Larry Niven - The Barsoom Project

They were oddly hypnotic. He wanted to spend more time studying them, but a whisper from across the path pulled him back to his mission.

Yarnall motioned with his war club. Bowles had moved on ahead, maneuvering to a piece of masonry within ten yards of the line of naked Eskimos.

Max was twenty yards away. From here the men and women appeared listless; they stood as if in a deep trance or drugged state. Their hair fluttered in the wind, and they stared straight ahead toward the low opening.

He could see a little into the room now. There was no door, just an arch formed by stone slabs that seemed almost haphazardly thrown about, by earthquake or tidal wave or long ages under water. Certainly, no living force could move blocks so massive…?

Deep within the recesses of the alcove, lights flickered and shapes moved. When the wind ceased howling for even a few moments, he heard screams that turned his stomach.

Bowles was right. No one could leave a friend to such ministrations, regardless of the risk.

They were heroes!

He checked both sides and joined Yarnall. Yarnall slapped him on the shoulder and, crouching, ran up to join Bowles.

Bowles was flattened out against the wall… heh. Well, the stout actor was certainly trying to flatten himself. Watching, waiting. He showed Max a sickly smile. Max read fear and hope and a touch of genuine heroism in that smile. Bowles motioned Yarnall over to the other side of the divide. Both took aim at the headless thing And it turned to face them. Max almost screamed.

It was brownish, with skin that folded over and over itself like an old overcoat, cracked and blistered, moving like sheaths of heavy leather. It had no head, but it had a face. The face was set into its belly. It was heavy and bovine, leaden-jowled, with bright little eyes the shape and size of almonds.

It was utterly evil, almost an abstraction of malevolence. Slits for eyes, and a mouth that looked like the teeth within it had chewed their way to the surface, leaving the lips raw and tattered, the incisors sharp and encrusted with red and brown filth.

It was the face of a Yeti, and it snarled at them, and opened its mouth for a scream Bowles threw his spear. It missed and clattered on the far side.

Yarnall began firing.

The first two shots seemed to have no effect at all. But the third drove the beast to its knees. The fourth knocked its bowed legs from beneath it. It flopped back onto its massive, gnarled shoulders.

Bowles motioned them back, and dashed out, and pulled one of the naked men out of the line. The others stood cowed, afraid to move, or too numb from cold…

Or something.

But the instant that Bowles grabbed Mik-luk, the Eskimo grabbed him back. His mouth opened hugely. In less than a second it had expanded to the size of a kitchen oven. He screamed like a dying wind.

Bowles’s scream was quite a lot louder as he tried to tear himself loose. Max started out from his hiding place, and saw shadows emerging from the depths of those odd, disquieting angles.

Bowles screamed, “Get back! Get back! He’s already-”

That was all that he had time to say before the others were on him, all of the naked, frozen men. Bowles went down, their nails and teeth savaging him.

A second Amartoq stepped out in front of Yarnall. The Guardsman was too close to get his rifle up. The torn, lipless mouth set in its stomach-face snarled, and it wrenched the rifle from his hands and bent it into a “U” shape. Yarnall was frozen for a moment, and only Bowles’s screams roused him from his shock.

From Bowles they heard a last inarticulate cry as the light within the alcove brightened, and Robin Bowles was dragged inside.

Yarnall scrambled back, tripped and fell. Max looked at the Guardsman’s face. The fear there was not an act. The sight of the beast advancing on him was as intimidating as anything that Max could imagine, though by now his imagination had turned wild and crazy.

But Max was in motion, moving forward, swinging the usik. He brought it down with a thump, squarely between the monstrous shoulders.

He felt the thump. It startled him. The beast grunted with pain. Other shapes, other forms emerged from the shadows, hissing curses. He swung the club backhand across the thing’s face, and howled victory as he saw the damage.

It screamed again, covered its maimed face, and staggered back. Max scooped up Yarnall, shoulder under armpit. “Come on, we’ve got to get Bowles.”

“No! No, Max!” Yarnall had found his feet. “He was right. We need a unified plan. Otherwise we’re just going to get picked apart.”

From shadows all around them, the misshapen figures clawed their way out, grunting and slobbering, reaching for them with long black nails. Yarnall picked up his twisted rifle. “Mothers are strong!”

Max and Yarnall helped each other stumble back a few feet before they were cut off. Three of the creatures lumbered toward them, the eyes in the misplaced faces alight with blood fever.

Yarnall and Max stood back to back. Max jabbed at the nearest. It tested their defensive perimeter with a looping paw stroke Max swung, felt no contact, but saw a paw flash red. The creature sniffed at the wounded arm, and slowed; but the others charged.

A claw got past his guard. Although he felt only a buzzing sensation in his shoulder, a bright red splotch appeared. He cursed, and began to swing his usik left-handed.

But the creatures, for all their size and strength, were clumsier than he, and at a disadvantage: none of them used weapons. Time and again Yarnall and Max bloodied them, and Max’s usik struck one of them a thundering blow, crushing it to the ground. The Amartoqs’ torn, lipless mouths snarled at him, and Max snarled back.

There came a swirl of motion, and now the creatures were caught between two groups of screaming, blood-maddened Gamers.

Johnny Welsh had abandoned his rifle for the moment. His whale-rib sword rose and fell in a glittering arc. An Amartoq howled as its hologram chest was cloven to the teeth.

Max’s peripheral vision found Charlene Dula as a seven-foot elvish beauty, with long thin anus and long slender legs and pale skin, and a lantern jaw making her look like nothing so much as Elric of Melnibone. Her ivory sword flashed and struck. She moved in and out on those improbably long legs, sore knees forgotten in the heat of the moment. She was glorious, swirling in her skins, a primal woman from some lost tribe of albino NBA superstars.

And then the rest of his comrades arrived. Max howled, flashing his war club, noting the red slashes that appeared on the bodies of the enemy as he struck.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Yarnall take another hit from a monster’s claw, and A shocking buzz surrounded him, made his whole body tingle. He hadn’t been paying attention, and a stroke from a five-clawed hand had almost disemboweled him.

He staggered back, and looked at his midsection in disbelief. The spreading red stain wasn’t exactly realistic, but it was damned disturbing. He lifted his club And got a warning shock.

He backed up. This wasn’t fair! It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He was about to die! The monster was coming closer and closer, its lidless eyes staring, its mouth drooling blood as broken teeth chewed at its own lips.

Max backed into a wall, and he lifted his one good arm in defense or in supplication And suddenly Orson was there.

Two-Ton Orson Sands ran thudding to the rescue on the point of the “B” team as they rushed from the shadows, tumbling pellmell into the jaws of battle. Orson interposed himself ‘twixt brother Max and the monster, and thrust his whale-rib spear with a speed that Max would never have suspected. The monster looked down at its guts in amazement, and crumpled.