Spanners - The Fountain of Youth (33 page)

The populous got closer to the walls
, and Adam began to lose track of them in the sun but saw that many of them were carrying ladders, with the spider-wolves rushing between their feet. The Arawaks started to focus their fire on the populous with ladders, but they wouldn’t be able to stop them completely; when the Arawaks’ shots connected, another took the ladder and ran forward. The spider-wolves were too fast to shoot and would be scaling the fortress momentarily.
We can only slow them down,
thought Adam.
We can’t stop them
.

“Vikings and marksmen!” yelled one of the Vikings
. “Prepare yourselves, for they’re coming over the walls!”

The Vikings rushed to the wall, axes in hand
, and the Arawaks crept closer to Phage’s murder holes. Brogg situated himself close to the edge and stretched his neck back and forth in anticipation of the invaders.

The first wave of the
populous hit the fortress wall with a thud, climbing over each other to get on the ladders. Adam looked closer and couldn’t help but be shocked at their appearance; they weren’t warriors, but average-looking men, women and even children.

Brogg ripped one ladder up from under the populous and broke it in two over his knee. He then ran over to another ladder and tipped it backwards. The grounds of the castle were by now covered with the rioters
, and they were beginning to climb each other as well as the ladders. The spider-wolves scurried up the wall between them with ease, but the Arawaks could hit them and each creature was deterred with a simple gunshot. Soon they were fighting off only the populous, and holding their own.

It shouldn’t be this easy,
thought Adam.
It shouldn’t—

Adam looked behind him at the west side of the wall and saw that spider-wolves were creaking over the edge,
the sun glinting eerily off their eight eyes.

“It’s a trick!” yelled one of the Arawak
s, before turning around and firing at the other wall and taking down three spider-wolves. Six more took their place, and then twelve as the creatures began to flood over the western wall in droves, snarling and snapping their jaws.
They faked an attack on the east, and sent their wolves over the west. We’re trapped in between them.

“Keep your distance!” said Adam
. “Fight the populous hand to hand and shoot the wolves from a distance!”

A few Vikings ran towards the spider-wolves out of habit but were held back by their comrades so that the Arawaks could have clearer shots. The Arawaks took the
creatures down, one by one, but they kept coming. Adam saw that Phage had left his murder-hole and was firing a pistol at the approaching wolves, some of them at point-blank range. Phage wasn’t a bad shot, but the mass of wolves was growing and would overwhelm him soon.

The spider-wolves kept their distance though, and instead of rushing at Phage they formed a mass on the western wall, slowly pushing the group back until they were pinned against the populous coming from the east.

“Adam, look,” said Cattaga, pointing to the southern wall.

Adam saw that Cannon, Blur and Drayne were creeping over the southern wall, quietly climbing with ladders of their own. They weren’t trying to fight the group and they weren’t trying to support their fellow troops; they were trying to sneak into the fortress to steal the Fountain.

They sent a false attack to hide another false attack,
thought Adam.
All to conceal what they wanted to do in the first place.

“Get Brogg and go down to Santos’s lair,” said Adam. “Mayfly’s there, but he can’t fight them alone.”

/***/

Mayfly heard creaks coming from upstairs and assumed they were from someone who wasn’t supposed to be there. Mayfly
double-checked the hidden door to Santos’s room; he had been busying himself with covering it in case anyone came down. Mayfly knew that he didn’t have time to reinforce the door, so he had concentrated on burying it behind pieces of equipment lying around. Whoever came down here might be able to find it, but not immediately.

Mayfly heard another noise and turned around to see a dark-skinned man moving quickly and looking fuzzy. The man stopped moving and slowed down his vibrations just enough so that Mayfly could see that the man had a burned face.
This must be the blur,
thought Mayfly.

“I’ve heard about you,” said Blur with a smile.

“And I you,” said Mayfly.

“I’m sure you have
,” said Blur. “That little blonde-haired girl might have gotten the best of me, but it won’t happen twice.”

Mayfly didn’t respond; he just crouched in a fighting stance, which caused Blur to laugh.

“Mayfly-class spanners can do a lot of things,” said Blur. “But there’s no puzzle to solve here, no girl to charm, no computer to decode. There’s just you—”

Blur ran twice around Mayfly, and then once through his legs before stopping behind him.

“And me,” said Blur.

Mayfly turned around and resumed his fighting stance.

“All you have is charm, Mayfly,” said Blur. “You have no physical powers, so give up now.”

Mayfly dove at Blur, missing wildly but keeping his feet. He dove again and missed, and then dove once more, this time anticipating where Blur would dodge and meeting him there. Mayfly tried to grab
him, but his vibrations were too slippery and he got away. Blur zoomed around Mayfly three times and stopped behind him, putting Mayfly in a chokehold.

“Where are your powers now, Mayfly?” asked Blur.

Mayfly instinctively dug his chin into Blur’s arm and bit, and used his left hand to reach back and poke Blur’s eye. Blur yelled and let go, and Mayfly used that moment to kick him in the groin and push him to the ground. Mayfly then took a chair leaning against the far wall and slammed it over Blur’s head, causing the wooden chair to splinter into pieces.

“Where are
your
powers?” asked Mayfly. “Once you’ve stopped moving, you’re nothing.”

“Is that so?” said Blur, looking behind Mayfly.

Mayfly smelled something foul and turned around to see Cannon, followed by Drayne.

“I underestimated Phoe, and I’ll no longer underestimate you,” said Blur, motioning towards Cannon. “Maybe one-on-one combat isn’t for me.”

Cannon picked Mayfly up with his left hand and Drayne removed her gloves and placed them near Mayfly’s neck.

“Why don’t you tell us where you’ve hidden the Fountain, Mayfly?” asked Blur.

“Kill me if you want,” said Mayfly with a calm smile. “I’d rather die than help you, so kill me. I mean it.”

Blur started to vibrate again
, and Mayfly could only see the white of his teeth as he smiled.

“We’re on the right side, Mayfly. The right side’s the one that’s still around at the end of the day,” said Blur. “Always has been, always will be.”

“I hope you’re right,” said Mayfly with a smile, eyeing Brogg and Cattaga who had just come downstairs. “I really hope you’re right.”

/***/

The spider-wolves pushed over the western wall and were running amok in the courtyard of the fortress, but the Arawaks were containing them. They were easy to shoot from the high vantage point of the wall; though they were dangerous, from a distance they were just dogs. A few had overtaken the wall and jumped on their shooters, but the Arawaks’ immortality had made them immune to their poison, so the spider-wolves landed a few bites and nothing more.

The populous were equally stymied, but their numbers were endless. The Vikings used their axes to hack the horde back, but the
ir size was just too great, and two Vikings had been taken down, beaten mercilessly and then taken back to Juan’s main camp.
Each Viking can take twenty populous,
thought Adam,
but they have far more than twenty times our numbers.

While Adam was thinking about that, he heard the Arawak chatter and look
ed back at the eastern wall. In the distance, far behind the populous was a row of slow-moving fighters that looked like they had been assembled from spare parts. Adam took his binoculars and saw that they looked half-dead, and the ones who had their faces intact seemed angry. They were led by a big man nearly two meters tall, with big muscles half-covered by skin, and a mass of corroded tissue where his face should have been.

“Those are the criminals from our tribe we
’d buried over the years,” said the Arawak chieftain. “These are the
imprisoned
.”

The Arawaks began to panic and concentrated their fire away from the spider-wolves and
onto the imprisoned in the distance. It was no use; the shots barely hit, and when they connected, the dead soldiers were not felled. The spider-wolves continued to pour over the western wall, and since the Arawaks weren’t shooting them, they were amassing in the courtyard and would soon be able to overrun the group.

“We need someone firing on the wolves!” yelled Adam.

It was to no avail; the Arawaks couldn’t focus on anyone but the imprisoned, and couldn’t seem to grasp that their shots had no effect. A spider-wolf breached the wall and bit an Arawak shooter from behind and then dragged him away screaming. The other Arawaks turned around with their guns, but their comrade was still in the jaws of the wolf and no one could get a clear shot. A Viking approached the wolf and hacked it with his axe; it yelped and after two more strikes, it stopped moving. The Viking put his axe to two more wolves that had breached the wall and there was a moment of quiet.

“We’ll take these imprisoned,” said the Viking, looking at his comrades. “You keep the dogs away.”

The Arawaks nodded in agreement and the Viking looked at his compatriots, who started to smile. They yelled some more words in Old Norse, threw a ladder over the edge of the wall and then tumbled down with their axes, hacking through the populous as they went forward. Soon they were in the open field, ambling towards the army of the imprisoned, which was twenty times their size.

They’re built to fight unknown foes on the open range, not to defend castles,
thought Adam.
But they’re up against a horde, and each Viking needs to take down twenty immortals to make it even.

/***/

Downstairs, Mayfly, Cattaga and Brogg broke into individual matchups as if they each had a personal vendetta against their counterpart. Mayfly kept fighting Blur but couldn’t get a handle on him this time; Blur was too smart to grapple with Mayfly again. Cattaga fought Drayne and had made her own skin scaly, which gave her the look of a lizard but protected her against Drayne’s touch.

The fight that dominated the scrum was between Cannon and Brogg. Each missed punch shattered some furniture or part of the wall, and each time they wrestled
, one of them ended up being thrown into the other four. Drayne tried to help out by laying her hands on Brogg, but he kicked her with his boot and she flew into the wall, coughing up blood.

Concentrate on the foe in front of you,
thought Mayfly,
and then help the others.

Mayfly tried every move he knew, but couldn’t get a hold on Blur; he was just too fast. Mayfly knew his only move was to lure Blur into a hand-to-hand grappling maneuver and then counterattack, but Blur wouldn’t take the bait; he would just circle around Mayfly, slow down to punch him and then circle around him again.

Mayfly kept his distance and looked around at his comrades and realized they might end up losing this one; Juan’s crew was trained to fight, and fight dirty. Drayne refused to be deterred by Brogg’s kicks and broke free from Cattaga a few times to lay her hands on the big man while Cannon had him in a chokehold. Brogg’s body was somewhat resistant to her powers, but her touch soon left necrotic patches on his skin and it started to slow him down. Cattaga tackled Drayne and eventually led her away from Brogg, but it was a struggle; Cattaga had many powers, but they hadn’t equipped her for conflict.

Cannon
eventually put Brogg in a solid chokehold, and Drayne freed herself from Cattaga and laid her hands on Brogg for a few moments. Brogg gave out a low, grating scream and then broke free from Cannon’s grip, but Drayne had weakened him and he could no longer stand. Brogg fell to one knee and necrotic lesions pulsated over his body. Cannon gave him a punch and it was over; Brogg was out cold.

Cannon turned around to face Mayfly, his face covered with sweat. Cannon’s acne had burst again
, and his thick stench was causing Mayfly’s eyes to water. He was easily four times Mayfly’s size and almost as fast as Blur; Mayfly knew the skirmish was lost.

“Now
, tell us where the Fountain is,” said Drayne, “or we’ll kill you all, beginning with the scaly girl.”

Mayfly gave a look to Cattaga, but her eyes were already glowing and she was making a high-pitched whine that faded into nothingness.

“What’s that?” asked Cannon, holding his ears. “Make her stop.”

“Whatever the trick is, wolf-whistles won’t help you now,” said Drayne. “You have ten seconds to tell us where the Fountain is, before we kill you and search this rubble ourselves.”