"Fall back! Fall back!" yelled Colonel William Hand, down in the compound. "Fall back to the inner redoubt, and let the booby-traps do their work!"
The surviving lepers on the catwalk turned and ran, crowding down the narrow stairways, the Grendels falling on those at the back. Owen and Hazel continued to retreat slowly, trying to buy the lepers near them some time. A Grendel ducked under the arc of Owen's blade and went for his throat. Owen lashed out instinctively, and his fist smashed through the heart-shaped head, splintering the armor. The Grendel convulsed as Owen seized a handful of its brains and ripped them out of its skull. The creature spun helplessly in place, until its fellows pulled it down and trampled it underfoot.
"Nice touch," said Hazel, just a little breathlessly.
"Yeah," said Owen. "Think I broke my bloody hand."
"In case you hadn't noticed, we're cut off from the stairs."
"Then we'll just have to jump."
"The fall will kill us!"
"We're not that lucky. Jump!"
They beat aside the nearest Grendels, avoided the snapping jaws, ran to the edge of the catwalk, and threw themselves out into the air. It was a long way down, and for a few wonderful moments it was almost like flying. And then they hit the ground hard, driving the breath from their lungs. Up above them, the catwalk was completely overrun.
Owen forced himself back onto his feet through sheer willpower, and grabbed Hazel by the shoulder, pulling her up. There were people and Grendels running everywhere. A steel smile lunged for Hazel's throat. She grabbed the Grendel with both hands, whipped it up over her head, and threw it into the nearest concentration of Grendels. They went down in a pile of thrashing limbs. Owen and Hazel ran for the inner redoubt, the hall-sized communications center set up as the only practical place to retreat to if the outer defenses were breached.
Lepers ran with them, dodging or leaping over the hidden traps and pitfalls. Grendels raced after them. They fell into the spike-bottomed pits, flattened the spikes, rose unharmed, and leapt right out again. Weight-driven spikes and sword blades leapt out of hiding, only to glance harmlessly away. The improvised land mines erupted all across the compound in sudden spurts of smoke and flames, throwing Grendels into the air and even damaging a few. But there were always more, always more.
An army of death, created to be unstoppable.
The defenders streamed into the last redoubt, packing it full. There were steel shutters on the windows and heavy bolts on the doors. Owen and Hazel took up a position before the great hall, and went head to head with the first Grendels to arrive, trying to occupy the attention of as many aliens as they could, to buy the arriving lepers a few more moments of precious time.
Bonnie Bedlam was there too, with Midnight Blue. Bonnie laughed in sheer exuberance as the Grendels swarmed around her, glorying in a battle that tested her as never before. She swung her sword with all her strength, beating Grendels to the ground and cracking open their armor. She was bleeding constantly from wounds that never had the time to heal properly before they were torn open again, but she thrust aside the growing weakness in her arms, and gloried in the never ending rush of pain and regeneration.
Midnight Blue teleported back and forth in a circle around her comrade in arms, blinking in and out of existence just long enough to land a telling blow with her ax before vanishing again. Midnight chanted her order's battle songs to the rhythm of her blows, but the strength was going out of her arms. Teleporting continuously took a lot out of her, and it was getting harder all the time to concentrate. She could feel herself slowing down, and the Grendels were starting to shake off her blows.
All the Maze people were slowing down as they burned up the energies that fueled them. The human body was never meant to operate at such extremes for long.
Colonel William Hand and Otto took their stand at the entrance to the maze of narrow alleys that led between the huts. Many lepers had gone to ground there, barricading themselves inside familiar surroundings. Hand didn't give much for their chances, but did his best to buy them all the time he could. He fought savagely, calling up old skills as his strength quickly gave out. Otto guarded his side as always. But the Colonel was a long way past his prime, already weakened by a terrible disease, and after a few desperate minutes the Grendels knocked him down and swarmed right over him. He lay on his back, bleeding heavily from a dozen vicious wounds, trying to find the sword he'd dropped, as crimson armored legs stamped down around him. A Grendel loomed over him, and steel claws slashed down. Hand cried out in spite of himself, and then Otto was there one last time, throwing himself across his Colonel. The steel claws sank deeply into his back, and ripped away his hunch and half his spine. Otto shuddered once and died. The Grendel moved on.
Hand tried to move the dead dwarf off him and couldn't. There was no feeling in his hands and no strength in his arms. His throat hurt, and he could hear his breath whistling strangely. He forced one hand to his neck, and it came away soaked in blood. One of the Grendels had cut him a good one, and he hadn't even noticed. The Colonel let his hand fall back on the hard ground. He'd always thought he'd welcome a warrior's death rather than letting the leprosy eat him away by inches, but now the time was here, he would have traded everything for just a few more days, a few more hours, of life. But God didn't make deals.
He would have liked time to put his affairs in order, write a few letters… his thoughts drifted for a moment before they snapped back into focus. He couldn't die yet. Not while he still had one last duty to perform. One last order to carry out. He forced his cold right hand to the remote control Saint Bea had given to him. She'd trusted him to know the right time to use it, and have the guts to hit the switch no matter what.
The Colonel smiled grimly, his mouth leaking blood. "Goodbye, Otto," he said, or thought he said. And hit the switch.
The explosives planted under the compound floor all went off at once, a massive thunderclap that threw the ground up into the roof, and tore the packed Grendels apart. The whole compound disappeared in a cloud of smoke, the wall blasted outward by the shaped and positioned charges, while the huts of the village stood untouched. Alien guts and shards of crimson armor pattered back to the cratered ground. No trace remained anywhere of Colonel William Hand and Otto.
Owen and Hazel fought doggedly on before the communications center, tired beyond pain or hope, driven now only by a determination not to fall while they were still needed. They were both bleeding freely from a dozen bad wounds, and the strength was going out of their blows. Owen looked around him. Nearly all the lepers were inside now. A voice yelled for him to get inside too, so they could close and bolt the doors. Owen considered it. Time seemed to slow down, so that he had all the time in the world to make up his mind. He looked to his left, and saw Bonnie and Midnight fighting back to back, their faces slack with pain and exhaustion, surrounded by Grendels. There was no way they could get to the hall in time. And besides, the hall wasn't much of a sanctuary anyway. The Mission's outer wall had been far stronger, and it hadn't slowed the Grendels down. He looked to his right and saw Hazel, still fighting, dripping with her own blood. No, Owen decided. He wasn't going to turn and run. He sighed regretfully. Time to play his last trump card, and hope it was good enough.
"Shut the door!" he yelled.
And turned back to face the enemy. He reached inside himself, diving deep into his mind, through the undermind to the back brain, and tapped into the power that lived there. He threw back his head and howled the old war cry of his Clan—Shandrakor! Shandrakor!—and all his rage and frustration and need to defend the lepers of the Mission came roaring up through him and burst out into the material world, beating on the air like the wings of a huge and powerful bird. The Grendels sensed that something new had entered the battle, and looked about them, confused. The ground shook under their feet, throwing them off balance. A great wind roared across what was left of the compound, scattering the Grendels like leaves in a hurricane. Owen looked about him, smiled o
nce, and let loose his anger on the Grendels.
Those aliens nearest him blew apart in sudden explosions of blood and guts and shattered armor. Owen stalked unsteadily forward, his eyes wide and unblinking, his rage beating on the air in time to his heartbeat, his face grim and relentless. He had given himself up to his power as never before. He turned his head, and Grendels died where he looked. His boots hit the ground, and earthquakes split apart the cratered earth of the compound. The Deathstalker had released his rage, and the Grendels could not stand against it. They blew apart or were blown away, and not one of them could get close enough to touch him. Owen knew the power was killing him. He could feel things tearing apart, breaking down, inside him. He knew he should shut the power down while he still could. That mortal man was not meant to burn so very brightly. But he couldn't, not while the innocent still needed him. So he walked slowly on, killing Grendels, dying inside a little more with every step, killing himself as he killed his enemy.
Deathstalker.
But all too quickly there came a time when even need and determination couldn't drive him forward another step. His mortal frame had never been meant to channel so much power for so long, and finally it had nothing left to give. Owen fell to his knees. He felt very tired. He'd done so much. Maybe he could sleep now, and if he was lucky, he wouldn't dream. He fell forward, and his face slammed into the blood-soaked ground. The winds shut down, the ground stopped shaking, and the rage of the Deathstalker no longer beat upon the air.
Hazel d'Ark saw his last moment of glory and saw him fall. She'd watched in awe as his anger swept aside the Grendels, but now she cried out and ran to him. She put a hand on his shoulder, but there was no response. Hazel cried out again, in shock and horror and the pain of a heart breaking at last. She would have cried, but she didn't know how. She never had.
She looked up and saw the remaining Grendels reforming. Owen had killed a lot of them, but there were still a hell of a lot left. More than enough to tear down the communications hall and kill every living thing within it. They moved slowly forward, baring their steel teeth, flexing steel claws, and Hazel looked at them and smiled the coldest smile of her life. They were going to pay for what they had done. All of them.
She'd tried to tell herself that her particular power wasn't needed. That the Mission already had enough defenders. That she didn't need to call up alternates of herself, and see them die over and over again. Bonnie and Midnight had made her alternates real to her as never before. But she needed them now, and so she called on them, not in her own name but in Owen's. Called them forth to avenge the Deathstalker.
And they came.
Suddenly the compound was full of Hazel d'Arks, screaming in rage and loss. And all the Grendels who hadn't died under Owen's attack suddenly found themselves facing an army of warrior women, of varying faces and forms, but all of them united in pain and sorrow. There was a moment as both sides looked at each other and recognized a worthy adversary, and then the two sides surged forward and clashed together, and the dying began. Guns roared and steel flashed, and metal teeth and claws tore human flesh, but for every Hazel that fell another appeared to take her place. Hazel d'Ark had made herself a doorway through which an endless stream of alternates could appear, for as long as they were needed, or for as long as Hazel d'Ark could stand it.
She knew the effort was killing her, and didn't give a damn. She would save the lepers, not so much because she cared about them, but because Owen had. She knelt beside him, her strength seeping out of her like blood from an opened vein, and put one gentle hand upon his shoulder. She'd come this far with Owen Deathstalker, and if she had to follow him into the lands of the dead, she could do that too.
Someone was calling her name. Over and over, in a strange buzzing voice. She turned her head slowly and saw Tobias Moon kneeling beside her.
"We can't win this way!" he said urgently. "There's too many of them. But seeing you use your power has shown me how to use mine. I know what to do. Trust me! Reach out to me, and we can win this fight a different way!"
"How?" said Hazel.
"The Red Brain," said Moon. "It isn't in the jungle. It is the jungle."
And his mind reached out to hers and made contact. And through her Moon touched all the other Hazels. Bonnie and Midnight were there too, and Owen, somehow. They all joined together, melding and merging, becoming something far more powerful than the sum of their parts. They reached out and gathered up all the living minds in the Mission, from the sickest leper to Saint Bea herself. And together they turned outward, forged into one force, one thought, and touched the Red Brain—the gestalt consciousness of all the plant life on Lachrymae Christi. The jungle, millions of square miles of it, was all one connected body, and its mind was the Red Brain.
This was what the Hadenmen had come in search of, what Shub had sent the Grendels to seize or control or destroy. A whole new form of consciousness, unknown anywhere else in the Empire. A mind the size of a world. The Red Brain's thoughts were slow, moving with the rhythm of day and night, and the turning of the seasons, endlessly dying, endlessly living, immeasurably old. Alone for millennia, until the new mind touched it. Friendship was new, and joy, at being alone no longer, but it learned need and necessity too, and stretched out its vast and mighty body to help its new friend.
The jungle around the Mission erupted into movement, driven at a speed it had never known before. Trees uprooted themselves and fell across the fallen Mission wall. And across these bridges the jungle advanced and fell upon the Grendels. Barbed flails and crawling vines wrapped themselves around the aliens and tore them apart. Deadly plants with gaping maws and hideous strength erupted out of the broken ground of the compound, called up from deep below by the jungle's need. Grendels were swallowed up or ripped to pieces, unable to stand against the will of the jungle. The aliens turned and tried to flee, but once they left the Mission, huge, sucking pits appeared under their feet and dragged them down. And only a few minutes after it had begun, the jungle grew still again, no more Grendels left to kill.
The Red Brain and the mass human mind touched again. Far, far in its unimaginable past there had been a time when it was not alone, but that was so long ago it was more instinct than memory. But having been alone for so long, it was overjoyed to have companionship again, and it begged the human mind not to abandon it. For all its age, it was really only a child. The human mind reassured it. There were espers among the lepers. Communication would be possible now that they both knew what they were looking for. And now that the Red Brain had showed its strength, Haden and Shub would never dare come again. The human mind looked around the Mission, sorrowing over its many dead, and then fell back into its many bodies. There was much work to be done.
After that it was mostly a case of clearing up. Much of the Mission would have to be rebuilt, but this time the jungle would help. Once again bodies had to be cleared up and identified, and Saint Bea worked long hours in her infirmary, healing the sick. And if sometimes she laid her hands on a helpless case and whispered a quiet prayer, who could blame her? Especially when so many of them lived.
Owen Deathstalker woke up in the infirmary, astonished to be alive. Bonnie and Midnight lay in beds on either side of him, and Hazel took turns sitting with each of them. The link with the Red Brain, and its immense mental strength, had saved them, pulling them back from the brink one more time. They were still weak as half-drowned kittens, but strength came slowly back to them. Which was just as well. Hazel meant well, but she was bloody useless as a nurse. She just didn't have the temperament. They all complained a lot, and made a nuisance of themselves, and by the evening Sister Marion said they were all well enough, and would they please oblige her by getting the hell out of her infirmary so the rest of the patients could have some peace?
It was still raining, drumming loudly on the wooden roof. Owen and Hazel walked slowly across the uneven ground of the compound. The bodies were all gone, but the place itself was still a mess. Owen and Hazel
took turns leaning on each other, their inner energies at an all-time low. For the time being, they were only human again, and they made the most of it. Everywhere they went, the lepers bowed and saluted and called out their names like prayers or hymns. Owen and Hazel smiled uncomfortably back, noting that for all their fervor, the lepers maintained a careful distance. Living legends were one thing; living gods were quite another.
Tobias Moon came to meet them. His eyes no longer glowed, and only the faintest buzz remained in his voice. He was moving beyond such things as the Maze continued to work its changes in him. There was a new serenity to him, a peacefulness of spirit, as though many things had at last become clear to him.
"I'm not going with you when you leave," he said calmly. "I'm staying. The people here will need a lot of help rebuilding their Mission and their lives, and I think I could be of use. Until the espers learn how, I will be their contact with the Red Brain." He shook his head slowly. "That was the most fascinating experience of my life. It's been alone so long, just like me, the only one of its kind. And the lepers… perhaps it took the dying to teach me the meaning and value of life. Anyway, I'm staying. To guard the lepers, and be the voice of the jungle."
"Never really thought of you as a gardener, Moon," said Owen dryly, and Moon laughed politely. He was still working on humor.
Owen and Hazel walked on. Bonnie and Midnight were overseeing repairs on the other side of the compound, but they waved a hand in greeting. Owen and Hazel waved back. All was peaceful and serene, like the quiet after a storm has passed.
"Well," said Owen finally. "We won another one."
"Yeah," said Hazel. "Came bloody close to losing it, though. If Moon hadn't come through at the last minute, we could have died here. I really thought I'd lost you."
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