James Moore - SNAFU - Hunters

The rough scrape of bone against wood.

Silanus’s breath caught and he slid down onto the floor. It was in here. With him. How was that possible?

The noise came again, frenzied now. Something brushed his foot. He ran. Colliding with the door, he tumbled out onto the snow.

The clouds had parted and the moon shone brightly on the farm. He rolled onto his back and looked into the house. The Droch-fhola was pulling itself free from the wall as though it had always been a part of the wooden structure. Those empty sockets locked on Silanus as the thing’s feet snapped away from the house and came after him.

It was out the door before he could get to his feet. I’m going to die here.

A dark shape dropped onto its back. The Droch-fhola buckled but did not fall as Lepidus wrapped an arm around its throat. The soldier raised his yew dagger as the creature stood to its full height, thrashing and bucking like a rabid stallion.

Lepidus fell from its back.

It turned to him as Crispus slammed into its side. The two crashed to the ground, snow dusting the air, and the soldier brought his dagger down into the Droch-fhola’s thigh. It screamed that same awful scream and bent its head backward at an impossible angle, clamping its jaws onto Crispus’s face and rose.

Crispus punched it twice, two solid blows that sounded like an axe striking oak, and then it shook its head viciously from side to side. A loud snap and Crispus fell limp to the ground.

The snow exploded around Silanus as the others erupted from the ground. Crito and Antonius charged its flank as Marcellus and Gaius circled to its front. The two other soldiers, Titus and Lucius, charged toward its side, surrounding it. It crouched low, its head darting back and forth between the three groups. Crispus’s dagger was still sunk into its thigh but no blood flowed.

Lepidus leapt from where he was thrown and jabbed it with his dagger. His retreat wasn’t quick enough and the thing’s claws gashed his leg open. Antonius made use of the distraction and stabbed its ribs. It whirled to strike but Gaius had stabbed its other side. Neither wound was deep but something flowed from each and danced in the wind. Titus made a quick jab – missed. Crito, Marcellus, and Lucius repeated the maneuver and some of what escaped the Droch-Fhola landed in front of Silanus. He hesitated a moment before snatching some and rubbing it between his fingers. It wasn’t blood. It looked like dried, crumbled leaves.

Antonius stabbed it again but it spun as Gaius followed, slipping by him and rushing toward the house. Lepidus tried to roll out of its way but it hooked the back of the soldier’s armor and dragged him as though he weighed nothing.

“After it,” Marcellus shouted and the men rushed the house.

Silanus couldn’t make himself follow. A voice whispered in his head that he should run, that he owed these men nothing, and to stay here would be his death. It was a voice he had struggled with for a long time and he fought hard to ignore it.

Rushing to the door, he saw the thing toss Lepidus against the back wall hard enough to shake the entire house. The soldier crumpled to the floor. Whirling on the others as they entered, the creature was a blur of limbs. For a moment Silanus could only see the indigo armor of the Hundredth and then, one by one, they fell. He would be next.

He backed away from the melee.

It roared, a sound of victory that reverberated like thunder, and then Marcellus was tossed from the cabin. Blood covered his face and Silanus was sure he was dead.

The Droch-fhola ripped the door from the hinge as it stepped from the house. It roared again and leapt for Marcellus.

The Decanus squirmed onto his back and brought up his gladius. The Droc-fhola fell on it. The blade pierced its chest, but the monster didn’t seem to feel it. It pushed itself down the iron, dry leaves crumbling from its mouth and onto Marcellus’s face.

“Go on, then,” the Roman said. “Send me on my way, you bastard!”

It roared and jerked forward.

Without thought, Silanus rushed forward. He slammed his yew dagger into the Droc-fhola’s back. It shrieked as the wood sunk deep and Silanus pressed harder, pushing it in further. It thrashed but he would not let go.

Yes, he thought, ecstatic to bring it agony. Die you miserable thing!

It shrieked louder. Something like a thin branch whipped up into his face.

Everything went black.

When Silanus woke, the smell of smoke was thick in the air. He struggled to sit and almost threw up.

“Slow down,” Marcellus said and placed a hand on his shoulder.

Silanus lay back on the bed. They were still in the farmhouse.

“Did it get away?”

“No.” The Decanus leaned back in his chair by the bed. “You saw to that.”

He didn’t know how to respond. For a moment when he woke, he thought everything had been a nightmare. The knowledge it had been real should have driven him mad. Instead, pride rose within – he had been the one to kill the Droch-Fhola.

“We’ll be moving on soon. Likely tomorrow.”

Silanus nodded and tried to think on which way he should travel from here; of what life held for him now.

Antonius barked orders to the men outside as Marcellus watched them through the door. “You’re welcome to come with us. If you want.”

“As a prisoner?”

The older man laughed. It stretched the stitches in his face. “As an apprentice. Not every man can be a soldier in the Hundredth, boy.” Marcellus turned to him and slapped a hand onto his chest. “Not every man belongs to this life. There’s no shame in saying no. You’ve seen how we live.” He coughed once, a wet sound deep in his chest echoing it. “And seen how we die.”

Silanus struggled to sit again. The room spun but he willed himself to steady. That voice again whispered that he owed them nothing, that he should leave here and run far from them. The voice was much easier to ignore this time.

“Four bonks?” Lieutenant Washington ran a hand over the wispy stubble on his dark-skinned head. “Are they stupid?”

Matt Rowley tried not to sigh, and for the most part succeeded – the resulting noise more of a dissatisfied grunt.

Conor Flynn, just as bald as Washington but pale as milk, grinned at Matt across the giant conference room table emblazoned with the eye-and-thunderbolt logo of the International Council on Augmented Phenomena, the elite organization founded through UN-NATO cooperation to combat the threat of Jade and unregulated Gerstner Augmentation. “FNG got an opinion?”

Jeff Hannes froze in his thousand-dollar suit and glared at all of them, his thumb over the ‘advance slide’ button. “Are you implying there are non-stupid Jade users, Washington?”

“Point, sir. But they have to know they’re playing with fire. I mean, look what Gerstner Augs did to the Russian military. A gang’s not going to have that kind of firepower.”

Flynn spoke without taking his eyes from Matt. “Maybe that’s what the other three are for. One goes bonk, the other three take it down before it wrecks the neighborhood. Somebody else Augs up; lather, rinse, repeat.”

Washington pounded a fist on the manila folder that contained his mission briefing. “Are we equipped to deal with that kind of oomph?”

While avoiding Flynn’s unwavering gaze, Matt replied. “Yeah, we are, according to the analytics. If they don’t know we’re coming.” Matt turned to Jeff. “They don’t know, do they?”

Hannes threw up his hands. “Unless they’ve got a mole in this room, they’re clueless, just another Jade gang hopped up on power. The biggest, sure, and they’ve seized way too much territory, but they’re just a gang. And besides, to have a mole they’d have to know we’re operating on American soil.”