As he watched, Bass rose to one knee and fired his rifle. With steady, precise movements, he ejected the spent cartridge and reloaded. “We’re pinned down,” he said. “They’re above us and coming up behind.” He turned and fired. “Ten, maybe fifteen of ‘em,” he said, dropping down onto his back to reload. “They might have passed us on by if that damn cigarette hadn’t warned them they were right on top of us,” he added, glaring at St. Cyprian.
“Hardly my fault,” St. Cyprian said, “I couldn’t hear anything over that blasted rain.”
“Germans, by the sounds of them,” Carnacki said. He sat behind his rock, staring at Ylourgne below, and rubbing his cheek with the barrel of his Webley. “They must have been here since Cambrai. I wonder why? Living Germans and hordes of walking corpses do not for a common sight make in these crags.”
“Does it really matter?” St. Cyprian said. He caught sight of several coal-scuttle helmets bobbing along just behind cover. He made to fire, when Carnacki stopped him.
“Actually Charles, I rather think it does. Weapons down, gentlemen,” Carnacki said.
“What now?” Bass said.
“I say, you can’t be serious,” St. Cyprian said.
“As a Yorkshireman,” Carnacki said. He tossed his pistol aside and stood, his hands raised over his head. “We need to get into Ylourgne, why not do it with an armed escort, what?”
“Is he crazy?” Bass asked, looking at St. Cyprian.
“Sadly, no,” St. Cyprian said. He tossed his pistol out into the open and stood, hands out. “Unless you happen to be bulletproof, I’d do as he says, Sergeant.”
Bass hesitated, but only for a moment. Then, with a disgusted sigh, he tossed his rifle aside. The men who came to collect them a moment later had the hard-edged, roughhewn look of German stosstruppen—the sorts of soldiers who had, months earlier, pierced the Allied lines at Cambrai with distressing ease. He wondered if these were from the same lot. They were searched briskly, their weapons collected, and then, with all due haste and efficiency, escorted down from the escarpment and into the ruin of Ylourgne.
The route down was arduous, and even in the relative cool after a rain, it was hot going. The moat that had once diverted a tail of the Isoile to curl about the ruin’s lower reaches was now long since filled by rock and soil, washed down from the high passes by centuries of rain. The drawbridge was reduced to moldering fragments, but the collapsed stones of the once-proud barbican did well enough as a path inside. The main structure of the fortress was covered in thick tarpaulin and netting, so as to prevent any light from escaping, and the doors had been blocked and sealed. Men wearing concealing cloaks and mud-tarps patrolled the battlements and camouflaged machine gun positions had been set up in the gatehouse and the crumbled remains of what had once been a chapel.
They were led into the main building through a side door, which was protected by a heavy blanket, and guarded by a third machine gun crew. No one spoke, or even looked at them.
Once they were inside, St. Cyprian couldn’t restrain a curse from slipping his lips. The entire structure had been gutted, and hollowed out into a single cavernous space, now occupied by what appeared to be a massive alembic, surrounded by dozens of levels of scaffolding, that connected to the stone walls at various points. The alembic stretched far below the crude floor they stood on, well into the bowels of the ancient fortress, and rose up to scrape the uppermost curve of the high tower above.
Inside the alembic was a thick fluid, the color of urine and as thick as blood. Even so, St. Cyprian thought he could see something within it, something massive. But it was not that vague and undefined shape which startled him. Instead, it was the congregation of broken corpses which occupied every spare space, and descended the scaffolding in a slow moving queue towards the lowest point of the alembic. Armed men, wearing gasmasks and butcher’s aprons, herded the staggering, shuffling corpses along, and when one fell, it was heaved over the side of the scaffolding, to men waiting below with gaff-hooks and chains, who would drag it into the darkness. Someone had lit a fire down there, and St. Cyprian could see the reddish glow of the flames reflected on the damp stones.
There was a strange smell on the air. It wasn’t just the charnel odor of the corpses, but something else—a raw, hot scent, like a pan left too long over a fire. A glance at Bass and Carnacki told him that they smelled it as well.
“Smells like a hog roast,” Bass muttered.
“It’s coming from that strange contraption,” Carnacki said, nodding towards the alembic. “And speaking of contraptions...”
They had been led up onto a wide viewing platform, through the sea of corpses, where a heavy table had been set up, and on top of it, a strange mechanical device sat, surrounded by five heavy glass bell-jars. In each jar there was a human head floating suspended in fluid. St. Cyprian clutched at his head as they were escorted close to the contraption and its gory companions. The ache that had allowed him to trail the corpses had grown suddenly worse, and, unprepared for it as he was, it staggered him. Pain rattled along his spine and across his nerve endings, and he would have fallen had Bass not caught him.
“What the hell is that thing,” Bass growled.
“It’s giving me a frightful headache, whatever it is,” St. Cyprian snarled.
“I see that you are admiring die glocke,” someone said, in heavily accented English. They turned and the newcomer smiled widely. He was a thin, blonde man, with a gasmask dangling from around his neck and a surgeon’s smock on over his uniform. There was blood on both his face and his smock, though it didn’t appear to be his. “A masterpiece of psychical innovation, if I do say so myself,” he said. “I procured the brains myself—five of the finest psychic minds Europe had to offer, wired together in the greatest necromantic apparatus to ever grace the aether with its voice.” He rapped one of the jars with a knuckle.
“A psychic resonator,” Carnacki said.
“It’s the Ewer Apparatus,” the man said, dabbing at the blood on his face with a handkerchief. “Or so they’ll call it, come the end of the war, I hope.” He pulled off his gas-mask and tossed it to one of his orderlies. “That’s me, by the way. Max Ewer, Professor Max Ewer. And you are Thomas Carnacki,” he said, pointing a finger at Carnacki. “My mentor, the late, unfortunate Dr. Gottlieb Hochmuller used to mention you quite a bit, when he had one of his little moments.”
“Yes, it’s a shame about what happened to him,” Carnacki said. “Did you ever catch that beastly hound of his?”
“Do I look like a dog catcher?” Ewer said. He sniffed. “I warned him about that, you know. That whole brain transplant theory of his was based on shoddy science.”
“Yes, bit of a lunatic, wasn’t he?” St. Cyprian said, eyeing the pickled heads in their solution-filled jars.
“Mad as a rabbit in a basket,” Ewer said agreeably. ‘Now me, I have hard alchemical theories on my side. And the finest men the German army could spare from the offensive. You’ll have to forgive them, they’re not very talkative.” He gestured to the men standing behind them. “I thought I had privacy as well, here in this dreadful old ruin.”
“People do tend to notice when the dead get up and wander about, old chap,” Carnacki said. “Even during a war; especially during a war, I’d say.”
Ewer made a dismissive gesture. “That they only sent the three of you tells me Allied attentions are firmly fixed elsewhere,” he said. He peered at Carnacki. “Even if one of you is the famed Ghost-Finder...that means I have time to practice my English for a bit. It’s so rare that I get that opportunity. Tell me, Carnacki, what do you know of Ylourgne’s history?”
“Nothing good, if you’re asking,” Carnacki said.
“It was the site of one of the greatest acts of the alchemical diabolism in this age or any other, according to the writings of one Gaspard du Nord. On this spot, in this place, a monster was born. A giant, built of dead men’s bones, by a foul little dwarf called Nathaire. It went on a bit of a rampage,
or so du Nord claimed, and was said to have even threatened Vyones, before it was destroyed.”
St. Cyprian glanced at the trembling queue of corpses, and felt suddenly sick. His eyes were drawn to the giant alembic, and the mammoth shape barely visible in the glass womb. Carnacki had apparently come to the same conclusion. ‘You’d need a lot of bodies,” he said, softly.
“How many dead men do you think are in the trenches?” Ewer said. “How many bags of meat and bone do you think litter these lands? Millions,” he continued. “Millions of empty husks, waiting for the call of my Ewer Apparatus.” He smiled. “The Kaiser would not approve, of course. He has his sensibilities, and they suit him, but what he does not know will not hurt him. Indeed, it will help him, him and Germany both. The Thule Society will drag the Fatherland to victory by its heels, if need be. And die koloss will be more than able to do the dragging.” He motioned to the immense shape that was visible in the alembic’s upper berth. “He is almost ready to be awakened. His flesh has yet to reach the proper tensile strength, but a few days more, a few hundred more corpses fed into the furnace of his hunger, and he shall rise, unstoppable and unconquerable.”
Ewer clenched his fists. “Imagine it—imagine an army of giants, striding across the battlefield, crushing tanks beneath their tread and swatting planes from the air. No artillery will pierce their flesh, and no gas will choke them—no, for they will breathe the poisons of war!—and they will rend asunder walls and step over bridges.”
“How did you even grow such a thing?” Carnacki said. St. Cyprian felt a moment’s irritation at his mentor’s obvious curiosity, before he realized the obvious—Carnacki was trying to keep the megalomaniac distracted. But was he planning something, or was it, as usual, up to his assistant?
“Surely you’ve heard of homunculi,” Ewers said.
“Of course, but homunculi are tiny things, barely larger than a wine bottle.”
“Nasty enough for all that,” St. Cyprian muttered. He’d seen his fair share of unpleasantness in the months prior to the war, acting as Carnacki’s assistant. Feral homunculi, hungry ghosts, and worse had peopled those terrifying weeks before they’d left England. The former had left bite-marks up and down his shins.
He looked around surreptitiously. The guards’ attentions had drifted. St. Cyprian judged Ewers as a talkative sort, even when he didn’t have captives to gloat at; he probably filled Ylourgne with enough chatter for a flock of magpies. His eyes met Bass’, and the American nodded shallowly. His big hands flexed, and St. Cyprian swallowed. He was a fair enough pugilist, but taking on a bevy of armed Huns with just his fists wasn’t his idea of a fun punch-up. That thought uppermost in his mind, he saw the butt of his revolver sticking out of the belt of one of the guards.
Ewer turned and bent over the iron safety rail. “I extrapolated, based on a variety of alchemical texts, as well as Nathaire’s own records. For a diseased little French diabolist, he kept tidy notes. I didn’t use dead men’s bones but good German steel for the skeleton, and the flesh and muscle have been grown through a process of protein absorption. The veins and organs are experimental plastics, and when the beast moves, it will excrete a chemical agent from its pores. It will be able to clear entire trench-lines just by striding over them. Cities will empty at its approach, leaving Germany’s sons untouched by bullet or shell.” He turned. “Nathaire’s beast managed to humble only a single province. Mine will conquer a continent.”
“And what of us, if one might inquire?” Carnacki said. “Are we to be prisoners of war or hostages of fortune?”
“Neither, I’m afraid,” Ewers said apologetically. He reached over, drew a pistol from a guard’s belt, and shot Bass in the chest. The American pitched backwards without a sound. St. Cyprian cursed and Carnacki whirled, staring in shock at Bass’ body. “You’ll be shot, and added to my collection of corpses, and fed to my colossus.” He chuckled. “Watch, I’ll have him do a little jig when he gets up.”
“You filthy animal,” St. Cyprian snarled as he took a step forward. Ewers swung the pistol around.
“Wait your turn, Englishman.” Ewers stepped back and patted his apparatus.
Boots scraped on the floor. Bass’ body sat up. For a moment, all eyes were on the dead American. Ewers laughed. “I thought, initially, to simply use my device to propel the dead at the enemy. But that plan lacked a certain artistry. And then I thought—colossus.” He gesticulated cheerfully.
Bass lurched to his feet. The guards had stepped back. Bass’ head came up. He smiled. Then, with far more speed than a dead man should have possessed, he lunged for the closest guard, drove a fist across his jaw, jerked his pistol free from its holster, and spun around.
“No,” Ewer shrieked. Bass fired. The Mauser spat fire, and Ewer jerked like a marionette as the bullets punched through him and into the apparatus. Smoke boiled from the mechanism, and the jars were shattered, disgorging the heads. Ewer slumped backwards. The corpses followed suit, as the necromantic signal that had been controlling them was cut off.
Seizing the moment, St. Cyprian lunged for his pistol. The guard reacted too late, and St. Cyprian snapped the Webley up and fired, punching the guard backwards. He whirled and fired twice more, dropping two of the other stosstruppen. Carnacki followed suit, elbowing the guard closest to him and, in a display of bartitsu, threw the man over his shoulder and off the observation platform.
Down below, the other guards were beginning to realize something was amiss, and they began to scale the scaffolding. Bass snatched up a second pistol and fired down at them. They returned the gesture with interest. He stepped back and glanced at Carnacki. “Good plan,” he grunted.
“How the deuce did you survive?” Carnacki said, retrieving his Webley.
Bass grinned and tapped the cord around his neck. “Only one bullet can touch me. And that weren’t it.” He spun and St. Cyprian was forced to duck as the American fired. A guard staggered back and fell from the scaffolding.
“I suppose Pershing wasn’t talking complete bollocks then,” St. Cyprian said. He upended the table and kicked Ewers’ body aside. “We’re still stuck in here.”
“That’s not our biggest problem, I’m afraid,” Carnacki said, pointing. “Look!”
St. Cyprian looked up and froze. The vast alembic was leaking. Several shots had struck it, and punched through the glass. As he watched, cracks spread across the surface of the alembic, and the shape within began to move.
Then, with a great crash, the alembic shattered, and the cavernous chamber was filled with a foul smelling fluid as something gargantuan and terrible rose. It was a man, though like no man that had ever walked the Earth; a hundred times the size of the tallest man, with raw, blistered flesh, huge, lidless eyes the color of urine, and teeth like spears set into a heavy jaw. It had no hair, and its flesh rippled with unhealthy looseness. Whatever process it had been undergoing in the alembic was not yet complete, and the beast groaned in obvious agony. A charnel stink washed over them, and St. Cyprian staggered, choking on sudden surge of bile that threatened to overwhelm him.
The colossus’ back struck the roof of the fortress as the scaffolding shattered and tumbled from its writhing form, as it twitched and stretched like an arthritic. Its arms bent and its hands slammed into the walls, shaking the entire structure. It wailed and stinking blood dripped from its raw flesh. It looked around wildly, and its eyes were mad.
The platform they were standing on began to sway and crack as the colossus gave a heave and shrugged off the fastness of Ylourgne like a cloak. Stones plummeted down, punching great craters into the ground as the colossus heaved itself to its feet with a cry like some vast artillery piece being fired. Fingers that were already shedding curtains of flesh stretched towards the moon, as if in supplication.
The colossus roared, and the thunder rumbled, as if in sympathy. Coiling contrails of mustard gas rose from the corners of its mouth and its flared nostrils and seeped from its overlarge pores. Those Germans who had
not been caught in the collapse fell as the wafting fumes of poison gas enveloped them. Others ran, or fired their weapons to no effect and were caught up by the colossus, who squeezed them to pulp and flung what was left at the distant peaks. The creature pushed itself out of the ruin like a crocodile emerging from its egg and the mountains shook with the weight of its stride.
Eyes like great lamps fixed on a point somewhere in the distance and the monster roared again, loud enough to shake St. Cyprian from his perch. He slipped from the sagging platform, and only Bass’ quick thinking saved his life. The American snagged his sleeve and hauled him back to safety. “Where the hell is that damn thing going?” Bass shouted, fighting to be heard over the rumble of crashing masonry and the noise of the colossus’ departure.
“Vyones, I’d wager,” Carnacki said as he reloaded his Webley with trembling fingers. “Just like the beast in Ewer’s mad fairy-tale. He might not have made it invulnerable, but he likely gave it its orders. Or possibly it’s just mad. Either way, it’s marching towards the city. And it may well destroy it, especially bleeding poisons as it is, unless we can stop it,” he said as he snapped the pistol shut.
“Given that bullets had about as much effect on it as harsh language, how are we going to do that?” St. Cyprian said.
“The radio,” Bass said. “Y’all got an aerodrome set up outside the city.”
“I’m sure there’s one downstairs, somewhere underneath all of that rubble,” Carnacki said. “No, we’ll have to outpace the beast, and warn them in person. Let’s get downstairs and see if there’s something with wheels handy.”
As the others began to descend, St. Cyprian turned to watch the monster’s progress. The colossus clutched at its head and tore ragged, glistening canyons in its own scalp. It screamed and swayed where it stood. A great foot came down on a fleeing man, flattening him with a horrible sound. A halo of poison gas encircled its head and it lashed out at phantom opponents that only it could see. He wondered what mad visions were blazing across the inside of its skull, provoking it and driving it on. It roared again, and the sound was more like a scream.
Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters Page 37
