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.
Not all his strike force felt the same. Though most fought on with the professional skill of their training, concentrating on the goal of their mission… some just couldn’t do it. They simply weren’t killers, and no amount of training could make them one. They did what they could, and then turned away from the slaughter and came home. No one said anything as they lurched back through the Glass. Medical staff were there, to lead them off to the infirmary. We understood.
Some didn’t make it. Drones swarmed all over them the moment they left the main force and buried them under sheer numbers, beating on their golden armour with misshapen fists.
The strike force couldn’t turn back to rescue them. Speed was of the essence in this operation. They had to reach the tower and take it out with the Armourer’s new bomb, before the drones could come up with some new alien weapon to stop them, as they had on the Nazca Plain. So get in, do the job, and get out. Nothing else could be allowed to matter. The Droods pressed forward, killing everything that wasn’t them, guarding each other’s sides and backs.
We could see the tower, on the far edge of town. A hundred feet tall and more, jagged and asymmetrical, built to alien specifications from strange technologies and organic components. It stood tall and arrogantly proud against an incandescent sky, blazing with unnatural lights. It looked alive and aware, as though it knew we were coming and was struggling to perform its awful function before we could stop it. To bring the Hungry Gods through, just to spite us.
The Loathly Ones drones were clogging the streets now, packing them shoulder to shoulder as they surged forward to attack the Droods. Giles and his people were having to cut and hack a path through them, like forging a path through thick jungle. Blood and bodies covered the ground, and slowed the strike force’s advance even further. But still Giles led the way, something almost inhuman in his fierce refusal to be stopped. He encouraged his people on with far-future battle cries that meant nothing to them, but stirred their blood anyway. They stuck right behind him, striking down the enemy with dogged determination.
The drones fought us with every weapon they had, from tools and axes they just picked up, to clawed and barbed distorted hands, to a handful of rifles and shotguns. None of them were any use against Drood armour, and Giles was just too good at what he did to be hurt. Blades couldn’t cut the gold, bullets were absorbed by it, and clawed hands scrabbled uselessly at golden face masks. But when Giles finally came in sight of the base of the tower, all that changed.
Up close, the tower seemed to be coming alive, like some great beast waking from a long slumber with murder on its mind. Powerful energies coalesced around it, as though other-dimensional aspects of the construct were imprinting themselves on our reality from outside. The tower looked… realer than its surroundings. Realer than the Droods. Several of the golden figures had to turn away, unable to face what was happening. Giles stood firm. Nothing in the ghoulville had phased him so far, even though he had none of the armour’s built-in protections. I had to wonder if the Deathstalker had far-future technology implanted within him, that he hadn’t got around to telling us about.
Giles glared up at the tower, reached inside his armoured jerkin, and brought out the bomb the Armourer had created for him. It didn’t look like much, just a steel box with a simple timer built into the lid. Giles brandished the box at the tower, shaking it fiercely as though to taunt it, and everyone in the War Room winced. It was never wise to shake things the Armourer had built. But even as Giles bent down to place the bomb in position, he had to straighten up suddenly as a whole army of new drones came rushing out of an opening in the base of the tower that hadn’t been there a moment before.
There was something new and different about these drones. They were all clearly dead, flesh rotting and falling away as they strode jerkily forward, only driven on by the alien will working within them. Their faces were eaten away and some of them didn’t even have eyes anymore, but they all headed unerringly towards Giles and his people. Each of the drones was carrying a rough sword of some unfamiliar metal that glowed disturbingly even in the harsh ghoulville light.
“We’re getting long-range readings on the swords,” said the communications officer. “They’re giving off massive amounts of radiation, but nothing we can easily identify. Best guess is, the metal for those swords comes from the same dimension as the Invaders. The radiation level is rising dramatically; just being so close to the swords is eating the drone bodies up.”