Gift Of The Mancynn by Dominic Hodgson - HTML preview

18: From Out Of The Green

Outside, the sandstorm was dying down quickly, it was almost completely over. The other thing that was dying down was their anxiety. How long had it been since Tony, Cary and Jimmy had heard the sound of the jeep being ripped apart? None of them knew for sure. But they had heard nothing since, while they huddled in the shelter of the plane’s carcass. As the sand brushing constantly by the hull lessened, Tony got up to peer out of the cracked windows.

“I don’t see anything,” he informed the other two, who were watching him from behind his back.

“Nothing that would want to kill us?” Jimmy piped up, not wanting to sound too hopeful.

“Nope,” Tony confirmed, returning to the floor.

That was when it banged on the side of the plane.

*

Philip and Noah took a step over the threshold that was the rim of the pendulum. As they passed through it, they felt a slight tingling, as if they were walking through a veil of electricity. When they were on the other side, they edged their way down the slope, into the pitch black. Neither had a torch, so Philip had to feel his way by the walls. Noah could not, as he still carried the injured girl.

Fortunately, the slope levelled out after not too long. It was as they stepped onto the level ground that a beam of red light shot across the floor from where their feet touched it. It illuminated the passage ahead of them, revealing the many tunnels which posed as optional ways to go. And the illuminated route was not just a straight line. It zigzagged away down seemingly random corridors, into the heart of the maze.

“Do you think we should trust it?” Noah wondered aloud.

“Something must have triggered it, and it must have been for a reason,” Philip added. “It might have been when we walked through the ring. I assume you felt that…buzz…whatever it was.”

“I thought it was just me. But now I guess it could have been scanning for a certain genome. It would make sense that anyone without that genetic coding would be made to wander the maze, as they would most likely be thieves, and anyone with the genome would be deemed of good intentions, like Gryal, from their point of view, and therefore led straight to their goal.”

“What kind of defence is that?” Philip scoffed. “The Brethren Lords can get right by it.”

“I’m sure when this place was designed, the Murorviosp wouldn’t have considered that the ones that should be kept out were among their allies. I might have failed to mention that they, having learnt of their presence from the Entities before stealing the Chariot, reached out to the Lords, thinking them to be potentially corruptible in their favour. The alterations made to us are at a genetic level, which allowed us to pass through as the Brethren Lords would themselves. The changes may not have even been perfect. If our suspicions are correct, then the ring cannot have been the most sensitive, as it couldn’t differentiate between me and Eve, who I was holding to my chest.”

“You seem to know a lot about the Mancynn physiology,” remarked Philip.

“Before I split from the Brethren, I was tasked to do...things. Stuff I’m not proud of,” his voice trailed off.

Philip was about to inquire further, when he noticed the red light of their ‘guide’ fading. Looking down in alarm, he saw that the ever-stretching line was in fact finite in length. Now it had reached maximum length, the line was slithering off down the corridor, leaving them behind.

“We have to get moving,” Philip said as he began to jog, then run, “We can’t afford to lose it.”

Noah usually would have been faster than Philip, though under these circumstances, what with carrying an injured child, the best he could do was just manage to keep at his heels.

The line twisted left and right, its sense of direction seemingly awry; there seemed to be no pattern to its movements, and more than once Philip could have sworn that they had gone in a circle. But he couldn’t be sure, for the hieroglyphs and pictures upon the walls, covered in cobwebs, all looked the same in the eerie light of the line, which was ever so slightly moving further and further away. The three of them were just managing to keep on its tail. It was lucky that they could, for without its guidance, they would be lost in this labyrinth, entombed in the sandy pyramid that might never be seen again.

Time was irrelevant within these walls. They had been going round and around like rats after a Pied Piper for so very long. They were beginning to give up all hope, when the path they were led along began to slope upwards. Higher and higher they climbed, with what little strength they had left in them. Philip had been feeling particularly weak after he’d jumped into the pyramid. The line was fading ahead of them, which he took to be a sign that they were near the end of their trek. Sure enough, the path levelled out a short way ahead of them, but the line was so dim now that they couldn’t really see the room they were in. It carried on moving for a few more feet, before stopping in the blackness. Philip blindly walked the path laid out before him, only to walk head first into a wall. Cursing, he warned Noah of the obstruction. His companion felt his way to the wall with his foot and put Eve down by it.

“Are you okay here?” he whispered to her.

Her voice was pained but she made it understandable that she was. Satisfied, Noah made his way to where he had heard Philip’s voice.

“The wall here,” Philip was saying, “It feels different, weaker maybe.”

“Let me have a go,” Noah said, finding the spot Philip had been indicating.

With all his might, he pushed against the stone. Philip joined in, shoving his shoulder into the wall. The blocks were definitely moving backwards under their weight. The two Mancynns groaned and sighed as they made more and more progress, until...the blocks fell away. They stumbled, both the shock of what they saw and the glimmering green light suddenly pouring in putting them off balance. What lay beyond was thin air, and the outside of the pyramid. They were about halfway up, and had just made a hole in the outer wall. They hastily shuffled back from the edge, not wishing to fall, as the blocks were now doing below them. And once they got past that initial shock, they saw something new in the distance. There, among the buildings of the dead city, was a mass of sandy limbs, flailing, snapping, and lashing out. It appeared every statue in the city had come to life, and was a part of a chaotic feeding frenzy. There were snakes and jackals and scorpions and cats, all apparently hunting the same thing.

“It seems the Murorviosp have one more surprise in store for us,” Noah either made a grin or a grimace, it was hard to tell.

“One last defence mechanism, you think, like what shot down the plane?”

“You’ll probably find that whatever triggered them to come to life will also prevent us from now escaping the pyramid via transit. What would be the point of creating those things if those trapped could just move themselves to another point in space?” he was thinking out loud. “If...no...when you get what Gryal was after, you’re going to have to fight your way past those things to escape. If I go and take out as many as I can now, you may stand a chance.”

“Why can’t you wait until we’ve got whatever it is? Why are you leaving me to face it alone, and with Eve in this state?”

“You may still not be strong enough by the time you complete the task. A short while ago, you jumped twice in quick succession. Doing so severely weakens you.”

Philip’s voice was lined with exasperation and full of frustration, “I think we’ve established that by now.”

“That doesn’t matter. You’re going to be alright,” he assured Philip, pulling his two knives from his jacket, looking at them with what appeared to be regret.

Philip stared at them also, “To use those, you’ll have to get right up close to them.”

Noah pushed a catch on the side of each, and the blade extended from within the hilt, over doubling their lengths, “Not exactly.”

But Philip had just thought of something, “Wait a second. You said we probably can’t teleport out of here, and you won’t find your way through the labyrinth in time. What are you going to do?”

Noah smiled, “Something no sane person, for whom this trap was set, would do.”

Before Philip could say anything else, Noah took a short run-up and leapt through the hole they’d just made. For a moment, he was in freefall. Then Noah vanished into the air.

*

He watched the mayhem and destruction ensue across the city, the living stone and sand tearing through each building and each other. Behind Gryal, Warren came closer.

“Are you the orchestrator, or simply the observer?”

Gryal turned to look at Warren, who stopped just short of him, “That could be debated for hours.”

“Why all of this?” Warren asked bluntly, “Why this endeavour, why this necropolis, why not stay on track with the plan we spent countless years in planning?”

Gryal considered the question for a moment, before replying, “This is for a higher cause than our own. There are powers that be that not even you can comprehend.”

“You know, Mordrin has questioned your actions for a while now, but it’s not until now that I’ve taken any notice. The only beings more powerful than us are the enemy. They are the ones we have plotted against since our emancipation. These are the Entities and there are no others that can equal their strength.”

Gryal gave a quiet chuckle, “How naïve you sound.”

“Mierdi has blinded you with smoke and mirrors, dear brother. You have to understand that,” Warren pleaded.

“I am not your brother!” The skeleton screeched, the yellow fires in his eye sockets flaring. “I am much more than the old Gryal ever was!”

Warren’s eyes, instead of lightening, darkened, “Then Mordrin was right, you haven’t been the Gryal we’ve known for a while now. But whoever you are, compared to how you have been behaving recently, you do not seem yourself.”

“Au contraire, I have never been more myself. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about you for much longer.”

“If that’s a threat, I should warn you, whatever happens this day, you will never divert my true brothers from our cause!”

Warren took steps forward as he said this, grasping the vertebra of its neck in his red, muscular hand.

The skeleton took no notice, “Such a pity. So much anger, such leadership potential, all going to waste.”

“What are you...” Warren faltered, looking down.

There was the sting of a stone scorpion protruding from his crimson chest. ‘Gryal’ had distracted him while it had come up from behind.

“Help me...” Warren moaned, his eyes flooded with fear.

“Never.”

The scorpion arched its tail back, flinging the dying body of Warren away. The one posing as Gryal raised a hand to his fallen fellow, soaking up the spilling energy, drinking it up, completing himself. He was back, only stronger and more dangerous than ever.

*

Noah landed cat-like on top of one of the sandy buildings, a few streets away from where the majority of the battle was taking place. Once he had been far enough away from the pyramid he’d tried to enter transit, and had been glad to find he could. Whether it was because he’d been far enough away, or because there was actually nothing to stop him doing it in the first place, Noah didn’t know. He could see the thrashing creatures moving in a westerly direction, following something smaller which was out of his line of sight. Not wasting any time, the Mancynn leapt onto the ground and ran towards the battlefront.

He turned a corner just to step back as a cat’s tail swept across the once-desolate street. Crouching down he waddled under the body of the humongous animal, and came out in the middle of an epic scene. Stark, Petti and Mordrin were fending off a horde of oversized monsters, escaping fatal injury by inches on several occasions.

Mordrin flung out a gnarled hand and a chunk of a jackal was blown away from its body. Seeing a gap in the wall of animals, Mordrin led Stark out of the battle zone.

Petti, in full animalistic style, was launching himself from monster to monster, talons swiping from side to side, pincers snipping out of control. With two of their prey gone, some of the statues chose to follow in pursuit, while others began to fight amongst themselves. On top of a scorpion’s head, the Lord looked down at Noah, who was wielding both his blades out before him, the remaining few creatures now focusing on him, trying to push through the crowd to reach him. Now Petti had seen Noah, he pounced upon him, pushing off from the scorpion’s head with his muscular legs. Noah only saw Petti out of the corner of his eye at the last second, and he swiped out with one of his swords. The blade glanced Petti’s face and sent him sprawling on the ground. Flicking the second blade back to injure the oncoming serpent, Noah jumped to the Lord’s side. Noah made to slice the Lord with his blades, but it grabbed him with one clawed hand. Petti’s strength was too strong; he couldn’t make any counter-move. Noah looked up to see that one of the cats had made it through the mass of statues brawling with each other. With no way of moving, Noah saw only one thing he could do, and he’d probably regret it in the long run.

*

High above the plane wreck the grappling Petti and Noah appeared and immediately began to fall. Shocked by the sudden change of location, Petti let go of Noah, and began to drop away from him. There was no way that Noah could enter transit yet again, he was just too weak. His only real hope was that he would be able to heal himself after impact with the sand dunes rapidly coming up to meet him. Noah forgot about what was happening to his former master as he closed his eyes and waited for the pain.

*

Tony, Cary and Jimmy were cowering behind a row of surviving airplane seats as the creature outside continued to bang against the hull of the damaged craft. Cary was busy trying to hush Jimmy’s loud hyperventilating, while Tony was attempting to pinpoint the creature’s exact location by the movement of the thumps. But then...he lost it. The thumping had stopped. The silence was worse than the deafening noise. Scared out of his mind, Tony got up from his hiding place and trod lightly over to the cockpit. He stared out into the desert, and froze when he heard a rumbling.

“What is it?” Cary hissed.

Tony just shushed her, and continued to peer around the fuselage. The sound was different to that of the creature, more mechanical. And as the rumbling got louder, he saw the front of a car come over the peak of a dune. It was an SUV, and Tony noticed that it was drawing the attention of the creature. Now it was leaving the plane wreck, he could see that it was larger than a man, even though it walked on all fours. It had shaggy, grey fur and a black mane. Like Warren Marz, the muscles in its limbs were clearly visible, all the way down to the long, black talons.

“Tony,” Cary hissed again.

“Don’t worry, it’s just a car.”

“No, Tony, come over here.”

Tony tore his eyes away from the creature and SUV to return to Cary’s side. She was looking out of one of the windows on the opposite side of the plane to the creature. He joined her by the window, and saw the body of a man lying a short distance from them in the sand.

“Noah!” he exclaimed.

Checking the creature was still walking away from the plane, Tony rushed out into the open to where Noah’s body lay.

As he got closer, he began to hear the discomforting sound of bones clicking back into place. When Tony finally stood over him, Noah’s eyes shot open, the blood fading out of the whites.

“Ow...” was what escaped from the Mancynn’s mouth.

“We need to get to safety, into the plane,” Tony insisted, looking over his shoulder towards the creature.

The SUV was redirecting itself towards the plane, while the creature was circling round behind it. Oh well, the people in the car were no concern of his.

With great discomfort Noah got to his repaired feet. He wiped the blood from his face and watched his fingers swivel back into position.

Horrified by what he’d just seen, Tony egged Noah on, “Come on, get inside before it comes back.”

Noah looked around for what Tony meant, and saw within moments the prowling creature.

“You’re right, we have to get inside.”

With an unexpected burst of speed, he began pulling Tony towards the wreckage.

“Do you know what it is?” Tony panted, trying to keep up.

“It’s a jackal, but one made into a weapon by a Murorviosp by the name of Mierdi, and trust me, you don’t want to cross paths with it.”

“I wasn’t planning to.”

Back inside the plane, Noah leant on a chair next to Cary and Jimmy for support.

“Are you okay,” he asked them.

“Sort of,” Cary shrugged.

Not really caring, Noah forced himself to stand unsupported and walked to the cockpit. There he watched the SUV pull closer to the plane, still unaware of the jackal behind them. In an attempt to save the incoming occupants of the SUV, Noah waved his arms in a direction away from the plane, trying to divert their course. The driver must have not got the message. Perhaps he thought Noah was trying to make himself seen so he could be rescued, but however Noah’s actions had been interpreted, the SUV didn’t waver an inch from its straight course towards the plane wreck. Noah could only watch in despair as the vehicle came to a halt and two Egyptian men in bulletproof vests, khaki drill cotton jackets and black berets got out, each carrying a submachine gun. The officers marched towards the Mancynn, weapons raised.

Alarmed and wide-eyed, Noah raised his hands, while shouting, “You have to get out of here! You’re about to be killed!”

“Is that some kind of threat?” the shorter of the men questioned, darkly, as the pair approached.

“No...” Noah continued anxiously, “but if you don’t leave now...”

“I am Sergeant Avari and this is Corporal Tahir. We are here to apprehend the individual called Philip for the hijacking of a private plane and the abduction of at least three individuals.”

“Are you not hearing me, you need to...what?”

The man called Tahir pulled a recording device out of his jacket. He began to play the message, and Noah felt a horrible sinking in the pit of his stomach. First there was Cary’s voice, then Philip’s:

“Philip, you shouldn’t be doing this. You shouldn’t have to shoot anyone.”

“You’re only here because of two things: you know too much, and I brought you here. If you continue to question my judgement, I will lock you away somewhere you cannot interfere, is that understood! Now get back to your seat.”

Noah remembered the jackal that had surely come close to the vehicle by now, and returned to beckoning them into the plane, “That’s not what it sounds like.”

The officers did indeed follow him into the wreckage, Avari taking the recording device from Tahir, but the interrogation didn’t cease.

“What is your name, sir?”

Noah wasn’t concentrating enough to answer, but was looking out at the SUV.

“Sir, what is your name?” Sergeant Avari repeated, obviously not picking up on the fact that Noah’s American accent was different to Philip’s British one.

“Noah,” Cary called from her hiding place behind the seats, “Get back in here!”

“So, you’re not the one we want,” Avari remarked, snidely, “But you may still have a connection to him.”

Before Noah could say anything else in his defence, there was a scream of metal being ripped apart coming from where the officers had parked their SUV. The three adults span in the direction of the sound.

“What was that?” Corporal Tahir enquired in a deep voice as dry as the desert around them, eyeing Noah in the process.

“I told you we need to get down.”

Apparently unfazed by Noah’s warnings, Avari instructed, “Adwin, return to the car and see what is going on.”

“Kasuf?” Tahir appeared not to be as confident as his superior.

“I asked you to do something,” Avari pressured him.

Somewhat reluctantly, Tahir left the plane wreck and their line of sight. Noah wanted to run after him, pull him back, but he knew it was too late.

All those within the plane heard the sound of the poor man checking the magazine of his submachine gun become fainter as he approached the SUV and undoubtedly the jackal. All of a sudden, the footsteps stopped, and they all heard the sound of bullets fired in short bursts. Over the gunfire, Tahir’s voice was just audible.

“Oh my...Kasuf! Help me!”

Then the shouting was replaced by one, drawn-out scream, and at last Corporal Adwin Tahir seemed to go the same way as the car.

“What did you do?!” Avari yelled at Noah, looking out towards his late partner’s place of death.

“I’m sorry, but we have to hide. Your friend is lost.”

But it was too late. The taste of blood like a drug for its predator mind, the hunger-driven jackal was once again on the prowl, following the sounds made by its prey-to-be.

It didn’t come through the hole in the cockpit, but rather stalked its way to the gash in the side of the wreckage, which exposed the humans and Mancynn the most. It didn’t move considerably fast, instead it came into view one horrible body part at a time. There was first a black claw leading up to the shaggy grey fur of a front leg, above which was the elongated jaw, from which serrated fangs protruded. The sharp yellow eye latched onto them as soon as they fell into its line of vision.

Avari swore in his native tongue, pointing the end of his submachine gun at the creature’s muzzle, where it got sprayed with spittle as the jackal growled. Avari fired several bullets into the front of the animal, but this only drove it backwards. Now enraged, and carrying a blood-drenched pelt, the jackal pounced forwards towards their hearts. The Avari and Noah dived out of the way in either direction, while Cary and Jimmy scampered further down the plane. The jackal, having missed its prey, landed on the tops of the seats, bending the headrests. It scrambled awkwardly on the small footholds; all four of its legs slipping off the fabric as it turned around to make a second attack.

Noah heard the submachine gun go off. It would appear that Avari had tried to fill the monster with as many bullets as he had left in his weapon. A small number of the brass-cased projectiles found their mark in the hide of the jackal, while most either flew out of the ripped metal cylinder or caused many tiny twangs as they ricocheted off the concaved plastic walls.

“A bit of advice,” Noah shouted at Avari over the cacophony the officer had caused, “Firing bullets randomly in a confined space doesn’t bode well for humans either!”

The chaos of flying bullets and the noise they were creating was sending the jackal insane. There was so much to concentrate on, so much distracting it, yet it just managed to keep a focus on the man bathing in a cloud of his own fear pheromones.

Noah saw what the jackal was about to do by the way it was holding its body. There was little time before it tried once again to rip Avari into bite-sized pieces. To his annoyance, he’d lost his knives in his duel with Petti. At least their last act had been against their providers. His eyes darted around his feet for anything of use. The sole item available close at hand was half a shattered luggage compartment door. He scooped up the fragment and hurled it towards the creature. It knocked the jackal squarely on the head. The red-flecked neck twisted so a yellow eye could lock on the new challenger.

In a second and a couple of bounds it was springing towards Noah. He shuffled backwards, ending up next to Cary and Jimmy’s hiding place. With them watching him with frozen horror, Noah called up all the energy he had regained since his double transit to move matter from his legs and abdomen to the nails on one hand, extending and sharpening them to as far as they could go. The jackal was but a few bounds away from him, teeth aimed at Noah’s heart. Noah began to run too, right into the face of the animal. They were seven metres apart...five metres apart...the pair were all but upon each other. Noah skidded, falling to the floor on his back, thrusting his weaponised hand upwards. The jackal wasn’t able to react to Noah’s sudden drop, and was in mid-leap when the Mancynn slid under it. Beneath the jackal’s exposed belly, Noah thrust his hand into its chest, his extra-long nails reaching all the way through the body. As each moved in opposite directions, the razor-sharp nails cut through flesh and bone, and the jackal was ripped almost into sixths.

The dying monster’s momentum carried it forward to the end of its jump, where it hit the floor between the rows of seats and flipped over, rolling to a stop in front of the cowering Jimmy, who let out a shrill scream at the grotesque face close up to his own.

Noah lay on his back, breathing heavily, letting Jimmy’s terrified noises blend into the background. There was a funny feeling spreading through his extremities as the balance of body mass returned to normal. He only thought of getting up when he saw Avari lean over him, fear still evident on his face.

Noah pulled himself to his feet while listening to the shaky words, “What in the world just happened?”

“Something I can make you forget in an instant,” was the muttered reply that Avari didn’t hear.

Noah walked over to the corpse of the jackal, telling Jimmy to shut the hell up.

“But what if it’s still alive?” the boy whimpered.

Noah held up his hand, which was still drenched in bodily fluids, then indicated the holes in the jackal that he’d made, “What d’you think?”

He shook his hand, flicking some of the creature’s bodily fluids onto a chair.

“Can somebody help me move this,” he gestured to the animal, “to somewhere where we won’t be able to smell it?”

The body was indeed beginning to give off a nauseating aroma. Jimmy shook his head vigorously, pinching his nose as he had obviously noticed the smell as well.

“There’s no way that I’m touching that,” Cary insisted, looking mortified by the prospect of making contact with something so dirty and monstrous.

“I’ll do it.”

Tony stood up from his hiding place behind a collapsed seat. He had hidden well; neither Noah nor the creature had noticed he was there.

“Great,” Noah appreciated that somebody was in a helpful mood, “Grab the hind legs as best you can and pull while I push.”

Working with Noah’s instructions, Tony found suitable hand holds on the hairy legs, which were bent at odd angles like the rest of the body. Noah moved around to the front half of the creature, where he hooked his arms under the head and forelegs. Together, they began to haul the body out of the aircraft. Avari stepped out of the way, still not comfortable around all these...weird people and that...animal.

Outside the plane wreck, the pair heaved the corpse onto the side of a dune, where it could rot in solitude. All Noah could think was that if the pet was here, the owner surely was as well. If his suspicions were correct, he feared for his fellow Mancynn, he feared from the bottom of his heart.

*

With Noah gone, Philip was left with looking after the semi-conscious Eve. And with her unable to move without constant assistance, this meant he would most likely have to stay put. Yet if he did this, he would be giving Gryal a definite head start. He looked down at the girl, and thought about how inconvenient she was making things.

In the end, Philip decided that it wouldn’t hurt to have a little look around, for even if he became trapped in another part of the pyramid, he could just come back here via transit.

There was only one exit to the room, other than the one they had come through. It was partially obscured by shadow, so Philip didn’t immediately notice it was there. He entered it without caution, and began a gentle march down the winding corridor.

As there had been in some the previous passageways, there were torch brackets on the walls. These ones weren’t lit, though, so the Mancynn took one, and, remembering Noah’s earlier trick, closed his hand over the flammable end of the torch and concentrated on making his hand as hot as possible. The torch end flickered into life, generating a sphere of light around him.

It may have been chance or luck (or perhaps misfortune for the other thing in the corridor) that he lit the torch then, for at the exact moment the light reached out into the corridor ahead, the end of a black cloak whipped around the bend in the path. Philip’s keen eyes had caught this, and he only knew of one person in this city with such a garment.

Reacting spontaneously, Philip made pursuit. But his echoing footsteps must have alerted his quarry, for this other person had similarly begun to run. Philip skidded around corners and pelted down passageways in an attempt to catch the one he presumed to be Gryal. The rushing air threatened to plunge him into darkness on several occasions, the flames he had conjured dancing around on the torch head. His lungs were burning as they yearned for more breath, but he hardly noticed as he chased