by Paul Kidd
The gate was still open, unlike any other night, when they would be locked by sundown. Old Toby looked out to the dark eastern plains, where scrub made huge purple shadows in the dark.
“They’re still riding in?”
“Now and then.” The militiaman leaned upon the ramparts. “The Brotherhood guys rode out about five minutes ago. Shot out in a fair hurry.”
“They’re not staying for the meeting?” Toby scratched at his neck fur. “Guess they heard all the news they really needed to know.”
Samuels rode forward and waved a hand to the three militia guards.
“Have a good night, lads.” Samuels turned his mount aside. “We’ll come up and spell you once the meeting’s over.”
“Thanks mate. You’re a legend!” The militia man gave a salute, then shouldered his heavy rifle. “Have a good meeting!”
The Dugite was the largest building in town, and therefore served as the default meeting house. Tables had been cleared back to serve as impromptu benches. People sat on chairs, tables, railings, windowsills and even the bar, with a hundred and twenty managing to crowd into the main tap room, another hundred in the eatery, and at least another hundred in the beer garden. Throckmorton cruised about just above the crowd, helping to usher newcomers to seats. The town council itself had been given a cleared space behind the bar. The councillors – three men and a large woman, including the indomitable Mrs Baker – were deep in discussion. Samuels joined them, and a table was brought over to give a sense of occasion. Mrs Baker – a rhino splicer with the bosom of a goddess and piercing blue eyes – hammered on the table with the butt of a sawn off shotgun, making enough noise to penetrate the buzz of conversation.
“Folks! Your attention please! This meeting will come to order. Third day of November, eighty fifth year after founding. All council members are present.” She rapped on the table once again. “We’re suspending other business in the light of a possible emergency!”
“What’s this about new monsters, Beth?” A rancher called from the back rows. “We got a new feral tribe on the plains?”
“Not ferals. We got a blast from the past.” The woman signed towards Snapper. “Jemima Greyfin, fill us in.”
Snapper arose, her sabre clattering and pelisse swinging. She came forward and stood at the middle of the floor.
“Ladies and gentlemen. We have Screamers back on the range. And we think we know how they’re breeding.”
There was an immediate upsurge of noise. Concerned citizens called out across the noise. Beth Baker banged her impromptu gavel, and managed to bring order out of chaos.
“Alright, alright! We all heard about the caravan getting swarmed. So here’s where news gets rid of the rumours!” The woman gestured to Snapper. “Now you say you met these things twice?”
“Three times. Well, four, kinda.” The shark girl was well known amongst the local riders, and they were listening closely as she spoke. “Before the caravan attack, I was up in the lower hills just west of quartz ridge. A pack of Screamers, maybe half a dozen of them, were there. They’d laid an ambush for a group of ferals –Striper tribe. So I charged in to help cut the ferals free.”
An older townsman sitting beside Kenda gave a scowl.
“You helped out a bunch of ferals?”
“Cut my way straight through. Saved one man. Hope I saved another.”
There was a surge of anger from here and there in the crowd. One man yelled across the noise.
“What the fuck for? They’re ferals!”
“Yeah they were ferals!” Snapper stood large enough and proud enough to cow the shouters. “My mother died fighting the Skull Biters. Cut their war chief down with her own blade! But I see a man being pulled down by a bunch of storm mutants, I don’t stop to think about what shape or colour he is!” The shark stamped a boot hard on the floorboards. “No one who carries a sword should ever doubt that for an instant!”
“They were still ferals!”
“And I’m a rider! We all are! Honour doesn’t care about the shape of your face.” The shark dismissed the man with a wave. “So anyway. Screamers – just like the old records say. They’re slower than a rider. I cut through them. The ferals had one man dead, one down, one injured. He could only use one arm. Gave him my own pistol.” Snapper rested a hand atop her sword. “I’ll not send any man out into danger unarmed. That’s not how we ride.”
The vaqueros, prospectors and ranchers were all in agreement. Others were not so sure. People argued back and forth and the argument continued. One of the town council – a long, thin fussy creature with a clear streak of goanna ancestry, clumped upon the ground with the butt of his shotgun, calling for order. The bewhiskered old lizard fixed Snapper with a myopic glare.
“Young lady! You’re certain they were Screamers?”
“That’s Snapper yer talking to.” Old Toby was scathing. “She’s spent more time riding dark places that the rest of you put together. She knows what a Screamer looks like, well enough.”
The old goanna was still unsatisfied.
“Lots of weird stuff out there in the ruins. How do we know it was actually Screamers?”
Snapper was rapidly losing her temper. “Well, they were insensate wild mutations, carnivorous, and they screamed! I’ll let you draw your own conclusion. Anyway, I back tracked to see where they came from. Seemed to be more Screamer tracks, all mingled up with tracks from a cocoplod herd.”
Again the crowd surged with questions. Beth Baker banged her gun. Samuels rose and waved everybody down.
“Now the attack on the caravan is not in question. Each witness has an identical description of the creatures. Who have we got here? The caravan master… Throckmorton, Kenda…” Throckmorton gave the man a quintuple ‘thumbs up’. Samuels searched about, trying to find them all, but lost some of them amongst the crowd. “In any case, it seems that the Screamers were somehow newly hatched. Young Jemima here had earlier found the hatching site. The Screamers implant eggs or larvae inside host animals. The missing cocoplod herd were dead. Thirty dead cocoplods spawned a swarm of perhaps sixty Screamers, who then tracked down and attacked the inbound Tammin caravan.” There were no more objections. Samuels was being listened to.
“Now that implies that a relatively small group of these things was able to reproduce, in bulk. And have their young grow big enough to be a lethal threat, and all in a matter of what – twelve hours?” The old crow leaned on his sword. “We cannot let these things gain a foothold.”
A huge old cat – leader of the afternoon’s lynch mob – leaned grimly forward.
“So where have they come from? Through the barrier? Are they coming in from above the cliffs?”
The sheriff – slow and dependable – scratched at his scales.
“What about the desert?”
“Desert doesn’t have enough water to support much.” Toby leaned forward, resting on his hefty sabre. “Maybe they did come down from the north? Maybe they have a way through the radiation belt.” He banged his sword on the floor. “We should send someone to check! An expedition!”
The sheriff shook his head.
“We can’t send people out on wild goose chases, Toby. Our manpower resources are limited.” He looked to the north, calculating. “If we count every able body, we have… two hundred rifles on foot, maybe three hundred riders? If Screamers are out there in bunches of a hundred, we can’t sent men out in groups less than what – thirty? If we keep the foot rifles and maybe a third of the riders back to defend the ranches and the town, that leaves six patrols. Six - to cover what – the whole foothills, east to west? Twelve hundred kilometres. Plus the desert rim, another thousand, plus all the back lands and the west…”
The old rancher cat turned to look at a map painted on the back wall of the tap room. “How far back into the foothills? We can’t send troops into feral territory. That’s a treaty breaker”
The sheriff nodded. “Well we can ride the base of the foothills. We have a blood treat
y on that one. Buried it on bones.” The sheriff scowled. “Shame. High ground would let the patrols see further.”
Snapper turned to look at the map.
“Ferals are in danger too. Screamers are a nightmare.” She frowned. “Maybe they can help with patrols?”
“You gonna ask ‘em that in writing, or just bust into one of their medicine circles?” A vaquero shook his head. “No, my friend. Those creatures are very touchy. Very damned dangerous. You don’t mess with their territory. It’s something in their blood.”
Beth Baker scratched at her horns. “As well as patrols and home defence, we have to get couriers to the other six villages. They’ll need to gather forces and riders and make their own search.”
People stirred, offering suggestions. There were a great many opinions and ideas. Militia rosters were brought out – someone was shouting questions about the ammunition shortage, and everyone had surged forward to try and talk to the councillors. Snapper pushed her way back out through the crowd to the open beer garden for fresh air, where she saw Kenda scowling off into the night.
“Kenda, how goes? Glad you stuck around?”
“Perhaps.”
The shark winced as something jangled at her senses. She looked back over the town below, seeing the animals in the corral, lights at the open gates. Beau’s voice pealed out unexpectedly above the noise of the crowd.
“Ladies and gentlemen! Clearly this is a great undertaking. And one that should be placed into proven and experienced hands!” The bird-fox placed a modest hand against his own heart. “I have been consulting with various concerned voices here in the town, and reluctantly, I must agree that my personal convenience must bow before the needs of this community. Let me say then, that I would most certainly be willing to accept a position as administrator of your defence forces. To organise, administrate and see to its various affairs!”
“Oh for…” Snapper glared at the man and started to head back into the bar. “That’s it – I’m going to kill him!”
Suddenly a beetle-horse down in the corral gave off a horrifying scream.
Chapter 6
A Screamer had leapt onto a beetle-horse in the corral and bitten clean through the chitin on the animal’s neck. It tore free a huge chunk of flesh, and the beetle-horse fell kicking and dying on the ground. Without a pause, the Screamer leapt onto the corral’s stable boy and clawed him to the ground.
“Screamers!”
Behind the first monster, three more burst up and over the corral rail. Another half dozen crashed through the beer garden’s hedge. One townsman went down and another reeled away, and then the Screamers were tearing into the crowd.
There were too many people to risk opening fire. Snapper scythed her sabre out of its sheath, catching a bloodied Screamer across the jaws. She whipped the sword back again, slicing into the monster as it clawed at her. The monster reeled, but a second creature launched up and over the first. Snapper met it with a roaring lunge, slamming forward in raging ferocity. They crashed together and fell thudding on the ground.
Snapper’s sword had rammed clean through the monster. She held the dying creature by the throat as it strove to clash its jaws into her flesh. Above her, she heard a fierce melee – jaws and swords and claws – then pistol fire. A new Screamer suddenly came at Snapper as she lay pinned. Her sword was trapped between herself and the other beast. Snapper blocked the new monster by ramming the other’s head up into the creature’s maw. All around her, guns were opening fire. Someone yelled as a Screamer managed to bite clean through their armoured cuirass.
The first of the Screamers atop of Snapper was bloodily dead. The second tore and lunged at her. Snapper wrenched the Bowie knife from her belt and slammed it into the creature’s neck again and again, but the monster shook the weapon free.
There was a sudden massive blast. Old Toby jammed his shotgun against the Screamer and blew two immense shots clean through the creature’s ribs. He reloaded while Mrs Baker wrenched the dead Screamers away. Another latched onto Toby’s iron peg leg. The old man hammered his shotgun down onto the creature, and then Mrs Baker shot it with her ancient scatter gun.
Three townspeople in the beer garden were down – injured or dead. Fighting out from beneath the corpses, Snapper surged free, swearing – plaits swinging and her sword running with blood. She managed to slice the blade into another Screamer as it passed, and the monster fell skidding to the floor. A rancher staved in the creature’s skull, while all around them men and women gunned at rearing Screamers that tried to burst in through the doors. Samuels leapt through a window, drew a sabre, and ran the last of the monsters through, calling for riflemen to help him clear the streets.
A dozen Screamers had attacked the town meeting. The creatures were dead, leaving bloody chaos in their wake. There were still hellish shrieks coming from yet more of the monsters in the corral. Snapper ran, pelisse streaming, sword bloody in her hand.
Down in the corral, a savage battle was being fought. A huge armoured Screamer had slaughtered the stableboy, and three more were attacking dray beasts beside the wagons.
Beau’s riding moth, Pendleton, lunged forward. Its huge beak clashed shut around the first Screamer’s waist, tore the monster away from the stable boy, and shook it wildly from side to side. It flung the creature away and pounced on it again, cracking its beak down through the monster’s skull. Onan came leaping clean across the corral wall, landing atop another Screamer. The bird’s great hooked beak tore through the Screamer’s spine.
Other animals were not so lucky. A pair of Screamers had killed three dray beasts, and were injecting huge, hideous grubs into the wounds. But there was a shout as a rider on a budgerigar spurred down the road. The vaquero rode straight at the beasts, lance levelled, and ran one clean through. He tore the lance free as he rode past, then the other Screamer came charging after him. Onan and the giant moth surged forward to chase the monster down, but a second rider fired at the Screamer with a shotgun. The monster staggered, and was pinned by the first rider’s lance as he made a second charge.
Throckmorton whirred past. Snapper whistled for Onan and leapt down into his saddle. She swung the bird around and yelled up towards the pub.
“Rifles! Search the streets.” She saw several wagons down in the street with burst and shattered crates. “Wagons! Check the wagons!”
Kitterpokkie was already on the way. “I’ll burn the dray beast corpses!” Throckmorton whirred along with her.
Snapper turned her mount about and about, looking for trouble, her sharp blade glinting. Her voice bellowed out across the town.
“Riders! In the saddle – now!”
She saw Beau as he came running out to the garden railings. The man called down to Snapper, Toby and Mrs Baker.
“We have two dead here, four wounded!” He headed for the road. “Where did they come from?”
“The wagons! They’re inside some of the wagons!”
Kitterpokkie was on the scene. Throckmorton stripped away the tarpaulin from one of the wagons by the road. It was filled with shattered crates – apparently torn apart from within. The mantis scowled, then ran toward the gates. Three dead dray beasts lay in the gutter, blood running from terrible wounds. Kitterpokkie could just see the tail end of obscene larvae burrowing deep into the cadavers. She levelled her plasma rifle and opened fire.
Searing light ripped into the dead dray beasts, bursting them open. The larvae exploded in a blast of steam -
From the open gate there came a terrible, numbing thunder of screams.
A ravening pack of Screamers came rampaging through the gate. One militia man besides the gates vanished beneath the swarm. The crocodile managed to swarm up a ladder to the ramparts, firing a sawn-off shotgun down into the pack. A single monster fell, but twenty more came surging through the open gates. The gate commander shouted something that was lost inside the storm of noise. A wall gun – a massive rifle – was mounted on the ramparts beside him. The man fired – not
at the horde beneath his feet, but out into the night far beyond the walls.
Snapper ran forward and stared down the road.
“Kitt! Get out of there!”
Snapper yelled from across a churning mass of beasts in the corral. Kitterpokkie stood in the middle of the main street, right in the path of twenty ravening monsters.
Kitt ducked behind a wagon. Her plasma rifle fired again, slamming an arc of light into the leading monsters. The creatures fell and the plasma bolt tore into another beast behind. Screamers scattered and flowed aside. Behind her, Throckmorton fired his crossbow, tentacles working frantically to reload. At the gate behind them, the two remaining militia men fired down into the swarm, working rifle bolts with savage speed. A wagon burned beside the road, where it had been raked by plasma fire. More men came running from the Dancing Dugite, firing down into the horde.
Six riders further down the street all opened fire from the saddle. Screamers were struck down, as half of the pack raged straight towards them, while the rest charged for Kitterpokkie. She was atop the wagon, with monsters clawing up from every side. She fired again, and then the capacitor died. The mantis scrabbled backwards across the wagon bed, slamming a broken board across a Screamer that came clawing up towards her throat.
Hearing her cries for help, Beau raced down from the wall above. Behind him came Kenda – pistol in hand, tall and alert. Beau took one glance at the terrible melee and charged, making a spectacular leap down onto the wagon.
“Miss Kitt!”
Utterly galvanised to help a lady in distress, Beau was astonishing to behold. He fought with a revolver in each hand, keeping a steady blast of fire hammering into the onrushing Screamers. He shot down two Screamers mid-leap at Kitterpokkie. With both guns empty, he blinked, then whirled as a final Screamer rampaged towards him. The fox-pheasant leapt in panic, talons reaching. He landed on the Screamer’s back, clinging on for dear life. The Screamer staggered and wrenched wildly about, finally throwing Beau free. The fox-bird landed hard in the dust, falling on his side, reloading a revolver even as he fell. The Screamer raced towards him. Kenda gave a wild shout and ran forward, pistol blazing, shots cracking into the Screamer’s back. But as the monster leapt, a crossbow bolt came slashing down from the roof above. Throckmorton shot the creature between three of its eyes, and the Screamer crashed onto the ground, thrashing wildly as it died.
