Chapter 44 - The Kraken Gate
I sprinted down the valley. Beyond where the portal had emerged, the line of cloud that I had seen earlier was looming large and bubbling up. It looked like a storm was brewing, and the planet’s single star would soon be hidden behind it. I’d gone less than thirty paces when the explosives blew with a deafening roar. I kept running and put one hand up over my head. Moments later, I was struck by a rain of grit and sharp little pieces of rock. With luck, the tunnel had collapsed, burying the Charg inside it. Don’t get your hopes up, Connie. Any burrowing creature with half a brain builds a network of tunnels with several entrances.
My lungs felt shredded and my legs were burning when I caught up with the others. They’d gained on the Charg pursuing Lieutenant Scott’s team. It looked as though Evershed had stopped to examine something, allowing the creatures to close the final distance.
‘Charg! Beware!’ bellowed Inigo. The rest of my squad started shouting too, but the race to get here had taken too much out of us because we couldn’t make ourselves heard. Except that we were heard, by the Charg. The landscape was less rocky here, but set with more scattered shrubs and the thick-bladed, brown grasses we’d seen earlier.
We could just about see the two Charg who’d been stalking their quarry. They were both larger than the one we’d just killed, but were keeping low to the ground. Although they’d partially changed colour to blend in with the bile-coloured bushes and the dusty boulders, realising they’d been spotted, their mottled skins reverted to the colour of a shaved rat in a hailstorm.
‘I got the left-hand one,’ shouted Mahkran.
‘Go with him, Inigo! Onacar and I will take the other one.’ Inigo had a steely look about him that I’d only seen a couple of times before when he was deep in trouble and thoroughly absorbed in it. He and Mahkran would be OK. I was less optimistic about my chances with a hydrologist at my side, but if we could confuse the Charg for a while, perhaps James or Benjamin would come back to help before things got too sticky.
Millicent and I fanned out. Again there was that cloying smell, as though someone was cooking up honey, old rotting socks and piss. Our target turned to meet us, deciding that we were a more urgent priority than its original quarry.
‘Reload the crossbow before you get any closer.’
‘I don’t think I can,’ Millicent called back in querulous tones. She’d jammed the limbs of the bow under her feet - obviously a quick learner - but for all that she pulled on the string to cock the weapon, she couldn’t get it over the catch. I wasn’t surprised. Ellen hadn’t managed. There was a knack to it, and the string would be cutting into her fingers. On top of that, she was suffering from shock.
‘Never mind. Take these instead.’ I tossed the two remaining sticks of dynamite at her, along with the flint. She scooped them up. ‘I’ll distract it. Be careful though, the factory fuse is very short. Make sure you light the end of the fuse and throw it straightaway.’ I raised my spear and waved it over my head, swooshing it from side to side to distract the Charg. I scuttled further away from Millicent and growled the most menacing sound I could manage. The Charg undoubtedly had wide-angled vision, but I decided that most of its attention was on me.
Millicent lobbed a stick of dynamite at the Charg. Her hands were shaking and her timing unlucky, because at that exact moment, the creature rushed me. The dynamite landed where the creature had been. It advanced and there was nothing I could do to herd it backwards. If I gave ground, it would only move further from the…
…the detonation nearly knocked me off my feet. The last time I had been so close to an explosion was when a grenade had landed beside me in a trench in Kontepract. Miraculously, on that occasion, I’d suffered no injury except for ringing ears. I was not so lucky this time. Stones and rocky shrapnel blasted out in all directions. The Charg, standing between me and the blast, bore the brunt of it. In spite of the protection, something tore into my thigh and dust stung my face. Through watering eyes, I could see the Charg thrashing mindlessly. Its eyes repeatedly retracted into its head and popped out wetly. Probably blinking the grit away. Two of its tentacles lay writhing on the ground, torn off in the violence of the explosion. Finish it off, Connie. Hurl the spear, while it’s dazed.
Gritting my teeth against the pain in my leg, I braced myself and threw the spear with as much force as I could manage. The flint cutting edge and a hand-span of the shaft disappeared into the head of the Charg, right between its eyes. A cloud of violet mist poured from the alien’s pores, cloaking it from sight. I moved back, expecting an attack from inside the mist. My breathing suddenly eased and I felt elated. The creature was dead. I was sure of it.Well done, Connie! These things aren’t so hard to kill. I think I actually smiled. A little warning inside my head cautioned against the growing euphoria. The ground beneath my feet seemed to tremble and I sat down abruptly, tendrils of the pungent cloud curling around me. Everything began to go dark.
Something grabbed my arms and hauled me backwards.
‘Connie!’ Someone slapped my face.
It was as though I’d been woken in the depths of a deep torpor. I felt stupid and sluggish.
‘You’ve taken a dose of the Charg poison.’ I was surprised to see James. He slapped me again. Evidently the other squad had turned back to help us - if help means being bludgeoned to death by one of my own team.
‘Alright! Stop slapping me!’ My head was beginning to clear. ‘I don’t think it’s poison. Feels more like a powerful sleeping gas.' I tried to rise but cried out as the pain in my thigh flared again. ‘Draxil’s Beard, my leg!’ The bottom half of my trouser leg was soaked in blood.
‘We need to put a bandage on that.’ This was Benjamin. ‘No time,’ I said. ‘There’s a whole warren of these things back there. There’s no telling where their tunnels pop out.’ I looked across at the Charg we’d killed. The fog around it had dissipated. It looked like the remains of a pudding after a garden party on a hot summer’s day, but the mound of its corpse was still waist high. ‘Is the other one dead?’
‘Yes.’ Inigo came over. ‘Mahkran put a half-dozen arrows in it then James and I stuck it with all the spears we’ve got. It took a while, but it went down.’
Evershed was with us now, wringing his hands. ‘What a mess. We need to take one back with us, to examine it.’ Just then there was a raw cry from where we’d come down the valley.
‘Not a chance,’ I said. ‘We’ll be lucky if we get ourselves out of here. Inigo, go get all our spears back. I have a feeling we may need them. James, help me up.’
‘Where’s Private Yates?’ asked Benjamin.
‘He gave his life to save us,’ I said, leaving out the bit about reckless heroics. ‘Let’s not waste his sacrifice. Come on!’
More Charg called out, in the direction we had come from. I had no idea what they were saying, but I doubted it was an invitation to tea. We collected ourselves and ran for the portal, me limping along with James supporting me on one side and Evershed on the other, still grumbling about a wasted opportunity.
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