“Heh. Got nearly every last one of the whoreson achitophel!” Fal rubbed his ratty paws. “Those flyboys know how to use their powder! Got that rockpile right on the G-spot. Did you see how it quivered!”
“Did the earth move for you too, Fal?”
The rat chuckled. Licked his lips. “Well, I must go down and grab a haunch or two before the others snaffle it all. Most of the meat is buried.”
Chip shuddered as the plump rat showed what a turn of speed he could display for food. The Company biochemists had said that the Maggots were nontoxic, except for their poison sacs. The rats and bats came from insectivore lines. Even so, eating their enemy . . .
Chip decided he’d wait until his bellybutton was closer to his backbone.
Ten minutes later, they were legging away across country, the rats showing that table manners were not part of their download.
* * *
Chip flopped down. They were now miles further in between the high red walls of the Maggot tunnel-mounds. There was no doubt about it: away from the trench-and-heavy-shelling warfare of the front, the combined skills of the human, rats and bats could lick five times their number of Maggots. Maggots were so goddamn stupid. Well, so was frontal slugging away at each other in trenches. That kind of warfare suited Maggots. There it was numbers and sheer blind determination and ferocity. Out here, in the broken country, even right inside their own backyard, Maggots were getting their asses whipped. But they just kept on coming. That was Maggots for you. They didn’t run.
“I’ve found another fine site for an ambush, indade. Another quarry. Fair number of quarries hereabouts. The Maggots’re about an hour off.” Eamon was flourishing on this diet of mayhem.
Chip staggered to his feet. “Jesus, Eamon. We can’t go on like this. That cliff section you dropped on the last party was brilliant, and we nailed every single survivor. But they’re back onto us again. Twice as fast, I’ll swear. I’ve got to get some sleep. You and the rats can manage on half an hour snatches, but I’m running out of steam.”
“Sleep. We’ll prepare this one. I’ll leave O’Niel to keep a vigil.” It was a measure of the respect that the sole surviving human had won, that the big bat would even suggest this.
Chip was tempted. Then he shook his head. “We shouldn’t split up,” he said regretfully. “But I’d love to know how in the hell they keep on following us. And so quickly.”
Bronstein had fluttered up, quietly. “It must be the smell.”
“Are you suggesting that they smell a rat?”
“Belike they smell a stinking human,” snapped Behan.
“Speaking of keeping together, where is the fat rat?”
“And Doll . . .”
Chip raised his eyes to heaven. “Both of them! We’re in the middle of a war. Lost behind enemy lines, with half the Maggot army after us, and fat Fal’s chasing tail.”
“Envy makes you nasty, Connolly,” said Phylla, preening her whiskers.
“AAASKKKEEECCCH!”
They were nearly flattened by seven of the long-legged Maggots they’d seen foraging, busy collecting literally every scrap of organic material. The running creatures paid them no attention, but ran on, fleeing as if their trousers were afire.
The bats were still fluttering in confusion and the rats scampering for cover when the reason for the panic came blundering through, stridulating blue murder. It was an eighth Maggot. And its trousers were on fire. Well, its hind-end was alight, anyway. Maggots didn’t wear trousers, or anything else for that matter.
“Man, look at that thing go!” cheered Nym.
“Got its afterburners on!” sniggered Pistol.
Even Eamon was impressed. “Indade, ’tis not often you be seeing them from behind.”
“Not often!” Melene was smiling toothily. “Why, Fal said he’d give up drinking if he ever saw one run away.”
Pistol curled his own thin lips in the savage way that showed amusement. “And you said the only way he’d see them run was to give up drinking in the first place. To which he replied that he’d see a lot of other things too if he did. And then you—”