EXTRA CHAPTERS AVAILABLE HERE: Engines of Arachnea
They were still walking as night fell. The Amit would not break off their chase for mere lack of light. They walked on, guided by the constellations which Rene had learned to read at the academy. They dared not give themselves to sleep for fear of being unable to wake the next day. They ate up ground at an unforgiving pace, setting one boot after another till the blisters on their toes rubbed bloody in their hole-ridden socks.
It was times like these that they learned to hate their masks. It was hard enough going without having to gasp through the rank-smelling things. Occasionally they would loosen their straps and pull the rubber facepieces up past their noses, taking greedy gulps of oxygen-rich air. It was a dangerous tactic. Though the masks were only simple machines consisting of a series of intake valves, they served to limit the amount of oxygen they inhaled while simultaneously retaining more of their waste gases such that they could breathe just the right mixture of air. Each time they did it made them delirious, lungs filling with sweet life-giving sustenance, burning muscles renewed with fresh strength. But too much exposure to the poisonous atmosphere and they would die the next day of oxygen narcosis. They permitted themselves this deadly luxury for only a minute at a time before clasping their facepieces back on. Once they stopped to treat Lethway’s clearly worsening wound, as a result of the puncture in his sealant suit, was already was showing signs of rot. Pale, mold-like growths had begun to appear along with the scabs. They washed it with antiseptic solution and closed it over with wad of cotton. Upon Lethway’s return, if they returned at all, he would have to undergo a battery of treatments to rid his body of hosts of parasites which had found a home in him. For now they ignored it as best they could, though Lethway had begun to slow considerably, grunting with pain with every other step he took.
Some time after daybreak they climbed to the top of a small hill and there lay resting, listening for any sign of pursuit or for one of their number wandering close by. From their vantage point they saw the river again, a silvery white streak threading its way through a small gorge. They were close. Before they set out they tried establishing contact one final time. At regular intervals Rene inhaled deeply and blew the whistle hard. A few times he thought he heard a faint response. Each time they sat up, flushed with excitement, but eventually they worked out that they were merely hearing the echoing return. Lethway shook his head in despair: the surface had claimed their comrades, just as it had so many others.
They turned away and descended. Soon they heard the burbling of water as it swept past reed covered banks. Once they crossed it would only be a few hour’s march to the outpost. Their pulses quickened at the prospect of safety.
“As if things couldn’t get any worse,” Lethway said as they eyed the tree line on the other side, “Now I’ll have to march with wet socks.”
“Better wet socks than having those devils on our tail the rest of the way,” replied Rene. Somewhere amid the violet branches a flock of tiny meritsel birds played their monotone song, rubbing barbed legs across bladed feathers. A striped rat sunned itself on a flat river stone, blinking placidly in the heat. The place looked deserted enough. Still, they didn’t cross the soft brown loam of the bank, but kept in the shade beneath a tall frond.
“Pity. I’d just got the buggers to dry.” Lethway noticed his thoughtful look and unslung his musket “You smell something funny, or does your face always look that way?”
Rene motioned for quiet. The birds had fallen silent. The striped rat cocked its head, perturbed. Rene went prone, reached for his musket, and primed it. Lethway repositioned, steadying his barrel against a rotted trunk. A long moment passed, in which neither man moved a muscle.
Suddenly, one of the members of the avian orchestra squawked, a brutal, jarring chord that shattered the stillness. The song resumed. Rene bowed his head in relief.
“That had my heart going, and no mistake,” Lethway said with a grin. He made to straighten up when a pebble flung by some hand unseen skipped across his toes, and he all but jumped out of his skin. In one fluid motion Rene raised himself and turned to his left, cocking his weapon and bringing it to his shoulder as he did.
A red face had appeared amid the bushes to their left. Several dozen meters away the navigator lay in a dense thicket, bleeding heavily from his forehead, body rigid with pain.
“Stay down,” he mouthed, and pointed upriver. Both of them kissed dirt and tried not to breathe.
They watched as Deschane took another pebble. He tossed it over in a long arc across the river, where it splashed into the water next to the rat. It darted away, all six limbs scurrying across the bank towards the trees.
It crossed an invisible line and died quicker than a thought.
An Amit came wriggling out from under deep layers of earth, muddy water running off its glistening pale body. Hastily it snagged the rat with its claws and crammed it squeaking into its jaws whole. Then it returned to its hiding place, where it dug out a tiny Amit with a shrunken body and a monstrously large head engorged beyond the normal proportions, clammy skin stretched so tight it was almost translucent. Their chitinous lips met in a grotesque parody of a kiss, shreds of meat and bone passed from set of mouth parts to the other.
“A nursery. Just our luck,” said Lethway. He watched as the nursemaid with uncharacteristic gentleness cradled the infant Amit in its vestigial arms as the nymph devoured its predigested meal. There was something tender about the way it was rocking back and forth. Something almost…maternal. He frowned. He had not heard many accounts of how the Amit reared their young. All he knew was that at a certain point in the nymph’s adolescence it was taken out of the mound along with a dozen of its brood-mates, who would then be cared for by a sterile female who guarded her charges with suicidal devotion. The infant finished its meal and reached up with a clawed hand. It ran its digits gently down the face of its nurse, caressing its mouth like a babe suckling at the teat. Not for the first time, Rene wondered just how much of the enemy’s ways remained to be understood.
“Place is probably covered in spore lines,” Lethway was saying, “Ancestors only know how many of the little bastards are hiding in there.”
All Amits were host bodies to many symbiotic organisms, among them a certain fungus that inhabited their pheromone glands. These they would spray thick upon the hunting grounds of their choosing, usually at points where prey was most likely to approach. Upon contact with living organisms these would erupt in tiny spouts of pungent spores which adhered to fur and clothing and served as hunting markers. The unfortunate creature had undoubtedly crossed an unseen tripwire.
A worm of fear curled up in Rene’s belly. He doubted that this was coincidence. Somehow, the enemy had guessed that their prey would try and lose them at the water’s edge, where the humans could wash off the scent, and had covered the only possible exit with a deliberation that hinted at a more than bestial cunning. The navigator crawled over to them on his belly.
“Where’s the rest of you?”
They shook their heads.
“Ah,” he said simply, disappointed. He was silent for moment, then said:
“So then, what do you reckon?”
“Sir, you’re injured.” Lethway said with concern. That was putting it mildly. One of his earlobes was missing, along with a portion of his scalp.
“Yes. I’ve noticed,” absently he wiped a speck of blood from under his swollen right eye. “I came upon a nymph and its nursemaid a while ago,” he explained, “It was a close thing, but I finished it quietly enough.” He gestured behind him, where Rene saw a section of trampled bushes. The nursemaid lay amid the disheveled leaves, limbs contorted by its final death throes. The small, child-like hand of an infant Amit poked out from its stiff embrace. Rene looked away quickly.
“Anyway, we have two options, and neither of them too attractive. First, we can try and circumvent the area and find another way to cross. But that would take time, and frankly we don’t have much of it. The hunting parties are at our heels.”
Rene was shocked. He had known that they would catch up eventually, but never this quickly.
“The second option is we try and push through.”
“And die horribly for our efforts,” said Rene, surprising even himself.
“As is our duty to the Fleet, ensign,” said Deschane sternly, “Do not take that tone with me. I am still your commanding officer.”
“To the void with your hierarchies!” Rene hissed, all his resentment and hysteria boiling over. Deschane’s hand slid down to his holster. Rene saw this and stiffened.
“Sir, with respect, but what you’re suggesting is suicide.”
“Admittedly the likelihood of survival is low, but-"
“Yet you would throw our lives away, knowing the risk? We’re all that’s left!”
“We don’t know that for certain, and even if we were, it doesn’t matter. Our lives are nothing compared to the information we now possess. Information that if undelivered will spell death for every person in the settlement. The Amits leave no survivors.”
“I’ve got it,” Lethway suggested gently, “How about you stop being a pair of bloody knobheads?”
They both turned to stare at him.
“That is not how to address an officer of the fleet, ensign Lethway.” The lord navigator pursed his lips. “I may be forced to-”
“Ah, force it up yours, you miserable bag. Void take it, why is it that only us grunts can see the obvious?”
“What are you saying, ensign?”
“I’m saying that you both are in better shape than I am,” He pointed at the cotton wad at his side. It had begun to weep a bloody pus. Worse still, peering close Rene was startled to see the clutches of white fungus clinging once again to the edges of the wound. Lethway unclasped his sealant suit and showed them. The growth had spread all the way up the small of his back.
“Think about it. If I get back, claiming that there’s a monster of a mound out here populated by a million of the sodding buggers, they’ll put it down to shock or to a poor ensign not being able to count past the number of his fingers. But if a navigator and his aide give them the facts, well. There’s a chance they might see things your way, sir.”
Deschane nodded.
“Ensign, your sense of duty is to be commended.”
“I don’t understand,” Rene said.
“You’re a clever little sod,” Lethway said, “Work it out.”
Rene backed away.
“I can’t condone this. They’ll eat you alive.”
“Well then, it’s a good thing you’re not the navigator. This bugger is, ancestors save us,” he gestured at Deschane. Lethway snapped his heels together and saluted. “Permission to serve the Fleet, sir?”
Deschane allowed something like approval to grace his gaunt features.
“Permission granted. Light’s speed to you. We’ll be further south, past the bend. Let us know when you’ve crossed.”
“Oh, you’ll know alright,” he turned to other man, said “Rene. My regards to the missus. Try and take care of them, right?”
Rene tried to summon the right words for the moment, but his heart gave out and all he could manage was to lower his eyes in shame.
Lethway went into a crouch and crept into the brush. Rene watched him disappear with a sinking feeling. Then he and Deschane hunkered down and waited. The Amits across the river had finished their snack and were digging themselves back into the earth with powerful sweeps of their forelimbs. Rene’s heart hammered in his chest.
One of the beasts paused in its work and tasted the air with a darting proboscis. That was the cue. They took off southward, leaves crackling softly underfoot, going as fast as they dared. They went round the bend of the river, washed themselves thoroughly in the water, and crossed to the other side.
They were a few kilometers away when they heard the shot, and a cry of rage and pain that echoed into the hills. Rene stopped in his tracks and looked back. The river bank on the other side was swarming with them. They came bursting out of the ground like maggots from the belly of a bloated corpse, dozens of nurse maids clutching their young in their residual hands. They swung away towards the sound, claws clicking eagerly at their sides.
“Ensign,” It was a strange thing to hear compassion in that steely voice. Nevertheless, Rene looked up and saw Deschane looking back at him with solemn eyes.
“The Fleet will remember his sacrifice. But only if we survive this day. Understood?”
Rene hung his head and followed after him.
