"Oh, aye, brilliant," War said. "Now what?"
Drake leaned back and looked up at the school building, teetering eighty metres above him on the colossal robot"s shoulders.
"I need to get up to... Wait," he said. "What"s it doing?" As he was speaking, one of the chrome giant"s arms had begun to move. It rose straight out in front of it, then stopped at a forty-five degree angle to the body. Fingers the size of telephone boxes unfolded, and the metal palm of the robot"s hand glowed with a swirling white light.
"I don"t like the look of that," Pestilence fretted. He stood behind War, although even this move didn"t do much to rea.s.sure him.
"What is it?" asked Famine.
As if in answer to the question, the slumbering bodies of the children and police around them began to glow a vibrant shade of blue. Drake watched, hypnotised by the electric glow that now surrounded every one of the sleeping people.
"What"s that light?" he asked, getting as close to the barrier as he could without risking stepping back through.
"It"s like a big swirling vortex thingy," Pest declared, with the air of authority normally reserved for someone who has at least a vague idea of what they"re on about.
"Not that light a" that light," said Drake. He pointed down to the people on the ground, who were now lit up like a particularly blue Christmas tree.
War, Pestilence and Famine regarded the figures at their feet. They leaned in closer for a better look.
"What light?" Pest said eventually.
"You can"t see that?" Drake asked. The lights had become so bright they had merged into one near-blinding glow. "They"re all lit up blue."
"Souls," War said gravely. "My guess is you"re seeing their souls. It"s something only Death can do."
Drake felt sick. "So, that means, what? He"s killing them?"
War"s eyes went from sleeping body to sleeping body, as if trying to picture them as Drake saw them. "I don"t know," he admitted. "He must be. Unless... What else did that robot-teacher fella say to you? What did he tell you about his plans?"
"Nothing," Drake said. "Just said he was going to get his strength back, and then he was going to do something spectacular."
The part of War"s face that Drake could see went pale. "Aw, no," he said. "Aw, no."
"What is it?" Drake asked. "What"s wrong?"
"There"s only one way he can get his strength back."
"How?"
Drake instinctively ducked, as one of the blue lights became a sphere the size of a bowling-ball, and rocketed upwards past his head. He turned and followed it with its gaze as it was sucked towards the swirling vortex in the palm of the giant robot"s hand, like fluff towards a vacuum cleaner, or rugby players to an Indian restaurant.
The ball vanished into the twirling white light, just as two others launched up from the ground at Drake"s back.
"Their life force. Their souls," War said. "He"s going to eat their souls."
"Ugh, that"s disgusting," Famine spat. The others turned to look at him. "What?" he said, returning their glares. "Even I have to draw the line somewhere."
"Get your backside up there," War said, oblivious to the b.a.l.l.s of light streaking past him with increasing regularity. "You have to take him out before he can power himself back up."
"What"ll happen if he does?"
War clenched his jaw. "Anything he wants. Stop him, or Armageddon"s happening right here, right now, signs or no b.l.o.o.d.y signs."
Drake nodded his understanding. "Right," he said, looking up. "Um... how do I get up there?"
"You managed the walking-through-walls thing, so you can manage the horse," War told him. "Whistle. Summon it. Call forth the steed of Death."
He was right, Drake knew. It was now or never. This was his moment.
Curling his index finger and thumb once again, he placed them just inside his mouth, and he blew.
Pffffffffff.
"b.u.g.g.e.r all," War said, with a not-entirely-surprised sigh.
Drake tried again, but War was quick to stop him. "You"re wasting time, and, frankly, you"re embarra.s.sing yourself," he told him. "Practise later. Now, get your fingers out of your mouth and start climbing."
"Climbing?" Drake said, but even as he spoke the word, he realised he had no other choice. Mel was up there, in danger. And then there was the whole end-of-the-world thing too. "I"ll try to find a way to shut off the shield. When I do, take the robot down. Stop it hurting anyone, or worse."
With the flickering glow of stolen souls dancing eerily around him, Drake raced over to the robot"s foot, found a handhold, and slowly, steadily began to climb.
DRAKE FELT LIKE Jack in Jack and the Beanstalk, only he wasn"t climbing the beanstalk, he was climbing the giant himself.
The metal used in the robot"s construction was smooth, but the surface itself wasn"t. It was crisscrossed with cables and pitted with rivets. The hexagonal heads of bolts stuck out regularly along the machine"s entire length. The effect was like a ladder, reaching all the way up from the ground to the head, far, far above.
He reached for the next handhold, a length of steel cable running almost horizontally across the mechanical thigh. His fingertips found it, brushed against the rough surface, then missed completely as the cable began to move.
No, not the cable, Drake realised. The entire leg.
He felt himself sliding, slipping, swinging left as the leg slowly raised to the right. Frantically, he jammed his foot against a protruding rivet and his knuckles turned white as his grip tightened on the bolt he was clinging to.
He craned his neck, and looked down. The other hors.e.m.e.n were retreating, pulling back as the leg Drake was hanging from came stomping down towards them.
"The kids!" Drake shouted, but his voice was drowned out by the creaking of the metal leg. The other schoolchildren and the police were all still flat on the ground. The souls were still streaking from within them before disappearing into the hand just fifteen or twenty metres away from Drake, but the foot was coming down, down, down and there was nothing Drake could do about it.
He closed his eyes and pressed his face in against the metal, unable to watch what was about to happen next. He was supposed to be the personification of death itself, but he could not a" would not a" watch everyone die.
There was a boom as the foot crunched down on to the ground, and a sudden jolt that almost sent Drake tumbling in the same direction. One of his hands slipped from the bolt and his legs were suddenly kicking against thin air.
Despite all that, he had to look down. He had to know if all those people were dead ora"
"Alive," he said, and the word came out as a breathless laugh. The foot had stepped cleanly over them, crushing the police cars instead. A few more souls were sucked from the sleeping teenagers, and Drake suddenly found himself wondering if he were wrong. If the life force was being torn from within them, then maybe they weren"t still alive after all.
There was another groaning of metal and the other leg began to lift. The robot had started to walk. Drake looked up. The waist was just half a dozen metres away. He had to get past there before the right leg moved again.
Gritting his teeth, Drake reached for the horizontal cable again, wrapped his fingers round it and pulled.
"Mount up," War commanded, swinging himself into the saddle of the red horse. "Keep close to that big b.u.g.g.e.r, but don"t get too near the barrier."
Pestilence climbed up on to his horse"s back and took hold of the reins, ignoring the animal"s stress-induced nosebleed. With a grunt, Famine slid on to the faux leather seat of his scooter and turned the key in the ignition.
"So, what"s the plan?" he called.
The robot"s left leg slammed down, making the ground tremble and quake. Along the street, half a dozen windows exploded. There were sirens and screaming in almost every direction now, as the town woke up to the fact that a ma.s.sive robot was about to stomp it to bits.
"Minimise civilian casualties," War barked, sounding more and more like an army commander in the field. "Then, when Drake gets rid of that shield, we take that thing down."
"How?"
"We"ll improvise," War said. He flicked his reins and they gave a loud crack. "Hors.e.m.e.n," he bellowed. "Let"s ride!"
Drake had made it past the waist with seconds to spare. The left leg had now thudded down and the right one was raising. He could see the hors.e.m.e.n below, trying to drive back anyone stupid enough to get too close to the towering machine.
He looked up. In comparison with the rest of its body, the robot"s legs were short and stubby. That meant he hadn"t even reached the halfway point yet.
The next handhold swung out sharply as a circular door was thrown open. Clinging to it with both hands, Drake found himself dangling from the hatch as four metal spheres were launched from within it.
He braced himself, expecting the b.a.l.l.s to turn on him, but they rocketed away from the robot instead, swooshing past one another as they raced in the direction of the hors.e.m.e.n.
"Look out!" Drake cried, but the others were too far away to hear him.
Drake was hanging at the full stretch of his arms, his fingers already beginning to shake with the pressure of his weight and the insistent nagging of gravity. He looked across to the circular hole where the spheres had emerged. The hole formed the mouth of a dark tunnel, running deep into the machine"s innards.
He looked up at the fifty or so metres he still had to climb. He looked across at the hole. The decision was easy.
Swinging his legs up, he kicked for the edge of the hole. His heels slammed down into the mouth of the tunnel and he was able to shimmy his legs further into the darkness, as the hatch began to swing closed.
He just managed to whip his fingers away from the edge before the hatch clanged shut, trapping him inside.
"Made it," he breathed, then he listened to his voice echoing over and over again into the distance. Each time it did, it sounded less and less convinced that he"d made the right decision.
"Here goes," he whispered, as he crawled along a dark, narrow pa.s.sageway, searching for a way up into the robot"s head.
"Get back! All of you, get back!" War bellowed. He was zigzagging along the road, waving his sword around, trying to drive away anyone who got too close to the marching robot.
He turned the horse in the direction of a group of onlookers, twenty or thirty metres ahead. They were all pointing at something. Their outstretched fingers started high, then quickly lowered until they were pointing almost directly at War.
The big man turned to see what they were looking at, just as a spinning metal sphere struck him. Thrown backwards, he smacked against the ground, before skidding clumsily across the tarmac.
Growling, War got to his feet, his sword raised. He ran at the sphere, which was hanging in mid-air, not backing away.
WHUMPF!.
Another of the spheres slammed into his side, sending him staggering. A cable shot from within the first sphere, a barbed hook at its tip burying itself deep into the back of War"s neck.
An electrical current crackled along the wire and War"s back arched. Static sparks flickered across his beard as he sunk to his knees, his contracting muscles no longer able to keep him standing.
Even over the electrical buzzing in his head, War heard the panicked scream of Pestilence, and the shocked cry of Famine as more of the spheres closed in to attack.
PEST"S HORSE KICKED out with its back legs, slamming its hooves against a sphere. It spun like a snooker ball off a side cushion and clipped another of the b.a.l.l.s. One of them was sent spiralling up into the air, while the other clattered against the ground, throwing out a spray of angry sparks.
"Famine, War"s down!" Pest yelped. "Help him!"
"Bit busy," Famine grunted. He was careening round in circles, his scooter tilting on to two wheels as he tried to outrun another of the robotic orbs.
"Yah!" cried Pest, and his horse raced towards the fallen War. Two of the spheres raced to intercept him, and he dismounted mid-gallop, letting the horse continue on. The spheres didn"t react quickly enough. They continued to chase the horse, leaving Pestilence free to pick up War"s fallen sword.
"Flippin" Nora, what"s that made of?" he winced, as he tried to raise the weapon off the ground. His knees almost buckled as he lifted it with both arms. "Right," he said, using all his strength to raise the blade above his head. He took aim at the sphere that had immobilised War. "Have some of this!"
Pest tried to bring the sword swinging down, but he couldn"t summon the energy. His eyes opened wide with surprise as he began to topple backwards, pulled by the weapon"s weight.
The sword clanked against the pavement as Pest landed in a heap on the ground. Frantically, he tried to get to his feet, but the two spheres that had been chasing the horse had now realised their mistake.
Whirling saw-blades emerged from within both b.a.l.l.s as they spun towards him, closer and closer, the saws" teeth chewing hungrily at the air.
Screaming, Pest kicked backwards across the tarmac, his face fixed in a mask of terror. He raised his hands, the shreds of melted rubber still clinging to his fingers.
"Virus thing, virus thing!" he wailed, trying to repeat his earlier trick. But he had no idea how he"d done it then, and no ones or zeroes were flying from his fingertips now.
With a whine of their blades, both spheres picked up speed and lunged at the fallen horseman. A blur of black collided with one of the spheres, sending it bouncing along the road.
"Gotcha!" Famine cried, skidding his scooter round in a one-eighty degree spin. The sphere"s blade retracted, allowing it to roll across the concrete. It hurtled after the scooter, picking up speed with every bouncing roll.
Famine jumped from the moving scooter. Jumping was not something he did often, but, despite the size of him, it was something he did rather well. He sailed through the air, like a wrestler off the top turnbuckle, his arms and legs splayed wide.
His full weight came down on top of the sphere, and kept going until it hit the ground. He lay there, wobbling gently for a few seconds, before he rolled on to his back. A thin oblong sheet of metal remained on the ground where he had landed.
"Get away, get away, get away!"
Famine tried to sit up, but his stomach got in the way. He could only lift his head, could only watch as the spinning blade of the other sphere closed in on Pestilence.
"Pest!" he bellowed. "Look out!"
That, Pest thought, was probably the most pointless thing Famine had ever said, but there was no time to tell him that. There was no time for anything but closing his eyes and holding his hands in front of his face. He hoped he cut open easily. He could imagine nothing worse than the blade having to hack repeatedly at his flesh and sinew as it tried to slice its way through him, but it would be just his b.l.o.o.d.y luck.
The sphere shattered like a conker as another of the b.a.l.l.s smashed down hard against it. Pest looked up to find War standing on trembling legs, sparks dancing along his beard.
The barbed hook was still attached to the back of his neck, but War had managed to grab hold of the wire that tethered him to the sphere. He roared with pain as he swung the ball round in a wide circle above his head, making it whum-whum-whum as it looped round and round.
And then, with a vaguely comical tw.a.n.g, the cable snapped. The sphere arced through the air before bouncing off the barrier surrounding the approaching robot.
"Shield"s still there," War announced. He tore the hook from his neck and stretched his cramped muscles. Then, smoothing down his beard, he retrieved his sword.
The sounds of screaming were getting more distant as people saw sense and started legging it to safety. That was one problem taken care of. Unfortunately, there were plenty more problems where that came from.
Five more spheres hung in the air around them, spinning silently. Doors slid open on the surfaces of each of the b.a.l.l.s, as weapons emerged from within them. A buzz-saw. A gun barrel. Something that looked a lot like an industrial drill.
With one hand, War heaved Famine back up on to his feet. The three of them stood there, back to back as the spheres hovered slowly closer.