’
‘Alright. Be careful.’
He strode towards the noise. The trees thinned down, and he saw the first ravnaphant ploughing through the forest, branches breaking around its shoulders like ice around an Arctic ship. It was as tall as a cliff, covered in ancient scars and skin thicker than tank armour.
But it had also been badly used, like anything that the lemmings took alive: there were fresh cuts in the armour, and syringes the size of telegraph poles stuck out of its flanks, no doubt full of some vile combat-drug. On its back, a horde of Yull jeered and chanted, wild with bloodlust.
‘Slow him down,’ he said, and he broke the gun open. Rhianna closed her eyes, and Smith took out the solid shell, and replaced it with shot.
The first beast strode a little slower now, but each step was still enormous: it could march straight through the castle. The ground shook, rocked. The second monster lumbered into view.
‘The other one!’ Smith shouted. ‘Make them friendly!’
The first beast was nearly on top of them now. The huge legs boomed around them, crashing down like pistons in a starship’s engine room. Something like a huge fleshy pendulum swung from above, and Smith thought, That’s a funny place to have a tail –
‘I will fill their hearts with love!’ Rhianna cried, beaming.
‘That’s not its heart!’ Smith yelled back, and tugged her out the way. They dashed aside, between the first beast and the second, through a storm of dust and panicked animals. Suddenly they were clear, and as the first ravnaphant passed them, Smith pulled up the gun and fired both barrels into its rear.
It lumbered to a halt. The lemming men riding it shouted and tried to goad it on. The ravnaphant’s back twitched as the realisation that it had been shot travelled from its backside to its brain. A red mark swelled from the point of injury: the shot had been like a slap across the arse.
The second ravnaphant paused, took a good look at the red bottom in front of it, drew the obvious conclusion and leaped onto its comrade’s back.
In a second, two hundred lemming men died horribly. Those not flattened outright were ground to paste by the vigorous motions that followed. Smith was reminded of the liaison between his aunt’s Jack Russell and a table leg.
The first ravnaphant dimly realised what was going on, and reminded the second that they were both male by kicking it in the groin. The second beast roared an
d staggered, sending lemming men flying into the forest like water off a wet dog’s back. The ground rocked and shuddered as the two beasts bellowed at each other.
Smith stood there a moment, overcome with awe, and then Rhianna grabbed him. ‘Isambard, we did it!’
They stood there, gazing at two of the galaxy’s most majestic creatures in one of the galaxy’s less majestic spectacles. ‘And so did they,’ Smith replied. ‘To each other. Or at least, they tried.’
Together they walked back to W. He stood upright, leaning against a tree, smoking a roll-up. ‘Did you bag them both?’
‘Good as,’ Smith replied.
‘You should get them mounted,’ the spy replied.
‘Actually, they mounted each other.’
‘That was some bloody good work,’ Smith said as they started back towards the trapdoor. He squeezed Rhianna’s hand.
‘You know,’ she said, ‘it wasn’t all that hard to communicate with them. They’re a lot like men, really Their brains are in their –’
A rumble ran through the air. Smith felt it in the ground, too, under his boots. ‘Not again!’
The sound rose, and the branches above them trembled. This time, the noise was coming from the South, not the East, but it was still set to crash into them.
Smith looked at Rhianna. ‘Can you slow this one down?’
She looked vague, but grim. ‘I’ll try. I’ll see what I can do.’
She walked out to meet it. Smith followed, W lurching along beside them. They looked up at the forest. And the trees burst apart before them. The ravnaphant came lumbering through, striding forwards, and Smith saw a castle on its back, studded with howitzers: Union Jacks dangling along its flanks, and galloping in its wake, row upon row of lancers riding great green beasts.
‘Mildred!’ he cried.
Someone blew a bugle, and the ravnaphant lifted her head and bellowed. A tiny figure stood between her eyebrow-ridges: legs braced, arm out before it.
‘Look!’ Rhianna cried. ‘It’s Suruk! And he’s surfing the ravnaphant’s head!’
