But then they throw someone into the abyss.
There’s no scream. I expect the body—though glowing warm—is a corpse. But the others find the spectacle amusing, howling with laughter. Cheering. The body falls almost out of sight, then jerks to a stop and slams the side of the pit, hard enough to send a shower of rubble into the hole. It’s on a tether, secured by the ankles. It gets dragged roughly up across the rocks, back up to the rim. Then it gets kicked, prodded. It convulses. Alive. But it still doesn’t make a sound.
This is when I realize some of the figures standing at the edge of the pit are bound: a small cluster of them, five total. They do not wear the uniforms and partial uniforms of the Chang deserters. And they do not have normal proportions.
I didn’t notice this initially as they were standing apart from their apparent captors. The prisoners are much taller than their captors, perhaps a full head, and their arms and legs appear unusually long and thin. But their torso proportions are particularly strange: Just like the armored one Azrael killed for my benefit, their ribcages are almost double that of an average Normal, while their waists are shockingly slim. And when lights are brought in close (for examination or interrogation is unclear), the skin I can see looks to be a deep red but unnaturally unreflective, as if painted with the rusty Martian mud. Large dark eyes stare stoically from long faces with exaggerated cheekbones. Their basic clothing consists of simple fabrics, also rust-colored, that look hand-made. I expect they were wearing more, and have been stripped down.
One of the black suits wrestles one of the standing prisoners down to his knees over the prone and fetal form of the one they had thrown into the pit. He cranks on an arm as if to break it, then appears amused. His voice travels enough in the caves that with my enhanced hearing I can almost understand him: He speaks in a thick Zodangan accent, slurring his pronunciation and using some of their unique slang. He appears to be marveling at how flexible their prisoners’ bones are, how difficult they are to fracture. He draws some kind of machete, turns to the others long enough to demand that they speak, that they answer whatever questions he’s probably been putting to them. Then he hacks, taking off the kneeling prisoner’s right arm just below the shoulder. This seems to entertain his men further, but he doesn’t get his questions answered.
I watch the maimed prisoner bleed in a flood onto the rock. He stays stoic, stays upright, his severed arm still tied to his other by the wrist. Then he does something truly surprising: he forces himself to his feet when his attacker’s attention is turned, and swings his severed limb like a weapon. I hear it impact the interrogator’s skull, the blow staggering him. One of the other black suits runs in to restrain him, only to get the severed limb wrapped around his neck. He stabs the prisoner through the torso with a short sword, but the prisoner pulls them both toward the edge, and they vanish together into the pit, his murderer screaming until the sound comes to a sudden stop.
The interrogator recovers himself, begins kicking the prone prisoner, continues until the body falls into the pit. But this time the cord it cut, letting him fall all the way.
I scan my surroundings, look for a way down, but I’ll be seen. But then I see movement, apart from the group, down the main tunnel back toward the surface. I have to use infrared to confirm: It’s the four from Abbas’ group, watching this spectacle unfold from hiding, probably sizing up their opposition, deciding on their course of action.
Unfortunately, the interrogator decides to try a new tactic. He drags another prisoner forward, tears at the tunic it wears, exposes… female breasts. He’s stripping her. Strikes her across the face. I’m too sure that I understand his intention.
I cannot let this continue.
I run some poor calculations in my head, choose to do something risky to the point of stupidity. I aim myself, and use my enhanced muscles to leap from my perch, drawing my sword as soon as I’m airborne.
I come down harder than anticipated across the pit from the prisoners, behind one of the black suits, recover myself before he can turn, and hack. My sword bites into meat—I feel it scrape ribs as it sinks into his side halfway to his spine. He’s still up, turning his weapon in self defense, when I jerk my blade out of him and hack across his skull. I have no idea if he screamed—all I see is red, all I hear is my own breathing. I run for the edge of the pit. Someone starts shooting. I feel something smack my shoulder plate and send fragments into my helmet. I ignore it. Leap.
I think I’m screaming. It seems to take a long time to cross the void. But I hit the ground on the other side before the interrogator can forgo his machete for his pistol. I run into him sword-point first, drive my blade into his gut, up under his ribs.
And I get shot in the back.
Two shells smack me hard in the plate, almost taking me off my feet, but a third misses my armor just as I’m struggling to stay upright, tears through my ribs between my liver and right kidney, and punches out just below my solar plexus. It burns, shocks, staggers. I look down at the hole torn through my sealsuit, see my blood sprayed on the belly of the man I’ve stabbed, mixing with his as he leaks down to the hilt of my weapon, and realize the bullet that came out of me is probably in him but I’ve made so much of a mess out of him I can’t tell.
I can’t breathe—any attempt I make at inhaling is agony. My nanites go into emergency protocols, but I can only imagine the damage done—one bullet, just one bullet… I try to pull my blade out of the interrogator, lose my grip on it, but manage to block my victim’s hands before he can shoot me in the face, grab hold for dear life. I pull him into me, hoping for a partial shield as we do a sloppy dance. My vision goes purple. I feel sick rising under the blaze of pain. I’m shaky, clammy, dizzy. I think I’m going into shock.
The man I’m grappling with is spilling himself out all over my boots (my sword has ripped his belly horribly open) but he won’t stop fighting. His gun goes off right next to my head. I remember I have a gun of my own, try to reach for it…
The female prisoner surprises me then by lunging into us, leaping and spinning herself. She hooks her bonds on my blade where it’s sticking through her abuser, and saws herself free. Drops. Grabs his machete. Chops his feet out from under him, then repeats the move against a man who comes running to his aid. Then she rolls for her still-bound companions.
She doesn’t make it. One of the black suits opens up with an automatic weapon, and cuts all of the other prisoners down in one horrible burst.
Now I hear screaming. Hers. Like an animal. She throws the machete at the gunner, hits him in the face, staggers him. He aims at her with his face split open. But then his head comes apart.
Three more black suits go down under surgical sniper fire.
In the very few seconds it takes all this to happen, I lose the battle to stay on my feet, the hobbled interrogator falling on top of me, vomiting blood on me. Still, he won’t stop fighting. The black suits open fire back across the pit, grabbing cover. But I’m only momentarily forgotten. I try to wrestle myself free of the mostly-dead man on top of me, beating at his head and neck as he refuses to quit as I see another black suit aiming his weapon at me, trying for a shot that doesn’t hit his comrade. I blindly thrash for my pistol, find it, jerk it free of its holster, point it, fire. I aimed for center-of-mass, but only clip his thigh, then his arm. He drops to his knee, lets go of his gun with his wounded limb, points it with his good arm…
…but then his head jerks. There’s a metal rod sticking through his temple. He topples over like someone switched him off.
I turn and look. A blur of a cloak comes flying roughly at me across the pit. I point my gun at it instinctively before I realize it’s one of Abbas’ scouts, moving unbelievable fast. I’m actually thankful when it ignores my threat, passes over me, puts spikes into two more black suits before drawing dual knives. The black suits try to shoot it, but it flies and flips—I dumbly recognize what I’m seeing from the training files of the original Guardian teams: This must be the Zauba’a
Ghaddar.
I also realize my cowl has fallen back during the fight. My ETE helmet must have been recognized.
I try to help the Ghaddar, still on my back with a body half on top of me, shoot, miss. Miss again. Manage to hit one of the black suits in the face (I think). I can barely hang on to the pistol.
Then the world explodes.
The cave walls blow into us, stunning and filling the already dim space with dust and smoke. Black suits tumble into the pit. And over the ringing in my ears, I hear a familiar pop-woosh sound. I drop back just as a spearhead flies over my chest. I see the Ghaddar dodge another. Then black suits start dropping with the long silver lance-heads stuck through them.
Squat armored creatures are pouring into the cave, having blasted side-tunnels all around us. There are scores of them. And they’re between those of us on this side of the pit and the exit.
“THIS WAY! THIS WAY!!”
I hear shouting above me. Look. In the vent I came down through is a shape in a Nomad cloak, dropping a line from his perch, popping rounds at the armored shapes. I’m not sure if he’s shouting at me, the Ghaddar or the strange thin girl. I finish kicking the body off of me (every movement tears like knives through my torso), roll to my feet in time to sloppily knock one of the armored suits off of the surviving prisoner, grab her and drag her up. I look for the Ghaddar. She’s throwing herself into the armored shapes, apparently able to find lethal access once she’s grappling with them. Then she slings some kind of large rifle from under her cloaks and starts picking off the armor that stands between us and the rescue line, the deafening blast of the gun betraying its large caliber.
Still far too injured to leap (certainly not carrying a girl who’s not terribly sure she should come with me), I wrap the girl in my arms and do something resembling running around the edge of the pit, trying not to trip on fallen armor, stumbling over my own leaden feet (and accidentally banging my charge into the rock wall, but she doesn’t complain). My body is bisected by blazing pain. I stagger forward, lunge, grab the line.
“GO!!” I hear our rescuer shout, and the line jerks us up, pulling us for the cave roof, for the vent. Still, I take a spearhead through the left calf, apparently not done paying for my impulsiveness. It tears meat when it catches on the rock. I have to stop, tear it out (too late realizing it has razor-like fins that act like barbs), leaving the girl to keep hold of me, her long arms tight around my neck. I throw the spearhead back like I could hit someone with it.
I’ve lost my sword.
But I have the girl.
Our rescuer shoves us up past him, possibly choosing to wait for the Ghaddar, and we go banging up the vent as we continue to get pulled.
When we hit daylight, the other Nomad sentry is there to greet us, running a portable rappelling winch he’s wedged into the rocks. There’s still one more line down the vent for his companion.
The girl lets go of me and wrestles herself out of my grip, rolling away from me on the slope. I realize through my pain and dumb shock that she has my pistol.
Thankfully, the sentry manning the rappelling gear takes my lead and raises his hands in response to her threat.
“It’s okay, girl… We’re here to…”
She answers me back by putting a bullet into the dirt next to my head. Then she puts one between my legs. It’s pretty clear she’s meaning to miss, but has little patience or trust.
The rappeller motor whirs again, and the other sentry gets dragged up out of the vent, grabs the edge and pulls himself out. Sees the gun in his face. Freezes. Offers his hands. Then goes further by slowly pulling away his cowl, mask and goggles, showing her his face. He’s young, maybe little more than a teen, though he sports a thin beard. But he’s blonde, pale, blue-eyed. I realize from descriptions that this must be Abbas’ adopted son.
In the light, the prisoner has long dark hair, tied into braids. Her skin is indeed painted with something that looks like it’s based on the high-iron Martian clay, but where it’s flaked away, it looks like it’s dyed her skin rust-colored, matching her simple clothing. The fact that she’s partially exposed in front of us doesn’t appear to bother her. Her body is strikingly long and lean, except for her enlarged ribcage. She looks like a child’s doll from Old Earth, one I remember was criticized for portraying impossible female proportions. Even her face is elongated. And she also doesn’t seem to mind the chill or the thin air.
I’m thinking she may be a product of generations living in the richer, deeper valleys, with no concern for weight-discipline, letting their bodies conform to the .38 gravity and low atmospheric pressure. She may have lived without oxygen supplementation or pressurized shelters her entire life. Perhaps the clay coating is a defense against the UV radiation that keeps the other Normals under heavy cloaks and cowls.
I realize we’ve forgotten the larger threat when something whips through the air past my head and smacks the pistol from her hand. Then a cloaked shape is standing over me, having climbed out of the vent in absolute silence. It’s the Ghaddar. She hands me my sword, still stained in blood.
“It’s a good blade,” she appraises casually, then walks over to recover the steel rod she threw to disarm, and my pistol before the girl can reach for it.
My own rescuer turns his head back to the vent, listens, calls to his companion
“Jibril! Grenade!”
The other tosses him a sphere, which he juggles and drops down the hole, backing up before it blows somewhere below us, sending a geyser of dirt and smoke upwards to rain on us. Then he kicks loose boulders to try to close the vent.
“They can dig!” the thin girl criticizes urgently, the first words I’ve heard her speak. She has a thick accent that sounds almost Russian.
“We know,” the blonde lad tells her, sounding far more world-weary (or battle-weary) than his years.
“We need to get away from the highlands,” the Ghaddar confirms with cool authority. Jibril is already packing the rappelling gear, his head swiveling like he expects attack from any and all directions.
“Come with us!” the blonde lad urges the girl, putting his gear back on. “Come!”
The Ghaddar tosses me back my pistol. “Can you travel?”
I nod weakly, force my legs back under me, my left calf on fire, one hand on my gut wound like it will help hold me together. (At least I’m not visibly bleeding—my wounds have sealed.)
The other Nomads are already falling back from the cave mouth, leapfrogging to take turns covering each other’s retreat. But I only count two. I saw four go in. Assuming the Ghaddar was one of them, they’ve left a man behind.
I hear a fatherly voice shout “Ishmael! Jibril! MOVE NOW!”
They stop briefly when they see us scrambling down the slope to meet them, hesitating for an instant as they count the extra numbers, just long enough to reassure themselves they’re seeing friends rather than foes. Then they gesture us to fall in with them as they keep running north for the mouth of the canyon. I notice one of them has a visible limp, but doesn’t let it slow him.
I hear a lot more shouting, rhythmic, like a war chant, echoing from inside the slopes. There is a clattering of metal—a lot of metal—and I look back in time to see a squad’s worth of squat armor come pouring out of the cave mouth in pursuit. But then they start falling, getting picked off by arrows. They hesitate. Fire their spearheads, return their own arrows. I trace where they’re aiming: High ground overlooking the cave. There stands a lone archer—Azrael—casually taking his target practice. And even more casually dodging the projectiles sent back his way.
The Ghaddar is especially mesmerized by the sight. But then she swings up her large-bore sniper rifle. Aims. Fires.
An armor suit goes tumbling down the hill, having somehow emerged behind and above Azrael. He takes a moment to salute her, but then must deal with another that comes running down on him. Despite the mass of the armored attacker, he gracefully side-steps and throws the warrior down the hill in a clattering landsl
ide. He turns back to the dozen or so armor suits hunkering at the cave mouth, fires a few more discouraging kill-shots (each one seems to effortlessly find an eye socket), then comes skipping down the hill to get around to joining our retreat.
And so we run.
“Barak Hassim al Fadil sent me!” I yell as we jog and hop over the ruins of Concordia, heading for the open valley as fast as we can cover the treacherous ground. There’s been no sign of pursuit since Azrael so ruthlessly discouraged it, but for some reason we don’t dare slow.
“They won’t follow us out into the open lowlands,” Abbas’ son Ishmael tells me breathlessly, running at my side, as if anticipating my question. He’s keeping his pace slow intentionally, staying with me.
I should be faster than him. But I’m still weak, still compensating for blood loss and tissue damage, and all this vigorous activity is working against the repair process.
I still feel the pain of the gunshot that ripped through my torso, and of the spearhead that stabbed through my leg. I can’t take an even remotely full breath yet. My abdomen feels bloated, rigid, which I know is a sign of severe internal bleeding. My nanites must be struggling just to keep my blood pressure up enough to fend off shock. My back, gut and calf muscles feel like they’re being held together with wire staples, as do too many sensitive parts of my insides.
If I was still linked in to our network, I’d be sending full telemetry and getting a detailed damage report back. The network would also be able to help direct my field repairs. As is, I get only the basics, the defaults. That leaves me to diagnose myself.
The entry wound is about five centimeters to the right of my spine, just above my kidney. Thankfully, it missed my spine, or else I’d be doing my repairs on the floor of the cavern. Also thankfully, it missed my main iliac vessels, or I’d be dealing with a lot more blood loss.
The God Mars Book Four: Live Blades Page 8