Cuzco looked magnificent. His orange scales gleamed, his eyes were full of an angry vitality. He was no longer the sad and defeated creature I had loved; he was a warrior lost in battle-lust.
“Cuzco,” my voice said, “these creatures have primitive projectile weapons and use spears and mechanical spear-throwers. You will enjoy today.”
“Can they fly?” Cuzco asked.
“They command,” my voice said, “regiments of aerial creatures who routinely massacre beasts larger than yourself. These people, let us call them the Shasoon, which in my language means Prey We Taunt Before We Eat, will give you a battle royal.”
Cuzco roared with joy, as did Balach, Morio, Tamal, Sheenam, Goay, Leirak, Tarrroth, Shseil, Dokdrr, Ma, and myself.
The Ka’un strategy, I now knew, was to engage in direct combat only when the enemy was technologically primitive. And in these cases, we were the Ka’un’s favoured warriors; the giant sentients who could be relied upon to stage a battle both bloody and magnificent.
Ah, and what a battle it was!
The Shasoon were octopod creatures who could gallop on four legs while firing spear-weapons with their dextrous four arms. Their torsos stood upright atop their cylindrical bodies and they howled when they fought, an ululating cry that allowed them to control the animals and the plants in their vicinity.
They were brave and bloodthirsty creatures, with a rich history of combat, as I learned from the thoughts in the mind of my equally bloodthirsty Ka’un master. The Shasoon had slaughtered all the other major land animals on this planet indiscriminately, and fought constant wars amongst themselves. They were gifted astronomers and had spotted our space ship arriving in their stellar system. And they had prepared carefully for an alien invasion, by laying traps, training armies, and concealing missiles capable of throwing vast balls full of explosive powder, albeit for a relatively short distance.
They stood, of course, not a chance.
First Cuzco appeared in the skies above them and fusillades of burning spears were loosed at him from machines built of wood. But the spears splashed harmlessly over his armoured body, and he swept down low and ripped apart Shasoon warriors. Flames were fired at him and engulfed his body but that merely entertained him and he spat back fire from his neck and skull vents. Nets were thrown upon him and he burned them off with acid from his body.
And then I swooped down, my cape fully unfurled, and I landed in the midst of a regiment of Shasoon who fired primitive projectile guns at me and stabbed me with their spears. And I batted them down with my lengthy tentacles, and impaled them with my quills, and ripped their bodies apart with my claws.
Then Goay and Leirak joined the fray; they were carried down in the claws of the giant aerial Tarrroth, and dropped on the earth, where they used their claws to rip open the soil in search of the Shasoon’s buried encampments. And when the network of tunnels were revealed, Dokdrr and Ma were conveyed to the planet’s surface and they slithered their vast serpent bodies inside the tunnels and I know they would not stop until they had paralysed or chewed to pieces each and every Shasoon warrior in this sprawling underground labyrinth.
Once we had destroyed all of the warriors in this army, we travelled onwards to the country’s major city where we were confronted with a fortified building with high walls that towered up to the clouds. But Tarnal swiftly smashed a path through the walls and Cuzco flew inside billowing flame while I clambered over the wrecked walls with my tentacles and we resumed the perpetration of carnage.
These valiant warriors fought fearlessly, and in turn were dealt terrible blows, and sustained appalling injuries. Tarnal had his eyes gouged out and ran off howling, lashing with his claws at air. A mob of Shasoon forced an explosive ball down the throat of Dokdrr, and when it detonated the serpentine’s body was rent into pieces and she screamed in agony and could no longer move. But then Tarrroth swept down from above and carried clawfulls of struggling Shasoon warriors high up in the air and dropped them to their deaths.
Shsiel and Ma had been my friends on the Hell Ship; I remembered them fondly. Ma was a herbivore with a long and (proportionate to her body) slender neck that allowed her to eat leaves from the tops of trees in the giant forests of her world. Her people had developed a rich philosophy, and her stories of the fantastical had always been a joy to hear. And Shsiel was a scaled two-headed beast whose people had befriended the sentient bipeds on their planet, and formed a multi-species civilisation with a single government.
These were the gentlest of beasts, despite their size. But today they were wrathful warriors. And when we smashed down the inner walls of the fortified building we found there the old and the young Shasoon cowering, and the babes in cots, the crippled and the ailing, the venerable leaders, and the terrified toddlers; all protected by ranks of archers fighting fiercely to the last. And Ma roared with joy at the sight and lashed at bodies with her hooves and ate young and old and crippled Shasoon whole, and Shseil used his horns to stab and his teeth to rip the octopods into shreds. Then I joined them on the ground and I I cannot speak of it.
Suffice to say, we slew them all! We butchered, chewed, maimed, ripped, burned and impaled these angry Shasoon by the tens of thousand. The hot blood of battle was upon me; I was fighting side by side with giant sentients of magnificent valour, and blood flowed freely that day!
All this I saw, and all these emotions I felt, as I inhabited the Ka’un mind that was inhabiting me. It was a day of bloody murder, and my Ka’un revelled in it. And so did the Ka’un who controlled Cuzco, and so did all the other Ka’uns who controlled this army of giant sentients. This was not a day for the Kindred; this was a day for monsters to kill small eight-limbed angry and aggressive intelligent beings who stood not a chance. They could hurt us, but they could not kill us; all they could do was die screaming with rage.
Yet in my own soul, I raged with frustration, and with contempt for my inhabiting mind. For what glory was this? How could any sentient creature take pleasure in such cruel, futile atrocities?
The Shasoon were flawed creatures, without doubt; they were a young species, and primitive and bloodthirsty. They had not yet learned the joys of civilisation, collaboration, and societal love. But they had potential; their cities were beautiful, they loyalty to each other was noteworthy, and they had, I do not doubt, great love for their children and for each other.
But we slaughtered them that day as if they were insects who had built their nest in our child’s bedroom; and when the Ka’un were weary we departed and a planet-buster missile was sent to burrow into the planet’s core.
One solitary Shasoon was captured; and we made him watch, through the glass wall of the hull, as his planet was exploded into many pieces. He screamed and wailed, as they all did on these occasions.
And then he was taken away to the interior world.
When we did not fight, we slept. We woke, we fought again.
“Cuzco,” I whispered.
The great beast was asleep.
“Cuzco.”
Still, he slept, not moving, not even a trace of breath from his lips.
“Cuzco!”
Still, he did not stir. No one stirred; for all we giant sentients, sleep was absolute and involuntary.
But for some unknown reason, I had woken, and remained awake. And I could speak. But Cuzco could not hear me; his trance-like state could not be penetrated. I called and whispered and blew air upon his face, but he did not respond in any way.
Eventually I was silent. I lay awake, incapable of movement, unable to speak to anyone else; never have I felt more trapped.
“They are giants also,” roared Cuzco, as he hovered in mid-air at the head of his army. “It is a worthy encounter. Let battle commence!”
And Cuzco plunged and dived upon the basking reptilian creatures, each twice his size, and I loped along on my tentacles to join him.
We were on a swamp planet; double suns made the air a painful glare. These creatures were non-sentient but
vicious, and Cuzco was enjoying the battle. Blood spattered and heads were severed and after several minutes Cuzco was maimed and weak and I came roaring in to help him.
“Cuzco,” I whispered, my face close to his bleeding head. “Can you hear me?”
“I can hear you,” he whispered back, then his eyes went blank again and he fell asleep.
The reptile tried to rip his body apart; and I stood and fought, to protect Cuzco’s sleeping body. I realised that Cuzco’s Ka’un body-rider had absented himself; and indeed so had mine. For I had at that moment, for the first time in a year or more, the use of my limbs back; I was free!
But Cuzco was in deadly peril. So I fought for my friend like a crazed thing, spitting rage and stabbing with my quills and slashing with my claws. I pounded the enemy beasts with my tentacles; and I defeated them all.
And when it was over, I was weary and bloodied, and Cuzco still slept, and I wondered what I would do now. Well done, Sai-ias, said a voice in my head, and I realised it was my Ka’un.
He was talking to me.
Cuzco’s wrecked body was carried up in a landing craft and taken to the Hell Ship. He would be restored to health, I knew, but it would be some time before I saw him again.
I recognised one of the Kindred landing party; it was Zala. Once she had been Sharrock’s enemy, and had fought him on his world. And now once again she was serving the Ka’un.
“Zala,” I whispered to her, “It’s me, Sai-ias.” But she did not respond. She is a beautiful creature, said the voice in my head. Or at least, I find her so. Larger, physically, than the females of my kind. And three eyes at the front, whereas our third eye is on the back of our neck. But beautifully proportioned. I have often, in the body of a Kindred male, fornicated with this beast.
Who are you? I thought at the voice in my head. But there was no response.
It was, once again, a slaughter most bloody and glorious.
On this day, I fought side by side with the Kindred, against tusked bipeds who had built huge metal machines to fight their battles for them. The Kindred were armed with their cylinder guns that spat fire, and I and a dozen other giant sentients fought beside them with our claws and teeth and, in my case, tentacles.
First, we had destroyed the tuskers’ cities with bombs from the air; we had smashed their missiles in their silos; we had slain them in their hordes. This was a semi-technological society which used steam to power its machinery; and their projectile weapons fired only one bullet before requiring a reload. But even so, the tuskers had large and well disciplined armies and catapults that could hurl burning fire, and there were millions of them. So we slew millions of them, remotely, with missiles and forest fires.
And now we had descended to the planet for hand to hand combat with the last stragglers on the planet; no more than two or three thousand of them, we estimated.
And we were losing. The tusked bipeds used ambush and deceit against us; they built pits and covered them with grass; they put bombs in their own people so when a Kindred warrior struck an enemy warrior with his sword, the resulting blast was deadly to both.
And their metal machines were unbeatable. I stabbed them with my quills, I smashed them with my tentacles, but they could not be hurt. And every time they burned me with fire, my inner shell got weaker.
And then another landing craft descended from the sky, and twelve warriors stepped out. They were bipeds, roughly the same height as Sharrock, and dressed in long red robes; dignified and graceful but with blackened old faces that looked like skulls; their beauty turned to eerie age.
One of them fired a projectile gun without aiming; and a hundred or more tiny missiles flew through the air and unerringly targeted the metal monsters we had been fighting.
The missiles cut through metal effortlessly; moments later nearly a hundred blinding flashes dazzled us; and when our vision returned, the monsters were ash.
One of the robed bipeds laughed; a sound of joy that chilled me. See me, Sai-ias, said the voice in my head, and the laughing biped turned to look at me, and I looked back. And I realised that it was him; my Ka’un; the one who lived in my mind.
“Come, and fight!” shouted another robed Ka’un, to the tusker army. “If you can defeat us, you may have your planet.” And he drew a sword and held it aloft; the universal sign for a challenge to combat.
By now only a handful of the tusked bipeds were left; five hundred or so was my guess. And most of them were not in plain sight; they were hidden in the alleys and houses of this city, from where they had launched their skilful ambushes. But one by one they all emerged, to face this new enemy. For they clearly knew this was something different.
Now they were fighting their real enemy: the Ka’un.
I realised that I was paralysed; only my eyes could move, not my limbs or head. My Ka’un was focusing on his own body, and had immobilised me.
The five hundred or so tuskers formed a disciplined semicircle, facing the twelve Ka’un. They wore tunics of hide and metal, and they carried projectile guns in their hands and swords and axes in their scabbards. They were clearly seasoned fighters.
One of the tuskers screamed an insult at the Ka’un; it was evidently an invitation to fight and die. And even though I could not comprehend it, there was a musicality to the creature’s sounds that made me think the words were beautifully expressed.
And my Ka’un responded to the challenge by stepping forward; and then he bowed his head, in a gesture of respect.
Five hundred or more guns were raised and all shot of them at my Ka’un.
The speed of it all was bewildering; the bullets fired, my Ka’un leaped to one side, and the other Ka’un dodged and ducked as the hail of bullets flew at them. Then my Ka’un got back to his feet.
There was blood upon his chest; a hole in his skull. He had dodged most of the bullets, but not all. Yet he had survived. And my Ka’un laughed again.
Half the tuskers reloaded their guns; the other half charged with swords and axes raised. My Ka’un was undaunted, and did not deign to draw his sword; his eleven comrades stood in readiness, but also did not attempt to draw their weapons.
And then a spark of fire shot from my Ka’un’s arm and hit the front rank of charging tuskers. They fell, screaming and ablaze. The other Ka’un ran towards the tuskers, flames leaping from their arms like lightning that streaks across the sky, and more tuskers burned.
Then a second fusillade of bullets was fired, and some of the Ka’un fell. My Ka’un had lost the use of one arm; but still he spat flame from the fingers of the other arm; the air was acrid with fumes. The burning tuskers did not scream as they died, and no one had time to attempt to extinguish the flames of their stricken comrades. All were focused on killing the Ka’un.
One tusker got far enough to lop the head off a Ka’un’s shoulders; and then my Ka’un struck him with a powerful fist, splintering a tusk. But the tusker absorbed the blow and swung his sword again but my Ka’un leaped high in the air, dodging the blade, and landed with feet kicking brutally and the tusker’s skull was crushed, and he fell down dead.
My Ka’un roared with joy; and for one moment I could see through his eyes. Two more tuskers were rushing at him/me with swords, enveloped with flame but fearless; and I/my Ka’un seized a tusker sword from the ground and engaged them in savage swordplay. Steel clashed against steel; my Ka’un was deft and fast and graceful, but the tuskers were numerous and highly skilled. I felt, as my Ka’un felt, a surge of panic at the thought that I would now die, irrevocably.
But a moment later I/my Ka’un had recovered my/our poise and my/his sword bit flesh and the scores of attacking tuskers were dead-hacked apart then eviscerated. How does that feel, Sai-ias? my Ka’un asked in my head.
The battle was over; the ground was damp with blood. The Ka’un retreated to their ship, dragging their dead and wounded, but my Ka’un remained; staring at my body; thinking his thoughts in my head. This was a joyful battle; too often we hide in our ship and
miss the true glory of war.
Are your dead warriors… truly dead? I thought at him. Oh yes. There is no resurrection for us; only for you, our children. But the difference is: we welcome death.
Why do you do this? What pleasure can you take in all this carnage? I thought. Do not pretend, Sai-ias; for you enjoyed it too.
With a creeping sensation of horror, I realised he was right; I had savoured the glory of this day! And I hated myself for it.
Who are you? I thought.
I am Minos, I am both artist and warrior; and I am captain of the vessel we call the Blessed Farol; which you know as the Hell Ship.
From that moment on, Minos was constantly in my thoughts. Do not judge us harshly, he said to me that first night. For we were wronged. Our universe was destroyed, by brutal creatures who cared nothing about the goodness of our kind; and thus we were forced to become wanderers through the dimensions. We are victims; and you should pity us.
Stop this now! I thought at him. Let us all be free; and stop the killing. You are deranged. What pleasure can you take in massacring so many?
We do not do it to take pleasure.
Then why do it? I thought. We only fight when we are provoked! Oh how could you think so badly of us, Sai-ias?
I was shaken by his words; the evident sincerity of his tone. Yet I knew that some creatures could lie as easily as they breathed; and I suspected that Minos was one such.
For we have only one goal, Minos continued: to spread the word of peace and love through all the realities. But each and every time we attempt to seed friendship and concord, we are confronted by belligerence and rage and contempt. And so-in self-defence-we have killed very many species of sentient alien species. But only for the noblest of reasons! And only, as I say, in self defence.
You can’t believe those lies! I raged mentally.
I do believe them.
You have killed millions of innocent creatures, you evil one!
Only because they proved unworthy.
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