That was when a man screamed from behind the Keep’s walls, his single hoarse cry joined by another, a third, a dozen, twice that, too many to count; the wordless shrieks of pain, or anger, or hunger, the sounds of lunacy and loss rose into the snowy sky like the howls of wolves.
“Odin owns you all!” Jarl cried, and they stormed the gate.
* * *
Disguised by the falling ice, Kata’nu closed the distance with his travelers as they hesitated outside of the opening in the wall. They carried themselves at the ready, clearly expecting conflict.
Inside the enclosure, men cried out, and the leader led his shouting travelers through the gate. Kata’nu followed them. He could see the heat signature of many men pouring out from the large structure farthest north, still crying as they ran toward the travelers. Most carried no weapons. Many moved unsteadily, falling and staggering.
Kata’nu veered away from the travelers, toward one of several massive heaps of dead herd animals, swollen with rot, dead men piled on top of them. The travelers circled up, facing outward, screaming like Unblooded at their first kill.
The men from the structure ran and stumbled into view… and Kata’nu could see that there was something wrong with them. More than half wore little or no clothing. Many shook as if from fever, and fell down, and were trampled by others. Their legs were striped with thin waste and they made strange faces as they shouted and called.
Sickness. Kata’nu checked his mask’s filter read, as he had regularly since leaving the ship. The humidity was up, ice falling ever more heavily from the sky, but he didn’t see—
There. A high concentration of organic material was in the air, some kind of alkaloid; the makeup was that of a fungal spore. The fields outside the village were cultivated, heavy with cereal grasses; had their crops become infected? Their meat? Had they ingested the spore, or was it carried on the air?
The first sick men had reached the travelers. Screaming, weaponless, they attacked, and the travelers stepped fearlessly into the fight. Kata’nu trilled and shifted on his feet, excited to watch the unfolding battle—until he realized that a number of the charging sick men had abruptly changed direction and were running toward him.
* * *
The people of the Keep shouted gibberish, their eyes wide and rolling, their hands mostly empty—but their obvious madness was a weapon in itself, as they charged unflinching into the swinging swords and axes of Jarl’s men. Jarl saw soldiers of both Skeld and Asger among the villagers and farmers; whatever plague had come, it had taken all.
The first man to reach Jarl wore shit-stained breeches and nothing else. Jarl swung and slashed the man’s throat. Steaming blood poured into the snow as the man collapsed, gurgling.
Three more attackers took his place. A naked woman with slack, hanging tits covered in bloody vomit screeched and clawed at him. Jarl gutted her, quickly, as a man wearing a stained cloak grabbed for Jarl’s shield and a teenaged boy threw himself at Jarl’s feet, scrabbling at his boots with rotten fingers.
“My father’s boots!” the boy cried. “You stole them!”
Jarl slashed and hit, kicking, cursing as he stomped the mad boy’s head. The man in the cloak fell backwards, clutching at his stomach as his entrails spilled through his fingers. Blood misted the falling snow.
He saw Stelgar, grinning, cutting the throat of a bloody man wearing a string of boar’s teeth around his neck. Rangvald smashed his hammer into the skull of a wild-eyed farmer raving about ghosts, crushing in the side of another man’s face on the upswing. Therin loosed a half-dozen arrows, men and women falling like the snow, more coming. Geir had stepped away from the group to better swing his staff; he went low and wiped out three men with a single blow, thigh bones cracking beneath the heavy wood, but the attackers came on, fearless in their insanity. Many hands grabbed at the staff, and as Geir fought to free it, a soldier wearing a cloak of Asger leapt on him, tearing at his throat with cold-blackened fingers.
Another woman ran at Jarl, screaming, blue with cold and brandishing a thin stick as though it were a sword. Jarl slammed his shield into her face and she went down, still screaming through a mouthful of bloody teeth.
“Look!”
Olav and Bjarke were both shouting, gesturing toward the wall as they fended off the encroaching mob. Jarl looked, and saw gathered snow hanging in the air, in the outline of a great man-shaped beast’s giant, shaggy head and wide shoulders. A stream of deranged attackers threw themselves at the creature, the tops of their heads barely reaching its chest, which still looked somehow like falling snow. Jarl saw shining blades sweep out of the flickering air, saw the creature taking shape as steaming blood sprayed across its body.
“Giant at the wall!” Jarl called, as a fat man with a spear ran at him. Jarl got his shield up and ducked, swinging his blade at the man’s legs. He hit hard enough to feel the bones breaking through the blade, the impact humming through his fingers. The man shrieked and fell.
Hot blood dripped from Jarl’s beard. Some of the unarmed people were running in fear now, away from the battle, shouting nonsense, but the soldiers of the Keep were picking up weapons, some memory of skill returning. A number fell back from the direct attack, their mad eyes searching for openings.
“At least now we can see the fucker!” Stelgar shouted, sidestepping as an old man tripped over the hacked bodies that surrounded them, dropping his stick. Stelgar chopped into the man’s face.
“Odin smiles upon us!” Thoralf called, and the men still standing laughed tightly. A soldier with an axe got to Olav, though the young fighter managed to take his killer with him by a final swing. Egil and Haavid were also dead.
Jarl and his men fought on, trying to keep an eye on the slashing, silent giant as the bodies piled up, as their own number dwindled.
* * *
Kata’nu fought well, killing ten men in the space of a few heartbeats… But by then he was visible, dripping with man’s blood, and the travelers, the skilled fighters, were edging toward him as their battle raged. One Eye had no doubt that Kata’nu would fight to his death… But he would lose his only promising Hunter.
“Go,” he said, to the Yautja standing silently behind him, not looking away from the visual. “Redeem yourselves. Fight well.”
They hurried to the lock, thanking him for his leave in respectful clatters. One Eye growled an acceptance of their gratitude, already divorced from concern for their fate. He watched Kata’nu move with the grace of youth, his form strong, his movements measured; he watched and was pleased.
* * *
Kata’nu spun and slashed, knocked men aside with crushing blows, well aware that he was likely to die if the attackers organized. And it was his own fault for not brushing the falling ice from his suit. For all of his care, he’d proved as foolish as the others.
He glanced at the travelers frequently, feeling an odd kinship with the men he’d followed to this place of sickness. More than half had fallen, overwhelmed by sheer numbers, but those standing continued their gleeful dance, slaying the howling villagers, as committed as any Hunter to victory or death.
A man had picked up a spear from one of the fallen travelers and rushed at Kata’nu, screaming, raising the weapon over its head. Kata’nu dropped to one knee and slashed open the man’s gut with his wrist blades, but another with a sword took the opportunity to rush in from the side. The man swung, the tip of the metal blade slicing deeply across Kata’nu’s shoulder.
Kata’nu pivoted, still on the ground, and drove his blades into the attacker’s chest. He pulled back but the blades stuck, dragging the dying man in close. Frustrated, he shook his encumbered arm, using his other to strike at a man with a rock in his hands. Wet heat coursed from his bleeding shoulder.
Over the screams of the dying and the sick, Kata’nu heard voices calling out, drawing his attention. He shot a look at the leader and his second, followed their gazes—
—and saw Shriek and Ta’roga striding in through the open gat
e, weaponless, their camouflage turned off.
Distracted, Kata’nu didn’t see the man with the axe until it was too late.
* * *
Jarl had formed a vague idea of what the giants looked like from the blood-splashed monster stabbing men not twenty paces away, but he still felt his eyes widen. These newcomers wore dark metal masks, shining and smooth and ominous; black beaded braids hung to either side. Each wore a thin gray covering that outlined their bulging physiques, muscles hewn and chiseled like the strongest man’s.
No armor. No weapons.
Jarl glanced at the giant dressed in blood just as it fell to its knees, an axe in its guts. One down, and two to take its place.
“Giants at the gate!” Stelgar shouted, and the men tightened what was left of their defense. Stelgar’s cry seemed to redirect the mad attackers. At the sight of the giants, the men of the Keep seemed driven to new heights of fury. They screamed and ran toward the two massive creatures, howling like animals, slashing each other in their frenzy to reach the new enemy.
One giant dropped into a crouch, opening its arms wide; the other, taller, stepped directly into the oncoming attackers, smashing faces and pounding heads. Bone snapped. Men went flying through the snow, broken and bleeding. The tall monster made its way to where Thoralf and Ult fought, back to back, and both men turned to face it. Thoralf rushed in low to slash at its massive legs. Ult spun away, coming around to thrust at the striding giant with his heavy sword.
Ult’s blade pierced the giant’s side, the cut deep. Glowing green poured from the wound. The monster swung around and grabbed Ult by his head, twisting and pulling—and tore it from Ult’s body. Blood gouted into the air, Ult’s headless corpse crumpling to the snow. The giant threw Ult’s head at one of the Keep’s raging soldiers, knocking him off his feet. Thoralf slashed at the monster’s thighs and danced back, drawing more green blood.
The shorter, crouching giant tore at the half-dozen armed men who’d crashed into it, ripping arms from sockets, tossing them like sticks, but as more piled on and brutally hacked at the creature, it faltered. Bjarke rushed in and swung his axe, the curved blade opening a thick line of green on the crouching monster’s back. It turned and slapped him hard enough to break his neck, dropping him. Therin loosed an arrow at the creature and more shining green blood poured from where it lodged in the thing’s massive chest.
The giants were stumbling. The red snow at their feet was spattered with heavy splashes of green.
When the taller one turned its back, Jarl ran forward, his sword high, barely keeping his balance on the slippery bodies of dead and dying men. He reached the bleeding giant and brought his blade down and across, howling with joy.
His sword sank deep into the side of the monster’s neck. Green sprayed across his face, hot and bitter, and the giant turned, and punched its fist into Jarl’s chest. Jarl felt his sternum shatter like ice, and pain like heat shot through him and a terrible, crushing pressure squeezed his heart—but the giant was slain, the spurt of its terrible blood already slowing.
Jarl grinned, and died.
* * *
The battle seemed to die with Jarl the Sword’s Son. Men still screamed, but they were the failing screams of the mortally wounded. The last of the armed madmen had gathered around the two dying giants, were expending their fury in thrusts and jabs at the strange beasts. Thoralf walked behind the crazed men, slashing their throats easily.
The third giant, the one that had hidden, was also down. Stelgar could only see a mass of green and red in the snow, unmoving. Across the blood-soaked yard, he saw the men and women who hadn’t fought, a dozen or so, huddled together by the stables. They sang and cried and fell to their knees, weeping, shaking from cold or from whatever madness had cursed Skeld’s Keep.
Cursed. Thoralf, Rangvald the Hammer, and Therin still stood, scratched and bloodied but alive. Everyone else was dead. They had taken Skeld’s Keep, but Stelgar didn’t want it; no one would. They should set it on fire.
Stelgar directed the others to put the dying to rest and walked to where Jarl lay, and squatted next to him. Jarl stared up into the falling snow, not caring that it landed in his eyes. Stelgar was happy for Jarl, but also felt an emptiness. He would miss his brother.
“Stelgar!”
Stelgar looked up at the urgency in Thoralf’s voice, saw Thoralf pointing at him, saw Rangvald and Therin both running toward him—
He turned his head. Behind him towered the giant dressed in blood, not dead after all.
* * *
Kata’nu woke up to One Eye clattering in his ear.
“You’re not dead. Pressure patch the suit, inject a stim, and get up. Use the pulse-beam to ensure your safe return to the ship. This Hunt is over.”
Kata’nu blinked at the read in his mask. The ship was close. The axe had gone deep, though, and he knelt in a puddle of his own blood, already crusting with ice. His head felt light, hollow.
He looked across the battle site and saw that the leader— his trophy—had fallen, his sword buried in Shriek’s throat. Ta’roga was a pile of chopped meat a few paces away. One Eye was surely disgusted by how his students had performed, all bested by men. Many of the travelers had died… but they were also the last standing.
The leader’s second had gone to kneel by the dead warrior. There were three others who still lived. They walked among the field of fallen men and dispatched them with their swords.
Kata’nu crawled to his feet and staggered toward the second, holding his guts in with one cold arm. He wasn’t sure what he meant to do, but he couldn’t imagine cutting the brave men down with a pulse-beam. He had failed; they had not.
He stopped behind the second, swaying on his feet. He expected the pale man to stand up and kill him, but it only stood, staring up at him, its eyes moving back and forth. Curious, perhaps. Kata’nu slowly lifted his free claw and reached for his mask. The other three surviving travelers had run toward them but the second spoke in its strange tongue and they only stood by, their weapons ready.
Kata’nu wanted to express to the man that he, Kata’nu, son of Esch’ande, had learned from this Hunt. Whether or not the man understood was not the point. He unlatched his mask and pulled it free. The cold was like a slap and the air was foul, but he liked the feel against his fevered skin. He was alive. He looked at the man, wishing that he could read its face or understand its language.
He held his mask out. An offering. A trophy.
After a long moment, the man reached out and took it.
Kata’nu was glad.
* * *
The giant turned and staggered for the gate, stumbling, parts of it seeming to disappear into the snow. In seconds it was gone.
“What the fuck was that?” Rangvald said.
Stelgar held up the fine, heavy helmet, big enough to cradle a babe. “We beat him, that’s what. He pays tribute to our dead.”
He bent and placed the helmet on Jarl’s chest. I will see you in Asgard, brother.
“We’re leaving, and burning this cursed place to the ground,” Stelgar said. “Get those people to start gathering wood.”
Therin nodded somberly. “The Valkyries will see the smoke and come to lead our brave friends to Valhöll. Skeld’s Keep will make a fine pyre.”
“It’s the least he can do, spitting on Jarl’s feet like that,” Thoralf said, and even Stelgar had to chuckle. It was a good joke.
INDIGENOUS SPECIES
BY KEVIN J. ANDERSON
1
The colony planet was named Hardscrabble, and that should have been his first clue. Filled with hope and determination, Jerrick and the other 150 colonists should never have believed the propaganda or the brochures from the colonization initiative.
But now they were stuck on this bleak planet, to live or die depending on their own grit and resourcefulness.
As he drove the mammoth combine farming vehicle across the rugged landscape, Jerrick made a sour face as he remembered the obviou
sly doctored images in the database, but the young man’s father, Davin, had been convinced. Davin was a dreamer, optimistic and—worse—charismatic. He had persuaded half of his extended family and a large group of friends to join him on the venture, and all of them believed that this unclaimed planet would be a new opportunity, a new home. No one had thought to wonder why no one else wanted Hardscrabble.
The combine’s engine hummed and rumbled, and Jerrick guided the giant vehicle with ease and long familiarity. The huge treads rolled along the dirt roadway, taking him around the field patches of enhanced wheat and corn.
The colonization initiative had given their group a basic setup allotment with tools and supplies, preserved food, crop seeds, livestock embryos, prefabricated buildings, large agricultural equipment, and a sketchy survey database with meteorological recordings and a cursory biological summary obtained by automated satellites.
When they had arrived on Hardscrabble a year ago, the colonists found a bleak world with a temperate climate and breathable, though sour, air. Native plants provided oxygen, but the soil was not hospitable to Earth-based life-forms, requiring a great deal of fertilizer. Their herd animals could not digest the local species of grasses. Hardscrabble’s insect and bird analogues were inedible, and often just a nuisance. None of the animal life could be considered game, and some indigenous creatures were deadly predators—as the colonists had discovered in the first year. A special plot of land had been designated as the settlement’s own cemetery.
Many would have opted to jump aboard the next supply ship that arrived on Hardscrabble… except that no ship was coming. This was their world now, sink or swim.
As he drove along, Jerrick clenched his hand into a fist and slammed it down on the polymer control deck of the raised cab. The colonization initiative had lied to them. The 150 dreamers here were not afraid of hard work, and none of them expected this to be easy—but they had expected honesty.
PREDATOR IF IT BLEEDS Page 16