A grotesque purplish protrusion that must be what passed for a tongue on the creature poked out from underneath the segmented shell and lapped at the sticky mess.
Hiss called back, “I, only a few more, have. Time, limited, is.”
Giving up on finding a lock, Leon pulled the axe from the ring on his belt. He nudged Kack aside with a hip and slammed the edge of the axe blade against the surface of the door. The blade rang out and bounced back in Leon’s hand. The edge turned aside at the contact and the axe narrowly missed striking Leon in the face as it deflected back toward him. He swung again, keeping his head further away and holding the weapon more firmly in his hand, but the results were the same.
The door appeared to be a normal door. Leon had assumed it was painted wood or some other standard material from which doors on his world were made, but the axe bounced twice and did not even leave a mark to show where it had struck. In disbelief, Leon stroked a hand across the unmarred surface.
“That’s no’ a bad idea,” said Malcolm, standing in the small crowd gathered behind Leon. He dragged the large, two-handed sword from the scabbard on his belt and held it high over his head. Instead of swinging for the door however, he turned and ran toward Hiss who continued to play cat and mouse with the dangerous mound of armored muscle.
Malcolm marched up behind the rockadillo as it continued to lap at the tarry smear on the wall and leveled the sword behind his shoulder like he was preparing to swing a baseball bat. Hiss held out all four hands toward Malcolm, shouting out a warning, but it was too late. The sword in Malcolm’s hand rang out like a bell as it struck and deflected off the creature’s impenetrable hide. The sword did no more damage to the rockadillo’s armor than Leon’s axe had done to the door.
Not learning from his first failure, Malcolm reared back and swung a second and third time at the peacefully grazing beast. On the third blow, the sword did not strike cleanly on its edge and it flexed wildly in his hands upon impact. When Malcolm raised the blade for yet another attack, there was a very noticeable bend in the metal. The sword had not broken, but it was bent so badly out of true it would never again serve as an effective weapon.
Malcolm saw the damage he had done and, in frustration, jabbed the point of the blade against the creatures banded side. The point of the sword did not penetrate, and the blade bent further, but the beast did react this time. Apparently, it did not like people who slapped and prodded it with pointy items. The rockadillo slid off the wall and turned to face the source of its annoyance.
Malcolm, deciding that prudence was the better part of valor, dropped the sword and ran. The creature pursued the fleeing Scotsman as he bolted toward Leon and the others still struggling to find a way to open the door. Hiss pulled out another one of the vile smelling treats, unfortunately the rockadillo was upwind from him and did not react to the offering.
The group of humans and Many scattered away from the door as the rockadillo rumbled into their midst. Leon’s attention remained on the door as he tried to wedge the blade of his axe into the crack between the door frame and the door latch. Vinod’s hand clamped onto his shoulder and again he was roughly jerked aside moments before what would have been a messy demise. The massive animal crashed into the door, trying to crush Leon between the wall its bulk.
That was twice in barely ten minutes that Leon had almost been killed because he was not paying attention to the dangers around him, and twice that Vinod had been the one to save his sorry ass. He wanted to thank the man for pulling him out of the way, but there was no time for such niceties. The rockadillo rampaged among them, and the door remained firmly shut.
“Can we force the door down?” shouted Sofia. “If we all rush against it at the same time, do you think we can break it open?”
Annie laughed, although the sounds that came out of her mouth were high and verging on hysterical. “Are you kidding?” she retorted. Did you see how hard that big fucker hit the door? And it didn’t budge. You think we’re going to do any better? Besides, the hinges are on our side. That door doesn’t swing forward, it has to be pulled open.”
Leon saw that Annie was right. Two yellow metal hinges were visible mounted on the side of the door opposite from the handle. Like the library door they had first encountered, this one needed to be pulled open rather than pushed. A flash of inspiration came to Leon as he realized what he had missed before.
“Aah!” he blurted, slapping a palm to his forehead in exasperation. He was the physics student. He should have picked up on the hinges immediately, rather than rubbing the keys against the door like a crazy person trying to perform a magic trick “Hiss, can you get it away from the door again?”
Hiss did not respond. He slipped past the rest of the group and approached the agitated creature. The rockadillo turned but had not yet decided to charge. Perhaps it was making up its mind which one of the edible treats in the room it was going to go after first. Hiss moved in close enough to get the beast’s attention with the bait in his hand. The creature reacted to the smell as it had before, rumbling forward in pursuit of the tempting scent. Hiss backed away, keeping his distance from the lumbering omnivore, but also staying close enough that the creature could smell the offering in his hand despite the slight wind blowing in the wrong direction.
Hiss marched the rockadillo twenty paces away before smearing the gooey black substance onto the floor. The creature paused over the smear, its tongue poking out to lap up the treat.
Leon did not waste the limited time Hiss had given him. “I need to borrow your baton,” he said to Michael, not waiting for the man to hand it to him. He grabbed one of the metal-banded clubs, jerking it free from the strap across Michael’s chest, and ran for the door.
“What are you doing?” asked Sofia. “Do you have an idea?”
“Actually, it was Annie’s idea,” he said. “Although, I should have seen it a lot sooner. We don’t need to break the door down. We just need to break open the hinges.”
Rather than explain further, Leon showed them. He placed the edge of his axe into the narrow groove between the head of the pintle and the top of the higher of the two hinges. With the club he had taken from Michael, he tapped the back of the axe head repeatedly until the front edge pushed forward, raising the pin a fraction of an inch. Leon angled the axe to direct more of the force of his attack upward and was rewarded with another small movement of the pintle. When he had opened enough space to seat the axe firmly, he turned the head to a forty-five-degree angle and began hammering the axe more forcefully with the club. The pintle rose an inch, then two, and finally tumbled out of its bracket altogether. The metal pin fell to the floor and skittered a few feet away with a light metallic tinkling.
“Yes!” shouted Malcolm, clapping Leon on the back hard enough to push him into the door frame.
There wasn’t time to celebrate yet. There was one more hinge still holding the door in place. Leon dropped to one knee, placed the axe blade against the top groove of the last hinge, and repeated the procedure to remove the bracing pin. Ten seconds later, the second pintle rolled off to join its twin on the floor.
Leon sidestepped, wanting to be out of the way when the door toppled. He did not know how heavy it might be, but he didn’t want to find out by ending up underneath it. As he and the others stood in anxious anticipation, the door remained stubbornly in place. It did not fall. It refused to so much as budge from its silent sentry duty.
All nine unwilling participants in this galactic farce stood dumbfounded and defeated as they stared at the unmoving door. Even Hiss stepped away from the rockadillo to gaze at the complete lack of progress. The armored animal beside him lapped unconcerned at the floor, the rasp of its thick purple tongue against the stones the only sound in the room. Leon was out of ideas, and so, apparently, were the others.
“Fuck!” Malcolm pushed to the front of the group and slammed a heavy, booted foot against the white barrier. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
He kicked the door repeatedly
in frustration. The others let him continue. There was no point in stopping him. As his boot crashed into the door over and over, the hinges began to shiver. Annie was the first to notice the movement.
“Malcolm, keep going,” she urged him. “Keep kicking. I think the door is starting to move.”
Malcolm paused long enough to register what Annie had said, then threw himself at the door with renewed vigor. Three more kicks and the interlocked layers of the hinges separated. The door swung out from the wall, wobbled drunkenly, then crashed to the ground.
As soon as the door hit the floor, Shoo and Kack pushed past the rest of the group into the newly revealed hallway. Malcolm cursed as the two aliens jostled him out of the way, but as soon as he regained his balance, he was right behind them.
Vinod glanced back. “Hiss, run. We are through.” Then, he too joined the main group as they dashed forward to escape the rockadillo’s demesnes.
Hiss joined the others in the hallway as the rockadillo finished the last of its snack. It circled a few times, searching the room for movement, then lazily shuffled toward the huddled beings in the doorless exit.
“Can it fit through the doorway?” asked Sofia. She backed further into the hallway as the creature loomed closer, but the question soon became moot. Before the rockadillo could try to squeeze its bulk into the passage with them, the opening phased closed as smoothly and completely as the previous doors had done. The hungry monster disappeared on the other side of a solid wall.
Leon returned Michael’s club and the older man secured it in its carrying strap without comment. They were all shaken by the encounter, but they had made it through alive. The members of the disparate group eyed one another silently. No one wanted to break the fragile peace as they all needed a moment to themselves to gather their thoughts and mentally prepare for whatever came next.
Hiss was the first to move. He strode through the empty hallway – an exact duplicate of the first hall they had travelled through – leading the group to the next door. This door also had hinges on the outside and no visible keyhole on its smooth surface. Unlike the last portal, however, this one opened easily under Hiss’ hand.
They all crowded forward to peek into the revealed room, hoping their next challenge might be easier than the last, or if not easier, at least slightly less life-threatening. The new chamber was a perfect match of the alleyway they had just escaped. The floor was the same cobbled paving stones, the walls an identical polished rock and mortar barrier. It was as large as the last room as well and lit by the same twilight purple sky. The only major difference was there wasn’t a hulking rockadillo waiting patiently in a stall ready to eat anything that wandered past.
There were six.
CHAPTER 6
“Hiss, we can’t go in there.” Vinod told the alien. “We barely escaped the other room, and there was only one of those things in there.”
“We, stay, can not,” Hiss responded. “This door, open, is. The door, soon, like the others, will close. All of us, when it does, on this side, must not be.”
“How much of that black stuff do you have left?”
Hiss touched his vest pockets. “Three.”
Three was not enough, thought Leon as he stared at the creatures waiting for them in their individual corrals. Hiss used four of the packs on one rockadillo. Three pieces of bait would not keep six creatures occupied for long. Even knowing how to open the next door, it would take a few minutes to do it. That was assuming the hinges were on the outside again. What if they weren’t? What if this door presented an entirely new challenge? They needed time to figure it out.
Hiss did not give the group the opportunity to discuss their next move before stepping into the open alleyway. The door would not remain open forever and they could not afford to be trapped on the wrong side of it when it closed. They followed the alien dutifully into their next test.
Fortunately, as before, a breeze drifted through this alley, blowing gently from the far end toward the huddled group. The rockadillos would know something new had entered the alley with them but, unable to smell what it was, they could not yet determine if their visitors were edible. That gave the frightened group breathing room to figure out a strategy to survive this encounter.
“We can’t use the same plan we did before,” said Annie. “If Idaho runs to the door first, Hiss isn’t going to be able to keep all six of those things distracted long enough for him to open it. Hiss might get one or two to stop chasing us for a few seconds, but the others will take us down.”
“We already know the bad news, lass,” Malcolm growled. “Do you have anything to say that might keep us from gettin’ killed?”
Annie nodded grimly. “I think I do. It might not work, but it’s the only thing I can think of that might give us a chance. Hiss, you would have to go first.”
Although the alien’s facial carapace was incapable of expressing emotion, Hiss’ hunched shoulders and the rapid movement of his small hands made it clear he already did not like this plan. Still, he remained quiet and waited to hear the rest.
“You have to move down the alley slow enough to draw out two of the creatures at a time. If you put the smelly shit on one of them, do you think they’ll fight, or at least keep each other busy for a few minutes?”
Hiss fidgeted a moment before answering. “Perhaps. One of them, food, the other, may think.”
“Good. Then as you move down the alley, put the stuff on every other creature and pray they aren’t smart enough to figure out what we’re doing. Idaho, you go with Hiss. That way, you two will be the first ones to the door and you can try to figure out a way through.”
“No,” interrupted Shoo. The female alien had remained quiet until this point, choosing to allow Hiss to speak for the three of them. Annie turned a surprised look toward the smaller Many. “No,” she said again. “I, with Hiss, go. I, to the door first, will be.”
“I, with Shoo, go,” insisted Kack. This declaration surprised no one. The large male had been at Shoo’s side from the beginning. Even as they sprinted through the last challenge, he had paced himself so he was never more than a few feet away from her.
“Fine,” said Annie, rolling with the unexpected change to her plan. Arguments now could only result in discord and the chance for confusion. That might result in someone getting killed. “The Many go first. As the creatures fight among themselves, the rest of us will try to run past them without getting crushed in the confusion. That means that we have to go one at a time. If we run as a group, we’ll trip over each other and be easy targets for those,” she jabbed a thumb in the direction of the armored creatures, “things.”
“Rockadillos,” said Leon. When everyone turned toward him, he shrugged. Heat rose in his face as he realized how silly the name sounded out loud. “That’s just what I thought they looked like. I...”
“Rockadillos.” Annie grinned at his embarrassment, though not unkindly. “How do we decide the order we go?”
Leon pointed at Annie and Sofia. “I think you two should go first.”
“That kind of misplaced chivalry in this place might eventually get you killed,” Annie told him.
Malcolm laughed. “Not really. If your plan doesn’t work, those beasties will get you first and the rest of us can make up a new plan.”
“That’s not what I meant!” Leon fired back.
Annie touched his arm to calm him. “We know what you meant, um, what was your name again? I’m lousy with names.”
“Leon.”
“Leon. We know what you meant. Sofia and I will go first. Who’s next?”
“Me and that bloke,” said Malcolm, pointing at Michael. “Us servants of Her Majesty need to stick together.” Although Malcolm was smiling at Michael, there was an edge to his voice.
Michael glanced at Leon then over to Vinod, gauging their reaction to the statement. Vinod shrugged and nodded. Leon mirrored the gesture.
Annie looked around the group, pausing to see if there were any more q
uestions or suggestions. All eyes were on her. It was her plan, so they deferred to her to make the final call.
“Okay. Don’t space out too far but give each other enough room to move. Shoo, get your keys ready. If you figure out how to open the door, try to give the rest of us enough time to get to you before you actually open it. I don’t want to leave anybody behind, especially one of the morons that volunteered to go last.” She glanced pointedly at Leon as she said “morons.” “Hiss, grab that nasty shit and let’s do this.”
Shoo fished her ring of keys from a pocket of her black vest and jingled them to show the others she was prepared to go. Hiss removed the remaining three wrapped cubes from his pockets. He held one in each large hand, and he cupped the third cube between his two smaller hands.
Annie grabbed the sleeve of Sofia’s white shirt. “As soon as we’re sure the rockadillos are distracted,” she looked at Leon once more with a wry smile, “when they’re distracted, we run past them. Until then, hang back so they can’t smell us.”
Sofia bobbed her head in agreement.
Without any noticeable verbal cue, Hiss, Shoo and Kack bolted toward the first pair of armored creatures in the alley. Annie and Sofia loped after the aliens at a slower pace. Malcolm and Michael jogged after the women, and Vinod and Leon were left to follow a few seconds later.
As Hiss passed the first two rockadillos, Shoo and Kack paused to let the creatures pursue him. Hiss stopped, turned, and darted back toward the second creature he had passed. Without slowing, he slapped the gummy black substance against the creature’s hide, looped around it and began to run for the next pair in the alleyway.
The rockadillo he tagged paused when it smelled the noxious odor. It lumbered in a slow circle, trying to figure out how to get at the potential treat, its previous quarry completely forgotten. The first creature had no such difficulty targeting the source of the smell and it crashed heavily into its companion. The planned distraction seemed to work. The rockadillos slammed into one another again and again until their jolting interaction drove them against one wall of the alley. Shoo and Kack took the opportunity to dart past the struggling behemoths.
Testing Grounds (On Dangerous Grounds Book 1) Page 7