Radiance Ch. 111

Chapter 111: Honey Trap.

As the screams and shots faded they were slowly replaced with the soft crunching of bones and slick wet tearing sounds of something tearing into bloody flesh.

Vizzy turned to Varrel with a concerned look in her compound eyes, "Think they had any clue they were walking into a Yau guai den till it jumped on them?" she asked curiously.

"Not a fucking clue, humans are lucky if they can smell their own stink half and given that most of this lot don't ever seem to have heard of the word hygiene alone a bath they were probably nose blind to them," he said bitterly.

He still couldn't believe their ruse had worked so perfectly, the raiders had been so scared of both Torch and the Boss that their fear and stupidity had over-ridden their caution which they had thrown to the wind when Varrel had said he would tell Torch that they were too scared to pursue their escaped slaves into a cave, which thanks to a healthy dose of narcotic induced machoism they hadn't even stopped to think about before charging head first into.

They had been expecting to find a group of downtrodden and weak human slaves cowering in the rear of the cave when they charged heroically in, what they hadn't been expecting to find was a family of rather grumpy and very hungry yau goai who had been sleeping in the back and wasn't too happy to get woken up by the group charging into their den.

Though by the wet crunching noises now coming from the cave the large bear's moods certainly seemed to have improved somewhat.

"We might want to make ourselves scarce before whatever narcotics those idiots were hopped up on get transferred to the bears currently eating them," Varrel said and his sister nodded making her fluffy antennae bob and swish.

"But where are we going to go now and what if Torch figures out what happened to his men?" Vizzy asked with obvious worry in her voice as well as a soft buzzing in her wings.

Varrel put his upper left arm around his sister's slender shoulders and gently shook her to comfort her, "We'll get through this what's the one thing our queen always said to us?" he said.

She lowered her head causing her antenna to droop obviously in sadness at the memory of their lost but still beloved matriarch and queen.

"Never give up no matter how hard things get a Cazador never quits," she said.

"Exactly! If our feral cousins can be relentless then so can we, they never quit and they never back down, so neither will we, we just have to find the slave freers who liberated that slave hive and hopefully they can get these bloody things off us!" Varrel said balling up his lower left hand into a fist which he shook at the sky while still holding his sister's shoulders in his upper arm.

"But what if they send us away like all the others?" Vizzy asked.

"Then we'll find others who won't and we'll keep searching until we do but I don't think they will, Something tells me someone who runs with a Deathclaw at their side is different to most humans don't you think?" Varrel asked.

Vizzy looked thoughtful and she twirled one of her antennae around her finger idly while she pondered this.

"Well they certainly aren't your average human that's for sure," she said and Varrel nodded.

"Exactly, so maybe just maybe they'll help us and if they can't maybe they can at least point us to someone who can, we at least have to try," he said.

Vizzy nodded and her demeanour seemed to brighten up, "Alright let's do it!" she said balling up all of her hands into fists.

"At a girl with determination like that you'll make a fine hive queen someday mark my words," Varrel said making his sister's face light up into a smile.

"Thanks Varrel you always did know how to cheer me up," she said and he grinned at her.

"Hey what are brothers for?" he said then he flexed out his wings stretching them properly for the first time in what felt like ages, his sister did the same and with a loud buzzing noise the pair of them lifted into the sky and headed back towards the town where Torch and the others were.

The pair didn't enter the town itself infact go near it as they didn't want the buzzing of their wings to tip them off to them having escaped their captors, no instead the pair circled it before dropping back to the ground to continue on foot, they could have kept flying but it was easier to follow the scent trail on the ground.

"The smell of Deathclaw is really strong this way," Vizzy said pointing and the pair noticed what looked like pretty faint claw marks and scratches on some of the stone which indicated that a Claw had indeed passed this way fairly recently.

"Lot of human smell too, many different individuals I'd bet my stinger that this is the group, looks like they stuck to the rocky ground to prevent anyone following their tracks easily," Varrel said lowering his head close to the ground to inspect the scratches.

If he'd have been human he'd have had next to no chance of spotting the faint scratches on the rocks but thanks to his compound eyes the scratches really stood out against the background to him as the multi lenses stitched the image together to form a bigger picture.

After what felt like hours the pair arrived on the outskirts of what appeared to be a town of some kind though it looked like it had been outfitted like some kind of fort to repel a siege.

There were high-sided walls with metal and wooden sides that had been packed with rocks and gravel bags on the inside.

It had four manned lookout towers at each corner with a tall tower of some kind dead centre to the town each seemed to have a human in it keeping watch, Varrel could also smell the very bitter and distinct scent of machine oil as well as Claws.

"There's more than one Deathclaw in there but they smell different," he said from their perch atop a rocky outcrop that overlooked the top but thanks to the high and slightly slanted sides still couldn't see all the way inside.

"I smell a lot of humans too though these smell very different to the other slaves we've encountered, they are more relaxed, and there's still tension in a bit of fear in the air but no-where near as much as at the slave camp, they also smell a lot cleaner too," Vizzy said.

"Yeah I can actually smell that soap from here, smells like the flowers our queen used to like growing," Varrel said with a hint of nostalgia in his grief-fogged voice.

That's when they saw three figures come flying up out of the centre of the town causing them to scramble to remain hidden though thankfully the long shadows of the rapidly approaching night helped them to hide.

The three figures silently shot overhead at incredible speed heading off into the distance and Varrel poked his head up to watch them vanish.

"Did you see that!? That armoured human could fly and so could those two Deathclaws!!" Vizzy exclaimed her mandibles still hanging open.

"Yeah I saw but I didn't see or hear any wings, that suit of theirs must have some kind of hidden technology inside it, our queen always said humans had an amazing talent for creating wonderful machines to achieve incredible things," he said.

"That has to be the group that hit the slave hive brother, an armoured human and a Deathclaw though now there are two Deathclaws!" Vizzy exclaimed and Varrel nodded.

"Yeah and did you see how the larger one looked very different, it looked like one of those things the humans call an alligator," he said.

"Shall we follow them?" Vizzy asked and Varrel nodded making his own antenna bob.

"Don't see we have much of a choice, I mean we could head into the town but it seems to me that that group we just saw leave are the ones responsible for attacking the slave hives if anyone is going to help us it's probably them," he said.

"Well, we'd better get moving before the wind blew away their scent trail!" Vizzy said quickly lifting herself into the air on her rapidly beating wings swiftly followed by her brother and the pair shot off in the direction they had seen the group heading.

Tracking a flying target is a lot more difficult than tracking a target on the ground, for one the scent trail doesn't hang around long at all, secondly, even if you can detect it it's quite often displaced by a slight breeze so it can lead you off in quite the wrong direction if you are not careful.

But fortunately, both Varrel and Vizzy both had extensive experience in tracking flying prey so the pair of them flew in a figure-of-eight motion, weaving over one another repeatedly to create a helix effect in the air, using this method they kept the scent trail between them which made it easier to pinpoint and track and the closer they got the stronger it got as it had less time to dissipate on the breeze.

"Looks like they took to the ground here it's dropping sharply," Vizzy called.

"Yeah let's get down there and see what's going on," Varrel said and the pair dove down towards the ground where they instantly saw twinkling lights in the distance.

"I'd bet my singer they are near that slave hive!" Vizzy exclaimed and Varrel instantly detected the strong scent of misery in the air as well.

"Yeah I think you are right sis let's check it out though be careful, these are not people we want to pick a fight with if they can take out an entire hive of the Boss's men as easily as they did these are no fools and they know what they are doing so tread lightly," Varrel warned.

The pair of them touched down and filled their wings in against their backs, instantly the pair of them detected strong pheromones on the air and the ground and they began to turn on the spot in order to gauge the directions.

"I smell death, strong death," Vizzy said a worried note creeping into her voice.

"Me too but it smells........old," Varrel said sounding as confused as he felt by the scent.

"Shall we check it out?" Vizzy asked and Varrel nodded he was both curious and wanted to know what they were dealing with here.

The pair followed the scent trail to what appeared to be a large pit dug into the rock near the slave hive itself, it appeared to be on the side of what looked to be a mine of some sort, it seemed the raiders were getting the slaves to dig something out of the rock though neither of them could really tell what it was.

But that's also when they found the source of the death smell and what they found both shocked and disgusted both of them beyond words.

It was a mass grave, little more than a hollowed-out pit in the ground off the mine where the bodies of the fallen slaves had been callously dumped, now they were left to fester and decay in the savage sun during the day and to be picked clean to the bone by carrion feeders by night.

Even now smaller rad scorpions and small canines were picking at the bones along with vultures not to mention insects.

"This is vile! How could they so callously do this to their own kind brother!?" Vizzy said clutching her upper hands over her mouth in shock.

Suddenly a deep low growl of what was blatantly anger and fury resonated from somewhere close by and the pair looked up, on the other side of the pit closer to the mine stood three figures silhouetted by the moon and starlight, it was them.

"Quick hide!" Varrel exclaimed before pulling his sister into cover between some of the craggy rocks surrounding the basin.

The three figures didn't seem to have noticed them and were stood looking into the pit.

"Vile murderers! We's will make them pay for this!" the larger of the two Deathclaws said in a feminine voice much to both of the twin's surprise, the Deathclaw could talk!!

"Don't you worry Thundertail these fucking animals in human skin are not going to get away with this! Please promise me my beloved one that you will not hold us back when the time comes, blood needs to spill for this, there are hatchlings in there!" the smaller of the two Deathclaws snarled in a feminine but deep voice.

"When the time comes sugertail I'm gonna tear these fuckers limb from lim myself, if anyone is gonna need to be held back it's fucking me!" the armoured human said in what sounded like a masculine voice though it was somewhat distorted by his helmet.

"Then we's agrees all nasty human raiders die tonight, every last one of them!" the larger female Deathclaw they called Thundertail snarled while swishing her large tail about.

"This whole fucking place is coming down, when I'm done they aren't even gonna find rocks big enough to make fucking gravel with," the human said and as Varrel watched him an odd thing happened it kinda looked like the male grew huge wings out of his back, though they almost looked like they were made of smoke or maybe flame it was hard to tell.

"Something tells me the raiders are in a for a bad night," Vizzy hissed softly and Varrel nodded.

"Let's find somewhere to watch this, should give us a good indicator of who and what we're dealing with here," Varrel said and Vizzy nodded.

The pair of them silently crept up the side of the mine's slope that overlooked the hive below, the whole place looked kinda like a giant roofless cage from up here.

The walls were made of those metal poles humans called rebar that had been welded together to form tightly latticed bars that went all the way around the outside of the hive.

There were large gates at either end of it and inside there were a series of buildings, the raiders themselves walked about freely while the slave humans were confined to what appeared to be a large building situated in one corner but were painfully obvious as it looked like a cage within a cage.

Now the hive the twins had investigated for Torch had shown signs of stealth being used to infiltrate and systematically eliminate the opposition within it, but it seemed the small group had no intentions of using stealth to achieve their ends this time around.

As Varrel and Vizzy watched in pure disbelief the armoured human floated up into the air high above the hive while the two Deathclaws made their way to each of the gates on either end, once they were in position the armoured human moved his hands like he was pulling something apart and those smoke like wings flared on his back.

Bellow them both gates at either end of the hive simply tore themselves free of their mountings with loud metallic shrieks and were flung away into the night leaving the hive open and vulnerable.

Almost instantly two bellowing roars issued from the two female Deathclaws and the pair charged into the hive from both sides at once while the armoured human floated lower over it, both of the Claws hit the surprised raiders like a pair of scaly freight trains from either end tearing into them with their claws and teeth.

The larger of the two seemed to be using her massive tail like some sort of improvised club and given there was a large ball of spiky metal on the end of it it was highly effective, as the pair watched she smashed it right into three humans that came running out of one of the buildings impaling them on the spikes, then with a sharp flick she sent the trio screaming into yet more of them coming through the same door.

Meanwhile, the armoured human seemed to be just floating over the town and was waving his hands about, at first Varrel thought he was dancing but then when he looked closer his mandibles fell open in pure shock and disbelief, he was catching the bullets that the raiders were firing at his two companions somehow.

As he watched an ever-growing ball of metal was forming in the centre of the town as every bullet the raiders fired was diverted into the mass like they were being drawn into it by a massive magnet, then when it was large enough he let loose a yell of warning.

Both of the Deathcalws dove for cover behind anything thick enough they could find and the ball simply seemed to explode in every direction except one, that one being the direction of the slave house.

it was like watching a giant land mine going off in mid-air, the ball shattered sending the projectiles right back at the very ones who had fired them, tearing them into bloody chunks that fell to the ground and filling the air with a powerful coppery metallic scent.

The Deathclaws instantly sprung back out of their cover and began going house to house kicking in the doors and vanishing inside, screams of terror and pain could be heard from inside as the hidden raiders within were systematically rooted out and destroyed by the pair, though any slaves that had been forced into those dwellings for whatever nefarious purpose the raiders had for them and give they were mostly female it didn't take a genius to work out what it was, were spared.

The slaves fled back to their cage ahead of the angry deathclaws exiting the buildings and the armoured human simply tore the door off the place before heading inside while his two companions finished their sweep of the hive, eventually no more screams were heard and the pair headed to join their comrade who was inside the slave quarters.

"What in the name of the mighty hive queen are we dealing with here brother?" Vizzy exclaimed her voice laden with shock and disbelief at what she had just witnessed, though Varrel was kinda at a loss himself, never in a million lifetimes would he have believed what he'd just seen if it had been told to him by word of mouth.

But that's when he saw something else incredible, they were removing the slave collars from the captive humans.

They weren't just freeing the humans from their captivity they were freeing them from their bonds completely with some kind of tool.

Suddenly Varrel felt himself overcome with a ray of hope, maybe just maybe even if they didn't allow them to come with them at least maybe they could be pursued to remove these accursed death sentences from around their necks.

So before he even thought to answer his sister Varrel found himself buzzing his wings and lifting into the air.

"Varrel where are you going!?" Vizzy exclaimed chittering her mandibles and buzzing her wings in alarm but before he even knew what he was doing or what he was planning Varrel had flown over half the distance between their hidy hole and the hive.

As he drew near he felt his hope building by the moment, in his head he just kept hearing his beloved hive queen's words repeating over and over again, "There is always hope as long as we don't abandon it, my son."

As he drew close the armoured human must have heard the buzzing of his wings because with incredible speed he snapped around and threw out a hand in his direction, it felt to Varrel like he'd just flown straight into a brick wall.

Reaching out one of his hands in front of him he realised there actually was a wall there or at the very least a surface of some kind but not one he could see, he tried to move backwards but one of his wings caught another surface to his right and it caused him to falter and drop only to have his feet land on something.

he looked down and saw nothing but the air around him and an odd sense of panic began to rise in his chest as he very swiftly realised the armoured human had completely surrounded him in some kind of invisible barrier that he could feel but could not see, that's when he heard something which made his heart freeze solid in his chest.

"Varrel!! Leave my brother alone!!" Vizzy bellowed in a mixture of fear and rage over the top of the loud buzzing of her wings going at full tilt as she dove straight at the armoured human in some brave but misguided attempt to distract him into releasing him.

Almost immediately the armoured human's other hand shot out and Vizzy to flew straight into an invisible wall causing her to crumple into it with a whoosh of breath and a cry of pain.

"Oof! What the hell!? What is this!!? Release us at once!!" Vizzy yelled clambering to her feet and rubbing her face and mandibles before tapping her hands against the invisible wall, he even saw her abdomen flexing like she was trying to restrain herself from trying to sting the wall.