Chris Wooding - Retribution Falls

The destruction of the aircraft on the landing pad had been no accident. The attackers wanted to be sure nobody got away.

The Manes were here, searching for fresh victims.

Ropes snaked down as the dreadnought loomed closer, its massive hull swelling as it descended until its keel was only a few metres above the rooftops. By the time the Manes came slipping and sliding to the ground, people were already scattering in terror. They’d all heard the stories. The appearance of the dreadnought, the sheer force of its presence, panicked them like goats.

Jez panicked with them, fleeing up the thoroughfare, thinking only of escape. It was Riss who grabbed her arm, more forcefully this time, and tugged her into a doorway. He hurried her down some steps and into a circular underground room full of crates of scientific equipment and boxes of food and clothing. It was cold down here, but not as bad as outside. The sound of their boots echoed from the grey stone walls.

As soon as she was released, she bolted into a corner and huddled there, hugging herself and whimpering. She’d always prided herself on being a level-headed sort, but the sight of the dreadnought was too much for her. The craft exuded terror, an animal sense of wrongness that appealed to the most basic instincts. Whatever the Manes were, her intuition shrieked at their mere presence.

Riss was faring better. He was obviously scared out of his wits, but he was moving with a purpose. He’d grabbed two packs and was shoving dried food and blankets into them.

‘We can’t stay here,’ he said, in response to her unspoken question. ‘They’ll go through the whole town. It’s what they do.’

‘We . . . I’m not . . . I’m not going out there!’ Jez said through juddering lips. She could hear screams and sporadic gunfire from outside.

He pulled the packs tight, hurried over and shoved one towards her. She could see his eyes through the glass of the goggles. He was staring at her hard.

‘Listen,’ he said. ‘When the Manes hit a town, they don’t leave people to tell the tale. The ones who aren’t taken are killed. You understand? We can’t avoid them by hiding down here.’

‘Where can we go?’

‘The excavation. The ice caves. We can survive there for a night. If we get out of town, we can wait till they’re gone.’

Jez calmed a little as his words sank in. Professor Malstrom, their employer, was obsessed with the search for a lost race he’d dubbed the Azryx, whom he believed had once possessed great and mysterious technology. Based on slender evidence and some cryptic writings, he’d divined that they died out suddenly, many thousands of years ago, and their civilisation had been swallowed by the ice. He’d persuaded the university to fund him on various digs over the past year, hoping to uncover relics of that ancient people. So far, he’d not found a thing. But the excavation would provide them with the shelter they needed, and the Manes might not look there.

‘Yes!’ she said. ‘Yes, we can hide out in the caves!’

She clutched at the sanity he offered, soothed by the strength and certainty in his voice. Riss had held a candle for her ever since they’d started working together, as pilot and navigator for Professor Malstrom’s expeditionary team. She liked him as a friend, but had never been able to summon up any feelings deeper than that.

He’d always been protective of her. It was a trait she found annoying: she interpreted it as possessiveness. But now she was ashamed to realise she wanted a protector. She’d crumbled in the face of the horror bearing down on them, and he hadn’t. She clung to him gratefully as he lifted her up and helped her put on her pack.

The thoroughfare was eerily deserted when they emerged. The dreadnought had gone, and the blizzard was closing in, cutting visibility down to fifteen metres. The chill began to seep into them immediately, even through their protective clothing. From somewhere in the skirling mêlée of snowflakes came distant yells and the report of shotguns. Piercing, inhuman howls floated after them.

They stayed close to the buildings. Jez hung on to Riss as he led her towards the edge of town, where a crude trail led up the mountain to the glacier. The excavation site was up there.

They’d not gone far when there was the roar of an engine, and a blaze of light up ahead. Gunfire erupted, startlingly close. Riss pulled Jez into the gap between two domed Yort dwellings, and they hid behind a grit-bin as a snow-tractor came racing up the thoroughfare. The boxy metal vehicles were usually employed to haul supplies and personnel back and forth from the glacier, but someone was trying to escape on one. The Manes had other ideas: there were four of them swarming all over it, trying to drag the doors open or punch their way in through the glass. Jez glimpsed them in the backwash of the headlamps as they passed—ghoulish, feral approximations of men and women—and then the speeding snow-tractor fishtailed on the icy ground. It slewed sideways for an instant before its tracks bit and flung it into the wall of a building.

The Manes abandoned the snow-tractor as several Yorts, wielding shotguns, came backing up the thoroughfare, firing into the blizzard, where more shadowy figures were darting on the edges of visibility. Manes prowled on all fours along rooftops or slunk close to the ground. They flitted and flickered, moving in fast jerks. They jumped from one spot to another without seeming to pass through the distance between.

Jez cringed as she saw the Manes spread out to encircle their victims. She wanted to run, to break from hiding and flee, but Riss held her tight.

The Yorts wore furs and masks. The Manes wore ragged clothes more suited to a mild spring day in Vardia. The cold, which would kill an unprotected human in minutes, meant nothing to them.

She turned away and burrowed into Riss’s arms as the Manes sprang inward as one. She’d closed her eyes to the sight, but she couldn’t shut out the screams of men and the exultant howls of the Manes. Mercifully, it was over in seconds.

Once done, there was silence. It was a short while before Riss stirred and looked out. The sounds of conflict still drifted out of the blizzard, but the Manes had moved elsewhere.

‘Stay here,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back in a moment.’

Jez obeyed, reluctant to leave the relative safety of the grit-bin. His footsteps crunched across the thoroughfare, fading away. For a time, all she heard were faint gunshots and barked commands, carried on the breeze. Then his footsteps came crunching back. She looked out and saw him carrying a cutlass in one hand. There were several dead men scattered across the thoroughfare, their blood stark against the snow. At least three were missing. Not dead, but taken. Stolen by the Manes to crew their terrible craft.

Riss hunkered down in front of her. ‘The man in the snow-tractor is dead,’ he said. He held up the cutlass. ‘I got this.’

‘What about a gun? Don’t we need a gun?’

He wiggled his fingers inside his thick glove. Unlike the Yort suits, the scientists’ gear was built without much consideration for mobility; warmth was their primary concern. The gloves were too clumsy to fit the forefinger inside a trigger-guard, but without them his skin would freeze to the metal.

They headed away from the thoroughfare, through the gaps between the close-set dwellings. The snow had collected in drifts here, and they forged on with some difficulty, but at least the buildings hid them from view. Jez followed in Riss’s wake, allowing him to carve a path for her. Her breath was loud in her ears, trapped inside her mask. Her fur-lined hood obscured her peripheral vision, forcing her to turn to look behind her every few steps. She was afraid something was sneaking up on them, following their trail through the snow.