CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

FIRE

 

 

“THERE!” CALLED THE lookout.

Several Aux in both war bands on Track Nine were designated as look outs. It was their job to scour high up in the arched tunnel walls and ceilings for Them.

Any anomaly, any sign of movement was to be signalled. Each lookout was teamed up with an Aux carrying a flame weapon, with its nozzle set to the narrowest stream. Every anomaly was flamed with a spike of fire.

The lookouts called regularly. The tunnels were old and ragged: moss grew in clumps, mineral deposits had formed and there were holes, breaks and cracks in the original structure. The flames soon lit them, exposing them for what they were, and the war bands moved on.

It was all good practice. The scrappers became adept at taking cover against the tunnel walls, at readying their arms and steadying their nerves.

The lookouts got better at anticipating what was a growth of vegetation or a cluster of crystals or a fissure in the old materials of the tunnels. Gradually, they called out less and less.

As the lookout called, the fire thrower with him shot a flame up into the ceiling of the tunnel. The rest of the war band scattered.

The Them shrieked, expanding its mouth into a gaping hole ringed with circles of dirty fangs. It dropped onto the tracks, and its dirty yellow claws squealed against the rails as it gripped them, ready to swing. The dying light of the flames danced over its lurid green speckled shell.

Holeman Hunt was already surging forwards, wielding his blades, his battle cry on his lips.

“Get whet!” he roared.

His words were echoed by the battle cries of other scrappers as they followed suit, though all the Aux words were lost in the deafening scream of the Them.

A fire thrower shot a narrow bolt of flames above the Them’s head. He did not want to risk injuring the Aux or blinding them with the light of the fire, but he had a weapon and he would use it.

The Them twisted its head, mesmerised by the flames, and Holeman Hunt’s blades hit home, hacking at the monster’s barbed forearms.

Hard green shell flew free, spraying into the tunnel wall. One hit Holeman Hunt in the cheek and hot blood began to drip onto his coat. He continued to swing. The cracking of his blades against the Them’s bony armour filled his ears until the next hideous shriek took over.

Oscar so Wild was beside Holeman Hunt, slicing his blades into the Them’s swinging dappled forelimbs, taking advantage of the distraction that the fire thrower had set up. Another trail of flames passed overhead, and then another stream crossed it.

The Them lurched towards the flames, twisting its luminescent body to follow their progress high above it. It screamed again as its lower right forelimb was severed at the joint, clanging onto the rail in front of its grasping claw.

It swung its head down to attack Holeman Hunt, but the Alpha dog saw it coming.

He sliced a blade hard across the Them’s face, though it was hardly a face at all, just two pairs of wide-set, bulging magenta eyes and the great hole of a maw. He managed to hack several teeth free of the circular jaw, before the head pulled away.

More scrappers attacked the Them from behind. A leg joint began to buckle, and another forelimb soon dangled from its joint. Fire throwers continued to weave patterns of flames high in the tunnel ceiling over their heads.

The Them was under siege. It swung its scything, barbed forelimbs in earnest.

The first scrapper went down, a low, scooping strike taking out his legs below his body armour. He bled out in moments, both his femoral arteries sliced through.

A second Aux was decapitated. His body dropped in the path of a third, who stumbled and died on his face when a barbed chitin limb drove down through his back, penetrating his armour.

The Them lifted the body a metre off the ground as it tried to retract its limb, the barbs tearing through the flesh before the Aux corpse dropped back onto the tracks.

The tight circle of Aux, attacking with blades, was surrounded by a circle of Aux with fire throwers. Scrappers were dying.

“Blades retreat,” shouted Dorothy.

No one heard.

Dorothy threw up her arms, raising her blades above her head, and stepped back between the fire throwers at her shoulders. She nudged the one on her left to light up, hoping that others would see what she intended.

She kept shouting, but still no one heard. She ducked between the next two fire throwers and grabbed the next blade scrapper by his coat, pulling on him, manhandling him out of the rank.

She raised her own weapons again, this time banging them together. Nothing.

The Aux dam beside Oscar so Wild was breathing hard. She swung her two curved blades as one across her body, back and forth in a steady rhythm. It was a blunt technique that the Zoo Pack did not employ, and it was no match for the Them.

The creature cut the blades from the dam in one strike, amputating both her arms at the elbows. It sliced again, this time across her gut. She was dead before she hit the ground. The fire throwers behind her filled the gap she left.

Daniel DeFoe saw his chance. The Aux were dying and he had a fire thrower nozzle in his hands. He could kill it. He aimed at the body mass of the Them. With the nozzle on the narrowest setting, holding his hands steady, he let off a stream of flames.

He knew the risk he was taking. He knew that the flames would wash back into the Aux. He knew that the Aux would be blinded by the light and would not be able to see to fight, to wield their own weapons against the Them.

The Aux were dying anyway. One death was the same as another. He could save many more Aux by killing the Them.

Oscar so Wild felt the heat of the flames as they crashed off the Them’s carapace. He screwed his eyes shut and stepped hastily backwards, hoping that he was stepping into a space, onto firm ground.

He put out a hand to grasp hold of Holeman Hunt, not entirely confident that the Hacker Alpha would have the sense to follow his lead.

On the other side of the circle, Dorothy Barker was still trying to pull blade scrappers out of the battle so that the fire throwers could do their work. So that they could kill the Them.

Flames began to penetrate hard shell. The smell of burning bony armour, like scorched hair and claw, began to fill the air. Acrid black smoke rose from the Them’s charring carapace as it changed colour from the hideous green to blue to purple.

The beast flung its arms around in one final attempt to take out some of its attackers, and one of its great curved forelimbs sliced into Dorothy Barker.

The hard, bony spike entered her side through her borrowed jacket, only millimetres below the line of her body armour. Her arms had been raised and her body exposed from the waist up as her armour shifted with her movement. The spike would probably have penetrated anyway, even if the curved blade would not. The spike emerged on the far side of her navel, protruding several centimetres.

All the remaining scrappers still alive had retreated behind the circle of fire throwers. They covered their faces or hurriedly put on eyeshades so that they could watch the Them die.

Daniel DeFoe had done most of the hard work.

Some of the other fire throwers chose to preserve their stocks of gasoline. The next to attack kept a steady stream of flames aimed at the monster’s head and a third pumped fire into its back.

The Them’s dying screech was unlike anything the Aux had ever heard. It was as unlike its battle cry as it could be and still be an animalistic scream. It did not thrash as it died. It crumpled like an ancient purple skeleton held together by cobwebs.

It stank and it smoked. It was as hot as hell, but at least it had stopped making its hideous wailing noise.

And that was the scrapping of that hour.