Dark Foundations (78 page)

Merral sighted on one Krallen, aimed just ahead of it, pulled the trigger, and followed the smoke trail as the bullet struck its flanks, flinging it sideways. His gratification was short-lived as it wobbled upright and continued on its way. He fired again and again, aware that each time he squeezed the trigger, he was firing at closer range.

He glimpsed a slitherwing flap by overhead—the looming diamond shape, the long moist slit of the mouth agape, and the whip of a tail tracing leisurely curves through the air. Suddenly a hole appeared in the right wing and the creature banked unsteadily away.

Merral glanced up from his rifle to see that the first Krallen were almost upon the ditches in front of the defenses. Behind them, heedless of the mortar craters and the scattered smoldering fragments of their kind, more Krallen raced after them.

The first line of Krallen plunged into the ditches and, barely slowing, surged upward against the ramparts. They struck the walls like the waves of a winter sea breaking over a rocky shoreline. Soldiers screamed as the claws lashed out and teeth bit. Now, for the first time, there was the glitter of blades.

Merral held his fire, choosing instead to watch.
Now
is the test.
Now we see whether Vero's ingenuity in forging swords and armor has worked
.
If it has, we have hope. If not, we are lost.

Blades rose and fell amid new yells and screams. Just below him, a man struck a blow deep into the neck of a Krallen. It toppled backward, inert. Next to him another beast keeled over as a blade was thrust into its belly.

Merral began to dare to hope.

“Those swords really work!” the colonel cried, relief in his voice.

Merral turned his gaze wider, trying to determine what was happening around the gorge mouth. The scene, partly obscured by smoke, was one of a confused and angry melee. Through the smoke it was plain that the Krallen charge had slowed. The narrowing of the gorge, the ditches, and their own fallen had clogged their advance. Around the entire length of the defenses, an ash-colored mass of Krallen, perhaps eight or ten deep, seethed against the ramparts.

In the air, the slitherwings were in trouble. One spiraled down, its wing torn. Another was aflame and, as he watched, a third cartwheeled into the ground.

Yet just as hope surged in Merral's mind, it began to fade. All around the arc of the gorge mouth it was plain that the defenses were in danger of being overrun.

Merral was suddenly aware of Colonel Lanier standing next to him.

“What do you think?” the colonel shouted, trying to make himself heard over the noise. “The lines are barely holding.”

“Send the reserves in!” Merral shouted back.

The colonel gave an order. As Merral fired a dozen rounds into the midst of the Krallen, soldiers rushed down the slopes to join their fellows.

Suddenly, Merral heard Anya's voice in his ear. “Merral, we have you on screen. There's a Krallen, pack moving in—down to your right. By the rock spur, fifteen meters away. Looks like it may be unopposed.”

“Thanks, we'll deal with it.” Soon he spotted twelve forms moving purposefully through the chaos in front of the ramparts toward a rocky projection.

Merral looked around, only to see that there were no more reserves. He grabbed Lloyd, who was pumping round after round from his XQ rifle into the enemy ranks with a steady rhythm, and gestured to where the pack was scampering up the projecting rock. In seconds they would be able to circle behind a handful of soldiers who were preoccupied with the foes pressing upon them.

Lloyd grunted, swung the barrel toward the new threat, and fired, the white trails of the rounds carving furiously through the air. First one, and then a second Krallen spun off the rock. Merral fired, and a third toppled over.

But in seconds the remaining Krallen were off the rock and heading silently behind the soldiers.

“Swords!” Merral yelled, throwing his gun down and running down the track. He heard Lloyd following as he raced down the rocks. They half leaped and half tumbled into the defensive excavation.

“The Lamb!” Merral cried, as he swung his sword down on the back of the nearest Krallen. The creature whipped its head toward him, but as it did, the blade struck the tough skin, stuck, then slowly penetrated. The creature twitched, the burning red light in its eyes faded, and it toppled onto its side.

The remaining Krallen—seven or eight—turned round and Merral had a brief and horrid vision of over a dozen fiery eyes gleaming at him. As he raised his sword again, Lloyd charged, moving like a mighty mythological figure of vengeance, his shotgun in his left hand, and his sword in his right.

As a Krallen bounded at Lloyd, he stuck the gun in its mouth and fired, sending a cloud of fragments hissing around. A moment later, Merral glimpsed another falling under Lloyd's sword before his own attention was required by two Krallen, eyes ablaze, approaching him with perfect coordinated symmetry from the right and the left.

The creature to Merral's right lunged for him. In an action that was a pure reflex, Merral slashed down hard with the sword. The blade arced into the face, cutting deeply between the lidless eyes. The creature slumped, spun sideways, and crashed to the ground. As Merral tugged the blade free, silver fluid dripped from it. He caught a strange warm mechanical odor that reminded him of his father's workshops.

As the second Krallen bounded toward him from the left, its teeth flashing in the sun, Merral swung his sword. The creature was too close and the blow too hasty. The blade hit the skin at an angle and bounced off. A steely claw scythed at him, struck an armored sleeve, and skated off. The creature spun round on its hind legs and reared up toward him. As it pounced, Merral thrust the blade forward deep into its chest. The Krallen struck him, sending him tottering backward, and then, suddenly immobile, fell over.

Even as it slid to the ground, another Krallen leaped over its body toward him. Trying to regain his balance, he tugged at his sword, but the blade refused to budge. Somehow the body of the Krallen had twisted, trapping his blade underneath it.

With increasing desperation, Merral wrestled to free the blade. As he did he saw a gray face in front of him, its jaws gaping wide to show teeth like the blades of a tree saw. The creature raised its right forelimb, extended its bladed nails, and brought them together to make a single chisel-like blade.

The punch to the face
, Merral realized with a numbed horror.

As the limb shot out, he ducked. The ferocious blow struck his helmet.

Half stunned, his helmet twisted around so he could only partially see, Merral staggered back, expecting another—and final—blow.

The Krallen paused. Its deep-set, glowing eyes suddenly tracked away from him.

A pair of smoking gun barrels slid past Merral's ear. He could feel the heat from them.

“You have to ask yourself, do you feel lucky?” Lloyd addressed the Krallen in a slightly breathless drawl.

Merral saw a glint of something—perplexity perhaps?—in the creature's eyes.

There was a flash, a deafening explosion, and the Krallen's head disintegrated into a whistling cloud of fragments. A wreath of muzzle smoke drifted past.

“Thanks, Lloyd,” Merral said, as he clambered heavily to his feet. He twisted his helmet back into place and wrenched his sword free from the Krallen. “But we don't believe in luck.”

Lloyd gave the headless body a kick. “Don't think it does now.”

Merral gazed around, seeing eight stilled forms, and turned to the ramparts, where the five men left standing continued their struggle against an apparently endless onslaught of claws, teeth, and baleful eyes. Mindful of the swinging blades, Merral edged forward to take his place at the front.

“Thanks,” said a man next to him and Merral glimpsed a wearied, sweat-stained and bloodied face. “Too many goblins.”

Goblins.
A good name
.

The ditch in front of the ramparts was so full of Krallen bodies that the new attackers had to climb over the fallen to reach them. One leaped toward Merral and he felled it with a single blow to the neck.

Suddenly, the howling changed to a series of weird keening cries. In an instant, the Krallen paused, spun around, and retreated, bounding back over the damaged or destroyed forms of their own kind.

They stopped a hundred meters away beyond the line of smoldering mortar craters and dismembered parts and only a few strides from the edge of the marsh. There, in their mechanical way, they regrouped into parallel lines and then fell still and silent.

Merral took off his helmet, rubbed a growing lump on his head, and wiped the sweat from his face. He could hear noises: screams, a dull pathetic whimpering, and even, bizarrely, cicadas chirping in the pines. Yet there behind it was a great and horrible stillness.

He was aware of the mingled smells of terror, sweat, and death. Suddenly he felt weary, aware that his arms and shoulders hurt.

In front of him lay piles of Krallen, silver fluid dribbling out of their gray shells. Next to him soldiers were leaning on the ramparts, recovering their breath or gulping down water. Nearby, two medical orderlies were putting the still and bloodied figure of a man onto a stretcher. In the next section of the defenses, some soldiers were trying to restrain a man rolling around in agony.

Do you ever get used to this?
Does anyone ever come to consider this abomination of war as normal?

He saw men beginning to run around with hammers and axes, crushing and hewing the fallen grey forms.
Oh, how the generals of old would have loved them, these disposable soldiers with no next of kin, no guilt or fear, only a boundless hate and energy and a perfect allegiance.

“Better get back to the colonel, sir,” Lloyd said as he mopped sweat off his red face.

He's right
.
There are decisions to be made.

They walked back to the pine tree where Colonel Lanier was issuing orders for the soldiers to reload and clear the ditches.

More medical personnel ran past them. Merral looked to the gorge road where ambulances were being loaded.

God have mercy on them
.

He heard a faint whispering voice and quickly replaced the dislodged earpiece. “D'Avanos here.”

“My friend, I'm glad to hear you're okay.”

“Vero, what's happening?”

“We don't know. They've retreated. We think there are about a thousand Krallen disabled or destroyed. Betafor thinks the defense surprised them. They didn't expect the swords. What's your estimate of our losses?”

“Hard to say. We have a lot of injured men. Some are dead.”

It was a thin defense line,
and now it's even thinner
.
We have no strength in depth. All they have to do is bring up another thousand Krallen from their vast reserve, launch a new attack, and we are finished.
Attrition, Betafor said.
Exactly so
.

“Hang on,” Vero said. “New information coming in.”

There was a pause, long enough for Merral to see another man taken away on a stretcher with a bloody sheet over his face.

Vero spoke again, his voice was brittle with tension. “Merral, it looks as if they're going to change their strategy. You'd better come up, quick.”

26

L
aden by armor and weapons and troubled by the stifling heat, Merral and Lloyd found climbing the path up to the village hard work. As much to get their breath as for any other reason, they stopped at the sniper line where there was hasty reloading going on.

Karita met them. “We stopped a lot of those beasts, Commander,” she said thoughtfully, “but it's not easy. They move fast and if the bullet hits their skin at any sort of tangent, it just skids off.”

“I know.”

She turned and gazed down the slope at the battlefield. “Well, we won this round,” she said. He heard confidence in her voice. But when she turned back to him, he saw a look in her eyes that seemed to say, “But we won't next time.”

“Have faith, Captain,” said Merral, before continuing up the track.
It's easy to say.

Near the top, while waiting for Lloyd to catch up, Merral called Zak.

Despite heavy losses on the south side, Zak's enthusiasm was undiminished. He and his soldiers had “cut and hacked until their arms ached” and “taught the Krallen a lesson they will not forget.” There was, though, one issue that Zak wanted advice on. Two of his men, Latrati and Durrance, had fled in terror at the Krallen charge and had been arrested. What should he do with them?

Merral hesitated for a second. “Have them stripped of their armor and sent back to Isterrane on the first flight that has space. We will hold disciplinary hearings when this is all over.”

“Sir, there are precedents for carrying out such discipline in the field.” The disappointment in Zak's voice was plain.