Earth Valor (Earthrise Book 6)

by Daniel Arenson

  Across the valley, they roared. They stood in the snow. They stood atop tanks, snowmobiles, and armored vehicles. They rode horses, both live and mechanical ones.

  "We will fight!" they chanted.

  A great army was sailing from Europe and Africa. Thousands of human warriors were making their way to the ruins of New York City. There, the forces would converge. From there, they would reclaim this continent. Addy did not speak of this to her people. Not when marauders might be lurking in the forest, listening to her words.

  But she didn't have to. She knew they would follow her anywhere.

  "The time for hiding is over!" she said. "We go south. We go to battle! We go to victory! For Earth!"

  "For Earth!" they cried. "For Earth!"

  The Resistance began moving south.

  The tanks moved at the vanguard. The armored Jeeps brought up the rear. Between them marched thousands of rebels and their families, and trucks carried their helicopters, cannons, and munitions. It was a long road from the Canadian hinterlands to the ruins of New York. As Addy rode her horse between the tanks, she knew that many marauders would wait along this path.

  "But we will raise more fighters along the way," she said to Steve. "We will sound the call across the East Coast, and humanity will rise in defiance."

  Steve rode at her side on his own horse, his rifle slung across his back. "I always wanted to see New York. Never thought it would be like this."

  She smiled thinly. "Me too. New York hot dogs, right?" And suddenly she was remembering roasting hot dogs with Marco, and she missed him and her friends, and she had to wipe tears from her eyes.

  Victory, honor, triumph, she thought. All big words to inspire my people. But all I want is you back, Poet. You and Lailani and Ben-Ari and Kemi. I just want us to be together again, to buy that house on a beach. Somewhere warm where it never snows. Somewhere where we can forget. I miss you and love you.

  The Resistance rolled onward, heading south through the frozen wilderness toward the fire.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  They sat around the campfire, slicing pieces of roast unicorn.

  "Mmm, unicorn." Lailani bit into a slice. Gravy dripped down her chin. "I can taste the rainbow!"

  Kemi shot her a glare. "How could you be enjoying that?"

  "Hey, princess, I used to scrounge through landfills for trash to eat." Lailani chomped down, tearing off more meat from the bone. "This is heavenly. Hey, anyone got a piece with extra sparkles?"

  They sat near the fallen starship. The Marilyn was still badly damaged; she wasn't flying again anytime soon. Ben-Ari had rigged a security system around the wreckage, creating a square of laser beams. If anyone tripped them, an alarm would blare. So far, the city guards had not returned, and the peasants gave them a wide berth. But Marco was worried. When the sun rose again, would knights in armor arrive to slay the demons who had fallen from the sky?

  Marco bit into his meal. The meat was gamy and soft. He still felt guilty over slaying such a magnificent creature, but with every delicious bite, the guilt was fading. Even Kemi eventually relented and joined the feast.

  "You did good, Marky Marc." Lailani patted his shoulder. "Don't let Princess Kemi make you feel bad. It's no different than eating cow or chicken. Just because unicorns are beautiful doesn't mean they have more rights than a steak."

  "First of all, never call me that again," Marco said. "Second, unicorns aren't even real."

  Lailani patted her swelling belly. "My tummy happily disagrees."

  "You all make me sick," Kemi said. She closed her eyes, took another bite, gulped, and shuddered. "And I hate that this tastes good."

  Marco turned toward his captain. Ben-Ari was standing apart from the group, staring up at the night sky. Marco stood up and approached her.

  "Ma'am, have you had enough to eat?" he said.

  Ben-Ari kept looking up. She spoke softly. "Do the stars look right to you, Sergeant Emery?"

  He gazed up with her. The stars shone brilliantly, as bright as he'd ever seen them.

  "They're beautiful, ma'am. The stars of Earth. We're home, all right. There's the Big Dipper. There's Orion. And I can see Venus—the bright light there—and Mars above it."

  Ben-Ari pointed. "That constellation there. You recognize it?"

  Marco stared. He thought for a moment. "Gemini, I think."

  She nodded. "Gemini. In the north. In summer."

  "Yes, ma'am, so it would seem."

  Finally she turned to look at him. "Gemini should be in the east."

  Marco frowned. "Are you sure, ma'am? We seem to be in Europe. Maybe from here—"

  "I'm sure, Sergeant. And look at Orion. It's summer. We shouldn't even see Orion in the night sky. It's a winter constellation."

  Marco's jaw unhinged. "Then we must be in the Southern Hemisphere."

  She gave him a wry smile. "With European villages and castles? And unicorns?"

  He exhaled slowly. "So where are we?"

  "That's what I'd like to know." Ben-Ari turned to look at the dark forest. "And I have a feeling we'll find answers in that castle on the mountain. We'll head there at dawn and—"

  A wolf howl tore through the night.

  Ben-Ari lifted and loaded her gun. Marco followed suit a second later.

  A second howl rose, closer. Another howl from behind.

  "Back to the campfire," Ben-Ari said.

  She and Marco stepped closer toward the flames. Kemi and Lailani stood there, holding their own guns. The wolf howls surrounded them now, moving closer and closer. These were no ordinary wolves. The howls were too deep, too guttural, demonic.

  One of the laser pointers, part of the alarm system around the camp, flew through the shadows and thumped against the dead starship.

  "There!" Marco pointed.

  Shadows lurched. Figures moved in the night. Marco grabbed his flashlight and pointed a beam.

  A creature hissed, eyes searing white, burly and covered in black fur, its fangs bared. It loped back into the shadows.

  "Big as a goddamn horse," Lailani muttered.

  "What is it?" Kemi said, clutching her rifle.

  "Wolves," said Marco. "Giant wolves."

  "Wolves smart enough to disable our alarm system?" Kemi said.

  The howls rose again.

  Ben-Ari knelt, rummaged through her pack, and produced a flare gun. She fired skyward, and the flare rose and blasted out light. A miniature sun now shone above the camp.

  "Fuck," Marco said.

  The wolves were everywhere. Dozens of them. Massive, bipedal beasts with claws like daggers, with fangs that shone, with red eyes. The creatures tossed back their heads, roared, then charged toward the camp.

  "Fire!" Ben-Ari shouted.

  Their guns blasted. Bullets slammed into the beasts, ripping through fur and flesh. Wolves fell. As they collapsed, the beasts shrank, changing into human forms. Marco had no time to ponder this. A wolf leaped at him, claws lashing. The beast was easily seven feet tall. Marco swung his barrel, diverting the blow, then released a bullet into its face. The wolf roared, choking on blood, half its jaw gone. It took several more bullets to knock it down. When it hit the ground, it turned into a naked boy.

  "They're kids!" Marco said. "They're only kids!"

  "Keep firing!" Ben-Ari said, switching to automatic now. She sprayed bullets at the advancing wolves. As they fell, they too became human children, just boys and girls.

  "What the fuck is going on?" Lailani shouted, spraying bullets. "Why are they kids?"

  "Don't let them reach us!" Ben-Ari said.

  The monsters kept advancing, bellowing, lashing their fangs. One wolf managed to reach them, to slash Kemi's shoulder. She cried out, blood pouring, and fired in automatic into the creature. It collapsed at her feet, shrinking into a pigtailed girl.

  "We're killing kids!" Kemi said.

  "No choice!" Ben-Ari shouted. "Fire at them!"

  The bullets kept flying. Another wolf made it through, and its ja
ws closed around Lailani's leg. She yowled and fell. Marco drew his knife and plunged it down, but he couldn't cut through the animal's thick fur and skin. Lailani struggled, crying out in pain. Finally Marco managed to drive his blade into the creature's eye. All the while, Kemi and Ben-Ari kept spraying bullets every which way. Hot casings flew.

  "Back into the Marilyn!" Ben-Ari said during a lull in the attack. "Hurry!"

  Lailani limped, leaning on Marco, and they made it back into the ship. Marco fired bullets, holding the creatures back, until they slammed the airlock shut. The wolves kept pounding at the walls, shaking the vessel.

  Ben-Ari limped toward the bridge, dripping blood.

  "Emery, help me!" she said. "We might just have enough juice to scare them off. Front machine guns—fire them!"

  Marco saw the wolves leaping through the darkness, slamming against the cockpit. The cracked windshield shattered. A wolf leaped toward the bridge, nearly entering the vessel. Marco fired his rifle, knocking it back, then switched on the ship's control panels.

  For an agonizing moment, nothing happened.

  Finally the system—badly damaged, running on backup batteries—came online.

  Marco fired the ship's front guns. Bullets—far larger than those his assault rifle fired—plowed through the wolf pack. The corpses of children dropped.

  As more wolves lunged, Ben-Ari switched on the back engines.

  Fire blasted from the ship's exhaust.

  The starship screeched forward in the field, too damaged to take flight, still operational enough to skid toward the forest. The inferno blazed out across the wolves that chased them.

  Ben-Ari turned off the engines, and they kept sliding forward for several hundred meters, finally crashing into the forest.

  The last wolves howled, then fled.

  Ben-Ari shut off the engines. The ship lay still and dark in the forest.

  Again, the crew gathered in the infirmary.

  Again, they had to stitch up and bandage wounds.

  From outside came the cries of peasants racing toward the burning farms, trying to put out the fire. They shouted about the demons who burned their farms, who slew their children. But they dared not approach the ship in the forest.

  "What were those things?" Kemi whispered, shivering. "Kids. Just kids. And we killed them."

  Ben-Ari's face was pale, her mouth a thin line. "They were monsters."

  But even the captain seemed shaken. Her fingers trembled. Lailani shivered, covered her face, and tears leaked between her fingers.

  Marco felt sick. This wasn't like killing the unicorn, not even the peasants. These had been children . . . at least in death. He wasn't used to this. He had trained to kill bugs, just giant evil bugs from space. Not unicorns. Not peasants. Not children.

  "Guys, where the hell are we?" he whispered.

  "I don't know," Ben-Ari said, her arm bandaged. "But come dawn, I'm going to find out." Anger filled her eyes. "And we're going to find a way to get home."

  CHAPTER NINE

  He lurked.

  He fed.

  He tugged on many strands, saw with many eyes, for he was Master, and his gaze was far, and his legs were long, and his wrath was as vast as the darkness between the stars.

  He was Malphas.

  He reigned.

  He lived in a dark place now. A web among the ruins. He, who had ruled the mighty forests, who had stretched his legs across the void, who had gazed into the Abyss and faced the demons beyond. He, Malphas, Lord of Marauders, he who should reign from palaces of wood and mist and starlight—he hissed, waited, tugged his strands from this small dark place. This burrow. This hive among the ruins of the apes.

  This had once been a city.

  This had once been a library, for the apes stored their knowledge on desecrated wood.

  This had once been the home of two apes. Of Addy Linden. Of Marco Emery. Of names Malphas knew well. Names he had etched into his flesh. Names he dreamed of, tasted with every ape consumed.

  From here, this dark place among the crumbling towers, had risen the humans who had defeated the centipedes, had toppled that mighty empire. From here, this very hallowed ground, had sprung the great heroes of humanity.

  And so from here Malphas ruled upon their world. From here, he would stretch out his legs and his gaze, and from here he would watch their world fall.

  His spheres hung around him on his web. A hundred glass eyes. Through them, he could gaze across this world. He saw the rebels flee deeper into the wilderness; he would find them there. He saw the humans overseas battling in the deserts and forests; he would cut them down. He saw a last fleet, a few ragged starships, hiding in the shadows; he would flush them out.

  But only one vision eluded him.

  Marco. Ben-Ari. Kemi. Lailani.

  Malphas sneered. Somehow, they had fled from his vision. Even his many eyes could not see them. His warriors claimed they were dead. But Malphas knew. He could smell their stench from afar. They were alive. Hiding. Scheming. The ones who had defeated the centipedes. The ones he sought.

  And one among them, most special of all humans. One Malphas craved more than any other. The most important ape in the cosmos.

  I will find you all, he vowed. I will make you scream. I will saw your skulls open and cut your brains slowly, over many days, piece by piece, as you beg for death. His fury flamed through him like the plasma inside a ravager. You will feel pain like no being in the cosmos ever has.

  "Bring me another!" he rumbled.

  One of his warriors approached, crawling across a web. He was a mighty beast, a marauder who had slain countless enemies, and a hundred skulls of a hundred species clattered on his back, but he was but a worm compared to Malphas.

  "Another to breed with, my lord?" the marauder hissed. "Would you like the pale one you captured this morning, my lord?"

  The harem spread across the burrow. Malphas had collected them, concubines, young human females, delectable, trapped in his web. Their fear seeped through their naked flesh, the scent intoxicating, and his nostrils flared. They were screaming into their gags. Malphas had a harem of ten thousand ravagers, the finest in the fleet, and he had spilled his seed within them all, but he sought pleasures more exotic. On every conquered world, he had them. His beauties.

  He would partake of them later, perhaps. Now he craved flesh of a different sort.

  "No, my precious," Malphas hissed. "That taste can wait. Bring me flavor of a different sort. Another morsel to feed upon. Young this time. A child. A babe. They are soft. They whet the appetite. They heat the blood."

  "Yes, my lord." His warrior-servant nodded. "A nice, soft delectable."

  The creature scurried along the web, and the prisoners shook on the trembling strands. The women wept. The marauder grabbed one of the apes at the bottom, a mere babe, younger than one orbit of this pathetic planet around its star. The marauder handed the child to Malphas.

  He took the babe in his claws. A sweet little morsel. So soft. So sweet. Malphas lowered his head and sniffed, nostrils flaring, inhaling the scent of the wriggling, screaming creature.

  "You are born so weak," he hissed, marveling at it, turning the youngling in his claws. "So useless. So dependent on your mothers. Our kind hatch with claws and fangs. As soon as they emerge from their eggs, they devour their mother, eating her from the inside out. And when their hunger rises again, they hunt. Yet you humans . . ." He caressed the baby's cheek with a claw. "Born so frail. Naked and afraid. Alone in the dark. How have creatures so weak risen so high?" He inhaled again, shuddering with pleasure, and gripped the baby's head. "Ah, yes. There it is. The brain. The delicious, juicy, sentient brain. Nearly as large as the brain of a marauder. A brain capable of such fear, such cunning, such juices that flow down the throat. A true delicacy!"

  Of course, the brain of this babe would not sate his hunger. It took larger brains for that. But Malphas wanted to remain hungry. He needed his hunger, needed his cravings unfilled. It kept him
alert, kept him on the hunt. He would feed only on these morsels, these snacks, until he caught his prize. Until he fed on Addy. On Marco. On the mighty human heroes who would bow before him.

  He opened his jaws and raised the baby toward them.

  "My lord!" A voice from the burrow's entrance. "My lord Malphas, we caught a rebel!"

  Malphas grunted. He placed the baby aside, sticking it onto his web, and crept down the strands.

  "Why do you bring a male ape here?" he rumbled. "How dare you disturb me?"

  Three marauders had entered his domain. They bowed on the ground, not daring to touch his webs. They trembled before him. Between them, they gripped a man. A pathetic old ape. His beard was long and gray, and he was missing one leg.

  "What is this wretched specimen?" Malphas said.

  The marauders bowed lower, holding the prisoner.

  "He knows her, my lord!" one said. "He fought with her. He knows the one called Linden."

  Malphas inhaled sharply. His eyes widened. He climbed down his web, moved across the ground, and grabbed the human. He yanked the man's head toward him, placed his nostrils against the skull, and breathed in the smell.

  Yes. He exhaled, shivering with delight. Yes . . .

  "Leave us," Malphas said. "All of you! Out."

  The marauders—those who bowed before him and those who lurked on his webs—retreated from the hive, returning to the ruins of the city.

  Malphas gazed at the old man in his grip.

  "Yes . . . you know her." He ran a claw down the ape's face, cutting the skin. "You know Addy Linden. You are . . ." He inhaled again, smelling the brain. "You are Jethro. Yes. You are like a father to her. And you will tell me where she hides. You will tell me everything, and perhaps I will grant you a quick death."

  The old man raised his chin. "I have two words for you, buddy. Fuck and you."

  Malphas opened his jaws wide, hissing. "Ah . . . the delightful disobedience to mask the terror. I will enjoy this." A grin revealed all his teeth. "Very much."

  He tightened his grip on Jethro.