Darwin's Soldiers

by Ste Sharp

  Samas looked at it, wondering how Li would fix it.

  ‘Is it a clean break?’ Mihran asked.

  ‘Yes, both bones, no shards or fractures.’

  ‘Then we must put a splint on it and let it heal naturally,’ Mihran suggested, to Samas’ relief.

  ‘We can use clay to make a cast,’ Li said. ‘The clay in the cliff is high in gypsum and sand.’

  Mihran nodded. ‘Make it quick – we must keep moving.’

  Li gave Samas a sedative before setting his arm, and the next time he woke he was lying in a bed of ferns by the shore of a lake. His arm felt tight and a tingling sensation ran down his side but he didn’t move for fear of setting off more pain. He looked up: dusk was coming.

  ‘Something’s happening down the coast.’ Bowman appeared and Mihran stood up with a flourish of red robes. ‘I heard shouts and…’

  ‘What is it?’ Samas asked but Mihran held up his hand.

  Li scanned the forest canopy. ‘I see a swarm of large hornets in attack formation.’

  ‘When you say large, how large?’ someone out of Samas’ view asked.

  ‘Taller than a man,’ Li replied.

  ‘Target practice?’ Bowman smiled at Marodeen, who didn’t look impressed.

  Li followed the line of flight. ‘A group of soldiers are being attacked on the beach. What shall we do?’

  All eyes turned to their injured battle leader, Samas.

  ‘I think I’ll sit this one out.’ Samas smiled at Mihran. ‘Commander, it’s over to you.’

  ***

  The giant wasps swarmed over the rocks where the Day Watch hid and fought sword to pincer. John was pinned down in a gap, his feet slipping in the sand as he struck out at a snapping insect. He gripped the metal body of the gun with his left hand and jabbed the muzzle at the wasp’s eye.

  ‘Get away!’ he shouted and threw a handful of sand.

  With a wild shriek, the wasp leapt back, revealing the hazy sky. Shaken but still fighting fit, John peeked over a rock to see the wasp writhing in the sand, clawing at a spear in its abdomen.

  ‘Finish it off!’ A cry came from behind John and Randeep leapt out to deftly decapitate the wasp with his curved sword.

  John tapped his gun-arm and said to Crossley, ‘If this bloody thing was working, I’d have killed twenty by now.’

  Crossley shrugged. ‘Twenty’s nothing.’

  ‘A brief respite and they’ll be back,’ Lavalle said, catching his breath.

  John stared at the yellow gore dripping off the knight’s broadsword.

  ‘Where’s Althorn?’ John asked.

  ‘Deploying ammo to the archers,’ said Lavalle.

  ‘Where from?’ John asked.

  Crossley pointed to a faint blur criss-crossing the battlefield. ‘He’s picking up missed arrows.’

  The buzzing noise was getting louder again.

  Lavalle rallied the unit. ‘Same again – heads down, aim for the waist or eyes. Crossley, you and John finish off any brought to ground.’

  The sky darkened as two lines of wasps descended.

  ‘They’re throwing everything they’ve got at us!’ Crossley shouted.

  John could make out a spray of arrows and quivering spears flying out of the palms where Euryleia’s group lay hidden, but only a couple of wasps were hit. He tensed his hand and rubbed his gun, wishing he could use it again as the wasps arrived, diving in sting first.

  ‘Gotcha!’ The Scottish warrior cut a sting in half with a swipe of his blade.

  The wasp shrieked and scrambled on the rocks in pain where, in a flash of blue, Randeep leapt up to slice the beast’s head off and kick the flailing body onto the sand.

  He was a true hero, John thought.

  Another wasp attacked and John ducked down as its long sting darted past, scraping the rock by his head. For some reason, his grandfather’s words came back to him from the day he’d practically frogmarched John to the army office: ‘You defend your people, you defend your land. Every man able to walk should be fighting tooth and nail!’

  John looked around. Everyone was swiping, jabbing or blocking with all their strength. What if someone died when there was something he could have done? He looked at Crossley, who was throwing stones at the nearest wasp. John’s hand dropped to feel for stones on the ground but felt the satchel instead.

  ‘Oi, Crossley!’ he shouted and held up the bag.

  Crossley grinned. ‘I thought we’d run out!’

  Leaning on a shoulder-high rock, John breathed in deeply, took out a toadstool and counted. ‘One, two, three…’ He lobbed the first one like a hand grenade and rolled over the rock onto his feet. ‘Come on, you bastards!’ he yelled as he ran, throwing explosive fungi with his good arm.

  Crossley was soon beside him. ‘Give ’em hell, Johnny!’ he shouted as his pitching arm delivered a devastating throw: de-winging a wasp and sending it crashing into two others.

  ‘Don’t call me Johnny!’ John shouted as he ran across the sand with no destination in mind.

  One toadstool missed its target and blew a crater out of the beach, covering Crossley with sand.

  ‘Hey, watch it!’ he shouted.

  Wasps detached themselves from the main fight and followed John, but were met with balls of fire. Wings, striped abdomens and heads lay scattered along the beach next to human limbs and corpses. After two minutes of running and dodging, John was disorientated. A few throws later, his gun felt twice as heavy and the wet sand pulled at his feet. He stumbled and panted hard as his lungs grew heavy.

  ‘Come on!’ Crossley beckoned towards the palms where the archers were hiding, but John’s legs were slowing down.

  His vision started to blur, so he stopped for a second. His head was thumping with all the noise: the buzzing; shouting; explosions. Visions of one of his old battles tried to invade the space behind his eyes, but he was too drained to concentrate on them. He strained and tensed his muscles, forcing his body to move, and felt a click in his gun-arm as though one of his lost tendons had pulled an internal mechanism.

  With a solid thump, a wasp landed on the sand in front of him, followed by two more.

  ‘Oh shit,’ John mumbled and stepped backwards.

  He thrust his hand into the satchel but only one toadstool remained. One throw might injure two wasps, but others would be on him in a second. He had to get to the palm trees, he thought, as a new wasp hovered menacingly overhead, swinging its sting at John’s shoulder.

  ‘Get back!’ John shouted and swiped his gun-arm, but the weight of the gun pulled him over and the wasp’s sting scratched his right shoulder, tearing at his shirt.

  ‘Damn it!’ He threw the last toadstool and watched it fall short, showering the advancing wasps with sand, infuriating them.

  They charged at John with pincers gnashing… but a line of light, brighter than the sun, tore a smoking hole through one head, then the other. Both wasps collapsed in the sand. John stared in disbelief and turned to where the beam had come from. Scores of soldiers were advancing along the beach, surrounded by a wave of fire and green light.

  Chapter 6

  Following the group of night-travelling soldiers through the forest, Delta-Six had gathered data supporting his theory that they were trapped in a virtual prison. The soldiers were showing changes to their physical appearance picked up by his sensors. Growth spurts, increased bone density and bizarre mutations, which suggested a degradation of the virtual world. The night group discussed other events which suggested similar glitches: arrows acting like birds; flying sharks; extinct beasts.

  Despite the evidence though, the world still felt real to Delta-Six.

  ‘Maybe my emotions are warping my judgement?’ he told his log as he kept out of earshot of the soldiers. ‘I try to concentrate on the facts. But it doesn’t tie up. I’m the most advanced soldier here, but is that because the virtual world doesn’t have the capacity to create more advanced beings or, judging by how my war was advancing with avatars i
n the asteroid belt… am I the last soldier to fight on Earth?’

  When Delta-Six found a safe place to rest, he thought about how he had changed since arriving in this land. His suit and body had started to merge, his thoughts felt less restricted and even his dreams were different here. Back home he would have the same dream every two or three nights: a dream of resting in the sunlight on a veranda overlooking the green fields of recolonised Europe with a gorgeous woman; children playing in the long garden with a retro-dog; a warm sun; a good life.

  Delta-Six’s logs didn’t record the last time he’d had that dream.

  Now he thought about it, the dream was clearly tied to the performance rewards that led to their retirement package. If Delta-Six completed his allocated tours with distinction he would have a pretty, fertile wife and a villa on the Elysium plains. Perform below par and he would end up in a regen-colony on the edge of the wasteland with a stick-thin, toothless wife, spending the rest of their lives drawing out toxins on a reed farm.

  As Delta-Six dr ifted off to sleep in his night hammock, he wondered about the other Deltas and the original soldier all Deltas had been cloned from. What happened to him? Did he retire to Elysium? Did Elysium even exist?

  ***

  Mihran was at point, leading the wedge of soldiers across the beach to attack the giant wasps. He would show Samas he could fight as well as command, he thought, as his feet pounded the sand. Ahead, the cloud of huge wasps harangued the humans stuck in their rock fort and light from explosions turned the wasps to silhouettes as two shapes ran from the rocks to the trees. Mihran recognised the short men from the obelisk hill and noted their bravery as they drew several wasps away from the swarm.

  Mihran was ready to join in. He had left his long cloak with the ration bags and injured soldiers, and his shoulders felt loose, his arms strong.

  ‘Release!’ he shouted and the archers and riflemen he’d distributed on the flanks of the battalion fired their wild array of missiles.

  Li’s rifle was by far the most efficient, and wasp carcases were soon falling from the sky. As a result, the wasp swarm spilt and a section turned to focus on Mihran’s army. He pulled his sword from its sheath and felt the strength in its weight. His energy was high as the thought of previous battles surged through him and he relished the feeling of being one with his weapon again.

  The first few wasps flew straight over Mihran and his compatriots, homing in on the archers, who gravitated towards Li for cover.

  ‘Left wing!’ Mihran shouted as he ran, but nobody looked at him. ‘Olan!’ he shouted, and the big Viking caught his gaze. ‘Defend the archers!’

  Olan grimaced before breaking his run to head back, taking a couple of men with him.

  Then the second wave of wasps came, diving in sting first at Mihran and those about him. Mihran kept running and only swung his sword at the last second. He missed, but so did the wasp, which hovered menacingly above, ready to attack again.

  Mihran swung his sword, in defence as much as attack. He could see the wasps’ weak point was their waist, but it was midway between their sting and jaws. A second wasp joined the attack as the sound of wild buzzing and people shouting grew around Mihran. He parried, ducked and jabbed until he saw his moment – a quick slice and he took off one wasp’s wing, sending it spiralling away. He turned on the second and, with a quick feint and slice, cut its abdomen off. The scream was almost human, he thought, as the creature flew away to crash into the sea, leaving a trail of brown liquid in its wake.

  Mihran caught his breath and scanned the battle around him. He watched his soldiers fight and observed how the warriors who fared the best were those who had naturally paired with another. Those on their own were easily picked off and those in larger groups got in each other’s way. It was the fighting pairs who were turning the tide. More wasps had come, but they were too few now and were being chased by the humans who had escaped their fort.

  The battle would be over soon.

  As the last few wasps were being cleared up, Mihran cleaned his sword on a cloth, resheathed it and walked to meet the soldiers they had saved.

  A tall man carrying a longsword was first to greet him – Sir William Lavalle , he recognis ed, the man who ’ d argued against travelling at night.

  Lavalle gave a nod and said, ‘I see you travel during the day now.’

  ‘It’s lucky for you we did,’ Mihran replied and gave a wry smile, ‘I doubt you would have lasted until nightfall.’

  ***

  ‘So the bird’s feathers give the arrows the power to think?’

  John heard Lavalle’s voice and kept his eyes closed. He wasn’t in pain, but his head felt numb.

  ‘Yes.’ A voice John didn’t recognise answered the knight. ‘But only in flight.’

  A new voice joined in. ‘You should have seen the first arrow hit the shark!’

  ‘You fought the shark too?’ Althorn was with the group.

  John opened his heavy eyes and saw dancing daggers. Steadily, his eyes focused on wafting palm fronds lit by a fire. It was night and they were still on the beach. Images of the wasps came to John and he closed his eyes.

  ‘What did you say your name was?’ the new voice asked.

  ‘Sir William Lavalle, and you?’

  ‘Mark Bowman, archer.’

  ‘Yes, I can see that,’ Lavalle replied.

  ‘But did you see my arrows?’ Bowman asked. ‘After Marodeen’s arrow hit the shark I re-fletched mine and, well… you saw the flames, didn’t you?’

  John remembered the orange trails across the sky and the soldiers advancing. He’d recognised some of them from the obelisk hill – the ones who’d wanted to travel by night.

  ‘They were your arrows?’ Lavalle sounded impressed. ‘A useful weapon.’

  John tried to move but his right arm was stuck to the ground. He licked his lips and pictured a glass of cold, fresh water.

  ‘Hey, John’s awake!’ Crossley was soon by his side. ‘Can you hear me, John?’

  ‘Quick, get Euryleia,’ Lavalle said.

  ‘Hey, give him some air,’ Crossley said.

  John blinked a couple of times. ‘Water…’

  ‘Here you go buddy.’ Crossley lifted John’s head and brought a canteen to his lips.

  The water gave John strength. He looked at the faces around him: Mata, Althorn, Lavalle, Crossley and some people he vaguely recognised. The weakness in his body pulsed up and down both arms.

  ‘Thank God you’re better,’ Lavalle said.

  ‘You’ve been talking in your sleep,’ Crossley said. ‘You kept saying “Don’t call me Johnny”. I didn’t realise you found it so annoying.’

  John managed a smile but the dizziness was returning.

  ‘Euryleia’s been looking after you,’ Althorn said.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Mata said. ‘She’s not using the red root she used on me.’

  John nodded but his eyes weighed heavy and darkness fell.

  ***

  Mihran had been quiet since the battle with the wasps. His thoughts had taken him to the dunes of his youth and the cities of his war days. His memories were fresher now – more real. He had dwelled in them for days, but now he played mental games in his head: mathematical conundrums; memory tests; battle formations. He developed a game of duels between members of the expanded group, to see who would win. The more he practised, the more he became lost in his solitary world.

  ‘So you’ve changed your mind?’ Samas appeared next to Mihran.

  He took a breath before answering, ‘Yes.’ What was it about Samas that riled him so? An image of a former – and totally incompetent – captain came to him. ‘Our original logic was flawed – we have lost thirty soldiers, the Day Watch twenty. If we had travelled in daylight we would number more than our current 160.’

  Mihran wondered what the Babylonian was thinking and felt a wave of light rush through his mind.

  ‘So day travel had benefits?’ Samas asked.

  Mihr
an examined the light around Samas’ head and picked out shapes, then replied, ‘The uniform temperature makes day travel comfortable and the random threats here are difficult to defend against during the night.’

  ‘You mean it’s better when we can see our enemy?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mihran saw an image of the elephant they had fought in the light around Samas’ head.

  Samas moved to sit on a rock and Mihran fought to keep hold of the light link. He watched the image flicker from the elephant to a dusty battlefield and then to Li’s face.

  ‘Did you have any idea Li is a woman?’ Samas asked.

  Mihran broke the link with a shallow gasp. The images were his thoughts? ‘No, I had no idea… but we are stronger with her.’

  Samas frowned.

  ‘And we’re stronger with the day travellers in our ranks,’ Mihran continued.

  The overview of the group in the back of Mihran’s mind had expanded to include the Day Watch, taking in skills, weapons and age, just as he had done with the Night Watch.

  ‘So who will lead us now?’ Samas asked.

  ‘I will.’ Mihran straightened his back.

  ‘And what about Lavalle? He leads the Day Watch.’

  ‘I will lead,’ Mihran whispered. ‘I am the Commander.’

  Samas stood up, apparently ready for an argument. ‘We are all fighting men. None of us are used to hiding in tents or lookout hills.’

  Samas was right, and he’d commanded and fought well during the battle. If Mihran was to weigh up the true strength of this battalion, he would have to be honest, put personal feelings aside.

  ‘And yet we are changing, aren’t we?’

  ‘Yes . ’ Samas’ shoulders dropped.

  ‘Our positive attributes are being enhanced and our weaknesses strengthened,’ Mihran said.

  Samas looked along the beach and Mihran followed suit. Scores of men and women. Ultimately, everyone was out for themselves, Mihran knew that, but by working together they increased their chance of survival.

  Mihran opened his mind to Samas’ thoughts. Images of ships and rough seas appeared. Obviously no sailor. New pictures emerged: children saluting him; an army bigger than any Mihran had seen before; metal clashing; arrows piercing; yells; blood; hooves thundering; spears thrusting… and a light Mihran remembered all too well. Samas was haunted by his last moments on the battlefield. How many others still dwelled in their past? Mihran sniffed. He had cut his last day off with ease – it was just another battle. These men had to do likewise if they were to fight effectively as a unit.