The Mammoth Book of Golden Age SF

by Martin Greenberg

  “From the side? But—”

  There was a shrill cry, and a huge section of the tunnel wall fell inward. The spongy stuff was in thin sheets, and drifted among the guard, hampering their every movement. Then, led by Sterret in person, the defenders came out. Like mountaineers they were roped together, for in this battle in the darkness their best hope lay in keeping in one, compact body. Separated, they would fall easy prey to the superior numbers of the hordes of Shrick.

  With spear and mace they lay about them lustily. The first heartbeat of the engagement would have seen the end of Shrick, and it was only the uncured hide of Trilla, stiff and stinking, that saved his life. Even so, the blade of Sterret penetrated the crude armor, and, sorely wounded, Shrick reeled out of the battle.

  Ahead, Big-Ears was no longer having things all his own way. Reinforcements had poured along the tunnel and he dare not return to the succor of his chief. And Sterret’s maces were having their effect. Stabbing and slashing the People could understand – but a crushing blow was, to them, something infinitely horrible.

  It was Wesel who saved the day. With her she had brought the little, hot light. It had been her intention to try its effect on such few prisoners as might be taken in this campaign – she was too shrewd to experiment on any of the New People, even those who had incurred the displeasure of herself or her mate.

  Scarce knowing what she did she pressed the stud.

  With dazzling suddenness the scene of carnage swam into full view. From all sides came cries of fear.

  “Back!” cried Wesel. “Back! Clear a space!”

  In two directions the New People retreated.

  Blinking but dogged, Sterret’s phalanx tried to follow, tried to turn what was a more or less orderly withdrawal into a rout. But the cords that had, at first, served them so well now proved their undoing. Some tried to pursue those making for the Place-of-Meeting, others those of the New People retiring to their own territory. Snarling viciously, blood streaming from a dozen minor wounds, Sterret at last cuffed and bullied his forces into a semblance of order. He attempted to lead a charge to where Wesel, the little, hot light still in her hand, was retreating among her personal, amazon guards.

  But again the cunning – too cunning – ropes defeated his purpose. Not a few corpses were there to hamper fast movement, and almost none of his fighters had the intelligence to cut them free.

  And the spear throwers of Shrick came to the fore, and, one by one, the people of Sterret were pinned by the slim deadly shafts to the tunnel walls. Not all were killed outright, a few unfortunates squirmed and whimpered, plucking at the spears with ineffectual hands.

  Among these was Sterret.

  Shrick came forward, spear in hand, to administer the coup de grâce. The old chief stared wildly, then – “Weena’s hairless one!” he cried.

  Ironically it was his own spear – the weapon that, in turn, had belonged to Weena and to Tekka – that slit his throat.

  Now that he was Lord of the Outside Shrick had time in which to think and to dream. More and more his mind harked back to Three-Eyes and her prophesy. It never occurred to him to doubt that he was to be the Giant Killer – although the vision of the End he dismissed from his mind as the vaporings of a half-crazed old female.

  And so he sent his spies to the Inside to watch the Giants in their mysterious comings and goings, tried hard to find some pattern for their incomprehensible behavior. He himself often accompanied these spies – and it was with avid greed that he saw the vast wealth of beautiful, shining things to which the Giants were heirs. More than anything he desired another little hot light, for his own had ceased to function, and all the clumsy, ignorant tinkerings of himself and Wesel could not produce more than a feeble, almost heatless spark from its baffling intricacies.

  It seemed, too, that the Giants were now aware of the swarming, fecund life surrounding them. Certain it was that their snares increased in number and ingenuity. And the food-that-kills appeared in new and terrifying guise. Not only did those who had eaten of it die, but their mates and indeed all who had come into contact with them.

  It smacked of sorcery, but Shrick had learned to associate cause and effect. He made the afflicted ones carry those already dead into a small tunnel. One or two of them rebelled – but the spear throwers surrounded them, their slim, deadly weapons at the ready. And those who attempted to break through the cordon of guards were run through repeatedly before ever they laid their defiling hands on any of the unafflicted People.

  Big-Ears was among the sufferers. He made no attempt to quarrel with his fate. Before he entered the yawning tunnel that was to be his tomb he turned and looked at his chief. Shrick made to call him to his side – even though he knew that his friend’s life could not be saved, and that by associating with him he would almost certainly lose his own.

  But Wesel was at his side.

  She motioned to the spear throwers, and a full two hands of darts transfixed the ailing Big-Ears.

  “It was kinder this way,” she lied.

  But, somehow, the last look that his most loyal supporter had given him reminded him of No-Tail. With a heavy heart he ordered his people to seal the tunnel. Great strips of the spongy stuff were brought and stuffed into the entrance. The cries of those inside grew fainter and ever fainter. Then there was silence. Shrick ordered guards posted at all points where, conceivably, the doomed prisoners might break out. He returned to his own cave. Wesel, when one without her gift would have intruded, let him go in his loneliness. Soon he would want her again.

  It had long been Wesel’s belief that, given the opportunity, she could get inside the minds of the Giants just as she could those of the People. And if she could – who knew what prizes might be hers? Shrick, still inaccessible and grieving for his friend, she missed more than she cared to admit. The last of the prisoners from the last campaign had been killed, ingeniously, many feedings ago. Though she had no way of measuring time, it hung heavily on her hands.

  And so, accompanied by two of her personal attendants, she roamed those corridors and tunnels running just inside the Barrier. Through spyhole after spyhole she peered, gazing in wonderment that long use could not stale at the rich and varied life of the Inside.

  At last she found that for which she was searching – a Giant, alone and sleeping. Experience among the People had taught her that from a sleeping mind she could read the most secret thoughts.

  For a heartbeat she hesitated. Then – “Four-Arms, Little-Head, wait here for me. Wait and watch.”

  Little-Head grunted an affirmative, but Four-Arms was dubious. “Lady Wesel,” she said, “what if the Giant should wake? What—?”

  “What if you should return to the Lord of the Outside without me? Then he would, without doubt, have your hides. The one he is wearing now is old, and the fur is coming out. But do as I say.”

  There was a door in the Barrier here, a door but rarely used. This was opened, and Wesel slipped through. With the ease that all the People were acquiring with their more frequent ventures to the Inside she floated up to the sleeping Giant. Bonds held him in a sort of framework, and Wesel wondered if, for some offense, he had been made prisoner by his own kind. She would soon know.

  And then a glittering object caught her eye. It was one of the little hot lights, its polished metal case seeming to Wesel’s covetous eyes the most beautiful thing in the world. Swiftly she made her decision. She could take the shining prize now, deliver it to her two attendants, and then return to carry out her original intentions.

  In her eagerness she did not see that it was suspended in the middle of an interlacing of slender metal bars – or she did not care. And as her hands grabbed the bait something not far away began a shrill, not unmusical metallic beating. The Giant stirred and awoke. What Wesel had taken for bonds fell away from his body. In blind panic she turned to flee back to her own world. But, somehow, more of the metal bars had fallen into place and she was a prisoner.

  She started to sc
ream.

  Surprisingly, Four-Arms and Little-Head came to her aid. It would be nice to be able to place on record that they were actuated by devotion to their mistress – but Four-Arms knew that her life was forfeit. And she had seen those who displeased either Shrick or Wesel flayed alive. Little-Head blindly followed the other’s leadership. Hers not to reason why—

  Slashing with their spears they assailed the Giant. He laughed – or so Wesel interpreted the deep, rumbling sound that came from his throat. Four-Arms he seized first. With one hand he grasped her body, with the other her head. He twisted. And that was the end of Four-Arms.

  Anybody else but Little-Head would have turned and fled. But her dim mind refused to register that which she had seen. Perhaps a full feeding or so after the event the horror of it all would have stunned her with its impact – perhaps not. Be that as it may, she continued her attack. Blindly, instinctively, she went for the Giant’s throat. Wesel sensed that he was badly frightened. But after a short struggle one of his hands caught the frenzied, squealing Little-Head. Violently, he flung her from him. She heard the thud as her attendant’s body struck something hard and unyielding. And the impressions that her mind had been receiving from that of the other abruptly ceased.

  Even in her panic fear she noticed that the Giant had not come out of the unequal combat entirely unscathed. One of his hands had been scratched, and was bleeding freely. And there were deep scratches, on the hideous, repulsively naked face. The Giants, then, were vulnerable. There might have been some grain of truth after all in Three-Eye’s insane babbling.

  And then Wesel forgot her unavailing struggle against the bars of her cage. With sick horror she watched what the Giant was doing. He had taken the limp body of Four-Arms, had secured it to a flat surface. From somewhere he had produced an array of glittering instruments. One of these he took, and drew it down the body from throat to crotch. On either side of the keen blade the skin fell away, leaving the flesh exposed.

  And the worst part of it was that it was not being done in hate or anger, neither was the unfortunate Four-Arms being divided up that she might be eaten. There was an impersonal quality about the whole business that sickened Wesel – for, by this time, she had gained a certain limited access to the mind of the other.

  The Giant paused in his work. Another of his kind had come, and for many heartbeats the two talked together. They examined the multilated carcass of Four-Arms, the crushed body of Little-Head. Together, they peered into the cage where Wesel snarled impotently.

  But, in spite of her hysterical fear, part of her mind was deadly cold, was receiving and storing impressions that threw the uninhibited animal part of her into still greater panic. While the Giants talked the impressions were clear – and while their great, ungainly heads hung over her cage, scant handbreadths away, they were almost overpowering in their strength. She knew who she and the People were, what their world was. She had not the ability to put it into words – but she knew. And she saw the doom that the Giants were preparing for the People.

  With a few parting words to his fellow the second Giant left. The first one resumed his work of dismembering Four-Arms. At last he was finished. What was left of the body was put into transparent containers.

  The Giant picked up Little-Head. For many heartbeats he examined her, turning her over and over in his great hands. Wesel thought that he would bind the body to the flat surface, do with it as he had done with that of Four-Arms. But, at last he put the body to one side. Over his hands he pulled something that looked like a thick, additional skin. Suddenly, the metal bars at one end of the cage fell away, and one of those enormous hands came groping for Wesel.

  After the death of Big-Ears, Shrick slept a little. It was the only way in which he could be rid of the sense of loss, of the feeling that he had betrayed his most loyal follower. His dreams were troubled, haunted by ghosts from his past. Big-Ears was in them, and Big-Tusk, and a stranger female with whom he felt a sense of oneness, whom he knew to be Weena, his mother.

  And then all these phantasms were gone, leaving only the image of Wesel. It wasn’t the Wesel he had always known, cool, self-assured, ambitious. This was a terrified Wesel – Wesel descending into a black abyss of pain and torture even worse than that which she had, so often, meted out to others. And she wanted him.

  Shrick awoke, frightened by his dreams. But he knew that ghosts had never hurt anybody, could not hurt him, Lord of the Outside. He shook himself, whimpering a little, and then tried to compose himself for further sleep.

  But the image of Wesel persisted. At last Shrick abandoned his attempts to seek oblivion and, rubbing his eyes, emerged from his cave.

  In the dim, half-light of the Place-of-Meeting little knots of the People hung about, talking in low voices. Shrick called to the guards. There was a sullen silence. He called again. At last one answered.

  “Where is Wesel?”

  “I do not know . . . lord.” The last word came out grudgingly.

  Then one of the others volunteered the information that she had been seen, in company with Four-Arms and Little-Head, proceeding along the tunnels that led to that part of the Outside in the way of the Place-of-Green-Growing-Things.

  Shrick hesitated.

  He rarely ventured abroad without his personal guards, but then, Big-Ears was always one of them. And Big-Ears was gone.

  He looked around him, decided that he could trust none of those at present in the Place-of-Meeting. The People had been shocked and horrified by his necessary actions in the case of those who had eaten of the food-that-kills and regarded him, he knew, as a monster even worse than the Giants. Their memories were short – but until they forgot he would have to walk with caution.

  “Wesel is my mate. I will go alone,” he said.

  At his words he sensed a change of mood, was tempted to demand an escort. But the instinct that – as much as any mental superiority – maintained him in authority warned him against throwing away his advantage.

  “I go alone,” he said.

  One Short-Tail, bolder than his fellows, spoke up.

  “And if you do not return, Lord of the Outside? Who is to be—?”

  “I shall return,” said Shrick firmly, his voice displaying a confidence he did not feel.

  In the more populous regions the distinctive scent of Wesel was overlaid by that of many others. In tunnels but rarely frequented it was strong and compelling – but now he had no need to use his olfactory powers. For the terrified little voice in his brain – from outside his brain – was saying hurry, HURRY – and some power beyond his ken was guiding him unerringly to where his mate was in such desperate need of him.

  From the door in the Barrier through which Wesel had entered the Inside – it had been left open – streamed a shaft of light. And now Shrick’s natural caution reasserted itself. The voice inside his brain was no less urgent, but the instinct of self-preservation was strong. Almost timorously, he peered through the doorway.

  He smelled death. At first he feared that he was too late, then identified the personal odors of Four-Arms and Little-Head. That of Wesel was there too – intermingled with the acrid scent of terror and agony. But she was still alive.

  Caution forgotten, he launched himself from the doorway with all the power of his leg muscles. And he found Wesel, stretched supine on a flat surface that was slippery with blood. Most of it was Four-Arms’, but some of it was hers.

  “Shrick!” she screamed. “The Giant!”

  He looked away from his mate and saw hanging over him, pale and enormous, the face of the Giant. He screamed, but there was more of fury than terror in the sound. He saw, not far from where he clung to Wesel, a huge blade of shining metal. He could see that its edge was keen. The handle had been fashioned for a hand far larger than his, nevertheless he was just able to grasp it. It seemed to be secured. Feet braced against Wesel’s body for purchase, he tugged desperately.

  Just as the Giant’s hand, fingers outstretched to seize him, came
down the blade pulled free. As Shrick’s legs suddenly and involuntarily straightened he was propelled away from Wesel. The Giant grabbed at the flying form, and howled in agony as Shrick swept the blade around and lopped off a finger.

  He heard Wesel’s voice: “You are the Giant Killer!”

  Now he was level with the Giant’s head. He swerved, and with his feet caught a fold of the artificial skin covering the huge body. And he hung there, swinging his weapon with both hands, cutting and slashing. Great hands swung wildly and he was bruised and buffeted. But not once did they succeed in finding a grip. Then there was a great and horrid spurting of blood and a wild threshing of mighty limbs. This ceased, but it was only the voice of Wesel that called him from the fury of his slaughter lust.

  So he found her again, still stretched out for sacrifice to the Giant’s dark gods, still bound to that surface that was wet with her blood and that of her attendant. But she smiled up at him, and in her eyes was respect that bordered on awe.

  “Are you hurt?” he demanded, a keen edge of anxiety to his voice.

  “Only a little. But Four-Arms was cut in pieces . . . I should have been had you not come. And,” her voice was a hymn of praise, “you killed the Giant!”

  “It was foretold. Besides,” for once he was honest, “it could not have been done without the Giant’s weapon.”

  With its edge he was cutting Wesel’s bonds. Slowly she floated away from the place of sacrifice. Then: “I can’t move my legs!” Her voice was terror-stricken. “I can’t move!”

  Shrick guessed what was wrong. He knew a little of anatomy – his knowledge was that of the warrior who may be obliged to immobilize his enemy prior to his slaughter – and he could see that the Giant’s keen blade had wrought this damage. Fury boiled up in him against these cruel, monstrous beings. And there was more than fury. There was the feeling, rare among his people, of overwhelming pity for his crippled mate.

  “The blade . . . it is very sharp . . . I shall feel nothing.”

  But Shrick could not bring himself to do it.