Deathstalker 02 - Deathstalker Rebellion

tell from any of their faces how his speech had gone over. He thought he'd pushed all the right buttons, but it was hard to be sure. He'd been quite serious. He didn't want to lead them, but he needed to fight beside them. If only to prove to himself that he could still do it. That the legendary Jack Random hadn't died after all in the Golgotha interrogation cells.
    He had to admit, the Rejects hadn't seemed at all impressed by him so far. He didn't blame them—much. He was a man in his late forties who looked twenty years older, despite all the improvements the Maze had worked in him. A sudden sound caught his attention, and he looked around sharply. It was a grating, sliding sound, but he couldn't locate its source. The cavern floor began to vibrate under his feet, almost as though a train was going past. The four members of the council broke off their deliberations and looked down at the floor. Their faces hardened, and they drew their swords. People began to stand up in the ranked seating.
    "What is it?" said Storm. "What's happening?"
    "Crawlers," said Tall John. "Creatures from the depths. They tunnel through metal like it isn't there. Eat anything that doesn't fight back, and most that does."
    Ruby Journey's hand dropped to her side where her sword should have been, and
    then she cursed dispassionately as she remembered she'd agreed to come unarmed.
    Storm looked quickly about him. Random put a comforting hand on his shoulder.
    "Don't worry," said Throat-slitter Mary, hefting her sword. "We'll defend you."
    And that was when the floor next to Random cracked open, and a blunt scaly head burst up out of the floor, rising up on a long undulating neck. The head was a good four feet wide, its body thick as two men. It had a wide-gaping mouth full of jagged teeth, and no eyes. There was bedlam around the walls as the people in the lower seats tried to climb away from the danger and up into the higher seats. Tall John struck at the beast's neck with his sword, and the blade just bounced away from the thick scales. The broad head swung around and slammed into him, knocking him off his feet. People were yelling for someone to bring energy guns.
    Random stepped forward and hit the long undulating neck with all his strength.
    His fist punched clean through the scales and sank deep into the flesh within.
    The beast screamed, a high, harsh sound that grated on the ear. Random braced himself and pushed his hand in deeper. The beast convulsed, black blood springing from its mouth, but Random wouldn't be thrown off. His arm sank into the scaled neck up to his elbow, and then his hand found the long curving spine.
    It took only a moment to close his hand around the spine and snap it in one quick movement. The beast shuddered the length of its visible body, and then collapsed dead on the chamber floor.
    For a moment there was utter silence, and then the chamber erupted with cheers and applause from the watching Rejects. The four council members were staring at him with open mouths, and then they put away their swords so they could applaud, too. Random grinned. It seemed he'd finally managed to impress them. Storm was shaking his head in disbelief. Random pulled his bloody arm out of the crawler's
    neck. Ruby handed him a handkerchief to clean himself off with and leaned in close beside him to murmur in his ear.
    "Show-off."
    And the war went on.
    It was spring, and the temperature soared. The snow and ice melted, flooding the trenches. Life erupted everywhere, strange and deadly forms appearing out of nowhere to clog the trenches and tunnels. It was spring, and hibernation was over. They burst through the floors and the walls, aggressive and carnivorous.
    Hungry plants, with reaching thorns, thickly furred creatures that seemed mostly fangs and claws, small and large and everything in between, all of them determined to seize their chance at life. They fought each other for food and territory, and the winners fought the rebels for control of the blood-splashed trenches and tunnels. The rebels fought back-to-back with swords and axes and the occasional energy gun, forcing back the ravenous hordes as they had done so many times before. The Wolfe security forces fought the same battle, on the only day in the short year when the two sides didn't make war on each other. And still life exploded from every side, from acid-oozing leeches that spattered the cracking walls, to great hulking creatures that slowly dug their way up from the