Darwin's Soldiers

by Ste Sharp

  ‘Nice shot!’ Bowman shouted.

  ‘Cheers,’ John replied.

  ‘Bring us around!’ Bowman shouted to the Sorean jockey and they wheeled away.

  Looking ahead, John saw a group of Lavalle’s tocka had leapt on a fallen behemoth, while another stomped about blindly with one of Euryleia’s arrows protruding from an eye. Behind them, John caught a glimpse of Millok disappearing into the throng of catapult giants only to appear on one’s back, flashing electric blue and flitting about quicker than John’s eye could keep up with. A second later, the platform dropped from the beast’s back, smashing into the ground.

  John’s tocka swung towards the group on the far right. Bowman took a long shot, trying to hamstring the nearest beast, but its tough armoured skin absorbed the energy pulse.

  ‘It isn’t enough,’ John shouted to Bowman.

  Dozens of catapults still threw their devastating loads and the nearest battalion of Brakari had turned to defend them.

  ‘Aim for the straps,’ John shouted and Bowman nodded.

  The tocka sped up again and they aimed low. Bowman’s pulse caught a side strap and melted the lacquered hide but it didn’t split. John tried to finish off the job but just peppered the strap with holes. They cut left and swerved back to the next beast where Bowman’s second shot had more luck, cutting through a major strap, jolting the catapult. The weight shift pulled the beast into the next behemoth and it fell to the ground with a deep bellow.

  The tocka wheeled away as a wave of Brakari rushed through, firing energy pulses and spinning missiles at them.

  ‘Watch out!’ John shouted as a devilish snake-like torpedo whipped through the air and blasted the archer Sorean off the tocka’s back.

  John turned and fired at the Brakari. Bowman had given up on the rifle and fired his trusty longbow now, sending Marodeen’s bird arrows into the sky, followed by some of Crossley’s explosive mini-spears. Together they bought enough time to retreat and regroup.

  ‘We need to get to Lavalle or back to Mihran,’ Bowman said when the tocka slowed for a rest. ‘I’ll thought-cast for orders.’ He closed his eyes.

  ‘Right,’ John said and slumped to a sitting position but only had to wait a few seconds.

  ‘Shit!’ Bowman’s eyes snapped open. ‘We need to get out of here. Quick, pull them around!’ he shouted at the Sorean jockey. ‘Everyone, this way!’ Bowman beckoned the group of tocka away from the Brakari army.

  John was looking around in panic as the cart sped away. Something was about to happen, but what?

  Then he heard a deep rumbling sound.

  Chapter 21

  Olan was daydreaming when the lump of entrails smashed into a tower and showered him with some unfortunate soul’s partially digested last meal. Four new shapes tumbled through the sky. Were they limbs? Or bodies? The shapes increased in size and crashed into the men around him before many could raise a shield. Screams could be heard where bones and armour injured the unprepared. Most just wrinkled their noses and started picturing what they would do to the Brakari who had disrespected their dead friends.

  On a distant hill, Olan caught a glimpse of a familiar silhouette: the tall shape of Peronicus-Rax. Then he saw movement on the left wing: the titanic catapult bearers had started firing. Warning shouts came through, but there was little they could do as the first white boulder hit a grey tower and splintered into knife-sharp shards of white and grey stone that stabbed at the army below, dodging and sheltering where they could. Another boom signalled a new boulder, followed by another, and soon everyone felt the rain of stone. And so the music of war began: deep echoes, splintering destruction and yells of pain.

  Olan looked back to the raised platform where Mihran sat on his tocka. He had finished with his captains, who walked down to their respective troops. The Commander’s head turned from left to right and back again in the rhythmic motion Olan had seen on the first battlefield. When would they charge? Sitting here was going to be suicide.

  ‘They’re approaching.’ Dakaniha pointed to the Brakari army.

  ‘Good!’ Kastor replied. ‘We need to meet them on the field!’

  ‘Are you ready?’ Samas shouted as he pushed through to the front, wearing his gleaming armour.

  ‘Yes!’ the warriors replied as a new shower of stones pattered against shields and helmets.

  ‘Have the enemy learnt their lesson?’ Samas stepped up onto a broken boulder and faced the bulk of the foot soldiers, who craned their necks to see him.

  ‘No!’ they answered in unison.

  ‘They come back for more!’ Samas gestured at the army of giant blue-shelled arthropods and alien slave warriors, just two hundred paces away now, with Crossley’s trenches and yellow markers sitting halfway between them.

  ‘We need to teach them again!’ a soldier cried out.

  ‘Yes.’ Samas smiled. Olan relaxed as he watched him and felt eager to fight. ‘They learn slowly these Brakari… and the best way to learn is through practice.’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘They’ve lost once before, so let’s show them how to lose again!’ Samas shouted.

  ‘Yes!’ The army surged forward a step.

  ‘But first,’ Samas held up a palm for quiet, ‘first we need to let others have their moment.’

  Samas was stalling, Olan realised.

  ‘Not the archers again?’ Kastor said and the men around him laughed.

  ‘No, not the archers.’ Samas turned to face the Brakari horde who were close but, Olan could see, had stopped a distance from the trenches, which looked different from this angle. Samas cast a glance back to Mihran on the platform and gave a quick nod. ‘This time!’ Samas raised his great stone fist. ‘There will be no retreat. No defeat. Victory will be ours!’

  As Samas finished, a deep cracking sound erupted and Olan felt vibrations through his feet. Moments later, far away on the battlefield, a mountain of dust blasted out of the ground, but not between the armies, as it had done at the first battle. This time the explosions ripped a line behind the Brakari army, encircling them.

  ‘Now we have the bastards trapped!’ Samas shouted over the roar of the army, which mingled with the echoes of the vast explosion. ‘Let’s kill them all!’

  Olan was pushed forward with the army as they ran to fight. He stared wide-eyed as the Brakari army surged forward to meet them, moving away from what he imagined was a semicircle cut at their backs.

  ‘Attack!’ Samas shouted and led them full speed towards the trenches. ‘Fear nothing!’

  The Babylonian didn’t slow down. Was he going to leap over the trenches? Olan slowed his pace, as did others around him, but watched as Samas ran straight across the open holes, his sandalled feet throwing up dust as he crossed the dark lines.

  ‘It’s paint!’ Kastor shouted.

  Another trick. And one Olan’s chest plate was powerless to reveal.

  Olan kicked on, gripped his battleaxe tight and looked for his first target. Pushed by their panicking rear lines, the Brakari had spread out. The front line must have assumed the humans would jump into the safety of the trenches, so were standing in casual stances.

  ‘Bring them down!’ Samas shouted.

  New explosions ripped the ground apart around Olan, scooping holes out of the battlefield. Then came the erratic energy beams and wild missiles Olan remembered from the battle a few hours earlier and he recognised their smell. He kept focused and picked out a large, dark-blue Brakari with an orange claw and long, scorpion-like tail. No puppets now and no diggers – these were the real warriors. Olan raised his axe high and dodged right as the armoured beast stabbed with its tail. Olan swung low and swiped it as he passed, but the tail spike hadn’t been aimed at him: Osayimwese was right behind him and parried the blow with his shield. On the other side, Kastor had leapt high and struck his long spear into the soft section between the leg and body shells, sending the Brakari leaping back with a roar.

  ‘You’ll pay for that, human!’ it shouted.


  Olan skidded and ran back, determined to slice off the tail. Dakaniha was there as well, with all four eyes open, firing arrows at weaknesses in the shell that only he could see. Olan was about to rush in when Dakaniha fired an arrow straight past his head. Olan threw a glance back and saw the arrow bounce off a huge, hammer-clawed Brakari covered in arm-length spikes. It was distracted long enough for Olan to roll away as the hammer crashed into the ground and he was back on his feet in a second. Olan didn’t think now: he fought. Down came his axe, biting into the nearest claw arm, and out, followed by a turn and a burst of pace, then another powerful swing at a leg. He saw Osayimwese at the broad beast’s tail, stabbing with his spear. With a violent flick of its thick tail, Osayimwese was sent flying back, and behind him a hammer-claw swung low to take out an armoured swordsman who had joined the fight. The beast rounded on Olan, foaming at the mouth, shuddering and twitching, reminding Olan of the real, drugged berserkers he had fought alongside.

  ‘Kill all humans!’ it screamed. ‘Victorio Brakarius!’

  Olan sidestepped into a crater, but the Brakari was faster than it looked and reared up to more than three times his height, ready to pummel him with its many, heavy-headed claws. Olan tensed, ready to dodge and run, but the huge creature paused. Olan heard a deep crunch, followed by a crack and the Brakari’s forelegs scratched at its belly. Another crack and a bulge pushed out of its chest. Another crunch and the front shell splintered with a shower of blue liquid and Samas stepped through with his rock-arm glowing orange.

  ‘Thanks,’ Olan said. ‘I owe you one.’

  Out of breath, Samas simply nodded.

  Olan ran back to the scorpion Brakari whose tail had been sheared off. Dakaniha and Osayimwese were either side of it and Kastor had returned from another kill. Dakaniha leapt in with a spear and skidded away to avoid a bladed arm.

  Then something strange happened.

  The Brakari flinched for no apparent reason and slowly raised off the ground. It rocked back and forth in the air, swiping at its side while Dakaniha kneeled beneath, staring in confusion. Then it fell limp.

  Kastor walked forward, patted Dakaniha on the shoulder and pointed to three holes in the dead Brakari’s body. ‘Good fighting, Sakarbaal,’ he said and smiled.

  ‘Sakarbaal?’ Dakaniha stood up slowly.

  Olan caught a glimpse of a grin beneath the Brakari and dark blood poured from the holes to form the shape of a trident. The Brakari body fell onto the grass and the trident disappeared with a laugh, lost in the sounds of battle.

  Kastor jogged away, swinging his spear and searching for his next opponent.

  ‘Come on!’ he shouted back with his typical smile. ‘The next one’s mine!’

  As he turned around though, a large Brakari covered in spiked armour rose from a deep crater and leapt at him with frightening speed. Kastor stood no chance, and Olan could only watch as the Spartan was sliced in half with one powerful blow.

  ***

  Panzicosta released a wild roar that shook his armour and sent the scrawny humans around him into panic. He picked up the top half of the soldier he had killed and pushed its torn guts into his mouth. It tasted better than Sorean. Panzicosta’s enjoyment was short-lived though, as the creature attacked his face; before he could rip its head off, it had sliced one of Panzicosta’s main eyes and disabled a mouth pincer. Still, a new eye would grow back, he thought, as he cast the human’s remains aside.

  The other humans attacked him: blunting their spears and wasting their flimsy arrows on his armour. They tried to surround him: one with four eyes, another with armour that shone with odd light frequencies and the last with an orange appendage Panzicosta didn’t trust. With the crater just behind him, Panzicosta had to make some room to fight.

  ‘I’m going to tear you apart!’ he shouted at the four-eyed human and slashed with his longest fore-blade.

  The human was nimble and rolled away, giving Panzicosta’s blade nothing but thin air.

  ‘And then I’ll eat you headfirst, you little shit!’ Panzicosta slammed a hammer-claw down but it met dry ground.

  A sharp pain in his right side made him turn and lash out, striking the human who had been stupid enough to come close. He took a step forward and felt the pain again. A quick feel with a lower leg revealed the issue – his side armour had been dented and was cutting into his carapace. He knew he couldn’t trust that human’s fist. What material could dent Brakari cold armour? Panzicosta turned as another warrior joined them, armed with a spear and a short, white blade. He needed to kill before he was completely surrounded, so he charged up the pulse rifle embedded in his thick belly armour: an old weapon but useful in a scrape like this.

  Now the human with the shining armour attacked, hacking at his legs, and here came another spear thrust, and where was the human with the fist? Panzicosta turned and swiped with his longest hammer-claw, cursing his armour for restricting his movement. Still, he had knocked two humans down. A quick lunge sent another one scuttling back and he had his moment: he blasted three energy bolts into the ground, sending dirt flying, then ran as fast as his large bulk could take him through the opening.

  But he didn’t make it far. Something was stopping him – a green tendril coiled around one of his hammer-claws.

  ‘No!’ He turned to see a writhing green shape on the other side of the crater throwing more barbed vines at him.

  Panzicosta slashed at the thick tendrils as they wrapped around his limbs. He had seen the creature in action and knew what it was capable of. The creepers were coming too quick. There was only one option if he was going to survive. He strained against the vines, hit a red button on his armour and shouted, ‘Brakarius armis redux!’ His spiked armour released instantly and General Panzicosta leapt out, smashing through the nearest humans and away to open ground.

  Once he was clear, Panzicosta turned a pair of eyes back, saw the humans’ despair and released a bitter laugh. He had lost his armour but he was alive. Now he needed a victory he could brag about if he was to replace Belsang as leader.

  He paused in an open space to take stock of the battle around him. The Brakari army was trapped. Well played, humans. But in their haste they had trapped themselves and, for all their tactical gambles and victories, the human–Sorean alliance was still outnumbered by the Brakari’s slave army. Victory was still possible despite Belsang’s ineptitude.

  Panzicosta scanned the nearest enemy troops and focused on a pack of tocka attacking the left wing. He had witnessed them tear apart some of his finest officers, so wanted to avoid those bloodthirsty creatures. He turned to the broken fort and there, alone on his tocka with his red robes waving in the prairie breeze, Panzicosta spied his prize.

  ***

  Delta-Six flew fast from the silver gates, keeping to an altitude below the lightning strikes, and took a second to study the battle valley when he passed. The evidence, combined with his min-sat’s data, gave him all the detail he needed.

  By the time he reached the live battle, he knew he had to concentrate on the enemy leader, so set his suit to camouflage and weaved through the slave soldiers and Lutamek. The instant he saw the Brakari leader he fired a trio of tiny missiles from his wrist launcher and hovered to watch them explode impotently against a white shield bubble.

  Numbers flashed up in Delta-Six’s vision and he prepared a new volley of missiles, designed to disrupt the wavelengths of the shield. He fired two, but he didn’t get to see if they had worked. An explosion to his right sent him crashing to the ground, where he drew the attention of a large Brakari with smouldering claws.

  ‘You’re a long way from your army, human,’ it growled and leapt in to attack.

  ***

  Althorn retched and spat out what little liquid had come up from his stomach. He lay on his side, dribbling onto the compacted earth and willing himself to sit up.

  Several hairy creatures with short limbs were mixing a cocktail of chemicals twenty paces away and the gaseous products
were wafting in Althorn’s direction. Was this how he would die? he thought. Were they preparing his sacrifice? The lack of food and water was making him delirious and images of dead kings and his sister washed through his mind. Her eyes had smiled at him as she died, he was sure.

  A wind cleared the air and his head. He had to escape. Break free of this trap. He felt his wrists: no ropes. Had they left him untied?

  A sound behind him made him freeze. Something was near. Althorn felt a tug on his hair, yanking his head back, and a tiny hand popped something in his mouth.

  ‘Swallow,’ said a familiar voice.

  Althorn tried to shake his head. A bottle appeared and he drank.

  ‘That’ll fix the lungs and shield your mind. Brother, the other one.’

  Althorn saw the soft brown scales of the creatures who had untied him in the cart.

  The hand brought a new pill. ‘This is for energy.’

  Althorn swallowed it and asked for more water. His head felt clearer already. The giant legs of Belsang’s creature were near and, beyond it, he saw the blue shells of the Brakari. He raised his head and saw a cracked white sphere around Belsang.

  ‘Good, One-eye.’ Both creatures moved into his line of vision.

  ‘Thank you,’ Althorn’s voice was husky. He coughed.

  ‘It is our pleasure.’ One of the scaled creatures nodded. ‘Now you can complete your mission.’

  ‘Mission?’ Althorn said.

  ‘To kill the enemy commander.’ The other brother gestured at Belsang. ‘Good luck.’

  Althorn nodded and his tiny helpers scuttled off on all fours. He blinked and stared around. He felt good now – really good! What was in those pills? Colours were more vivid and his leg muscles itched. He stretched and stood up. Humans, Sorean and Brakari were everywhere, fighting tooth and claw. He heard the shriek of tocka in the distance and swore he saw a Lutamek fighting. Deep in the centre, Althorn recognised Mata. The Maori’s natural defences had been kicking in and he had turned into a mass of rough bark and barbed thorns.