Deathstalker War (31 page)

“No,” said Finlay calmly. “I don’t think so. Bruin Bear wouldn’t do that. If he wanted us dead, he and the Goat have had plenty of opportunities. All they’ve done so far is talk and smile us to death. Besides, if you can’t trust Bruin Bear, who can you trust?”

And then they both rocked in their seats as Edwin cut his speed suddenly, slowing almost to a crawl. All the humans looked ahead, but couldn’t see anything. Bruin Bear stood up in his seat, and stared ahead, one paw shading his eyes. “What is it, Edwin?”

“The tracks are out, some way ahead. Someone’s dug them up again.”

“I can’t see anything,” said Finlay.

“Our eyes were designed to be more than human,” said the Sea Goat. “We can see for miles.”

“I can see if,” said Giles. “It doesn’t look too bad. Can we repair it?”

“Oh sure,” said Edwin. “I always carry spares these days. Just in case. With you humans to help, we should be finished inside an hour.”

“Okay,” said Bruin Bear. “Take us as far as you safely can, and then stop.” He sat down again, frowning heavily. The expression looked out of place on his round furry face. “I don’t like this,” he said suddenly to Finlay and Julian. “There’s no reason for anyone to dig up the tracks all the way out here, except to interrupt our journey. And since Edwin, the Goat, and I are not all that important, it can only mean that the bad toys know about you. Which could mean we are in deep doo-doo.”

Finlay looked around him. The grassy plains stretched away in every direction, open and empty and innocent. “Seems safe enough.”

The Bear growled suddenly, deep in his throat. It was a dark, disturbing sound. “Never take that for granted. Not in Summerland. Nothing is necessarily what it seems anymore.”

“Including you?”

“Including me. I’m not innocent anymore.”

The train slowly eased to a halt, in a cloud of steam. Bruin Bear and the Sea Goat jumped off and hurried forward. The humans got off more slowly, secretly glad for a chance to stretch their legs and ease aching posteriors. The train and its carriages had not been designed for long journeys. The Bear signaled for them to stay where they were while he and the Goat examined the damage. Edwin vented steam nervously, and then apologized. Bruin Bear leaned over the dug-up tracks and studied them thoughtfully. Half a dozen sleepers had been broken apart, and the pieces scattered. Where they had been was now a shallow pit in the grass. Dark loose earth showed clearly, rough and disturbed. The Bear knelt beside it. The Sea Goat frowned, and half reached out a hand to pull his friend back.

“Not too close, Bear. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

“You’ve always got a bad feeling about things.”

“And I’m usually right.”

The Bear looked back at the Goat, exasperated, and that was when the cloth hand burst up out of the broken earth and fastened around his ankle. Bruin Bear cried out in shock and alarm, and then toppled over backwards. He tried to scramble away, and the owner of the hand came rising up out of the pit it had dug under the tracks, squirming out of the loose earth like a maggot from an apple. It was a rag doll, stitched together from hundreds of different-colored patches, but there was metal in it, too, great steel staples holding it together like some ragged Frankenstein creature. Its cloth face crumpled with rage and hatred as it looked across at the humans by the train, and then its mouth stretched wide, stitches tearing apart, and it screamed. There was enough human emotion in the artificial voice—a horrid implacable howl of fury and eternal enmity—to chill the soul.

Bruin Bear kicked his foot as hard as he could, but couldn’t break free. The rag doll pulled itself over him as he struggled, and raised a cloth hand holding a long machete. The doll snarled at the Bear, and then swung the machete down with savage speed. It was only a few inches from Bear’s head when the energy bolt from a disrupter tore the cloth arm away from its body, and sent the burning arm flying through the air, still clutching its machete. The Sea Goat stuffed the gun back inside his trench coat, and hurried forward. The Bear and the doll were still struggling furiously. Bruin Bear rolled over suddenly, pulling the doll beneath him, and sharp metal claws erupted from his paws. He tore into the rag doll with vicious strength, and shreds of cloth flew through the air. The Goat had almost reached them when the earth under the broken tracks boiled and seethed, and a dozen more rag dolls came clawing up out of the ground, like the undead from their graves.

“Don’t just stand there!” Edwin the train cried to the stunned humans. “Do something! Help them!”

“What the hell,” said Finlay, starting forward with his sword in his hand. “Anyone who hates Bruin Bear has to be one of the bad guys.”

The others moved quickly after him, and soon a battle was raging furiously around the dug-up tracks. The rag dolls were incredibly strong and unbelievably limber, their limbs and bodies bending at impossible angles as they launched their attacks. They all had swords and machetes of some kind, the jagged blades crusted with old dried blood. The rebels’ swords cut deep into the cloth bodies and out again, but did no harm. Stuffing flew on the air, but the rag dolls just smiled their awful smiles and kept pressing forward. They bobbed and weaved in horrible contortions, attacking without pause for breath, filled with an endless savagery. Julian stabbed one where its heart should have been, and the doll just snarled at him, pulling itself along the blade to get at him. Julian put his foot against the doll’s yielding chest and forced it away as he withdrew his blade. The doll grabbed at his ankle, and he had to jump back to avoid its grasp. It came after him, grinning remorselessly, and Julian wondered where the hell he could hit the damned thing and do some damage.

Finlay and Evangeline fought back-to-back. Evangeline’s skill with a sword was strictly limited, but Finlay’s speed and skill were enough to keep the dolls at arm’s length, while she guarded his back. She cut and hacked doggedly, and tried to keep her horror to herself as the dolls just kept coming back for more. Finlay gutted one doll with a savage sideways sweep, and was surprised to see dark fluids that might have been blood oozing from the tear in its rag stomach. The doll screamed furiously, and fought on, as strong as before.

Giles Deathstalker opened up a wide space around him, his great strength and long sword picking up the rag dolls and throwing them aside. A sneer curled his lip. As a man who’d once been Warrior Prime of the first Empire, he felt fighting a bunch of dolls rather beneath him. Until he realized that for all his efforts, he wasn’t doing them any real damage, or even slowing them down much. Me was facing an enemy that refused to lie down and die, and a slow chill went through him as he realized he didn’t know what to do to stop them.

Toby and Flynn stayed well back, getting it all on film. Flynn’s camera hovered above the fray, close enough to get all the details, but high enough to be out of reach. Toby had a feeling he ought really to be joining in, but comforted himself with the thought that if even these trained fighters were having a hard time, the odds were he wouldn’t be able to contribute anything useful anyway. But he still felt guilty.

“Go for the heads!” he yelled above the roar of battle cries and screaming dolls. “They must have some kind of control mechanisms; go for them!”

Finlay beheaded one of the dolls. The head went bouncing away across the grass, still grimacing, and the body just went on fighting.

“Of course,” said Flynn, “Since these are automatons, there’s no guarantee their brains are located in their heads.”

The human fighters were slowly being forced back together in a tight knot, fighting off their ragged opponents with desperate strength. No matter what damage they took, the dolls just kept pressing forward. They were screaming endlessly now, full of rage and hatred, the horrid sound continuing long after human lungs would have failed. Giles had boosted, but even that extra strength and speed wasn’t helping much. The cloth limbs still moved with eerie suppleness, their lack of joints giving them the constant advantage of attacks from unexpected angles. There seemed no end to the dolls’ energy. They had no muscles to grow tired.

Bruin Bear and the Sea Goat fought to get back and help the humans, but other dolls held them at bay. The Bear and the Goat fought with animal ferocity, slowly tearing the dolls to pieces. They couldn’t bear the thought of more humans dying on their world.

Until finally Julian Skye threw aside his sword and fired up his mind. A doll’s machete streaked for his throat, and then suddenly all the dolls were thrown backwards by a wave of pure psionic energy erupting out of the young esper. The psistorm swept the rag dolls away like straws in a hurricane, tearing them to pieces. The humans clung together, untouched. Bruin Bear and the Sea Goat clung to the ground as dolls went flying over their heads. Energy spit and crackled on the air, and the dolls were torn limb from limb, stitch from stitch, the pieces scattered widely across the grassy plain. In the end, only small twitching pieces were left lying around the silver railway tracks. The humans slowly lowered their swords and looked about them as Bruin Bear and the Sea Goat applauded wildly. Edwin was sounding his steam whistle over and over again, almost beside himself with relief and excitement. Giles turned to glare at Julian.

“Why the hell didn’t you do that sooner?”

And then he stopped as the esper fell forward onto his knees. Blood leaked thickly from Julian’s nose and ran down over his mouth. He coughed harshly, and blood from deep inside him sprayed out into the air. His face was bone white. He started to fall forward, and Giles grabbed him by the shoulders. The Deathstalker sat down and cradled the young esper in his arms. The rebels started to crowd around him, but Giles waved them back so the esper had plenty of air. The Bear and the Goat came quickly over to join them, eyes wide at the sight of so much sudden blood. Julian shook violently for a moment, and then slowly began to settle. His breathing grew stronger and steadier, and the flow of blood down his face slowed. He sat up, raised a hand to his mouth, and then grimaced when it came away bloody. Evangeline offered him a handkerchief. He nodded his thanks and mopped at his face.

“Damn,” he said thickly. “That was a bad one. I’ll be all right in a minute. It’s not as bad as it looks. I’m afraid ever since the mind techs had me, I’ve been a bit fragile. My esp isn’t reliable anymore, or I’d have used it sooner.”

“Sorry about that, lad,” said Giles. “I didn’t know.”

“That’s all right,” said Julian. He started to get up, and Giles half helped and half lifted him back onto his feet. Julian took a deep breath, and his legs firmed. “That’s better. I’ll be all right now. It looks worse than it is. You’d better check that the dolls are finished. Some of those parts are still moving.”

“Sure,” said Finlay. “We’ll check it out. You stay here and get your breath back. Evangeline, stay with him.”

He gathered up the others with his eyes, and they moved over to examine the scattered doll parts. Most were only a foot or so in length, the cloth shredded to tatters, the stuffing trailing in long white streamers. There was an occasional limb or part of a torso here and there, still twitching and rolling back and forth in the grass. One torso had survived almost intact. Finlay knelt beside it, frowning at the bloody rents in the cloth gut. He eased his hand into one of the openings, and screwed up his face at the feel of what was inside. He took a firm hold and pulled back his hand. It came out soaked in blood, pulling a length of purple human intestine. Toby made a shocked noise, even as he gestured for Flynn to get a close-up. Finlay dropped the intestine, reached back into the cloth belly, and pulled out a handful of human guts.

“They do that,” said Bruin Bear, staring sadly at the bloody offal in Finlay’s hand. “They want to be human, you see. So when they kill humans, they take the organs from inside the bodies, and stitch them into themselves. Guts in their bellies, hearts in their chests, brains in their heads. Of course, they don’t do anything. Eventually they start to rot and decay, and then they have to be replaced. And the only way to do that . . .”

“Is to kill more humans,” said Giles.

“Right,” said the Sea Goat. “They’re not very bright; but then, they’re only dolls.”

“Why the hell would they want to be human?” said Finlay. “I thought they hated humans?”

“They do,” said the Sea Goat. “They hate you because they want to be you, and they can’t. They’re not really alive, and they know it. For all their new intelligence and strength, they’re still only automatons. Just like the Bear and me. We can’t . . . create life, like you do. When we finally wear out and fall apart, and we will, eventually, there will be no one to replace us. No immortality through children. We’ll just go back into the dark we came from and be forgotten. That drives a lot of toys insane.”

“We can’t just leave these parts here,” said Bruin Bear, not looking at the humans. “Given time, they’ll get back together again. Stitch themselves new bodies. They’ve been known to do it before. As long as their central matrixes are intact, they won’t die.”

“Then destroy the matrixes,” said Toby.

“Have fun looking,” said the Sea Goat. “They’re about a thousandth of an inch wide, and they could be anywhere in the body.”

“So what do we do?” said Finlay.

“We burn them,” said Bruin Bear sadly. “Gather the pieces, start a fire, and burn them all.”

Sometime later, the weary humans and the two toys climbed back into the undersized carriages. Stinking black smoke belched up into the sky from a raging fire beside the repaired railway tracks. There were no signs of the rag dolls left anywhere; Julian sat beside Evangeline, his head resting on her shoulder, half-asleep. Edwin surged forward, and the carriages lurched after him. The train chuffed off down the repaired tracks, singing a sad song. The humans sat quietly together and kept their thoughts to themselves. Toby and Flynn filmed the burning pyre of the rag dolls until a dip in the land finally hid it from view. Bruin Bear and the Sea Goat sat together, holding paws for comfort, sad at the death of toys.