“What for?” Isak groaned.
“To finish the damn job.”
Irvin Laumer watched the Grik guard reinforcements slow to a trickle, then looked back at the others. He nodded curtly, curious why Pam was glaring so intently at Silva. “Very well.”
CHAPTER 36
“Pour it in!” Risa-Sab-At shouted, pacing behind a platoon of Impies deployed in the eastern corridor off the anteroom to the various divergent passageways. She was somewhat surprised that “her” Impies seemed so poised in this confined space, in their first fight against the Grik, but they were loading and firing their breechloaders mechanically and well. The ordeal of the trek across Mada-gaas-car had clearly hardened them to the visceral shock that staggered so many, human or Lemurian, when they faced the Grik for the very first time. “Cut ’em down!” she continued, her voice as calm as she could keep it. There were suddenly a lot of Grik in front of her, charging in without regard for themselves. They might be fighting the “same old way” in a sense, but these weren’t the “same old Grik.” Something had possessed them of an unusual desperation. She looked back at Chack, standing in the anteroom while guiding more troops to the corridors that seemed to need them most, as they charged through the entrance. Courtney was beside him, gazing at the walls and ceiling in rapt fascination, as if oblivious to the fight around him.
Something roared beyond the Grik, something big—and definitely not Grik. Risa felt a chill in her spine. The Grik surged forward and slammed into her narrow front, impaling themselves on bayonets that stabbed remorselessly into their bodies, their eyes, their throats. “What was that?” she shouted back at Courtney. He blinked at her. “I haven’t the faintest idea, my dear. Something new, I expect.” Chack was looking at the fighting in the corridors, trying to gauge which ones seemed to carry the roar best. It was impossible. He did notice that all the Grik suddenly fought even harder, though it was hard to tell whether it was to kill more of his troops or to get away from whatever had roared. They had that look in their eyes he had seen before, the one that preceded panic, or “Grik Rout,” as Courtney called it, but they weren’t trying to run away.
“Something’s coming,” he said to Bradford. “Something they’re afraid of!”
“So it would seem!”
The Grik in front of Risa surged maniacally, utterly wild-eyed now, and those behind them began to scream.
“Here!” she cried. “This corridor here!” Chack redirected a crew of three ’Cats carrying a rectangular crate through the entrance. There were wheels on it, but they’d been useless on the steps outside, and for most of the trip for that matter, and they’d grown used to carrying it. Now they slammed it down and opened the lid. Risa felt uneasy as they worked, preparing the contraption. She’d been born a wing runner on Salissa, and fire weapons of any sort inspired a special disapproval in her. She didn’t know what was coming, but being close to one of the “flame throwers” when it was operated frightened her almost as badly. One of the “firecats” unrolled a hose and attached it to a nozzle equipped with a handle and a trigger mechanism. The trigger would spin a roller against a flint inside, like the Zippo lighters she’d seen. The other two ’Cats erected a pump handle atop the crate that contained a bottle of fuel. They’d pressurize the air in the tank, and that would force the fuel down the hose and out, once the one with the nozzle opened a valve. The valve was particularly important, she knew, because it also—theoretically—kept burning fuel from running back up the hose to the bottle and burning everyone around it alive.
The Grik were being slaughtered, but in their panic, they were close to breaking through anyway. “Get that thing up there!” she yelled. “Up to the line! If you light it in the antechamber, you’ll burn us all. Only down the corridor, clear?” The line bulged, and the Grik screams became hysterical. Something was mashing them forward! The firecats shifted the crate, and two of them started pumping vigorously. The ’Cat on the nozzle looked at her and nodded. Judging by his blinking, he wasn’t much more comfortable with his weapon than she was. “Forward!” Risa ordered her troops. “Push them back, kill them back! When I blow my whistle, break to the rear as fast as you can if you don’t want to burn!” Those in her squad bellowed with rage and determination, physically heaving the Grik back up the passageway and killing as they went. They couldn’t keep it up, but she hoped they wouldn’t have to. They’d never practiced anything remotely like this, and she sure hoped it would work. She fingered the whistle around her neck and glanced back at her brother, Chack. He took a last look at the other squads, then nodded.
Her whistle trilled loudly. Some Grik recoiled from the unexpected sound, but most were too far gone with terror to even notice. The wall of bodies her troops had amassed was sufficient to create a slight delay, however, and those in the blocking force streamed past her, almost falling over themselves to get out of the way. The Grik were close on their heels, and so was . . . something else.
“Let ’em have it!” Risa cried, and stumbled back herself to join the line re-forming behind the flamethrower.
The firecat on the nozzle opened his valve, and fuel spurted at the charging Grik. He quickly pulled the trigger in the handle, and the stream of fuel ignited with a smoky bark. As long as the pumpers kept up the pressure, the flames would stay a few inches from the nozzle and shouldn’t be able to race back up the hose after he closed the valve. That was how it usually worked. Then it was just a matter of waiting for the fuel in the sprayer to burn itself out. The effect on the target was not so benign. The fuel-drenched Grik squealed horribly when the flames found them, and the burning stream wilted the rest like moths. Black smoke gushed out of the passageway and swirled in the high ceiling of the antechamber before belching out the entrance in a boiling rush.
Risa crouched low to avoid the bitter smoke and stared at the ghastly sight of burning, convulsing Grik—then her sickened heart quickened when she saw what was beyond them. She caught only a glimpse of huge flame-lit, yellow-toothed jaws closing on squalling Grik, and horns protruding from an armored shield. There was an impression of comparatively tiny eyes rotating independently to glare brightly at her before the spattering river of fire touched the thing and it went amok.
“Open fire!” Risa trilled.
A ragged volley from the shorter Allin-Silvas favored by the Raiders slashed at the monster through the flames as it rolled and squealed in the passageway. Blitzer Bugs joined the fusillade and pattered the burning head with lighter bullets. The monster lunged, its fiery jaws snapping, but the firecat hosed it again. The smell of burning meat joined the charred canvas, sun-baked-toad stench of cooking Grik. The thing bashed its head against the walls in spastic fury, then exploded down the passageway, away from its tormentors.
“Cease firing!” Risa coughed. “Cease firing!” She looked at the firecats with a new appreciation. “Do shut that thing off before we choke, if you please!”
Wide-eyed and shaking, the Lemurian on the sprayer blinked gratefully and closed his valve. The firing down the other corridors eased a bit as the Grik guarding them began to melt away, or simply bolt back the way they came.
“After them!” Chack ordered. He started to warn them to have a care, remembering how dangerously trapped Grik fought, but realized that, though there were times for “careful” attacks, this wasn’t one of them. “After them!” he repeated. “Are you ready, Mr. Braad-furd?” he asked, gesturing at Courtney’s Krag with his own as his Raiders streamed down the passageways.
“Not entirely,” Courtney confessed. “Not as ready as those other fellows, at least. But sufficiently so to tag along with you in a relatively militant fashion, as long as nothing too terribly strenuous is required.” He grinned. “And I wouldn’t miss it for all the world!”
* * *
Dennis Silva emptied his last Thompson magazine as he and Gunny Horn plowed their way up the stairway to the next level in the palace. Grik fell away, to t
he side and underfoot, under the hammering bullets—but then the bolt locked back and Dennis used the heavy Thompson as a club. Tommy guns are hungry boogers, he lamented between mighty swings that cracked arms and crushed heads. But Arnie Horn really is an artist with a bayonet, he reflected admiringly, seeing his old friend parry and thrust almost at will. Might even be as good as Pete Alden. “Shit!” he roared, taking another slash across his chest—with claws, damn it—and he battered his attacker’s head to paste. Gotta stay on my toes, he scolded himself. These Grik’re better in a brawl than most. He’d realized they were different when they first ran into them, milling a little awkwardly at the base of the stairs. None were dressed or equipped just alike, as the palace guards had been. On the other hand, though they seemed to be far more capable warriors, individually, they apparently couldn’t fight together very well. A notion struck him. “I bet these are them ‘gladiator Griks’ the Jap was talkin’ about,” he wheezed, slamming the Thompson into a toothy jaw and shattering it. The Grik dropped, gurgling on gushing blood, but raked its claws down his side as it fell. “Goddamn it!” Silva roared. “They got me again!” He viciously crushed the staring eyes with the butt of his gun.
“Goddamn it!” Petey whimpered, his voice muffled by Silva’s neck.
Lawrence battered a Grik away with his rifle, then shot it—and stabbed it for good measure. The little Sa’aaran hadn’t said much at all from the start, but he’d been instinctively guarding Silva’s blind left side, since the fighting got close. His orangish fur was clotted with blood and he’d been cut a few times, but he was just as lethal as always.
Irvin Laumer blasted a final wavering Grik with his shotgun, then drove his own bayonet past a still-slashing sword into its heaving chest. They’d reached the landing and there were still a lot of Grik, but they’d suddenly pulled back for a moment, as if actually appraising opponents that had fought their way past so many like themselves. “I think you’re right,” Laumer gasped back, blinking and trying to wipe blood out of his eyes with bloody fingers. He squinted in the gloom. “They all have crests so they’re adults, but none seem to be in charge! Each one is thinking for himself, wondering how he will kill us, not how they will,” he added.
“Gonna hafta do better than they done so far,” Isak shouted from the steps behind. He and the two remaining Marines were guarding the rear. They’d lost the rest of their Lemurians in the gang fight below, but Isak was satisfied these last two were the best of the lot. “Hewy an’ Dewy here is a match for the rest o’ these Griks by theirselves.”
“That ain’t our names!” one of the ’Cat Marines snapped indignantly.
“I don’t care,” Isak sneered back, opening the loading gate of his Krag and dropping three cartridges into the magazine. “I swear. Give a fella a kind word, an’ all he does is bitch. My days o’ heapin’ praise on undeservin’ fuzzballs is through!”
“Shut up, Isak. By rights, you shoulda been ate already,” Dennis said, watching the warriors before them move and shift, brandishing swords, axes, spears, but no muskets or crossbows. “You know, I figger these critters are the skimmed-off cream—the more experienced fighters that know they gotta defend their lizardy queen, but they let the younger rascals whittle us down a little first.” He shrugged. “That’s what I woulda done.”
“Yeah,” Horn agreed resignedly, breathing hard. “So now what? I bet there’s a hundred of ’em, and we’re about outa ammo.”
“We kill ’em, o’ course! Look, this level has a whole different layout again, only one long corridor, spirallin’ clockwise up.”
“Silva’s right,” Laumer said. “We can’t wait for relief because there are a lot of Grik still behind us, and I doubt our hosts here will allow it in any case. We can’t go around them. . . .”
“So we gotta go through the sons o’ bitches, as Chief Gray once so delicately said, an keep goin’ all the way to the twisty top o’ this joint, where I bet we’ll find their sequesteral mother. I b’lieve I’d like to give her a stern talkin’ to,” Dennis finished. Regretfully, he let the empty Thompson slip to the damp stones and pulled his Colt out of its holster. “Why don’t we play pistols an’ cutlasses—or bayonets if you’d rather.” He grinned at Horn. “A hundred of ’em,” he mocked. “There you go again, overestimatin’ the odds—just like usual!” Casually, Dennis retrieved the last two grenades from his pouch. “All bunched up like that, I bet there ain’t fifty or sixty we’ll actually hafta fight!” He handed one grenade to Horn and tossed the other to Irvin. “You wanna do the honors, Mr. Laumer?” he asked, drawing his cutlass. “It appears them gladiator Griks is just waitin’ for somebody to say ‘when.’”
Irvin Laumer looked at his comrades and smiled, realizing he’d been waiting for something like this ever since he came to this world: an opportunity to stand and fight with Silva—or someone like him—who’d been in the thick of it from the start. He didn’t expect to survive, but that didn’t really matter anymore. He’d finally do his part with “the best of them,” and he’d be remembered for it. Maybe Silva guessed what was on his mind, because the big man’s grin faded a little. “Fight careful, all of you, ’cause there is a lot of ’em an’ we’re here to do a job, not be hee-roes.” His grin returned. “Live hee-roes have a lot more fun than dead ones, an’ that’s a fact!”
Irvin nodded, pulling the pin from the grenade. With a final glance at his little squad, he threw it past the closest Grik and into the press in the corridor beyond. “When!” he shouted. Horn’s grenade followed closely behind, and Silva, Horn, Laumer, Lawrence, Isak, and two Lemurian Marines charged forward behind a flurry of pistol shots just as the grenades went off. The pistols were quickly emptied, and Silva, Horn, and Lawrence formed the battering ram at the front as they pushed the startled Grik out of the landing chamber and into the narrow corridor. Silva stuffed his pistol in his belt and drew his ’03 Springfield bayonet with his left hand to use as a second, shorter cutlass. His two blades wove a savage tapestry of death before him. Lawrence stabbed with his bayonet, pushing his squalling victims back to crowd others behind them until he could pull his weapon clear and stab again. Horn did much the same, shouting with every thrust, his dark bearded face streaked with sweat that glistened in the yellow lamplight. Ferocious as their attack was, Laumer, Isak, and the two Marines did most of the killing. They were free to reload their weapons and fire past their friends with a relatively careful aim. Their muzzle blasts were painful for those in front—at first—but were quickly easy to ignore.
On they fought, endlessly it seemed, stabbing, hacking, slashing, shooting, climbing over corpses that sometimes came to life and had to be killed again. All of them were wounded, even Petey, who’d finally taken all he could stand and bolted for the rear, only to land on a dying Grik that feebly slashed him with its claws. He hissed and bit his assailant, then scampered and coasted away down the corridor screeching, “Shit! Shit! Shit!” There was firing behind them now; they could hear it, echoing up the passageway from the now-distant stairs, but there was no telling how long it might be before help arrived, or how many Grik might arrive first, fleeing from their friends. All they could do was keep fighting, keep moving forward.
Lawrence’s bayonet got jammed. Unable to pull it clear, he let his rifle go and drew his cutlass. He didn’t have the strength of his bigger adversaries, but made up for it with a more refined technique he’d learned in the Empire. He remained at a disadvantage, however, particularly against spears, and started taking more wounds. None were serious, but they became debilitating, and Laumer replaced him with one of the Marines. Horn’s rifle lost its bayonet when the locking catch in the grip broke. He immediately reversed it and drove the Grik with savage butt strokes until the Springfield stock shattered completely. “Give me your weapon!” he shouted behind at the other ’Cat, but before he could take the rifle, a Grik spear pierced his side.
“Ah!” he grunted, and battered the Grik that stabb
ed him with his rifle barrel before slinging it at another. Then he pulled the spear from his side and drove it into a Grik trying to snake its sword past Silva’s slashing cutlass. “Wow,” he said, his eyes going wide, and he sank to his knees atop a Grik corpse.
“You okay, Arnie?” Silva hollered aside, his breath coming in heaving gasps.
“Swell. Just a little woozy all of a sudden.”
Irvin fired past him until his slide locked, then grabbed him under the arms and pulled him back as Isak took his place. Isak was immediately, effortlessly slammed aside by a very large Grik. The last Marine skewered it and hurled it past the heap of bodies Silva had been building in the pause.
“I can do it, Dewy, damn yer stripy tail!” Isak snarled through broken lips.
“I ain’t Hewy,” the ’Cat replied with a blink of humor. “The other one ain’t Dewy!”
“I don’t give a shit which one you ain’t!” Isak retorted, gesturing with his Krag. “Goddamn it, we’re almost through ’em!”
It was true, or so it seemed. They’d advanced a lot farther up the spiraling passage than they’d realized, distracted by the all-consuming necessity of fighting and killing and surviving, and only a few live Grik now blocked their way. These were fresh, however, and refused to budge, while Irvin’s party was all injured and exhausted beyond endurance. Even Silva’s cutlass and bayonet were slow and clumsy now, and the fact that he wasn’t yelling, swearing, or making any sound at all other than gasping for air was proof that he was spent. “Hewy” went down, an axe finding him between the neck and shoulder, and Isak got his wish. He returned to Silva’s side. Lawrence tried to pick up the fallen Marine’s rifle, but for some reason he couldn’t seem to hold it. Irvin took it and stabbed past Silva, driving the bayonet into the belly of a Grik that screamed and pulled itself clear. Blood and entrails burst through the gash, and Isak stabbed it again.
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