Swords v. Cthulhu

by Jesse Bullington

  Come daybreak, the men saw the full measure of their work. So could the vultures, which began to gather. Had anyone bothered to count, they would have found eight hundred and sixty-four spent shell casings scattered at their feet. Instead they walked among the wounded, finishing them with bayonets. No member of the expedition had suffered anything more serious than fingers singed on their rifles’ red-hot barrels. Even Qasim looked less hopeless.

  Conder, Khan, and Thapa counted the dead and settled on a conservative figure of one hundred and seventy killed.

  “They’ve had enough,” Malik Khan observed.

  “I’ll be the one to decide when they’ve had enough,” Conder snapped. “Have the men pack up and fall in. We’re going to beard them in their den.”

  The expedition was moving by 8am. Tracking the retreating pygmies was easy. Circling carrion birds marked where their wounded had succumbed or were too weak to move. Any still holding a guttering spark of life were bayoneted.

  Two days later, the trail led to an almost invisible ravine. A quirk of the desolate landscape hid a narrow passage in what appeared to be a solid cliff. The expedition moved through in small groups, lest they be attacked from atop the high walls, but no one moved to oppose them until they reached the village.

  They heard the cacophony from miles away. It came from another stone village, this one not abandoned. Hundreds of figures churned between the huts and standing stones, dancing, shouting, and flailing. They beat all manner of instruments constructed from the bones and flesh of men. Conder ordered Gurkha Naik Rai to deploy his bagpipes again. The effect of “Cock o’ the North” on the mob was like kicking an anthill.

  They poured out of the village, down the slope, and across a half mile of open field. Conder looked at the force arrayed before them through his binoculars — he saw old men, invalids, women, and children. The women carrying infants were in the vanguard, howling like devils.

  “Thank you, Naik Rai,” Conder called to the piper. “We have their attention. Please rejoin the rest of the ranks. Volley fire present at five hundred yards!”

  The horde did not move particularly fast. They were under the guns for almost ten minutes, though the pace of the fire was slower. None got any closer than twenty yards, but none broke and ran. No one bothered to count the dead this time.

  “By the most merciful, how could they throw their lives away like that?”

  “To make us spend our bullets, Malik. Do a count. Let’s see what we have left.”

  It came to just over forty rounds per man.

  “The news is good, Captain,” Havildar Thapa announced upon completing the inventory. “We are unlikely to run out of enemy before we get a chance to wet our kukris.”

  “Yes, but before you swallow that bone, you’ll want to measure your anus,” Khan scoffed at Thapa’s bravado. “Forty rounds per man is just enough for one more fight.”

  “Yes, but they don’t know the state of our magazine,” Conder said. “So we push on, Malik. We push on.”

  “Just as well. Old age is a time of wretchedness anyway,” Khan sighed.

  Crossing the field of dead and dying, none felt any enthusiasm for dispatching the wounded. No one stopped to retrieve the squalling infants freezing on the cold ground, either.

  Once past the village, they saw the fortress. It squatted, a massive, round, windowless dome surrounded, like the villages, by a concentric circle of rough granite menhirs. These were like the titan blocks of Stonehenge, dwarfing the gravestone-sized menhirs that ringed the villages.

  “You see, Malik? Would God have spared that crate of Russian dynamite if He didn’t intend us to level that redoubt?”

  Malik Khan did not appreciate Conder’s sacrilegious bluster.

  As the expedition drew closer, the scale of the structure became apparent. It was the size of a cathedral, like the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, and it was no fortress. There were no battlements from which to fight, no towers or windows to watch from, no murder-holes from which to shoot their poison darts. It was a dark gray dome, built from granite blocks the size of those that formed Cheops’ Pyramid. A single low, arched doorway lurked at the base of the dome. No one rushed out to attack.

  “Announce us, Naik Rai,” Conder called to his piper. “Try ‘The British Grenadiers’ this time.”

  The Gurkha’s performance produced no reaction.

  “They seem less interested in using up our ammunition,” Khan observed.

  “Then we go in after them.”

  The two Tibetans, Qasim, and two of the Kashmiri Sepoys were posted at the entrance to ensure a line of retreat and to guard the expedition’s horses. They fueled and lit a trio of kerosene lamps, and Conder, his revolver and cutlass in hand, led twenty-three men into the stygian vault.

  The narrow corridors turned and twisted in an unpleasantly biological manner, as if the great dome were a mummified corpse rather than a stone labyrinth. The walls inside were painted with frescoes, wet paints applied to wet plaster, preserved by the dry and the cold, and shielded from the sun and the wind. The scenes depicted in the brilliant pigments were nonsensical madness. Leviathan spiders, whose webs spanned valleys, devoured horned men, who in turn burned the spiders’ webs and crushed their egg sacs. Black ships, like triremes or galleys, rowed through the sky, landing to disgorge bloated pale horrors that herded the horned men aboard their ships, disappearing into the sky with them. Oceans and islands were depicted, despite the Kulun Shan being perhaps the most inland spot on Earth. Reptilian horrors wheeled through the painted skies, and great cities guarded foul pits that led deep into the Earth. There was more to see, but then the pygmies began to attack.

  Conder kept to the widest passage with the tallest ceiling, presuming that it would lead to the center of the structure and present some keystone the dynamite could be applied to. Side passages were ignored, and, as soon as the party passed, hidden defenders emerged and attempted to take the hindmost. In the first attack, six knife-wielding pygmies managed to strike down Sepoy Ahmad and Sepoy Hasan, before succumbing to bayonets and black powder. Hasan’s wound in his shoulder blade did not appear mortal, but the wavy asymmetrical blades carried by the pygmies were covered with a tar-like substance. It was a matter of minutes before Hasan began sweating profusely and complained that he was too weak to carry his pack or lift his rifle. In ten minutes he collapsed and could not rise again.

  “Poison,” Shkuro grunted to Conder in Russian. “One hour, maybe two.”

  Conder explained to Hasan and the man grimly nodded his assent. Malik spoke a prayer over the man, and Conder put him out of his misery with a round from his Webley revolver. They divided Hasan’s ammunition. It did not sit well with the men to leave him, but Conder assured them they would remove the dead when they withdrew.

  The close, lightless corridors removed many of the expedition’s advantages, but they used their firepower to kill scores of the naked maniacs. And yet every black-powder cartridge gone was as sand through an hourglass. In the confusion, Rifleman Rana was slashed across the chest by one of the wicked knives. Wishing to avoid the fate of Sepoy Hasan, Rana drew his kukri and threw himself into the pygmies crowding the corridor before them. Not wanting to shoot their comrade, the rest of the men waded in with bayonet and kukri, and within seconds the floor was slippery with blood. The second rank of Sepoys tried to place a bayonet through the heart of every wounded pygmy, but one managed to stab Sepoy Hussain in the calf before Conder could put a round through its eye. Hussain limped forward into the fray to sell himself as dearly as he could with his last minutes.

  Cutting, stabbing, and shooting their way forward a foot at a time, they forced the last of the pygmy warriors out of the corridor and into a huge domed chamber, like a blockage forced from a pipe. Conder barely had time to register the details, since the battle did not slow, but he noted the round chamber was hundreds of feet across and was dominated by a great, yawning circular pit at its epicenter, surrounded by six rude stone altars. D
irectly across from the entrance, on the opposite side of the pit, was a raised dais, atop which squatted a strange and unnaturally proportioned golden throne bearing a huge, misshapen figure swathed in a voluminous, cowled yellow silk robe. The yellow hierophant did not stir, so Conder ignored it in favor of firing his Webley through the spine of the pygmy on his left, while hacking at the pygmy on his right.

  As the fight spilled out across the chamber, the advantages of the rifles returned, even as the pygmies were able to bring more fanatics to bear. These zealots wore the newest and most uncommon skins to denote their rank and prestige. Conder recognized the visage of Baron Savukoski pulled down like a mask over the face of a gray-eyed monster. Conder blew out the back of its head with his Webley.

  The pygmies scattered as they were pushed back; some threw themselves at the foot of the dais and waved their hands in deliberate and meaningful ways. The Sepoys shot them down from across the room, splashing their blood across the hem of the disinterested hierophant’s yellow robe. Risaldar Khan set into his opponents with his Kyber knife, reserving his own Webley for anyone who looked to be remotely bothersome. Shkuro, with his long reach and longer saber, passed his blade over the guard of pygmy after pygmy, striking off the tops of their heads. The Sepoy impaled pygmies on their bayonets, kicking the dying off the ends of their blades. The Gurkhas’ kukris scattered fingers and opened throats. Rivers of blood ran between the flagstones, winding ever closer to the lip of the yawning pit.

  It took a few seconds for Conder and the others to realize they were alone among the silent corpses. No, not quite alone. One remained on top of the misshapen golden throne, quiet and unconcerned, swaddled in silk. A shape stirred under the sea of yellow. It was not the shape of a man, nor a primate, nor even something with bilateral symmetry. It sloshed and slithered under its yellow shroud like a mound of greasy serpents. Conder and the men watched as its sleeve parted, and a long, undulating tube, carved from a large bone or tusk, emerged from the folds. Pallid snakes coiled around the tube and slipped one end of it beneath the High Priest’s mask. The sound that flowed out of that tube was an atonal wail fit to wake the dead. Which was exactly what it did.

  The first to stir was one of the pygmies. Sepoy Shah put his bayonet through its ribcage to finish it off. Instead, the pygmy grabbed the barrel of Shah’s rifle with its remaining hand and would not release it. Shah discharged his rifle and blew it off the end of the bayonet, but that didn’t stop it from sitting up again. Conder stepped up and struck its head off with his cutlass. All watched in speechless horror as the headless body struggled blindly to its feet. More rose. Rifles fired. The bullets did nothing but disfigure the lively dead. Even their former comrades Rifleman Ran and Sepoy Hussain were struggling to their feet. The devout called for God. The sacrilegious muttered profanities. The Cossack did both.

  Conder could feel the panic rising in the men. Even the Gurkhas were at a loss. Any second he expected someone to break ranks and flee into that lightless corridor littered with the likely stirring dead. Were the hundreds they slaughtered out on the field before the village also rising?

  The flute! The dead rose when the flute sounded. It was insane, but it was a straw to grasp at. Pointing his cutlass at the figure on the throne, Conder roared “Put a volley into that devil! Now!”

  Everyone fired. Conder and Malik emptied their Webleys. The yellow silk erupted with gouts of something too thick and blue to be blood. Bullets smashed the flute to bits. The thing on the throne pitched forward, rolling down the steps. There was a glimpse of something pale and wet before it dropped into the pit and vanished. The flute was silent, but the dead still advanced, teeth gnashing.

  The melee was joined. Kukris opened throats and bellies. Bayonets and rifle butts pushed the advancing dead back. Meat and bone were sundered, but the enemy came on. Then the Cossack struck the head off one of the pygmies and kicked its flailing torso in the chest. The corpse spun around and stumbled blindly into the bottomless pit.

  “Into the pit! Force them into the pit!” Conder shouted above the din. The Gurkhas struck off the fingers and hands of the corpses, while the Sepoys speared them on their bayonets and ran them off the edge and into oblivion. Sepoy Rassoul was dragged screaming into the pit by the corpse he was trying to maneuver into it. The corpses remained silent as they were hurled in. Everyone could still hear Rassoul screaming when the last corpse was sent in after him.

  And more corpses were shambling into the great hall. Looking around, Conder took stock of his men. Malik and the Cossack still stood, as did Havildar Thapa and four of his Gurkhas. Eleven Sepoys remained. Every uniform was tattered and covered in blood. How had it all gone so wrong? He’d led his men to their deaths and worse.

  “Risaldar Khan! Take the men and cut your way out. Don’t fight them. Just get past them. Get to the horses and get clear. Rifleman Pun, put the case of dynamite by that wall. Leave me a lantern and I’ll catch up with you when I’m finished.”

  “Henry! There’s no time for that! We have to go now!”

  “That’s an order, Risaldar! Do your duty, damn you!” Malik was taken aback, but ordered his Sepoys into an arrowhead formation to force the corridor.

  Havildar Thapa stepped forward. “Permission to assist the Captain!”

  “No! Go now!” Conder knelt by the case of dynamite Pun had placed against the wall behind the golden throne.

  Thapa pulled up his bloody left sleeve. A gash from a knife split his forearm. The skin was already darkening. “I cannot go far. So I shall not go!

  Conder immediately felt both relieved and guilty that he would not be dying alone. “Very well, Havildar. It’s your time to spend as you like.”

  Suddenly all the Gurkha Riflemen were shouting, volunteering to stay. Conder knew the obstinacy of Gurkhas in the face of danger. There was no time to waste arguing. He’d need every hand to keep the dead from snuffing out the fuse.

  “Make yourselves useful! Rifleman Rai! I should very much like to hear ‘The Minstrel Boy’ again before I die!”

  “With pleasure, Captain Conder!” Rai beamed, as he unslung his bagpipes.

  “Everyone else, get out now!” Conder began prying the lid of the case of dynamite with the blade of his cutlass.

  Shkuro shouted from across the hall. “Your name, Englishman? What is it?”

  “Captain Henry Tobias Conder,” he yelled over his shoulder.

  The Cossack nodded, tapped his chest and answered “Uryadnik Bogdan Timofeyevich Shkuro.”

  As Shkuro turned to leave with Khan and the Sepoys, Havildar Thapa called out, “Wait, Captain! Did you tell the Russian what I asked you to?”

  No, he hadn’t. Thapa had first made his request when the troop of Cossacks had towered over his Gurkhas as they’d posed together for Eichwald’s photograph. Conder shook his head at the man’s priorities, but would not deny Thapa’s last request. Conder stood and yelled in Russian. “Bogdan Timofeyevich! My Gurkha Uryadnik wants your Czar to know that he and his men are very short examples of the Gurkha people! Back home they are all much taller!”

  “Truly,” the Cossack said without a trace of irony. “A race of giants.”

  And then he was gone.

  Neither man ever saw the other alive again.

  The Dan no Uchi Horror

  Remy Nakamura

  Takeda Inochinomi, Arakage’s daughter, knelt in the mud. In final position for seppuku, the point of her tanto dagger hovered, ready to strike. The blade quivered, swaying with her breathing like an edgy viper.

  Honor. This was the way of the warrior. Her father’s way. He died with such honor. She served as his second, beheaded him with a powerful stroke. Ended his agony as his intestines spilled over his tanto. In her mind’s eye, his head came to a stop, glaring at her. Honor, his eyes rebuked her.

  Night crept closer, the forest bleeding shadows, heavy rain and the altar-like mountain of Dan no Uchi conspiring with her pursuers. So close to her uncle’s monastery, and she had no l
ight. She could barely see her weapons — her naginata, a bamboo bow, a nearly empty quiver — just an arm’s reach away. The lead scouts would catch her first. Perhaps the half-demons could see in the dark. Or track her like hounds. No choice. No hope.

  She focused her mind inwardly on the image of Amida, washed with gold. She mouthed the mantra, Namu Amida Butsu. Praise Amida Buddha. Inhaled smells of rain, wet earth, and damp decay. Her hands steadied, but then her father’s head replaced the Buddha’s, blood oozing, staining the statue’s lustrous neck. Honor.

  She looked up at the apparition that seemed to hover before her, glowing in the deepening night.

  “Honor,” she whispered. “If you had honor, we’d have died fighting. Side by side.” Her words flowed with measured force, parrying his look of condemnation. “If you had honor, we’d have built a mound of corpses around us with our blades. The priests would sing of our last stand, father and daughter.”

  The gruesome vision began to fade.

  “If you had honor, your daughter would not be kneeling half-naked in the mud, with no light, no second to end her suffering.”

  She opened her hands. Dropped the knife.

  The ghost was gone. Hot tears mixed with cold rain. She wiped them away. Pulled her kimono back up over her arms and chest. Tightened her sash. Groped in the dark for her dagger.

  “I could be your second!”

  Inochinomi stood, tanto pointed outward. A girl’s voice.

  “I’ve never chopped a head off.” Same voice, different location. She turned to face it. Strained to listen through the wind and heavy rain. It sounded like a girl. “Not a human’s head, at least. Certainly not a woman’s!” Cheerful.

  “Who are you?” Inochinomi asked. Strove to keep her voice calm. Spoke with authority. “What are you?”