The Shadow and Night (37 page)

Merral swung his right boot up to ward off the attack. But the creature's hand swiveled, opened, and seized his ankle. There was a sudden, sharp stab of agony and Merral kicked hard. The bladed hand opened wide and his ankle flew free. A new hiss came from the creature, and Merral wondered if it was a note of triumph. Now, less than a meter away, he was aware of a strange, unpleasant odor that brought back memories of college biology laboratories.

“Hit it, Merral!”
Vero cried. And Merral, conscious of a surging pain in his foot, began to raise the blade again. But, as he lifted the handle, it came to him with a sharp clarity that his opponent was too armored. He had to find a weakness.

The creature moved again, this time in a crablike crouch with the head tilting and swaying this way and that, as if calculating the next attack. The broad mouth opened into a wide oval to show matching rows of sharp-pointed, brown teeth.

It is in no hurry.
In a new pitch of alarm, he noticed vivid red on its left hand. A quick glance down showed blood on his right ankle and he realized that he was hurting there.

I must strike, but where?
He stared at his opponent, suddenly noticing the beads of water running down the smooth surface of the creature's skin.
Skin or shell?
he asked himself and pushed the question aside. The creature seemed to stretch its head, and for the briefest of moments, Merral saw a patch of wrinkled soft yellow tissue between the hard brown plates of the neck and chest. Then the thing moved slowly toward him again, and Merral realized that he could not retreat. He knew it was going to attack again and he felt certain that this time it would go for his face or neck with those scissorlike blades.

As if from nowhere Vero appeared, bearing down on the creature with a branch in his hand. He swung it down hard on the thing's head but it was a clumsy weapon, and as it descended, the creature suddenly turned sideways. The blow landed on the armored shoulder and bounced harmlessly off. But as it did, the thing turned its flattened head upward, exposing again the yellow patch. Suddenly, with a force and speed he did not know he had, Merral stabbed the blade forward into the exposed gap. For a fraction of a second, the blade struck shell and met an unyielding resistance. Then—just as Merral thought he had failed—it shuddered, turned, slipped a fraction sideways, and with an appalling sucking sound, plunged deep down into the soft tissue.

Everything happened at once.

The creature reeled back, striking the rocks with a cracking sound; the blade was snatched out of Merral's hand; a high-pitched loud rasping scream echoed out of the red-foaming mouth. The bladelike fingers began flapping and clattering in desperation at the knife embedded in its throat.

Merral stood back, clutching the rock behind him, aware of fresh crimson drops on his wet legs. He shook uncontrollably and gasped for breath.

I have killed,
was the thought that pounded again and again through his brain.

Over everything the terrible screaming—surely more human than animal—was continuing.

Suddenly Merral was aware of a wild-eyed Vero shaking him. “Quickly! Now! Let's run while we can!”

Above his agony, Merral somehow recognized the truth of what was being said and began to move. He took three steps forward and looked at the creature that was now writhing like some monstrous broken insect on the wet grass.

Merral hesitated. Then, from far below, came strange bellowing howls.

“Quick!” Vero was snatching at his hand.

Merral began to run, vaguely conscious that his right ankle was on fire. He saw that Vero had recovered his bush knife and now had it ready with the blade out.

“What was it?” gasped Merral.

“Save your breath. But well done!”

Well done?
Merral thought, in an astonishment that cut through his appalled and confused state of mind.
Well done! An intelligent creature is dying—is already dead perhaps—because of my action. Do we applaud such things?
Then he realized that he had had no option.

He pushed the idea out of his mind and, trying to ignore the sharp pain in his ankle, began to run as fast as he could.

They were beyond the great rocks now and were coming out of the edge of the trees. Ahead lay the open, desolate scree of the hill and above that stood the final black wall of the cliff. The cloud was lifting and the rain seemed to be dying away.

They stumbled out onto the wet piles of broken angular rock, heading for the narrow dark cleft that cut through the upper cliff. From below them, amid the trees, they heard a series of booming bellows followed by high-pitched chattering.

Merral moved forward with a new urgency. But increasingly, as they ascended over the rough blocks of the scree, pain took over: the pain of his lungs, the pained tiredness of his limbs, and, above all, the pain of his bleeding ankle.

Suddenly, Vero turned, saw him lagging behind, and threw down his torn backpack.

“Quick, Merral, let me have your pack,” he said amid gasps, the sweat, mud, and rain on his face barely masking a look of intense fear. “We'll throw away mine and anything we don't need. . . . Let me carry it. Quickly!”

Merral, trying to take any weight off his injured ankle, passed the pack over and watched as Vero feverishly threw out the tent and camping equipment, spare clothes, and much of the remaining food. Vero, his eyes nervously searching the dark margin of the trees below, stuffed in some things from his own pack, which he then threw away. Putting the remaining backpack on his back, Vero turned to Merral.

“Does your foot hurt?”

“Not badly,” Merral replied, his voice uneven. “I'd like to wash the cut, though.”

Vero looked round. “Not here. That . . .
thing
came out of nowhere. If we can make the top we will have some respite. How fast would a pickup be?”

“Ten, twenty minutes. Make an emergency call and they will be in fast. It depends whether a ship is in the air.”

“That will have to do. Anyway, it's only another ten minutes climb. You'll be in a nice sterile rotorcraft inside half an hour. Meanwhile, let's go.”

They climbed on up over the unstable blocks, hardly daring to look behind. Slowly, the top cliff became closer.

The wound in his foot nagged at Merral as he moved on over the uneven ground, giving him a jarring agony at every slight twist of his ankle. Not having the pack helped, but he wished he could take some painkiller. Over his pain, he became aware that it was no longer raining and that the cloud was lifting.

Soon, though, they were in the cleft of the rock and its dark walls engulfed them.
There had better not be anything here,
thought Merral.
I cannot fight again.
But here all was silent and up at the top of the crevasse was open sky.

The crevasse was steep and strewn with boulders, and soon they were reduced to scrabbling on their hands and knees. Finally, they came to the top of the cleft, where the way to the summit was blocked by a final sheer wall of smooth gray-black rock, twice as high as a man. At one side, a pile of loose blocks of rock suggested a precarious way to the top.

Merral waited at the foot of the cliff while Vero cautiously ascended and vanished from view over the edge. After a few anxious moments, he peered back over the edge and extended a hand down.

“Fine. Smooth, level, and deserted. An ideal landing spot. Come on up.”

Using his hands to help him, Merral scrambled over the blocks and, with Vero's help, hauled himself onto the flat tabletop. His breathing was coming hard and fast and sweat was dripping off him.

“Vero, that was horrible!” he gasped. “Horrible! What was that thing I killed? Should I have done it?”

“Merral, priorities!” Vero shook his head. “Yes! But let me call for help and then we'll patch up your foot. Then we can discuss what we have come across.”

He slid his diary off his belt. “Watch down below while I call us a ride home. Keep your head down.”

Merral crawled forward and looked down below at the dull rocks passing into the conifer woods with the gray lake waters beyond. Tattered wreaths of cloud drifted like smoke over the treetops as a weak sunlight tried to break through. There was nothing else to see, and the noises seemed to have died away.

Behind him, he could hear Vero talking in a low, urgent way. “Diary! Priority message to be repeated until countermanded. All emergency frequencies. Priority override all other traffic. Message thus: ‘Rescue immediately. Emergency.' ” Vero paused. “Diary, transmit!” There was a slightly longer pause. “Transmit!”

With a terrible feeling of foreboding, Merral looked around to see Vero staring at the gray block, his expression a mixture of puzzlement, frustration, and alarm.

“Diary, transmit!” Vero looked at Merral. “Incredible! Of all the times to have the first diary malfunction of your life.” He stared at the object in his hand in bemusement.

“Merral, you try yours while I run diagnostics. A general emergency call will do. See who we can call down.”

Merral pulled out his diary, noting the dull green status light glowing normally on the diamond-coated screen.

“Diary, emergency rescue call! All available frequencies!”

He waited for the red signal light to flicker. Nothing happened. Merral, vaguely conscious of Vero tapping his screen, could barely believe what had happened. “Vero! Mine, too. But they always work! Always!”

Vero nodded furiously and kept flicking his finger at his screen. “It cannot or will not transmit. It is unheard of.” His voice was strained.

He put it away suddenly and, after scanning the plateau around them, turned to Merral, his face a strange, sickly color under the mud.

“My friend, I apologize. Again.” He gulped and shook his head. “I believe I have made a major error. A very major one.”

Then, without explaining further, he bent down, slipped toward the edge, and peered over. He slid swiftly back and stared at Merral, his brown eyes wide with anxiety.

“I have indeed made a serious error. I'd been prepared for one or two creatures, even a few. But I had assumed they were dumb animals, perhaps let loose. But this technology! We cannot do this. Although blocking diary transmissions on a dozen frequencies is not a skill we have sought.”

He shook his head and then said, “Perhaps we can get a message through. Low angle to Herrandown. . . .”

He peered forward again, looking over the edge of the cliff, and suddenly stiffened. “We'd better.” There was a chill edge to his words that made Merral crawl forward and join him.

Far down below them, just emerging from the trees and approaching the backpack they had left behind, were three tall, dark, and ominous figures.
The creatures we saw down by the lake,
Merral noted dully,
the things with the fur and long limbs, the things with the height and the muscles: the things that kill dogs by stamping on them.
As if suddenly conscious of being watched, the creatures stood still in their tracks and looked up at the cliff. There was a curiously regimented similarity in their movements that seemed almost uncanny to Merral. For a moment, he stared back at their faces, feeling he could make out large, dark brown, impassive eyes. Then, suddenly aware of his peril, he ducked his head out of sight. Perhaps a minute later, he peered over the edge again cautiously. The three figures had turned and were now moving back under the trees. There they stopped and stood in a fixed manner looking up again at the plateau.

“Ah! They have stopped their pursuit.” Vero's voice was full of relief.

“But for how long?”

“I don't know. We have probably only a temporary respite. Try this for a hypothesis: They do not like being out in the open in daylight.” He paused. “So, we may have till night before they pursue us.”

Merral looked around, seeing that the clouds were thinning fast and that he could make out the disk of the sun clearly now. He was now casting a faint shadow. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was now just after eleven o'clock. There were nine hours before darkness.

“Perhaps,” he said. “Alternatively, Vero, they are just waiting for reinforcements. They need to be sure we are trapped. But I know nothing about how these creatures think.”

Vero shrugged. “I know no more than you. I really don't. These events have taken me by as much surprise as you. We face the unknown together.” He shook his head again and ran his fingers through his wet black hair. “I feel I have failed us badly. In letting us come out here to be so vulnerable. The evidence, of a sort, has been available for some days. Perhaps before. Oh, what a fool I've been!”

He stared out at the dripping green forests below them and the cloud-wrapped sharp peaks of the Rim Ranges to the north. Then his voice was more resolute. “But we have not totally failed yet. We must fight. We have got to warn Isterrane, the sentinels, the Assembly. And to do that we must think. ‘Tell them to watch, stand firm, and to hope.' That was the message we had.” He shook his head. “I fear we have failed on the first, and the last seems a challenge. But stand firm? We can but try.”

He fell silent, squeezing his forehead as if trying to encourage his thoughts.

“I must look at your ankle. How does it feel? Your trousers look horrid. I take it that most of the blood isn't yours?”

“No,” Merral answered slowly with revulsion. “It belongs to the thing. . . .” He touched his ankle and winced. “Painful. But it has stopped bleeding.”

“Okay.” Vero looked around. “I'd better check how we stand first. The way this hill is, I think that we can be attacked from only a few places. You keep an eye on our pursuers while I go round.”

Vero set off walking round the circumference of the summit. Merral glanced up every so often from watching the creatures below to see that his friend kept a sufficient distance from the edge so that he couldn't be seen. Vero periodically dropped to his knees, crawled forward, and cautiously looked over the edge. The smallness of the summit area they were on was such that he was able to stay within calling distance all the time.
In fact,
Merral thought,
you would have difficulty playing a decent Team-Ball game on this flat plateau without the ball falling off.