The Descent

staccato stroke.

Confined  by  the  corridors,  the  stink  of  powder  filled  their  lungs.  Branch's  heart surged. He recognized one yell of the many yelling  voices  as  his  own. God  help  me, he prayed  at his rifle stock.

In  all  the  thunder  of  gunfire,  Branch  knew  his  rifle  ran  empty  only  when  it  quit hunching at the meat of  his  shoulder.  He  switched  clips  twice.  On  the  third  switch,  he paused to gauge the killing.

To  his  right  and  left,  his  boys  went  on  machining  the  darkness  with  their  gunfire. Maybe  he  wanted  to  hear  the  enemy  beg  for  mercy.  Or  howl  for  it.  Instead  what  he heard was laughter. Laughter?

'Cease fire,' he called.

They  didn't. Blood up, they  strafed, pulled dry,  fresh-clipped, strafed  again.

He  shouted  once  more.  One  by  one,  his  men  stopped  firing.  The  echoes  pulsed  off into the arterials.

The  smell of blood and freshly  chipped stone was pungent. You  could  practically  spit it out of your  mouth. That  laughter went on, strange  in its purity.

'Lights,' said Branch, trying  to  keep  the  momentum  theirs.  'Reload.  Be  ready.  Shoot first. Sort it out later. Total control, lads.'

Their  headlamps  came  alive.  The  corridor  drifted  in  white  smoke.  Fresh   blood spoiled the cave  paintings. Closer in, the  carnage  was  absolute.  Bodies  lay  tangled  in  a foggy  distant  mass.  The  heat  of  their  blood  steamed,  adding  to  the  humidity  of  this place.

'Dead.  Dead.  Dead,'  said  a  troop.  Someone  giggled.  It  was  that  or  weep.  They  had done this thing. A massacre of their very  own.

Rifles twitching side to side, the  spellbound  Rangers  closed  in  on  their  vaporous  kill. At last, thought Branch, behold  the  eyes  of  dead  angels.  He  finished  refilling  his  spare clips, scanned the upper tunnel for latent intruders, then got to his feet.

Ever  cautious, he circled the chamber, threw  light down the  left  fork,  then  the  right. Empty. Empty.  They'd  taken  out  the  whole  contingent.  No  stragglers.  No  blood  trails leading away.  One hundred percent  payback.

They  gathered  in  a  semicircle  at  the  edge  of  the  dead.  Over  by  the  heaped  kill,  his men   stood   frozen,   their   lights   casting   downward   in   a   collection   pool.   Branch shouldered in among them. Like them, he froze.

'No fucking way,' a troop darkly  muttered.

His  neighbor  refused  the  sight,  too.  'What's  these  doing  here?  What  the  fuck  these doing here?'

Now Branch saw why  his enemy  had died so meekly.

'Christ,' he breathed.  There  were  two dozen or more upon the floor. They  were  nude and pathetic. And human. They  were  civilians. Unarmed.

Even  mauled  by  the  shrapnel  and  gunfire,  you  could  see  their  awful  gauntness. Their decorated skin stretched  taut  across meatless rib cages.  The  faces  were  a  study in  famine,  cheeks  parsed,  eyes  hollowed.  Their  feet  and  legs  were  ulcerated.  The sinewy  arms  lay  thin  as  a  child's.  Their  loins  were  cased  in  old  waste.  Only  one  thing might explain them.

'Prisoners,' said Spec 4 Washington.

'Prisoners? We didn't kill no prisoners.'

'Yeah,' said Washington. 'They  were  prisoners.'

'No,' said Branch. 'Slaves.' There  was a silence.

'Slaves? There's  no such thing. This is modern days,  Major.'

He  showed  them  the  brand  marks,  the  stripes  of  paint,  the  ropes  linking  neck  to neck.

'Makes  'em  prisoners.  Not  slaves.'  The  black  kids  acted  like  authorities   on  the

subject.

'See those raw marks  on their shoulders and backs?'

'So?'

'Abrasions. They've  been humping loads. Prisoners, labor. Slaves.'

Now they  saw. Cued by  Branch, they  fanned out. This had just gotten very  personal. Spooked, high-stepping, the troops moved among  the  limbs  and  smoke.  Most  of  the captives  were  male. Besides the neck-to-neck  rope, many were  shackled at  the  ankles with  leather  thongs.  A  few  bore  iron  bracelets.  Most  had  been  ear-tagged,  or  their ears had been sliced or fringed the way  cowboys jingle-bobbed cattle.

'Okay,  they're  slaves. Then where's their keepers?'

The  consensus  was  immediate.  'Gotta  be  a  keeper.  Gotta  be  a  boss  for  the  chain gang.'

They  went  on  looking  through  the  pile,  absorbing  the  atrocity,  refusing  the  notion that slaves  might keep  themselves  slaves.  Body  by  body,  though,  they  failed  to  find  a demon master.

'I don't get it. No food. No water.  How'd they  keep  alive?'

'We passed that stream.'

'That's water,  then. I didn't see no fish.'

'Here  we  go,  see  here.  Jerky.'  A  Ranger  held  up  a  foot-long  piece  of  dried  meat.  It looked  more  like  a  dried  stick  or  shriveled  leather.  They  found  more  pieces,  mostly tucked into shackles or clutched in dead hands.

Branch  examined  a  piece,  bent  it,  smelled  the  meat.  'I  don't  know  what  this  could be,' he said. Then he did. It  was human.