Wakiza had not yet recovered his own strength when the other survivors, shaking and exhausted, crawled into the warmth and safety of the winter nest. Moments later, they all jerked upright again at the sound of distant crashing through the forest. The stone of the cavern floor began to rumble underfoot, as the earth had done when the great metal ogre had charged toward them.
"The ogre!" Wakiza gasped. "It's coming!"
Exhausted, wounded warriors exchanged sick looks of fear, then staggered up again, snatching up weapons in shaking hands. Cries of fright rose on all sides from the women and little ones. The akule's voice rose authoritatively. "Get the little ones into the deepest cavern! Anyone capable of holding a weapon, arm yourself and move out, quickly. We must stop the ogre before it reaches the nest!"
Already, half-grown boys were struggling to carry out the last of the missiles from the weapons-cache cavern. Wakiza hoisted a missile to his shoulder, grabbed up a replacement for the rifle he'd lost, and rushed out into the cold morning, climbing the path up from the bottom of the ravine. The ground shook underfoot. A hideous, terrifying growl filled the air, while the snap and crash of full-grown trees sounded loud as gunfire in the distance.
Wakiza began to run, sobbing for breath as the rest of the surviving warriors joined him. A glance behind showed him a ragged line of women, pupils wide with terror, carrying rifles and struggling to control their panic. Rage formed a hot and stone-hard knot in his breast. That it should come to this! Arming women to defend the very nest! A whisper at the back of his skull, that this threat to clan and nestlings was no less than what they, themselves, had sought to inflict on the humans, was a breath of sacrilege through his mind. He snarled at the fleeting guilt that thought stirred to life and ran through the trees, weapons clutched tightly in his grip. Now was not the time to debate the wisdom of actions long since taken.
The ogre's snarl had reached deafening proportions when he saw the great metal hulk of the thing towering higher than the trees. Wakiza dropped to brace one knee against the frozen ground, taking aim with his one missile. He took careful aim at the wicked gun snouts high above him, then slapped the plunger on his missile. A blast of heat scorched his shoulder as the weapon flew toward its target. Wakiza rolled and ran, not even waiting to see if the missile struck, flinging himself prone behind an outcropping of rock. Fire belched through the trees and the shock wave of a massive explosion shook the ground.
Then he was up and running again, trying to get around to the side of the metal monster as it kept coming, invincible, unstoppable. He caught sight of other warriors firing missiles, saw terrified women dropping to their knees, fumbling with weapons they had only the vaguest notions of how to fire. The ogre's gun snouts belched flame and death. Trees crashed all around, cut off like twigs by the ogre's guns. Screams of pain and terror echoed through the forest. Wakiza fired his rifle at the thing, hating with a maddened red haze. Guns higher off the ground than three fully grown warriors spat at him. He threw himself prone as flame and explosions erupted everywhere around him.
And still it kept coming. Missiles detonated against its sides without effect.
Sobbing in terror and frustration, Wakiza wondered with a despairing howl, Why have the Ones Above forsaken us? Can't they hear our frantic pleadings? Have they no eyes to see our distress? They were alone in this glade of death, abandoned to the monstrous shape of the enemy's guns, with no hope remaining. All that remained was to die in defense of home and nestlings. Wakiza hurled himself forward, screaming out his hatred as the only antidote to terror.