“When you’ve worked out what, and how, let me know,” I said. “For now, we need him.”
“We won’t always need him,” said Harry.
“No,” I said. “We won’t.”
“It’s time,” said the Matriarch, and we all turned to look at her. She stood tall and commanding before us, every inch the gray-haired warrior queen. She fixed her cold gaze on me. “All the troops are assembled and ready to begin. All preparations have been made. Give the word, Edwin.”
“Yes,” I said. I turned to the Merlin Glass. “Show me the present,” I said. “Show me the interior of the ghoulville with the most nearly completed tower.”
Our reflections disappeared from the mirror in a moment, replaced by swirling patterns of energy that hurt the eye to look at, and then the Merlin Glass punched through the dimensional barrier separating the Loathly Ones’ nest from the rest of the world, and there the infected town was, clearly visible through the Glass. I’d never seen one before, only heard descriptions and read reports. It wasn’t enough to prepare you for the real thing. For what had once been a human town, a human place, but wasn’t anymore.
The light in the ghoulville was painfully bright, fierce, almost intolerable to human eyes. It didn’t seem to bother any of the drones as they scurried and scuttled through the narrow streets. They didn’t talk to each other, or even look at each other. They didn’t need to. All their thoughts originated in the nest hive mind, the massmind. They didn’t look human any more, didn’t move in human ways. Either because they didn’t need to pretend, away from outside eyes, or because they’d forgotten how to. Even the buildings of the ghoulville looked alien, infected. They slumped at odd angles; the wood and stone and brick looked rotten, diseased, crawling with their own purulent life. Strange lights blazed in the windows, unhealthy lights, and alien silhouettes did awful, alien things.
“The gravity fluctuates too,” said Callan, standing beside me. For the first time he sounded subdued, almost unnerved. “Up and down, left and right, can snap back and forth without any warning. Directions mean nothing. Streets writhe and twist with a life of their own, and suddenly turn around and dump you right back where you started. Doesn’t affect the drones. Probably because they don’t think like us any more. The air… is barely breathable, even when filtered through the golden mask, and it stinks of blood and offal and decay. All the drones here are dead or dying, burnt up by the energies within them. When I finally die and go to Hell, for all the terrible things I’ve done for this family, at least it’ll look familiar.”
“You haven’t been taking your medication again, have you, Callan?” said the Blue Fairy. “Have some of mine, dear. Peps you up nicely.”
“There’s nothing wrong with me!” Callan said angrily. “It’s the ghoulvilles that are wrong! And you have to be prepared for them, for everything they can throw at you. Or you’ll never get to the bloody towers.”
“The armour will help,” the Armourer said gruffly, having finished his work with the Merlin Glass. “Trust in the armour, and your training, and you’ll all do fine. Nerves are normal before a mission. Back when I was a field agent, I used to puke my guts up every time I had to go over the Berlin Wall into East Germany. I swear I looked down once and saw one of my kidneys floating in the toilet bowl.”
“Thank you, Uncle Jack,” I said.
“Intestine, I thought, that can’t really be intestine, can it?”
“Thank you, Uncle Jack!”
He sniffed and looked the Merlin Glass over with professional approval. “Whatever else you might say about Merlin Satanspawn, and whole books have been written on the subject, he did do good work.”
“The drones can’t see or hear us?” said Mr. Stab. “They have no idea we’re watching?”
“None at all,” the Armourer said cheerfully. “I have given you the perfect element of surprise. Don’t waste it.”
Giles Deathstalker drew his great sword, and almost unconsciously everyone fell back a little to give him more room.
“It’s time,” he said. “Let’s do it.”
“Not exactly El Cid, is he?” said the Blue Fairy. “Whatever happened to inspirational speeches? I very definitely feel I could do with a little inspiring, right now.”
Giles looked at him. “Don’t screw this up, or I’ll have you flayed.”
“He’s a Drood,” said the Blue Fairy.
I commanded the Merlin Glass to open a gateway into the four main nests, and one by one the great display screens flared into life, showing views inside the ghoulvilles. The Armourer’s connections were working. I looked around once, silently saying Good-bye and Godspeed, and then Giles walked straight into the Merlin Glass and through into the ghoulville beyond. Two hundred golden figures followed him through, filing quickly through the War Room, and then Harry and Roger went through, followed by their strike force, and so on and so on. It didn’t take nearly as long as I thought to send all the leaders and their strike forces through, though my voice went harsh yelling commands to the Merlin Glass to lock onto new locations. The stamp and clatter of armoured feet was deafening in the War Room, and I had to shout above it to be heard. All the display screens were up and running now, showing strike force after strike force slamming into unsuspecting drones. And then the last Drood went through, and there was nothing more to be done except watch.
All the various attacks on the nests happened simultaneously, spread over all the display screens. You couldn’t watch them all if you tried. Too much was happening all at once. But this is how it happened, battle by battle, backed up by survivors’ tales.
The first thing the Armourer did was to help Molly seal off the Merlin Glass, so that Droods could still pass through, but no drones could get out. We couldn’t allow any of the Loathly Ones to escape. They all had to die. Even though what happened to the drones wasn’t their fault. They didn’t ask to be infected. No, it was our fault, the Droods’ fault, for bringing the Loathly Ones through into our reality in the first place. Our mess, for us to clean up.
Giles Deathstalker’s ghoulville used to be a small town in New Zealand, called Heron’s Reach. A very small town, surrounded by sheep country, so far off the beaten track no one had even noticed it was missing yet. We knew. We’re Droods. We know everything. It looked like it might have been a nice place, originally. Now infected drones streamed through its narrow streets like maggots in a wound, under an alien light so harsh it blasted away any trace of a shadow. Many of the drones were malformed, twisted and turned by the other-dimensional forces burning within their flesh, and they moved with eerie syncopation, like flocking birds.
They all stopped what they were doing the moment Giles and his strike force appeared out of nowhere, slamming into the nearest drones and cutting them down without a moment’s hesitation or mercy. The drones surged forward as one, throwing themselves at the invading force. Some had claws, or barbed hands. Some had tools or axes to use as weapons. They all had the same horrid alien look on their faces as they swarmed all over the golden armoured figures, trying to drag them down through sheer force of numbers.
Giles led from the front, swinging his long sword with impressive skill and strength. The heavy blade cut off heads, burst in chests, sliced through flesh and bone without even slowing. He cut down drones or swept them aside, always pressing forward, trampling bodies under his bloody boots. Golden armoured men and women urged forward after him, striking down drones with heavy fists, or extruded golden blades. Blood flew on the air, offal splashed in the streets. The drones didn’t scream as they fell, or beg for mercy. They just kept coming until their bodies failed them, and even then they tried to clutch at golden legs or feet until they died. Giles hacked and sliced and stabbed, swinging his heavy sword in long deadly arcs as though it was weightless. He laughed and cried out happily as he killed, and blood soaked his armour and spattered his grinning face. The Deathstalker was a warrior, doing what he was born to do, and loving every minute of it.