NIGHTFALL PREVIEW - VI

Look to the Skies

LOOK TO THE SKIES
BY PETER NEALEN

Aeneas Kommoriatah was the scion of the Kommoriatah clan, the heir to the most powerful dynasty in the entire Roedi system. Effectively the only dynasty. The lesser Families might bluster and shout, but in the end, they all bent before the will of the Kommoriatah. The wealth of a dozen worlds and habitats was at their beck and call, and the clan would one day be his to rule.

None of that mattered, now.

Gasping, he raced through the brush toward the river, his fine clothing now little more than filthy tatters, his feet bleeding beneath him. The pain was no longer even noticed. Aeneas had descended nearly to the level of a hunted animal. Survival was all that mattered.

Behind him, the vast megacity of Kommor burned, the smoke rising into the stratosphere and turning the once cerulean skies red, where it did not blot out the yellow sun of Roedi altogether. Daggerlike shapes darted and swooped low through the smoke, their engines howling as whipped it into nightmare whorls, external loudspeakers adding the terrible alien whoops to the screams of their thrusters as they scouted for the hunters on the ground.

Plunging into the thicker vines along the riverbank, Aeneas tripped and fell, still not stopping, but crawling desperately into the thicker growth, praying that the vines would hide him, or at least make him harder to reach. The thorns ripped at him, tearing the delicate fabric of his shirt still further and licking more blood from his skin. He hardly noticed.

A sound made him freeze. It was quieter than the howling and hooting of the alien fighters in the air above, or the crackle of the flames that towered so high they could be heard miles away. Yet it was enough to chill his blood and make him grip the ground as he fought not to even breathe.

Another step crunched in the brambles, and he heard the unmistakable sound of sniffing, followed by what could only be a laugh. It was a low, predatory, alien sound, a sound that no human throat could make.

He squeezed his eyes shut, as if to deny the reality that the thing had caught up with him so quickly. It made no difference. He could see it as clearly in his mind’s eye as he had on the ground, as it had loped after him, its slavering jaws gaping in a demonic, hungry grin.

Almost three meters from nose to tail, the creature was lean and heavily muscled, its long snout lined with ripping fangs. Dark, slanted eyes, shaded by rippling scales of armor that encased the lupine predator, gleamed with a bloody hunger that was unmistakable even to a human who had never seen one of the Fangs before.

None knew what they called themselves. Men just called them Fangs, in whatever tongue they spoke on any of the Empire’s million worlds that had heard of them, let alone suffered their visitation.

Aeneas had heard tales of them all his life, yet the possibility that they might come here had never even crossed his mind, let alone that they might have torn through the Roedi Phalanxes or the Families’ Guards in a matter of days.

The brush rustled against scale armor. He cracked an eye open, looking up without otherwise moving, to see the monster, its bladed arrow-thrower in its clawed hands. The Fangs didn’t seem to use firearms much. They preferred to get close and do as little damage as possible.

He’d seen why. If he lived through the next few moments, the nightmares would follow him for the rest of his life.

The creature wasn’t alone. Half a dozen smaller ones, most on their hind legs, weapons in their claws, though a couple were down on all fours, fairly quivering with eagerness, followed in its wake.

All of them sniffed at the air, hunting him, and Aeneas felt despair begin to overtake him. He could crawl deeper, but those claws would find him. There was no way he could outpace those horrors in the thornbushes along the riverbank.

Even as he thought it, those dead, maddening eyes found him and locked gazes with him. While he could hardly call the face behind the scale cowl human, it seemed as if the thing’s grin widened, its teeth showing more clearly as the slaver dripped from them. It stepped toward him with that eerie, gurgling chuckle again, pushing aside limbs as it advanced with the leisurely assurance of a predator that has its prey cornered.

Suddenly, Aeneas found strength in his limbs again, and despite his despair, the will to live gripped him once more. Ignoring the grasping talons of the thorns as they licked yet more blood from his flesh, he scrambled deeper into the thicket, down the riverbank toward the gurgle of water. Maybe there was no shelter there, but it was better than lying there waiting helplessly for the end, as slowly and painfully as it would come.

Behind him, he heard that sick gurgle of a chuckle again. The monster was amused by his struggles for life. He could picture its saliva dripping faster from its distended fangs.

Then, a distant rumble of thunder made the nightmare pursuing him pause and look up.

Aeneas splashed into the shallow stream, a last tendril of thornbush snagging his shredded sleeve and tearing it the rest of the way off before he could get all the way into the water. Only then did he look up.

The leaden, inferno-red sky was full of deadly black arrowheads, each of the familiar shapes spitting molten death into the swooping, howling alien aircraft. More streaks of pure destruction slammed down at targets on the ground, and Aeneas wept as he looked up through the jagged branches above him.

The Eternal’s Paladins had come. And now the monsters would face a reckoning.

But the Empire’s superlative warriors were still far away.

Brush was smashed aside, and Aeneas screamed as the hulking Fang burst into the riverbed with a splash, its many-bladed weapon raised high.

And he screamed, and screamed, and screamed…