5 Onslaught (9 page)

12

I have to
force myself to not count. Not only would it take a while, but the enemy force
below stretches so far that their numbers just blur together into a liquid-like
smear across the land. The jungle obscures many of them, but I can see enough
to know that this army is hundreds of thousands strong. I see hunters toward
the front, slipping through the trees like wraiths. Among them are gatherers
and thinkers, perhaps for control, perhaps to take part in the fight. Then
there are lesser warriors, greater warriors, and high above it all, the winged
upper echelon of Nephilim leadership. All this is expected, but there are some
elements below that I hadn’t thought possible.

Feeders.
A horde of them.
The egg shaped monsters with stubby arms and legs, with the teeth of a great
white shark, bobble forward, snapping their jaws. Their black, orb eyes seem
vacant, but they move with purpose, eager for the fight...or the promised human
smorgasbord. I don’t see any breeders, the morbidly obese, bird-like monsters
that give birth to feeders, but that’s to be expected. They can’t even walk,
let alone fight. That said, given the sheer number of feeders, it’s clear that
the breeders have done their part to prepare for the fight.

It’s
hard to tell from this distance, but I think there might even be some classes
of Nephilim that I’ve never seen before. Some are stout and broad shouldered.
Others walk on all fours, like silverback apes. I’ve always understood that
there was more to Nephilim society than I sampled in my short time here, but I
hadn’t considered the idea of there being more classes of lesser Nephilim.
Given all the jobs required of any society, I suppose it makes sense.

But
all of this is dwarfed by what follows the main force of the army.
Behemoth.

Correction.

Two
behemoths.

And
they’re even larger than the one I faced. That creature stood one hundred and
fifty feet tall, but these must be twice that height. Their black, bulbous eyes
are the size of hills, each emerging from the sides of its head. Behemoths are
essentially feeders that are allowed to eat and grow exponentially. They don’t
die, so their potential for growth is unlimited. Given the size of these two,
they might actually be two of the first feeders ever birthed. Their pale gray
skin ripples with each step. Their long clumps of red hair reach out, dangling
in the air as though held up by strings. Behemoths have feeble arms, much like
their smaller feeder counterparts, but the living hair works like tentacles,
able to reach out and snag prey. They breathe with mighty gusts—probably where
most of the stench is coming from—revealing rows of serrated triangular teeth
the size of hang gliders. I have a hard time imagining that these two, who are
leaving a flattened forest in their wake, will have any fear of fire. Like
their smaller brethren, behemoths can heal, and if these two decided to simply
charge the FOB...well, it might be a very short fight.

“What
do you see?” Mira repeats a little more fervently.

I
turn back to the tunnel.
“An army.”

“That’s
it?” She sounds annoyed.

“A
big
army,” I say.

She
lets out an exasperated huff, and I hear her climbing the tunnel behind me. She
squeezes up next to my right side and joins me. “Holy...”

I
watch her dark skin turn a few shades lighter before saying, “I know.”

Kainda
sidles up on my left. She’s unfazed by the scene. “What were you expecting?”

“I
guess I never really had a clear picture of how many Nephilim there are.”

“It’s
a large continent,” Kainda says. “And they’ve had a lot of time.”

She’s
right about that. In the same few thousand years, the human population has
increased by several billions. That there is only a million or so Nephilim
actually shows some restraint on their part—that most of them appear to be
headed this way, doesn’t. They’re going for the kill, which again, I should
have seen coming. That’s what Nephilim do.

“Okay,”
Mira says, “We’ve done our recon. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Not
yet,” Kainda says. She looks like she’s counting.

“Are
you counting?” I ask.

“The
leadership,” she says. “Each commander is in charge of ten thousand. So if we
count the commanders—”

“We
can guesstimate their total number,” I say. When Kainda looks confused, I
explain without being asked. “It’s a made up word. Guess and estimate.
Guesstimate.”

She
closes her eyes and
sighs
a deep breath. “We face near
certain annihilation and you are making up words.”

“I
didn’t make it up, it’s...just...forget it.” I turn my attention back to the
army. A strong breeze carries a scent similar to dead fish rotting in the sun
and I stifle a gag. My stomach sours further when I notice the organized march
of the Nephilim warriors. I’m not sure why, but militaries always seem more
frightening when they’re coordinated. “How can we tell the commanders apart
from the
others.
”

“Red
leathers,” she says.

I
scan the sky above and the land below. When I’ve got the number, I swallow and
it feels like I’ve got a stone in my throat.
“Done.”
The word comes out as a whisper. I can’t manage much more than that.

“How many?”
Mira asks. She sounds afraid to hear
the answer, as well she should be.

“There
might be a few more that I can’t see,” I say, which is true, but saying this is
more a delaying tactic than anything else, and Kainda will have none of that.

She
elbows me in the rib.
“
How
many?
”

“Eighty-six,”
I say.

“Eighty six?”
Mira says. “There are eight hundred
and sixty thousand of those things out there?”

“Probably
more,” I say. “We can call it an even million and probably be safe.”

“Including
the two Stay Pufts over there?” She motions to the behemoths.

“If
you count them as one each,” I say.

“And
should I ask how many we have at the FOB?” Mira asks.

“You
shouldn’t,” I say.

“I
kind of just did,” she says.

“It’s
been a few days since we were there,” I say.

“Solomon,”
she says, waiting for me to look her in the eyes. “Tell me.”

There’s
no way to avoid telling her the truth, as much as I’d like to. Besides, she’s
Hope. If anyone can spin the news into something positive, it should be her.

Still,
I can’t help but try to avoid it one more time. “I didn’t exactly count.”

“I
know the way your brain works,” she counters. “You counted whether you tried to
or not. So guesstimate.”

“Fifteen
hundred,” I say. My voice is so flat and emotionless I sound like that teacher
from
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
.
“Maybe two thousand.”

She
looks ready to pass out. The news is clearly worse than she’s expecting. And
for a moment, I see hope leave her eyes. This is something I can’t stand for.

“But,”
I say. “We have the Jericho shofar, which reduces Nephilim to quivering lumps.
We have modern weapons and heavy artillery. There are Navy ships off the coast.
And jets.
I’m sure more have arrived since we left to
find you, probably from every nation within range.”

“There
are a
million
of them,” she says.
“Sure, some of them are human, and some of them are just a little bigger than
humans, but they can control people’s minds, change shapes, fly and a good
number of them are thirty feet tall, again, not counting those two!” She
thrusts a finger toward the two approaching behemoths. They’re perhaps two
miles off to the left, but they’re immense, filling up most of the western
view. The hunters at the front of the army have entered the jungle where the
nunatak begins. It won’t be long before they’re below us. If we end up behind
this army, it could be a problem. We need to leave.

I’m
about to say so when Kainda reaches past my face and flicks Mira in the side of
the head.

“Oww!”
she says. “What was th—
”

“They
don’t have him,” Kainda says, nodding to me.

“What?”

“The
Nephilim don’t have him,” Kainda repeats, emphasizing each word. “Which means
the very land itself is against them.”

I
start to smile, but a sudden, jarring impact wipes the smile from my face and
sets my head spinning. It comes again, before I can think, striking my
forehead. As consciousness fades, my mind registers three things. A hand, dark
and caked with mud, my blond hair locked in its grasp, and then a feeling of
weightlessness, and wind...everywhere...whipping past my body—

—as I fall.

13

I come to
just a second or two later, just in time to see Kainda shove Mira out of the
window. As Mira screams, I’m mortified that it was Kainda who knocked me out
and threw me, but then she leaps out behind Mira. It’s then that I see my
attacker as he throws himself from the cliff’s edge and plummets down behind
Kainda.

Kainda
leaped, knowing I could keep us from pancaking on the forest floor below, but
this...man—I think he is a man—jumped after Kainda without that knowledge. I
quickly decide the man is insane, a theory that is supported by the white froth
around his mouth, the wild look in his eyes, and the fact that his mud-coated
body is clothed by the smallest of leathers. His hair hangs in long, clumpy
tendrils and is coated in mud, but I can see the blood-red sign of his Nephilim
corruption here and there.

A
gust of wind buffers me and slows my fall, allowing Kainda and Mira to catch
up. Mira doesn’t stop screaming until I catch her in my arms and say, “You’re
okay!”

“She
threw me!” Mira shouts.

Kainda
reaches us, clasping arms with me. “Almost there!” she shouts, warning me of
the impending impact with the ground. I’m facing up and can’t see the ground,
but I can see the man above us, dropping like a bomb. His arms are stretched
out toward Mira’s back, fingers hooked and tipped with thick yellow nails. His
jaws are open wide, revealing teeth filed to sharp points. He’s more monster
than human.

Kainda
looks back over her shoulder and sees the man falling with us. “Let him fall!”

I can’t
. It’s a thought, but Kainda knows I’m
thinking it.

“This
is war, Solomon!” she shouts.

I...can’t!

Whoosh!
A strong gust of wind slows our descent
and turns us upright. I still haven’t looked at the ground, but I feel the
tickle of vegetation on the soles of my feet. I lower us down and deposit the
now bewildered man ten feet away. We’re in a clearing between the jungle and
the nunatak’s harsh cliff face.

“Weak
fool!” Kainda
shouts,
and her anger catches me off
guard. She shoves past me, unclipping her hammer.

“I
don’t kill humans,” I argue, but my voice sounds feeble in comparison, like
some part of me knows this is a losing argument. But I don’t kill people.
That’s been my one golden rule. It’s why Kainda is still alive, and why her
father, Ninnis, who has wronged me in so many ways was able to return fully to
himself before Nephil claimed his body. But something about this feels
different.

“He
is plagued,” Kainda says. She takes up a defensive position between the man,
who is looking up at the cliff we just fell from, and me. “Check your forehead.
Are you bleeding?”

I
pat my hand against the skin of my head where the man punched me. No blood.
“Nothing.”

The
man suddenly goes rigid, like his confusion has just worn off. His head cranes
toward us with a kind of stutter, like there are gears in his neck. His eyes
widen. His mouth opens. He charges, reaching out his hands and loosing a shrill
cry. There is no skill in his attack.
Only ferocity.
This man is not, nor likely has ever been, a hunter.

As
Kainda moves to intercept the man, I manage to say, “Don’t—” but then it’s too
late. She sidesteps the man’s attack. He turns his head toward her and stumbles
as he passes. He looks angry more than confused, or frightened. I look for some
sign of humanity in his eyes. I find nothing. And then, Kainda’s hammer
connects with the back of the man’s skull and a loud crack punctuates the end
of his life. As he falls to the ground, I note that his eyes don’t change. When
people die, or even when animals die, you can see the life fade from their
bodies, as though the soul seeps out from the eyes themselves.
But not with this man.
His soul was already missing. Still,
I am not in the business of killing men.

I
turn to Kainda, anger filling my voice, “Hey!”

“We
are at war, Solomon,” she says before I can express my distaste. “People on
both sides are going to die. I might die.” She points to Mira. “She might die.
Billions already have.”

“Not
when I can save them,” I say.

“He
was infected. He has no mind of his own.
Only madness.”
Kainda wipes the small amount of blood on the head of her hammer off on the
grassy ground. “One bite or scratch from him, and you would be no different. A
war ended from a scratch. Is that what you want?”

“I—no...”
I’m not sure what to say. Was this man really past saving? Is he really that
dangerous? “Who was he?”

“A
weapon,” Kainda says.
“Nothing more.
Human once, but no longer.”

“How?”
I ask.

Kainda
is scanning the jungle nervously, wary for danger, which she should be,
considering we are now in the path of an approaching army. “They are what a man
becomes when he is too weak to become a hunter. They are broken...and stay that
way. They are kept in the depths and fed filth and refuse. Their madness
becomes contagious.”

Before
I can ask how she knows all this, she adds, “They are a Norse weapon.”

Then
it all clicks.
The Norse history.
The
madness.
“They’re berserkers.”

Kainda’s
forehead crinkles as she turns to me. “You know of them?”

“From
human history,” I say. Berserkers were Viking warriors that some believe took a
drug that put them in a fury, and reduced or removed their sensitivity to pain.
They’d keep fighting even while they bled out. This man certainly fit the
description, but I have no recollection of the madness being transmittable.
That increases the threat exponentially...especially if you’re trying to
not
kill them.

“Then
you know they are to be feared,” Kainda says.

I
say nothing. I can’t condone killing people.
Mind or no mind.

“Solomon,”
Mira says. She looks a little wind-whipped and startled, but her eyes are
serious. “You remember how my husband died?”

“Of
course,” I say.

“If you were there.
If you had the chance to kill the man
who shot Sam, and spare me that pain, would you have?”

I
stumble back, unprepared for the question. How can I say no to that?
Mira’s husband.
To allow his death, if I
had the chance to stop it, even if it meant killing a man...could I do that?

Before
I can answer, she takes the question further. She points to the dead berserker.
“If that man was about to kill me, would you have taken his life? What about
Kainda? Could you let him kill—
”

A
high-pitched wail rings out, drawing my attention up. A man, as wild and feral
as the dead berserker, leaps from a nearby tree branch. He’s a second away from
careening into Mira. His fingers are flexed. His mouth stands agape. Mira would
survive the attack, but not without wounds...which means...

Whipsnap
comes free of my belt and I twist the nearest end up, shoving it at the man’s
chest...impaling him with the Nephilim-forged blade. It sinks past his sternum,
slips through his heart and catches on his spine. The man’s momentum helps me
carry him clear of Mira before I fling him down to the grass, dead, beside his
kin.

Question
answered.

I
look at the man’s dead body, motionless, devoid of life. I did that. I killed a
man.

Whipsnap
falls from my hands, landing in the grass. I follow it, dropping to my knees,
which divot the earth along with the tears already dripping from my eyes. I
feel two sets of hands on my back, both women offering comfort for what I’ve
done. But I can’t accept it. What I did was wrong. It was evil. Corrupt.

My
eyes snap open and I see the blurred ground a foot below my bowed head. There
is a litmus test for corruption, I realize. At least, there is for hunters here
on Antarktos. Through spit and sobs, I make my request.

“What?”
Mira asks.

I
spit and clear my throat, struggling to control my emotions.
“My...hair.
My hair! What color is it?”

There’s
a pause as both women lean back from me.

“It’s
blond,” Mira says. “What other color would it be?”

“Check
it all!” I shout.

Hands
dig through my hair, searching. As they search, Kainda explains my fear. She no
doubt understands it. “Red hair is an outward sign of a hunter’s corruption,
but if Solomon were paying attention, he would have noticed that my hair is
also without blemish.” She gives my head a shove. “You’re fine.”

When
I stand up and wipe my eyes, I’m a little too embarrassed to look at Kainda.
What guy wants to cry in front of his girlfriend? And I was full on sobbing.
Probably not the first time, of course.
Despite my breaking,
and hardening over the years, I’m still kind of a leaky faucet.

Kainda
takes my chin in her hand and turns it toward her. “You’re heart is still pure,
and I would never ask you to risk darkening it again. We are at war, Solomon.
Men will die.
On both sides.
Some by
your hands.
It cannot be avoided. And if you run from this
responsibility, you will put us all in danger.”

Her
point finally starts to sink in and I dip my head to nod my agreement. But this
revelation is interrupted by a sharp scream. I turn to the sound, and I find
another berserker standing at the edge of the forest.

The
man repeats the cry.

“What’s
he doing?” I ask, snatching Whipsnap up off the ground.

When
a second voice shouts a reply deeper in the forest, and another more distant
scream follows, I understand and answer my own question. “He’s calling for
help.”

The
sound of running legs, ragged breathing and frenzied excitement fills the
jungle to the west. The berserkers are leading the way for the Nephilim army,
clearing the path of anything living that might stand in their way, and making
so much noise doing it that they won’t go unnoticed for long, especially if
there are hunters not far behind them.

We can’t fight this.

“Run!”
I shout. We break for the jungle, heading east, moving as fast as we can with an
army at our heels.