The Barsoom Project

Max heard Hippogryph’s wail of frustration. Hippogryph had spilled his pack across the ice and was reloading in frantic haste, powder, paper, shot Yarnall unshouldered and fired twice. The monster kept coming. Yarnall was dancing, trying to keep his balance and his aim; but the ice rumbled and shuddered with every movement of the land whale.

Yarnall paused a moment too long, and it had him. It was a death deferred, a doom that should have overtaken him two days before. That didn’t make it any prettier. He screamed, and its teeth were in him. For a moment there was an expression of almost humorous resignation on his face, and then he was gone, swallowed.

Hippogryph fired his musket. The creature shuddered with the shock, then came on, bleeding red light. Hippogryph poured powder and shot into his musket. He was nibbling on his lower lip, but there wasn’t a wasted motion.

“I was too tired. Just too tired,” Hippogryph said.

Snow Goose screamed: “Sacred weapons! We need sacred weapons!”

Max looked at the curved usik in his hands. Well? He ran forward, pubic bone raised on high. The killer whale tried to turn, but Max was faster on land. He brought the usik down against a blue-black wall of monster-flesh.

Well, through it, actually. The usik passed through the huge head, but where it passed, a wide red swath was cut, and the creature, immense as it was, began to redden. It sank back through the ice.

The ice cracks were spreading, and sheets of ice were sliding up at crazy angles.

The wind howled at them, driving snow even as the sun burned brighter.

“We’ve gotta make a stand,” Trianna screamed against the wind.

Max shouted, “I don’t like that idea, but I don’t have a better one.”

The Gamers scrambled up one of the inclines, taking what could laughingly be referred to as the high ground. Orson said, “Let’s hope the landscape doesn’t shift a whole lot more in the next few minutes.”

The monsters were coming now, fast and hard, across the stretch of ice. At the most, they were a hundred meters away now. The spider-thing was visible in the back. In front were three of the black-taloned horrors, shambling headlessly, heedlessly across the ice.

The Wolfalcons wheeled in the sky.

Max nudged Orson. “Hell of a place to make a last stand, hey?”

“I’ve seen worse. Ever played Zork? It’s an old computer game-”

Trianna hissed at them. “Keep your attention.”

She had her sword at the ready, and Eviane, beside Max, had her spear. A wall of ribs…

“There are too many of them. I guess we’ll just have to die well.”

Eviane looked up into the sky. “No. Something will happen.”

The spider-thing reached them first. It was slow. It took too long to struggle up the slab of ice. They cut the legs from under it.

The creatures came in waves. Max stood shoulder to shoulder with Eviane, repulsing them one and two and four at a time. At the touch of the enchanted usik, the monsters went down. He heard the others grunting and gasping, and Trianna’s yell of triumph turn into strangled huffing.

The monsters came in an infinite stream. They swarmed out from the distant shape of the dread island, fought and died until the tide below them glowed red with monster blood.

The Adventurers were gasping for breath, but Max slew on. None of their companions yielded, and as the sky rolled with fire and ice, the Implementors, if Implementors there be, witnessed a battle to warm the blood.

Johnny Welsh lost his footing and slid down the embankment into a mass of ravening monsters, things with arms and clubs and glistening fangs, things which struggled up at them, eyes glaring sulfurous hatred. Max saw Johnny slide down into that vile cacophonous mass, heard Johnny yell, “Hold the mayo-” before he disappeared.

He saw the monsters climbing over each other, struggling And then the ice field began to break.

A crevasse opened. Monsters slid into it, screaming and howling. A score of the unholy beasts vanished in a few moments. The Wolfalcons overhead cawed and screamed in rage. A third of their might had died; the crevasse blocked another third.

One of the bird-beasts strayed too close, and Trianna speared it. It flapped in the snow, dying ungracefully.

“Come on!” Orson grabbed Charlene’s hand, and they retreated across the ice.

Fissures were opening all around them. They’d reached one they would have to jump. Below them was dark water, and the ice chunks were shifting uneasily.

Max crossed the gap like a great ungainly swan. Eviane leapt across, landed unsteadily on crunchy ice. She waved her arms for balance. Her rifle slipped from her grasp, and slid toward the water, as Max’s big hand gripped her parka and pulled her against him. She looked after the rifle as if considering a retrieval effort.

Max retained his grip. “Forget it! I’m not losing you now.”

Orson held his breath, and jumped, and missed. He hit the water with a mighty splash. “Help!”