SNAFU: Unnatural Selection

by Christopher Golden

  Despite the cloth underneath, the weight of the lamellae plates chafed his stings and made them hurt worse. He tried not to let it show as Murat gathered and instructed the soldiers who would accompany them.

  In due course, they set forth, and people who spied them hurried indoors. Apparently Zeki and his companions had a grim cast to their expressions, or at any rate, something about their mien conveyed they’d embarked on an ugly business.

  When Ibrahim’s temporary lodgings came into view, everything was quiet. Zeki blinked away a momentary blurriness, likely another symptom of his poisoning, and he and his men prowled up to the little house.

  He took a breath and threw open the door. No one was in the front room, and he and his soldiers spread out to search the rest of them. Moments later, the man who’d entered the kitchen cried out, and everyone scrambled in his direction.

  Ibrahim wasn’t there, but the widow who’d been taking care of him was. She lay facedown in a pool of blood with two ragged wounds in her back and her head torn halfway off. Scorpions swarmed over the corpse partaking of the feast their master had left him. A soldier turned away and vomited.

  Zeki’s jaw tightened with an anger directed in equal parts at the sorcerer and himself. “I should have gotten here sooner.”

  Murat frowned. “You couldn’t know this was going to happen.”

  “I knew Ibrahim links his mind to the minds of his servants. I should have guessed that when I killed the scorpion, he’d understand I was about to lead men against him and seek to gather the power to withstand us.”

  “While the sun’s still up?”

  “Evidently he can invoke his jinn in the daylight if he has to. We need to find him before this gets any worse.”

  They strode back outside. Zeki considered the village with its low, huddled buildings and narrow tangled streets. Ibrahim could be hiding anywhere. He could even have fled into the desert. Zeki tried to decide how best to direct a search, and then, to the south, someone screamed.

  The soldiers ran toward the sound, and as they rounded a bend, two more corpses – a man's and a little girl’s, each ripped like the widow’s, appeared. Behind them the door of another house stood ajar revealing the gloom within. A smear of blood led up to it and over the threshold as though Ibrahim had dragged yet another victim inside.

  If so, perhaps he’d intended that unfortunate for a lengthier, more formal sacrifice – a ritual more pleasing to the Old One, in which case, the villager might still be alive. “We have to get in there now,” Zeki said.

  He led his squad toward the front door. They were a few paces away when a scorpion the size of a horse lunged forth to meet them.

  Ibrahim had alluded to enlarging scorpions, but the words hadn’t prepared Zeki for anything like this. He froze for what would likely have been his final moment except that the arachnid with its splayed limbs and upraised sting had difficult negotiating the cramped confines of the doorway. As it thrashed its way into the open, he broke through his shock and came on guard.

  He blocked a sweeping sting attack with his shield and riposted with a scimitar cut that fell short. Meanwhile, claws clacked and men cried out to either side. He realized there had been more scorpions lying in wait along the sides of the house. But he couldn’t spare so much as a glance for them or the soldiers they were assailing lest his own foe dispatch him in that instant.

  A soldier rushed past him on the left and struck at the arachnid that had come through the door. Until then, Zeki hadn’t realized he had a partner in his portion of the battle. The looming terror of the scorpion itself had consumed every iota of his attention.

  The soldier’s blade clashed on shell. The scorpion pivoted, bringing its pincers to bear. Zeki lunged and cut at the creature’s flank, at the spot where the stub of a head fused with the body.

  The scimitar sliced deep but not deep enough. The scorpion still caught Zeki’s ally in both sets of claws. The pressure snipped him to pieces and dropped them thumping to the ground.

  Screaming, Zeki struck a second time. The arachnid fell, a moment too late. Its tail whipped in spasms, wasting its venom on the dirt.

  Zeki cast about for someone he could help.

  The brown scorpion on his right crouched over a pair of corpses.

  The yellow one on the left lashed its sting up and over, spiking it right through Murat’s helmet into the top of his head.

  The sergeant whimpered. His eyes rolled up and his knees buckled, dumping him on top of the man the arachnid had slain previously.

  Zeki couldn’t fight the two surviving scorpions alone. Panting, sweating profusely – fear, the venom afflicting him, or a synergy of the two – he backed up. Seemingly in no hurry, the giant vermin moved to flank him. Perhaps they meant to toy with their prey. Or, more likely, the shadow framed in the doorway was holding them back.

  “It didn’t have to be like this,” Ibrahim said. Even speaking normally, his voice now hinted at the inhuman clicks and buzzes his sorcery required. “I truly would have made you a hero and rid our land of the infidels.”

  Terror was supposed to dry a man’s mouth, but Zeki still needed to spit away more excess saliva before replying. “At what cost?”

  “In your lifetime, relatively little. In a generation or two, the nature of your faith will change, and ultimately, strengthened by the devotion of multitudes, the Old One will return from exile.”

  “All because of the help you provided? We don’t need it!”

  “Possibly not, but someone, the Governor, the Sultan, or one of the Emirs, will want it and quickly come to depend on it. My influence can only grow from that point forward.”

  “It will never happen. Your ambush killed the soldiers lying here, but I have fifty more.”

  “Even if you could make it back to rally them, it wouldn’t matter. I explained that with every offering, my patron grows more generous, and even undertaken on the fly in the daylight, these last few proved remarkably efficacious. Let me show you.”

  Ibrahim stepped farther into the doorway. He was indisputably a hunchback now. He’d discarded his kufeya, and his beard and, indeed, every hair on his misshapen head had fallen out. As a result, the wet, scissoring mouthparts, grown even more prominent, were entirely visible, as were the several pairs of round black eyes. Each set of bloody pincers was bigger than his skull.

  Zeki flinched back a step.

  “Now you understand what an ingrate you were.” Ibrahim waved the scorpions forward. “Kill him.”

  The arachnids moved in. Zeki saw no way to evade both of them. He raised his scimitar.

  Behind him, a door creaked open. “Here!” a bass voice called.

  Zeki bolted for the house that offered survival. He lunged through the door, and a stout old villager with a mole at the corner of his mouth slammed it shut. The door clattered and jolted on its hinges as the scorpions struck at it. The tip of a claw punched through.

  “Get out!” Zeki gasped. He dashed to the back of the house and swarmed out a window into an alley that was as yet mercifully free of pursuers.

  If he kept ducking into houses to throw them off, he might just make it back to the troops surrounding the fortress after all.

  * * *

  Astride his roan stallion with the gate at his back, Adalric regarded his fellow Tafurs. The other five accomplished horsemen were likewise in the saddle. But most of the company were on foot, just as they’d tramped all the way from their homes in Christendom and as many if not all would die today.

  “We’re ready,” he called. “When the gate opens, run. Don’t stop for anything unless you’re one of Faramund’s party. They have a special errand.” He turned to the rider on his left.

  “Spying from the top of the keep,” Faramund said, “we spotted the paddock where the Turks are keeping their horses, and the shit-eating sons of bitches are cavalry to a man. If we interfere with their mounts, they may lose the will to chase us. Failing that, we might at least delay them long enough to give u
s a good head start. So my fellows and I will throw some spears, set a fire, chase the horses out of the pen, or something. Whatever looks feasible when we get there.”

  “If anyone gets separated, Antioch is to the northwest.” Adalric pointed. “That way. May God be with us.” He took a fresh grip on the round shield he’d found in the citadel’s armory and nodded to the men charged with opening the gate.

  They started to slide the bar back, and then voices clamored from outside. Some of the cries, he thought, were Turkish soldiers shouting orders although he failed to catch the gist. Others were people were wailing for help or wordless shrieks of terror.

  The men opening the gate looked up at their commander to see if he would countermand his order. Faramund turned to him as well. “Did someone come to rescue us after all?”

  “I don’t know,” Adalric replied.

  He could dismount, ascend to the battlements, and look around in an effort to determine what has going on outside, but he begrudged the time it would take. His men were ready now. By the sound of it, the enemy was dismayed and distracted now. He shouldn’t let the moment slip away.

  “We’re still going out!” he shouted. “But watch me when we do! If I change the plan, I’ll signal! Otherwise, do what I told you before!”

  The men on the gate pulled it open as fast as its bulk would allow. Adalric kicked his stallion into motion. Shouting the names of Christ, the Virgin, and various saints, his fellow Tafurs rushed out behind him.

  A few arrows flew at them. One whizzed through the space between Adalric’s horse’s neck and his own torso. But despite the cover of which they’d availed themselves, he could tell most of the Turks were turning away from the fortress. At least some were abandoning their positions and advancing into the village.

  “They’re running away!” a Tafur cried.

  “It’s a miracle!” another shouted.

  It wasn’t. The Turks had turned to contend with an immediate threat. But that didn’t mean Adalric shouldn’t seize the opportunity that afforded. In all likelihood, it was another company of Crusaders attacking the Muslims, and if the Tafurs joined in, they and their allies could grind the enemy between them.

  He brandished his lance over his head. He was about to sweep it forward to order a charge when a Turkish archer scrambled from behind a barricade constructed early in the siege and ran straight at his Tafur foes. He was more terrified of something at his back than he was of them.

  An instant later, the something climbed over the barrier and scuttled in pursuit. It was a coppery scorpion with a thick body the size of one of the Tafurs’ now-abandoned wagons. Its pincers snapped shut on the archer’s head, and blood squirted out around the edges. The arachnid dropped the corpse with its pulverized skull and crouched over it with mouthparts gnashing.

  Adalric’s stallion balked, and he would have reined it in if it hadn’t. His men likewise froze, their martial fire chilled like his own.

  Faramund spurred up even with him. “The attackers aren’t Bohemond’s men!’ the man-at-arms declared, and Adalric resisted a mad impulse to laugh at the most unnecessary statement anyone had ever uttered. “The Turks’ witchcraft has turned against them!”

  “Apparently so,” Adalric said, and then a little girl raced out into the open. No doubt she was running away from one enlarged scorpion, and when she discovered her flight had brought her into proximity with another, she froze. Abandoning the body of the man it had just killed, the boxy arachnid pivoted in her direction.

  Adalric had to spur his horse three times, but then it charged. As the scorpion neared the little girl, he thrust his lance into its flank.

  The creature wheeled in his direction. His steed danced backward in an effort to evade it, and he yanked the lance from the puncture it had made.

  The scorpion’s sting whipped in a horizontal arc. He caught the stroke on his shield, but the bludgeoning force of it all but knocked him out of the saddle. As he struggled to recover his seat, pincers reached for him.

  Faramund galloped in and plunged his lance into one of the round black eyes. An instant behind him, other Tafurs stabbed and swung their weapons. Someone managed a mortal blow, and the arachnid fell down thrashing.

  Faramund turned to Adalric. “What were you thinking?”

  Adalric hesitated because he wasn’t sure himself. During their time trapped in the fort, he’d come to hate the scorpions, but there was more to his fury than that. “She was a child.”

  “We’ve seen scores of dead children since we set out and are apt to see plenty more. But anyway, you saved her. Now let’s get out of here and leave the scorpions and the Turks to one another.”

  Feeling like a fool, Adalric said, “I don’t think we should.”

  “What are you talking about? The Turks are the enemy! Muslims who resorted to witchcraft to try to kill us! Whatever befalls them now, they brought on themselves!”

  “The soldiers, perhaps, but the scorpions are likely to kill the villagers, too.”

  “Again, filthy Muslims! Our task is to fight for Christ!”

  “If you’re fighting for our Lord, don’t you see the Devil in the scorpions? They’re more his servants more than any ordinary Turk could ever be!”

  “Whatever they are, if you try to lead the men against them, they won’t follow. Not when they have the chance to escape with their lives.”

  “If so, I won’t blame them.” Adalric turned toward the other Tafurs, many of whom had indeed hung back, staying clear of the most recent battle. “Brothers! Demons are killing women and children! I believe God intends us to put a stop to it! If you agree, help me! If you don’t, Faramund will lead you back into the desert!”

  With that, Adalric trotted his horse toward the nearest street. After a moment, he glanced back. He was afraid to, fearful he’d see that no one at all had chosen to join him in his folly. But he needed to know what he had to work with.

  The sight behind him made him weak with relief. Many Tafurs were fleeing, but a score were courageous or crazy enough to accompany him. Faramund cantered up to ride beside him.

  “I thought,” Adalric said, “you were going to march the other half of the company to Antioch.”

  “You pointed them in the right direction,” Faramund replied, “and I can’t have people saying you spat in Satan’s eye while I turned tail. Look there!”

  As they negotiated a dogleg in the street, the scene ahead came into clearer view. Several Turks stood in a line shooting at another scorpion with a body the size of a cart, this one slate gray with a tail that switched from side to side. The front of the creature bristled with shafts that had seemingly done only superficial harm. A scissoring mouthpart snagged the fletched end of one such arrow and snapped it in two.

  Adalric groped for the proper Turkish words. “Make way!”

  Startled, the archers looked around. One drew, but the man next to him grabbed him, prevented him from loosing, and shoved him to the side. The rest of the Turks moved of their own volition, clearing a path up the center of the street.

  Adalric spurred his steed into a gallop. Faramund and the other horsemen pounded after him. Presumably the Tafurs on foot were bringing up the rear.

  The creature balked when it realized opponents were running at it. Perhaps, given the choice, it would even have fled, but if so, the same power that had grown it to monstrous size compelled it to stand fast. Pincers reached and, guiding his stallion with his knees, Adalric urged it to the right. The claws clashed shut off target.

  His lance plunged into the spot where the arachnid’s stubby head emerged from its body, deep enough that it wouldn’t readily come out again. Hoping to recover it later, he let go and rode on down the creature’s flank.

  Behind him, shrieks rang out, a man and horse screaming together. Adalric turned his stallion. The scorpion had grabbed a Tafur and his steed, thrown them to the ground, and was indiscriminately pinching both. The effect reminded Adalric of playing with clay as a child and pressin
g two lumps into one.

  He drew his sword, rode forward, and cut at the arachnid’s rearmost leg. When he crippled that one, he moved on to the next.

  The scorpion scuttled backward, maneuvering into a position from which its sting could threaten him. He caught the banging impact on his shield.

  Then the giant faltered, shuddered, and flopped over on its side. Someone had slain it, or near enough. Several Tafurs kept hacking, hammering, and stabbing anyway.

  Adalric pulled his lance out of the carcass and walked his horse back to the Turkish archers. “That – charging the scorpion – was brave,” said the man who’d kept his comrade from shooting. “I don’t know if I could have done it.”

  Adalric grunted. “Thanks to you people, we’ve had some practice killing the things.”

  The bowman spat. “Don’t blame us! Given a choice, we would never have tolerated a sorcerer. It was our captain!”

  “Where is he now?”

  The Turk waved his hand. “If he isn’t dead, somewhere in that direction. He was trying to lead the entire company against Ibrahim. He said that if we could kill him, the giant scorpions would lose their strength. But everything was confusion, the creatures attacking from every side, and we couldn’t stay together.”

  “Stick with us.” Adalric turned to the Tafurs, a couple of whom were still doggedly assailing what was now manifestly a carcass. “Enough of that! Apparently, if we kill the warlock, this all stops! He was last seen in the southern part of the village, so that’s where we’re going! Form up!”

  They pressed on. Bodies lay scattered about with scorpions, both the common sorts and big ones, feasting on them. Still, a number of the houses to either side were closed up tight, and Adalric hoped some of the villagers were still alive inside.

  But if so, they surely couldn’t hide for long. Plainly, this Ibrahim’s sorcery had grown vastly more powerful, for the plenitude of oversized scorpions was staggering. It put Adalric in mind a dam bursting. If someone didn’t contain the flood of abominations, who knew how far it would spread?