CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

TWO WAR BANDS

 

 

TWO WAR BANDS left Friedrichstrasse before first light.

A large force, mostly of Zoo Pack scrappers, left overland for Hansaplatz. The Zoo Pack had experience of the outside. They were confident on the slick ice and better understood the changing nature of the city. They knew how it felt and sounded. They understood the threat of the ice falls and how to predict them, and they understood the movements of the rodents. They had encountered the Dammed and had overcome them.

The Hackers had fought the Rathaus. They had retreated below ground and had reduced their territory, but they had not gone the long Walk Around. They had not been outside, except to do battle.

The war band, forty strong, headed south for Hansaplatz. They hoped to find the Hansa Pack, to join forces with them, to make an alliance.

Robert Browning led the expedition. He took two of Holeman Hunt’s lieutenants with him, including John Steel.

Evelyn War insisted that she accompany him. Walter Sickert was not fit for another long trek outside, and the war band needed to move fast. So Evelyn War wanted to represent her father. She was the best choice.

“Robert Browning, you take Evelyn War,” said Holeman Hunt after a long discussion. “You make the long Walk Around to Hansa Pack.”

The rest of the scrappers would return to the tunnels.

It was a classic pincer movement. The Aux would flush out the Them, drive them above ground and hope to do battle with them outside.

The Aux would die. They knew they would die in the tunnels if they failed. They knew they would die in the tunnels if they succeeded. Death was inevitable. Death had always been inevitable for the Aux scrappers.

Every scrapper, Zoo Pack and Hacker, carried gasoline. Every scrapper that walked the long Walk Around and every scrapper that walked the tunnels.

When every flame weapon tank was full and strapped to an Aux back, camelbacks that weren’t needed for water supplies were filled with gasoline. When they were all full, jerry cans and water bottles were filled with gasoline.

They were strapped to backs, hung around shoulders and attached to belts. Every scrapper had a supply of gasoline somewhere on his body. The biggest, strongest scrappers carried the most, but everyone carried at least three litres of the fuel, including Ben Gun.

“Me, I made a big promise,” said Ben Gun, sitting in one of the service tunnels where the light was good, a large bottle of gasoline, and wadding, tinder and sinew in piles at his side. He was toying with pieces of felt as he sat next to Evelyn.

“You’s a scrapper, tougher and tough,” said Evelyn War.

She took hold of his chin in her hand and turned his face towards her, looking him fiercely in his yellow eyes. “You’s the best Aux with a sling shot, truer and true.”

“How?” asked Ben holding out a handful of felt and tinder to Evelyn.

“Me, I will help,” said Evelyn.

They tried different methods of making the little missiles, testing them as they went along. Finally one of Evelyn’s little balls lit with a bright flame that didn’t fizzle out.

Ben and Evelyn spent an hour making projectiles. Dry, flammable wadding was scarce and highly prized, so their supply of it was limited. They supplemented it with felt and sawdust to make firm little parcels of tinder. They soaked them in gasoline, rolling them and tying them tight. Then Ben carefully stored them in a waxed pouch so that they wouldn’t dry out.

Ben Gun spent another hour making a fireproof slingshot. The flame-retardant fabric was inflexible and unforgiving, unlike the leather he was used to. It wasn’t subtle and didn’t flex in his hands or with the movement of his arm.

Evelyn watched, and then took the slingshot from him. She untied the strings of fabric from the pouch and began to weave them into cords. She tried two or three different ways to weave the cord, but nothing gave Ben the accuracy he needed. On her third try, she realised that if she twisted threads of the fabric and then plaited them loosely, she would gain more stretch in the cord. Ben tried the slingshot again.

With another hour’s practice, Ben Gun was getting within five centimetres of his target every time he slung a stone. It was close enough.

Evelyn snickered with glee.

Holeman Hunt had given him a sparking mechanism, a flint with a metal wheel that fit neatly in his hand. He lit a spark under one of his projectiles, cradled in his slingshot, then whipped his arm and aimed. It hit the fifteen-centimetre square of felt he was targeting, and a small blaze erupted that lasted for four or five seconds until the fuel in the missile was used up and the felt burnt to embers.

“Ouch!” he cried. He sucked his scorched fingers idly as he watched the little fire, mesmerised.

Gloves... He needed gloves.

Ben Gun thought about it and wondered whether he could fire his slingshot accurately with gloved hands. Then he remembered the Dammed. He remembered the exhilaration he had felt. He had been wearing gloves outside.

He turned to Evelyn War

“Me, I’m ready,” he said.

Every able-bodied Aux had a role to play.

The injured and the infants remained at Friedrichstrasse, but everyone who was mobile, everyone who could don outside clothes and fix metal to his boots, any Aux who could survive outside for a few hours had a job to do.

They were divided into groups, according to fitness. The most able would travel the furthest and endure the most. The least able would travel only as far as Track Six took them to Leopoldplatz.

Hansaplatz was four kilometres away, and it would take more than two hours for them to march down the tracks. They had hand carts and barrows for the gasoline, and they had a gut full of determination.

The rest would travel outside from Leopoldplatz to Amrumer, Westhafen, Birkenstrasse and Turmstrasse. Some would have to travel four kilometres underground, then another three kilometres outside. It would take time and effort.

Only six Aux were chosen for the Turmstrasse war band. All had one or both arms missing and could not wield weapons. They didn’t need to; they needed strong legs to walk on and strong backs to haul fuel. It was enough for them.

Long after Robert Browning’s war band had left Friedrichstrasse for the long Walk Around to Hansplatz, long after the veteran Aux had been deployed, Holeman Hunt and Oscar so Wild took their three dozen Aux for the jog along Track Six to Leopoldplatz.

They dropped down to Track Nine, and began their journey south towards Hansa territory. They did not expect to make it there without encountering Them.

They were most at risk. The Them had attacked without warning. There had been no whistle and no echo. It had hidden in the ceiling space of the tunnel, and had kept silence until it had shrieked its horrendous battle cry, and then it had descended among them.

It had slaughtered the Aux without mercy.

Their crossbow bolts had not penetrated its carapace. Only Oscar so Wild’s blades had made any impact on it. Only an accident had saved them, an accident that had killed the Zoo Pack leader.

Twelve Aux had died because of the Them. Twelve Aux that had been hunting the Them had been killed by their prey.

Oscar so Wild took his position front and centre with a Hacker Pack scrapper on either side of him. Each wore a protective apron and a visor. Each carried the tanks of a fire thrower on his back.

They jogged with the flame nozzles held waist-high in both hands in front of them. They were armed and ready. Still Oscar so Wild didn’t trust them. They had not seen what he had seen. He was glad that he had made sure his blades were honed.

Holeman Hunt took the flank in the second row. He, too, carried blades. Every row after that consisted of a pair of Aux, hugging the tunnel walls. Each pair had one Aux carrying a flame weapon and one carrying blades. The formation should allow them to surround any single Them that attacked, so that they could counterattack from all sides.

That was one plan.