by Martin Kee
Scoops eyes go wide. The cool barrel of the weapon presses against the side of her head.
There’s nothing at first, just the smooth surface of the gun. She closes her eyes, waiting for whatever death is to come streaming out of the barrel. When the jolt comes, she shrieks a little. She’d hoped to be brave, silent, stoic, the way she imagined Veerh would be in such a situation.
But her head doesn’t explode. The jolt was from the giant, spinning in a circle, yelling and growling. She opens her eyes—the world swirls around her.
“Get on your mount!” Veerh yells, his voice coming from behind her.
She can’t see him at first, lost in the spinning, swirling sand. She twists her neck around and sees him, clamped onto the captor’s back. Veerh’s forward spikes vanish deep into the animal’s hide. A blade emerges over the mountain of flesh and slashes at the wrist holding the weapon. The blade cleaves through in one clean movement. She can even see the two white, circular cross-sections of bone as the weapon falls away.
The giant howls, huge flat teeth shining in the morning light. Feral eyes bulge as it drops her, folding over its severed wrist.
She falls, landing on the sand with an oof. Climbing to her feet, she tries to catch her breath. All she sees is the giant lumbering off into the dust, Veerh scrambling after him. She tries to call out, but her throat burns. Sand and grit fills her mouth.
“Scoop!” She turns this way and that.
He emerges from the cloud, running. A hand lifts her up, tucking her under his arm as he grabs Bindo in the other arm. Scoop stumbles through the sand, panting without that strange umbilical cord he always has with him. They clear the shadow of the Horn and she squints in the light. Others approach, pilgrims, scribers. They crowd close, blocking Scoop’s way.
Her giant bellows something she can’t understand, yelling at the pilgrims and poachers who have gathered at this site. A few run, but most simply stand around, looking at one another, their heads covered in ceremonial cloth and bright beads.
“You’d better control that animal,” one of the pilgrims shouts from the back. “He’s likely to get someone hurt.”
I would if he’d put me down.
“Scoop!” She yells up at him. “It’s okay. I’m fine. Put us down. Down! Do you understand down?”
He looks at her and says something again, his voice agitated and panicked. He spins this way and that, looking back at the Horn for reasons she can’t understand.
“Scoop! Stop it! We’re fine now. Put us down—”
The shockwave is unlike anything she’s ever felt, a godfist pushing Scoop, her, and Bindo into the sand. Bodies fly like leaves through the air, out and away from the base of the WorldHorn. The sandstorm returns, billowing out from the side of the WorldHorn, consuming people as they run. It moves faster than any wind could ever carry it, a tidal wave of sound and pain and dirt.
She lies face down in the dirt for what seems like hours. Scoop’s bulk pins her to the ground, both of them coughing up grit and debris. She rolls her tongue in her mouth, tasting dirt and blood. Voices begin to bleed in through the background noise, scared, shocked. Suffering. There are cries for help, moans of pain. Something wet slides across her face, and she slaps it away out of instinct. But it’s only Bindo, his wet muzzle pressing against her face, nudging her to get up.
Carefully, she squeezes out from under Scoop. He breathes—slow, shallow, eyes closed. Red blood runs from one ear, and his skin seems darker now, scoured by the rushing blast of sand. She shakes him, and he moans, but doesn’t move. His breathing doesn’t sound right.
“We have to find the umbilicus,” she says to Bindo.
It has to be around here somewhere, maybe up in the cave, but as she starts that way, a new sound makes her stop, unlike anything she’s ever heard. A deep hollow impact resonates through the ground and air. Bex feels it in her chest. Heads turn towards the WorldHorn. A crack at first, then another. Concussive sounds. Hammers of gods. The percussive pops follow one another, loud as lightning strikes. Through the dust she sees panels of fiber and husk splintering like tree bark along the surface of the WorldHorn. Bits of debris pop off, falling to the sand below. A groan, louder than thunder, rises up from the base. It grows like the cry of a dying beast, higher and louder.
The spire begins to move. People scramble out of the way as it shifts, tilts, and bends. Bex thinks she can even see the GodCloud swirl as the top of the Horn lists. Titanic shafts of bone and ivory jettison from the sides, leaving a ragged trunk as the Horn topples, vanishing momentarily in its own cloud of dust. The ground heaves under her feet. For a moment the world is nothing but screams and thunder and smoke. Through the haze of chaos, the Horn lies on its side, a splintered tree, felled in the desert sand.
She stares at it for just a moment, before Bindo licks her hand again. She turns to him and nods. “Okay. Alright. Let’s go find it.”
Three figures emerge from the cloud, all plates and claws. Except for the middle one, thin and wiry. One of the guards rushes to her side, helps her up with unexpected gentleness. Scoops rests not far from them, and she sees Ak’klin eying the giant.
Something grabs her by her sleeve and she yanks her arm away, still blinded by the sand. But it’s only Bindo, staring back with liquid eyes. He grunts at her, clothing firmly in his teeth.
She gently pulls free and pats his muzzle, speaking into an ear. “Watch him, okay? Keep him safe.”
The poacher yells after her. “What’s wrong with it?” Ak’klin asks, his face more curious than concerned.
“Keep Scoop safe,” she shouts back, then vanishes into the dust.
Chapter 37
CHAZ KNEW they could move fast, but he had no idea just how fast. The creature scurries through the sand after him like a desert spider, tumbling and flailing and gaining ground. He clamps his stump to his shirt, trying to slow the bleeding. Fuck, this hurts.
He looks back at the things he’s left behind: the gun, his hand, Kendal, that shitty little creature he was holding, her miniature goat-thing. All of it seems inconsequential now, all of it ballast as he lunges up the sand dune and out of the crater.
And still the ragdoll pursues him.
He managed to shake it off after it severed his wrist—he hadn’t even noticed the hand was gone until he bucked the creature off and went to grab it. By his calculations, he’s got maybe a hundred feet between him and it, more if he can get lost in the sandstorm. But the sandstorm is ebbing. If he can’t find a way to slow his pursuer down soon, he won’t have much of a chance at all.
Sand catches his foot as he clears the ledge, and he falls onto a soft pillow. Something on his hip isn’t soft, though. The other gun. He feels for it with his only hand, pulls it free, rolls over.
Jesus, the thing’s even closer now. He can even see its beady little eyes, boring into him as it scrabbles up the hill with—what, five? Six? Eight legs? Christ, these things make him shudder.
He can’t aim well with his left hand, and he watches the gun barrel weave around with maybe only a few shots available. There is, however, one last chance.
Chaz aims past the ragdoll, at the base of the spire. He pulls the trigger and dust motes ignite into plasma, painting a solid line from him to the HEP-2500 bricks at the base.
*
Veerh, notes the new weapon. He doesn’t care. He’s got that monster in his sights and something inside him has taken over. It could be his grafted limbs and organs, producing their own adrenaline rush, locked into some primal, predatory chase. Or it could simply be that he’s seen what this creature did to that girl, what almost happened to Bex, and he’ll be damned if he’ll let this beast do it to anyone else.
He’s wounded the creature a little, but hands are cheap and can be grafted. He wants the creature’s head.
But that’s not part of the deal, is it? You have to bring it back alive or the deal with the poacher is off.
The creature moves too slowly, bulk too heavy to properly trave
rse the dunes. It reaches the top and falls, rolling over and exposing its soft stomach. Oh, how he wants to tear into that abdomen, burrow through, and emerge from the other side carrying the monster’s guts in his teeth.
It points at him, and Veerh sees something in its hand, similar to a seed gun. He feints and rolls left and right, making himself hard to see, hard to hit, until the monster gives up.
Now I’ve got you.
Instead of aiming at Veerh, it aims just over his head. A red line forms from the end of the gun, dancing in the dust motes like bright sunlight through a window. There’s no sound at all.
Only impact.
The shockwave comes up from behind him, lifting him from the sand, throwing him up and over the dune. End over end, limb over limb he flies, so high that he can see the Godcloud. It’s close enough to touch, its ethereal form filled with shifting light and tiny white motes.
Is this what he saw? Is this what Pequesmattl saw before he died?
Then he’s falling, spinning through the air until he crashes in the sand. He pushes himself up, disoriented, looking for the monster. Only then does he hear a new sound, one of splintering wood and strange shattering shells. He turns just in time to see something emerge from the sky, looming above him like a giant’s foot.
He rolls, feeling the ground lift, feeling sand and dun colored dirt cover him, burying him alive. He scrambles, coughing, digging upwards, breaching the dunes like some kind of odd fish.
Veerh looks to his right and feels a thrill of fear at what had nearly killed him. Disbelief robs him of words: The WorldHorn, horizontal, stretching out along the sand. He must have flown far; he can see the tapering of the spire. He must be near the tip.
As his eyes travel up the massive tusk, he sees something else that defies all logic.
The structure from his dreams rests at the end like some wounded beast. Nothing more than a husk resting on its side. The crumpled structure lies pierced through the heart with a spear made from the world itself.
This was what they were after, he thinks. This was the reason they came here.
Getting to his feet, Veerh starts to run.
*
Bex hopes the dust has settled enough to find Scoop’s umbilicus. She just hopes that it isn’t crushed beneath the fallen Horn. The spire rests along the desert floor now, a massive arrow pointing away to the horizon.
What sort of weapon can do that? What sort of insane wizardry do Scoop’s people possess?
She tries to hide the thoughts, as they lead to too many new, impossible ideas. They sprout like fungus spores in her mind, breeding newer and more difficult questions. She can’t think about that now. Scoop is dying without his umbilicus.
Just call it a mask. That’s what it is. It’s a machine. Just like it was a gun in that creature’s hand.
Bex freezes. A massive structure lies at the end of the Horn. It could be some sort of house, smashed and speared through its center. And rushing inside, is the unmistakable shape of Veerh.
Bex calls his name. He doesn’t react or hear her at all as he rushes into an opening torn in the side of the structure.
Stubborn.
She admires him for it. For all his hardheaded, ridiculous methodology, she has to admit that she really does admire Veerh’s unwavering focus.
Bex picks her way through to the structure, searching along the ground for where Scoop could have left the mask and the tube. If it’s gone, he’s dead, and she’s not willing to let that happen. But maybe there are more inside the structure. Maybe she can help Veerh and Scoop at the same time. Now that she’s here, looking at the rusted panels, the flaking layers of skin coming from the building’s side, Bex thinks this might be her last chance. She steps inside.
The walls creak like old wood under her feet. Darkness veils every detail of the building, except where light shafts paint geometric patterns along the floor and walls—of course, the floor is a wall now, and one wall is a floor. She climbs up broken slopes, listening for any noise that might indicate where Veerh or his quarry has fled.
Very little of the building makes much sense. There are doors, but they vanish into walls without using hinges. Windows and walls feel organic, grown, too smooth and round to be built by hand.
Her head hurts trying to make sense of it all—one half of her mind reaching for some logical explanation. When that fails, the other half speaks up, insisting on childhood myths brought to life.
So Pequesmattl the Sky Climber was real, Kloe’l says, walking beside her. The girl appears in the shadows, still with that same inquisitive grin. My mother used to tell me this story to help me fall asleep.
Yes, well, we all heard this story, Bex thinks back to the girl. Stories like this aren’t supposed to be real, though.
How much more real does it need to get? Kloe’l laughs and it echoes through the hallways. So do you think this is him?
Who?
Pequesmattl, of course. Who else would it be?
That was one of us. Pequesmattl was an inventor, a person like us. These…
You almost said it, Kloe’l taunts. You almost called them people.
Bex sighs. Maybe they are. Maybe they are people who make things and somehow ended up—
A crash echoes through the slanted walls.
Bex freezes.
Something heavy falls, hidden in the labyrinth of rusted metal and flaking fiber. Dust cascades off shelves above and beside her. Another crash, followed by grunting, panting—the deep, frustrated sounds of a giant.
She sneaks along the corner, passing through shadows until he comes into view.
The giant stands under a row of blackened chests which hang from the wall—a wall that had once been a floor. The huge creature holds a rod in its remaining hand, wedging it into one of the thick, heavy boxes. Bindo’s reins dangle, tied around the giant’s severed wrist dark with blood.
He pulls. The rod bends. The giant shows its terrible teeth, then lets go. The rod falls to the floor with a clang, the giant stumbles, bellowing something she can’t understand.
Low, wet moans escape the giant’s mouth as it stands, picks up the rod again, prying the tool under the lip of the metal box. The giant leans its immense weight against the end of the rod. The creature cries out, so loud she feels the sound in her chest
The lid pops off, swinging open on a hinge. The giant leaps to his feet and pulls something from inside. The weapon looks similar in design to the one he had held against her head, but larger. A long barrel stretches half the length of the giant’s arm, with a hilt that seems custom made for the huge creature’s body shape.
How many of these weapons do they have? The thought chills her, imagining an army of these massive creatures, wielding such weapons, marching along the sand. But before she can complete the thought, the giant lifts the gun, turns, and points the barrel at something hidden behind the twisted debris.
Bex moves just enough to see.
Veerh lies on his back, panting, eyes barely open. A crooked shaft of debris has him pinned, the tip jutting through his stomach. The giant aims the gun at him, moaning something in that strange language. A shaft of dust motes ignite from the end of the barrel, painting a faint line through the air. One of Veerh’s arms bursts into flame.
Smoke spews like magic dust from the plates and blades as Veerh cries out. Blisters blossom and burst as the dot of light crawls up the arm towards the center of Veerh’s chest.
“Stop it!” she hears herself scream. “Stop hurting him!”
The giant spins, the beam going wild, sizzling along the twisted metal and debris. She ducks behind a wall just as the line of orange light passes overhead, painting a small line of smoking coal. Bex smells the singed air.
More moaning, and the crunch of footsteps. Bex ducks through the smallest opening she can find, scrabbling over rocks and shards of blackened crystal, feeling the floor vibrate with the giant’s footsteps. She emerges into another room and stifles a tiny cry.
There�
�s no exit. She’s trapped.
*
Chaz can finish the big ragdoll up later. With one leg smashed and its body pinned to a jagged spear of hull, that one isn’t going anywhere. He was about to have some fun with it when he heard the other one squeal.
Surprising, really. He hadn’t expected these little guys to be the sort that would come after one another. Unless she’s hoping to salvage what’s left of the big one. And Chaz is pretty sure there won’t be much left of either when he’s done.
Also surprising, is that the rifle works at all. Of the eight being stored in the locker, seven of them are melted. Useless. This one, though—he can’t help but giggle.
His wrist still throbs with every heartbeat. He’d kill a man for a shot of morphine, a pill, a nerve tap. Anything to help him forget about his lost hand. Some little asshole is probably sewing it to their ass this very moment. He hefts the rifle, resting the barrel on his severed forearm.
“Come on out, you little shit,” he mutters, moving towards the squeak and scuffle of movement. There’s a million tiny holes in the ship, but only one nearby. It’s a rusted air shaft, probably blown out during the crash, not big enough for him to fit through. But he has a pretty good idea what could fit in there.
He kneels, peeking through the opening, and he almost has to laugh. A conference room!
“Oh, my God, are you guys stupid or what?” he says through the hole. He can see the little ragdoll looking back at him. It runs, panicked, from one end of the room to the other. The door’s melted shut, a conference table upturned in one corner. “Where you gonna go? You got no way out, little thing. Just you me and a shooting gallery.”
He forces the barrel through the opening in the wall and grins. This is going to be so satisfying.
*
Somewhere in the darkness of sleep, Kendal stares up at the sky, swirling and oily, that cloud that covers everything, tinting the light and making everything feel gray. The table, the walls, the bad music warbling through, the speakers—the café has never felt emptier.