Saavin heard all of the rage one man could carry in those words. She decided that Kiera’s death was reason enough to kill every creature in the darkness, and she wasn’t even sure why.
“They burrow like moles, but they look like gray pigs, huge and covered in slime. They can eat stone and leave toxic sand behind,” he explained.
“I think I saw them in your book—they look like hippos, but with six legs?” Saavin asked, uncertain if revealing more of his personal sketches was wise.
French gave a sharp, angry nod, and went on after deciding that a personal violation would yield to their need for shared information. “Powerful. They chew out a tunnel with some sort of chemical excretion, and leave behind a deposit that spawns young. They reproduce like rabbits and, when you smell them, you’ll know. I call them brood pigs, but never forget that they’re from hell. Even though they don’t attack us directly, it’s a safe bet that they’ll be the ones beneath New Madrid, digging us into oblivion.”
“Are they hard to kill?” Saavin asked. She was figuring angles that involved her, a dragon, and legions of slimy burrowers who would collapse their world into the darkness.
“No. They succeed through volume and birth rate. They’re not uncommon; I’ve heard of no less than twenty settlements lost to them. They dig, holes open, and the real horrors come pouring out to raid and feed. And it’s happening here, I’m sure of it. That subsidence? Brood pigs. I guarantee it.”
“Why haven’t you explained this to the town? Surely this would make them plan accordingly.” Saavin was incensed. The stupidity of politics was beyond her.
“Like I said, too many of us have to see it. I can’t wait for that; none of us can. That’s why I’m going to bring the mountain down on top of them, if I can. In the process, I’ll close off the access for the big three who I know are waiting, and kill a few lesser creatures in the process. I’ve seen it before, and it isn’t happening here, not now. I’ve got dragons,” he said, fiercely, and Saavin felt herself snarl in response to his vicious fervor. “And I’m going to use them. We’re going to gut their army and take the fight abroad.”
Saavin wished Banshee could hear this sentiment, because there was nothing the dragon wanted more than to kill demons. She wanted to cheer. Reaching out, she touched his knee in unity. “I’m glad you’re on our side, and I know Banshee feels the same. He just doesn’t know it yet.”
French smiled, his previous anger gone, but not forgotten. The protection of his own memories was hard earned, and a mulish set to his chin remained, despite his grin. “Saavin, you fight above ground, and I’m thankful that you do.” Reserve crept into his tone. “I’ll take first watch. You get what sleep you can, and we’ll hunt as soon as we can.” He paused, staring up at things unseen. “I lost everyone once, and it nearly killed me because I thought we were indestructible. I won’t make that mistake again.”
Saavin stretched out her legs and tried to adjust for sleep. Her hair fell in a curtain, deep plum in the light of their aerie, and she exhaled grandly. “I know, French. That’s why I came down here with you. You take promises seriously, and so do I.” She closed her eyes to the shimmer of lichens, and slept.
8
Dragons
“The first dragonriders didn’t always play well with others. Some of them were selected by dragons for their sense of justice, or maybe intelligence. There were canny riders, skilled fighters, even a few social outcasts who connected with the margins of whatever was left of humanity, but occasionally, the dragons would find someone who functioned just fine in a state of total disconnect form the rest of the world. These became known as the Solos and, though they were rare, they punched far above their weight in terms of what they did to the invaders.
“I was directing a column of civilians in full retreat from Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, or what was left of it. We’d cobbled together two platoons of rifles and some decent trucks but, other than that, the operation was primitive to the point that we slept rough most nights, and were only making about fifteen miles per day due to the roads. We simply couldn’t trust any large structures at that point. Shadows and darkness meant death, and being in the open was a far cry better than in a dark yet defensible position, like a strip mall or an abandoned school. The path was clogged with debris, burned out cars, trucks, and even a small barge inexplicably tossed a half mile from the river channel, its bottom torn out by something that was clearly not of this earth. The stink of both cattle and human corpses was so thick you could tell exactly how far it was to the next town or suburb. By the fifth day, we sort of had a sense of what to expect. It was a terrible skill to acquire, and I noticed that a few people were quietly slipping away into the rubble, never to be seen again. We had a half dozen suicides, and one older woman went catatonic after we came upon the remnants of her daughter’s dairy farm. She’d had three granddaughters under the age of seven, and all that we found was one small hand wrapped around a shredded dog collar. Her daughter and son in law were smears on the floor of the milking parlor in the main barn, and I think something was still in the cellar, waiting for the light to fade so it could attack again. We torched the place and emptied what rounds we could spare into the screams that pierced upward from the bolted metal door closing the basement. After a few minutes, the floor collapsed in a shower of sparks and the animal noises stopped, even though the fire continued to speak, mumbling and spitting as it consumed the home of people who were dead by god knew what hand. I left the grieving woman by a tree, wild eyed and shaking after she’d wet herself like a babe. I think her daughter’s name was Ruth, but I can’t be sure. That’s what it sounded like when the woman drew air between her shrieks.
“The Solo flew in from the river, coasting on a coal-black dragon that was long and thin, wickedly built for warfare, and tinged angry red all along his stomach. The rider was a tall, rangy man of middle years, rangy and tough from a life lived in hard labor, and his enormous hands clasped a pistol and leather harness with practiced ease. A horseman or farmer, we all thought. His dragon growled a greeting to us; his name was given as Al-Kadr, and he spoke with a bass whisper that was as menacing a sound as I’ve heard in all my life. The rider was likewise built for fighting, and tossed words around like manhole covers; in the hour we spoke, he uttered nothing extraneous or conversational. In spite of his taciturn nature, we extracted brilliant reconnaissance from the man, including a clear path toward relative safety.
“After some prodding, the rider gave his name as Swenson, first name none, save a silent glare. His eyes were an intense, haunted green and, when I spoke to him, he jerked his wide, bony shoulders toward me, bathing me in a low-voltage hostility that wasn’t entirely uncomfortable, given the surroundings; something about his potential violence seemed to fit the scene. If this was his area of operations, I reasoned, he could damn well act as suspiciously as he pleased. We hadn’t passed a single mile without some new and horrid sight, be it corpses hung in trees or a creek filled with gutted cattle, their heads crushed by jaws of something large enough to collapse the crown of a prized bull.
“‘You’ll want to move faster now,’ Swenson told us, one skillet-sized hand waving back to the north. When pressed for details, he revealed his suspicions of a plague moving southward, means unknown, fatality rate 100%. He’d flown Al-Kadr up and down the channel of the river, and tracked the progression of something that was killing survivors who’d avoided teeth and fang as their method of demise. It was fast, he’d told us, and looked remarkably similar to the effects of nerve gas. When we asked him how he knew that detail, he regarded us with an oddly patient gaze and said, ‘Trust me on this one.’ He warned us to avoid open water of any kind, and then he marked our maps in bold, clear lines, indicating nests of demons, possible pitfalls, and areas that were still unsafe due to humans fighting each other.
“When I asked him if he thought we could make it, he looked at the group of survivors for a long, cold moment, saying only, ‘some will.’
&n
bsp; “The sun began to set and Swenson asked me if I had a rear guard on the column. I told him we did, but when we were at rest. He swore once, leapt on the neck of Al-Kadr, and they bolted a loft as he bellowed that we should ready weapons for incoming enemy. How he heard the—look, I don’t know how he could tell, but we got hit by a wave of something coming out of the twilight. They were low, fast, and seemed to be nothing but teeth and tail, and they stank like carrion left in a month of high sun. Swenson’s warning was enough; we brought our guns to bear and succeeded in meeting their first rush with sustained fire. Al-Kadr swept in, raking left to right, dragging creatures with him even as Swenson fired a relentless hail from his Winchester .308. Whatever Swenson had been in his previous life, it most certainly involved using a weapon. Swenson didn’t miss and, between claws, the punch of his rifle, and our own fire, we managed to lose only thirty-eight people in ten minutes. When the screaming stopped, we bandaged our wounded and circled together for security. It was a long night, filled with shadows and fear, and I felt as if I’d aged a decade when the sun finally crept above the berms of the river. Swenson bade us goodbye, saying that he had another group of survivors coming west, and his attentions were needed immediately. I thanked him as he shook my hand, and I think I saw the ghost of a man who had once been happy, but long ago.
“We pushed on, forgetting the terrors of the night as one and praying that the sun would hold for the rest of our lives. For some of us, that was true, because we lost people every night from that point on. Thirty-eight dead. Then nineteen. On the third night, a mere nine. We were getting better, but accepting losses like that made my stomach boil with hatred at my own shortcomings as a commander. Sixty-six dead in three days.
“I say that number with some degree of pride now, for, had I known what was to come, I would have accepted losses like that with relish. Swenson had written a curious note on my map, indicating a nameless spot thirty miles distant but directly in our path. Here there be demons, he’d scrawled, and we hove into sight of Swenson’s notation with no small degree of fear.
“It was a group of grain silos, glittering silver and red in the late sun. There was nothing nearby, save the burned out shell of a farmhouse. Still, we approached with care, weapons at the ready and scouts fanned in a broad inverted chevron, no closer than five meters to each other and walking like they were made of air. These were men and women who knew how to be quiet, and there was no sound, other than the rustle of a mild evening wind. The trucks were long gone; we simply couldn’t risk the noise factor, and walking was nearly as fast in terms of progress south. A nighthawk began its curious buzzing loops above us, the sound pulsing in and out as the flitting bird gained and lost altitude. I could hear my own heart beating, and waved at the column to shade east from the river, but clear of the fields. I didn’t like any of our options, and we were collectively fried to the point of incompetence from the rigors of the entire retreat.
“When the sun touched the horizon, the silos thrummed from within and my people broke, their senses heightened by the time on the road. There was no warning, no chance at redemption, just the instant pyre of terror and a stampede in all directions but forward. The silo doors swung open, and every armed soldier dropped to their knees in a firing position, rifles cracking with authority at the blurred shapes that began to spill forward from the circular columns of aluminum that had once held corn or beans. Now, they simply held death, and it advanced on four long legs, low, faceless, and fanged. Their skin was pebbled like a Gila monster, and I had to admire their beauty for a moment. They were resplendent in golds and reds, black dots running through and over the hide that rippled in silken waves as they bolted forward on claws that kicked dirt backward like industrious badgers. At their bulbous rear swung an engorged stinger of some sort, glistening with warning. We were in the open, but as trapped as if we’d been in a barrel. I know that now, and I’ll never draw a breath again that doesn’t stink of their hide, a sickly sweet miasma of rot and hell, but for a moment, I thought we could win. We didn’t, because any contact between us and those things was purely incidental. They yipped like scalded hounds, brushing past us and vanishing in the distance in minutes. We’d lost some people to their stampede, but other than the odd nip as our groups passed through each other, the demons seemed curiously disinterested in us. We didn’t see them again, but we knew where they’d been, because that’s where we damn near died to the last survivor. Two weeks later, there were forty of us left. A bedraggled, pitiful two score out of more than eight hundred, and half of those not fit to walk, nor sure of seeing the sun rise again.
“It was a farm pond that killed us. We were road weary but elated, and we’d seen travelers who reported a large safe zone less than ten miles downriver. There was a giddiness to us that made our steps light. Smiles broke on faces so begrimed that I couldn’t tell who they were anymore, and we all took turns filling our canteens at the still, cool pond that huddled in the shadow of a friendly red barn. We’d gone less than a half mile before the first of us started dropping.
“That’s not really the right word. Nobody just dropped to the ground; they collapsed after retching and buckling, their spines nearly snapping with convulsions that turned their eyes into bloody orbs. They screamed. They sobbed, and called to unseen lovers or children or wives in a chorus of pain and loss. They knew what was happening. I did too, but I hadn’t touched my canteen yet, leaving me upright and horridly aware. I smelled the water swirling in my canteen and gagged. Sweet and dead. It was the smell of the lizards that spared us in the shadow of the grain silos.
“The thing about evil is that it’s so random, but oddly consistent. There’s only one outcome, that being death. It just happens at a speed or time that is designed with pure malice, intended to bring a flash of hope or joy. Then, the hammer drops. It always does. It falls from the height of a star and it pummels whatever residual spirit remains in the poor bastard that’s been targeted for destruction. We were that target. Whatever intellect picked us for elimination was an artist. I thought we’d made it. So close. It was—ten miles. After two weeks, ten miles, maybe less.
“I ordered their bodies left in the road, most of them were so covered in sputum and puke, and I couldn’t risk any of us contacting whatever toxin had killed them. I left those people—my people—to rot in the sun. I’ll never sleep again, I think, at least not without smelling that poison. Hearing those screams. Never.
“I knew we were going to lose, but I didn’t think it would be so complete. Looking back, I see that I was just too human to realize how bad things were. Up until that day in the road, I had hope. Who didn’t?” —Lt. Bella Narvez, Army National Guard
—Bulwark Archival Materials, Access Date 96 A.R.
9
Underneath: The Last Day
Hunting turned out to be fishing, and even that was absurdly easy. Two hours after descending the hardscrabble mount of their camp, an aching French and Saavin approached a shallow stream that ran down a gradual plain to empty into the quiet enormity of the freshwater sea. With a gimlet eye covering both bodies of water, French approached, only to find the stream teeming with cave trout, fat and unafraid. With two quick strikes of his spear, and one by Saavin, their hunger was assured defeat. He started a small hot fire in the vast, silent space, and then began examining a small log that rested nearby. It had been tumbled smooth by the waters, and French rolled it carefully in one hand. His smile was broad and genuine as he plucked something from the wood.
“Morels. Looks like we eat well today. And tomorrow.” His grin was suffused with triumph. He held out the curious mushroom to Saavin, who looked at with suspicion.
“Are you sure that’s edible? It looks like a witch’s hat made from brown twine.” She examined the bizarre mushroom closely and amended her judgment. “Rotten twine at that.”
“Smell it before you condemn this noble fungus to doom. It’s the finest remaining species in the Bulwark. Maybe even before the invasions.” He smi
led optimistically at Saavin, who raised a skeptical brow but leaned in to sniff the alleged delicacy.
After a brief, intense inhalation, she smiled. “That’s nice. It’s—I can’t think of anything like it.”
“Nor have you tasted anything like it before. People used to hunt these things like prized game. Now, they’re everywhere. There’s something about the world now that fungi find amenable to their colonization.” His face grew hard for a moment, and he added, “Not all of the fungi are good. But this one is. Let’s clean the fish and eat. I need something that doesn’t taste like an old pair of shoes.”
Saavin pointed at the morels in his hand. “Too late for that, but I’ll eat it regardless.”
After a few minutes of sizzling, the lush, earthy flavors of the morels drifted around them like a cloud. The fish fillets were pearlescent and firm, and they ate in companionable silence, tilting their heads back with eyes closed in appreciation of their meal. The unsettling quiet of the cave was broken by tiny pops as the fire died, ending with an angry hiss as the last coals began to turn white. In a space of such size, noise was consumed by the myriad of angles and distance, leaving a feeling of desolation that danced just outside their senses The mixed gloom of blue and green lights closed in around them like a night on the prairie above.
“Are you alone for the same reason I am?” Saavin asked into the still.
French’s eyes lifted slowly to regard her with cool appraisal. The normal control of his face slipped as he reassessed her intuition. He didn’t insult her by asking for clarification.
“You’re too young to be considered a spinster.” He deflected for a moment to choose his words with care.
“So are you,” Saavin snapped before her hand flew to her mouth. “Sorry.”
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