“Yes, sir,” Melbourne lied.
“Good, then,” General Connor said. “So how exactly did you beat my time through the Gauntlet?”
“Well,” Melbourne said, “I’m not sure how far the rest of you got, but I’m sure you remember the first obstacle. I knew the first swinging blade was a matter of timing. I could see it swinging from side to side past the broken-glass walkway. I knew that in order to get the best possible start I would need to make good time from the beginning. I guessed how quickly I could clear the glass and waited for the perfect moment before starting my run. It worked, and I ducked past it. Then I came to the spiked balls …”
Melbourne recounted a lengthy, blow-by-blow tale of how he had ducked and weaved his way through the Gauntlet, an obstacle course all army recruits were put through consisting mostly of very fast-moving sharp things. Knowing that most people didn’t make it past the first few obstacles before turning back, Melbourne populated his Gauntlet adventure with all manner of near misses and triumphant moments. Though nowhere in his story did he mention the mission he had undertaken the night before to loosen the machinery that drove the obstacles, causing them mostly to get tangled against each other and allowing him to simply run through.
Throughout Melbourne’s story General Connor remained silent. The other troopers added “oohs” and “ahs” at the appropriate times, while Lance commented often that he was sure he too could master the Gauntlet if he were given another shot at it.
Melbourne’s story drew to a close with the extraordinary moment of him diving feet first through the closing gap of four inward-slicing giant blades, and his losing enough hair that he hadn’t needed a haircut for four weeks. Among the admiring cheers and slaps on the back that followed, Major Tungsten declared that while it was of course a worthy feat, it had been quite a long and detailed account and he was ready for bed.
“Yes,” the general said, “we should retire for the evening. Thank you for the story, Trooper Hermannsburg. I always enjoyed the competitions in my day. Encouraging a competitive spirit is certainly healthy, except for the live combat competitions, of course.” He laughed. “They weren’t healthy for the loser, or even the winner on many occasions. But alas, they don’t have them anymore, do they?”
“No, sir,” said Melbourne.
“Shame, shame,” said the general. “It’s these safety laws they’ve got now. This is training for war, I told them, not a tickling competition. I’m sure you must have been disappointed you didn’t get to compete in live combat?”
“Yes, sir,” Melbourne said. “I mean, we did use full sharps and armor in our final semester.”
Wentworth Connor leaned across, slapped Melbourne hard on the back and laughed again.
“Yes, but you weren’t trying to kill each other. Things are different then.”
Melbourne laughed, a little.
“Good night, gentlemen,” General Connor said, rising. The other men followed his lead, retiring one by one to their beds. Lieutenant Glad, who had drawn first watch, settled by the fire, stoking it with a long charcoal-ended stick. Melbourne watched the orange embers float upward on the river of warm air. For a place where it was hot enough during the day to fry an egg on a helmet, the nights were unnaturally cold. Moving to stand and go to his own sleeping roll, Melbourne saw the general beckoning to him. “A word, please, Trooper.”
When they were out of earshot of the others, the general spoke to him again. “Tell me, how did you really beat the Gauntlet?”
Melbourne hesitated. “I … I just told you, sir.”
“I said how did you really beat it?”
Melbourne took a deep breath, then raised his eyes to meet the general’s gaze. “I beat it the same way you did, sir.”
“Oh?”
“I cheated.”
General Connor’s eyes narrowed.
“Are you insinuating that I cheated during my time at the Academy, boy?”
“No, sir.” Melbourne swallowed.
“That’s what you said, wasn’t it, or did I hear you incorrectly?”
“It wasn’t so much cheating as improving the odds,” Melbourne said. “I took every advantage I could to increase my chances of success.”
“Really?”
“Everyone said the Gauntlet was unbeatable,” Melbourne said. “You were the only one who had done it. I did some research, studied how you could have managed it, and once I figured it out I just did the same thing.”
“And what was that?”
“I went in the night before and loosened all the blade connections.”
General Connor stared at Melbourne and then began to smile.
“Very good, boy,” he said. “Very good.”
CHAPTER 24
Melbourne lay in his sleeping roll, his body heat cocooning him against the rapidly cooling night air. He awoke some time later and lay for a few minutes listening to the eerie stillness of the desert. He realized he had woken into a heightened sense of awareness. He could hear something. His ears probed the darkness in an attempt to match the sound with something he recognized. It had been a guttural sound, he thought, like some large animal clearing its throat.
A sudden screech made him sit bolt upright. The sleeping sack fell down and he felt the cold air reaching in through the light shirt he had worn to bed. That sound was close. He looked out into the blackness around their camp, his eyes straining in the direction of the noise. The fire had died away to a pulsating orange that was being gently suffocated by the cold night. A figure was sitting slumped forward by the fire. Melbourne realized it was Major Tungsten. The wineskin that had been half-full when they’d gone to bed was sitting in the dirt in front of him, empty. At the Academy Melbourne had considered Major Tungsten an excellent swordsman, a master tactician and a good teacher. He had seemed an all-round shining example of soldierhood, but here he was now, fast asleep on watch.
Melbourne pushed his senses out into the darkness to try to identify the mysterious sounds he’d heard. But unfortunately it seemed those mysterious sounds were about to reach out to them.
Melbourne saw movement first. It was small, nothing but the shifting of darkness within darkness, but there was definitely something there.
“Major Tungsten,” he whispered urgently to the Digger who was supposedly guarding their safety. “Sir, I saw something.”
The sleeping Digger moved forward slowly. For an instant Melbourne thought he was rousing, but instead he tipped forward and landed with a gentle thud on the ground, his forehead resting in the soft dirt.
Melbourne climbed out of his sleeping roll and picked up one of the long mechanical rifles that lay on the ground near the sleeping Digger. It was one of the older Leopald models; he had won the Academy’s shooting competition with this type of rifle. That had been easy—everything had seemed easy at the Academy—but now his hands shook as he pulled back the compression spring of the firing mechanism. It locked in place inside the polished wood, ready to fire. He moved forward, the rifle held against his shoulder.
There was movement again. A figure was coming out of the darkness. It moved in a disjointed run toward them. The creature wore tattered clothes, matted pieces of cloth that seemed to hang from its body. If it weren’t for the unflattering way the strips of material fell it might be difficult to say which sex it was—but this was a male. Its skin was gray, mottled with colors somewhere between the shades of skin and blood. Its face was hollow and sunken as if its skin had been pulled tight over its bare skull. The eyes protruded so far that the full sphere of the eyeball was clear, a lumpy circle of blue cheese. Melbourne realized after longer than should have been necessary that he was looking at a ghoul.
The ghoul moved in discrete snaps so that to Melbourne’s eye it seemed to jump from one position to another without any in-between motion. It would spend a fraction of a second in this new position before moving again in its bizarre strobe-like way, like a statue instantly shifting from one position to another. It was fast, t
oo, faster than Melbourne had expected. He had studied ghouls at the Academy, of course, heard them described in lectures and read about them in books. He had thought he knew everything there was to know about them. Melbourne knew that a ghoul’s body was not like a human’s; it was always dissolving into dust. That’s why the ghouls had the thirst. The creature would not bleed. It would not feel pain. It would not speak. It couldn’t be killed unless beheaded or burned. He knew that if it were to bite him he would turn. He knew all this, he had thought he was prepared, and yet seeing one for the first time was still like having his organs ripped from his body and replaced with churning milk. He was frozen in place, paralyzed by fear.
As the creature was almost on top of Major Tungsten it seemed to notice Melbourne for the first time. It opened its mouth wider than should have been possible, as though its jaw was dislocated, and it screamed. It was a sound halfway between the soft rustling of the trees and the screech of an eagle. It was unlike anything Melbourne had ever heard.
Major Tungsten rolled onto his back. The gut-wrenching scream of the ghoul had shaken him, finally piercing his drunken slumber. However this particular shade of drunk made his dramatic waking somewhat anticlimactic. He lifted himself onto his elbows and looked up groggily. When he saw what was standing over him he did his best to shuffle backward through the dirt like a tired crab. When he reached the embers of the fire he was forced to stop. The ghoul looked down at him, and what was left of its nose fell away from its face as dust. Then, in a movement somewhere between a falling tree and a pouncing animal the ghoul was on Major Tungsten’s chest. Major Tungsten didn’t have a chance to scream before a three-fingered hand closed over his mouth. The ghoul’s other hand held down his head. Major Tungsten’s boots scraped over the ground as he kicked his feet. It took Melbourne a moment to realize what the ghoul was doing; it was pushing its deformed hand into Major Tungsten’s mouth.
“Ghouls!” General Connor cried as he barreled past Melbourne in a thundering wave, tossing a sword at him as he ran. Melbourne dropped the rifle he had been clutching and picked up the sword from where it had landed at his feet. The general surged ahead, dressed only in light pants; his black beard ran down his neck and joined with the curly hairs of his chest. He held his heavy longsword in one hand, trailing behind him. When he reached the ghoul he added his free hand to the grip and heaved the sword up and over his head. He cried out with a bestial war cry as the blade sliced down into the ghoul’s neck, taking its head from its shoulders. The sword followed through and embedded itself into the ground a little over an inch from Major Tungsten’s head. A spray of fine pink dust floated into the air from the ghoul’s neck. Wentworth Connor kicked the headless corpse off Major Tungsten.
“Swords!” the general roared.
Major Tungsten’s chest heaved as he drew large gulping breaths. His tongue hung from his mouth, swollen and red, and his lips were cracked and pale as if the ghoul had sucked all the moisture from them. General Connor kicked the ghoul’s head and it rolled, ear over ear, into the embers of the fire, where it slowly started to smoke and crackle like dry wood. The other Diggers, having scrambled from their beds, were already fanning out, forcing their eyes into the darkness.
“Circle up,” the general called. “There will be more.”
Heath, Cross, Burnley, Finch, Percival and Lance were spreading out in a ring toward the darkness, Lieutenant Glad directing them. The general was helping Major Tungsten to his feet.
“All right, Major?” General Connor asked, but the major was still unable to speak. He grabbed the wineskin from the ground and held it above his mouth, savoring the trickle that was left. He croaked a reply.
“Fine.”
“Did it bite you?”
“No,” Major Tungsten replied.
Melbourne stood staring at the body of the ghoul on the ground, its head now in the fire pit, crackling in flames. At the Academy Melbourne had defeated senior Diggers in combat, won every competition and conquered every task, but out here, seeing a ghoul in the flesh, he could do nothing but stand unmoving and afraid.
Another ghoulish screech filled the air, this time from the opposite direction. Melbourne swung on his heels and held the sword out in front of him. Despite the chill a cold sweat had formed on his forehead. He peered into the darkness, waiting for the inevitable ghoul to appear, his heart pounding in his ears. Another ghoul call went up, this time from a different direction again, and then another and another.
“Be ready!” Lieutenant Glad called. “They come!”
Melbourne heard the beating of fast footsteps on the ground and spun in the direction of the sound. A ghoul, smaller than the first and wearing the remnants of a little girl’s dress, jumped at Trooper Cross. He cried out as the tiny ghoul tore at his face with decaying fingertips. Burnley tried to pull her off, but she turned on him. Cross stumbled backward, hitting the ground with his hands over his dried-out eyes as Burnley punched and kicked at the insane creature.
“They’re freshly fed,” someone called. “They’re fast and strong.”
Nearby a ghoul was sprinting in from the darkness, hissing like a crazed cat. Melbourne saw the ghoul in the light of the fire. It was a Digger, or at least it had been a Digger. Melbourne recognized it as Captain Regis, the leader of the patrol they were supposed to rendezvous with. It had been Diggers on which these monsters had fed.
Lance was running at the ghoul that had once been Captain Regis, screaming, almost matching it for aggression. When the two met Lance impaled it on his blade with an upward thrust that ripped through its torso. But the sickening creature pulled itself further onto the blade so it could grab Lance’s face, pushing its bony thumbs into his eyes. Sergeant Heath was there in an instant.
“First blow to the neck!” he cried as he swiftly took off the creature’s head. “Ignore their uniforms! It’s not them anymore!”
Before he knew it Melbourne could see five, six, no, seven more ghouls materializing from the darkness, moving in their bizarre high-speed shudder. Two of the ghouls, wearing Digger green, were headed for Lieutenant Glad. As the first one drew within range Lieutenant Glad swung his sword, taking its head off in a clean blow. He turned for the second, smoothly dispatching its head as well. His practiced movements were like a dance. But more and more of the creatures were coming from the darkness. Glad mistimed a blow slightly and caught one of them just below the shoulder, slicing off its arm in a shower of dust but lodging the sword in its chest. As he tried to pull the weapon free, another ghoul was upon him. He cracked it in the face with his elbow but when it fell away there were three more to take its place. The face of one ghoul landed between Lieutenant Glad’s neck and shoulder. It had long, dirty hair which covered Melbourne’s view of what was happening, but when it reared up again, its hair flew back and Melbourne saw that it had taken the side of Lieutenant Glad’s neck with it, a bloody pulp hanging from its yellowed teeth.
Melbourne knew he should be tearing toward the enemy to fight with his Digger brothers. It wasn’t as if this would be his first battle. Every Academy graduate was combat hardened. They lived and breathed warfare for four long years, usually longer. And he was the Academy’s prodigy, the most promising graduate in years, more skilled than any Digger here, except maybe the general. But as he watched the unfolding scene Melbourne realized the difference. In the Academy it was always a game. Here, as he watched Lieutenant Glad’s body leak its life onto the ground in a crimson pool and twitch as he turned into a ghoul himself, he realized the enemy they fought now would stop at nothing to see him dead. It wasn’t a game anymore.
Melbourne watched General Connor slice a ghoul neatly in half from one hip to the other. The ghoul’s torso slid from the top of its legs and landed in the dirt. Then it reached out with its withered arms and began dragging itself forward. The creature would almost have looked pathetic if it weren’t so horrifying. The general drove his sword down through the neck of the ghoul and kicked it in the temple to separate
the head from the body.
Melbourne became acutely aware of the sounds around him. The Diggers still standing called to each other, sometimes warnings, sometimes directions. The ghouls’ screams filled the air from everywhere else. They were surrounded. The horses called out in high-pitched whines, their ropes snapping taut as they desperately tried to free themselves. The horses, Melbourne thought, the horses!
As he ran, Melbourne saw five ghouls jump on Sergeant Percival. He still stood, roaring with rage and throwing fists and elbows into the enemy. One of the ghouls gripped his head from behind. As the ghoul let out a blood-curdling cry it twisted Sergeant Percival’s head around roughly. Even through the chaotic noise Melbourne thought he heard the crack as Sergeant Percival’s wide-eyed face looked at him from over his own spine. Melbourne tore his gaze away from Sergeant Percival’s falling body as he ran toward the horses. He had to get out of here; he was the Academy’s great hope, he couldn’t die.
Some of the ghouls had gone for the horses. Those the ghouls were climbing over kicked and bucked against their ropes as the ghouls fought to sink their teeth into them. Several of the horses remained untouched, and Melbourne ran for them.
He untied one. In his panicked confusion he didn’t even register which horse it was. He clambered up onto the animal’s back and grabbed its mane. He kicked the horse in the ribs and urged it forward. The horse, as happy as Melbourne to be escaping from this situation, thundered forward, its hooves churning at the ground. Melbourne held on as the horse careened away into the unknown darkness.
As the seventh ghoul that General Wentworth Connor had beheaded fell away in front of him, he looked up to see his horse galloping into the night. On its back was Trooper Melbourne Hermannsburg. The general’s face fell. The Academy’s greatest graduate was running away.
CHAPTER 25
The Administrator rose from the Rock Throne as the Ministers of Government filed into the Council Room.
A Town Called Dust: The Territory 1 Page 14