SNAFU: Unnatural Selection

by Christopher Golden

He retreated. Long legs should have opened the distance faster than short ones could take it up again, but that was only barely so. Still, he managed to snatch his broad-bladed sword from its scabbard.

  He cut, the low stroke whizzing mere inches above the ground. The scorpion hopped backward, and the attack fell short. Then the two combatants hovered out of range of one another. Adalric was considering how best to dispose of his adversary, and perhaps, in its fashion, the creature was doing the same.

  But when the knight caught the faintest of rustling sounds at his back, he knew he’d guessed wrongly. In reality, the one scorpion had done its best to hold his attention while its twin crept up behind him.

  Adalric spun and cut. The sword struck off a pincer and tumbled the onrushing scorpion across the ground. He pivoted, struck a second time, and once again the first arachnid dodged the slash. But at least he balked it and kept it from closing to striking distance.

  He wrenched himself back around, cut down at the second scorpion just as it was righting itself, and all but split it in two. It hung on the blade for a moment before dropping away when he whirled once more.

  The first scorpion was gone. Gasping, Adalric peered this way and that but couldn’t tell in which direction it had fled.

  Still watching for it, he inspected the fallen Pierre. The Frenchmen was still breathing, albeit, gurgling, slobbering wheezes through swollen lips. His attacker’s sting had punched through his worn-out shoe to pierce the flesh inside.

  Adalric was no more a physician than anyone else in his ragged company, and he wouldn’t have been eager to perform the chore at hand even if he had been. But it was his responsibility. He bellowed for help, strained to pull off the shoe – the foot within was swollen like Pierre’s lips – and started sucking out the venom.

  * * *

  Zeki took another gulp of raki. He knew he was drinking too much. But though the magic had ended some time before – the shadows had stopped shifting, and the swarm of scorpions had scuttled off toward the fortress – he couldn’t seem to leave the alcoholic beverage alone. He wasn’t even bothering to mix it with water anymore.

  Seated across from him, little more than a silhouette in the red glow of the dying embers in the hearth, Ibrahim chuckled.

  “What?” Zeki asked.

  “Now,” said the sorcerer, “the campaign has truly begun. I suggest you double the number of archers keeping watch and impress upon your entire company the importance of being ready to fight at a moment’s notice.”

  “Why?”

  “From this point forward, conditions within the stronghold will deteriorate. Deserters may seek to slip away. The entire pack of infidels might even burst forth in a desperate attempt to escape. Whoever emerges, you’ll want to ensure that the act is suicidal.”

  * * *

  As the sky outside the narrow window brightened, Adalric took stock of himself. Discounting the frazzled feeling attributable to worry and fatigue, he didn’t seem to be ill. He’d heard of men who’d sucked poison from another’s wound only to fall sick themselves because they swallowed some or it entered their blood through sores in their mouths or broken teeth, but apparently that misfortune hadn’t befallen him.

  So far, Pierre was still alive. Adalric hoped he’d recover but had no idea what if anything else he could do to help him. His task now was to keep the same fate from befalling anyone else.

  Except for Pierre and the sentries on the walls, his men stood assembled in the hall of the keep with their miscellany of scavenged weapons. There was even one peasant still making do with the hayfork he’d carried away from home when Little Peter’s exhortations fired his pious zeal. The scorpion Adalric had killed lay atop a table for their inspection.

  He waved his hand at it. “That one won’t give us any more trouble, but there’s another. We need to find and kill it.” He repeated the same message in his halting French.

  “But what is it?” Stefan called.

  “You see what it is,” Adalric replied. “A scorpion.”

  “It seems… unnatural.”

  It seemed that way to Adalric as well. But he didn’t know, and it would be counterproductive to say anything that would unsettle the men worse than they were already. “Nonsense. It’s a bigger scorpion than any we’ve seen before, but remember, we’re newcomers in these lands.”

  A Frenchman asked a question. Adalric labored to decipher the meaning: “What if there’s more than one left?”

  “That’s unlikely. Surely the Turkish garrison didn’t live side by side with a whole swarm of the creatures.”

  A German raised his battle-axe to attract his captain’s attention. “What—“

  “Enough!” Adalric rapped. “Our quarry may be big for a scorpion, but it’s still little compared to a man, and I easily killed its fellow. It was only able to sting Pierre because it took him by surprise, and we’re going to watch one another’s backs so it can’t sneak up on any of us. Now stop whining and split into two groups!”

  Muttering, the men obeyed, predictably dividing into a German search party and a French one. Since Faramund spoke only German, it fell to Adalric to lead the latter. He judged that it was likewise his responsibility to search the darkest, most claustrophobic part of the fortress to prove he meant it when he claimed there was nothing to fear.

  Accordingly, he led his group to the steep, narrow steps descending into the blackness of the dungeon. With a twinge of reluctance, he set aside his kite shield, the better to manage a lantern. Then he headed down, and his companions followed.

  When he reached the bottom, the lantern’s yellow glow washed over three common scorpions eating the carcass of a rat, their jagged, segmented mouthparts scissoring. Short from head to tail, longer, and longest, the trio plainly represented different breeds of their odious kind, but they appeared content to share the meal, and Adalric wondered if, like the two arachnids he’d fought in the courtyard, they’d worked together to bring down their prey.

  Evidently deciding that if they were hunting scorpions, they were hunting scorpions, four of the Frenchmen shoved past Adalric to assail the vermin. He winced as wild swings and stabs clashed weapons on the floor, no doubt dulling them.

  A Tafur screamed, dropped his mace, and swiped at his greasy black hair. His hands dislodged a pale little scorpion, but instead of tumbling to the floor, it dropped down the back of his tunic. By the time his comrades got the garment yanked up and the creature brushed away and crushed, he had half a dozen swelling bumps on his torso to match the one in his scalp.

  The Frenchman whimpered. Adalric took his head between his hands and looked him in the eyes. “I know it’s painful,” he said, “but a normal scorpion can’t kill a man. You’re going to be all right.”

  “It wasn’t one of the ones eating the rat,” the Tafur replied in a high, breathy voice. “It jumped on me from the ceiling or the wall. Why did it do that?”

  “The commotion frightened it,” Adalric said. “Go upstairs and rest.” He raised his voice: “The rest of you, search the cells!”

  The hunt soon rousted out several more common scorpions, prompting him to wonder just how many the fortress harbored altogether. Up until now, he’d seen his refuge as small, but he was starting to appreciate just how many dark corners and hidden recesses it contained. There could be scores—

  He scowled to chase such fears away. Small pests weren’t the problem. The one big scorpion was, and surely it couldn’t evade them for long. They’d catch it before the morning was through and, rid of the distraction, refocus on the real menace: the Turks beyond the walls.

  As it turned out, the big scorpion wasn’t hiding in the dungeon. Leaving Faramund’s party to search the aboveground portions of the keep, Adalric led his men to the stable.

  The outbuilding smelled of grain and leather. The company’s several riding horses and the mules that drew the wagons stood in the stalls. One of the latter heehawed a greeting or perhaps a demand for breakfast.

  Adalric
directed the search of the stable with the same cautious thoroughness as before, and when it revealed more common scorpions, the men assailed them viciously. Then horses whinnied, and donkeys brayed. The Tafurs looked frantically about.

  The surviving enormous scorpion was advancing from the far end of the building where it had evidently hidden during the night. Or at least Adalric assumed this was the same creature, but if so, it had grown in just the few hours since their previous encounter. The arachnid that had eluded him had been, at most, the size of a small dog. Claws and stinger poised, mouthparts gnashing, multiple pairs of round black eyes staring, this one was as big as a boarhound.

  Tafurs cried out and crossed themselves. Someone threw a hand-axe that glanced off the scorpion’s segmented shell, leaving a scratch but nothing more.

  “Spread out!” Adalric said. “Attack from all sides!” Peering over the top of his shield, he stepped forward to meet the creature head on. Someone had to.

  His advance provoked the scorpion into scuttling faster. But before it could close, it listed drunkenly to the left, and then the legs on that side of its body buckled beneath it. It heaved itself up again, attempted to walk, and then all eight legs gave way.

  With a roar, the Tafurs charged. It sought to fend them off, but clumsily, as if its pincers and sting had grown too heavy for it. Its shell crunched as weapons smashed and stabbed through to the flesh beneath.

  When it was certain the scorpion was dead, some men cheered. Others fell to their knees to give thanks to God. The noise drew Faramund and his Germans.

  Faramund gave Adalric a nod. “Nicely done.”

  Adalric moved close enough to reply without the men overhearing. He didn’t want them to feel he was belittling their victory. “It wasn’t difficult. The scorpion was sick.”

  Faramund shrugged. “The important thing is, this particular problem is over.”

  “Right,” Adalric said. Even though the taut, edgy feeling inside him had yet to go away.

  * * *

  The pole hung on the horizontal slung from several ropes. Zeki gave it an experimental push and found that even a single man could easily swing it in its cradle. That confirmed what his eyes had already told him.

  “It’s too light to break open the gate,” he said.

  The carpenter spread his hands. “My lord, it’s the heaviest pole I had to work with.”

  Zeki indicated the peaked roof built atop the ram. “And this doesn’t stick out far enough. An enemy on the wall could still hit one of the men underneath.”

  “Captain, if you had specified exactly… shall I begin again?”

  “If you can’t make a proper ram, what good would it do?” Zeki took a breath. “I apologize. I know you did the best you could.” He handed the villager a little drawstring bag of clinking silver dirhems and walked back outside where the bright heat of the day was giving way to twilight.

  Ibrahim was waiting for him. “I infer from your expression,” the sorcerer said, “that the carpenter failed to produce a serviceable device.”

  Zeki sighed. “As you predicted.”

  “If you recall, I also explained it doesn’t matter if your troops can’t get inside. Our strategy is to force the infidels out.”

  Our strategy. Zeki resented the implication they were now co-commanders. Especially since the more repulsive aspects of last night’s conjuration had heightened his suspicion the wanderer’s magic was something a pious, sensible man should shun.

  Yet Ibrahim truly had worked a marvel even if aspects of it were unsavory, and it was now plainer than ever that Zeki needed a marvel to avoid becoming a laughingstock in Antioch. So he buried his distaste beneath a smile and said, “I’ll ask you what you asked me when first we met: how is that going?”

  The hair covering the scholar’s mouth stirred. For an instant, Zeki imagined leftover scorpions crawling around in there. But Ibrahim’s next words suggested he’d prefaced them with a sigh forceful enough to puff out his mustache.

  “Not as well as I might have hoped,” the sorcerer said. “The Franks went on a scorpion hunt. They didn’t find all the creatures I sent to plague them, but they killed some.”

  Zeki nodded. “At least you have some left. Enough to still make a nuisance of themselves, I hope.”

  “Yes, but the situation is more complicated than that. I watch through the scorpions’ eyes and compel them to do my bidding. That taps my strength. I made two of the creatures grow to enormous size, and that takes even more power. Indeed, the giants need recurring infusions of magic simply to enable them to walk, let alone threaten the Franks. Nature didn’t intend their frames to support the weight enlargement imposes on them.”

  Zeki frowned. “Are you telling me you ran out of strength?”

  “To my sorrow, yes, and at a key moment. One of the giants stood a fair chance of killing the infidel captain before his followers slew it in its turn. Instead, it collapsed, and the Franks overwhelmed the poor thing with little more trouble than farmers slaughtering a goat.”

  “Then your effort has run its course?” Zeki wasn’t sure if he felt disappointed or relieved.

  The tufts of hair under the sorcerer’s nose stirred again, this time as he laughed. “Hasbinallah, no! Please forgive me if I worried you. I was merely trying to explain that I require new vitality to continue.”

  Zeki swallowed. “Does that mean you want to kill one of the remaining prisoners?”

  “Both, I think. Perhaps then I won’t run short of power again.”

  “I… don’t know if I should allow that.”

  Ibrahim’s cocked his head. “Why not? You were being just, were you not, when you condemned the first infidel to death? Aren’t the other two guilty of the same crimes?”

  “You told me the first one was going to die anyway.”

  “Painfully, and it seemed merciful to spare him. But as a soldier, surely you would agree that war does not always afford us the luxury of kindness.”

  Ibrahim hesitated. Last night’s ritual had reeked of the unholy, but it hadn’t hurt anyone on his side, and if allowing it was a sin, well, it was a sin he’d committed already. Perhaps a victory on behalf of Islam would balance the scales.

  “Very well,” he said. “Execute the prisoners.” Execute seemed a more righteous word than murder. Or sacrifice. “Work your magic one more time.”

  * * *

  Adalric roused with a start to find himself beside one of the wagons parked outside the stable. An instant before, or so it seemed to him, he’d been near the doorway into the keep. Evidently he’d crossed the courtyard sleepwalking or in a stupor approximating sleep.

  He scowled and knuckled a gritty eye. If he was going to doze off, he might as well seek his bed and sleep properly. God knew he needed it, and surely the trouble with scorpions was done. Both big ones were dead, and dozens of the common sort as well.

  Yet he couldn’t rid himself of the suspicion that, just as strange perils had crawled from the darkness last night, they might arise tonight as well. If he didn’t want to alarm the men when they’d just calmed down and his imagination might simply be running wild, he needed to patrol the fortress himself. He gave his head a shake and headed back across the courtyard.

  At the periphery of his vision and low to the ground, a shadow shifted. Or perhaps not. When he pivoted in that direction, nothing was moving anymore.

  He suspected his eyes were playing tricks, but he needed a closer look to know for certain. He adjusted the strap that ran from his shield to loop around his neck, made sure his sword was loose in the scabbard, and stalked forward.

  After two paces, he perceived he has advancing toward the cistern, a rectangular hole in the ground with a low brick ledge around it. A bucket on a rope sat ready to hand to draw the water forth.

  Adalric still couldn’t see any further movement. But he squinted because something about the murky shapes before him was off. Was there a spot where the brick barrier humped up higher than it should?

/>   He took another step. The bulge became a scorpion the size of a man’s head. It had been crouching motionless atop the ledge, but now the sting poised above the cistern began to flick. It was flinging venom into the water.

  Underneath Adalric’s coif of mail, the hairs on the nape of his neck stood on end. He and his fellow Tafurs had rid the citadel of the enormous scorpions, yet here, inexplicably, was another deliberately poisoning the water supply. Surely no vermin would undertake such a thing unless guided by a man’s intellect… or a demon’s.

  Whatever accounted for it, Adalric had to stop the contamination. He drew his sword, shouted for help, and advanced.

  The arachnid neither fled nor assumed a defensive posture. It just kept on flicking. Was it so intent on the task that it hadn’t even noticed him? Or was it trying to hold his attention while another scorpion sneaked up on him like the creature last night?

  He glanced behind him. Nothing was there but one of the sentries scurrying down from the battlements in answer to his call. Reassured, Adalric turned back toward the scorpion.

  The sentry, a Frenchman, shouted something. It took Adalric an instant to translate it to “Watch out!” By then, the ground was grumbling, and dirt was sliding under his boots.

  He whirled, and a scorpion the size of a donkey heaved itself from the burrow where it had hitherto lay hidden. One set of pincers hooked around his shield to seize him.

  Appalled, he didn’t consciously shift the shield, but a lifetime of training, cutting at the pell and sparring with other men-at-arms with swords of wood or whalebone, did it for him. The action kept the claws from closing on his body.

  Unfortunately, it didn’t stop the pincers from grasping the edge of the shield itself. The alder crunched and splintered, and the scorpion jerked on its prize, staggering him. He reeled and fell into a low space like a shallow grave, the burrow from which his foe had just emerged.

  Legs splayed to straddle the pit, the scorpion tried to reach him with its unencumbered set of claws. With his shield immobilized and his sword all but useless in such close quarters, he dropped the blade, snatched the dagger from his belt, and met the groping claws with stabs. Each counterattack balked them, but only for a moment. Meanwhile, dirt spilled down the edges of the grave, blinding and choking him.