"Addy . . ." he hissed. "Still alive, I see . . . Still awaiting your turn . . ."
Addy nodded. "This is the longest game of Monopoly ever."
"Humor." The marauder snarled. "A human weakness. The Soul King only knows how your kind ever ventured into space." He sniffed her skull and shuddered as if savoring the scent. "Your brains, though. So full of fear, of pride, of aggression. So tender. So delectable. Only sentient species are such a delicacy. Oh, what I wouldn't give to feast upon your brain . . ."
"Have you considered switching to kale?" Addy said. "I hear it's very good for you, and it might help your complexion."
His tongue reached out, lined with small teeth like a chainsaw. He licked her, scraping her skin, and she grimaced.
"Don't worry, Addy Linden," Orcus said. "My Lord Malphas, son of the Soul King himself, knows of your presence here. He will arrive shortly to feast upon you. He enjoys his meals fresh, still wriggling, still begging."
"Great," Addy said. "Maybe he'll even leave you my hands to eat. I remember you love those. I'll be sure to flip you off as you gulp them down."
"Your mouth is big." Orcus sneered, saliva dripping. "When my lord arrives, I will enjoy hearing it scream."
"Says the guy with the crocodile jaws," Addy muttered as Orcus crawled back down the web, going to inspect other captives.
Once the marauder was far enough, Addy drew the tooth again. She continued sawing through the web, freeing herself and then Steve. They had to shake, poke, and finally slap Stooge to wake him up, then freed him too. The portly man looked around, scratched his stubbly jowls, and blinked in silent confusion.
"Whoa," was all he said.
As teenagers, Steve, Addy, and their friends would sometimes go camping at night. On one trip, they had brought Marco along. He had been miserable, bored out of his mind as the others played ball, but at night, he had taught them all to tell time by the stars. Addy had rolled her eyes then, embarrassed by her foster brother's awkward, excited nerdiness, but the knowledge had stuck. Tonight, glancing at the Big Dipper, she could tell that it was midnight. The witching hour. A good hour to escape.
"All right, the marauders are off the web," she whispered. "It's time."
She began to climb down, strand by strand, pausing every meter to gaze around, waiting for marauders to leap up. Thankfully, most of the creatures were sleeping, dangling from webs near the surface. Only one assembly line was still operating, its handful of marauders slowing down, perhaps sleepy at this late hour.
As Addy descended the web, other prisoners reached out to her, begging.
"Help . . ."
"Free us!"
"My baby is sick. Please help, please free us . . ."
Addy paused, sudden guilt filling her.
How can I just leave them here?
"Addy, hurry up," Steve whispered, climbing down at her side.
She nodded, climbed down another strand, then paused. She stared at a prisoner in the web, a young girl with black hair, with weepy dark eyes.
"I can't take you all," Addy said. "We can't all flee in the shadows."
She climbed down another strand. A meter above her, Steve and Stooge were descending too. Addy knew she had to leave the other captives here. If she freed them, if too many prisoners tried to sneak out at once, the marauders would surely notice. They would kill them all. She had to. She had to leave that girl. She had to leave them to be butchered, to be eaten.
Sometimes you have to leave comrades behind, Addy thought. Marco understood that. Ben-Ari did too. It's why they left me.
She climbed another strand, passing by another child. The trembling boy gazed at her.
"Oh fuck it," Addy muttered. "We're all probably dead anyway, and Ben-Ari can go suck a rotten marauder egg."
She pulled out her tooth and began cutting the boy loose.
"Now stay here," she whispered to the boy. "Pretend you're still tied up. Don't move until I give the signal."
He nodded. Addy moved to another prisoner. With her marauder tooth, she sawed at more strands.
She kept moving between the prisoners. Cutting their strands. Instructing them to wait on the web. She found Grant hanging nearby, his stumps leaking. Her dear old friend from Haven was ashen, struggling for breath. Even after losing both hands to Orcus's jaws, he was clinging to life.
"Addy," Grant whispered as she cut his bonds.
She touched his cheek. He was so cold. "Stay strong, Grant. We're getting out of here. Wait for my signal. Then run with me."
A glimmer filled his sunken eyes. "I will fight with you again, Addy Linden, my heroine." A tear ran down his cheek. "My friend."
Addy had worked for an hour, and she had freed many prisoners, when one—a teenage boy with pimply skin and a black eye—began scuttling down the web, shaking the whole structure.
"Wait!" Addy whispered to him. "Wait for my signal!"
But the boy kept descending, shaking the web. Strands creaked. A pole tilted. Two meters from the ground, the boy hopped down, thumped onto the soil, and began to run.
In the shadows, marauders woke up, raised their heads, and squealed.
The aliens cried out in their language, and a hundred more marauders rose from slumber.
"Now!" Addy shouted at the top of her lungs. "Run!"
She raced down the web as fast as she could. Around her, a hundred prisoners, freed from their bonds, scrambled down with her.
The marauders shrieked and scurried up toward them.
Addy leaped into the air, screamed, and landed on one of the creatures. She placed her feet on its snout. Howling, she drove her ivory blade down, shattering an eye, piercing a brain.
"For Earth!" Addy roared, blood splashing her, and leaped high.
She fell through open sky, kicking. She reached out, caught a web, swung through the air, and slammed her feet into a marauder. She knocked the alien to the ground, and when it leaped back up, she dived onto it. A claw grabbed her, tearing her skin, and Addy drove her tooth into another eye.
They fell together.
They tore through a web, tumbling, ripping through strands, stabbing at each other. The alien's claws moved in a fury, and Addy shouted hoarsely, bleeding, thrusting her blade until they thumped onto the ground.
The marauder lay dead, eyes pierced.
Addy rose.
Panting, wounded, covered in the blood of her enemies, she raised her ivory blade overhead. She howled in fury, tears on her cheeks, for she was a warrior again. And she hated killing. And she was scared. And she hated all this death. But this was who she was, who they had made her. All she knew how to be.
"For Earth!"
And from across the camp, the others answered her cry.
"For Earth! For Earth!"
Steve ran up to her. He kicked the dead marauder again and again, finally knocking out a tooth, and raised it alongside Addy's weapon—two swords. Two ivory blades against the endless horde.
In this camp of death, over these pits of blood, in this slaughterhouse for humans, in this fall from all their grace and vanity, their cries rose together with new pride. Here was human pride. Here was Earth at its lowest and Earth at its finest.
"For Earth! For Earth!"
The marauders leaped at them. Claws tore through flesh. Jaws ripped humans apart.
But some of the aliens died.
And more teeth rose.
And more white blades tore through webs, and more humans ran, and more added their voices to the cry. For two words that meant everything. The two most important words they knew, the most important words in human history.
"For Earth!"
Through the death, they ran. Life rising again. A phoenix from the ashes. Dozens, then hundreds, then thousands.
Addy ran at their lead, bleeding, weeping, fighting, killing. Around her, people died. Before her, marauders screamed.
And she fought. She fought until they reached the electric fence around the camp. Until they reached the marauders g
uarding the gate.
And here—here was humanity's greatest, noblest battle. Addy had fought at Abaddon. She had fought with a fleet of a hundred thousand starships, wonders of technological might. She had fought with millions of soldiers, armed with guns and tanks and shrieking jets of war. Here they fought naked, brutalized, weak, bald and bleeding and starved. Here they were no army, merely wretches, barely human. Yet here they were more human than ever. Here was greater courage than any Addy had seen in the great battles against the scum.
Here many died. They died between the jaws of the marauders. They died tossing themselves on the electric fence, burning. They died in mud and filth, and none would remember their names.
They died heroes.
When Grant fell, marauder claws in his chest, he gave Addy a last look, and his eyes shone.
"Goodbye, my friend," he whispered. "I die fighting alongside you. I die proud."
His eyes closed, and Addy wept for him. Grant had saved her life in Haven. She had failed to save his, and she mourned him.
She kept fighting. For him. For all humanity.
The rebels ran onward, fighting with sticks and stones, with tooth and nail. They knocked down the fence, and when it hit the mud and its power died, a great cry of triumph rose.
Roaring, Steve lashed his tooth into the eye of a marauder, slaying the beast. Even Stooge fought, howling like a berserker, swinging a tooth-sword in each hand. They raced over corpses, mostly of humans but of aliens too, and out of the slaughterhouse. They raced across the field. They raced over the good earth, the soil of their planet, as the familiar stars shone above.
The fleets around the planet perhaps had fallen. The army was perhaps no more. The city before them lay in ruins, and across the world, billions perhaps were enslaved.
But here, for one night, humanity was free.
Here, in darkness, they were victorious.
Above, fires blazed. Ravagers appeared in the sky. A hundred alien ships were descending toward them.
The captives froze, pointed, and cried out in fear.
"North!" Addy said. "Run north, to the forests! To freedom! Run!"
She ran, heading through the darkness toward the distant wilderness. Behind her, the survivors followed. Above, the fury of an alien empire rained down its fire.
CHAPTER TEN
The aliens surrounded them.
On the forest moon of Nandaka, Marco and his fellow Dragons stood, guns raised, muzzles still cold.
"Hold your fire," Ben-Ari said softly, eyes narrowed, daring not even move. "Don't antagonize them."
"What are they?" Lailani whispered.
Marco could guess. "The native Nandakis," he whispered. "And we just landed a spaceship in the middle of their forest."
Hundreds of the aliens stood on the forest floor, clung to the tree trunks, and hung from branches. They were the size of children and roughly humanoid, with two legs, a torso, and a head. But there the resemblance ended. Each Nandaki had four arms, long and slender and pale, and between the limbs stretched white skin like sails. A mouth gaped open on each palm, ringed with teeth, surrounded with clawed fingers. The aliens had no mouths on their faces, but their ears were long and pointed, and they peered with gleaming eyes the size of avocados. Their prehensile tails gripped the branches. They were intelligent enough to wear clothes and fashion jewelry: fur loincloths, feathered headdresses, and bead necklaces.
Kemi shifted uncomfortably and turned toward Ben-Ari. "Captain, we only have a few moments to send the Anansi back into space before the other ravagers show up."
"Wait," Ben-Ari whispered, keeping her eyes on the aliens around them. "Don't move."
The Nandakis moved closer. They chattered angrily through the mouths on their palms. A few held weapons: slingshots, bows, crossbows. Some pelted the Anansi with rocks. Birds hooted and fled above, and pollen rained from the flowering branches.
"Lower your weapons," Ben-Ari said to her crew, then raised her empty hands. "We come in peace, friends!"
The Nandakis shrieked. A few arrows flew, hitting the Anansi. The aliens hopped, swung from the trees, hooted, screamed . . . then fell silent.
Like a light switch flicking off, the sun vanished.
Darkness fell across the forest.
The flowers on the trees glowed pale blue and white. Most of the Nandakis climbed higher into the trees and disappeared. Only a few remained, watching with glowing eyes, hissing but crying out no more.
"What happened?" Marco said, glancing around. "It's like a light switch turned off. I didn't even catch a sunset."
Lailani pulled out a tablet, tapped a few buttons, and her eyes widened. "I'm reviewing the data on Nandaka from the scientist who discovered it. Amazing! The moon spins insanely quickly. Day and night only last about five minutes each. It should be light again soon."
Kemi hurried toward the Anansi. "A few minutes is all I need. I'm getting this ship out of here while our hosts are asleep."
The rest of the crew remained in the forest, warily watching those few Nandakis who were still awake in the branches. The aliens stared from the shadows, weapons raised, but made no further move to attack.
A few minutes later, Kemi emerged from the Anansi, panting. "All right, the rig is installed. I'm blasting her off!"
She hit a few buttons on her tablet. The Anansi's engines rumbled, then roared.
Sunlight reappeared.
The empty Anansi took off with steam and smoke and rumbling fury, tearing through branches and scattering fallen leaves and flowers.
Across the sunlit forest, the Nandakis returned, screaming, firing arrows at the ascending ship. Other Nandakis pointed weapons down at the four humans. The aliens moved closer, emboldened by the Anansi's departure.
"Genius plan," Lailani muttered. "We stranded ourselves on a planet full of angry alien-monkeys."
"They're angry at the marauders," Marco said. "They attacked the Anansi, a marauder ship, not us. They're not sure who we are." He slung his rifle across his back, then held out his empty hands. He spoke in a soothing voice. "Hello, friends. Hello. We mean you no harm."
The Nandakis all cried out in their language, each speaking with four voices from the four mouths on their four hands. One Nandaki fired a crossbow. The arrow whizzed only centimeters away from Lailani, nearly slicing her cheek.
"Assholes!" Lailani snarled and raised her rifle. "That does it. I'm going to—"
"No!" Marco pulled her gun down. "Stop. Kemi, you too. Lower your weapons." He turned back toward the Nandakis, hands held out. He knew the aliens would not understand his words, but perhaps they could understand his tone of voice. "We won't harm you. We're friends."
Kemi looked up from her tablet, which she was using to fly the Anansi via remote control. "We come in peace!" She smiled at Marco. "I've always wanted to say that."
"Take me to your leader!" Lailani said, then winked at Marco. "While we're speaking in cliches."
One of the Nandakis jumped out of a tree, stared at the crew, and hopped closer. He came within only a couple of meters of the humans. The alien's purple eyes were like two plums, and they sounded like camera shutters when they blinked. His pointed ears tilted. His skin was milky-white, and he wore a fur tunic. With one hand, he held a spear. He seemed smaller than the other Nandakis, perhaps only a child.
"Hello," Marco said, kneeling before the small alien.
The Nandaki hopped closer. His tail stuck out in a straight line. He raised one of his four arms and uncurled three fingers. A mouth opened on the palm.
"Hello," the alien said.
The sun vanished again.
The Nandakis retreated into the trees.
The young alien in front of Marco lay down, curled up, and snored through the mouths on his four hands.
"So we landed on a planet full of narcoleptics," Lailani said. She yawned. "I could use a nap myself, but I'd need more than five minutes."
While the aliens slept, the crew gathered around their sensors
and monitors, which they had placed on the forest floor. They tracked the Anansi, which Kemi was still controlling remotely. The living ship had left the atmosphere of Nandaka, and it was now traveling into deep space.
Twenty other dots appeared on the tablet, moving fast—the ravagers that had pursued them all the way from Haven.
"Come on, fellas," Marco mumbled, twisting his fingers. "Follow the Anansi. That's right, we only had a little pit stop here. We're still aboard. Go follow . . ."
Ben-Ari stared with narrowed eyes, her mouth a thin line. Kemi licked her lips, and Lailani twisted her fingers nervously.
"They're not falling for it," Lailani finally whispered. "They know we're on this moon. They won't follow the Anansi."
"Give them time," Marco said.
They all watched the monitor silently in the darkness. The Anansi flew out, farther, farther, heading into the blackness. Behind it, the twenty dots of light split up. Seventeen turned to pursue the Anansi into deep space. The last three turned toward the forested moon of Nandaka.
"Fuck!" Lailani blurted out. "It didn't work."
"It partially worked," Marco said. "We got seventeen of those bastards off our tail."
"And three more who'll be here within half an hour," Lailani said. "And they have about a million marauder friends all over this moon. Soon an army of marauders will be hunting our asses. Good luck stealing another ravager now!" The sun rose again. "And fuck this stupid sun rising and falling! And I'm fucking hungry, and if I don't eat one of these fucking aliens soon, I'm going to fucking die of starvation. We've been here for three days already, and I want to eat!"
On this third day, fewer Nandakis taunted the Dragons, perhaps bored with their presence, perhaps occupied with the marauder invasion of their world. The small, curious Nandaki, the one who had spoken to Marco, woke up and stepped closer today. Soon he was within arm's reach.
"Hello," Marco said again.
The young alien blinked, his luminous purple eyes making clicking noises. He raised one hand and opened its mouth. "Hello."
Marco pointed at himself. "Marco."
The alien tapped his chest. He spoke with one of his four mouths. "Keewaji."
Marco knelt before him. "Hello, Keewaji."
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