The three of us formed up, back to back and cleared away the few stragglers which were most immediate to us.

“I am, I admit, at a loss as to how we’re to navigate this here imminent hullabaloo.”

“Maybe we could – naw. Or maybe we ought to – naw. That’d be right dumb of us. Well what if we...?”

“I know this is all like, a super slow-motion we’re gonna die moment, or whatever, but since we’ve got clinkers dragging up on our butts, like; barn rush now doesn’t sound the worst.”

“It isn’t even a matter of these all being particularly dangerous vermin – individually, I mean. But there is, I think it’s fair to say, a certain limit to where exertion –”

“Yea. I’m fuck’n tired too.”

“And tired’s a hunnerd and ten percent of the why of when things go wrong, yep. That’s how Vince Fischer got got, if’n y’all remember him. S’true.”

“Vince? Was he the gentleman who whittled – those little models? With the silver ear-ring?”

Ashli stumbled backwards from an unfavorable exchange. I helped her up at the shoulders, and felt her shaking. “Fuck this, okay?” She stammered. “Uh, right. Simons? Before I forget, you gotta pin this to your collar. It’s like, a talisman of mystical protection.”

Hand Ryder did not blink at that, he took the macramé she produced for him without hesitation. “One of your mother’s?” He asked. Then he pressed the doily to his lips beneath his nose and inhaled.

“Gross, are you smelling it?”

“Why for pity’s sake’d you even think to do that, man?”

“I don’t know! I don’t own clean things! Fresh laundry is – your momma’s just… godsdamnit.”

Simons affixed the amulet to his collar with an accompanying fishbone needle and without further question. I guided a pivot of our formation (just like Nick had done for me at Glenbrook) to rotate into the enemy. Taking inspiration from the Scots, I shuffled and swung low; the core rod knocked off flying high, just the same as a seven-iron would drive a line down the green.

“Maynard!” I screamed more urgently. “Tell me we’ve got a plan!”

The old man tipped off balance as a segmented body rose up behind him. It was comprised of similar parts as the lesser locusts, but assembled in the manner of a crawling centipede. The [variant: common tin three-and-ten thresher] stabbed into Maynard’s hanging hat, and yanked it until his chin-tie came loose. He was choked badly for a heartbeat until the cord failed and he could pull away.

Therefore Michael answered me instead. He whipped round and his whistling hammer made an end of the decapodal thresher before it could chew on his compatriot, then called to us. “We’re to let the herd out!”

“You sure?” I looked to Ashli for counsel. She shrugged. Ryder didn’t bother to stop swinging. “We’ll lose some,” I made to confirm with a yell.

The sound of metal on metal was starting to put a ringing in my ears. There was a rounded gòshëm, with a body like it was made from curved, overlapping plates. It was a [deviant gòshëm: common solder pillbox soldier], and I did not appreciate the portent of how it was seeking us outside of the most direct line of attack.

“We’re gone knees to elbows enough already! Better lose a few than all, and besides!”

Maynard recovered himself and cut off Mister O’Carroll hoarsely. “You kids can’t be out here, go get back to the house!”

There was moment of disorder as I pointed out the pillbox soldier. It snapped its body forcefully closed, conglobated in the manner of an armadillo. Fear swept over us, as the clanking oblate spheroid rolled towards us. Then fear kept sailing right on past and said goodbye as we came to understand the sluggish velocity with which it came. Ryder and Ashli shrugged. Then they juggled their arms between them, and our hand took a braced stance. Reversing the ax to present its blunt, he swung it low and horizontal, and the pillbug took a thunk so hard it shook apart and spilt its plates about.

“Woof. That’ll wake you up.” Ryder shook out his fingers; one set, then the other. He rubbed at his elbows in turn and let out a full-body shiver.

I frowned as Simons had spoken over some instructions we had been given. “Mister O’Carroll, can you repeat that?” I shouted.

I could nearly feel the pressure as the ’vader’s juice was collapsing inward towards Hand Michael. Doubtless, the man had already profited most enviably from the harvest. As long as he wasn’t poisoned by the intensity of Color, (or been kill’t, which went without saying) he’d likely hallow deep into Her Lady’s Grace after this. “Just pull as many off us as you can!” He ordered. “This is some prime Blue, any loss’ll be worth the grazing. Me and Maynard’ll take responsibility.”

By this point, either side of the swarm was closing up on the three of us afield, so we yielded north at a walking pace.

Harried and coughing, but still yet kicking, Maynard rasped a command to our escort. “Ryder, if you let those kids get hurt, you’d best’ve gone to grave first, you hear me?” Recovering his pace, Old Maynard was finding some success in using his spear like a grain thresher. Even if he looked a fool, and couldn’t match Mister O’Carroll, his tactic was rhythmic and mechanically efficient. So I pointed him out to Ashli that she might take some benefit from his example.

Ten yards and five gòshëm, more, later and further. “I’m so thirsty,” my cousin groaned.

“I should have a Dewar1 flask in my bag,” I assured her, and presented my back. She rummaged through my pack, made complaint on the contents, and collected the faded steel thermos.

The drift of overhead clouds obscured the moonlight, and we fought for two bad minutes under a darkness which crawled into that unknown place which authored my nightmares and abscessed. My pupils went so wide that they hurt, and the three of us sang meaningless little ditties, just so we knew not to hit one another.

When the light came again, we were pale and shaking and alive. Across the horde, Mister O’Carroll was an overpowering force in motion. He would not slow. His wreckage was terrible. Maynard though –

He was bleeding from his gut.