Under the Canopy (19 page)

The taj lunged at me with one paw. Its two long fingers left claw marks on my chest. It burnt as if hot iron touched me. I stumbled back and grabbed my rifle by the barrel like a club. I swung it in the air before its nose. The beast hesitated and tried to catch the irritant. I saw movement behind it and felt hope for the first time this night. Ort was coming at the beast with the shotgun.

Ort ran up to the taj and put a load into its back. The fur ruffled, some blood came out, and that was it. Ort managed to pump the weapon just once before the beast retaliated.

The taj launched its front into the air and doubled over. The beast knocked the weapon out of his hands with the left paw. The strike was so hard that the shotgun propelled through the air, struck the wall and rolled somewhere downstairs. As for the right paw, its long fingers bored their claws into Ort's neck. Then the beast jerked itself back, dragging the big man behind it, pinning him to the floor. It all happened in a matter of seconds.

I watched in horror at Ort lying under the animal, his neck and chest bleeding. I screamed and struck the taj on the head as hard as I could. It caught the rifle with its mouth and clenched its jaws. The rifle bent in two and crumbled like it was a toy gun.

I stepped back, trying to get the pistol, my last weapon, out of its holster. The fingers wouldn't obey me. The taj lunged at me, pushing the barricade away like it was nothing and dragging suffering Ort across the floor. He moaned from the pain. I stumbled and fell on my back.

The fanged maw hung before me. Then something glistened under it. Ort managed to pull out his bowie knife and started to madly shank the beast's chest. It wouldn't die. The taj roared and turned to him, ready to finish the ranger. At that moment, my hand struck something. I turned and saw the two-handed ax.

'HEY!' I screamed and kicked the taj in the head. The beast turned to me.

The stone blade entered its head between the eyes and came out through the palate. Yellow blood bubbled from under the blade and rained out of its mouth in a stream. The taj looked at me, moved its black lips and then dropped down. Dead at last.

I let go of the handle and got to my feet. My knees were shaking. I walked to Ort. He looked bad. I sat beside him and pulled the claws out of his flesh.

Ort looked at me. 'Help me here.' He grabbed the taj from below, and I pushed from the side. Together, we freed him from this burden. I put Ort's heavy hand on my shoulder and helped him to get up. The big man literally hung on me.

'Let's get upstairs.' He said in a weak voice.

The alarm kept pulsing its crimson light. Propping each other up, we walked to the stairs and ascended to the last level of the cabin.

The crow's nest looked like a battlefield. The elevator doors were bent inward, sprayed with yellow blood. The furniture was overturned, alien bodies everywhere. One hit the computer and broke the screen. Many of the aliens had chopping wounds. The broken machete lay on the floor. I looked over the room, and my heart was clenched in pincers. I led Ort to the place at the wall that it was equally distanced from the stairwell and the elevator shaft. When I put him down, I knew that it would the place where we would die.

I took out the pistol and sat next to Ort. He was breathing hard, pressing the wound on the neck with his palm. I wanted to say something meaningful, but didn't have the words. There was stomping on the stairs. I aimed.

One head appeared, and I shot it. Others picked up the body and carried it forward as a shield. I fired nevertheless, trying to get them in the uncovered parts. One of them tripped the wire. The last spear launched into the aliens and they fell down the stairs. I watched it indifferently and dropped the hand.

'They'll return,' I said.

'Yes.' I could barely hear him.

And they did. Up the stairs. Down the elevator shaft. Alabaster faces with black circles painted onto them. They appeared around us, and then started to close in on the last humans. Slowly. They could clearly see that we wouldn't get anywhere.

The chest burned. I tried to shoot at them, but my head began to swim, and the gun fell out of my hand.

'We lost,' Ort said. 'Too civilized…'

And then it all collapsed. Whether it was a conscious effort on their part or just an accident, the engine room exploded.

At first, I felt a silent hum, a surge travel through the building and my bones. Then I heard the metal scream. Blue fire rushed out of the shaft and the stairwell, engulfing the aliens. With total indifference, I watched them burn. Then the floor heaved. The living room was destroyed completely. In the crow's nest, the explosion caused the floor to bulge upward. I could see it rise with my own eyes.

And then there was thunder. A deafening explosion roared below us. The cabin was literally cut in half. The crow's nest was thrown into the air by the blast. For a moment, I felt zero gravity. We were in free fall. I hugged Ort, but kept watching.

We landed straight on the pilings. Giant blocks of black metal broke through the floor, rocketing skyward. The remains of the crow's nest were cut in half. I felt myself falling down on the wall. I saw the black sky above me. Then we landed.

I didn't hear the crash. My mind was going at that point. I felt some enormous force snatch Ort out of my hands and throw him away from me. He disappeared in the falling debris. Goodbye, Ort, I thought.

I lay on my back, looking up. I didn't care what happened next. I was so tired. All of them were dead now. Nothing mattered. I saw a shape hover over me. It opened its shiny eye and looked at me. I was blinded by the light and closed my eyes.

And then there was nothing.

'Hey, roomie, what's up?'

Edlon was sitting beside me in a floater. He winked at me and grinned. I looked at him and then out of the window. The forest was blazing. All the trees were engulfed in flames, I could hear the crackling even through the glass and the hull.

I turned back to him. 'Where are we going?'

'Home, buddy. We are going home.' Edlon's eyes, so sad.

I felt a clot of fur in my throat and gulped it down. 'And what about Ort? Did we leave him behind?'

'Nah,' Edlon winced for a second and shook his head. 'He is in the cabin with R'lok. They will get us out of here.'

'No!' I jumped to my feet. 'He mustn't be alone with
him
!'

Edlon shrugged. 'Why not? R'lok is our friend.'

I ran to the cabin's door and shoved it open. Both pilot seats were empty. The floater was going all by itself. The steering columns shook in the air, unmanned. I turned back to warn Edlon. He was gone. R'lok was sitting in his place. The alien looked at me and got up. I didn't try to run or fight him, just stood there, welded to the spot.

R'lok peered at me, and there was brilliant illumination coming out of his empty eye socket. The light was fantastic. He stretched a hand to me in a graceful movement and pointed at the floor. I saw a kind smile on his lips and obeyed.

My knees hit the metal. R'lok gave me a fatherly pat on the head and then put his hand in the socket. The light kept shining. He was pulling something out. His arm went elbow deep into his skull and then emerged, towing a steel cylinder behind it. He pulled the barrel with one arm and the rest of the rifle with the other. He took the weapon in his hands like a club.

I raised my face, stretching my neck as far as I could. R'lok raised the rifle and hit me on one cheek. The blow wrecked my face. My head jerked back, but I returned it to the initial position. He hit me again. And again. And again. And again. And

I woke up from being smacked in the face. Soft fingers of unconsciousness latched onto my mind, but the hard hand kept their beating. I moaned and unstuck the eyelids.

R'lok was sitting before me, his mangled face inches from mine. When he saw my opened eyes, he stopped slapping me and stepped back. I got a better look at my surroundings.

I was sitting in a room, or rather hanging, since my wrists were tied to a wooden cross. I noticed that the rope wasn't a twine, but a plastic band, stripped from a bottle. I was naked to the waist. My chest still hurt, but not so much. I looked at the scars. Two red burrows going from left nipple diagonally to the right shoulder. There was some white stuff on them, the native medicine. R'lok was sitting before me on his knees. He was also naked to the waist, and I could see his scars. He had no paint on. I couldn't decide if it was a good sign or not.

As for the room itself, I must have been inside a hut. The floor was soil littered with straw. The walls were made of clay and went up to the conical roof. There were pots and plates stacked here and there, some wicker boxes. My gaze lingered on the stand with weapons. A rifle was leaning on it and next to it, the two-handed ax that killed the taj. R'lok's gift.

I looked at the alien sitting before me. The one-eyed monster. I licked my dry lips and tried to talk, but my throat was so coarse that I couldn't make a sound. R'lok saw this and took a porringer with water. He put a hand in it and produced a rag that dripped water on the ground. The alien pressed it to my mouth and I started to drink.

'I know what you wanted to say,' R'lok said. 'You only thundergod left.' He took the rag off my mouth and soaked it in water again. I drank some more. 'Your kind has lost. Now my people free. Your execution would start new age.'

I stopped drinking and coughed. Now I could talk. 'Why all this? I thought you liked us.'

R'lok solemnly shook his head. 'Never did. No one does here. You monsters and warlocks. I wanted to learn your secrets to take you down. I did so this night.' He paused and gestured to the rifle. 'I stole your thunderstick. Made D'lem find it. You don't know, but his conquest had one goal — you. He amassed army for attack.' He shook his head. 'Brave, but stupid. Many deaths in result. I had to take guidance from him.'

'So what happens now? You kill me?'

The alien nodded. 'Yes, thundergod. I will do it myself. You helped destroy your kind. I will give you last courtesy — it will be death by combat. You will use ax.'

So that's what he wanted. Did I stand a chance against him? Of course not. I was weak and tired, deep in the woods among enemies. My only edge on him was his disfigurement. The missing eye and the hurt leg. Even if I managed to kill him, the others would tear me apart. I turned my head away from him in desperation.

'Do not fret, thundergod. You die quick.' R'lok stood up and walked to the side of the room with the porringer in hand.

My head was turned left, and I saw something I got so used to seeing that I stopped noticing it. My wrist communicator. It was still on me. If the magnetic storm had passed or at least weakened, I could send an SOS signal. When R'lok turned back, I dropped my head to avoid attracting his attention to it.

'Time has come.' He walked to the exit, lifted the door curtain and said something. Two men entered the hut. They looked like my attackers with black circles, vests and all. They walked towards me while R'lok took the rifle in his hands. I saw that it had a knife fastened to the barrel. Whether he had seen an actual bayonet or not, he got the idea right. One guard pointed his spear at me, and the metal tip touched my jugular notch.

(They drove a big stake through her, its end came out of the jugular notch.)

The other one unfastened the plastic bands around my wrists. As he did it, I slowly put my hands on my thighs, moving the fingers, pushing blood into them. They grabbed me by the shoulder and jerked me to my feet. A spear shaft shoved me in the back, the intent was obvious. I walked forward and came up to R'lok.

He smiled to me and took his gift in one hand. 'I will give you it outside.' He stepped away from the exit. One guard lifted the curtain with his spear while the other nudged me forward.

I left the hut never to return inside.

The first thing I felt was the fresh cold air. It filled my lungs and made my skin crawl with goose bumps. I took a deep breath, expanding my chest, and looked up. The sky wasn't black anymore. The morning was already lighting it up with blue and yellow. So serene. I lowered my head and looked at the earthly things that surrounded me.

The central square was full of people. They stood around the fire pit, which wasn't burning, and looked at me. Their faces, so similar and so different. There must have been hundreds of them. Men with weapons, women, children in their arms, all watching the last thundergod. For a moment, there was silence and then the crowd exploded. They began to scream at me. The screeching sound hit me like a blast wave, and I felt my muscles tense. There was a corridor in front of me leading to the pit. I concentrated on it and walked forward, not even looking at the raging aliens around me. Though they screamed, none of them attempted to attack me. That was the prerogative of the chief. In the uproar, I connected my hands and furtively pushed the button on my wrist communicator.

We stopped on the edge of the pit. I looked inside. The bottom was covered in black ash with soft earth peeking through here and there. Gray remains of branches lay like skeletons, their surface creased by the fire. I turned away and faced R'lok. He came up to the edge, holding both weapons in his hands. When he turned to his people, the hubbub instantly seized.

R'lok raised the weapons above his head and yelled something. The crowd cheered. Then he turned to me. 'Now you go down.'

I looked at the slope of the pit and came nearer. It was rather steep. A spear shaft hit me on the back and I fell. Black ash exploded into the air as I landed on my hands and knees. I heard laughter and started to cough. Bread and circuses. I got up, wiping the ash off my arms to no avail, and looked at R'lok.

He threw down the heavy weapon. It landed on the ground, sending more ash into the air. The alien pointed away from him. 'You go to center. Then I come.'

I stared into his ferocious face and then leaned to pick up the ax. It had never been heavier. I lifted it with both hands and put it on my shoulder. I gave him another look and walked away from the slope. I must have looked like a lumberjack going to work. Reaching the alleged center of the pit, I turned back to him and waved. From that spot I could see the crowd, R'lok himself, the hut with white markings on it, even the wooden statue in the scoop. Behind it all, tall trees soared up into the sky, grimly watching over us all. The scene looked surreal, and I was a part of it. I was the alien here.

R'lok waved to his people and jumped into the pit with the rifle in hand. As he walked toward me, I examined the audience. The slope was littered with spearmen and archers. I was in a no-win situation.

The one-eyed alien approached and stopped several feet from me. 'You good warrior and man, thundergod. Pity you not one of us.' I saw the flashlight tucked into his belt.

I smirked. 'I could say the same thing about you.'

He smiled his predator rictus and raised the rifle above his head, shrieking. His people answered him. The natives moved closer to the edge of the pit. I could feel their eyes on me, the collective warmth radiating off their bodies.

I raised the ax before me and tightened my grip on the handle. I was ready to get it over with.

R'lok lowered his weapon and fired at me. I jumped to the side. The bullet whizzed past me and hit the pit's wall.

The fight was on.

I couldn't approach him. Even an ape wouldn't miss at arm's length. And R'lok was more than that. I hopped from foot to foot and made a false thrust toward him. The alien was trying to get a bead on me. Another shot. Another miss. And another. I grew bolder. It was time to go on the offensive.

I ran in a semi-circle to the left to make it harder for him, the ax resting on my shoulder. R'lok followed me with the barrel. He growled and fired again. Now was my chance.

I leapt at him, swinging the ax in a sideways arc. I put all my force in that blow. The alien leaned back, trying to avoid it. As if I was aiming at his head.

R'lok raised the rifle, pointing the bayonet into my stomach. The ax blade curved downward and struck the barrel. The rifle fired downward, and the knife's blade bored into the soil. The ax blade slid off the barrel, striking a white spark, and thumped on the ash. As for the bullet, it destroyed my foot.

I yelled and looked down. The jackboot now featured a hole above the tip, and red blood was leaking out. My running times were over. The alien saw the wound too and lashed out at me with his left fist.

My head hummed. He broke my cheekbone, the right eye half-closed. I stumbled back, catching my heel on the remains of a branch, and fell. The ax handle slipped out of my hand. I was armless.

R'lok towered over me, silhouetted against the sky. He raised the human weapon and aimed. I instinctively covered my face with one hand and extended the other at him, as if it could soothe his hate or stop the bullet. The alien pulled the trigger.

The rifle exploded in his hands, backfiring into his chest. My blow on the barrel must have dented it. When the bullet was propelled forward at the ignition, it struck that dent, bottling the barrel. The gas rushed back and came out of the rear end. It was human magic.

I lowered the hand and looked at the alien, not believing that I was still alive. R'lok stumbled back, covered in gun smoke. I hoped that he was dead, but no. When the haze cleared, I saw that he was merely wounded. His skin was burnt, and there were pieces of metal sticking out of his flesh, but otherwise he was quite well. He looked at me and dropped the remains of the rifle on the ground.

I grabbed a fistful of ash and threw it in his face. In the moments it took him to clear his vision, I crawled to the side. My hand struck the hot barrel with the bayonet, and I grabbed it.

The metal was hot and painful to hold, but I had no other choice. I jerked myself first to one knee and then forward. I tried to pierce him through the heart or whatever vital organ I struck.

Alas, he caught my weapon.

I learned my lesson about their strength and didn't even try to release the barrel from his hand. Instead, I dropped it and threw myself behind him. Just where the ax lay in the ash. I grabbed the handle, got on my feet and started to back away, dragging the blade behind me. The foot hurt like hell, but I tried not to notice the pain and almost succeeded in it.

The alien turned and extend the metal dart in front of him. The black muzzle looked straight at me. Now the real dance started.

R'lok came at me, running. I retreated, not sure of what he was going to do. He stopped mere feet from me and jumped to the side. The alien made a thrust in mid air, aiming at my head. I ducked and raised the ax.

Metal clicked over bone.

The alien landed and immediately followed his attack with swinging his weapon like a scythe. I retreated, trying to block him. Metal clanked. That couldn't go on forever. He was trying to weaken me even more and succeeding at it.

I made a desperate lunge forward, beating the dart away from me. His lame leg! I kicked it in the knee.