by Gross, Dave
“Stand back!” yelled Sam.
Gully charged in, shoving the tangled helljack off its feet. The Corruptor crashed into the swampy earth, the impact throwing up wet divots of earth and fetid vegetation.
The Nomad swung down its battle blade, shearing through the Corruptor’s chassis. Black oil and green venom gushed from the wound.
“Gully, out,” yelled Sam. “Boys!”
“Take it apart!” Burns raised his pickaxe and leaped onto the fallen behemoth.
Like beetles over a dead rat, the Devil Dogs swarmed the fallen Corruptor. While two squads covered them with slug guns at the ready, the rest used their picks to pry up armor plating and expose the vulnerable parts beneath. They smashed the gears and cut off the tubes supplying venom to the cannon and the pincer claw’s injector.
Sam drew her sword and thrust it twice into the helljack’s chassis. The second time, coruscating energy on the blade showed she had found its cortex. The Corruptor jerked one last time and lay still.
By the time they were done, the second Corruptor had vanished into the mist in pursuit of the retreating Steelheads.
“Keep your eyes peeled for the helljacks’ controller,” yelled Crawley. “Just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t standing right behind you.”
“Morrow’s teeth, Creepy!” cried Burns. “Quit trying to scare the pups.” Burns was the first to look over his shoulder, eyes wide in fear.
“All right,” said Sam, pointing her sword. “Same again.”
The Devil Dogs ran hard to catch up. Sam led them at an angle to avoid the Steelhead rifles’ line of fire. Every thirty yards or so, the Steelheads paused in their retreat.
The Dogs soon caught sight of their mutual foe. The thralls were locked in melee with the halberdiers while the riflemen reloaded and took aim, awaiting the next command to fire.
Crawley’s whistle sounded three short blasts. From the Dogs’ left flank, a mob of Cryx thralls lumbered out of the mists. These were not the gaunt foot soldiers, but bile thralls. The corpulent figures gurgled and sloshed with every step. Pumps churned inside their once-living bodies, feeding their own corrosive fluids to the noxious cannons locked in their deathless grips.
Sam uttered a curse. “Advance and fire!”
Lieutenant Lister and Sergeant Crawley echoed her command. Some of the newer Devil Dogs blinked to hear the order, but they obeyed it. The veterans had already closed to short range and begun firing.
The shells from their slug guns roared at the bloated undead. Thralls struck by the barrage burst into steaming gobbets, the toxic gasses in their bellies magnifying the force of the explosions.
The Cryx returned fire. Most of their pestilent loads fell behind the Dogs as the mercenaries advanced after each barrage. By the time the bile thralls adjusted for range, the Dogs fired again.
Crawley spotted for the men around him, directing them to fire on to the thralls that waddled closest. “Don’t let them near you, Dogs!”
The remaining thralls also fired, but their target wasn’t the Devil Dogs. They turned their weapons toward the warjacks. Sam turned Gully and Foyle to face the Cryx just as a barrage of pulsing bile arced toward them.
“Shields up!” Sam ordered. She leaped behind Gully, taking shelter behind the heavy warjack.
The corrosive loads splashed on Foyle’s broad shield and across Gully’s plated shoulders. As the pernicious liquid boiled, the warjack’s chassis grew red-hot, its extreme edges limned in white.
Sam jumped away, surveying the damage. “Not too bad,” she decided. “Gully, Foyle, charge!”
The sight of two warjacks rushing toward them seized the thrall’s attention. While the waddling monstrosities struggled to adjust their range, the Devil Dogs blasted them with their slug guns. The instant the shelling ceased, Foyle impaled one while Gully bisected another, spilling the foul contents of their corpulent bodies upon the swampy ground. Within moments, all that was left of the Cryx was a nauseating stench and a seeping field of heavy, green-yellow gas.
“We’re not done yet,” called Sam. “Lister, get me a casualty report. Crawley, reform on me. Gully, Foyle, about face!”
By the time the warjacks once more faced the retreating battle, Lister reported no serious casualties.
“Right, then,” said Sam. “Let’s take down that other Corruptor.”
As they caught up once more, the remaining helljack had a screaming halberdier in its pincer. With its other arm, it blasted a squad of retreating riflemen with its necrosludge cannon. The viscous shell struck one of the Steelheads bursting the man’s body into a cloud of bloody gore and yellow-green corruption. The nearby men screamed as the infernal vapors melted the flesh from their bones.
“Foyle, charge!” called Sam, running beside Gully. The Dogs followed.
Before the ’jack closed half the distance, the Corruptor held up its wriggling prisoner. The man’s mouth opened wide. Instead of a scream, bilious vapor escaped the opening. He shook his head from side to side, arms shaking as they rose into twisted claws. Black energies crackled around his fingers, shriveling the flesh even as they conjured dark magics.
“Move back!” boomed the voice of the Steelhead commander. “That’s the work of an iron lich!”
Black flames leaped from the captive’s hands, shooting in an arc across the misty battlefield. They fell near a mounted figure, barely visible through the haze. His horse danced away from the necromantic fire, but the evil flames struck a nearby rifleman. The man howled as an ashen specter rose out of his body to fly back toward the source of the spell. His emaciated carcass fell to the ground.
“Oh, Morrow,” muttered Burns. “It’s a soultaker.”
Foyle reached the Corrupter, his stun lance skating off the helljack’s smooth breastplate. The Talon reached back for another strike, but the Corruptor turned.
“Dammit,” cried Sam. “Gully, charge! Dogs, with me!”
This time she ran ahead of the heavy Nomad, raising her sword as she charged.
The Corruptor dropped its captive’s spent carcass and reached for Sam.
Foyle slammed the helljack with his targa shield, but the Cryx ’jack stood fast. It shoved the Talon back with its cannon arm, pincers clacking in anticipation of a deadly embrace.
Just before the helljack reached her, Sam darted to the side and dove through Foyle’s legs. Tucking her sword in a deft and practiced move, she tumbled forward to come up from below. The Corruptor turned, but the light warjack raised its lance, parrying to protect its marshal.
Sam thrust her sword upward, the blade crackling with electricity as its point stabbed just beneath the helljack’s yellowed tusks.
An instant later, Gully’s battle blade swept down, severing the helljack’s necrosludge cannon from its reservoir. The Corruptor struck back by clamping its pincers around the Nomad’s sword arm.
With a shout, the Devil Dogs threw their remaining nets. Most hit their mark, binding the Corruptor’s legs together and locking its equilibrium to a single point. The helljack tipped. The first of the Devil Dogs leaped upon its body before it hit the ground.
“Mind the venom!” Crawley warned Dawson as the private smashed the glass containers. The corrosive fluid hissed as it burned deep into the loam.
“Yes, Sergeant!” Dawson raised his pick to strike again, stabbing deep into the seams of the helljack’s armor.
Nearby, Steelhead rifles fired in the opposite direction. As the Cryx thralls withdrew, their sergeants ordered the riflemen to regroup behind the halberdiers. One called out that the main body of the Cryx forces had withdrawn to the north. Another whistled for silence and pointed at the Devil Dogs swarming over the fallen Corruptor.
Sam wiped her blade clean of oil and sheathed the weapon. “Casualties?” she asked Lister.
The big lieutenant counted with his thumb upon his fingers. “Where’s Swire?”
“Here, Sir,” said a soldier standing up from behind the Corruptor’s boiler.
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“All present and ambulatory, Captain.”
“That’s what I like to hear.”
Thunderous hoof beats approached. A huge man rode out of the mists from the east. Over one shoulder he carried a battle blade nearly large enough for Gully. From his other hand hung a scalloped black bowl containing three skulls and a mass of flesh and metal viscera, or so it appeared at first glance. As the man rode closer, it became apparent that his prize was really a cluster of the severed heads of the iron lich overseer that had been commanding the Corruptors. Three iron-rending blows had cut them from the top of the creature’s armored body.
Burns whistled low. “I heard Brocker was a monster with that blade, but I’ll be damned if I thought he could do that.”
The Steelheads who could still stand did so, cheering as their commander returned triumphant, but their voices were tempered with loss. Too many of their fellows tended the wounded or lay helpless on the ground.
“Why Stannis,” said Sam. “You always bring me the most charming gifts.”
“What the hell are you doing here?” Stannis Brocker kneed his horse toward her. As it came closer, the Dogs could see that it was the size of the draft horses in their wagon train. Only its gigantic rider made it seem smaller from a distance.
“You mean apart from saving you from those Corruptors?”
“I had it under control.”
“If you’d retreated any faster, by now you’d be shoveling snow in Korsk.”
After pronouncing the hated name, Sam turned her head and spit on the ground. All of the boys and most of the men did the same in perfect unison.
A surprised laugh escaped Dawson. Brocker glared at him until he covered it with a feigned cough.
The other Steelheads looked to their leader, holding their breath as they awaited his reaction.
“You drill them in that spit thing, don’t you?”
“We all have our little indulgences. Those smudges on your lip, for example. Has anyone ever mistaken them for proper mustaches?”
Brocker showed his teeth. In contrast to his tanned and battle-scarred face, they were very large and very white. When he grimaced, his brush-stroke mustaches appeared all the more ridiculous. “You’re funny, MacHorne,” he said. “For a woman. I don’t usually like my women funny, but in your case I’d make an exception. After we finish running down those thralls, you can come into my tent and tell me some bad jokes.”
The Dogs bristled. Burns stepped forward, but Lister put a hand on his big shoulder.
“A bad joke is about all I’d find in your tent, Brocker.” Sam covered the grip of her sword, leaving only two inches between her hand and the butt.
Even the Steelheads chuckled at that, at least until Brocker silenced them with a look of death.
“But enough about your shortcomings,” said Sam. “Who hired you to hunt Cryx?”
“The better question is, who the hell would hire your band of rejects? Or are you out here on your own, scavenging for parts? I see you’ve found enough to make two puppet-show warjacks.”
“You mean the big lugs who just saved your asses?” said Sam. “You didn’t answer my question. It’s Baird, isn’t it?”
Brocker shrugged. “I can’t think of a reason to tell you anything.”
“I can,” she said, raising her voice. “Think of how many more of your men those Corruptors might have turned inside out if we hadn’t showed up. At the very least, you owe me thanks.”
A few of the Steelhead troops nodded until they saw Brocker watching. He scowled and considered before answering. “King Baird is very careful where he commits his own troops, especially in spots like the Wythmoor. Yes, we’re collecting bounties on Cryx infiltration units, and would have been fine without ‘help’, but this run was different, like they were after something other than the standard grave culling.”
“See? That wasn’t so hard. Any day now, you’re going to work your way up to, ‘Thanks for saving my skin, Sam.’”
“I’d sooner put you across my knee,” he said. His sneer vanished, replaced by a naked leer. “And teach you to like it.”
“Why you red, boot-licking son of a—” Burns lunged forward. This time it took the combined weight of Lister, Smooth, and Crawley to hold him back.
Sam held her gaze on Brocker. “While I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed our little chat, I can see you’re in a hurry. If you don’t leave now, you’ll never catch up with the rest of those Cryx.”
“You never said what you’re doing in the Wythmoor,” he said.
“That’s right.”
“But I told you—”
“And I appreciate it. Let me show you my appreciation.” She bowed and made a flourish with her hand. “Thank you, Stannis. See how easy that is?”
As Brocker glowered at her, Sam continued. “Come along, Dogs. Let’s leave the Steelheads to bless their dead and gather their bounties.”
Sam called to Foyle and Gully, the latter of whom had developed a shrieking whine with every other step. The Dogs headed back toward their wagons, past the bodies of Cryx thralls and Steelheads.
When Sam paused to look back, so did those nearest her. Behind them, the Steelheads combed the fields to retrieve their dead. They collected hands from the dead thralls and cut out cortexes from the helljacks.
“You know he’s probably lying,” said Lister. “That bounty collection could be just for show.”
Sam nodded. “Probably. Still, his story makes sense. While he chases down those Cryx, I want to backtrack, find out where they came from. Even if Brocker isn’t going after our quarry, there’s every chance the Cryx are. They’re always on the hunt for— Son of a bitch!”
The boys turned to see what had caused their captain to curse. The Steelheads stacked the corpses of their fallen comrades along with deadfall and kindling. As the Dogs watched, Brocker’s men threw flaming brands on the hasty pyres.
“That’s no way to treat a comrade,” growled Lister.
“Why are they burning the bodies?” asked Dawson.
“To keep the Cryx from scavenging them for parts,” said Burns. He shuddered. “And souls.”
“Souls?” said Dawson. “I thought that was just—”
Burns pulled him away and spoke quietly, his eyes on Sam as her shoulders hunched and she stared daggers at the Steelheads burning their comrades. “We take your fallen home,” said Burns. “And we bless their bodies to preserve their souls against the Cryx. We never burn them. Sam’s rules. No exceptions.”
The Devil Dogs watched in silence while Sam clenched and released her fists.
At last, Lister broke the silence when he turned to Sam. “Your orders, ma’am?”
“Have Crawley and the mechaniks give the ’jacks a close look. Gully needs attention. Once they’re ready, we’ll let the big lugs walk for a while. Keep half the troops on the wagons, the others supporting the ’jacks. Also, send two men to scout our rear, reporting every half hour. I want to know if the Steelheads are following us. Could be they have the same job we do.”
“I can’t believe the Old Man would hire a beast like Brocker.”
“He wouldn’t,” said Sam. “But somebody else might have. The Old Man might not be the only one who’s heard of this strange ’jack in the Wythmoor.”
“That’s just great,” said Burns. “We get to dance with Steelheads, Cryx, and who-knows-what-else, and we still don’t know whether we’re on some damned gobber hunt.”
“I don’t think that’s likely,” said Sam. “With this much competition in the moor, I’d bet even odds it turns out to be we’re chasing a dragon.”
PART TWO
“Gully, Foyle, left turn. Now, forward slow!”
Sam guided her warjacks through a labyrinth of scummy puddles and sluggish streams. The hanging fronds of willows were less a barrier than an annoyance, but she avoided the thicker trees after the Devil Dogs spent ten minutes hacking Foyle’s stun lance free from half a willow he’d pulled down.
Even as Sam maneuvered the Nomad and the Talon on a relatively firm strip of land, off to the side Morris cried out as he plunged into a soft patch.
Morris struggled to step out of the hole, but he couldn’t move his leg. He set aside the heavy slug gun and shrugged off his pack. Even with both hands free to push against the ground, he managed only to wriggle deeper into the soft mud. “Somebody give me a hand!”
Dawson was the first to reach him. He grabbed Morris under the arms and pulled, but the wet ground held the man in place.
“Move over, Dawson.” Setting down his gun and pack, Smooth took Morris by the left arm. Dawson took his right, and together they pulled. Morris grunted and cried out in pain, but he rose. With a deep sucking sound, his leg came up glistening black.
“Dammit,” grumbled Morris. “My boot is full of muck!”
“You’re welcome,” said Smooth. He tucked his gun back under his arm and walked on.
“It’s cold as ice.”
“At least there’s no wind,” said Dawson. He shivered in sympathy as he exhaled a plume of breath.
Morris hissed through chattering teeth. He scraped off a handful of mud, dead leaves, and a writhing red earthworm as thick as his index finger. “Ugh!”
“It could have been worse,” said Dawson. “Sergeant Crawley says there are hundreds of unwitting men buried in the Wythmoor.”
Morris shook his head. “Of course there are. The Cryx have murdered thousands in this moor.”
“The sergeant wasn’t talking about battle dead,” said Dawson. “He meant travelers and foresters who were just swallowed up by sinkholes like that one. They’re all around us, just a few inches beneath the ground, still standing upright where they sank straight down. We’re walking on their skulls.”
Morris scoffed. “He just says that to scare pups like you. That’s another reason they call him Creepy.” Despite his brave words, Morris shivered as he continued scraping muck from his leg.
“I don’t know. It feels like we’re walking through a graveyard. A little while ago, Robinson stepped on a ribcage.”