SNAFU: Unnatural Selection

by Christopher Golden

  Periodically, one or more of the arachnids attacked the Tafurs and their newfound allies. The Turks expended the last few arrows in their quivers on threats that appeared at a distance. Scrambling to envelop, the Crusaders fought the creatures that got in close. Conceivably grateful that their current adversaries were merely cat and dog-sized – not big as oxen or wagons – they did so ferociously.

  Still, they faltered when they caught sight of the marketplace with the well in the center. Possessed of a black body and a sand-colored tail and limbs, the biggest scorpion yet had knocked down most of the stalls as it rampaged back and forth tearing people apart.

  Now, though, it was restricting itself to a smaller area, the better to protect the even more hideous creature sheltering behind it from the Turkish soldiers struggling to get at him. Clad like a desert nomad in a striped sleeveless coat with a robe beneath, their target was a hunchback with enormous pincers in place of hands, a shifting, jutting puzzle of a mouth, and several pairs of round black eyes. Ibrahim, surely, so given over to magic that he’d come to resemble the vile servants he commanded.

  Adalric hoped that if he and his men rushed onto the battlefield, they could swing around the scorpion before it had a chance to react. He spurred his horse onward, and the surviving members of his command streamed after him.

  The giant creature shifted toward him, and he glimpsed his reflection in its eyes. It started forward, and some of the Turks who had engaged it scrambled to hold it back. Long as a sword, the scorpion’s sting flicked and stabbed one in the chest. As the Muslim staggered, venom swelled his body so the edges of his armor cut into his flesh. His bulging lips split lengthwise.

  Adalric kept circling. Intent as he was on reaching Ibrahim, it took him several moments to distinguish a frantic voice from the general cacophony; realize it was calling to him, and then decipher the Turk’s imperfect French. The man was shouting, “Above you! Above you!”

  Adalric looked up. A twin to the prodigious scorpion before him perched on a rooftop to his left. Just as he grasped what he was seeing, the creature hopped down among the Tafurs.

  The jump smashed men beneath the scorpion’s double-clawed feet. Pincers snapped shut around the head of Adalric’s horse. The arachnid yanked the dead or dying stallion toward its mouth. Adalric kicked his feet out of the stirrups and threw himself clear.

  He landed hard on his hands and knees. His hauberk rattled. He gasped in a breath and, planting the butt of his lance as if it were a staff, clambered to his feet. Meanwhile, the scorpion’s pincers snipped Pierre’s fighting arm off at the elbow. The Frenchman stared at the stump and spurting blood. He was still staring when the claws came back, clamped on his torso, and pulverized it.

  Adalric charged. Even without the impetus of a running horse behind it, the lance punched deep into the scorpion’s body. Perhaps he’d found a thin spot in the shell. The arachnid wheeled in his direction, and Adalric retreated and drew his sword.

  He never got a chance to use it. Pincers snapping, sting whipping, the scorpion attacked so relentlessly it was all he could to block with his shield and dodge. But while it was fixated on him, Faramund and others scored on it, and after several moments, the vermin fell convulsing.

  Adalric pivoted and then cried out in elation. The Turks had killed the other scorpion, albeit at a heavy cost as the shredded bodies strewn before it attested.

  Unprotected at last, Ibrahim still stood at the far end of the marketplace. Someone found a final arrow to loose, and it streaked at the sorcerer’s chest.

  Ibrahim shifted one of his pairs of claws. The arrow struck the armored extremity and glanced away.

  Then we’ll kill you with swords, Adalric thought, and as if that had prompted them, the Turks surged forward. Faramund and another mounted Tafur pounded past their leader. Adalric ran after them even though it was unlikely he’d get close enough to strike a blow before the sorcerer fell to the foes who would reach him first.

  Ibrahim cried out in an inhuman rasp, and then his body expanded. For an instant, Adalric imagined he was witnessing some manner of witchy suicide and the attendant death throes, for his mind balked at the notion that any living thing could enlarge so violently without tearing itself apart.

  But Ibrahim didn’t. Not when the lashing, lengthening tail and extra legs sprouting from his sides tore his garments to tatters; nor when, in a matter of moments, his body loomed as large as any of the houses surrounding the marketplace.

  Entirely a scorpion now, with only the shape of the head hinting at the humanity he’d cast away, Ibrahim scuttled forward to kill the men who’d been rushing in to kill him. One pair of pincers snapped shut on two soldiers at once.

  Faramund galloped past the claws, slashed at one of the colossal scorpion’s legs, ducked, and charged on underneath the body. Adalric judged it was a maneuver intended to flummox Ibrahim and keep him from striking back. But the transformed warlock scurried, spun around, and so put the man-at-arms within reach of his pincers. Ibrahim snatched rider and steed together, hoisted them into the air, and silenced their screams with a final squeeze.

  The Turks quailed and, shouting, a young man who was apparently their commander ran forward to rally them. Short, skinny, and mild-looking, he was nothing like the mighty adversary Adalric had been imagining since the siege began. But something in his exhortations or simple willingness to stand in the forefront steadied his men.

  Casting about, Adalric realized his own troops were in danger of breaking. He brandished his sword over his head. “We can kill it,” he bellowed, “just like we killed the others! Hit it when it’s looking elsewhere and defend when it turns in your direction!”

  The Tafurs held and, insofar as their untrained desperation permitted, fought as Adalric had bade them, chopping at the scorpion’s legs as if they were felling trees. Their tactics might be prolonging the battle but weren’t accomplishing much more. Unfazed by any trivial hurts he might be suffering, Ibrahim reached again and again, claws cutting and pulping anyone he caught.

  Perhaps the solution was to strike at a more vulnerable spot in the giant’s anatomy, but people were already swinging and jabbing at every portion within reach. Adalric ran to one of the houses bordering the marketplace, climbed onto the roof, and then discerned in the moments that had taken him, Ibrahim had scuttled farther away.

  Adalric waved his sword and shouted the Turkish word for “captain.” The enemy commander looked up. “Push him back this way!”

  The Turkish officer hesitated, but then he shouted, “Charge!” Scimitar extended, he ran at the titanic scorpion, and other men pounded after him.

  Claws spread to punish their recklessness, but at the same time, reflexively perhaps, Ibrahim gave ground. His retreat carried him back toward Adalric’s perch, and the knight leaped.

  He landed on the scorpion’s rounded back and immediately started to slip off. He twisted, threw himself down, and sat astride, his legs splayed by the creature’s bulk.

  He then peered about to determine whether Ibrahim had noticed him. It appeared not. The monster arachnid was too busy killing the men on the ground.

  Adalric had intended to make his way up the creature’s body to the head, but he now feared that if he tried, the violence of Ibrahim’s movements would buck him off. Praying that scorpions had vital, cleavable spines, he cut repeatedly.

  Like his comrades attacking Ibrahim’s lower parts, he only inflicted shallow wounds. The arachnid’s natural armor was too hard and thick. Yet suddenly instinct screamed that he’d caused sufficient discomfort to draw his foe’s attention.

  A glance assured him that Ibrahim’s pincers were incapable of reaching around to pluck a man from his back. He then looked behind him. The tail with its bulbous segments was swinging up, and he felt a surge of hope. Because scorpions sometimes stung themselves to death. Perhaps he could make that happen now!

  Heart pounding, he waited until the sting plummeted at him. He dived forward, and shell crunched.
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  He’d expected his frantic evasion to toss him off Ibrahim’s back, but through luck more than agility, he stayed put. No doubt the scorpion would shake him off momentarily, when its death spasms began.

  But they didn’t. His whole life, people had told Adalric scorpions could perish of their own venom, but evidently it wasn’t true. The sting whirled up for another stroke and, feeling defeated, cheated, he half wanted to let it pierce him and be done.

  Then he noticed the ragged breach in the shell and the puncture beneath. Effectively poisoned or not, the wound was more severe than the petty cracking and chipping his own attacks had produced.

  He wrenched himself around, scrambled forward, and managed to stay atop the scorpion yet again. He thrust his sword into Ibrahim’s wound and yanked it out. He wondered how many more times he could do so before the sting found him.

  He stabbed three times in all. Then the scorpion’s back heaved and flung him into space. He slammed down with all his weight on one twisted foot. His ankle snapped, and he pitched forward onto the ground.

  He rolled onto his back. To his amazement, Ibrahim was toppling. It seemed such a glory that he almost didn’t care if the creature crashed down on him. As appeared likely, for there was no time for a lame man to struggle to rise and hobble out of the way.

  But he didn’t have to. The scorpion’s body thudded down behind him, and he lay safe amid the feebly kicking legs.

  * * *

  Zeki surveyed the surviving soldiers. There were more Turks left than Franks, and their superiority with regard to gear and deportment was apparent. Perhaps he could take the infidels prisoner or kill them. Arguably, it was his duty. But he doubted anyone had the stomach for such a confrontation, least of all himself.

  The stings on his back throbbing, he walked over to the Franks’ leader. Though younger than expected, the knight was broad-shouldered, brawny, and capable-looking, the sort of officer who had often inspired Zeki’s envy. But he didn’t feel that way now. Perhaps he was too tired or numbed by the terrors he’d endured.

  A man who knew about setting bones had wrapped the Christian’s ankle, and someone else had brought him a stool to sit on. Judging from his glower, those kindnesses hadn’t filled the knight with gratitude. “One of your archers told me,” he said in broken Turkish, “that you unleashed the sorcerer and brought all this down on our heads.”

  Zeki resisted the urge to look away from the other commander’s flinty gaze. “I believed Ibrahim’s magic was a weapon like any other. When I understood otherwise, I tried to make amends.”

  The Christian’s expression softened. Now he simply looked as exhausted as Zeki felt. “I suppose you did at that. What happens now?”

  “Obviously, I can’t let you to strip the village of food. But we can have a truce. You and your men can go away.”

  “Under the circumstances, that will do.” The infidel snorted. “It will be strange to go back to the war as if this nightmare never happened.”

  “Well, we needn’t forget quite yet. Sup with us tonight and depart tomorrow.”

  The Valley of Death

  David Amendola

  "What killed these Englishmen?"

  Lieutenant Hartmann put his hands on his hips and asked the question as he squinted in the glare of the sun and looked at the four skeletons lying next to the heavily-laden truck.

  "What do you mean?" asked Lieutenant Dietrich, a short, stern-looking man.

  Hartmann pointed. "I don't see any bullets or shell fragments among their bones. No shell holes either. And their vehicle doesn't have any damage."

  He nodded at the truck, a one-and-a-half ton Canadian Chevrolet painted in a camouflage pattern of pale blue and tan. It was rusted and covered with dust. Customized for the desert, it had been stripped of its windshield, doors, and roof and equipped with wide tires. It was armed with two Vickers machine guns, one mounted in the back and the other up front in the open cab.

  Hartmann glanced around inside. "Plenty of food and water." He inspected the truck itself. "Fuel tank is half-full."

  Dietrich shooed away flies. "I don't really care what they died of. We need to keep moving if we want to reach the escarpment by nightfall."

  The glint of metal caught Hartmann's eye. Stooping, he picked up brass casings scattered in the dust. He inspected the dead men's weapons – Lee-Enfield rifles, Webley revolvers, a Thompson submachine gun. "They fired their guns, but it doesn't look like they got many shots off. They were caught by surprise."

  Dietrich glanced at his watch.

  Hartmann ignored his colleague's impatience, scratching the stubble on his chin. "These weren't regular soldiers. Look how they're dressed: Arab headcloths, shorts, sandals. And their equipment – sun compass, theodolite, air almanac. They're from the Long Range Desert Group. I've heard they sometimes sneak in here."

  "Who are they?"

  "An elite reconnaissance unit. But they usually operate in patrols of several vehicles, not just one. Wonder what they were doing here." Hartmann searched the truck and found codes, notebooks, and other documents. He was fluent in English so he skimmed through them.

  "And?" asked Dietrich.

  "Same as us apparently. A survey team." He blew dust off a map case, opened it, and studied the contents. "Here's a map they sketched. Looks like this crossing really does go all the way through the depression."

  "And the English know about it."

  Hartmann thought for a moment. "Their headquarters might not know. Their radio is broken. These fellows have been dead a long time and each is still wearing both identity disks. When an Englishman gets killed his comrades take the red one. Their own people likely don't know what happened to them."

  Dietrich grunted skeptically.

  Hartmann closed the map case. "Anyway, let's take what we can use and move on. This map shows a way up the escarpment and it doesn't appear to be mined or guarded."

  "Then our mission is complete. We need to notify headquarters."

  "We have to check it first. Once we're certain our panzers can use it we'll radio it in."

  "Headquarters needs updates so they can plan ahead."

  "We can't risk direction-finders pinpointing our location. We have to maintain radio silence as long as possible."

  Dietrich's thin lips tightened in a suppressed frown, but he said nothing.

  They were the same rank, but Hartmann was in command. Dietrich had been attached solely as an advisor because of his expertise as a combat engineer, an arrangement the ambitious young officer was less than happy about. A Party member, Hartmann sourly recalled, with some relative high-up in the Propaganda Ministry.

  Hartmann was dressed for the brutal climate in a tropical uniform – shirt with rolled-up sleeves, trousers, and field cap, the original olive color of the fabric having long-since faded to khaki. His boots were worn brown leather. He wore no decorations or insignia on his shirt other than shoulder straps indicating rank and branch of service. Goggles, a white scarf, and binoculars hung from his neck. A canvas web belt supported a Walther P38 automatic in a flap holster and a canteen was suspended from a shoulder strap. Long exposure to the sun had tanned his fair skin brown and bleached his blond hair almost white.

  Despite the heat Dietrich insisted on wearing a tunic over his shirt. Hartmann suspected it was so he could show off the Iron Cross pinned to his left breast pocket. Hartmann had one of these medals too, but did not feel the need to advertise it.

  At his direction the dead and the truck were stripped of anything useful. Scavenging was standard procedure since supplies and equipment was chronically short.

  "Herr Lieutenant, I think somebody was here before us," said a stocky private named Steiner. He pointed out various items untied from their lashings and scattered on the ground. Some had been opened and then cast aside haphazardly.

  Hartmann nodded. "Whoever it was doesn't appear to have taken much though."

  "Arabs?"

  "Probably. They have no use for most of
this stuff."

  "Maybe they killed the Tommies."

  "I doubt it. I've never heard of the Arabs attacking the English or us. They likely came by later, found these men dead, and took what they wanted."

  Unfortunately most of the dead men's rations were inedible now, a disappointment since the LRDG received better food than the average British soldier. Dreams of oatmeal, bacon, and biscuits with margarine and jam, which would taste like the nectar of the gods after weeks of living off stale black bread and tinned beef, were cruelly dispelled.

  Steiner let out a triumphant cry and hoisted up a real treasure – a stoneware jug of rum, standard issue to British special units to help ward off cold desert nights. He uncorked it, took a tentative swig, and happily proclaimed it potable.

  Hartmann laughed and then discovered another bit of prized war booty: cigarettes. They were the much-maligned ‘V’ brand made in India, but men hungry for nicotine could not be picky. He kept a pack for himself and passed the rest around to the others so they could enjoy the brief luxury of a smoke while they unloaded the truck.

  Afterwards he strode back to his own vehicle, a small 250/3 communications halftrack. He gingerly climbed inside through the rear door, careful not to touch the outside metal. It was so hot from the blistering sun one could literally fry an egg on it. The temperature was over forty degrees Centigrade. A canvas tarpaulin stretched over the frame antenna of the open-topped vehicle attempted to provide some semblance of shade.

  Hartmann squeezed between a bench and the bulky radio equipment. Ensconced up front in the driver's seat was Steiner, peering through the open visor. To his right sat the radio operator, an older, spectacled corporal named Lippert. Hartmann stood in the back so he could keep watch as they drove.

  Dietrich returned to a Volkswagen Type 82 automobile, a tropical version with large sand tires, driven by a private named Fuchs.