The Bats of Elvidner

by Danielle L. Parker

part 10 and conclusion

On the harsh world of Elvidner, a third generation of colonists struggles for survival. Their conditions are primitive, and they are menaced by a native life form: intelligent vampiric bats.

The colonists are largely ignored by the scarcely human “immortals” of the original starship — the “wizards” and “crew.” But a reborn crewman and a wizard who loved and lost a mortal wife have formed a bond with the mortals, one that offers hope for a better life for all.

The old man felt about him for the extinguished torch. This was it. He felt, in spite of that knowledge, a wash of a peculiar peace. He, at least, among the four of them, would renew his existence in a new, younger flesh, courtesy of Ship and the occult knowledge of its long-ago builders. He would not remember this tragic ending. But he felt a sudden, intense, most terrible grief for his companions. This would be, for them, the final passage to the great unknown.

He almost longed to go with them. Death did not improve upon renewed acquaintance.

I’ll give it my best shot. “Get the second torch, Hagar,” he ordered. “Markin, you take this one. I’ve got the flint. On my command, we light the torches — and the front of the cart — and drop out the back. We’ll push the cart ahead of us and use the torches. Aim for the mother, if you see her. That’s the best we can do.”

There were rustles in the dark, a grunt of satisfaction. “Aye. I’ve got t’other torch. We’re ready, old man.”

The cart creaked onwards. The drays were definitely picking up their pace.

“Don’t lose the flint.”

“I won’t.”

“Better check the back lattice. See if it’s loose enough to push out.”

“I did.”

There was a pause. In the darkness, now, Loeske could hear something new: the rustle and pulse of wings, at first faintly, and then, as the cart rolled on, a great rushing, like a river. Streams of fliers swept over their heads, busy in the service of their demanding mother.

“You’re both brave, good men, Hagar... Markin. I’m glad I knew you. I wish I could remember you all forever. But I won’t make it back to Kolonie this time. I’ll lose all these memories.”

“Aye,” the farmer replied after long silence.

“Boy. Bram.” The old man squeezed the boy’s hand. “I never met your mother. I was crew, and she was — she is — one of the great, ageless wizards of Kolonie. That’s colony, really. I wish I had time to explain. Anyway, back to your mother... I wish I’d known her. She bore a brave son. And it’s amazing, really, that you exist at all. So many of us — wizards and crew — have damaged genes. Interstellar radiation does that. We were in the void for a long, long time. Genes — radiation — space — I don’t have time to explain it all to you, boy. I wish I did.”

The old man fell silent momentarily. The air had become almost too close and choking to breathe. The source of that musky odor had laired here — for how long, no human could yet answer; still, a very long time, perhaps. The dense reek spoke of lengthy habitation. Even the deep stones of the earth must be permeated with effluent of the mother.

“The wolf,” he continued musingly. “It’ll help us. But it may not care, not in the way we do, whether we mayfly mortals live or die. Remember, too, it’s a beast now, though it will be a thinking man again — when it’s ready.” Loeske stared into the darkness. At first he whispered, but gradually, his voice grew louder. “Still, I think he hears me. So this is the last request — the prayer, if you will — of Henrich Ira Loeske, second officer of the ship of the void, Phoenix. Tellen! Lord White Star; wizard; vengeance, incarnate; hear me! Drink blood to your fill, bitter prince; eat, bereft one, with your sharp teeth!” He drew breath and shouted with all his might. “Avenge these children!”

The cart rocked. It halted. No one spoke. Loeske, still breathing hard, fingered his flint with trembling fingers. There was a strange susurration and sighing around them now, as if unseen, huge wings beat air. The sickly musk was too strong to endure. Blood and iron lay beneath. The old man coughed, trying to breathe.

“Almost,” he whispered. The peculiar calm was still upon him, but underneath, his stomach was tight, and his heart once again pinching. “Almost. Are you ready, Hagar?”

“Aye.”

Something outside rattled and pushed against the front latticework. Loeske wished his traitorous heart had not chosen this moment to pain him so. Then, as he exhaled the breath he just realized he had been holding, it came: shrill sound.

He struck the flint. Of a miracle, it worked instantly. The first torch lit. The second, held to its flaming cap, roared into life. The branches of the front lattice exploded as if drenched in gasoline, obscuring the shadowy head.

“Now! Out!”

The woodcutter’s great arm swept up boy and old man against his chest like helpless puppies, as he tumbled out. Loeske heard Hagar roar like an enraged bear through the cacophony of shrilling. The sound was worse than he had ever heard it, had ever imagined it — an orchestra of agony. It hurt not only his ears, but also parts deep inside.

Pressed against the woodcutter’s shoulder, the old man struggled to see. The pig farmer stood with his back to the burning cart, whirling his crackling torch like a demon. There was blood in his eyes, and twin rivulets running from his nostrils. But though he staggered like a falling tree, still he swung his stick in a furious circle. And Markin, too, thrust with his flaming torch and yelled, all the while he protected his precious cargo against his broad chest.

There was a pop in the old man’s right ear, then the left, and a sudden silence. There go my ears. Deaf for good, now. But he could still see. What he saw, looking over the woodcutter’s shoulder, struck terror into him.

The chamber was not as large as he had expected it to be. But everywhere, everywhere he looked, were warrior bats, with great big-eared heads hunched between their sharp shoulders, and sonic tubes extended out of their faces like rifles. Their leathery wings beat a hot storm against his face. He looked up, and saw them hanging above like fruit ready to drop, and every tube stiff with death. He looked down, and saw, through his blurring vision, the man-shaped drones, looking, all of them, like nothing so much as stump-winged, bald-headed gargoyles. And he saw the mother.

At first, he mistook her for a giant, velvety carpet covering the whole floor of the chamber. She had been swollen like a tick ready to burst, but she had fed her children, and now the bag was soft and squeezy. If she had legs, or arms, or wings, he could not tell. But as he watched, the front edge reared, and he saw that underneath were belly plates and muscles she could constrict and expand, moving like a huge snake. And underneath, also, surprisingly small, was a perfectly round, red-edged circle, full of triangular teeth, and the lurking shadow of her sucking tube.

At that instant, the wolf leapt right over them. When it landed, in the center of the mother, a red splash filled the entire room.

Conclusion

“Light-Eyes! Old man!”

Elian Tellen, kneeling to scrub his torn and bloodied torso and arms in the snow, spoke without looking up.

“He’s deaf, Hagar.”

“Wha-?”

The wizard climbed to his feet. If he did so with a certain stiffness and weariness, it was understandable. There was blood on the coldly sun-lit snow where he had washed, much of it his own, and an uncountable number of still-oozing bite rings and slashes covering arms and legs. He spoke more loudly the second time.

“Deaf, Hagar.”

The farmer pulled his earlobe in vexation. “Aye, I heard ye this time. No need to shout. Will he live?”

Tellen, still entirely naked, knelt beside him. The old man rested, like a tired child, in the cradle of the farmer’s meaty arms.

For a moment, the wizard gazed upon the unconscious face with his star-bright eyes, and then touched the brow of the gray head gently. He smiled. “For a long time, Hagar. But I need to take him to Kolonie. He would want to remember you.”

“Good.” The farmer, rocking the old man on his knees, held out an arm, after a moment, and drew the boy in the embrace, too. “Ye heard, boy. He’ll live. No need to snivel so. Ye’ll be a man, soon enough. Have ye a father? Nay? Well, I’ll be yer father, then, for now. Every little lad needs a father. Ye’re cold? Aye, so am I. But we’ll be going home, we three, soon e’nou. Poor broken Markin! I wish he were, too.”

The wizard stood. He stretched his weary limbs as he gazed about him. Through the giant rocks and boulders that littered this high-altitude vista, he glimpsed a head, and soon the rocking shoulders of an eight-legged steed, running to answer his call.

There was one more deed to do before he left this frozen wasteland. He walked back to the hole they had exited, and picked up the small flier he had struck down. It was still alive, though its left wing was broken. He gathered it up, while it beat its good wing against him, and wrinkled its hideous tiny face at him in its terror. He walked back.

“Eeuh! The ugly thing!”

“For you, boy.” He held out his hands, with the little creature cupped between them. Its heart panted visibly against its velvety breast. “A gift. Heal it. Listen to it. Do you understand?”

The boy nodded. Slowly, so slowly, he reached out to the bat.

Open Challenge 301...