Brothers of the Snake Page 5

  They came rushing out into broad sunlight, over a field of swinecorn that had been left, unharvested, to grow heavy-headed and golden brown in the late season. The expanse of crop was as dry as dust, and the downdraught of the speeding machine kicked up a tumultuous cloud of chaff and loose husk into the air behind them like smoke, or spume from a crashing breaker.

  She wanted to cry out, to demand he halt, but the ramjet noise was too loud, and chaff dust prickled into her face and forced her to keep her mouth tight shut. They veered around, turning out across the wide, parched field.

  There were figures in the corn. They were half-concealed, but yet distinct, so black were they against the bright, golden staves. They were running, loping through the tall crops, fleeing before the speeder. Antoni had hunted from the saddle in her time, and knew what quarry looked like when it was run to ground. The black shapes seemed almost pitiful in their flight.

  The vehicle's cannons blurted again, gushing streamers of hot, sweet smoke back into her face, and a tract of corn vaporised, taking a black shape with it. The giant banked them around, and razed another explosive trench through the tall, swaying corn. Another black shape twisted and fell, and a third was lifted briefly into the air.

  It was airborne for only a moment before dropping out of sight, but it was an image her mind would store forever: a slender, black humanoid shape, contorted and broken, limbs bent by traumatic force into positions that were all wrong.

  Something burst behind them with a force that shook and dazed her. The speeder began to vibrate horribly, and the note of its engines changed from a whine to a hard, labouring rasp. They peeled away left, over the corn, and when Antoni glanced backwards, she saw they were trailing scuds of dirty brown smoke.

  'What?' she cried out. What happened?'

  The giant didn't reply. He put the nose down towards a grove of olive trees on the western edge of the field. They flew in low under the arching branches and came to a juddering halt.

  Smoke fumed and boiled out of one side of the engine mount.

  What?' Antoni asked again.

  The giant leapt out. 'Get into cover.’ he told her, pointing towards a nearby ditch hemmed in wiry sedge. 'Stay down.'

  'But-'

  'Do it!' he ordered.

  She undid her harness and climbed down. Now she could properly see the damage some projectile had done to the speeder. The plating was buckled and fused, charred black. The giant fitted himself with equipment from the cargo cage: the heavy firearm she'd seen in his ship, which he slung over his shoulder by its strap; a small, plated shield for his left forearm; a sword with a short, heavy blade.

  'Go on!' he growled. His voice made her shake. He had put on his helmet, a weighty, slit-eyed thing with a snarling grille for a mouth, and his voice issued from the helmet's speaker, hard and metallic. She ran for the ditch.

  By the time she was down in cover, brambles pulling at her clothes, insects humming in the still, close air about her, the giant had turned from the parked speeder and was striding out of the olive grove and away into the sunlit cornfield.

  VIII

  Antoni lay still in the scratchy gloom of the undergrowth for what seemed like several lifetimes. The encounter on the roadway, and the hunt across the open field that had followed, had gone by too fast, just a blur of unpleasant and violent sensations rather than a proper sequence of events that her mind could set some narrative to.

  Now she was still, now she was alone, time began to decelerate to a clammy creep. She could smell dry earth from the field, damp soil from the ditch. She could smell her own sweat, a realisation that made her blush. She could hear insects chirring and clicking in the grasses around her and, somewhere, a bird cooing. At least her nausea had relaxed. For that, at least, she was grateful.

  The giant had disappeared. The speeder sat where he had left it in the olive grove, smoke still leaking from its wounded engine. Its drive unit shut off, it ticked and muttered to itself as it cooled.

  Beyond the gloom of the grove, the golden corn was dazzlingly bright in the open sun. The ripe corn heads nodded in the slight breeze. Corn flies billowed like chaff above the crop.

  After a very long time, she heard distant noises. A trembling crash, like a trestle table being overturned, a crunch. Three or four loud, quick bangs that she assumed were shots. A pause. More bangs, then two more jarring, echoing impacts, like a hammer being taken to an iced drinking trough in the dead of winter.

  Finally a howl of undiluted, drawn out pain.

  Antoni shivered.

  A few minutes later, she heard more shots, from much further away.

  Then there was nothing, except insects and birdsong.

  When she could finally stand it no more, Antoni slid out of the ditch and looked around. Apart from the ugly, warlike land speeder, lurking under the olives, there was no sign that the scene was anything but a late season day in the rural Pythoan Cantons.

  She decided she ought to do as the giant had instructed her. Not his last instruction – to lie in the ditch – but his original one, spoken just before the ambush, to quit the 'operational area' and make for the nearest village back down the road. All the while she was here, she was an encumbrance to him, a distraction he didn't need.

  She went over to the land speeder, and retrieved her case from the cargo cage. Then she got her bearings and began to walk what seemed to her like south.

  The path led down through a series of olive groves and field margins. The sun was hot, and the air was busy with flitting beetles and flies. She walked along, case in hand, for all the world like a traveller in search of lodging. It became so warm that she had to loosen her heavy travelling clothes.

  After a while, she became convinced that something was following her, something, she was sure, that could smell the blood of her slit thumb and the sweat of her body. At least once, she was certain she heard a growl from somewhere in the underbrush nearby. She began to dearly wish the giant had allowed her to bring a weapon.

  Then an idea struck her. She sat down in the shade of a mature beech, and opened her case. She took out the spare black powder cartridges that she hadn't had time to unpack. There were ten of them, each a measured load for her discarded handgun. She searched her case and found sheets of vellum writing paper, and a tinder-striker.

  Carefully, she laid out a sheet of the writing vellum, and emptied out the ten charges into it, piling the fine, black powder in a heap. Then, taking care not to spill any, she wound the writing paper up around the powder in a tube, sealing the ends by screwing the paper up in tight little twists. It was makeshift, but she was pleased with the result, even though she couldn't say for sure what might happen once she'd lit one of the twisted ends.

  She got back on her feet, slung the case over her shoulder by the carry strap, and began to walk on, the parcel in one hand and the tinder-striker in the other.

  She walked for another five or ten minutes, down into another olive grove.

  Then she paused. There was no tell-tale sound, none at all, but some sixth sense informed her, and she turned with a start. Ten paces behind her, part of the deep shade pooling in the olive grove detached and became a figure.

  Antoni froze.

  The figure was very tall and very lean, like the shadow of a man cast long by a sinking sun. Its form was black and sharp, like an ebony knife. Its face was as white as bone, utterly hateful, entirely inhuman. It smiled, and its teeth glittered.

  The primul made no sound at all as it stepped towards her, long legs pacing like callipers across a map. It moved with great poise, like a dancer. There was no way she could have known it was following her unless – and this thought terrified her most of all -unless it had meant for her to know. The primuls were insanely cruel things, she knew that much, and they delighted in toying with their prey. And now she was this one's prey.

  She fumbled with the tinder-striker, but her hands stopped moving when she noticed one final, awful detail.

  The primul wor
e a decoration on its skinny breastplate, something pale and soft that had been stretched taut and pinned in place to the glossy black metal. It was a face, a mask of flesh that had been peeled away from a human skull.

  Even though it lacked the form and structure of the hard-boned face that had once worn it, she recognised it. It was the Receiver of Wreck.

  IX

  Antoni shivered at the horror of it. She began to back away. The primul suddenly ceased smiling and came at her, faster than anything had a right to move.

  Something slammed into it from the side and brought it to the ground. There was a terrible scrambling and growling. Princeps, as lean and black and warlike as the thing he wrestled with, had the primul by the throat.

  With a savage, indignant cry, the primul lashed out with one long arm and the High Legislator's favourite attack dog was hurled away through the air. Princeps landed hard with a sharp whimper of pain. The primul leapt up.

  But by then, Antoni had lit her makeshift fuse.

  The vellum burned quickly. She barely had time to throw the parcel before the black powder charge ignited.

  The force of it hit the lunging primul in the chest. There was a blinding flash, a whizzing hiss that ended in a deafening bang, and the creature was thrown backwards across the grove. Antoni ran towards it, ears ringing. It wasn't dead, not even close, but Princeps dashed in again and seized it by its pale throat once more before it could rise. Dog and creature thrashed around, whining and growling. Antoni knew she simply could not allow it to get on its feet again.

  She took out her sheath knife and, after a moment's hesitation, plunged the blade straight down into the primul's neck.

  The primul went into convulsions. Antoni stumbled clear, alien blood spotting her hands, and Princeps backed away too, growling and whimpering.

  The primul took a while to die. At one point, Antoni was sure it was about to wrench the blade out and get up again but it shuddered and spasmed on the ground, and finally its heels began to stamp and kick at the earth like a drum beat.

  It stopped. It flopped over, still.

  Antoni, shaking and pale, looked over at Princeps. The dog, blood on its teeth, turned big eyes back on her.

  Antoni took one step towards the thing's body and then halted. She hung her head, almost in shame. She had been a fool to think it would be that easy.

  She turned around.

  They came out from behind the trees around her, two, then three, then five, all told: five primuls in a circle around her, their eyes like murder for what she had done to their kin.

  They threw themselves at her.

  For many years afterwards, for the rest of her life, in fact, Perdet Suiton Antoni often wondered how none of them heard him coming. He was just there, suddenly. How could something that big move so fast and so silently, and appear without notice?

  Between the moment when the primuls began to spring and the moment when they would have fallen upon her, the giant appeared and interposed himself between her and the foul, pouncing creatures. It was almost as if he had stopped the flow of time and edited himself into that particular frame of it.

  What followed lasted about three seconds.

  The giant had his combat shield locked on his left arm and his short, heavy sword in his right fist. As he arrived, he was swinging the shield out, and smashed it flat into the nearest, leaping primul, shattering bones and deflecting the thing away. Wheeling, he hacked his sword clean through the neck and shoulder of the second, casting out a shower of dark red blood, and then ripped backwards low, cutting through the corpse's thighs even as it toppled, so that the whole mass of the primul folded into a collapsed heap. The third, coming in at the giant's left flank, held some kind of pistol weapon, an ugly, spiky device that spat hard, sharp bullets of buzzing metal. The giant turned, raising his left forearm upright from the elbow, and guarded his face with the cornbat shield in time to switch the buzzing projectiles away. They struck the shield with loud, angry cracks. One embedded itself there. Another bounced off and decapitated a nearby sapling. As the third bullet hit, the giant deftly tilted his arm very slightly, and ricocheted it off sideways straight into the face of the fourth primul. The creature's head split like a blood-fruit and the primul was savagely thumped backwards, off the ground, its legs wide. It landed, spread-eagled, on its back.

  Before the third primul could fire its pistol again, the giant whipped his right arm over and threw his sword like a lance. It struck the primul through the chest, lifting it off its feet with the force of the throw, and impaled it to an olive tree's trunk, its feet dangling and twitching.

  The remaining primul, wicked blades in both hands, was dancing round behind the giant. With his free right hand, the giant grabbed the heavy firearm that had been knocking at his hip on its long strap, and shot the primul twice, in the face and the chest. The double boom of the massive gun was so loud it made Antoni cry out and cover her ears. The force of the shots tore the primul apart, and slammed its mangled body across the grove. It bounced sideways off a tree trunk and fell into the bracken.

  Silence, except for the gurgle of leaking blood. The giant raised his firearm, now gripping the underbarrel with his left hand. He turned slowly, aiming into the trees, covering the area point by point.

  'We-' Antoni began.

  'Quiet!'

  She shut up. The giant continued to circle, weapon aimed. Antoni fancied she could hear discreet whirrs and clicks as the giant's helmet sensors hunted and probed.

  Finally, he lowered his weapon and looked at her.

  'Are you unharmed?' he asked. His voice still carried that deep, metallic grate.

  'Physically.’ she said.

  What does that mean?'

  She sighed, shaking. 'I don't think I'll ever... I mean, that was... I... I don't suppose I'll ever sleep well again.'

  The giant said nothing. He strode over to the body of the primul he had smashed with his shield and, without hesitation, put a round through its head. Antoni winced at the brutal noise of the shot.

  You killed them all. Just like that.’ Antoni said. 'It was so fast. I mean, so terribly fast, I couldn't really... You killed them all.'

  The giant wrenched his sword free from the split tree trunk and let the pinned corpse flop limply to the ground.

  'Not all of them, it seems.’ he said.

  He crossed to the creature that Antoni and the dog had bested.

  You did this?'

  Yes.’ she said.

  He plucked out her sheath knife and wiped the blade clean on a handful of bracken. 'I'm impressed.’ he said. He handed the knife back to her. 'There aren't many souls in the Reef Stars, outside the Chapter, who can claim to have slain a primul.’

  The giant sheathed his sword, reached up with both hands to disengage his collar lock, and removed his helmet.

  'I told you to stay put.’ he said. His voice was still stern, but at least it lacked that dull, metal edge.

  'I did, but before that, you told me to leave the area and let you work. That's what I was doing. I was doing what you told me to do.’

  For the first time, Antoni noticed new dents and scratches marking the giant's armour.

  'Are you hurt?' she asked.

  'No.’ he said, as if surprised she should care.

  'Is it over?'

  'Pretty much.’ he said. 'I've killed a number today, the best part of a clan team. I doubt a ship of that size would have carried many more.’

  'So... it's over?'

  'The crash site is in the next valley. I got a decent fix. Once I've checked that, then it will be over.’

  'What should I do? Wait here?'

  'No.’ said the giant. 'Come with me. I can protect you best if you're close by.’

  X

  The giant crossed the bright cornfields and marched up into the wooded slopes beyond, tailed by the woman and the dog. The day was still maliciously hot and close, and thunder made its threat in the west. Striding steadily, the climb took two hours,
through dark glades and open banks of harsh sunlight. Tired and overheated, Antoni stripped off her jacket and tied it around her waist. Every now and then, she looked back at the quiet valley and slopes they were leaving behind, the threads of woodlands, the wild spinneys in the open fields. The air was a clear blue and the white radiance of the sun cast an almost pulverising light. She shielded her eyes.

  Once in a while, as they trekked upwards, the giant halted and raised his weapon, sweeping the sloping glades around them. At such moments, Antoni would wait, anxious and tense, the dog at her side. At each all clear signal, Princeps looked up at her, tongue waggling.

  They crested the hillside at the very end of the day, as the sun began to sink heavily. What lay beyond was a stark contrast to the land they had left behind. It was as if two entirely different worlds had been spliced together along the crest of the ridge.

  The vale before them was dark and shaded, blinkered to sunlight by the bulk of the hill they had scaled. It seemed like a miasmal depth, mysteriously wreathed with combs of misty vapour. The air smelled of cinders and ash. Below them, the woodland had been stripped and burned for many acres in all directions. Blasted black tree trunks lay like rods of coal on the ash-white, dusty ground. There was no sign of life at all.

  As they picked their way down into the gloom, Antoni realised that all the dead trees lay angled in the same direction, as if they had all been felled by a single, surging Shockwave. A residue of white ash caked the black trunks like ice. As they walked, their feet lifted paper-dry dust from the cindered litter on the ground.

  They went deeper into the burned, misty world. It was eerily quiet, robbed of birdsong or insect noise. When their feet broke dead twigs underfoot, the pistol cracks echoed loudly in the gloom. Princeps's black coat became grey, dusted with white powder.

  Antoni saw trees ahead of them, bare trees that were still standing in the haze. Then she realised they weren't trees at all. They were metal ribs and broken stanchions, the wrecked framework of some large vessel that had augured into this hillside and torched the landscape with the heat of its impact.