“Gross. Mean little bastards,” Mira said.
“Circle of life and all that. But we do have a problem,” I said, unstrapping my gun and sliding my blades out. “Hold this for me. If you hear me scream, don’t come in. If you don’t hear anything, don’t come in.”
“What if I hear you laughing?” Mira asked, trying to keep her mood light once she understood what I was about to do.
“Then shoot me, because it means something bit my balls off and I’ve gone loopy,” I said, crouching and peering into the silver sheet of water.
“Nothing better bite your balls. That’s my job. Sort of,” she said.
“Thanks for the ‘sort of’ part. That means a lot,” I said, but I felt the first creep of nerves on my neck as I considered how to approach the problem. Something was behind the waterfall, and it had big enough teeth that it could strip a human to bare bone. The femur I found had gnaw marks all over it, which meant the creature was either bored or hungry or both, and we couldn’t allow anything like that to live in the middle of our new settlement. So, in I would go, blades first, hoping that whatever was waiting would just hurl itself on the points so we could get this over with.
“If I hear you scream, I’m coming in,” Mira said.
“I know. Thanks. Let’s hope that isn’t necessary.” I ducked down, and the space behind the water was a seamless mirror. “Be right back,” I said, and then I dove forward into the chill curtain of the falls.
3
I came through the water, sputtering and drenched. The flow was hard enough to push my blades down so the tips cut furrows in the sandy floor as I scooted forward in a crab crawl. It was brighter than I expected, the chamber tailing away and the left around worn columns of stone that looked like melting candles.
Instantly, I smelled death.
“Grendel? I’m home,” I muttered, rising to a crouch as the ceiling went higher. The floor was covered in grit and gravel, damp from the waterfall, but getting drier with each passing step. The walls sloped up to a ceiling that was stippled like an orange, and there were alcoves where the rock had collapsed over the centuries, filled with rocks that were oddly regular.
Then I knew. There were no rocks. Only skulls.
Each alcove was packed tightly with yawing skulls, the jaws missing and empty eye sockets staring out with accusation. They were polished, white, and scored by powerful teeth as if something had gnawed on them lazily once the meat was gone.
Blades ready, my anger came out to play as well. This wasn’t just a boneyard. This was a record of pain. Something had been hunting humans, bringing them here to eat, and then toying with the bones like a cat would a wounded mouse.
“Not on my fucking watch,” I murmured, and then something slammed into me hard enough that my ribs collapsed like an accordion.
I rolled under the force of the assault, spitting and cussing as I fought to get my blades free. Before I could move, something bit me in the back, deep into the muscles around my shoulder.
“Are you fucking joking me?” I grunted, continuing the roll to dislodge whatever was trying to turn me into lunch. I slashed back and down with my right blade, and was rewarded with a howl of pain. “Good, you prick.” I stood, winced, and spun all in one motion. “I’m going to—”
“What? What are you going to do, other than fill my gut with your weakling flesh?” the creature growled.
“I did not expect that,” I admitted.
The beast was low, wide, and powerful—he could be called a humanoid, even though he was nude except for a belt and some armbands that looked suspiciously like tattoos on human skin, tanned and trimmed. He had a wide head, an enormous mouth filled with rounded teeth, and a pelt of graying fur with a white streak that began at the top of his head and ended just before his massive buttocks. On his elbows and knees, there were scales visible under the tufted fur, and his feet had talons that were black, thick, and sharp.
“I expect you to feed me, boy,” came the answering growl. His tongue slipped out, floral in appearance and split at the end.
I presented my blades to him, point first. He was unarmed. He was also unimpressed. His answering snort was the most animalistic sound he’d made, and I noticed his eyes had pupils like a reptile. Or a goat. Maybe both. The pupils dilated, and I knew what meant.
I leapt to the side as he lunged, his massive bulk a streak of gray as he shot forth with hands extended, the fingers spread wide like nets. My right blade cut deep into his thigh, making him stagger awkwardly as he tried to correct but smashed face first into a stalactite. The stone exploded into shards, and he grabbed a pair to wield like my own blades.
“You speak and use tools. You’re a genius,” I mocked.
He answered by spitting at my feet then threw one of the shards with a movement so fast it was tough to track. My ‘bots kept my eyes aligned, and the stone flickered past to shatter on the wall as he followed up for the real attack.
He missed with the blade but connected with a crashing punch that sent me sprawling, blades rattling in my hands. I slashed up and out, nicking his groin, then brought the other sword down to take the toes of his right foot off in a surgical cut. He bellowed with rage, punching down, but I used a crossing move to avoid the killing blow, cutting into the muscles of his back as I whirled away. Blood sheeted down his body, and my eye began to close. He’d tagged me with a knuckle and the force was stunning. He had to weigh four hundred kilos or more, and his strength matched his form.
“We are the lords of darkness, meat. We inhabit every tunnel from here to that pit you call a city, and we feed on you at will. If there’s a shadow, we are in it. If there is a—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, enough with the villain speech. I get it. You’re evil, you eat people, you live in the—tunnels? Caves? Whatever. Just come on and let me gut you so I can wear your coat for Christmas, you stinking fuck,” I said, moving to flank him.
“Lords of the tunnels, and sewers, sunworshipper,” he hissed, but he was tiring.
“I don’t need to tan, and I don’t like the beach. Too many tourists. So if you don’t mind, time to die.” I snaked forward with one blade while the other went low, cutting into the thick bone of his leg as he lashed out with both hands. I pulled back, cut again, and his leg folded up, blood spraying in a crazy series of spurts that hit the ceiling.
He began to fall but caught my foot and squeezed like the bite of an alligator. I could feel my toe bones cracking, so I did the only thing that made sense. I fell forward and put my sword right through the top of his skull, pinning him to the ground.
He let go of my foot.
Mira said, “What a mess.”
I looked over my shoulder at her, standing there soaking wet and shocked by the utter carnage of the cavern. “You coulda come in a bit sooner.”
“Why? And let you fight the Platebeast with help? No, this is much more entertaining,” she said, a bit too smugly for my taste.
“Platebeast? This thing has a name?”
“Sure. Here, look,” she said, and began busily removing a wide swath of hair from the monster’s chest. Underneath, it looked like armor. “Plates. They’re tough to kill, they like to eat people, and they’re also complete assholes about it. I thought there weren’t any left after the wars three years ago.”
“Help me out here. Three years ago? What wars?” I asked, rubbing my foot and wincing.
“Tunnel Wars. About ten different species went at it under the earth, raised all kinds of hell. The fight spilled out up top, but for the most part, it was fought under the ground and to the north and west. The Empty doesn’t have a lot of tunnels. The cities do, and there are caves. These bastards are so territorial that they can’t even live with their mates,” Mira said, kicking at the corpse with disgust.
“These things have girlfriends?”
“More than one sometimes. Come to think of it,” she said, framing my face with her hands as she closed on eye. “With a proper coat of hair, you might
even—”
“That’s enough of that, woman. I don’t stink like that,” I said, frowning with a dignified air.
She sniffed me, grinning wickedly. “You kinda do.”
“And how will I take care of that?”
She looked around the cavern. “We could check it out, then roll him into the stream, and then roll you into the stream.”
“I can live with that. First, let’s see what he was protecting, other than his territory,” I said, groaning and taking Mira’s hand to stand up.
“You sound . . . old. Going to make it?” she asked me.
I wiped at the blood on my face and hands, and then gave up. “If my ‘bots ever kick into gear, maybe. Until then, we go slow.”
She handed me my bag, and I drew my gun, edging forward into the shimmering light of the cavern. The sun was split into a dizzying array as it came through the waterfall, but it was bright and made a sneak attack almost impossible.
“No cave creatures,” Mira said.
“He probably ate them. Or scared them away with his stench,” I added.
The walls were smoothed by water and what had to be tools. When we saw the first symbols, I knew my instincts were right. There was writing, and a lot of it. If the Platebeast had been in here for years, he’d been busy the entire time. The walls were covered in writing from top to bottom, a linear script in clean, square blocks, punctuated by even spacing between what looked like pages of a book, but written on stone.
“Looks like a book,” Mira confirmed.
“No pictures. I could have used some pictures.”
“Like those?” Mira asked, pointing across the chamber. Above us, line drawings were etched hard onto the rock, then filled in section by section with various colors made from natural dyes. There were browns, reds, and even some rare blue patches, all presided over by shouts of yellow in the eyes of giant beasts that dominated the scenes. They were in a regular pattern at the end of a series of circles and crescents.
“Just like those,” I said, moving to stand in front of the paintings. “I don’t know why, but I don’t think the Platebeast made these. They seem too delicate, and I swear this is a calendar. Isn’t that the moon?”
“His hands could not have held a brush. Not for something like this, and these are old. They’re faded, even away from the sunlight,” Mira said. “Yeah. That’s a moon. Or moons. It’s—time. And the beasts are not common. I know I’ve seen it before, but I don’t know where.”
“He said they were in tunnels everywhere, but he didn’t look like a cave species. He looked like a gorilla crossed with a fat dragon, if anything.”
“What’s a gorilla?” she asked.
“Giant ape. From my time. They were somewhat intelligent, shared a lot of traits with us. Big, and strong, too, like the Platebeast, but no scales or reptilian stuff going on. How long have you known about Platebeasts?” I asked.
“Since—well, always. They were always here, but more like a legend. My family didn’t live where they were known to be. We had enough trouble without fighting for shelter against something like that,” she said, jerking a thumb over her shoulder.
“I think we need to get Andi in on this. If she can sift some records, we might be able to read the language.”
“Why? They’re monsters,” Mira said. She was right.
I considered my words, because I needed her to understand the reality of what ‘bots would bring to the world once we began mass-producing them.
“We’re going to unfuck this planet, and that means some of these species are going to die out. They were never meant to be real. It was only the virus that made them,” I said.
Mira was quiet. Around us the symbols stretched into the dark, unreadable and unending. “Are you oaky with killing that many—beings?”
“No. Not really,” I said.
She came closer. “Good. Because that’s the answer of a man who deserves me. If you were okay with mass murder, even of—them, then I would wonder about where we were going.”
“Glad to hear that. It matters to me if you’re here,” I said.
She touched my face, nose wrinkling. “To the waterfall. Let’s push him downstream and get cleaned up. We can take some pics of the walls for Andi, see if she has any ideas.”
I looked at the falls with a smile. “Body detail first. Then, we detail me.”
“And me. It was hard work watching you fight a monster to the death. I’m filthy,” she said.
“Don’t I know it.”
There was a side section of the falls that I could stand up in, like the world’s most aggressive shower. The water was cold, and Mira joined me, whooping with shock as she stood next to me in the brilliant tumble of water. We were clean in a minute, back out and gasping as the sun beat down on us in a welcome light. All of our gear was now outside the cavern, on a lip of stone that ran past the waterfall all the way to a broad escarpment that slowly tailed away. It was a natural ramp that we could use once we began building here, but for now we dressed, armed ourselves, and walked around the site, taking more pictures and uploading everything for Andi to worry over so she could begin building the plans in her mind.
I knew Breslin would be in on this, and probably Danto, too, even if he was a surly dick. His work with wood made him worth the trouble, and he was gradually mellowing with time as he lived in and among the Oasis and our people. Breslin would handle how we saved the water, Danto would build frames for what stone could not do, and Andi would be in charge of both of them, with Silk playing bad cop one step behind her. Everyone liked Andi, with her bawdy mouth and playful blue eyes, but they respected Silk in a way that verged into the magical, because Silk had my ear like no one else, and The Oasis knew it.
“How many people can live here?” Mira asked, idly looking around for possible building sites. She of all people knew how unstable The Empty could be, so I trusted her eyes to pick out possible sinkholes and hidden faults before we could retask any satellite data to help us select our first building locations.
“At least as many as The Oasis proper. More, maybe, if we can find out where this water comes from. An underground river would be perfect. No evaporation, no need to channel it off. Might be five thousand people by the time we’re done,” I mused.
“Have you thought about how you’re going to keep this place from breaking free? From becoming like them?” She nodded to the north, where the sprawl of Kassos lay over the horizon like a rotting corpse you could smell but not see.
I shrugged. “I keep coming back to answers I don’t like.”
“You should like them,” Mira said.
“How do you know what I’m thinking?” I asked her, taking her in my arms. Her green eyes were narrowed, lips pulled to one side in mild disapproval. Then she relented and kissed me.
“You seem to forget that I don’t have to know about Hightec to read you. I was a hunter before you were awake, you know. I understand how you think. You worry about being too much of a—a tyrant—but if you’re fair and honest, then you’re not a tyrant. You’re a leader, and you might be able to help us rebuild some of the things I see you missing when you think I’m not watching,” she said.
“That obvious?” I asked.
“It is to me. Remember, I’m yours, and even though you don’t know it, that means I know you. I see you and understand you. I know how much you miss some of the old world, even if I never saw any of it standing,” she said, then leaned her head on my chest for a second before stepping away to point at a depression in the sand. “Water might be over there, and we’d do best to avoid that for a building site until it’s been stable for a whole season. Or more. Other than that, this is your next city, Jack. Now let’s eat and hope the moon is bright. I want to enjoy tonight before we have to be around everyone again,” Mira said. There was a note of regret in her voice.
“Do you not want to go back?”
“I do. I just—sometimes, I need more peace and quiet than Silk, and Andi, and everyone. I j
ust need you and The Empty, really.” She shrugged, and her smile was bittersweet.
“Then we sleep under the stars tonight, but I can’t promise it will be quiet,” I said.
“I don’t need that kind of quiet,” she said, and there was mischief in her eyes.
Later, the moon rose high enough to cast her body in shadows as she took off her shirt, letting it slip to the hood where it puddled. We lay on the bedroll, hip to hip and close enough that I could smell the sun in her hair. Slowly, I lifted her on top of me in a sliding roll.
We were both ready.
I held her aloft, then lowered her, inch by inch until I was fully inside her, our skin touching. Neither of us moved, except for an expectant pulsing as our bodies betrayed a need to create friction. Then, she lifted herself—but so little as to be a hint, a rumor, then back down, and my hips rose to greet her in that fraction of a space. I put my hands in the small of her back, pushing down, and her hair spilled over my face as she met me for a desperate kiss, then we broke apart and I let my tongue play over her astonished nipples before kissing her again, harder, as we began to grind in earnest. Mira’s skin began to glow with the sweat of our work, and I kissed the divot of her shoulder, her neck, and her lips, now puffy with lust as she pulled me upward, her long arms snaked around my neck as inside her I felt the first stirrings of her orgasm.
When she came, it was quiet, intense, and long, a rolling explosion kept in check by the pressure of our bodies. The second she began to relax, I flipped our places, one hand between her shoulders to guide her gently to the bedroll.
“Let’s get comfortable. Not done,” she hissed in my ear, bending her legs back to welcome me deeper. I felt her feet begin tapping against my sides, urging me on. I obliged. My blood was singing, my fingers in her hair as the night air whispered past and the moon continued to paint her in moving shadows as she writhed in a slow, languorous uncoiling of all the want and need we had to give. When I came, it was a mirror of her first orgasm—a slow thing, long and draining, ending only when we kissed until we both felt the need to breathe.
Future Retold Page 2