WHIPLASH
She caught up to him when he was more than halfway up a mountain. Here the road moved in a series of sharp switchbacks, climbing to a huge white dome on the mountaintop.
She could see the twin columns of pirates and Anthofelia’s women moving up the road, like ants intent on finding prey.
Motioning for Marta and the others to stay down and out of sight, Venatora found a hiding place behind a blowdown to study the situation. The blowdown had been a large tree, so it must have taken a high wind to topple it. Thankfully, they hadn’t encountered severe weather so for.
First she looked for another easier route than the road. Cables snaked from a forest of towers below, bearing cargo cars that escalated up the mountain to the dome.
It would be easy enough to dump the foodstuff the cars carried and climb aboard for a quick and easy way to the top.
Unfortunately, the cables were set too far away from the road and the cliffs were so steep that not even a mountain goat could manage them.
On top of those concerns, Venatora was feeling so uneasy about Demeter that she wondered if that kind of interference with the natural order of things would bring on more dangerous oddities. So far she had managed to avoid becoming one of Demeter’s targets. She didn’t know why and was reluctant to take a chance by disturbing the natural order of things.
She looked elsewhere, searching for the best way to attack Skink and Anthofelia. They had the high ground. Which was bad. They also had the numbers. Which was worse. The weapons were not quite equal—Venatora was much better equipped because of her years of looting Imperial armories. Loot that she deliberately did not share with Skink and the other pirate captains.
Behind her, Clew and Marta slipped out of the bushes.
“It doesn’t look good,” Clew said.
An experienced captain in her own right, Clew’s opinion was to be valued.
“Maybe there’s a way around the mountain,” Marta said. “We can catch them on the other side. If we’re quick enough, we might even be able to ambush them.”
Venatora sighed. “You’re right,” she said. “if we hit them now we’ll be giving up surprise for the dubious distinction of taking on a superior enemy on higher ground.”
Suddenly there came a enormous Boom! as if someone had slammed a gigantic door. They looked up to see a cloud of dust and a jumble of the boulders cover the mountain road near the top of the column. They heard distant screams and saw people scattering.
Then they saw other people stopping to turn and take a stand. Against what, they couldn’t tell. They seemed to be firing at a beast of some sort.
The creature let out a skin-peeling shriek that echoed down the mountainside.
“What the clot?” Clew said.
“Whatever it is, I wouldn’t want to be in their boots right now,” Marta said.
“Let’s just wait a bit and see what develops,” Venatora said, squatting on her haunches and fetching rations from her knapsack.
Marta signaled the others to take a break, then she and Clew settled down next to Venatora.
It was like watching a livee thriller where the life and death stakes were for real.
* * * *
Skink awoke in the pearly Demeter dawn with a sense of dread. His skin crawled with the feeling that a faceless something was pursing him.
Heart thumping, he came to his feet and shouted for everyone to get up and get going.
Ignoring the grumbles and curses, he hastily tended to his necessities. He swallowed a high energy ration pack without tasting it, then grabbed his knapsack and battlerifle and marched off, not looking behind him to see if anyone was following.
He moved in a half-trot, stretching his muscles until they were loose. He heard loud cursing from the columns behind him and without looking back he shouted, “I hear one more clottin’ complaint and I’ll skin the complainer alive.
“So shut the clot up and move your lazy behinds. We’re going to lay down some kilometers today or I’ll know the clotting reason why.”
Adrenaline drove Skink onward. He barely noticed the fields of grain and produce he was passing. The sound of cars moving along cables and whirring harvest ’bots toiling to fill them only added to his anxiety. The feeling that he had to keep moving or all would be lost.
At one point a chattering little creature hopped out of a field and landed on the roadway a few meters in front of him. It had huge eyes, pointed little ears and it held a hunk of melon in its paws. It nibbled on the melon as Skink approached, juicy bits falling onto the road.
Skink had no intention of stopping, or trying to shoo the creature away. He swung his battlerifle around to fire and suddenly there was a bellow from the field to his left.
The little creature turned its head to see, looked back at Skink, then hopped off the road and disappeared into rows of peas in the direction of the bellowing sound.
A cold chill ran up Skink’s spine. What if he had shot it? Get your wits about you, man, he admonished himself. Under no circumstances did he want to meet the owner of that bellow. It was probably its mother.
About midday the road began to climb a mountain in a series of sharp switchbacks that rose to a large white dome at the top. Cable cars snaked up the side, moving through low bushes and stubby, wind-blown trees.
Without pausing for an afternoon break, Skink kept going, settling in for the long and arduous trek to the top.
Behind him he heard Gregor’s whining voice. “Really, Mitzi,” he was saying, “I have to stop soon or I’m going to collapse. Someone should speak to Captain Skink. This is inhumane.”
Skink was about to turn and let him have it, when he heard Mitzi’s low voice shush him, then say soothing words to calm him down.
It was just as well. Gregor was Lord Fehrle’s personal hostage and he had made it quite clear that if anything untoward happened to him there would be hell to pay.
Typical rich kid, Skink thought. Lord Wichman had spoiled him until he wasn’t worth the drakh he emitted every day, much less the food and drink he took in to keep his miserable self going.
At any other time, Skink would have happily slit his throat and taken Mitzi for his own. Just thinking about the lovely joygirl brought his blood to a boil. Soon he was in lost in erotic visions of what he would do to her if she was his bedmate.
The real world became a hazy thing as he put one boot in front of another. On and on. At one point he started to tire and slowed down, but then the prickling sensation at the back of his neck began again, and he quickened his pace.
When he reached for a drink of water it was getting late into the afternoon. Mentally, he guessed that they’d made at least forty kilometers since morning. He was determined to reach the top well before the day’s end. Then he could look over the terrain with his binocs and see what—if anything—was following.
Skink was so absorbed in his thinking that he barely noticed the trickle of dirt spilling down the mountainside onto the road ahead.
There was a rumble.
Gregor gave a terrified shout.
Skink jerked up to see a huge circle of earth studded with bushes and small trees breaking away from the mountainside above him.
There were loud ripping sounds as roots were torn away and rocks began to tumble down the side.
Then a long, hairy tendril pushed through the opening. Followed by several more until they formed an insect-like claw that was pushing against the earthen doorway.
Skink shouted for everyone to run, then sprinted ahead, Gregor and Mitzi and some of his pirates close behind. He sensed rather than saw that that the twin column had broken up and people were scattering in all directions.
But before he could clear the area, the doorway slammed open with an enormous boom that sent showers of boulders and rocks rolling down the mountain.
He heard an unearthly shriek and he swung his battlerifle up and found himself looking at an enormous insect face, with gnashing mandibles, beneath hundreds of red eyes looking out from a huge single optical organ.
Skink fired and the creature shrieked as AM2 bullets chewed into its face. Unfazed, it kept coming. Claws dragging a huge hairy many-limbed body out of the cave.
He dropped to his knees and kept firing. Some of his pirates stayed with him, opening up on the creature. Battlerifles firing streams of bullets poured into the beast. On the other side of a jumble of boulders he could see other pirates and some of Anthofelia’s women doing the same.
The creature was almost all the way out now. Twin claws were reaching down and grabbing people, and stuffing them into its maw.
A moment later it was all the way out and a huge stinger emerged, dripping green venom, that sizzled and sent up smoke where it touched the ground.
Then out of nowhere he saw Gregor coming to his feet and running toward him. Blocking his aim.
Thankfully, Mitzi tackled him, but as he fell, Gregor grabbed her, twisting so that he could use her body as a shield.
Then he was out of the pirate captain’s way. Skink slapped a grenade round on his battlerifle and fired as the stinger came plunging down at him, mandibles going like crazy—clackclackclack!
The grenade hit. There was an enormous explosion and then yellow gore rained down on them.
The creature was still. Except for the mandibles, which continued to clack. But slower. Clack. Clack. Clack. He watched, mesmerized, until it stopped.
He looked over at Gregor and Mitzi. She’d freed herself from him and was coming to her feet, furiously scrubbing away yellow. She paused to douse a rag with water and started to wipe her face when Gregor reached up a hand, his face like a spoiled child.
“What about me?” he whined.
Skink couldn’t bear it any long. He reached out with one foot and booted Gregor so hard, that he fell on his back.
Thoroughly disgusted, the pirate got to his feet.
“What was that for?” Gregor whined, rubbing his behind.
Skink stated to tell him. To call him every kind of a coward, but realized it was pointless.
He shrugged. “Sorry,” he said. “An involuntary twitch.”
Then he turned and surveyed the disaster that had befallen his marching columns. But out of the corner of his eye he caught Mitzi looking at him. As if measuring him. For good or ill he could not tell.
He shouted for Gurnsey and Hasana and when they’d dragged their weary bodies to his side he gave orders to round everyone up and get moving again.
“If anyone is too injured to march, leave them,” he said. “But take their food and water and spare ammo. Especially the ammo. I’m guessing we may need every bit of it before this is done.”
There were no arguments. It was a good thing, because Skink would have killed anyone who balked.
Down the road, Anthofelia appeared. He waited until she found her way around the jumble of boulders and the horrible creature that lay sprawled halfway across the road.
As she came up to him, she said, “I don’t think we should stop. We don’t know what Demeter has in store for us next.”
“For a change, Princess,” he said, “we are in complete agreement.”
Before he could turn and continue on his way, she said, “This might be one of those times when Lord Fehrle might be sorry that he got what he wished for.”
Skink grimaced. “Once again, we agree,” he said. Then: “Enough talk. Let’s get moving.”
* * * *
Venatora lowered the binocs. “I think it would be wise to avoid this next section of road,” she said.
Clew and Marta were still wide-eyed over the horror they’d witnessed.
“Exactly so,” Clew said. She was visibly shaken by what she had witnessed.
“I think we need to find another road Your Highness,” Marta said. “Circle the mountain, like you mentioned before.”
Venatora got to her feet and brushed herself off. She said, “Let’s poke around and see what we find, before we just strike across country and get Demeter even madder at us.”
Clew gave her an odd look. “It’s not alive, you know,” she said. “It’s an artificial world built by sentient beings like ourselves.”
Venatora laughed. “Tell that to Demeter,” she said.
* * * *
Near nightfall, Ripley and Lancer came upon the place where the three women had watched Skink’s battle with the monster.
They’d already checked the area where the troops had waited on their leaders and they could easily make out the place behind the blowdown where Venatora, Marta and Clew had hidden behind the dead tree.
There was a breeze blowing down the mountainside. The two Suzdals sniffed the air, catching the scent of spent AM2 rounds, exploding grenades and the bitter taste of fear.
There was also something else on the wind that was even more disturbing.
“Too big to be an insect,” Lancer said, “but that’s what it smells like.”
“Whatever it is,” Ripley said, “it’s dead now.”
They circled around some more, looking for signs.
“I don’t think Venatora followed Skink,” Ripley said.
“Where could she have gone?” Lancer wondered.
They snuffed around, then came upon a trampled over spot where another large blowdown partially obscured the road.
Climbing over it, they found a place where the road forked—this path heading to the northwest, probably circling the mountain.
More checking uncovered an area where many booted feet had followed the new path. There had been an attempt to cover the trail, but there were few beings in the Empire who had the skills to fool Ripley and Lancer.
“Should we follow Skink or Venatora?” Ripley wondered.
“Let’s go get Sten,” Lancer said. “Let him decide.”
“I’ll bet he follows his girlfriend,” Ripley said.
Lancer woofed with amusement. “Do you really think Venatora is his girlfriend,” he asked.
Ripley chuckled. “Just give him a sniff whenever her name is mentioned,” she said. “The musk is so thick it would make a very expensive male perfume.”
The two had a laugh at their boss’s expense, then trotted off to find him.