Beneath the Shining Jewel

by Balogun Ojetade

  Jima made it to the crossing. The pack was almost on him. He lurched down the tunnel that led to the east and the second cistern under the military access road. If nothing else, he knew the squad’s plan was to seal and gas it. If he could lead the Gnaw Maws far enough, they would die with him.

  Jima’s body screamed. His muscles clenched in spasms as he faltered through the darkness, the way dimly lit by his lamp. A strong hand caught his right ankle and he fell forward.

  “No!” He cried, unable to control the fear that pounded in his chest. “No!”

  Something heavy dropped on his back and bellowed: “EAT!” Click. Click. Click.

  Gnaw Maws swarmed into the tight confines of the tunnel. Feet splashed around him, sending water crashing in waves over his mask. Hands seized. Fingers pinched.

  “Eat!”

  Jima struggled to turn onto his back as fingers pried under his collar and pulled.

  He rolled with the motion and looked right into a Gnaw Maw’s face. Its teeth snapped at him; its eyes burned with desire in the dim light from Jima’s lamp. Jima whipped his sword up and jammed it between the creature’s jaws, pushing the blade toward the back of the Gnaw Maw’s throat.

  The creature stumbled backward with the sword jutting out of its mouth.

  The weapon’s handle was wrenched from Jima’s grasp.

  Other Gnaw Maws pushed in – adults and young – scratching; biting. A woman’s face came close. Her jaws were still covered by cheeks and lips, but the skin around her eyes were torn away with her nose, making her face look like a mask.

  Jima slammed the palm of one hand into her chin and grabbed the crest of her head with the other hand and then he jerked his hands, forcing the woman’s chin past her shoulder until the back of her head faced him.

  She convulsed and then fell aside.

  A young one took her place – a boy, his head and torso stripped to the veins. His chubby hands clawed at Jima’s face.

  Jima punched at the boy’s little head, his strength magnified by the Tyrak-skin suit. A sickening crunch of bone followed.

  The boy collapsed; face down, in the water.

  He hammered a big male’s face as it tugged on his arms.

  “Eat!”

  Other hands pulled at his legs, their fingers worming under the edges and cuffs of his Tyrak-skin. Tugging. Ripping.

  He snatched his lamp from his mask and swung it wildly, beating a red spray from exposed muscle and bone. Two Gnaw Maws tumbled in the water, rolling in the brown liquid as they wailed.

  “Eeeat! Eeeat. Eat. Eat. Eeeat!”

  CHAPTER fifty-one

  Mba tripped over Juju’s corpse about a yard past where the tunnel branched. It was Onisako who identified her.

  Mba grunted in disgust at the infected corpse as he pushed it away.

  Onisako and Bun Son shook from fear and revulsion as they helped him to his feet.

  Toy aimed his shortbow into the darkness.

  Mba looked back down the tunnel. Constable Dome had sealed the hotspot after the squad entered, welding a grate over the western tunnel with a spell he learned long ago from his mother, a child of Fez. He waved to Mba’s crew and then followed after Binta.

  Mba could hear the squad moving up the other tunnel, slowly, noisily checking for rabbit holes.

  “Come on,” he said, moving cautiously up the eastern branch.

  They were on a mission. After Jima’s driver had calmed down, he reported that Jima went into the tunnel after hearing at least one civilian voice. They thought it belonged to the hunting pack’s captive. Since one captive escaped Ritual, it meant there might be other survivors. Neither Binta nor Mba held much hope for that, but she gave him the okay to go into the eastern branch to look for Jima, since he was expecting some kind of help to come that way. Rescuing one captive and one veteran captain was not enough to risk the entire operation or squad so Binta asked for volunteers to go with Mba. Several raised their hands, but Mba picked Onisako, Bun Son and Toy as his team. If they couldn’t find Jima they were to fall back to the hotspot entrance where they could hunker down and kill anything coming through the tunnel that could not tell them its name.

  Swole said Vos Anana was sending a squad from metropolitan Sati-Baa to back them up. They would arrive inside an hour.

  Moving in the tight tunnel made Mba’s back ache and it was hotter than fish grease under a summer sun in Sati-Baa. Why had he gotten involved in a rescue operation?

  Because you owe him.

  Mba shook off that thought as he splashed through the water. His group followed – Onisako, then Bun Son, with Toy in the rear.

  Jima thinks you owe him.

  “Not my fault,” Mba whispered. Yes, it is.

  “What’s that, Captain?” Onisako asked.

  “Nothing!” Mba said. “Keep your eyes open!”

  Mba swept his lamp up in time to see a small hand reach down from the left. “Wait!” He barked, raising his shortbow. He hated using bows, even though he was a skilled archer. He preferred his marungu – his throwing clubs – for long-ranged combat, but it was impossible to raise one’s arms high enough to throw a rungu in the tunnels, so the shortbow it was.

  The tunnel opened up a yard ahead. When the military built their storage space they replaced a length of the circular sewer with a narrow stone hall. About seven feet up, a skinned arm hung out of a vent. It moved slowly, the muscles glistening with pockets of infection.

  “Daarila!” Bun Son shouted, aiming his shortbow. Captain!”

  The combined grouping of lamps showed the arm was jammed through the bent bars of a vent-covering near the ceiling. Inside, they could see the shoulder and skinned head of a small Gnaw Maw – a child. It was covered with a waxy sheen. The veins on the skull pulsed slowly.

  “Eeeat,” it hissed weakly.

  The whites of its eyes were yellow; the pupils dilated despite the light from the lamp. Its fingers made a slow fanning motion. “Eat.”

  “What happened to it?” Onisako asked, lifting her shortbow.

  “It climbed into the vent,” Mba said, trying to see past it. The body was wedged tight into a ventilation shaft made of steel. “Must be the storage room back there.” He remembered Dinsu’s blueprints. “It tried to get out and got stuck; they aren’t geniuses.”

  Bun Son frowned at the thing. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “If we don’t get to them first, Gnaw Maws die of infection and shock from blood loss,” Mba replied. “They eat each other’s – and their own – skin.” He started along the tunnel.

  “Wait…” Toy called after him. “You’re going to leave it?”

  “Can’t waste the arrow…or the time,” Mba said over his shoulder. “It’s not going anywhere.”

  They splashed onward, the water moving against them, pulling at their leather leggings. There was a long section of cramped, round tunnel, followed by another length of rectangular stone.

  Mba breathed a sigh of relief when he saw it. The ceiling was higher, allowing him to move without crouching. Then he froze. Ahead on the left was a recessed doorway. There were two steps up, the lowest covered by water. The door was made of thick boards bound with copper, but it had been splintered and bent, and hung open from a single hinge.

  “Damn,” Mba cursed, aiming his shortbow at the door as he crept past it.

  Onisako and the others did the same, their lamps revealing dark rafters that led into a shadowed room. Crates, boxes and drums rested against brick walls.

  “Corporal didn’t mention this,” Onisako said.

  “They didn’t want to attract attention,” Mba explained. “Probably had their lamps on low and missed it.”

  “Do you think there are Gnaw Maws in there?” Bun Son asked.

  “There have been,” Mba replied, stepping up to the door and listening. “But it’s too quiet.”

  Rapid splashing sounds echoed toward them along the tunnel from the north. Mba turned and took a few steps forward. His lamp flicker
ed on the stone walls. Twenty yards from their position, the round sewer began again. It was a circle of darkness rising out of the water.

  “Is that Jima?” Toy asked, scanning the darkness with his shortbow.

  “Moving too fast for him,” Mba said, drawing the shortbow’s string back to his cheek.

  “The corporal said there might be other survivors,” Onisako said.

  At the edge of the lamp light, Mba caught movement. Something pink sprinted through the sewer. Its teeth gleamed in the lamplight.

  “Gnaw Maws!” Mba shouted.

  “Eeeat! Eeeat! Eat. EAT!”

  Mba fired.

  The arrow pierced the Gnaw Maw’s throat. It kept coming. Its torn features wriggled around a single obsessed eye.

  An arrow hit the chest of a second Gnaw Maw but it barely slowed, driven by Bacillus and the need for Ritual.

  “Get back!” Mba shouted, nocking another arrow. “Get back…through the door! GO!”

  A Gnaw Maw fell. An arrow protruded from its skull.

  “Got you; you bastard!” Toy shouted over Mba’s shoulder.

  Mba fired the arrow, and then elbowed Toy back toward the doorway. “Inside!”

  Another Gnaw Maw fell.

  Onisako and Bun Son hurried up the stairs and through the doorway into the storage area. Toy followed. Mba fired again. He set a boot on the step, grabbed the mangled door and then lifted it up. His lamp swung into the shadows. A big male Gnaw Maw stood a few feet from him. It was skinned from its bellybutton to the top of its head.

  “Eeeeat...” it hissed.

  Mba pushed the door into the doorway, slamming it in Toy’s face as the young constable moved to join him. He threw his back against the door and raised his shortbow as the Gnaw Maws surged toward him.

  CHAPTER fifty-two

  Jima scurried on his haunches, punching at the void. With the lamp now shattered and its glowflies long gone, the tunnel was cast into total darkness.

  His thoughts drifted to Surai. Did she get away? Anxiety tightened his chest.

  Terrifying sounds crowded close. The Gnaw Maws were reassembling in the shadows, rallying around the eerie clicking that echoed through the tunnels. Their eyes would quickly adjust to the darkness.

  He dragged himself away from the sounds, water pushing against his limbs as he pulled himself into the current. He knew the eastern cistern was a half-mile from where the sewer branched. If he could get the Gnaw Maws to follow, the squad might have time to seal them in.

  “Eat!” A shout echoed from behind.

  “Eeeat. Eat. Eat,” a chorus of other voices answered. The Gnaw Maws were regaining their vision.

  Jima mustered his strength, crawling up the curved wall until he could stand and turn to face the pack.

  “Eat. Eeeeat.”

  The skipping sound of their feet drew closer.

  Suddenly, Jima could see. His naked eyes glared through a yellow haze. He saw the red, raw wounded forms splashing closer. Pink muscle flexed, lidless eyes flashed, and lipless jaws snapped.

  “Eat!” They screamed, coming closer.

  “Eeeat.” Jima said in return. Saying the words calmed him; sent a delicious chill up his spine. He said it again. “Eeeat.”

  His eyes rolled back in his skull. Saying it felt so good! He laughed at the thought. The laugh came out as a loud click. His eyes were drawn to a big male who glowed in the darkness, lit up by lamps that dangled from a wire twisted around its skinned shoulders and neck. Jima recognized him.

  The Gnaw Maws crept forward.

  The big male strode toward Jima, snapping his teeth at the air in front of Jima’s face. “EEEAT!”

  “EAT!” Jima roared back. He swung at the Alpha’s head.

  The Gnaw Maw ducked.

  Jima staggered forward. The pack stayed back, regarding him hesitantly.

  “EAT!” the big Gnaw Maw barked as it came in close, snapping its teeth at Jima’s jaw.

  Jima howled and snapped back. He swung again, punching the big male across the temple.

  The Alpha stumbled sideways.

  “EEEAT!” Jima hissed. He swung again, knocking off a piece of the Alpha’s jaw.

  “EAT!” the Alpha shrieked. It charged.

  Jima looked to his right, the Gnaw Maw he stabbed in the neck stood within arm’s reach. He grabbed the sword’s handle and snatched the blade out of the Gnaw Maw’s mouth.

  The creature fell.

  Mba backhand slashed with the sword.

  The Alpha’s headless body collapsed with a loud splash.

  Jima caught the Alpha’s head before it fell to the sewer floor. He stared into its face. The name “Storm” flashed in his mind. He held the head high and showed it to the others.

  The Gnaw Maws continued to cower and crouch in the water.

  “EEEAT!” Jima roared, his heart racing. Were there any more challengers?

  “Eeeat,” the pack repeated, crouching; their raw, exposed skulls nodding in the amber of the headless Alpha’s lamps. Their spread fingers passed repetitively over the water’s surface. Ritual! They wanted Ritual.

  “EAT!” Jima shrieked, and staggered forward. His mind reeled. I am Alpha!

  The Gnaw Maws cringed before him. You are Alpha. It was clear; they were saying it with their eyes, with their approving clicks, as he staggered among them. Their hands came up, naked finger bones and exposed tendons touching first Jima’s heavy leg braces, then running up over his arms and scarred chest in wonder and acceptance. Rotting fingers caressed his skinned face.

  “Eeeat,” he whispered softly, laying a gloved hand on a child’s torn scalp.

  Click. Click. Click.

  They need you. Jima realized.

  He hissed reassuringly as the hunting pack clambered close, encircling him. Filled with anxiety and fear, driven by Bacillus to hunger and violence, they needed Ritual. They raised their gruesome hands to accept him; to pay tribute to their leader.

  CHAPTER fifty-three

  The big male grabbed Mba’s shortbow and yanked. Its hands, slick with blood, slid off the hard, smooth wood. The other two Gnaw Maws pounced on Mba, their skinned fingers ripping and slipping over his leather padded armor as they sought entry. Their weight hammered him against the door. It rattled in the frame. Flashes of light burst through cracks in the mangled wood and flared on the wall. There was shouting now, and hissing. Gnaw Maws were in the storage space!

  The big male pulled on the shortbow again.

  Mba released his grip and the Gnaw Maw lost its balance. It fell, hissing and snapping in the water.

  The remaining Gnaw Maws ripped at Mba. They were torn up and skinned, but he could see that one was a boy of about ten years of age and the other, a girl in her teens.

  The big male howled and then threw the shortbow down the tunnel.

  Mba shoved the younger Gnaw Maws backward with his forearm and then drew his sword. He thrust the blade deep into the female Gnaw Maw’s belly.

  She screamed and tore at the air for a moment, then fell still.

  Mba yanked his sword out of her gut as she collapsed.

  The big male dug its torn fingertips into the pads on Mba’s shoulders and pulled him in close. The creature’s jaws opened impossibly wide, and then closed on Mba’s masked face, sinking its teeth into the leather.

  Even through the thick material, Mba felt the Bacillus-enhanced power of the bite. His cheeks and jaws were scored and pinched into the folds of leather as the Gnaw Maw bit down.

  It pushed on Mba’s shoulders like it was trying to rip his head off.

  The Gnaw Maw boy sank its teeth into the leather, fat and skin under his arm.

  Mba screamed in agony and from the realization that infection was now coursing through his bloodstream.

  He threw all of his weight against the big male’s skinned chest. There was a cracking sound as ribs gave way.

  The Gnaw Maw staggered backward.

  Mba’s armpit went white-hot with pain as the young Gnaw Maw
tightened its powerful grip, wrenching and twisting on the mouthful of leather and skin.

  He fought through the pain, pulling his main rungu out of his jacket and smashing it into the raw flesh on the big Gnaw Maw’s face.

  “EEEAT!” the thing hissed, its stripped muscles clenching with pain and need.

  Mba hammered his club into the big male’s temple, then slammed it into the creature’s brow.

  Bits of flesh and blood spattered Mba’s mangled mask.

  The Gnaw Maw shook powerfully, stiffened and then dropped into the water on its back.

  The young Gnaw Maw was caught up in Ritual, still ripping and tearing at Mba’s arm.

  Mba stabbed at the young Gnaw Maw with the pommel of the club.

  The young Gnaw Maw, realizing he was alone, suddenly released his bite. It hissed and splashed, running at lightning speed toward the north.

  “No you don’t, you little bastard!” Mba shouted.

  He ran after the young Gnaw Maw, snatching his shortbow out of the water in mid-stride.

  Mba smelled rot, mildew and feces. He heard thunder boom in the distance.

  Tears spilled over his throbbing face.

  “Eeeat!”

  The word came from up ahead.

  Mba dimmed his lamp. As the light lowered, he noticed the water thirty yards ahead was glowing. He was at the crossing. Light flickered out of the eastern tunnel.

  Suddenly, Jima and a group of Gnaw Maws came out of the shadow on the right, moving into the western tunnel.

  Jima’s Tyrak-skin suit was gone. A ring of lamps hung from his scarred shoulders. The remains of his suit draped like rags over his leg braces. He staggered ahead of the pack, leading them to the west, toward the cistern – directly into Binta’s path. The Gnaw Maws whispered and clicked around Jima’s legs. Cringing, reaching out and touching him like he was the Alpha. He was the Alpha.

  Mba’s spirits sank as Jima led his pack into the west.

  “Eeeat...” a voice whispered. It was close.

  Mba turned toward the direction of the whisper. His lamp’s light fell on a pair of legs ankle-deep in water. Before him stood a woman, cradling the Gnaw Maw boy in her arms.