Grass

pocket for his knife. Behind him Sebastian moaned.

A head peered sightlessly at them from the edge of the trees. Blank eyes glared in their direction. Above the eyes, flesh was torn to expose the bone, which gleamed moistly white. The head wobbled on its neck, rising into view, shoulders, arms, then the hideous Hippae maw below. A rider on a mount! A rider dead or so nearly dead as made no difference. The corpselike mouth opened to emit a screaming rattle, and with that sound the edge of the forest erupted into life. They burst into the open across a wide front, both riders and mounts screaming hate, defiance, death, and dismemberment. Persun turned back to grab Sebastian, who stood as one hypnotized.

Sebastian’s only thought, before his body was ripped apart, was that their morning’s labor had been too late.

Persun backed toward the aircar and swung the knife, a scream choked back, there had been another tunnel to the north. Teeth like razors raked his knife arm. His weapon clattered onto a rock. He clenched his jaw, readying himself for the final pain, his eyes staring into the blind dead eyes of the rider above him.

Something forced its way between him and the Hippae teeth. The aircar was hovering low beside him; Roald was shrieking at him. Hippae teeth darted toward him, then away. He threw himself backward into the open car, seeing, as he did so, that other cars hovered beside the pathetic line of green-robed Brothers, some staggering as they fled, some cut down and dead, some making it to the refuge of the cars, while all around them the Hippae howled and rampaged, their riders jerking and twitching as though they had been tied in position.

Persun tried not to look at what was left of Sebastian as they rose higher. Blood was dripping from his motionless fingers. His head was half out the aircar door. Packs of Hippae and hounds were already moving toward the town. Roald was screaming into the tell-me. Persun saw a Brother snapped in half. Others were shouting. All he could think of was that his fingers did not move. His carving fingers did not move. Beside him Roald cried out at something he saw, but Persun did not turn. His fingers did not move, and he thought it might have been better to have died.

While the Hippae in their hundreds overran the town from the north, battalions of migerers cut through the final few yards of a second tunnel on the south, one both taller and wider than the previous hole, an access route large enough to allow hosts of Hippae to move through it at a run. They came in waves, as they had come over the Arbai city long before; up from the forest toward the port, howling, ready to kill. There was no substantial opposition south of the wall. The handful of troopers at the port were inexperienced. They were taken by surprise and immediately overrun.

Even so, three or four of the quicker among them had time to arm themselves and get to upper levels of a ship maintenance gantry where the Hippae could not follow. Hippae died by the dozens in screaming disbelief, learning thereby to avoid the guns.

North of the wall the horn had been set off in response to Roald’s alarm, and all Commons had fled to the winter quarters, sheltering behind doors already reinforced against attack, though not, most people feared, sufficiently so to stand against repeated battering by Hippae. At the sound of the alarm, James Jellico locked the tall gates. He also had the presence of mind to send runners to find the troopers who had been dallying among the friendly kitchens of town. Though Jelly didn’t yet know where the threat was coming from, the dozen men with the Seraph at least had proper weapons. Possibly the Seraph could bring additional men and weapons from that ship above.

The hastily summoned Seraph chose the order station as his base and sensibly set about keeping danger at bay.

“Two men at every opening,” he ordered, sweating at the sight of Hippae rampaging among the motionless bodies at the port. “Ninety-five degrees auto-fire coverage. Helmet lights on full fan. Night goggles. Auto on anything that moves.”

“There’s a dozen saints at the port,” one of the troopers objected from a dry mouth. “They may try for the gate.”

“There’s fire from the upper levels of that structure, Cherub,” the Seraph replied bleakly, pointing it out as though the trooper were blind. “If the men there have any intelligence at all, they’ll stay where they are. They’re safer there than we are here. If you see anything moving toward the gate, kill it. Communication silence except to report those things breaking in here. I’ve got to get reinforcements down.” He knew it would take hours, even days. The Israfel had not been equipped with assault craft. Who could have thought they would be needed? They had only small shuttles, which would have to come down bringing ten men at a time, setting up a fire perimeter as they did so.

“Sir,” said the Cherub again, “what about those people out in that hotel?”

“What people?” demanded James Jellico in surprise.

“The scientists that the Hierarch sent down,” the Cherub replied. “And that ambassador. Him and his wife.”

In the suite at the Port Hotel. Marjorie wakened at the first howls of the invading Hippae. Her windows faced the wrong way. She went through the room where Rigo lay in exhausted slumber to the window in the outside room. There were darting, wildly moving lights at the port. She saw Hippae lunging in and out of shadow. Without waking Rigo, she went to the door of the suite and opened it. The daytime guard had been replaced by another man.

“Trooper,” she said. “Take a quick look out the window. Some very dangerous creatures are rampaging around out there.”

He gestured her back, as though she were the dangerous one, she standing there in her crumpled clothing with no weapon at all, her hair falling untidily around her face. When he had seen, however, he looked confused, as though teetering among several desires.

“If we’re going to stay here,” she said, “we need to make ourselves as safe from those beasts as we can. We have to assume they’ll come here eventually.”

“How?” he asked. “What do you mean?”

“They can’t climb ladders,” she said. “But they aren’t stupid. They may know or be able to figure out what lifts are. We need to turn off the power to the chutes. We’re on the fourth level here. Without lifts, they probably can’t get up here.”

“Power controls are probably all the way down,” he said.

“Then we’ll have to go all the way down.”

He hesitated, starting toward the lift, then back.

“Come on, boy,” she snapped. “I’m old enough to be your mother, so I can yell at you. Decide what you’re going to do!”

He started to put his weapon down.

“Take it,” she commanded. “They could get into the hotel while we’re down below.”

They fell into the down chute together, Marjorie complaining bitterly under her breath at the slowness of the thing. Luxury seemed to be equated with slow chutes. The Port Hotel held itself out as luxurious. They floated past the doors like dust motes, ending up five levels below the ground with a further five levels still beneath them indicated upon the board.

“Winter quarters down there,” said Marjorie. “I’d forgotten there would be winter quarters.

“It must get really cold here, huh?” the guardsman wanted to know as he looked vaguely around himself.

“I have a feeling cold is only part of it,” Marjorie answered. “Now where?”

He pointed. The power room was opposite the chute, a heavy metal door opening into a room full of consoles and bubble meters.

“We should probably shut it all down,” said Marjorie.

“All? You won’t have any water up there or anything. Besides, how’ll we get back?”

“Climb the chute,” she said succinctly. She moved down the console, reading labels. Main power control Main pump. The main pump seemed to be on a separate circuit from the power control. It might be possible to leave them with water. She folded back the barrier and thrust the power control sharply across. The room went black. “Damn,” she snarled.

A blazing light came on in her eyes. “I should’ve had it on already,” the trooper confessed, adjusting his