by Adams, Tom
“Yeah. If you could clear the skies, we could bring in the Vril as a third wave and tackle the ground troops on an even footing.”
“And you say their weak point is inside their hoods?”
“It would seem so.”
Hacker looked down on the Ukurum as they advanced on the forest. “I reckon we can take them, Biff. We’ve got the numbers.”
“Who are your friends?” Celestia said, looking up at the flocks of predators.
“Celebrain natives,” Biff replied. “They took us in after Hacker’s abduction—and they hate Ukurum.”
“We haven’t a second to waste,” Merrick said. “I’m going to radio Karapetian and Jason to fill them in. Biff, do what you can for us, but remember; don’t let the Doubleheads touch you.”
Biff and Hacker saluted and returned to their mounts. The predators looked ungainly but ferocious. Merrick hoped they would be a match for the Ukurum. Once again he wondered what Shamon was holding back. He shelved the thought and raised the Hierophants on the radio.
“Lazlo, Jason, If you can hear me, I may have some welcome news.
~~~
Albany craned his neck round the bole of a coniferous tree. The bark was hard as iron, the smell of the tree’s resin thick in the air. Not such a bad place to die, he thought. Arun stood a few paces away, knocking one of his remaining five arrows to a bow. Albany hoped he would have the foresight to save them for the Necrolytes.
The anklebiters had been released and were closing the gap. All Albany could make out was the agitation of fern stems that carpeted the forest floor. They advanced like a wave, occasionally revealing a flash of teeth or a glimpse of angry, red skin. It was pointless aiming a bow or slingshot at them. Sure it would take down one, but there were thousands of the things.
“C’mon, you fuckers, I’m ready for you.” He tightened the grip on his scythe and waited for scurrying death.
A crackle on the radio disturbed his concentration. “Receiving you, Jason. Make it quick.”
“Albany, hold your positions. I’ve got something to try on the Anklebiters.”
~~~
Celestia occupied her body, resting in the command post. Merrick was with the Vril, waiting for Karapetian’s command to transfer them to the battlefield, so she had a rare moment to herself. She hadn’t been physically involved in the combat, but was mentally drained from the constant demands of far-sight and mind-melding. Her two fighting swords remained in scabbards at her hips, She longed to use them, to do something that would actually help. Then she remembered her terse words with Merrick and resigned herself to watching the battle through field glasses.
The clouds were lower, more dense than ever and the flakes of precipitation descended heavy as a blanket. Visibility was difficult through the binoculars, but she could make out Shamon’s forces holding back while the anklebiters did their work. The Doubleheads bobbed like airborne, grey ice-bergs, held in reserve as they couldn’t penetrate the thick forest canopy.
Then she saw the first of them. A predator appearing like a hawk from out of the sky. It had singled out a Doublehead and circled round it while its rider loosed several arrows into the thing’s cowl. The effect was immediate; it folded in on itself and fell like a tissue Zeppelin onto the mixed forces below. It was a catastrophic demise, not just for the creature, but also for the dozens of enemy troops dissolved under its billowing cowl.
A cheer, muted a fraction by the sound-deadening precipitation rose from the allies on the hill as, one by one, Biff and his predators took out the Doubleheads.
Her far-sight detected a change in the ether over the battlefield. The sudden appearance of Vril combatants, pouring through a rent in the air at the Psychonaut’s behest. They materialised behind the Ukurum and threw them into disarray as their battle spells took a heavy toll. She could sense Merrick through the gateway but couldn’t mind meld at this range, so she continued doing the only thing she could—watch.
~~~
Just a little closer, Jason thought. The Anklebiters were only twenty yards away when he unleashed his thaumaturgic power on the front line. There was a sudden crackle of energy that brought him to his knees, but not before he saw the crest of the toothed wave crumble. Now would be the millisecond that determined if he had been correct about their mode of communication. His far-sight ability was limited, but he could already make out the confused tripping and disjointed movement of the Anklebiters. He had detected their primitive neural messages between each other out on the battlefield, saw how they moved as a super-organism. Their psychic network acted as invisible fibre-optics—a conduit for Jason’s thaumaturgy. It spread backwards from the front line, causing the critters to stumble over each other and agitate their nearest neighbours. This revealed another flaw in Shamon’s spawning process; if a single Anklebiter was attacked, it turned on its perceived assailant. Jason observed with rising satisfaction the pandemonium that ensued as razor-sharp, serrated teeth bit into ruddy, putrescent flesh.
He staggered to his feet and gave the order to charge. The allies burst from their cover, wielding halberds, morning stars and scythes. They waded into the growing wall of Anklebiters, reaping them like stalks of wheat.
Jason was spent, he couldn’t even lift his weapon, but enjoyed watching the graceful motion of Arun and Albany. The slaughter delivered at their hands was like an art form. Arun’s bionic arm never tired and his whirling form cut a swathe through the enemy. Albany too, moved as a lithe dancer, dealing death with his scythe.
The allies rose to the peak of the critter mountain and continued the charge with a momentum that caught the second wave of Ukurum by surprise. Adrenaline pumped through Jason’s arteries as he forced himself to stagger forward. The enemy had turned, despite their superiority of numbers, and were retreating back out of the forest.
~~~
Merrick swigged down a whole vial of elixir. He’d used about a third of it and there was no sign of him developing a tolerance. Each draught re-invigorated him, giving him the strength to hold open the gateways long enough for the thousands of Vril to gush through and engage the enemy.
They had timed their assault with perfection. He hadn’t seen a Doublehead for ten minutes, meaning the Allies could attack with impunity, the threat from the skies now removed.
For the Ukurum, however, death continued to rain from above as the predators picked up Necrolytes and Amorphics in clawfuls, carrying them upwards then dropping them, the bodies landing with bone-shattering velocity. The enemy were caught between Jason’s advancing troops and the Vril Battle-Mages behind. Merrick could see the two remaining Simiata ploughing through the Amorphic, picking up bodies and throwing them back with inhuman force at their clones.
The devastation was appalling, but meant they had the upper hand.
A down draft of air alerted him to the approach of Biff on his reptilian sky-steed.
“It’s a slaughter,” he announced, as Merrick let through the final contingent of Vril and closed the gateway. He should have felt elation, but something shifted in his consciousness as if tectonic plates ground and slipped against each other. The presence of a colossal, sentient mind—no, a meeting of minds.
He gave Biff a half-hearted thumbs up then picked up his radio. “Lazlo,” he said. “Do you feel it?”
“Yes,” came the reply. “I’ve never experienced such a distortion in the ether.”
“What in Christ’s name is it?”
As if in answer, the ground began to shake with a violence that jarred the bones. Merrick turned to the west and saw a mountain peak rise up with monolithic slowness, like a gigantic tree uprooting itself. Vast columns of rock split from its sides and boulders were flung across the lower slopes of the mountains. And still it rose.
All on the battlefield were thrown to the ground. Merrick lifted his head and saw the granite peel away from a form made of rock. It stood, at least one hundred and fifty metres tall. Its rhino-like head hunched forward, arched back rising up behind, c
rested by trees and soil.
“A Leviathan,” Karapetian breathed over the radio. “If Shamon has tamed one, then we don’t stand a chance.”
Merrick recalled his and Celestia’s journey through the portal crossroads. They had seen a smaller brother to this rock-giant and hadn’t stayed around to see how it responded to them. But there was no escaping this beast. It pulled one foot out of its mountain roots, then the other and stomped towards them. Every footfall reverberated through the ground while small rocks bounced on the hardpan floor. Merrick stood, along with thousands of others, petrified as it loomed closer through the falling skin-snow.
The behemoth stepped over the two rivers and reached the Vril in ten strides. A gargantuan arm fell to the Earth at their flank, bringing up the sediment of the flood plain as it scraped its spade-like hand along in a sweeping motion. The landslide caught up hundreds of Vril bodies and buried them in an avalanche of rock and soil. Johnny’s airborne army swarmed around it but their arrows were impotent against the thing’s might. It swatted at them with ponderous hands, but caused few casualties.
The Behomoth stood to its full height and uttered a roar, gusting a blast of sulphurous air over the multitudes. It served to break the spell transfixing the allies. They ran as a confused mass, away from the beast, back towards a false haven. The Colossus by-passed the Ukurum, who were as frightened as the allied warriors, and bore down on its fleeing targets.
“Take cover, anywhere you can,” Karapetian called through the radio.
Merrick watched the chaos unfold and determined not to give in to panic. Without considering the wisdom of his actions, he tore a hole in the ether and stepped through. It was a brief journey that brought him to the apex of the Leviathan’s spine. Surrounding him were fallen conifers and rolling boulders. It was all he could do to keep his feet. He moved forwards to the Behomoth’s shoulder as far as he dared and observed the carnage below. Great moraines of earth piled up on the flood plain as it scooped up handful after handful of material. Merrick saw in horror how these mounds became barrows for the asphyxiated, allied troops. Its feet, the size of houses and dropping tree roots and boulders were brought down without mercy on the diminishing brigades.
Abject helplessness threatened to overcome Merrick as he rejected one course of action after another. It was then, he perceived a pause in the Behomoth’s progress. As it stilled itself, he opened his third eye and sensed an undercurrent of sentience emanating from the colossal, primitive brain. It seemed to be at battle with itself, groaning in primeval agony. Yet when Merrick delved deeper, he discovered the struggle was not with itself but a parasitic invader.
Shamon.
The Behomoth was stationary now, Shamon’s essence had fatigued and withdrew to his secret command lair. Merrick considered astral pursuit, but it was beyond even his capabilities to find the Ukurum leader’s hidden refuge. Instead, he plunged across the dimensions to the Hierophant camp. Back to Celestia.
Upon appearing in their tent, he found it empty and reached out to her. She was lower down the mountain, guiding the remaining allied refugees to a place of safety.
He materialised in front of her. She ran forwards, tears streaming from her face, clutching him to her.
C’est un catastrophe. Our people ... they—
It’s all right, Celestia, I’m here now.
But he looked over her shoulder, saw the devastation on the flood plain, heard the cries of the dying, and knew that things were far from all right.
~~~
Chapter 42
Man on the silver mountain
They had withdrawn further up the mountain; Hierophants, Outcasts, Vril, the predator host—all took to the heights, scattering themselves at Jason’s order, attempting to make themselves as difficult a target as possible.
The Behomoth remained stationary, like a giant sentinel, waiting for its time of re-awakening, and yet to Merrick it seemed not so much expectant, more dreading the prospect of confrontation.
As darkness fell, Merrick heard the Ukurum regrouping on the lower slopes. The confident hum of a anticipated victory rose from them, although there were no loud war cries as had filled the previous night. From the battlefield, the cries and moans of the dying reached every Hierophant ear. Merrick knew that none would survive the sub-zero temperatures of the Celebrain night. To leave them suffering was a travesty, yet there was no recourse. The Ukurum formed an impregnable wedge between the dying and the living.
Jason met with him and the companions in his tent. His face was dirty, blood-caked and morose.
“Is Karapetian joining us?” Merrick asked.
“Later,” Jason said.
Merrick swallowed his disdain for the leader and continued to ask questions. “Can we expect an attack during the night?”
Jason slumped onto a chair. “It’s possible but unlikely. The Ukurum would have to fight us against the gradient, in the dark and the cold, without the aid of their giant. If I were them, I’d wait until dawn.”
Merrick looked around at the weary expressions held by his friends. “What are our options?”
“As far as I see it; retreat or die,” Jason said, without a flicker of emotion.
“I could create a gateway. Make us disappear. We could rally our forces back on earth and build our reserves for another invasion.”
“We could,” Jason replied, “but our people are dispersed across the black mountainside. We might get some back, but not everyone.”
“So, you think we can stand our ground then?” Albany said. “You’re not saying you think we can beat that monster out there?”
“Only if we could raise a second Behomoth,” Jason said, “and Celestia’s scanned the surrounding area. There are none left, and even if we summoned one, we couldn’t control it. Shamon has obviously prepared for the use of his giant for months.”
Merrick now saw the defeat in Jason’s eyes. Never before had the man been without an idea or course of action. “Surely there’s something we can do?” he asked.
“There are no further contingencies,” replied the Thaumaturgist. “The best we can hope for is to make a stand and wear them out. In daylight we might stand a chance of gathering the remnants of our forces and retreating through a gateway.”
“Which would leave Shamon free to expand his rule in Celebrai,” Celestia said.
“Worse than that,” Albany spoke up. “The conditions of the challenge dictate that he can commandeer all remaining syncretic orders. We’d only be buying time.”
“Destain,” Merrick said, “Do you see anything new?”
“No. Only that one of the visions will be fulfilled in the next few hours.”
They tossed ideas and strategies around for another hour, but the most they could agree on was limiting the damage and retreating at the earliest opportunity. They might be deferring the inevitable, but at least it would give them time to think.
Their gathering dissolved, as one by one, exhaustion and dejection overcame them. Celestia went with Destain to attend to the few wounded that had made it to the mountain encampments. Jason left to find Karapetian, visibly annoyed that he had not attended their meeting, while Merrick retired to his tent to think.
He had a mind to revitalise himself with elixir and realm-jump to the floodplain in an attempt to take volunteers and rescue any further survivors. He downed a whole vial of elixir, but then became aware of a presence at his door. Karapetian walked in alone.
“Now I know I ought to be shitting myself,” Merrick said. “If you’ve descended from your ivory tower, then our defence is truly on its last legs.”
Karapetian’s lips pressed together in a grimace. “You’re right.” My appearance is indeed significant, but not in the way you think.”
“How come?”
“May I sit down?”
“Sure, it’s only fair I offer you some hospitality after all you’ve given me. I’m sorry I don’t have any brandy or fine cigars, but this wine isn’t half bad.” He poured
the red liquid into two cups and offered one to Karapetian, who drained the contents in one.
“So, it’s even worse than I thought,” Merrick said, surprised at the head Hierophant’s rate of consumption. “More?”
“Please.” Karapetian held out the cup for a refill. “You have every reason to despise me,” he said after taking another mouthful. “What you are about to hear however, will lower even that meagre opinion of me.”
“Might as well tell all. It’s not like any of us are going to live long enough to hold any grudges.”
“I have a lot to say, some of this will be difficult for you to accept, let alone bear. But time is short, and I believe you have a talent that will make our exchange more efficacious.” He took off a leather glove and held his hand out to Merrick. “Although you won’t consider me a friend, I hope that we can still be gentlemen and agree to be allies of necessity.”
“You want to shake hands? Well, this really is a rare meeting,” Merrick said, sensing no guile in Karapetian’s gesture. He took his hand and a fire shot up his arm. Despite this, he was compelled to hold on to the man’s grip.
He saw, through his third eye, a scene fade into view. A cinematic reel of memory long forgotten. He was young, very young; a toddler held in his mother’s arms on the doorstep of a house that didn’t feel like home. He was staring into his mother’s eyes, wondering why beads of water fell from them onto her cheek. He reached out to touch them. They were warm and wet to his fingers; when he licked them, they tasted salty. He had heard the familiar sound of her voice, but was too young to understand what she was saying. Her tone was unfamiliar, no longer comforting, and bereft of the usual joy. He responded to this with tears of his own, accompanied by a youngster’s loud cries.
He heard another voice. Deep and throaty. Young Merrick heard it as the voice of a stranger, but the mature Merrick recognised it. As the infant Merrick followed his mother’s gaze outward, he saw a tall man, head shaved, receding along the garden path with a swift pace. At the gate, the man turned, and Merrick beheld the face of his father.