fell into the spike-bottomed pits, flattened the spikes, rose unharmed, and leapt right out again. Weight-driven spikes and sword blades leapt out of hiding, only to glance harmlessly away. The improvised land mines erupted all across the compound in sudden spurts of smoke and flames, throwing Grendels into the air and even damaging a few. But there were always more, always more.
An army of death, created to be unstoppable.
The defenders streamed into the last redoubt, packing it full. There were steel shutters on the windows and heavy bolts on the doors. Owen and Hazel took up a position before the great hall, and went head to head with the first Grendels to arrive, trying to occupy the attention of as many aliens as they could, to buy the arriving lepers a few more moments of precious time.
Bonnie Bedlam was there too, with Midnight Blue. Bonnie laughed in sheer exuberance as the Grendels swarmed around her, glorying in a battle that tested her as never before. She swung her sword with all her strength, beating Grendels to the ground and cracking open their armor. She was bleeding constantly from wounds that never had the time to heal properly before they were torn open again, but she thrust aside the growing weakness in her arms, and gloried in the never ending rush of pain and regeneration.
Midnight Blue teleported back and forth in a circle around her comrade in arms, blinking in and out of existence just long enough to land a telling blow with her ax before vanishing again. Midnight chanted her order's battle songs to the rhythm of her blows, but the strength was going out of her arms. Teleporting continuously took a lot out of her, and it was getting harder all the time to concentrate. She could feel herself slowing down, and the Grendels were starting to shake off her blows.
All the Maze people were slowing down as they burned up the energies that fueled them. The human body was never meant to operate at such extremes for long.
Colonel William Hand and Otto took their stand at the entrance to the maze of narrow alleys that led between the huts. Many lepers had gone to ground there, barricading themselves inside familiar surroundings. Hand didn't give much for their chances, but did his best to buy them all the time he could. He fought savagely, calling up old skills as his strength quickly gave out. Otto guarded his side as always. But the Colonel was a long way past his prime, already weakened by a terrible disease, and after a few desperate minutes the Grendels knocked him down and swarmed right over him. He lay on his back, bleeding heavily from a dozen vicious wounds, trying to find the sword he'd dropped, as crimson armored legs stamped down around him. A Grendel loomed over him, and steel claws slashed down. Hand cried out in spite of himself, and then Otto was there one last time, throwing himself across his Colonel. The steel claws sank deeply into his back, and ripped away his hunch and half his spine. Otto shuddered once and died. The Grendel moved on.
Hand tried to move the dead dwarf off him and couldn't. There was no feeling in his hands and no strength in his arms. His throat hurt, and he could hear his breath whistling strangely. He forced one hand to his neck, and it came away soaked in blood. One of the Grendels had cut him a good one, and he hadn't even noticed. The Colonel let his hand fall back on the hard ground. He'd always thought he'd welcome a warrior's death rather than letting the leprosy eat him away by inches, but now the time was here, he would have traded everything for just a few more days, a few more hours, of life. But God didn't make deals.
He would have liked time to put his affairs in order, write a few letters… his thoughts drifted for a moment before they snapped back into focus. He couldn't die yet. Not while he still had one last duty to perform. One last order to carry out. He forced his cold right hand to the remote control Saint Bea had given to him. She'd trusted him to know the right time to use it, and have the guts to hit the switch no matter what.
The Colonel smiled grimly, his mouth leaking blood. 'Goodbye, Otto,' he said, or thought he said. And hit the switch.
The explosives planted under the compound floor all went off at once, a massive thunderclap that threw the ground up into the roof, and tore the packed Grendels apart. The whole compound disappeared in a cloud of smoke, the wall blasted outward by the shaped and positioned charges, while the huts of the village stood untouched. Alien guts and shards of crimson armor pattered back to the cratered ground. No trace remained anywhere of Colonel William Hand and Otto.
Owen and Hazel fought doggedly on before the communications center, tired beyond pain or hope, driven now only by a determination not to fall while they were still needed. They were both bleeding freely from a dozen bad wounds, and the strength was going out of their blows. Owen looked around him. Nearly all the lepers were inside now. A voice yelled for him to get inside too, so they could close and bolt the doors. Owen considered it. Time seemed to slow down, so that he had all the time in the world to make up his mind. He looked to his left, and saw Bonnie and Midnight fighting back to back, their faces slack with pain and exhaustion, surrounded by Grendels. There was no way they could get to the hall in time. And besides, the hall wasn't much of a sanctuary anyway. The Mission's outer wall had been far stronger, and it hadn't slowed the Grendels down. He looked to his right and saw Hazel, still fighting, dripping with her own blood. No, Owen decided. He wasn't going to turn and run. He sighed regretfully. Time to play his last trump card, and hope it was good enough.
'Shut the door!' he yelled.
And turned back to face the enemy. He reached inside himself, diving deep into his mind, through the undermind to the back brain, and tapped into the power that lived there. He threw back his head and howled the old war cry of his Clan—
Those aliens nearest him blew apart in sudden explosions of blood and guts and shattered armor. Owen stalked unsteadily forward, his eyes wide and unblinking, his rage beating on the air in time to his heartbeat, his face grim and relentless. He had given himself up to his power as never before. He turned his head, and Grendels died where he looked. His boots hit the ground, and earthquakes split apart the cratered earth of the compound. The Deathstalker had released his rage, and the Grendels could not stand against it. They blew apart or were blown away, and not one of them could get close enough to touch him. Owen knew the power was killing him. He could feel things tearing apart, breaking down, inside him. He knew he should shut the power down while he still could. That mortal man was not meant to burn so very brightly. But he couldn't, not while the innocent still needed him. So he walked slowly on, killing Grendels, dying inside a little more with every step, killing himself as he killed his enemy.
Deathstalker.
But all too quickly there came a time when even need and determination couldn't drive him forward another step. His mortal frame had never been meant to channel so much power for so long, and finally it had nothing left to give. Owen fell to his knees. He felt very tired. He'd done so much. Maybe he could sleep now, and if he was lucky, he wouldn't dream. He fell forward, and his face slammed into the blood-soaked ground. The winds shut down, the ground stopped shaking, and the rage of the Deathstalker no longer beat upon the air.
Hazel d'Ark saw his last moment of glory and saw him fall. She'd watched in awe as his anger swept aside the Grendels, but now she cried out and ran to him. She put a hand on his shoulder, but there was no response. Hazel cried out again, in shock and horror and the pain of a heart breaking at last. She would have cried, but she didn't know how. She never had.
She looked up and saw the remaining Grendels reforming. Owen had killed a lot of them, but there were still a hell of a lot left. More than enough to tear down the communications hall and kill every living thing within it. They moved slowly forward, baring their steel teeth, flexing steel claws, and Hazel looked at them and smiled the coldest smile of her life. They were going to pay for what they had done. All of them.
She'd tried to tell herself that her particular power wasn't needed. That the Mission already had enough defenders. That she didn't need to call up alternates of herself, and see them die over and over again. Bonnie and Midnight had made her alternates real to her as never before. But she needed them now, and so she called on them, not in her own name but in Owen's. Called them forth to avenge the Deathstalker.
And they came.
Suddenly the compound was full of Hazel d'Arks, screaming in rage and loss. And all the Grendels who hadn't died under Owen's attack suddenly found themselves facing an army of warrior women, of varying faces and forms, but all of them united in pain and sorrow. There was a moment as both sides looked at each other and recognized a
