Ron reached the Skinner just as Keech disappeared at speed into the dingle. The monster had been struck repeatedly: there were burns all over it, cavities where the male mercenary’s shells had hit, and yellow blotchy patches that had festered. From it arose a stench as from an abattoir drain. Its right leg had turned entirely yellow, and seemed almost falling apart. That must be due to the sprine, Janer reckoned. Yet, injured and dying as it was, the monster managed to heave itself upright as Ron hammered towards it. The Old Captain yelled and swung his machete. A hand like a huge spider spun free, hit the ground, then hopped along for a couple of metres before flipping on to its back with its fingers wriggling in the air. The stump of the Skinner’s wrist hit Ron in the chest, then came on like a hydraulic ram and slammed him flat on his back. The machete cartwheeled through the air and stabbed into the ground a couple of metres away.
Janer fired and a sheet of skin slid smoking from the Skinner’s back. Hissing loudly, it grabbed Ron with its other hand, lifted him and bit down on him, as if he were a sandwich. Ron bellowed. Janer started firing at the monster’s legs, then ceased when Ambel got in his way — going to retrieve the machete. The Skinner spun round, discarding Ron like a fast food meal not to its taste, and now Ambel and the creature confronted each other: Gosk Balem and his old master, Hoop.
The Skinner hissed at Ambel, and crouched. Ambel advanced with the machete gripped two-handed and inclined to one side. Perhaps something of survival instinct kicked in then, because the monster backed off. Abruptly it turned and, with long unsteady strides, it ran. Ambel reached Ron just ahead of Janer.
Captain Ron lay with one side crushed and ripped open. As Ambel crouched by him, he reached up and caught hold of his fellow captain’s hand. Hearing movement behind, Janer glanced round to see Erlin and Anne approaching, leaning against each other for support.
‘Get these off me,’ said Erlin, holding out her wrists. ‘I can help him.’
Janer looked at the braided cuffs, and then inspected the charge meter on his carbine. He gave an apologetic shake of his head before returning his attention to the two captains.
‘It has to die,’ Ron insisted. ‘It has to die finally and completely.’
‘It will,’ promised Ambel. He glanced round at Erlin, then, freeing himself from Ron’s grip, he stood and stepped up to her. Almost casually, he clasped the material of the cuffs between her wrists and pulled. There was a hollow thud as they broke and he moved on to free Anne next. Erlin immediately went to Ron and inspected his torn side.
‘Nothing much wrong,’ muttered Ron, then, looking up at Ambel, ‘What are you waiting for?’
Ambel turned to Anne. ‘Get everyone to cover. Boris and Roach should be back soon. When they arrive, go and find Peck and Forlam. Wherever they are, wait there with them,’ he said. Then he turned to Janer and indicated the laser carbine. ‘You come with me.’
Janer gave a terse nod, then followed the Captain into the dingle.
Svan halted at the edge of a wide clearing, resting her weapon on the ground, then quickly unclipped the section of hot armour on her side. Underneath, her clothing was charred and it crumbled when she touched it. However, the burn on her skin wasn’t as bad as she had expected. She took a spray from the medpack on her belt to deaden the pain, coating it with synthiskin. The armour section felt hard and brittle, but she clipped it back into place anyway. What now, she wondered; what the hell do I do now?
She stood and took a drink from her water bottle, before moving on through the dingle. Her satlink position finder rendered her the information that she was located on one of the Segre Islands, and showed her as a little dot near the centre of that island. Beyond telling her that, it was useless to her and she had little clue as to where she was and where she must go next. She’d lost sight of Frisk almost immediately, and cursed herself for letting the woman continue to carry a laser with its power pack disconnected. Frisk had been their only chance to get away, and now she was on the run, unarmed, with a half-crazed monitor with an APW in pursuit. Svan did not rate Frisk’s chances very highly. So what must she now do? She had no idea which direction the madwoman had taken, just as she had no idea where Shib had gone. Though, in his case, she did not really want to know: if she ever saw him again he was dead.
Svan decided to keep moving, her best option seeming to head downhill towards the coast. Her first priority was to get off this island, and then off this damned planet with all its weird people and weirder animals. She moved fast, aware of sounds in the dingle around her, and determined to survive. After an hour, she heard the first screams, and recognized them as Shib’s. She would not have bothered changing direction to help him, but the screams came from straight ahead of her, where the dingle thickened.
Svan was heading into deeper shade, where the trees were tall and debris lay thick on the ground heaped in thick drifts spotted with orange fungi. She noticed the tracks of some kind of large animal and some of the tall stalk-trunks had clearly been gnawed on. Animals didn’t worry her, but the cause of those screams did. Eventually, Svan saw a white shape hanging in a peartrunk tree ahead of her, and immediately knew what it was.
Shib had stopped screaming by the time she reached him, though he was groaning and gasping, occasionally weeping. Someone had suspended him naked by his feet from the branches of a peartrunk tree. Runnels of blood crisscrossed his body, and below him crawled the sated leeches that had fed and dropped away. Attached to him there were four still feeding. His feet had been totally stripped, but from his ankles downward the bloody holes cut into him grew increasingly disperse. He’d lost so much blood and flesh, yet he still remained conscious. Svan wondered if those who had done this to him had known that suspending someone upside-down prevented them from fainting and that, with his strength, Shib would probably lose half his flesh before he died. She watched as a leech fell from him, setting him into a slow turn. He looked at her with his remaining eye.
‘Svan,’ he whispered.
There was such pleading in the single word that Svan aimed her weapon at his head for a long moment, then slowly swung it away. Another leech was already making its questing way down his leg, and Shib started gasping again. She knew, from long experience in such matters, that in a moment he would start screaming again. If she intervened and stopped his screams, that would forewarn anyone ahead of her presence, so, without further acknowledgement, she walked away.
Shib’s renewed torment soon echoed through the dingle. Svan paused for just a moment before moving determinedly on. The next scream sent her into a trot, then a run, convinced that she wasn’t running from him and what was happening to him: she had to move fast, just get out of here. Suddenly, ahead of her, she spotted three figures. They turned as she approached, one of them raising Shib’s weapon.
In one smooth motion, Svan dropped to her knees and aimed.
‘Drop it! Now!’ she shouted.
The one called Roach tossed the weapon to the ground while Svan stared at him in disbelief, trying to comprehend how the hell he’d got here. Keeping all three of them in her sights, she stood and slowly advanced. The other one, with the moustache, she also recognized from the ship Frisk had torched. The third one, who was leaning on a stick and didn’t look so good, she did not recognize.
‘You,’ she gestured at him. ‘Who are you?’
‘Bugger you,’ was his only reply.
Svan considered wasting him right there, but she desperately needed to get off this island, and for that she needed help. She moved closer. Suddenly the ground erupted in front of her in a purple flash. As the blast flung her back, she felt her grip on consciousness slipping, and fought it. Burning debris rained down while she rolled and tried to stand. The flat of a hand slapped her back to the ground and her weapon was tugged from her grasp as easily as from a child. After a moment she was hauled to her feet and suspended in front of the bulky shape of Drum.