C. E. Murphy - No Dominion - A Garrison Report

More stones shook loose as I made my way around and over boulders. I had rope in my backpack along with some very basic rock climbing gear, but if I ended up anywhere sheer I was going to have to find a way around. Being prepared for every possible contingency just weighed too much. I stopped for another drink of water, wiping sweat away and listening to rocks crack and bounce on their way down the slope.

A long gulp and a few steps later, I realized I hadn’t been walking on shoaly ground for some time now, and hadn’t knocked any stone loose in longer than that.

Carefully, I shrugged my backpack off, knelt, and unzipped it as I looked over my shoulder. Everything in the pack had a designated place. I didn’t need to see what I was doing to find the frags, nor to gently swing the grenade launcher into place so I could load it.

The boulders just down the mountainside from me were moving. Rocking slowly, like giant eggs trying to right themselves on invisible legs. Smaller stones were crushed beneath them as they shifted, puffing into dust and bouncing into the distance. I caught signs of more movement uphill from me, and breathed carefully as I loaded the last grenades into the launcher. Then I looked up.

Stone golems were staggered across the mountainside above me. Taller and broader than me, they had visible black pits of eyes and no hands or feet, just blunt ends to their long arms and stubby legs. They had mouths, too, gaping maws like caverns built into a moving mountainside. They moved slowly and in rhythm with each other. Below me, one of the boulders cracked, egg-like again, and another golem emerged from it. The snap of a second boulder breaking apart sounded like a gunshot. I counted six, and more being birthed. I would need a blanket assault to take them all out at once, and my grenade launcher wasn’t going to be enough.

A rumble started, so deep it made hairs on my neck stand up. It felt familiar, but the sensation slipped away as one of the golems below me crouched, then leapt.

I caught it in the belly with a grenade, and flung myself behind a man-sized huddle of rock to protect myself from the fragments. The roar disrupted the rumbling, but it started up again a moment later, angrier this time. The golems picked up their speed, converging on me. I waited a count of eight, long enough for the ground beneath me to vibrate hard with their running steps, then bounced up and fired again, hoping to catch more than one with the next grenade.

Two golems exploded into pebbles. I bellowed, “Hoo-ah!” and dropped again, waiting for the rest to come closer.

The stone next to me cracked open and a golem dropped its full weight on me.

Air slammed out of me in a sob. My ribs weren’t shattered, but I’d felt them crack. If the golem levered itself up a few inches and dropped on me again, I’d be flattened. I couldn’t afford that, and I didn’t have many other options. Neither did it, though. It growled and snapped at me toothlessly, but I was certain if anything got caught between those flat gums it would be crushed. I exhaled to get the last air out of my gut so I could breathe in again, and when all the air was gone, I squirmed one arm free. The frag rifle was crushed between me and the golem, but even Joanne might think twice about setting off a grenade on her chest. Maybe not—I’d seen her take hits at least that hard and walk away—but it was a rash idea.. And I didn’t have magic to back me up. I wheezed a breath past the pain, fumbled a grenade from the backpack, and swore I would never do anything this stupid again if I lived through doing it once.

Then I pulled the pin and shoved the grenade into the golem’s mouth. I grabbed its lower jaw and jammed it up, closing its mouth on the grenade, and I counted eight seconds in a prayer: “Please, God, let this work. Let it work.”

Stone exploded on top of me. Shards slammed into my belly. Dust penetrated my pores. A thump like being hit by the shockwave of a sound barrier breach drove me a few inches into the ground. My ears started to ring , the noise building until it had a visual of its own, rings spreading through the black behind my eyelids.

On top of that, I heard something else. An irritating vibration, enough to set the teeth that didn’t feel loosened on edge. It made the air shiver, like a barrier set up around my skin.

Like a subwoofer playing a pitch to drive mosquitoes away. Subsonics that humans couldn’t hear. Subsonics that rattled the air, though, and probably the earth.

I’d led the rock golems right to me.

Maybe I wasn’t so smart after all. If I’d done it on purpose it would’ve been clever, and it was still better than hiking all over the eastern Cascades trying to find them, but I was supposed to be the one who relied on thinking ahead. Thinking ahead was supposed to keep me from getting cracked ribs and grenade concussions.

The ringing in my ears faded a little. I had to sit up, even knowing it was going to hurt. It was going to hurt a lot. I did it all at once, rubble falling away in a noisy counterpoint to the pain crashing through my body. I didn’t dare prod my ribs to see how bad they were. I could find out later, after I’d finished destroying rock golems and taking out their demon father. I rolled all the way to my feet, panting through the pain, and didn’t dare stop to take stock of what other damage I’d sustained.

Four golems had been reduced to sand. There were four left, and no obvious signs of more generating. I wondered if eight was a number of significance in ancient Sumer, or if I’d just interrupted their spawning session before it reached the number I knew was significant, which was sixty. I had to hope so, because I didn’t have enough ammo for another forty-two golems.

The four left were spreading out, acting more wary. That was anthropomorphizing: rock did not act wary, even when animated. It didn’t plan, either, but I did, and to my eyes, it looked like they were preparing a more strategic attack. If all four picked up speed and moved in on me at once, I was done for.

At least I could even the odds. There were two grenades left in the launcher. I hefted it to my shoulder, took a breath against the oncoming kickback, and fired.

The grenade flew where it was supposed to, but I dropped. The kickback was centered against my shoulder, but it slammed the whole body at the best of times. Firing it with cracked ribs was not the best of times, and I didn’t have a tripod to brace it with for the final shot. I gritted, “Hoo-ah,” through my teeth this time, sat up, and fired a second time before I let myself think about it.

I blew a leg off the closest golem. It would have to do. The remaining two hesitated and I seized the opportunity to snag more grenades from my pack. Only two frags left, but three flash-bangs as well. I detonated them close enough to myself to provide cover while I crept away, an Army crawl that banged my ribs against the ground but meant not having to get to my feet again. I had dust in my teeth. Even the Mojave hadn’t ground itself into me as much as this mountainside was doing.

I covered forty yards before the smoke cleared. Then I rolled on my back and stared at the sky, taking deep cleansing breaths. I couldn’t manage another frag unless the golems got close enough to throw one at them, and I didn’t want to let them get that close. I put the frags on my belt anyway, just in case, then quietly drew my pistol. They had eyes. Eyes were normally vulnerable. I just had to be steady enough to make the shot. I breathed, and listened, and when the cracking footsteps came clear, I rolled to my feet a second time, sighted, and fired.

The first volley was perfect. I caught one of them in the eye. Its head exploded into puffs of dust. The other one turned its face away. All the way away, so the back of its head faced me. The third one, the one I’d blown the leg off, was still down. I thanked God for small favors and got the second-to-last frag out. I knew how far I could throw it, uninjured. I figured I could manage half that distance with my ribs on fire, then knocked another three yards off to be safe. It put the detonation range dangerously close, but I couldn’t risk the launcher again. Another hit like that and I’d be unconscious. And I hadn’t even laid eyes on the big show yet.