The Humanarium 3

by C. W Tickner

  Harl turned to see Dana with her eyes downcast.

  ‘Four,’ Grakka said, ‘what did we promise her in return?’

  ‘You treacherous witch!’ Kane screamed and leapt at Dana, flailing his bony fists in front of him.

  Chapter 22

  It has been several weeks and the first of the grass is sprouting. Whilst waiting, I have begun to incubate the chicken eggs and they are expected to hatch any day now.

  Four stepped forward as Dana shuffled out of Kane’s range and grabbed the scientist before the wild blows could connect with her.

  Harl felt his insides twist into a tight, sickening knot.

  Dana had been the traitor. It was her who had met with the enemy in the sewers and had handed over plans to them. But why would she do it? He imagined the charcoal scrawled pictures she had drawn, depicting the reactor and all of Kane’s inventions and he hated himself for not seeing it sooner.

  Damen looked ready to pounce as if there was finally someone worthy to blame for Yara’s fate.

  Harl felt dreadful for Troy but the shock he’d expected to see was absent. Troy seemed calm and emotionless.

  Four held Kane and reached out for Dana. She slipped the grasp and stepped forwards, staring up at Grakka, oblivious to the rest of them.

  ‘You gave me your word,’ she said.

  Grakka shrugged as if it was of no consequence.

  ‘Fine,’ he said and pressed a button on a box of switches. An expectant looking Aylen entered. The newcomer spoke to Grakka in a different dialect, the harsh syllables went untranslated translated as they stared in shock at Dana.

  ‘Extract this one for treatment,’ Grakka said.

  'Him?’ Harl said.

  The director pointed at Troy and the other Aylen strode over. He plucked a clear square from a pocket and folded it out until it formed a transparent box and placed the open end down next to Troy.

  ‘Troy?’ Harl said. He was baffled. ‘What’s going on?’

  Troy said nothing, just stepped inside and covered his mouth as he broke into a coughing fit. When it passed he stared at his hand, splattered with blood. He looked up, ashamed and rushed to speak as the box was lifted. ‘Go easy on her,’ he called down, ‘I love her.’

  The Aylen closed the sliding door on the container and they watched as Troy was carried from the room.

  ‘You understand,’ Grakka said, ‘that the deal did not include yourself.’

  Dana nodded.

  ‘Right then,’ Grakka said, steepling his eight fingers together in front of them. ‘Now that’s sorted, time to deal with the rest of you.’

  ‘Where are you taking him?’ Harl asked.

  Grakka chuckled. ‘If you live long enough maybe she’ll tell you.’ He smiled then turned in his chair to a shelf behind him and pinched a spear from a frozen scene of men surrounding a strider as if hunting the still beast. ‘Perhaps you would like to kill her for betraying you all?’ He put the spear down on to the table beside them and leant back. ‘I could do with some sport before my next meeting.’ The sharp toothed smile widened as Damen stepped next to the weapon and stared down at its gleaming tip.

  ‘Don’t give him the satisfaction,’ Harl said. Why had she done it and why had they taken Troy?

  Damen bent and picked up the silver spear. Grakka’s smile widened and he leant in closer view the coming violence. Damen glanced back at Dana, who seemed resigned to her fate. Damen tested the weight of the spear, drew his arm back and spun on Dana. She clenched her eyes shut and let her hands drop to her sides.

  ‘No!’ Harl cried.

  Damen pivoted right around until he faced Grakka again and launched the spear up at the grinning Aylen. The director roared as the spear embedded itself deep in his cheek.

  Four threw himself at Damen but the hunter ducked into a roll and came up running at Grakka. Dana screamed and sprinted towards Four. Harl and Kane bolted left and right as the soldiers fired at the four runners. The shots skipped past them, hitting Grakka’s chest. He punched a titanic a fist down at Damen who shifted aside as it pounded into the table throwing them all up in the air. Grakka flicked Damen as he tried to stand just before a soldier landed hard on Harl’s back, forcing the wind out of him and crushing him to the floor. Another soldier pounced on Kane and Four knocked Dana down as she tried to stop him attacking Damen.

  A security Aylen burst in through the door, his mech suit filling the doorway.

  Grakka picked the spear free and wiped the trickle of yellow blood seeping down his fleshy face. A drop beaded and fell on his suit, adding a yellow line to the multicoloured swirls.

  ‘Put them in the games room!’

  The Aylen guard lumbered forward and bent over the table, blocking Harl’s view of the room. He swept a hand over the surface, scooping them together, and slid them in a skin-burning sweep to the edge. They tumbled over the edge and fell into the other hand, like someone cleaning breadcrumbs off a breakfast table.

  The hand cupped around them. The finger formed thick fleshy bars, giving them a partial view as the Aylen took them from the office. Harl considered slipping through but the two hundred metre drop made him choose to stay.

  Damen was leaning out to get a better view.

  Kane flexed his own fingers and turned on Dana. His knuckles cracked as if he might make her test the fall. She clearly wasn’t intimidated but she didn’t meet his eyes as he questioned her.

  ‘Why?’ Kane growled.

  Dana took a deep breath but before she could answer, Damen called out.

  ‘What’s that down there?’ he said and pointed to a huge square table below them.

  Harl peered out from between the fingers at a huge table below them.

  The centre was sunk down like the tanks he’d grown up in but shallower. Inside the rectangle, at either end, were wide doors with long thin computer screens above them, displaying red Aylen symbols. Between the doors stretched a once manicured landscape. Instead of the pristine valleys and forests he was used to seeing the Aylen create in the tanks, it was a barren wasteland. What green patches of grass remained were trampled as if a thousand people had marched over the terrain, crushing the growth underfoot. Two neat hills rose in a crescent shape at either end, mirroring each other like two scythes encircling a muddy field.

  The hand tilted and their view shifted. Beneath them, attached to the side of the table was the tip of a hollow, rectangular funnel and they were being dropped into the top of it.

  Chapter 30

  It has been several weeks and the first of the grass is sprouting. Whilst waiting I have begun to incubate the chicken eggs and they are expected to hatch any day now.

  Blackness swallowed Harl and his back slammed into a near vertical smooth surface. They were slipping down a slide, tumbling towards a flickering light at the end of the dark tunnel.

  They rolled out of the end of the slide and into a small torch lit room. Harl stood as the others got to their feet.

  A small boy who had been scraping a spear tip through the thin layer of sand that covered the floor, jumped up as they came down and let out a panicked shout before running out of the only exit to the room.

  As he passed a lever sticking up from the sandy floor, he launched a kick and knocked it to one side. A wooden trellis gate dropped straight down, sealing them in with a loud bang as the boy sprinted away, shouting for help.

  ‘What was that about?’ Kane asked, trying to straighten his glasses, which had bent out of shape in the fall.

  ‘I know him,’ Harl said, trying to place the boy but unable to recall where he’d seen him before.

  They were in a small room, the stone block walls reminding Harl of the dungeon he’d once been a prisoner in. He’d almost remembered the boy when a bright orange cloth bundle shot down behind and made Dana spin around as it slid into the back of her legs.

  Damen reached for the cloth but dropped it as soon as the boy returned with Four by his side.

  Damen glared at Four as the
y approached the trellis gate. The boy hid behind the bulky man, peeking around his waist at the newcomers. Something was different about Four. The fact he’d replaced the tight body armour with a thick leather apron in so short a time was unnerving. Perhaps it was the collar he wore that he’d seen the cleaners wear tight about his thick neck. Even the boy had one, its green light bright as he stared at them all.

  Four smiled at them as if dealing with a burden but was forced to put on friendly face for the sake of politeness.

  ‘Action at the third horn and two horns in they send me raw recruits,’ he said.

  ‘And a janitor,’ the boy put in looking at the clothes. Four nodded and scratched his chin. ‘So which one’s the clever one?’ he asked.

  ‘Sod off,’ Damen said, spitting on the sandy floor.

  He chuckled and looked hard at Damen. ‘I’m guessing by that greeting, that you’ve met one of the others. What number?’

  ‘Four,’ Harl said, seeing the difference finally. The hard jawed face and bald head were the same but there was a difference in stature as well as the man’s demeanour.

  ‘Ah yes,’ the man said, ‘the latest favourite. A bit of a grouch that one, if I remember correctly, speaks like a riddler.’

  ‘So you’re not Four?’ Damen said, raising an eyebrow in suspicion.

  ‘I’m One,’ he said. ‘And this,’ he looked at the boy, ‘is half.’ Not his real name of course but he stuck with me since his batch arrived a few months back.’

  ‘The boy with the spear,’ Harl said, ‘in the field.’

  Half’s eyes went wide as Harl mimicked sharpening a stick with a knife. Harl had first met him when he’d been downed in a field and the boy had discovered him lost in the tangle weed from his time with Vorock.

  ‘No time to be renewing acquaintances,’ One said. ‘We’re up top at the third horn and the second has already been blown. No time for basic training, you’ll just have to pray you make it through.’ He stared at them and his voice softened. ‘I can see you have questions but they’ll have to wait. I’m trusting you’re not gunna attack anyone on this side of the gate if I let you out?’

  Harl nodded. ‘If you explain what the heck is going on,’ he said, ‘I’ll give you my word we’ll behave.’

  One nodded. He opened his mouth but a loud blaring horn drowned out his reply. He flung the lever over and the gate lifted. ‘No time,’ he said, marching off down the torch lit corridor with Half scampering in tow. ‘Don’t forget your clothes, clever one’ One said. With the mention of a clever one, Kane snatched up the bundle, clearly assuming One had meant him.

  Harl rushed to catch up and they entered into a tall, stone-lined room that echoed with the familiar sound of metal being hammered across anvils. Glowing furnaces lined the length of the room, casting waves of heat at them as they passed. At each furnace worked two men. One man was beating metal into submission over the anvils while an apprentice passed tools or shovelled coal into the furnace.

  The scene reminded Harl of his childhood, his father at the forge while he watched attentively. Piles of rough iron armour and weapons were heaped on the other side of the room, carried across by the sweating apprentices.

  Men filed in line from a door on the far end, picking weapons and armour from the heaps and throwing it over themselves before exiting via another door. It was a constant stream and there must have been hundreds in the queue.

  One had to shout over the clamour of banging as he spoke to them. He looked at Kane, clutching the rags. ‘There’s no time to show you where to go so you’ll have to come up top with us this time. All of you grab some armour and whatever weapon you can handle and join the line.’

  ‘Any specials?’ Half asked, staring hopefully up at One. ‘Not this time, Half,’ unless you call this lot special.’

  ‘Gold has,’ Half said.

  ‘And how would you know that?’ One asked.

  ‘Spoke to the janitors.’

  ‘Probably paid by Gold to tell you that. Have us quaking in our boots with rumours if they could.’ He glance up at the four of them. ‘What you lot waiting for? Move it.’

  Harl didn’t wait for Damen to take offence at the tone, so he acted first. A thousand questions were storming his brain and everything he had guessed was making him nervous.

  He grabbed a set of chainmail armour and slid it over, feeling its weight try to drag him down. He topped it off with a helmet that trailed more chain over his shoulders. How could he fight in this? He assumed a fight was coming but he hoped for anything else. Hefting a sword, shaped similarly to the one Gorman had given him, he tested the balance. It was off but at least it was sharp. He strapped it to a leather belt and turned to look at the others.

  Damen was decked in a heavy plate suit that didn’t seem to slow him as he tested a few swipes with a double bladed axe, smiling at the result.

  Dana had chosen nothing but a black steel staff and a selection of large knives, which she’d tucked into every free fold of clothing. She tightened the clasp of her cloak and looked up at him. She quickly glanced away to the door where the line of armoured men were disappearing and trudged after them.

  Kane looked a shambles. Half his armour was either too big or too loose and looked as if he’d tripped and fallen, sending everything out of alignment. But he picked out a solid looking short sword and a tough leather shield. Why hadn’t Harl thought of a shield? He remembered Uman using one to shield him in past battles and wondered what the scout was doing back in the city. Was he with Rose and Sonora and Elo? Perhaps he’d head back to the pile and pick one out.

  ‘Fall in!’ a tall man shouted, ushering Harl into step and yelling at everyone who passed. ‘Come on we got a battle to win.’ he roared in Harl’s ear. ‘Chin up soldiers. I know lads, we lost the last one but that weren’t our fault was it. They got better specials than we did. This time it’ll be different. We’ll win and we’ll get the best food and equipment. A ragged cheer came from the passing men. ‘Just keep fighting and following orders.’

  Men poured out from doorways as they trailed behind the line of soldiers and Harl was swept up by the crowd into a large winding corridor that led steadily up. He noticed some of the men had splints or bandages still damp with blood.

  The corridor steepened and the sand beneath his feet shifted colour from yellow to a dank brown as if stained.

  Kane clattered along next to him. ‘There must be hundreds of us,’ he said.

  ‘I hope it’s an Aylen at the other end,’ Damen said poking his head over the sea of helmets at the wide exit ahead.

  Harl caught glimpses of silver ropes dangling across the tunnel roof up ahead. An eerie silence fell closer to the end of the tunnel. The ropes he’d seen were painted in a thick coating of bright silver paint and it was impossible to avoid it smearing on his face and armour. Pushing faster to get out of the press he broke past the door to the back of huge crowd of battle ready men.

  Above him he could see the roof of the Aylen room and he guessed he was in the centre of the table they had seen.

  The tall man from earlier shoved him left. ‘Far end,’ he cried, ushering Damen, Kane and Dana behind. He paused as Dana met his gaze and Harl realised he hadn’t seen any other women. Their gazes locked for a moment, then they were swept up in the flow of men marching pushing past beside them.

  Harl staggered back instinctively as a craggy Aylen face blocked a portion of the ceiling of the room and looked down at the crowd of men.

  A regiment of broad shouldered men flowed around Harl, holding bows and clutching handfuls of deadly looking arrows while he stared up at the Aylen, inspecting the scene from above.

  When the face moved away he shouldered past a group of men dressed in heavy armour, their faces covered by solid helmets with a crest of silver plumes running from front to back.

  ‘Please no,’ Kane said and Harl looked past the soldiers and saw a mass of screaming warriors lined up on the hill across from them. There was thousands of feroc
ious men coated in bright gold paint, all brandishing weapons on the opposite hill, ready to charge down to the battlefield below.

  ‘They got specials again,’ one of the plate-mailed men said from beneath a crested helmet. Opposite them were half a dozen men riding giant four legged creatures. The creatures were bright green and their low bodies were supported on four stout legs that spread out from a long tailed body. They reminded Harl of the sprightly critters he’d seen in a desert tank that sat on walls absorbing the light and scurried from sight whenever he spotted one. These desert wall crawlers were huge in comparison at least five metres from their bony heads to the tip of their tail and each was taller than a man.

  The warriors riding them were sat in deep saddles that wrapped around the creatures underbelly. The gold painted men hoisted huge long spears that could easily skewer right through armour if they had enough speed behind them.

  A hand was pressed on his shoulder and he snapped way from the hordes to see Dana beside him.

  ‘Harl, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘But If we don’t make it then-’

  He shrugged her hand off ‘You betrayed us,’ he said, ‘after we took you in as one of our own. You turned against all of us. Where’s Troy?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

  ‘Then what happened back there?’

  A cheer went up as a silver armoured man on a muscle bound bull rode along the front line.

  ‘Troy is sick, Harl.’ Dana said. ‘Grakka promised he would heal him.’

  ‘What can that monster do that Tess cannot? She could have helped him.’

  Dana shook her head. ‘She knows about his sickness. Troy didn’t want you to worry about him and he asked her to not say anything. She could not save him.’