The Broken God Machine (6 page)

The front lines had broken, and all that was left were individual pockets of
flickering light in which men and Lagos fought each other. Screams of pain and
rage and raw aggression echoed out all around him, and Pehr felt his body
trying to seize up as it attempted to process the sheer amount of information
being thrown at it. He knew it was impossible – there was simply too much
happening all at once – and that stopping was most probably deadly, so he
willed himself to move on. Nearest to him was a group of one hunter, two
farmers, and a merchant, all fighting bravely against three Lagos warriors.

The creatures worked not only with their deadly claws and teeth, but as well
with a kind of weapon that Pehr had never seen before: a sturdy wooden handle
roughly the length of a man’s forearm that swelled at the head, where a long,
sharp, curved blade of metal had been slotted into it. Pehr’s people knew of
metal but lacked a steady supply of it, and had thus never developed the skills
to work it into such weapons.

The hunter was fighting with a club, dodging away from the creatures’
attacks and moving in to swing with his weapon with impressive skill. A few
times he connected, delivering glancing blows that did not kill or maim but
must nonetheless have been tremendously painful. The Lagos warriors didn’t
scream in pain, but merely grunted or howled in rage before pressing forward
again.

The merchant and the two farmers were standing in a rough circle, backs
together, and Pehr felt a swell of deep admiration for them. These men were not
fighters, and yet by instinct they fought as such. The merchant was wielding a
stone-tipped spear, jabbing it forward whenever one of the Lagos warriors tried
to close the distance. The farmers had the small, sturdy axes that they used in
their daily work. They were vulnerable to the Lagos’s longer blades and had
suffered some minor wounds, but neither was yet grievously injured.

Pehr took no further time to observe. He swept wide once again, staying in
the shadows at the very edge of sight, until he was behind one of the Lagos
warriors. Having learned his lesson, Pehr made no noise this time as he closed
the distance, and the full weight of his club connected solidly with the back
of the creature’s head, making a sound that reminded Pehr of cracking a
coconut’s tough inner shell. The blow would most certainly have killed a man,
but the Lagos survived it, falling to one knee and giving a startled grunt.

The merchant, seeing his chance, stabbed forward with his spear, driving the
top of it into the soft flesh between the beast’s neck and shoulder. The Lagos,
still groggy from the club hit, made a howling noise of pain and rage that Pehr
cut short with a second blow. This hit, coming from above and colliding with
the creature’s skull with tremendous force, finished the job that the first had
started. The Lagos’s skull caved in with a sickening crunch, and the creature
fell. The merchant stared wide-eyed, whooped once in triumph, and then turned
to vomit on the ground. Pehr found himself laughing, even as he advanced to
help his fellow hunter, and wondered if he hadn't gone mad.

With the odds now at five on two, the Lagos’s superior strength and the
reach of their blades was largely cancelled out. Pehr stepped up beside the
other hunter, whom he recognized as none other than Josep, Nani’s
husband-to-be. Without speaking, they moved to flank the Lagos, coming at them
from either side while the merchant and the two farmers attacked from the
front. The Lagos, understanding that they were outmatched, turned and loped off
toward the darkness at the edge of the village.

Pehr and Josep moved with practiced speed, dropping their clubs and bringing
forth the short bows they kept strapped to their backs. In the span of no more
than a few seconds they had fired, and both Lagos fell to the ground just at
the edge of sight. The group of humans advanced toward the prone figures, wary
that one or both might merely be faking serious injury in order to lure their
prey in close.

The first creature they came to was obviously dead. It lay on its back, its
head propped up in an odd position by the broken shaft of the arrow that had
pierced its skull. Its eyes were open, glazed and distant, and the two hunters
gave it only a cursory glance before moving on to its comrade.

This Lagos was not dead, but neither was it a threat. It was trying to crawl
toward its blade, which had flown from its hands and lay several yards away,
but its strength was rapidly draining. Blood poured in torrents from where the
arrow had split its throat, and Pehr marveled at the creature’s strength; even
something as large and powerful as an elder boar would have been immobilized or
killed outright by such a wound.

Josep stepped toward it, and the creature turned, snarling, staring directly
at the hunter even as the man brought his club down on its head.

“What now?” one of the farmers asked, and Josep pointed toward the center of
the village.

“The lines are broken,” he said. “We must regroup and continue to fight
until they’re gone.”

“Or until we’re all dead,” the younger farmer said, his voice acidic with
distaste.

Josep shrugged. “Flee, then. There is the night, just ahead … run away and
perhaps you’ll live.”

The farmer spat into the dirt and said, “I would no sooner leave my family
and my home than you would, hunter.”

“Then don’t waste time on regret for things which can’t be changed,” Josep
replied. “Come. Every second we tarry, the Lagos draw closer to our families
and our homes.”

They moved as a group toward the center of the village. Around them the
world flickered orange, a burning hell scattered with the bodies of men and
Lagos. Josep turned to Pehr.

“How many have you killed?”

“Three,” Pehr replied. “Two back there and one earlier. He was torturing a
girl. Maiming her. I broke his head open before he finished.”

“She’s lucky.”

“What about you? How many?”

Josep favored him with a grim smile. “Twelve so far. They came at us like a
wave and broke apart our forces, but Thomas and I were together for some time.
Once we joined up with these three, we were able to kill several small
groups.”

“What happened to Thomas?”

“He was hurt badly just before you arrived. I can’t say if he’ll live, but
I’m certain he’ll never use his left arm again. We sent him back toward the
circle with another farmer. I hope he found sanctuary there.”

Pehr said nothing, and after a moment Josep spoke again.

“You’ve performed well. I think you would’ve passed your Test and joined us
at the hunter’s table.”

“If we survive this night, I still intend to,” Pehr said. He felt a kind of
wild exhilaration within him, a joy that felt unseemly but couldn't be
contained; he’d twice met his enemies in battle and twice won, earning praise
from a seasoned hunter whom he’d always admired, and might yet make it through
the night. This was the thing, it seemed, for which he had been born.

“That we see tomorrow, we must fight our hardest today,” Josep recited. It
was a hunters’ saying, a reminder that there was always hope.

There came a cacophony of howling to their left, and the group barely had
time to duck into a smoldering hut before a large group of Lagos came running
out of the dark, headed for the central fire. There were at least fifteen of
them, pushing and shoving each other, laughing and snarling and coated in
blood.

“Gods,” Josep murmured after they had passed. “There are so
many
of
them!”

There was a scrabbling sound from next to them, and they turned to witness
the merchant shoving his way out of the building and fleeing into the night.
Josep made a sound of disgust.

“May he rot out there,” the younger farmer said.

“The drums are closer,” Pehr said, the realization of it hitting him just
then: the sound had not only grown, but was beating with an ever-increasing
speed and intensity, as if nearing some great, orgasmic culmination.

“The end is coming. The warriors … something drives them. They kill hunters,
but for all others above a certain age they focus on the face, on wiping it out
completely as if it offends them. When they’ve killed and tortured as many as
they can, they will withdraw, and then will come their females and their
priests.”

Pehr hadn't heard of this before. “What then?” he asked.

Josep shook his head. “There’s little I can tell you. I’ve had to piece my
knowledge together from Luce’s tales, and from those of passing merchants. From
what I understand, their women will collect the bodies of their dead and steal
food from our stores. The priests … they will collect many children.”

“Collect them for
what
?” the elder farmer cried.

“I wish I knew,” Josep said. “They take them to the jungle and none ever
return.”

“Surely some must escape,” said the younger farmer. “There are places to
hide …”

“A small few survive. For my part, I intend to die fighting. You … you may
choose to do what you wish.”

“I will not abandon my family,” the elder farmer said, and Josep nodded.

Pehr thought of the oath he'd made to Nani, to protect her brother at all
costs, and the one he’d made to Jace. He could keep neither of these oaths by
huddling in a half-burnt home.

“We must go,” he said, and Josep nodded.

“Yes. Your cousin, my beloved, is in great danger.”

“My Sara is in there, somewhere,” the elder farmer said.

“And my Bethany,” the younger replied.

“Then it will be four of us,” Josep said. “With any luck, we can make our
way into the central ring without attracting the attention of the Lagos. They
will be focused mainly on breaking in themselves, and on preventing any others
from escaping.”

“Enough talk, then,” Pehr said. He didn’t want to die, but he wished even
less to sit here discussing the inevitable. Better to get on with it.

Josep, likely of the same mind, needed little encouragement. He stood, and
after making sure the way was clear, he lead them out of the house and back
into the flickering light of their burning village.

* * *

They were not so lucky as to make it into the circle unscathed. Rounding a
corner, they came upon a single Lagos warrior leaned up against a wall of mud
bricks, covered in blood. Not far away lay a woman, curled up in a ball and
making choked gasping noises. The creature looked up in surprise as Pehr and
Josep, acting on instinct, swung to either side. The younger farmer gave a cry
of disgust and leapt forward, swinging his axe and cleaving deeply into the
surprised creature’s side. The Lagos roared in pain and startled anger, and it
brought both claws forward and out in a horrific, rending tear. The farmer
threw his head back and a great glut of blood belched forth from his mouth,
even as his belly opened up and his innards fell in coils upon the ground.

There was no time to mourn him, and the creature had no time to regroup
before Pehr and Josep were upon him, screaming and beating him down with their
clubs. The creature’s bones cracked and splintered under the weight of their
blows, and its noises went from roars to shrieks to whimpers, and finally to
silence. The two men stood above its corpse, gasping for breath, spattered with
the Lagos’s blood. From behind them came the sound of running feet, and the
angry roars of many more of the things.

“You, girl!” Josep shouted. “You must flee. More of them are coming!”

The girl struggled to stand, and even in the wavering firelight Pehr could
see that she was badly injured. He didn’t think she would keep her sight, and
he wasn’t sure from the sounds she was making whether she still had a tongue or
not. Josep went to help her. He slung her arm over his shoulder and began to
move toward the village’s inner circle. The sound of the approaching Lagos was
now very close.

The elder farmer was staring at his dead friend in shock and disbelief. Pehr
grabbed him by his shoulders and hauled him bodily along after them, running
toward a small gap between two dwellings. He shoved the man ahead of him and in
a moment more both were through the gap. Pehr turned immediately to the left,
around the edge of the building, and a pair of wicked talons just missed raking
down across his back. He spun and swung, smashing the creature’s hands with his
club.

The Lagos howled but then withdrew, and Pehr found himself standing with his
palms against his legs, bent over to catch his breath, listening to the roars
from the darkness. Josep rejoined them, having seen the girl off to whatever
safety there was left, and the trio made their way rapidly to the center of the
circle. The farmer, spotting his wife, thanked them and made his way toward
her.

Pehr saw Jace first, still standing on his boulder, his supply of arrows
depleted to a truly pathetic final few. He was picking and choosing his shots
carefully, and Pehr had little doubt that most were hitting their targets, but
it didn’t appear to matter. The Lagos had what seemed an infinite number of
warriors. Whenever one fell, another simply took its place.

Nani was standing with her mother by the fire, watching as Jace fired arrow
after arrow. Anna caught sight of the two young men first and tapped Nani on
the shoulder, gesturing. Pehr was amazed that the woman was sticking to her vow
of silence even now, and wondered if she hoped in this manner to please the
Gods, and perhaps lessen her family’s suffering.

Nani turned, saw them, and shrieked some incoherent noise of surprise and
joy. Pehr wished he could share the feeling, but all he saw when he looked at
her was the girl he loved and was likely going to have to murder. There was no
joy for him there.

She went to Josep first, and he felt a small twinge of jealousy even now, of
all times. It seemed foolish to him that it should still matter, but he
couldn't shake it, and so he turned to Jace. To his surprise, the boy was
grinning as he stared out into the darkness.