by Aeryn Leigh
"Which one?" said Mick.
Laurie stared at him for a moment, then nodded. "Guess I'm getting old."
"No shit, Sherlock," said Mick.
"Sherlock?" said Beowulf.
"I'll explain later," said Laurie, his eyebrow twitching. "So, Merrion? How much further do you reckon we have to go upstream?"
"It shouldn't be much further upstream," said Merrion. "We will need to take a scout party regardless."
Magnus walked up to Beowulf's side. "And what's the butcher's bill my friend?" said the king.
ELLA AND ANDREW returned to Hellsbaene a short while later, both running across the sand flat as quick as they could, lest any one of those giant crocodiles return.
"So, what is the plan?" said Ella, to the group having an argument up the front of the boat. Well, maybe argument is too strong a word. A heated discussion, she thought.
"If only there was a way to get a better view," said Laurie. "It's not worth the risk of putting the Cat up into the air."
Ella thought for a moment. "We could always try parachute sailing," she said, looking back at the pair of V12's behind her.
"Parachute sailing?" said Beowulf.
"What's the longest piece of rope we have?" said Ella, a grin forming.
"About one hundred fifty feet?" said Magnus. "Why?"
"Well," she said, "you know, if we use up one of the parachutes, attach one end of the rope to somebody, the other end to Hellsbaene, then make enough speed and get the parachute up into the air, and maybe get a better visual of what lies ahead?"
The Vikings around her beamed. Laurie muttered, and Mick laughed, and kept laughing, up until the point Laurie told Mick it was him going up on the parachute. "Only joking," said Laurie, now starting to feel more like himself on calmer water. Mick now muttered darkly, all most of them could hear was something along the lines of dinosaur.
"So, who is it going to be?" said Andrew.
"I'll do it," said Merrion, shifting uneasily. "So, Ella, oh Lady of Buckshot, how do we do this?"
Chapter Thirty-Seven
BERTHA
MERRION HUNG on for dear life as Hellsbaene accelerated down the river. He sat in one of the miniature longboats the Vikings used as transports between bigger vessels, or teaching their children the arts of seacraft. What was it Ella said? It might be rough. That bloody woman. Nothing had gone right since he had met her.
At the foot of the river mouth, the smoke starting to disperse, Hellsbaene and the little boat it towed turned and faced up stream. Merrion watched Beowulf’s left hand, five fingers out stretched, and one by one the fingers dropped.
With a sudden jolt, the little boat moved forward, as Hellsbaene gently accelerated up the river. Beowulf and Magnus, both up the back of the longship, next to the pair of mighty V12's, gave each other a look, one that Merrion knew all too well, and now he focused all his attention upon Beowulf's right hand, the little ship bobbing up and down with Merrion trying his best to hang on, watched the remaining five digits close into a fist. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
Magnus poured on the throttles as Rob twisted the turbo-controllers hard and Merrion was almost catapulted off the bench, out of the longboat he sat in, and now with a wildly waving Ella, he pulled the parachute handle.
Nothing happened for a second. Then it did with an almighty sudden jerk as air filled the parachute trailing behind and Merrion soared off the little boat, ten, twenty, then thirty feet, rising into the air. After a few seconds, once he'd opened his eyes, that is, Merrion could see far into the distance.
The river snaked ahead, in ever increasing S-bends, until it disappeared over the horizon. On both sides was one solid mass of green rainforest, as far as the eye could see before mist swallowed the horizon.
Apart from that clear patch, he noticed, off to the left three-quarters of a mile upstream. It looked like a narrow land bridge connecting to the next river east. All this happened in seconds, when the inherent flaw in Ella's plan became apparent. Merrion buffeted to and fro, as if he was in the mouth of a dog shaking its prey and trying to break its neck. With the amount of lift being generated by the parachute, the rear of Hellsbaene began to lift ever so slightly out of the water, and the rope started to make horrible sounds.
After a short time listening to the rope, he realised that it wasn't the rope that was making the awful sounds, it was him. Merrion wildly gestured the signal they'd agreed on to reduce power, the signal that he'd seen everything they needed, but they were already past the sandbar, and fast approaching the first corner of the river bend. Hellsbaene cut power, and Merrion began floating toward the earth, the river, but as he did, he wasn't sure if it was a reflection or something glinting off wet leaves ahead, for in the clear patch he was positive he saw something metal. Something large. Merrion hit the crocodile-infested water.
"IS THERE ANYONE STAYING BEHIND?" Laurie grumbled, shaking his head, and turned his head back to look upon the dense green vegetation before the scout party. They all stood on the river bank, the eight longships arranged in a defensive half-circle, the boats carrying the aeroplanes at its core. One crocodile made the mistake of venturing too close, and now its bullet-riddled corpse fed the others off in the middle of the river, waters churning in blood and foam.
"Look on the bright side," said Mick, "Andrew isn't here."
"Enough," said Merrion, his hair still damp. "Remember your training. Let's go." He held his crossbow in both hands, eyes alert, and moved forward.
Ella, holding her Drilling M30 hunting rifle with optical sight attached, moved behind him. Then Griffin, with Betty unslung and at the ready. Beowulf, Laurie and nine Vikings followed, bristling with assorted weaponry. They were the nine victors of a rather short, determined yet friendly brawl to see who'd venture forth. And at the rear, as it seemed as always, tail end gunner Mick, with a pair of MP 40's slung over each shoulder and holding a nice sharp axe.
Merrion led the scout party through the undergrowth and was pleased with the minimal sound generated by the others. The land bridge narrowed down to only a couple hundred yards across in places and widened out to over three-quarters of a mile in others.
On their left, where the forest ended, a small river connected the two massive rivers, following the exact shape of the forest’s edge. A river, possibly just large enough to float a longship. The thick undergrowth stopped, and became long, tall grass.
Twenty paces in, no more than that, walking beside the smaller river, Merrion held up his right hand, and they stopped.
Merrion crouched down, brows furrowed. The rest did the same.
"What is it?" whispered Ella. Merrion pointed directly in front and with the butt of his crossbow pressed down the grass, until he'd formed an outline, of something that looked like a foot.
A large foot.
A large foot three-foot across, and two high.
The imprint sank half-a-foot down, compressing the earth underneath. With another hand signal, they waited while he moved onward in a low crouch a short distance up the river. In a few minutes Merrion returned, his face a mixture of emotions.
"The footprints continue ahead, with fifteen feet between strides. Two legs, the left slightly heavier than the right. I'd wager each of those strides is almost identical to the previous." He picked a blade of grass, tore it in half. "A giant walks here, and each time, uses the same footfalls."
"Giants?" said Laurie.
"Giants," said Merrion.
Laurie went to say something, but stopped.
"And more so, the river is not a river, but a canal. Something periodically dredges it, dare I say carves it — for it is the same width all along thus far, and the angle of its banks never varies."
"Fuck me," said Laurie.
"I was just about to say that," said Mick, shaking his head. "We're out the back of fucking Bourke and now he says giants?"
"Beowulf?" said Laurie.
Now the Viking shook his head.
"Terrific," said Laurie.
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"It might be the same thing I saw up in the air," said Merrion. "I did not mention it, for I am not sure what I saw, in that uh, brief moment of flight. The giant might wear armour."
"Of course it does," said Laurie. "And it carries a twenty-foot shiny bloody sword called Bertha. Of course it does."
Chapter Thirty-Eight
SURVIVE
THE STONE MOUND rose out of the prairie, as high and wide as would be befitting a great Viking king, the cairn the only raised bit of land on the entire land bridge they'd come across.
The scout party lay on their bellies in the tree line on the opposite side to the canal. The cairn sat halfway between them and the waterway, just under five hundred yards away by their estimation.
Ella peered through the optic magnifier, Helena snuggled up tight into her shoulder. Only an hour or so from sunset, she thought. How much longer would they have to lie here?
The first sun reached a thumb's width from the horizon. Strange birds chattered their songs amongst the forest, beginning their daily ritual of nesting.
Next to her, laid Griffin with Betty on her tripod. Ella watched Merrion, Laurie, and two of the Vikings move toward the cairn.
Birds chattered, the air smelt fresh, rich, and alive. It was good to be alive and breathing.
Then she stopped midbreath as a great eruption of blue light issued from the four figures advancing, right beneath their very feet. Merrion looked down at his feet, then at the others. From the cover of the treeline Ella could see his face in side profile, dismay written all over it.
They'd triggered a tripwire. An alarm. The soaring blue balls of light from each of their positions fountained up like flares high into the sky, curving outward and falling inward, directly onto the top of the rock-covered mound as the four began to run for the tree line. Still she held her breath as a strange mechanical hum issued from the mound. Then she saw it leaping high into the air and landing in front with such force the tremors shook them, even so far away.
She breathed out with the shock waves.
Ella heard Griffin cock the Browning and Beowulf barking commands to his kin, but this happened only in a small part of her brain as what she was seeing registered —
A metal giant. A metal giant, a great scheissen monster that moved mechanically, with a hunched back and great metal hands a foot wide that reached over its shoulder and pulled forth a gleaming great sword and looked right at her with its shrunken head and telescopic eyes.
She gulped.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
HERE I AM
LAURIE STOLE a quick glance over his shoulder as they sprinted back to the tree line. It pulled out a huge sword — ha! At least it's not twenty-foot long! — then the sword activated, coursing into life, thrumming with blue energy along its length. Of course, Bertha is an energy sword. Naturally. The air started to tingle, smelling of rain after a dry spell, and Laurie on instinct yelled out, and tackled Merrion, the closest next to him sending them both crashing into the ground.
The blue energy beam seared over them, lancing from the stubby protrusion on the giants left shoulder and vaporised the unlucky Viking on their right, the circular beam continuing far into the distance, chopping god-knows how much forest.
The remaining warrior standing threw himself into the grass.
The forest lay only a hundred yards or so away. "Get to the trees. Get to the trees." The three scrambled back up and started running again. No, you idiot, not straight for the heavy weapon. Laurie hauled the woman around and stabbed frantically to the forest edge diagonally and the Viking nodded.
Then the ground began to shake.
ELLA FOUND HERSELF STANDING, the afterglow of the energy beam bright in her vision even when she blinked, and with her M30 in front she ran in the opposite direction Laurie was running toward, hugging the trees, and pumping her legs like the days she competed in the inter-Luftwaffe sports. Oh, she thought, somewhere in the back of her mind, we're just going along for the ride again are we?
Yes, said the cold, analytical part of her being. You created me, nurtured me, suckling on the teat of adrenaline and near-death. You’d do this every day if given the chance, up in the air.
And with that, because there was no reply, she tried to enact the plan of flanking the metal giant. Why hadn't Griffin started firing? The mechanical being had to be in optimal range, maybe even sub-optimal given the M2 Browning specifications.
There. Where that tree stump sat, next to its fallen trunk. Ella skidded to a halt, fell onto her knees, and crawled under the massive log. The gap between it and the forest floor was just big enough to squeeze under, as she burrowed into half-a-foot of rich, deep leaf compost.
She nestled Helena in snug, closed her right eye, and with the scope, sighted the head and telescopic protrusions on the machine. Was that a bird’s nest sitting in the crook of one shoulder? With her left hand, she reached into her side pockets and pulled out the three large 9.3×74mm hunting rounds, placing them onto the soft earthy moss next to her.
Given the beast in front of her, she left the handful of shotgun shells in her breast pocket where they were. Her left hand pushed the sliding catch back, engaging the forward trigger.
Her left index finger, covered in leather, a present from another time and place, curled around the metal trigger.
She breathed out slowly.
Here I am, giant.
She squeezed.
Chapter Forty
FREEDOM
*CLICK*
Betty didn't fire. Griffin swore under his breath and pounded a great hand onto the top of the machine gun.
*click*
Around him the Vikings separated, dispersing along the tree line and firing at the great metal beast, but even from this range their effectiveness of the sub-machine guns proved minimal. Metal glinted in the sunset light as sparks flew from the machine, and Griffin lifted open the breech cover.
He took a deep breath.
"What is wrong?" said Beowulf, lying prone on his left, holding a section of linked cartridges in his hands.
"There is a blockage," said Griffin, pulling the ammo belt out and examining the firing mechanism. He went through the procedural checklist again in his head, doing it by the numbers. With a small brush, he cleaned some black powder residue and blew it away with a breath.
"Griffin," said Beowulf, "we need God's Hammer."
The mechanical giant stood where it had landed, almost as if considering what action to take next. Ella fired off to their right, the 286-grain rifle slug smashing hard into its head. It swivelled slightly in her direction, then returned its armoured helmet back to centre. As if reading his mind, it leaned back and looked up into the sky, and fired a dazzlingly bright blue sphere of light up into the air, which hovered a few hundred feet over the field. Vertical, blue, walls of light issued from it, as if a lighthouse suspended in midair, and the searchlights strobed revolving around and around until they stopped.
Pointing blue, right in the direction of their fleet.
With a grinding mechanical groan, one massive foot followed another, and started on its way toward the river canal, following exact footsteps as it had done for gods only knew how long.
"Duffel bag," said Griffin. With a grunt Beowulf leaned behind and pulled the olive-green bag up to them. "We don't have time for this shit," handing the coil of black powder .50cal rounds back.
The earth shook with each step, the mechanical being now ignoring all small arms fire for the inconsequential buzzing of mere flies which they were.
"Unzip it." Beowulf did so and reached in. "Find the start of the belt." He found it and lifted it out the coil of gleaming brass cartridges and their painted green tips to Griffin's left hand. "Been saving these for a special occasion, guess this is it," he said, feeding the start of the Lend Lease armour-piercing belt into the deuce.
He pulled the wooden cocking handle back one more time.
He squeezed Betty's trigger. She fired. Beowulf roared
next to him as Griffin held down the trigger and hosed the target's upper torso in short controlled bursts, every tenth round of tracer lighting the way. The mechanical giant staggered, stopped as eighteen-thousand joules of metal slug energy at ten times a second slammed into it. Spent brass cartridges and metal links fountained up into the air, tinkling as they fell.
Laurie threw himself onto his belly, right into the pile of brass. "Legs," he shouted, stabbing manically in its direction, "the legs, aim for the knee joints!"
Griffin did the maths in his head. The canvas bag held about ninety pounds of ammo, thirty pounds for every one hundred rounds. Halfway through. Knees huh?
The giant turned to face them, readying the great sword. It advanced ponderously, the earth beneath thunder.
Griffin felt the necklace around his neck grow warm, the pendant under his sternum hot, making its presence felt. He sighted the left knee joint and gave it hell.
The giant's forward knee sagged, but still it came for them, dragging the damaged limb behind. Griffin stopped firing. He looked into the canvas bag and saw the physical rounds match his mental arithmetic. Only enough for a few seconds.
It started raining. The clouds which had been hanging around all afternoon finally dumped, and with a creaking, screeching sound of tearing metal the giant toppled face first into the earth. Beowulf, Mick, and the other Vikings gave a great cheer.
It moved. It raised itself like one man doing one hell of a push-up, and with the sword in one hand, began crawling toward them using its elbows, to pull itself forward, gouging clumps of dirt outward with every forward stroke. Laurie gave a grim laugh.
By now it was only seventy or eighty yards away from their position in the tree line. Griffin took a deep breath, breathed out and as he did so, pulled Betty's trigger and the last remaining bullets from Illinois shattered upon the giant’s head. Laurie watched as the last armour-piercing rounds penetrated the monster's cranium, chunks of blackened metal flying out.