Maggie heard Banks at her back, on the satellite phone.
“We need an evac and we need it fast.”
She didn’t hear what was said at the other end but heard his reply clear enough.
“Two minutes. Got it. Come in on my signal, I’ll leave the line open.”
She had a glance over the small parapet, all that stood between then and the horde of spiders out on the hill. The beasts weren’t paying attention to them at the moment but if that changed and they attacked, two minutes was going to seem a hell of a long time.
Davies took out the nearest two spiders with clean shots into the eyes. There was already one of the much larger ones at their back, pressing forward, a thing larger than a bull, fangs clacking angrily as it scurried upward at a full run, knocking the smaller ones aside in its rush, sending them down, shrieking, into the flames.
Davies put two shots in it but missed the eyes and it kept coming. Maggie braced herself in a two-handed stance, fighting the tremble that threatened to spoil her aim. She took a deep breath and put two quick shots right into the center of the cluster of red eyes. The shock sent pain through her wrists and the crack of the weapon deafened her but she looked down to see the beast fall backwards into the fiery pit below.
Their shots had done more than deafen her. They’d caught the attention of the spiders out on the plain. Tens of thousands of red eyes turned as one and stared up at the tower.
Excited rat-a-tat clacking echoed across the night sky above the escarpment.
— 25 —
“Here they come,” Wiggins shouted. They had two walls and a stairwell to defend and only Davies with any real firepower. Wiggins took his handgun from Maggie.
“No offense, lass, but I think I can do more damage with it.”
Banks set Wilkins to watch the stairwell, had the women stand in the center of the tower away from the parapet, then put Wiggins and Hynd on the north side while he and Davies took the west, where the bulk of the spiders swarmed.
“Don’t shoot unless they start climbing,” he shouted. “And pick your targets. The chopper is inbound, any time now. We need to survive the next minute.”
Even as he said it, they heard a distant thump of rotors.
“Lights coming in over the river, Cap,” Hynd shouted.
“Okay, everybody, get ready to move, this is going to be tight.”
He got on the sat phone.
“Good to see you guys. I hope you’re packing. We need a strafing run before you come for us.”
“Rebels?”
“Something a bit more exotic,” Banks said, then had to put the phone in his pocket. Two large spiders scrambled up the wall directly below his position, scuttling upward as if defying gravity.
Davies sent the first of the two spiders back to the ground but needed three shots to do it. Banks put three into the other, right over the eyes, and it too fell away but when another took its place and began to climb, he pulled the trigger of his handgun and came up empty. Wilkins stood above the stairwell, surrounded by smoke and blasts of heat rising from below, firing down the steps. On the other wall, Hynd and Wiggins fired calmly and steadily downward and kept the beasts at bay. But it was a matter of seconds before they’d all be out of ammo.
The chopper came to their aid, cavalry riding over the hill at the last minute. It arrived over the north cliff of the escarpment and the pilot must have taken in the situation quickly, for he flew the length of the hillside, twin guns blazing, blowing a swathe of spider parts, legs, and gore into the air in a ten-meter-wide road.
“Yippee Ki-Yay, motherfuckers,” Wiggins shouted.
They weren’t out of trouble though, for a dozen or more of the smaller spiders were coming up the wall below Banks and Davies and Davies was struggling to hold them at bay.
“I’m out,” Hynd shouted.
The rat-a-tat clacking of the spiders was louder even than their firing or the roar of the chopper as more began to climb.
The chopper came down on top of them, hovering less than six feet above, the downdraft almost knocking them off their feet until they found their balance in the roar of wind and sound. Banks motioned for Hynd to give him a hand and between them they boosted first Kim, then Maggie up into the arms of a waiting airman.
The squad fell back under the chopper as they boosted Wilkins up inside. Davies took guard while Wiggins went next, then Hynd leapt up, grabbed the door with both hands, and hauled himself aboard.
“Last call, lad,” Banks shouted. “All aboard who’s going aboard.”
Davies threw his rifle for Banks to catch then leapt, more easily than Hynd had managed, catching the waiting arms of Wiggins above and being hauled up into the chopper.
Three spiders came over the parapet at the same time, giving Banks no option but to strafe them in a burst of fire that emptied the weapon but did the job of blowing the spiders to shreds and sending the pieces tumbling away below. He turned to make his leap for safety and looked up to see Wiggins’ eyes go wide.
“Jump, Cap, jump now,” Wiggins screamed, “that’s a fucking order.”
He dropped the rifle and leaped. Wiggins caught his left hand and for a terrible second he swung, one-handed, then almost fell when he felt a weight tug at his left foot. The chopper was already rising when he looked down to see one of the horse-sized spiders, clinging onto his boot by its fangs. He swung up, made sure Wiggins grabbed his free hand, then kicked out with his right foot at the beast’s eyes, feeling something give, something soft, then the weight was gone. He looked down between his feet to see the spider fall back onto the top of the tower, a tower that was already completely overrun by scuttling spiders.
— 26 —
Maggie’s heart was in her mouth right up until Wiggins dragged the captain aboard and only then did she start to believe that they might have made their escape. She saw Banks check around his foot.
“I’ll need a new pair of boots,” he said. “But it didn’t penetrate, thank fuck.”
The captain went up front and she saw him talking to the pilot and pointing at the tower below them. She went forward herself and looked out the window. The whole hillside swarmed with the spiders and they crawled freely all over the walls and turrets of the old town.
Banks turned to her.
“You’re not going to like this,” he said grimly. “But I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for Brock and for the members of your team we couldn’t save and for all the folks in that town down river.”
Maggie saw that the pilot’s hand was over a firing mechanism.
“I think we can do a wee bit better than tar and sulfur,” Banks said.
She looked in his eyes and nodded, echoing Kim’s words from earlier that day.
“Burn them all. Burn the fuckers.”
The pilot pressed the button and two missiles sped out, trailing flame in the night, diving down into the tower, the first taking out the tower itself, the second disappearing into the depths below. Two seconds later, fresh gouts of flame flared up out of the vents in the hillside, then the whole escarpment, spiders, towers, and the bulk of the old town fell away in on itself into the white spider’s chamber. A wall of dust and smoke rose up, meaning that the chopper had to move away fast. After it banked and turned to bring the escarpment into view again, the smoke was already clearing.