The walkway ended abruptly. A shattered ruin of dangling metal hung near to floor level. They descended hand over hand down the twisted steel, then dropped the final twelve feet down to floor level, looking back upon the spooky graveyard that felt like an ancient crypt.
To either side ranged side tunnels, or equipment storage areas—but they were too dimly lit to tell.
The first traces of tall, whirring machines made themselves known. These upright engines worked constantly, turbines flushing water through a series of massive pipes, bubbling the water to the summit, five times a man’s height. Dim service lights illuminated the area, casting a faint bluish glow, with a crackle of electric sparks and flicker of faulty bulbs adding to the otherwordly ambience.
“Some kind of mixing station,” murmured Miko.
“A purification centre,” whispered Sket.
Then came a clink. One of the outcasts had dropped his weapon.
“You idiot!” hissed Sket, striking the rat-faced man in the mouth and rounding on the others in distaste. He whirled. A pair of yellow-eyes glowed in the distance. The twin pinpricks grew brighter, coming closer. “Look at what you’ve stirred up.”
The flutter of mechanical wings came whooshing out of the shadows, wings of iridescent colour that caused Miko to freeze in his tracks.
“Not us, chief,” crowed rat-face Grema, wiping the blood from his lip. “Those beasties would have scouted us out without any of our help!”
Two of the mechanical birds swooped low like hawks and flew off down the corridor, huge things as high as a man’s shoulder. Their wingtips almost touched the debris on the cement floor. Two more came soaring on the other’s tail.
Almost at once Miko knew that these robots were designed for slaughter. They guarded the pipes and the air filtration system from intruders like them. There were no militia human guards to be seen.
“Shit! These horrors weren’t here the last time I was here,” growled Sket.
“That’s because you’re a wee bit out of date, chief,” sneered Grema.
The birds doubled back to attack, the latter two fleeing off to guard the rift in the mesh. Miko saw one of the devils up close and he gasped as Sket reeled.
“Hawkbots! Mother of Meru, I should have known! Service bots to repair the pipe, report breaks and repel intruders.”
“Don’t let them see you!” cried Star.
“Kinda hard, don’t you think?” hissed Fenli between his teeth. He drew his mace.
It dawned on Miko that these must have been the Skull Rocs that the nomad chief at the unwanteds’ camp was raving about.
“Hee, hee,” came Beardly’s titter over a hidden loudspeaker. “Time for some fun! Good luck, heroes. This is where your trials begin. Remember our bet. Usk, you’d better not die!”
The fugitives raced for cover to the storage alcoves. A silver-streamed hawk swooped, radiating lethal beams from its eyes.
A golden ray seared a command post equipped with holo screen and touchpad near Star, knocking her off balance. She reeled back in terror. Miko pulled her up, shoved her away before a companion beast sent a ray to scorch her hide. Another hideous metallic fowl with an owl face and razor beak banked sharply and its twitching talons knocked Sket flying. He bashed into Usk, who narrowly avoided steel claws reaching for his insect head.
“Get down!” cried Miko. “The repository. Make for it! The thing can’t fly in there.”
Fenli made it there first and hunched wide-eyed, panting and cursing. A hawkbot landed nearby. With a shrill, electronic squawk, it clacked toward him. Fenli fled back out into the open, hunching low, dodging slanting rays.
Three machines now buzzed low after Miko. Caught in open ground, he and the others were sitting ducks, amidst flashing rays and twitching talons reaching out to grab them and pull them to their doom.
Tosud was lifted up by the shoulders, smashed hard into the rock wall. The man slid to the ground motionless, his neck broken. The metallic monster pounced on him and tore his head off and tossed it aside with its great beak.
Berlast loosed a vengeful cry and launched himself at the metal beast. Sket tripped him, leaped forward and drew him back. “You fool! Do you want to die?”
Miko, who had been studying the thing’s functioning, thought back to his battle with the scorpion-bot on the locust vessel and thrust rocks into their hands. “Quick, these may interfere with their guidance systems. One of you throw your weapon, anything stone or metal near it. Distract the thing. Me and Sket will club it down. Come on, Sket! Hurry!”
The nearest hawkbot banked to attack Star and Usk. Star, frightened out of her mind, tossed her knife—with regret. It clattered near a fresh-landing hawk. Wings outstretched, it took small steps, crouching on its glittering talons, beak prodding it. The bot’s head pivoted sharply as the clinking metal of Usk’s spare dagger rolled near its feet. Its plated sensors scanned the offensive object. A quick yellow energy heat ray flared to melt the blade to oblivion, as if it had never been.
The rocks Miko hurled merely bounced off the shielded plates like ping-pong balls. Fenli, relieved that his stalking bot had taken to the air again, was afraid to pull the pin of the device at his hip, so he stood stock still, gripping the explosive in an indecisive palm.
Miko gave a fierce yell and charged boldly, smashing his dagger’s point into the landed hawkbot’s eye. Its neck, made of gleaming metallic plates, rotated and its eyes cold as death, peered at Miko with clinical dispassion. A blaze of blue sparks spewed out of its damaged eye socket.
Wincing, blinking under the intense glare, Miko slashed, twisted, crouching like a hare, slashed again.
Sket sidestepped a random ray. He crashed his full body weight into the creature’s legs, toppling it, as the breath wheezed out of his lungs. Usk ran
