The Barsoom Project

Chapter Thirty-Five

The first of the Wolfalcons swooped out of the sky. The human face in its breast gibbered obscenity. Max whirled and swung. The composite-bird wheeled back out of range. Max’s usik cut a whistling haymaker; he danced to keep his balance on the sea-ice.

The air was warming, wavering.

The island behind them was shimmering with power. The satellite’s manna, its magical energy, had been short-circuited by the backpacks. It was disappearing into random improbabilities. The aurora had come out of the sky and settled over the island. The light danced and crackled and cast a bizarre, shifting radiance over the impossible angles.

An army of Amartoqs and spider-things were behind them, dots on the ice now, but catching up too quickly. The Wolfalcons acted as flying eyes for the monstrous horde, keeping the Adventurers in sight and urging their pursuers onward.

Orson was panting in Max’s ear. “Those damned griffin-things are the leaders. They’re the Cabal. Transformed. That’s why they’re going

… to let the other beasties… do their dirty work.”

“What in the hell do we do?”

Eviane looked across the ice field. Far in the distance there was a shimmering, a roiling as of a snowstorm. She pointed.

“That way,” she said. “Seelumkadchluk!”

“And if we get across, will we be safe?”

“No,” she said, “but we’ll be on home turf.”

All of them were dead tired by now, and more than a little frightened. It didn’t help to know that the deaths of the others were only simulated. It hurt to watch, it hurt to think that it could happen to Max himself. The point was to avoid dying.

“What can we do?” Johnny Welsh was leaning on his spear, panting. “My legs feel like fifty pounds of dead blubber.”

Snow Goose looked back across the ice. Like a pack of hounds hunting runaway slaves, the monsters were gaining implacably.

There was a cracking sound under their feet.

“ Now what?”

“Shit if I know-” Max adjusted his furs. It was getting warm.

Orson slapped his shoulder. “We’re dummies! It’s getting hotter. The ice pack is melting. The pressure shifts, and the whole thing is cracking up.”

“I think you’re right.”

The sound of the approaching monsters was just audible now.

The ice in front of them burst open with a roar like lightning striking too close. A tremendous blue and white torpedo surged into the air, dropped onto the ice, and slid. A nastily familiar shape, a killer whale blessed with stunted-looking tree-trunk arms, slowed and turned and pushed itself toward them across the ice. Its mighty forepaws gouged furrows.

Max heard Hippogryph’s wail of frustration. Hippogryph had spilled his pack across the ice and was reloading in frantic haste, powder, paper, shot Yarnall unshouldered and fired twice. The monster kept coming. Yarnall was dancing, trying to keep his balance and his aim; but the ice rumbled and shuddered with every movement of the land whale.

Yarnall paused a moment too long, and it had him. It was a death deferred, a doom that should have overtaken him two days before. That didn’t make it any prettier. He screamed, and its teeth were in him. For a moment there was an expression of almost humorous resignation on his face, and then he was gone, swallowed.

Hippogryph fired his musket. The creature shuddered with the shock, then came on, bleeding red light. Hippogryph poured powder and shot into his musket. He was nibbling on his lower lip, but there wasn’t a wasted motion.

“I was too tired. Just too tired,” Hippogryph said.

Snow Goose screamed: “Sacred weapons! We need sacred weapons!”

Max looked at the curved usik in his hands. Well? He ran forward, pubic bone raised on high. The killer whale tried to turn, but Max was faster on land. He brought the usik down against a blue-black wall of monster-flesh.

Well, through it, actually. The usik passed through the huge head, but where it passed, a wide red swath was cut, and the creature, immense as it was, began to redden. It sank back through the ice.

The ice cracks were spreading, and sheets of ice were sliding up at crazy angles.

The wind howled at them, driving snow even as the sun burned brighter.

“We’ve gotta make a stand,” Trianna screamed against the wind.

Max shouted, “I don’t like that idea, but I don’t have a better one.”

The Gamers scrambled up one of the inclines, taking what could laughingly be referred to as the high ground. Orson said, “Let’s hope the landscape doesn’t shift a whole lot more in the next few minutes.”

The monsters were coming now, fast and hard, across the stretch of ice. At the most, they were a hundred meters away now. The spider-thing was visible in the back. In front were three of the black-taloned horrors, shambling headlessly, heedlessly across the ice.

The Wolfalcons wheeled in the sky.

Max nudged Orson. “Hell of a place to make a last stand, hey?”

“I’ve seen worse. Ever played Zork? It’s an old computer game-”

Trianna hissed at them. “Keep your attention.”

She had her sword at the ready, and Eviane, beside Max, had her spear. A wall of ribs…

“There are too many of them. I guess we’ll just have to die well.”

Eviane looked up into the sky. “No. Something will happen.”

The spider-thing reached them first. It was slow. It took too long to struggle up the slab of ice. They cut the legs from under it.

The creatures came in waves. Max stood shoulder to shoulder with Eviane, repulsing them one and two and four at a time. At the touch of the enchanted usik, the monsters went down. He heard the others grunting and gasping, and Trianna’s yell of triumph turn into strangled huffing.

The monsters came in an infinite stream. They swarmed out from the distant shape of the dread island, fought and died until the tide below them glowed red with monster blood.

The Adventurers were gasping for breath, but Max slew on. None of their companions yielded, and as the sky rolled with fire and ice, the Implementors, if Implementors there be, witnessed a battle to warm the blood.

Johnny Welsh lost his footing and slid down the embankment into a mass of ravening monsters, things with arms and clubs and glistening fangs, things which struggled up at them, eyes glaring sulfurous hatred. Max saw Johnny slide down into that vile cacophonous mass, heard Johnny yell, “Hold the mayo-” before he disappeared.

He saw the monsters climbing over each other, struggling And then the ice field began to break.

A crevasse opened. Monsters slid into it, screaming and howling. A score of the unholy beasts vanished in a few moments. The Wolfalcons overhead cawed and screamed in rage. A third of their might had died; the crevasse blocked another third.

One of the bird-beasts strayed too close, and Trianna speared it. It flapped in the snow, dying ungracefully.

“Come on!” Orson grabbed Charlene’s hand, and they retreated across the ice.

Fissures were opening all around them. They’d reached one they would have to jump. Below them was dark water, and the ice chunks were shifting uneasily.

Max crossed the gap like a great ungainly swan. Eviane leapt across, landed unsteadily on crunchy ice. She waved her arms for balance. Her rifle slipped from her grasp, and slid toward the water, as Max’s big hand gripped her parka and pulled her against him. She looked after the rifle as if considering a retrieval effort.

Max retained his grip. “Forget it! I’m not losing you now.”

Orson held his breath, and jumped, and missed. He hit the water with a mighty splash. “Help!”

Max said, “Oh, drown it!” and dove in after him. The water was oddly warm-those Implementors were rascals indeed. Also, there seemed to be another layer of iceberg beneath his feet… or else it was rather improbably shallow…

Ah, well, no time to think.

Something was moving in the water. He saw the tentacle out of the corner of his eye, raised the sacred usik on high, and bashed the thing backhand before it could come much closer. Hands reached down into the water, hauled Orson out, then reached down for Max. Blood slick spread around them. If there were predators about, well…

Eviane’s eyes were glittering at him, and she paused a moment to give him a quick kiss.

“Come on!” Snow Goose yelled. “It’s not far!”

Behind them the entire ice field was breaking up. Huge slabs rose and sank, clashed amidst a monstrous spray. In the distance, the Wolfalcons screamed their frustration.

And then…

The sun began to change. It was warmer still, and the air shimmered around them, rather like a heat mirage. Nothing extreme, but a sensation of chill ran the course of his body, and he knew Seelumkadchluk! Reality lay just ahead.