“Now there’s a plan I can get behind,” Wiggo said. “And what about yon dead researchers?”
“As you say, they’re dead. It’s not as if we can take them with us. Their final rest lies in the hands of the diplomats but if you ask me, they’ll just quietly get forgotten. We were never here, nobody ever saw us, this place doesn’t exist.”
“Same as it ever was,” Wiggo said and flicked the glowing butt of his cigarette away over the cliff into the night as Banks turned for the final stage of the climb.
They came to the top with the rising moon at their back. He hadn’t known what to expect, but the sight surprised him nevertheless. They stood on a high ledge, looking west across what looked to be the vast crater of a long dead volcano. There was enough moonlight to see that the caldera had formed an oasis of foliage and glistening pools of water that danced in the moonlight. There were other shadows too, too dark to penetrate, but they looked to be natural rather than man-made. This spot was the very highest reach of the city.
Banks turned to look eastward. They stood thirty feet above a high wall that ran across to the other side of the valley. The wall was twenty feet thick and topped with a wide causeway that was cast deep in shadow. Turrets loomed even higher at regular intervals along the top, the highest points of each level with Banks’ eye line as he stood up on the ledge; they too would have a view in daylight over the massive crater beyond. He searched in vain for any glimmer of light at the dark windows. If Davies was in one of the turrets, he was keeping his head down.
“Right, lads. I have no intention of blundering around the city in the dark; that’s just asking for trouble we don’t need. But I told Davies to get high, and yonder turrets are the highest things here. I’d like to check them out. If he’s not there, we wait for him; if he is there, we secure a location and wait out the night. Either way, we get a rest.”
“That sounds like another fine plan to me, Cap,” Wiggo said. “What’s first?”
Banks risked using the night light on his gun to strafe the immediate area and found what he was looking for; another track, or rather, a flight of stairs, leading down from their position to the high concourse.
“Well, at least it’s not upward,” Wiggo said, and took the lead on the stairs.
They descended into darkness with only moonlight and stars to show the way but Banks was loath to switch on their gun lights.
“No sense in giving away our position unnecessarily,” he said quietly. “Easy does it, lads.”
As they approached the causeway, he saw that he’d been right to be so circumspect; the flat area between where they stood and the doorway to the first turret was full of domed, dark shadows, none of them moving. Scores of the beetles, all with their legs and heads tucked in, like limpets on seaside rocks. Wiggo stopped at the foot of the stairs. The nearest beast was only ten paces away, a large one some ten feet in length, its dome six feet tall.
“What now, Cap?” Wiggo whispered.
“The plan’s still the same,” Banks replied. “We need to check out these turrets. We know they are triggered by sound. Let’s make sure we don’t make any.”
He squeezed past Wiggo and took the lead again. They had good reason to be thankful for the moonlight; on a cloudy night they would have been forced into using their lights but as it was each of the black domes was clearly delineated against the lighter stone of the causeway. He went to the right of the first large beast and looked ahead, trying to see the easiest path they could take through the creatures. Wiggo and Wilkins came up behind him in single file, walking in his footsteps.
They inched forward, painfully slowly, carefully placing their feet on solid ground before attempting the next step. An acrid odor hung in the air and tickled Banks’ throat, threatening a cough that he had to stifle but even then the resultant chuff in his throat sounded far too loud in the deathly silence on the causeway. He stopped mid-step but none of the creatures stirred. They skirted another huge beast, so tall in the dome that Banks couldn’t see round it. Once clear of it he finally had a clear view of the turret doorway. The beasts were packed so tight around it there didn’t appear to be any way through them.
It became a moot point seconds later. Two gunshots cracked from the turret high above. The moment’s relief of the discovery that Davies was still alive was quickly forgotten as all around them the beasts stirred. Talons scraped on stone, domes rose off the ground, and heads emerged to investigate this latest noise. The high droning wail rose up all around the three men who were now trapped in the midst of the waking horde.
“Move!” Banks shouted. “Let’s plough the road.”
-Davies-
The attack had almost taken Davies off guard. He’d been checking his pockets for his cigarettes when he heard the scrape on the steps immediately outside the doorway ahead of him and barely managed to get his rifle aimed as a dog-sized beetle barreled through. It came straight for him; he put two bullets in its head but its momentum meant it kept coming and it fell on his feet and ankles, bringing a flare of pain to his wound and causing him to yell out.
That brought more scraping and scurrying on the stairs. He had another flashback to his youth in Glasgow, the wee frightened lad hiding in the dark. That time he’d been cowering, terrified.
But I’m not that lad anymore.
“Come and get me, if you think you’ve got the balls for it,” he shouted.
In answer, he heard the ring of gunfire from the causeway below the balcony.
“About fucking time the cavalry got here,” he shouted, then had to concentrate on his own survival as the scrape of talons on stone on the stairs got louder and the high wailing drone of the beetles echoed across the moonlit city.
The second beast to try its luck was bigger than the first, almost twice the size, but he had more time to prepare for it and put it down, front legs then head, in the center of the doorway, providing a ready made barrier that any other attack would have to clamber over. He considered lobbing a grenade over the top of it but he had no guarantee it would drop down the stairwell far enough to protect him from the blast and neither could he lob one over the parapet, for fear of killing one or more of the squad. Besides, it looked like he was going to be too busy with the rifle to bother with much else; a third beast came over the top of the dead one in the doorway. One round in each leg, one in the head, it was becoming a ritual, and the beetle fell atop its brother although it was much smaller and didn’t add much to the barrier.
A grenade went off amid the roar of gunfire; it sounded as if it came from directly underneath him.
“Up here. I’m up here,” he shouted, then had to defend himself again as a fourth beast came over the top of the others. This one was bigger still and must have had a struggle in the narrow stairwell. One in each leg and one in the head did for it and it too fell in the doorway. His barrier was now four feet high. There was frantic scrambling and frenzied high droning from beyond it. The sound of gunfire came up from somewhere down the stairwell.
Rescue was getting closer. All he had to do was stay alive long enough for them to get to him. But his chances weren’t looking good. The barrier of dead beetles in the doorway moved as if pushed from behind, then shifted again, the whole thing coming six inches closer.
The uppermost of the dead beetles toppled sideward, leaving a gap that was quickly filled. Two smaller ones came through at once. He switched to rapid fire, put three rounds in the nearest one, blasting the whole thing to a stinking pulp, but didn’t have time to aim at the second. It scuttled across the balcony floor, over his feet and ankles bringing a fresh white sear of pain in his wound, and was in his lap before he had time to react to it. A huge pincer tried to tear at his flak jacket; he didn’t want to wait to see which of them won out. He dropped his rifle and grabbed the beast in both hands. The shell tore a gash in his left palm then he finally had a grip of it. He lifted it above his head. Legs squirmed and a pincer snapped shut an inch from his nose but by that time he had a firm hold. He tossed it backward over his head and it sailed away over the parapet.