GeneStorm: City in the Sky (19 page)

Up on the wall above, the far end of the rope was wrapped around the arm of a hefty shopkeeper. The man jumped down the inner side of the wall, pulling the rope behind him. Outside the ramparts, Kitterpokkie shot upwards. Above her, a massive volley thundered out as the Screamers crashed hard against the walls.

The wall acted as a pulley. Kitt whipped up into the air, banging hard against the battlements. Screamers leapt wildly up to catch her, clawing at her legs. A rifleman shot one down just as it latched onto Kitterpokkie’s foot. Kitt flung herself up to the rim of the ramparts and caught on with her upper claws. She struggled up and over, bone darts whipping all around her, while beside her two militiamen fired down into the Screamer horde.

A dense mass of Screamers came flooding from the north, heading straight towards the gate. The creatures stumbled over each other in their wild craze for the kill. Kitterpokkie saw the fields emptying of Screamers – the entire swarm came raging past the abatis. The front of the horde slammed into the wooden gates, and the heavy wooden panels almost splintered from the impact. The gates groaned and bowed inward as Screamers pushed and shoved, their huge column reaching far back into the dark. There must have been a thousand of them just below the gates, all screaming and ravening for blood.

Rifles blasted. Screamers clambered on the backs of their kin and flung themselves at the gates, climbing up the wood. Shotguns and repeater carbines tried to blast the climbers away. Some of Kitterpokkie’s home made bombs went tumbling into the mass below, detonating with thunderous bangs, but the Screamers simply swarmed forward over their own dead. Bone darts spat upwards at the walls, cracking into the stone. Dazed and shocked, Kitterpokkie struggled to her feet, found Beth Baker, and tried to make sense out of the storm.

“Where’s Throckmorton?”

The plant had not yet generated enough gas to allow himself to escape up and over the walls. He was instead drifting only three metres above the heads of the Screamer horde, keeping still and letting the wind blow him off towards the river. His little faces blinked down at the horde, but the monsters were utterly fixated on the gates.

The left gate split with a sound like a lightning bolt, and Screamers dug their huge claws into the crack and began tearing it apart. Down in the streets, reserve riflemen formed two lines and took aim. The entire gate was on the verge of giving way.

Kitterpokkie loaded her last two pistol rounds. Beside her, Beth tried to direct fire down at the Screamers who were tearing open the gate, but ammunition was running short. A rain of lead bricks and hefty stones crashed down onto the attackers, but still the monsters came.

Down beside the river, the cavalry thundered along, budgie tails streaming. The hard-packed dirt beside the riverbanks was excellent footing for the mounts. Harness jangled – birds ran with heads lowered and eyes flashing, while beetle-horses clashed their mandibles, eager to be in the fight.

There was a sudden crash of rifle fire from the town. They were fighting at the gates – intense gunfire, punctuated by exploding bombs. The bloodthirsty howls of the Screamer horde merged with the gunfire into a single formless roar.

There was a flurry in the bushes and the lead riders were suddenly thrown into chaos. Budgies reared. Men rode forward with draw sabres, whipping the blades down. A group of Screamers shrieked, and then were ridden down. A few birds stumbled riderless through the brush. Snapper sent Onan racing back towards the fight, but it was over – four Screamers were down, and a rider wounded. Beau came cantering forward on Pendleton to report.

“Kenda’s down!”

“Alive?”

“Hit his head when his bird threw him.” Beau was brightly intense – frightened, but energised. “He’ll recover.”

“Leave him! Make sure he has his gun.” Snapper spurred on. “Head ‘em up. Up through the gap. Form your squadrons up twenty metres behind mine. Open the gap to a hundred before you start your advance.”

The column of riders cantered their birds and gleaming beetles up and out beneath the trees in moonlight. They rode up onto the broad open ground east of the town – hard dirt, dust and scattered knee-high bushes, with the dirt road leading straight to the gates. The cavalry column raced a hundred metres out onto the plains and came to a halt, turning to make a long line facing towards the embattled town. The shark cantered to the centre of the road, extending her arms to indicate the line.

“Two ranks, nose to tail. Boot to boot! Lock boot to boot! Blades only!” She held aloft her wicked sword. “Steel! Only steel! Keep pistols for after we’re into ‘em!”

Toby and Samuels were guiding the men into line. “Keep your dressing as we charge! We want to hit them like a solid wall!”

The second wave galloped up behind the first and formed its ranks. Beau sat on his moth with his elegant sword drawn and arms spread, dressing the line as his riders settled into place.

The long lines of riders waited.

War budgies, cockatoos and beetles pawed and clawed at the dust. The vaquero squadrons had long lances, used to prod herd beasts and as protection in the wild. The other riders – prospectors, guards, scouts and ranchers – all had pistols and razor-sharp, curved swords. Snapper spurred on along the front of the line as men locked into their ranks. She had her helmet pulled well down – her hussar jacket slung flamboyantly across her shoulder and her black hair streaming out behind her.

The big curved sabre glittered as she rode.

“We are not latterday men, breaking a witless world! We are weird-landers! We’re ruin riders! This place is home!”

Snapper was intensely aware of everything around her, turning Onan to face the troops. She rode back along to the centre of the line, looking barbarically splendid in the moonlight. Her long shark tail swept behind her – her helmet gleamed, and her wicked shark teeth glittered.

“Draw – swords!”

The sabreurs drew their weapons with a hiss of steel all along the line. Snapper took her place twenty metres in front of the line. The bugler was behind her and three paces to the side, his sulphur crested cockatoo shivering its crest. Onan clawed at the earth.

Toby and Samuels were behind her – mounted, armoured and armed. Their helms were dented and their blades shimmered in their hands. Snapper faced front and lifted her sword in the signal to advance.

“Riders
–
En avant!”
She never looked back. “
Walk your birds!”

A cold thrill went clean through Snapper’s spine.

The first line walked forwards, two ranks deep. The ranks rippled slightly as birds and beetles stepped over shrubs. In front of them, the town’s eastern wall was lit by flares, topped by a storm of gunfire – gun smoke and bomb blasts lighting up a churning, writhing mass of Screamers clawing at the gates. The gates themselves were splintering beneath the onslaught, as hundreds and hundreds of Screamers bunched in a huge mass that pushed and shoved towards the town.

“To the trot!”

Behind them, the second squadron wheeled, curving its path to parallel the wall. Beau had them in hand, curbing back his own weird mount as it tried to lunge ahead into combat before anyone else could spoil its fun. Snapper paid them no more heed, concentrating on the huge army of Screamers a few hundred metres up ahead. She saw the gates begin to buckle – and then suddenly the left gate fell inwards in a crash and splinter of wood. A huge volley crashed into the Screamers who poured into the gap.

“Canter!”

Faster and faster – the line of cavalry swept forwards in a solid mass of birds and steel. Claws flashed – beaks and mandibles clashed. They were close now – three hundred metres, and still the Screamers failed to see the mass of riders coming at them in the dark. As the fire from the broken gate suddenly fell away and was replaced by the clash of swords and steel, Snapper rose in her stirrups and swept her sword forward in ecstasy.

“At the gallop – charge!”

“Charge! Charge!”

The line of riders leapt forward like a dam bursting its wall. They sped across the dust at breakneck speed. Wind raced through their hair. The trumpeter blew- four rising notes, again and again. It was like sheer madness thundering through the blood. Snapper screamed in rage – louder than any monster. Behind her, a hundred and fifty riders roared.

She struck the outskirts of the Screamer horde, spearing one monster from behind, another careening off Onan’s charging breast. She cut down at another and another, hearing sabres slicing far behind her. And then the solid mass of the Screamer horde was right in front of her. Her sabre point was held before her like a spear. It slammed clean through a monster and she ploughed deep into the horde. An instant later, the entire line of riders behind her crashed into the creatures like a tidal wave.

Lances plunged through Screamers, speared and shattered. Sabres lunged, then cut. The big blades hacked down, and the astonished Screamers fell. The cavalry drove deep into the horde, beetles biting, birds tearing. The monsters were smashed beneath the charge.

To the north, there was another mighty smash. Beau’s squadron was rampaging along the length of the town walls, cutting down the thinned numbers of monsters, cleaving a wild path. Snapper fought off a Screamer that tried to claw right up her saddle, feeling a blaze of pain as claws slashed at her thigh. She smashed the steel guard of her sabre into the creature’s maw, splintering its fangs. Claws scraped from her cuirass, and then she had space to use her blade. The huge curved edge ripped across the monster’s throat and sent it tumbling aside.

Snapper whirled to judge the progress of her men, and then shot down a Screamer as it tried to fire at dart into Onan’s flank. From high on her bird, she cut a devastating path through the horde. She flicked a glance to the north, but Beau’s squadrons were out of sight.

Their momentum slowed, bogging down against the packed mass of monsters. At the far side of the horde, the town’s defenders were running from the walls and surging forward through the gate, firing and cutting, sending monsters reeling back. The cavalry were wading through Screamers, cutting and hacking. Revolvers blasted, tumbling monsters aside. The firepower blew open a breathing space amongst the riders, and Snapper bellowed out across the melee.

“Back three hundred metres and reform to charge!”

The riders immediately disengaged, turning and spurring away at a gallop. The Screamers could not keep up. They faltered, some raging on after the riders, others milling, yet others turning back towards the walls, where the open gate yawned wide. But Snapper took her bloodied squadrons back into the dark, reined in and held up her sword as the trumpet blew the signal to re-form.

“Two lines! Lock your ranks!”
She saw the last riders racing into place. The birds were panting – almost blown. But there was a flurry to the north, where Beau’s riders were finally racing back towards the gates.
“At the walk – forward!”
She pumped her sword up and down, seeing that Toby and Samuels were in position at each end of the line.
“Canter!”
The line moved forward in a solid wall, now at the canter – more ragged this time, but utterly formidable. Snapper rose in her stirrups and bellowed, her cry turning into a wild yell of joy.
“Charge!”

The trumpet rang out once more. Again the racing birds and beetles flung themselves across the dust. Sabres forward, the riders came out of the dark. Screamers were bowled over, smashed down by the weight of birds and steel. The charge drove home into the Screamers once again, sending a shock wave crashing through the horde.

Snapper hacked about herself left and right, her blade hissing as it cut. Onan snapped and bit, his huge beak a savage weapon. Screamers tore at the bird. Snapper cut the jaw from one monster, used her blade to hurtle back another that went for her throat – and then suddenly another shock ran through the Screamer horde. Beau’s squadrons smashed home into their flanks, rolling them up, crushing them under claw. Pendleton ploughed deep into the middle of the battle, slashing and hurtling monsters aside. The Screamers quivered – then suddenly broke, fleeing back from the town walls and trying to run for safety out across the plains.

“They’re breaking! Pursue, pursue!”

Town riflemen flooded out the gate, firing a last volley into the departing Screamers. Many hundreds of monsters lay dead outside the gates. A few hundred more were left, fleeing wildly out into the dark. But the silver moonlight now lit up the scrublands. The cavalry gave chase, screaming in victory, scything down their enemies as they ran. Snapper gathered a reserve force of riders, sending them crashing through the last survivors.  Revolvers blasted from the riders, and the last of the Screamers fell.

Over. It was over.

Snapper saw Samuels and Toby riding back along the road, their mounts exhausted. Wounded men were being helped to limp back to town – injured birds and beetle-horses thrashed. Someone had remembered to fetch Kenda, and the man was already back in the saddle, looking pale. Snapper turned and wandered through the shattered ruin of the Screamer horde, idly noting that she no longer had a single bullet to her name.

Throckmorton and Kitterpokkie came through the town gates, looking exhausted. They came up and patted Onan, then clasped hands with Snapper. She wearily dismounted, discovering to her shock that her left thigh was utterly running with blood. The leg almost buckled under her. Kitterpokkie caught her and struggled to keep her aloft. Toby leapt from his bloodied budgerigar and took a firm hold.