Deathbeast

by David Gerrold

  —and in that one moment when he had scrambled back after Tril, he had looked down the slope and he had seen: Ethab finally realizing that he hadn’t killed the beast, only angered it; Ethab backing away from his rising adversary, the beast growing up out of the pit; its gigantic legs clawing at the cliff, tearing it apart, the dirt crumbling, boulders falling, the beast climbing now and coming up the slope. The sound was thunderous, the ground pounding, the beast roaring up after Ethab—

  And that was all that Loevil saw—he pulled at Tril and ran—Nusa and Megan were already far ahead of them.

  —and then came Ethab, pounding past them all. His implants and augments made him into superman. He jittered past them as if he were a figure in a high-speed film. “There, up there—” he called to Loevil as he passed them. “Hide in those rocks. Follow me.” He had his rifle on his back; he still carried the crossbow in his left hand. Loevil watched him as he pulled ahead, passing Nusa and Megan too; he pointed and called to them: “I’m going over the top. I’m going to take him over the cliff. Over there.”

  There was a long, sloping shelf of rock, all slabs and crevices, a naked stretch of granite angled up and shorn off on one side; it led up to a rocky notch carved at the

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  top, where it culminated in a jagged cliff. This was the place that Ethab chose now for his final stand against the beast. This was the place where one of them would die.

  Loevil and Tril caught up to Nusa and Megan at the jumbled base of the slope—behind them they could hear the deathbeast rumbling like a tank. Its roars rang with the metal noise of the still-exploding, burning bolt. The Tyrant’s voice was the resonance of death tearing through the air. It came around the near-distant rocks and stopped to claw again at the shaft still hanging from its eye. “Oh, God—” said Loevil, looking back. Nine angry tons of lizard-death was thundering down on them like an avalanche.

  Megan was already grabbing Tril and pushing her toward Nusa, up the slope. “Nusa, take Tril—there—” She pointed toward a crevice on the shom-off side of the slope; there was a shelf of rock beneath an overhang, it stretched up the whole slope—Nusa was already moving— “Loevil, you and I—”

  Megan’s words were drowned in deathbeast roars, a noise like all of Satan’s minions crying out at once—

  The beast was crossing on the flatland now, heading toward the slope—it kept stopping to paw at its bleeding eye; blood spurted from the socket like a fountain. At last the bolt came free and tumbled down to rattle on the rocky ground—its whooping stopped and left a large space in the air still ringing loud with memories of intense electric pain. The momentary silence quivered.

  Loevil shoved Megan up the hill—“Move!”—and then looked after her in stunned surprise, because she did. Some part inside him took a second then to marvel—Megan was the senior guide, yet she had followed his lead! He was startled at his own temerity and courage—courage? The still small voice within him scoffed, Nonsense! I just did what was necessary. He was mo

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  mentarily proud—but only momentarily; he was already running for the cover of two boulders at the bottom of the slope where the shorn-off side began. He scrambled sidewise, slipping in the dust and dropping behind the larger of the boulders, grabbing at his rifle to keep it from falling down into the cut beyond.

  The beast came moving on them then, less angered now that the bolt had fallen from his eye. The socket was a cratered ruin, and the blood was flowing from it slower now. The flesh was charred and burnt all up and down the side of the deathbeast’s head. And there were creases all along his flanks, burned places, scars and gaping wounds—the damage of their previous encounters—the deathbeast moved within a stench of roasting flesh. His hide was cut in places as neatly as if by a surgeon’s scalpel, and when he moved, the edges of the wounds would flex and part, revealing darker flesh within and oozing serum. The deathbeast held his tail aloft—and there were wounds along this brittle lance as well. At one point, the tail was crooked and creased as if it had been broken. The beast hesitated in some confusion now, looking up the slope. It shifted its weight from leg to leg and turned its head and blinked with its one glaring eye—

  Megan was one-third of the way up the slope. Nusa and Tril were beyond her, still climbing. Tril was having trouble with the steepness of the naked rock. Up at the top stood Ethab, silhouetted in the notch, poised with his crossbow like a statue. Waiting. The deathbeast looked at this tableau and paused—a moment’s hesitation while it built up steam within its boiler.

  Megan caught up with Tril and Nusa, grabbing Nusa’s arm and pointing, “There—!” A place beyond the edge, a rocky crevice large enough for two. Tril scrambled as she followed Nusa, but her sidebag slipped

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  off from her belt and tumbled down the slope; she broke free to follow after. Nusa followed after her. The case rolled only a few meters, Tril scrambled and seized it and caught herself to keep from tumbling farther down the slope; she came back up with just a little stagger. Nusa, right behind, reached for her, but Tril was already clambering toward the spot that Megan had indicated, not needing to be told now where to go—

  Megan was higher on the rocks now, and poised, waiting with her blazer. If necessary, she’d distract the beast until the others got to cover; she didn’t even think of it as bravery, it was her job—

  Loevil was already aiming with his rifle. The deathbeast loomed above him like a mountain; it was starting up the hill-—and Loevil fired to distract it. His bolts flicked out with angry sounds of scarlet fire. Zippp zzttH WheeeooopppzzttiinnnggH

  The battle was joined. The beast turned angrily to Loevil in his hiding place, roaring like a hurricane. The stench of his breath was fire laced with graveyards, a roasting slaughterhouse of a wind—

  From high above, from his vantage at the crest of the ridge, Ethab watched and smiled grimly. “Soon,” he said to his lover. “Soon it will be just you and me. Just you and me, my friend—”

  His smile was something hideous to see.

  Fifteen

  COMPLETION!

  Heat lightning was flickering on the horizon, a dry wind was rising from the east, and Loevil found himself abruptly wondering about the possibility of a sudden grass fire—

  “Well, why not?” he answered himself. “Everything else has gone wrong today.”

  —the deathbeast lashed its tail high and hissed again at Loevil. He let off another burst of blue-white-yellow- crimson lightning and creased the monster’s neck. The flesh sizzled where the bolt tattooed its line, charring, turning black and ashy. The smell of burning meat came down to Loevil—the creature roared and stepped away, then came circling round to grab at him from the other side. Its massive head was like the jaws of some huge machine for digging earth out of a mountainside; a hissing screeching rasp of air came ripping-issuing from its throat. The mighty tail was high and flashing back and forth, a sinewy writhing balance to the monster’s wrath—the god of lizards, dinosaurs, and demons stood

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  black and raging in the yellow sun and bellowed out its anger. The deathbeast, god-beast, Tyrant King of planet Earth’s most violent hundred million years was challenged on his home ground now—and by a set of scampering apes, puny mammal-things, descendants of the shrews that lived beneath the rocks; they threatened him with whips of fire, slashing beams—he was confused, he didn’t like it, and he roared—he was determined now to end this challenge to his reign once and for all; he was the deathbeast, the master of all terror.

  He grabbed with mighty jaws at Loevil, scraping with his chin across the granite boulder Loevil hid behind. Loevil’s beam snicked out and touched him, scoring him—across his ravaged eye, his side, the eye again, the breastbone and the mouth. The deathbeast’s heart was open to the fire of Loevil’s aim.

 
Loevil cast a glance behind—he was trying to stall the beast until the others all reached cover, then he’d let the monster go for Ethab—

  Ethab was waiting for the monster in the notch, motionless and grinning. Halfway below him, Megan waited with her blazer poised—she couldn’t fire yet; Loevil still was in the way. She was edging higher now, trying for a better vantage. Nusa and Tril were still scrambling sidewise for the lip of rock—it was taking them forever—Tril was uncoordinated, ^favoring the case she carried in her hands—why were crazy people all so clumsy? Loevil wondered. At least, the ones he’d seen were.

  Megan scrambled sidewise—onto the overhang, almost off the ledge of rock—she had a vantage now and raised her rifle, waiting only until Tril and Nusa reached their point of safety. She watched with tightened lips as Loevil flicked his blazer bolts all about the beast, neon- rays of darting fire. The beast kept turning back and

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  forth, biting, snapping at the beams; Loevil played him like a puppet and the monster staggered in a dance of death, Saint Vitus of the Lizards—

  And in the notch, where Ethab waited, the smile stretched like a rictus. “Leave him alone, he’s mine. Let him come up here to me!” His voice was still the rasp of metal, mechanical and dispossessed of all emotion. Ethab raised his rifle carefully. The beast attacked the source of blazer-bolts, he attacked the source of pain and fire.

  —and now, as Megan fired, Ethab fired too—and crimson slashed down through the air and sparked an ultraviolet haze. The day began to smell of ozone, and little lightnings flickered up and down the notch. The bolts bit at the beast along his head and flanks and tail, touching, burning, sizzling and sleeting. The scream of bolts was deafening and shrill; the deathbeast’s roars were louder, the cries of ripping flesh and wrath. The earth rumbled with each blast and bellow, the ground shook and shattered with each step. The tail crashed against a rock and it was the rock that cracked and splattered blood—

  “Come on!” yelled Megan at the beast, from high upon the slope. She pumped her fire into him like Vulcan casting lightning from his forge. “Die already, dammit!” She was screaming now. “You’ve taken enough shots. Are you too mean to die? Get away from here, at least—if you don’t, you’ll die, ’cause we’re not smart enough to stop! Come on, you mighty bastard—be smart enough to be a coward! Go away, get out of here— don’t make us kill you! You’re too beautiful to be destroyed by apes like us! Go on, you stupid lizard, you! Get out of here, get out!”

  She held her finger on the trigger of her rifle and

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  screamed. The rifle screamed. The deathbeast screamed. The air was tom by all the noise—

  The deathbeast raged within a cloud of smoke and fire. The bushes all around him flamed. Beams came slashing in at him from three levels. Loevil stopped his firing for an instant, stood amazed and watched—the beast was turning, turning in a frame of orange flames and scarlet whips—sadly, then he raised his rifle once again and joined his wrath to the others. “How much heat can we pump into him?” he asked the moment. “He just keeps getting madder—”

  He was scared—he hadn’t realized it before, he hadn’t had the time, but he was scared, frightened not of death, or even pain, but just frightened of the size of the anger that was now unleashing like a storm before them. Had they really started this? It went on and on and on, and it was the size of all this agony that frightened him—it was too much for anything to take; what anguish raged within the deathbeast’s head—?!! He wanted to run. He looked behind him for a place to scamper to, a crevice in the rocks, a hole he could hide inside—this was no time or place for mammals like himself. He belonged a hundred million years away from here, safe inside a big warm bed, between two clean white linen sheets, with a cup of steaming cocoa and a book of dirty pictures— pictures of mammals doing things with other mammals. Why was he here in this hellhouse of a moment, futilely torturing a mountain of hurting lizard-flesh? Lizards could hurt too, couldn’t they? He couldn’t think of anything as stupid as the thing that he was doing now—

  The beast was trying to pull the two boulders apart to get at Loevil where he crouched behind them. His good left eye was like a blazing crimson spotlight, an angry demon glare of wrath and hate; a red as fierce, a rage as pure as all the beams from all their B-type laser-rifles.

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  The boulders creaked and shifted in their places, the ground beneath them groaned and cracked; the death- beast’s claws were scraping at the rock like metal pincers. Loevil yelled and ducked—Ethab fired; Megan too— Their shots came sleeting in from high up on the slope and scored him on the side; he turned and hissed a curse at them, turned back to scrape again at Loevil. Loevil first, then all the others; the massive head swung down between the rocks to bite—

  Megan’s scream was anguished. “Loevil—//" She fired futilely, the beam went down the slope and tore a slab of flesh right off the deathbeast’s back; he never even noticed.

  Loevil ducked again, and at the moment when the monster’s head came frenzied in the rocks, he shoved his rifle upward toward it, jabbed it in the monster’s mouth—it was a cavern reaching, grabbing, and—the beast jerked back abruptly, an automatic reflex, a biting of the jaws at the suddenness of having something in them. The head came up and jerked and snapped and gulped—and then the fuel cells within the rifle stock exploded—

  —the beast was hurled backward, not by the force of the explosion so much as its own shock. The beast rolled thrashing on the ground in burning, bloody agony—a crimson replay of the moment Dorik’s rifle had exploded in his mouth—

  —but where was Loevil?!! Megan couldn’t see him— was he still somewhere in that cloud of smoke—? Had he been caught in the deathbeast’s mouth or beneath him when he rolled—? She kept on firing still, her tears were streaming down her cheeks—“You son of a bitch! You goddamn, rotten, egg-sucking, beast of hell—Ethab, I’ll kill you for this—”

  The beast was on his stomach now, straightening his

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  haunches, flailing with his tail, lifting his body and rising to his feet—his anger overrode his pain, and he was turning toward the rising slope and up the hill toward Megan and the others. Nusa and Tril were on the edge, they hadn’t gone to safety. Nusa perched precariously; she held her holo like a window and was buzzing off exposures and exposures— This was absolutely thrilling! Her face was stretched into a smile broad as Ethab’s. Beside her, Tril was crying quietly—she would not go down inside the lip below the overhang alone; she was scared and wanted someone with her, and here was Nusa, straddling the rocks and scuttling like a crab, buzzing pictures with her holo-frame. Tril’s tears were like a gentle mountain stream of fear and hurt all tumbled up in soft confusion.

  The beast came stumbling up the slope. It rumbled in its chest; its footsteps pounded on the granite shelf, its tail swung like a derrick. Its breath was like a roaring furnace, its eye was bright with fire and death.

  Megan was screaming still. “Nusa! Get out of the Way—!”

  Nusa waited till the last—these pictures were incredible! She’d make a fortune with this holo—if she lived! Her heart was pounding in her chest—and suddenly she realized the beast was charging up at her, not at Megan or at Ethab—and shoving Tril before her, she scrambled off the rock into the lip below the overhang. The monster’s head came swinging in and biting at the place where they had been. Its jaw closed with a snap. She could see it—oh, so close!—above them. Its charred eye was a smoking ruin, a cratered mass of blackened flesh, a lunar landscape carved upon the deathbeast’s skull, and cauterized at the moment of attack. Megan’s blazer was still eating at its hide; smoke billowed black and oily from the blazer bums—and even spattering pinpoint

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  sprays of flame! The deathbeast seemed immune to its own pain; it stra
ightened from the overhang and looked toward Megan where she stood. She would be the next—

  Above her, Ethab lowered his rifle, watching. He waited, wondering—did the deathbeast understand his destiny? He almost seemed to, didn’t he? The beast kept pausing now and looking up toward Ethab, ignoring Megan’s futile flames that flickered all about his head and burning shoulders. He kept coming up and onward, wading through the fires of human-created hells as if they were no more than water splashing at him from playful hoses.

  —for a moment, the smoke parted. And there was Loevil at the bottom of the slope. His foot was caught, his leg turned sideways in the space between two rocks— but the beast had missed him! The explosion of the weapon had thrown the beast so far that Megan’s fire had distracted him. Loevil was still working hard to free himself and looking upward frantically. He jerked loose and staggered back, clutching at his knee and grimacing in pain— he was defenseless now, his rifle was a spray of blackened pieces all across the ground.

  But there was Megan, high up on the slope and firing steadily; her bolts lashed out methodically, crisping, sizzling, carving at the deathbeast as had Loevil’s earlier. She was trying to play him just as he had done, but it wasn’t working now. The beast was ignoring all the scarlet lances she kept hurling at him. He moved within a purple haze, an ozone-smelling aura of sparks and crackling static flashes—the air turned multicolored with the energies that splashed across the beast and rocks. He came on toward Megan like doom engraved in acid. He was wrapped and wreathed in smoke and fire and instant blue-white beams which lingered hard across the space in crimson afterimages; the beams turned colors in the air,

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  hanging for eternal instants afterward, the atoms of the day still flickering with the energies that passed across them—

  —the beast came toward the source of pain as if it were on tracks; a mighty engine of revenge, bellowing up the slope, it came up at Megan like a thundering black volcano—her rifle licked out like a lizard’s tongue, blue- white and red against electric purple auras, aurora borealis of doomfire and destruction, she poured energies into the beast in deathly silence; she was the quiet eye of Ethab’s hurricane, the center of a maelstrom of noise. The wrath of gods was screaming all about; energies were shrieking, the air itself was screeching as the beast came grunting up to her—