Straits of Hell (38 page)

Hooded figures pulled cables leading to the terrible jaws, and the confining chains slackened and fell away. Awarded partial freedom, the first great beast opened its mouth and roared its triumph, a sort of thunderous gobbling sound, before stooping to snatch one of its handlers. At the same time, the other chains attached to the iron collar dropped to the ground. The big armored creatures that kept it confined rolled in the dust when the tension left, but quickly rose and lumbered to the side, dragging their chains and flailing their tails to discourage pursuit. The giant lizard took a couple experimental steps, seeming tempted to chase them, but rifle fire was peppering it now and it didn't like that a bit.
Has to sting,
Blas snorted to herself, but the sarcastic thought was edged with a creeping terror. Even the big guns of the colonials were
apparently not penetrating sufficiently to do serious harm. But they did make it mad—and Blas suddenly realized that was what the Doms had counted on. It lunged forward, past its scattering handlers, toward the source of its torment. Several guns fired at once but missed. The thing was amazingly fast for its size, moving like a two-legged serpent, its head and tail swaying from side to side as it quickly negotiated the entanglements, tearing barbed wire as if it were rotten vines and scattering stakes like twigs. In just a few more steps, it started up the slope, meeting a hail of bullets, and churned directly at Blas.

In that moment, as had happened long before, and for the first time since that dreadful night in
Mahan
's steering engine room, Blas was silenced and immobilized by panic. She'd been a youngling then, in every sense of the word, and there'd been nothing she could do. But her powerlessness in the face of such an unimaginable violation still haunted her, as did an obsessive determination never to experience such a feeling again. That's why she became a Marine, even reveling in the risks that entailed, because she could confront them with friends at her side and a weapon in her hands, and each time she did so, the memory of that terrible night faded a bit more from her mind. But in the face of the monstrous juggernaut of flesh stalking toward her, she felt like a helpless youngling again. She didn't run, as all her senses demanded, but she didn't do anything else. She just stood there, stunned, as the great jaws opened toward her.

A twelve-pounder in a covered embrasure just below her feet fired directly into the monster, and it staggered back. The concussion of the report struck her like a slap and she shook her head, clearing the unnerving trance that had engulfed her. A great bloody hole had bloomed on the monster's belly, smoke and black blood coursing out, but Blas gathered with amazement that the shot didn't exit! Comparably speaking, shooting the thing with a twelve-pounder was probably like shooting a rhino pig with a.45. Chances were it would die—eventually—but the wound only enraged it further. Like a striking snake, it chomped down on the protruding muzzle of the gun and dragged the whole two-ton weapon through its embrasure, shattering its wheels and casting it away like a toy. Another gun, atop the parapet, hit it in its narrow chest from the side, and that shot
did
exit, blowing a gaping, jagged-ribbed hole, and warbling off into the distance. The beast fell then. Perhaps its
spine was broken? Its body slid down and lay still over the embrasure it had opened. Blas, still recovering from the shame and terror of what she considered a flare of cowardice, had no time to appreciate that small favor because there were more monsters coming. Just as bad, the Doms were sweeping forward in their deep ranks, followed by hordes of Blood Drinkers.

“Quit shootin' at the daamn lizards! We just pissin' 'em off! Fire at the Doms!” she screamed at her Marines. “All aar-tillery between the lunettes will target the big lizards!” She coughed. “Runner!” she managed.

“Col-nol Blair is here!” First Sergeant Spook declared, pointing and breathing hard. He'd been shooting at the monster too and now returned to her side. Blair and a small staff were still mounted, just below her, amid men carrying crates of ammunition up the slope to the 'Cats above. She shouted down at him, “It's here! All is coming
here
! We must have our reserves!” She could see nothing of the battle elsewhere around the fort, but couldn't imagine the Doms had the resources to make such an effort in more than one, maybe two places at once.

“Are you sure of that?” Blair demanded.

“
Sure
I'm sure. The monsters and Blood Drinkers had to have come last night!” she explained desperately. “They would've been seen from the air or by the spies still reportin' if they'd been assemblin' long enough to build a bigger force than that!” She waved at the monsters and men coming for her. “An' this is the closest point of contact! They came in last night, and Nerino's thrown 'em straight at the closest ‘weak' point we showed him! It's here!”

Blair finally nodded, seeing the sense of that and trusting her instincts. But then, to her surprise, he hesitated. “I'm sorry, Captain Blas, but my new orders from General Shinya are that no reserves be committed to the outer wall for any reason.” He waved helplessly up at one of the observation towers behind the inner wall. “I suppose he has his reasons, or sees—and hears by wireless—what we do not.” He looked at her earnestly. “That said, I will find
some
reinforcement for you, from an unengaged portion of the outer wall if I must. Can you hold long enough for troops to come from the west side of the fort?”

Blas turned, feeling violated again in a different way. She'd been promised the Guayakans as a reserve, and they were ready and waiting
less than a hundred yards away, atop the wall behind her.
They
could get here in time, but could anyone else? A furious fire was stripping men from the advancing Dom ranks, and a cheer announced that another of the monsters had been struck by a gun, its head becoming a ragged, bloody mass of shattered bone and teeth, and it fell in the path of another huge beast. But she reckoned it had taken ten or twenty shots to hit it, and those behind—she counted ten more at a glance—had all been released and were charging forward as if confident that a huge feast lay beyond her wall. She suspected they'd been conditioned to that belief somehow; to race toward shooting, expecting to feed. Cannon were very difficult to aim at moving targets. Even with the instantaneous ignition of the new friction primers, one had to point the gun where one hoped the target would be when it was fired—after its crew had a moment to get out of the way. The monster behind the dead one simply leaped the corpse and hurried on, its long strides devouring ground.

“No,” she answered bitterly. “We can't hold 'em that long, and any disorganized reserves dribblin' in will only block our path of retreat.”

Blair nodded again, as if that was what he'd expected her to say. “Then hold as long as you can. Fall back to the second wall when you must. The Guayakans will provide covering fire. I'll join you there after I spread the word—and see the situation elsewhere for myself.” With that, he spurred his horse southward, followed by his staff.

And just like that, In Blas's mind, and entirely without warning, General Tomatsu Shinya had sacrificed the 2nd of the 2nd Marines, the 3rd Saint Francis, and the entire 8th Maa-ni-la. Three more monsters quickly died in a barrage of cannon fire, crushing dozens of screaming men when they fell. And not all the monsters were content to delay their feast until they breached the fort. A couple, at least, strolled through the enemy ranks, leisurely eating men packed too closely to flee. The screams that rose above the roar of battle were terrible to hear. But when the first wave of Dom regulars, many returning for a second time, slammed into her Marines' battered shields, Blas finally realized that trying to fall back now would likely prove just as difficult as holding her position. With the artillery largely devoted to firing at the monsters, only the Imperial guns in the lunettes could sweep the Doms. Those were
big
guns, but even more impossible to aim at moving monsters.
They laid a terribly destructive, enfilading fire into the enemy's flanks, but it simply wasn't enough given the weakness on the ramparts and the greater weight of the new attack. Granted, most of the Dom infantry was just as exhausted and terrified as the defenders, but they had the Blood Drinkers pushing them on. There'd be no lull, no momentary respite she could use to disengage and pull back to the inner wall. Maybe her Marines and the Maa-ni-los to her right were making time for some other plan to unfold, but that went increasingly beyond their concern. They fought for their lives, and when any hope for survival faded, they fought to take another breath. Everyone knew that as soon as the first Doms broke through, they'd be overwhelmed.

Blas found herself closer to the Maa-ni-los, where their left had become mixed with her right. She stabbed past the shields with her bayonet as her self-appointed colonial guards stayed close by her side. She still didn't know why they stuck so close, but they were good fighters and she certainly didn't mind. Spook stayed near as well, occasionally stepping into a gap and hosing the enemy with his BAR, but his “couple more” magazines had to be nearly exhausted by now. The slope below was choked with corpses and the footing was terrible for the attackers, but still they surged and roared, banging on shields and stabbing past them with their plug bayonets. A monster lizard had paused, just beyond the raging fight, to snack on the unprecedented buffet, when a cannonball slammed into the meaty part of its tail, just behind its mighty haunches. It roared indignantly, spewing gobbets of men from its mouth, and lunged at the wall. Doms screamed and tried to make way, but the crush was just too tight. Many were pulped beneath its feet as the ranting beast stepped almost effortlessly to the top of the rampart and paused to gaze around.

It was too much. The 'Cats nearest its feet fled first, tumbling back, and then ran to the rear. The Doms didn't take advantage at first—they couldn't—but after a long moment, apparently surveying the delicacies to be had within the fort, the great lizard marched down the slope and the northeast wall of Fort Defiance was broken.

Everywhere else, all along the northeast line between the lunettes, a great shout arose, and the Doms streamed through the gap or over the crumbling shield wall.

“Fall back!” Blas croaked. “Fall back to the second wall! Captain
Finny!” she said, seeing her friend's blood-matted face fur. “Spread the word! Fall back!” Something grabbed her arm, and she lashed out, hitting Spook in the chest.

“That means you too!” he yelled, pulling her along. “You,” he shouted at the colonials. “Help me get her out of here.”

They dashed down the slope, at first pulling, then following Blas as she sprinted back to gain enough distance to see. The wall was going fast, eroded under a yellow tide that crested over it—and her Marines—before streaming down toward her. There was still desperate fighting, but 'Cats fought and died alone now, or in pathetic little clumps. It helped some that the Doms were so terrified of their beast because they avoided it, even while Lemurians fled past it, not realizing it was so close. Vicious struggles erupted around gun embrasures where, with some protection, larger clots of Marines made their stand. Added to that, the Guayakans directly behind them on the second wall opened up, their muskets flailing at the swarming Doms. That threw them into further confusion and bought time for a couple hundred more Marines and Maa-ni-los to escape.

“Lieu-ten-aant Stumpy!” Blas called, seeing her other old shipmate limping away from the fight. “Where's your cap-i-taan?”

Blinking misery, Stumpy waved back at the firing step above and Blas gulped back a sob. She'd just seen Finny—and now he was dead. She shook it off. No time now.

A lone cannon barked at the monster, striding away toward the northeast lunette. The gun was incredibly loud down between the walls, even though Blas saw that it was just a six-pounder. That meant that the three 'Cats working it, the last bloody, limping remnant of its crew, must've dragged it all the way down from the top of the rampart where the lighter guns had been. The shot grazed the monster deeply along its side, and it spun to face them. “Leave it!” Blas shouted. “Come on!”

“You go!” cried the 'Cat gunner, his crew already reloading the weapon from satchels they carried. “We gonna kill dat teeng an' save our gun! We had dis gun sinst Aryaal!”

Blas blinked, then turned to Stumpy. “Get our people to safety. Then cover us! I want ten volunteers!”

“But!”

“Go!”

Blas wasn't sure why it suddenly became so important to her to save that one little gun when they'd just lost twenty. And six-pounders, considered obsolete by many, were the lightest, least powerful they had anymore. That struck her strangely, considering there'd been
no
artillery just a few years before. But she was determined to make up for what she considered her cowardice in the face of the first monster, and now the loss of her position—not to mention her fury at the enemy—and General Shinya. All those things drove her now. And it might've also been because that gun had suffered at Aryaal too. . . .

The Doms held back, afraid of the charging monster and the fusillade of fire from the second wall. The gunner centered his sight on the middle of his target with a glance, pierced the charge through the vent, and stepped away. Another 'Cat inserted the primer with a lanyard attached, stretched it taut, and nodded at his gunner.

“Fire!”

The gun roared and jumped back, the wheels grumbling and the trail skating across the gravelly earth. The shot was well placed, striking the monster high in the belly, but if a twelve-pounder couldn't exit there, a six-pounder certainly couldn't. The monster staggered, but shrieked and advanced.

“To the rear!” yelled the gunner. “To the gate!” There were two small gates in the inner wall, heavily reinforced, and they were closer to the more southerly one—but so was the monster. They had to go back. More than ten willing pairs of hands grabbed the gun's trail handles, wheels, anything they could grasp, and accelerated to a clumsy trot. “Load!” the gunner cried.