by Gross, Dave
The march resumed. Lister had Crawley equip all the scouts with flares. The sergeant sent them out in pairs along with a warning to keep the flares in hand and to signal at the first sign of danger.
The first of the scouts returned fifteen minutes later.
Fleming saluted Lister and Sam. “We’ve found a shelter.”
Ross added, “It has to be a supply depot.”
“So that’s what Baird’s men were doing out here,” said Sam. “Let’s have a look.”
As the scouts led the Devil Dogs out of the water, the company remained vigilant to anything approaching from the sides or rear. They passed through a light wood as the ground rose higher and drier.
The clouds parted enough to reveal the sun. Its golden light repainted the gloomy surroundings in vivid colors. A patch of startlingly yellow mushrooms climbed a fallen tree like a tiny stairway. A lichen-covered stone lay like a jeweled crown upon a jutting hill, and at its foot lay the hulk of a battered helljack.
The Slayer was nearly as large as Gully, and just as bulky. With its lobstered shoulders and heavy claws, it resembled nothing so much as a malevolent crustacean that once walked upright but now lay defeated upon the moss. One ridged tusk jutted from its armored head, the other severed less than a foot from its blank, iron face. Scorched brass spikes flared from its knees and shoulders, sharp claws at toe and nail. The barest wisp of venom flickered behind the ribs of its chest and smokestack, seeping from the severed tubes connecting its massive shoulders to its chest cavity. Serrated cuts, and the cleaner lines of energy burns, crisscrossed its black iron chassis.
“This fellow won’t be getting up any time soon,” said Lister. He waved away the foul odor of nectrotite fumes. “You want Crawley to have a look?”
Sam lowered the goggles over her eyes and frowned. “Let’s check the building, first. Whatever wrestled with this monster might still be nearby, or maybe worse, more of the Cryx we thought we’d seen the last of.”
The hemi-cylindrical structure stood twenty feet tall and lay sixty feet long. The building was composed of stout pine reinforced with iron bracings. Wire mesh covered skylights set high upon its walls and roof.
Someone had made an effort to conceal the sides with brush and uprooted saplings, but the creeping vines had risen barely more than a foot up the convex sides of the shelter. Except for a few mismatched spots, the entire structure was painted dun gray, excellent camouflage for the misty Wythmoor.
“See there?” said Lister. He pointed at a matte black section of wall. “This whole thing was built somewhere else. Then it was hauled here for assembly.”
Sam nodded. Her eyes followed Harrow and Bowie as they crept up to peer around the nearest corners. Harrow made the all-clear signal.
Sam marched Gully and Foyle up to the nearest end of the half-tube and set them to stand guard on either side of the entrance. Stenciled in light gray paint on either door was the broken sword of Ord. A heavy chain and padlock secured the doors.
The wagons pulled up behind. At a nod from Crawley, the drivers began fetching food and water for the horses, but left them hitched to their wagons.
Lister nodded at the symbols. “Your friend from the village gave us a good report,” he said. “Baird must be laying in supply depots. But why?”
“Let’s have a look.”
Lister shrugged the pick-axe from his back and called out, “Swire!”
A lean man with a pencil-thin mustache ran forward and saluted.
“Remember that little predicament Smooth got himself into? The one you helped him out of?”
“Yessir.”
“Do you have them on you?”
“Sir!” Swire set aside his gun and lay his pack down beside it. From a compartment inside his boot, he removed a slim leather parcel. He unrolled it and flipped over the felt inside cover to reveal a set of flat brass probes, each with a different shape at its tip. Some resembled waves, others a woman’s figure, and still others a barber’s picks.
Kneeling beside the lock, Swire removed his gloves and cradled the lock in one bare hand. He probed the barrel with a simple rake tool, listening as he felt the vibrations within. “Tsk,” he said, setting aside the rake. He took up a pick and a torsion wrench in its place. “I should have known it wouldn’t be so easy.”
As he worked, Sergeant Crawley approached and peered down at Swire’s tools. “What’s this, then? Why didn’t you ask me? I could have that open in—”
The padlock clicked. Swire left it hanging from the chain as he returned his picks to the case. “Done, Lieutenant.”
“That’s why, Creepy. Good work, Swire.”
Swire returned the kit to his boot and retrieved his pack and gun. Even as he did so, the sun retreated from its brief visitation. Swire looked up, shaking his head in disbelief. “I was just starting to think I might dry off.”
“Crawley, take charge of the men out here,” said Sam. “Lister, I want two squads inside.”
Lister chose his men, including Dawson, Morris, and all the boys except Smooth. The wounded man watched them from the driver’s seat of the supply wagon, scraping his beloved razor along his jaw in a nonchalant gesture belied by his intense gaze, directed at where he would surely rather be standing, among his fellows.
Mist crept through the assembled men, beasts, wagons, and machines. The air grew heavy with the promise of rain, and then the first few drops spattered on helms and pauldrons. Seconds later, a steady drizzle set in.
Lister led the way inside the building.
Blue-white fingers of light reached through the skylights to brush the crates along one wall, leaving the other side of the depot in shadow. More stacks of crates and barrels stood in the center of the spacious aisle. The wood of the crates was still fresh, the nails showing no trace of rust.
The Ordic crest was stenciled just above a pasted label indicating COAL, MUNITIONS, PARTS, or PROVISIONS. Some lazy soldier had left a dried paint bucket behind. Burns removed the splayed brush, holding it up to his face as a comical mustache.
“Sharpen up, Burns,” said Lister.
“Relax, Lieutenant. Can’t you see we’ve hit the jackpot here?”
“We’ll take only what we need,” said Sam. “Restock the coal bins. Crawley, you see if there are any parts you need for the big lugs. Other than that, we’re not looting the king’s supply depot.”
Burns dropped the brush and hefted his gun.
“What I really want to know,” said Sam, “is why Baird would go to all the trouble of leaving a supply depot out here without guards.”
The Dogs moved toward the far side of the shelter. Behind the crates stacked in the center aisle, the other end of the depot lay steeped in blue gloom.
“Hsst!” Lister held up a fist, fingers closed to signal a stop. With a glance, he beckoned Harrow forward.
The scout advanced only a few steps before he too stopped to listen.
Most of the Dogs heard it then, the sound of a spring expanding in a well-oiled chamber.
Harrow cradled his bulky weapon in one arm while gesturing with the other. His fingers indicated a shadow looming over a distant stack of crates.
The enormous figure stood out in a depot full of the familiar shapes of boxes and barrels. Its upper body curved in perfect symmetry, an oval with a ridged square close behind. To either side were more complex shapes, a pair of rectangles with cylinders jutting back and to the side. Blue-white light reflected off the figure’s steely carapace, not from the skylights above, but from its own torso, below.
Sam took charge of the hand signals. She sent Harrow to the center to take up a position behind a crate. Burns she directed to the left, Lister to the right. She beckoned Dawson up to support Burns, Morris to support Lister. She moved up behind Harrow and signaled those behind her to take cover.
A shadow passed over Sam. She looked up at a sudden movement across the center skylight. Just as she drew her long-barreled pistol and aimed upward, the huge figure beyond the crates emitted a lo
w hum and several sequential clacks. It lunged forward, scattering the crates and barrels. Blue-white light blazed out of glass lenses on its body, briefly blinding the Devil Dogs.
One of the barrels smashed into the crate that Burns had chosen for cover. The impact knocked away his slug gun. He cried out in surprise as he tumbled backward.
The heavy warjack moved toward him, its four-legged gait uncanny. Each of its crab-like legs ended in a small, hoof-like block. The legs supported a massive chromium torso which in turn supported a fat, ovoid upper chassis. On either side, brass gears and pistons supported an arm: one short and buzzing, the other ending in a four-fingered mechanical hand. The lights shone from panels on its abdomen and shoulders, as well as from several lenses around a central glass eye.
Burns staggered to his feet and slung the pick-axe off his shoulder. He bellowed and raised his weapon. Before he could strike, the strange jack grasped him around the chest. With a quick mechanical action, it smashed him into the crates lining the wall.
A deafening report filled the depot as Harrow fired his weapon. A heavy slug grazed the joint between the strange ’jack’s shoulder and buzzing arm. Flaming, the shell ricocheted through one of the side skylights. As fragments of glass sieved through the wire mesh, Harrow retreated, opening the breech of his gun to reload.
The strange ’jack dropped the stunned Burns and moved forward, each step singing a high note of oiled springs. Its short left arm unit whined a higher and higher pitch before a steel disc shot out, tearing through the crate that formed Sam’s only shelter. Grain and dried beans spilled out next to her.
“Back!” Sam shouted. She took her own advice, retreating to the cover of another crate.
“Nets!” roared Lister. “Take it down!” He swung his heavy chain net overhead and hurled it toward the strange warjack’s legs.
Dawson and Morris threw their own nets an instant later. Two more from the men behind them struck soon after, each one a perfect cast. The heavy chains wound around the ’jack’s six-jointed legs, binding them together.
The warjack hesitated, its upper chassis turning side to side as it leaned forward, glowing lenses inspecting its predicament. Then, like some floating crustacean, it splayed its legs outward. The nets spread out on top of the extended legs. The warjack levitated upward, retracting its legs in a smooth motion as the nets slipped away.
“Nets are no good,” said Sam. “Fire at will!”
As the Devil Dogs unleashed their slugs, the shadow on the roof once more crossed the skylight. It was about the size of a man but with some wide garment flowing out to either side, like a cape in the wind. Between the reports of gun fire and above the steady patter of rain, a different rhythm crossed the depot ceiling.
Sam drew her pistol, aimed as the shadow crossed the skylight, and fired. Her shot spider-webbed the glass. She covered her face with one arm and looked away as shards rained down through the mesh. She reloaded and called out, “Marshal on the roof!”
With a new cartridge in place, Sam raised her weapon again. Her aim followed the sound of footsteps, hesitating each time a slug exploded on the enemy warjack or among the supplies.
“Damn it, Dogs, watch out for the munitions!” bellowed Lister, retreating.
Harrow and Morris retreated with him. Dawson hesitated as he saw Burns lying among the wreckage of the crates. The one behind him was stenciled “MUNITIONS.”
Even as Lister yelled at him to retreat, Dawson sprinted toward Burns. He kept his head low, throwing himself prone when the strange ’jack’s grasping arm reached for him. Its bright chromium claw struck him hard on the side of the head. His helmet absorbed much of the impact, but he shook his head and spit out blood as Burns looked up bleary-eyed.
Dawson grabbed Burns by the breastplate. “Come on, let’s move. This thing got in here somehow. There’s got to be another door on the far side.”
Together they ran past their attacker toward the farther end of the depot. What they saw stopped them in their tracks.
There was no door on the far side of the depot, but a huge hole yawned open in the floor. An enormous wet passage sloped down to the east, easily large enough for the entire company including their warjacks. Splintered wood formed fangs all around the open maw, and dark muddy prints trailed from the soft earthen banks of its lips.
The dead bodies lying to either side only heightened the impression of a hungry mouth in the floor. Three Ordic soldiers lay among the shattered ruins of the nearest crates. Their bloodless faces stared up at the ceiling.
A stench of necrotite wafted up out of the hole. The heavy clank of iron pistons echoed through the tunnel, growing louder with every step.
“Oh, hell,” Burns said. “We got to get out of here.”
Before they could take more than a step backward, six tons of bone and iron came charging up out of the subterranean passage. Its damaged chassis and the clumps of mossy earth spread over its right arm and torso identified it as the same Slayer they had seen lying in the moor outside. With every step the helljack kicked back a divot of wet earth, until its clawed feet crunched through the floor of the supply depot. It reached out with one clawed arm while raising the other above its bulky shoulders.
Burns yelled, “Get down!”
Burns and Dawson threw themselves to the floor as the helljack charged past. It smashed into the alien warjack, its black claws clamping onto its foe’s shoulder.
Burns opened the breach of his slug gun to reload. “Let’s hit it from behind.”
“Which one?” Dawson asked. Magnified by the enclosed structure, the clash of iron and steel grew deafening.
“I don’t care!” roared Burns. “Just don’t miss!”
They fired simultaneously. Both shells exploded against the helljack’s back. One left a red-hot crater in the firebox. The other ripped open the Slayer’s chimney. Necrotite fumes billowed out to smother both warjacks.
The chromium warjack grasped the Slayer by the arm, its four-finger grip denting the heavy armor. A wedge-shaped blade shot down through its wrist to penetrate the heavy iron of the helljack’s thick forearm. Iron screamed as the blade shot down again and again. Hot oil splashed across the chromium chassis of the quadruped.
Dawson glanced back at the subterranean passage. A new figure stood just inside its jaws.
Above the entrance hovered a slowly turning abomination of black-armored bone. Three skulls glowered from beneath a tripartite helm, its segments linked by pauldrons glowing with necrotite. Three seething lanterns hung from a ribcage overflowing with noxious fumes. Beneath it all hung a thick, tail-like appendage entwined with three lesser tendrils, one of them severed midway along its length. In a black gauntlet on one of its three spindly arms, the iron lich overseer clutched its three-pronged fell staff.
Mute with fear, Dawson slapped at Burns’s arm until the big man turned to see the Slayer’s master.
“What do we do?” wheezed Dawson.
Burns replied with an improbable vulgarity before adding, “Get back to the others!”
The men lowered their heads and ran back to the clashing warjacks. As they avoided the titanic brawl, another volley of slugs exploded against the strange warjack. The big machine shuddered and released its grip on the helljack.
The Cryx Slayer pushed its foe back into a tumble of sundered crates, but the chromium warjack moved only a few feet before its four legs held fast. It shoved back, slamming the Slayer against the lighted side of the depot.
“Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!” yelled Burns as he and Dawson ran through the wreckage. They ran up to Sam. Beside her, Lister and Harrow were alternating firing and reloading their slug guns.
“What did you think you were doing?” Sam shouted at Dawson. Behind her, Foyle marched forward through the depot entrance, now widened in the shape of his broad shoulders.
“Saving my ass,” Burns answered for the speechless Dawson. “And by the way, we got a damned iron lich on the other side!”
“Gully!” Sam yelled to the warjack outside. “Move around to the back!”
All the Dogs winced as a terrible scream of shearing metal rang through the depot. With both of its massive arms, the Slayer clamped down on its enemy’s gripping arm. Its claws sank into the chromium plate as it twisted its enemy’s limb backward. As its shoulder cogs screamed in protest, the Slayer tore the arm away, ripping it free from the warjack’s shoulder.
The chromium warjack stepped back, torso twisting side-to-side as if in confusion.
“Keep firing!” yelled Sam.
The Dogs unleashed another volley. Most of the slugs glanced off the warjack’s rounded shoulders, but a few left shallow dents in its armor.
Prize in hands, the Slayer shouldered its foe aside and thundered down the aisle, away from the Devil Dogs and into the great hole in the floor.
The chromium warjack pursued. With another shriek of metal, it flung a saw blade at the fleeing helljack. The screaming disc grazed the helljack’s shoulder and went on to shear a hole in the far wall.
“Foyle, hit it!” Sam pointed her stun sword at the remaining warjack.
The Dogs leaped aside as the Talon charged through the building, kicking away heavy crates as it ran. Its massive foe turned just as the stun lance struck sparks off its curving abdomen. The heavy warjack shuddered and balked, but only for a second before its saw-blade arm swept around to knock the smaller Foyle back against the shadow-side crates.
More Dogs poured into the depot. “Captain!” shouted Fleming. “There’s someone on the roof!”
“I know!” she shouted back. “One problem at a time. Dogs, take out its legs!”
As her men switched from slug guns to pick-axes, Sam looked up again at the skylight. Whatever had been there was no longer visible.
Burns and Lister led the assault on the enemy warjack. The points of their pick-axes struck sparks and left scratches, but the heavy ’jack barely reacted to the beating. Instead, it launched another projectile point-blank into Foyle.
The saw blade sank deep into the Talon’s chassis. Lightning flickered at the edges of the wound even as black smoke poured out the back of its sundered firebox.