A warcorn attacks!
April 1st, 1917
Diary of Captain Horace S. Browntrout
I was shaving when I heard a strange whistling sound, like a flute or pan pipes. In an instant it was at the top of the dune. Before Lawrence could yell “gas,” the creature had blown a blue plume of vapor from its rear end that felled several men and camels. The rest of us struggled to get our masks on and run to high ground as the poisonous, moist effluvia spread across the desert, clinging to low spots.
The masks made it difficult to get a clear line of sight. The goggles had always a tendency to fog up with one’s breath. The beast took advantage of the confusion. It raced from man to man, savagely butting, biting and impaling at close range. Several of the men firing their rifles hit others in the confusion. Those who were too close for rifle-range, swiped away at it with scimitars and daggers, or fired their pistols. This was utter futility. The creature casually batted these men away — sometimes killing them instantly with one thrust from its massive, spiraled horn.
A British gun crew raced to set up the Vickers and began banging away at it, but it ran behind the dunes, out of sight, only to suddenly reappear behind them. In a split-second they were no more.
Lawrence bolted to his tent and ran back with a crate and two pry bars. We quickly undid the lid to reveal an elephant gun. It was a .577 Nitro Express with armor-piercing rounds and a bipod mount. “Try this!” Lawrence said gleefully. I quickly unloaded a box of cartridges while Stanley screwed in the bipod. By now, our camp was in ruins. Bodies of men, horses and camels lay strewn about. Several tents were aflame. Several more lay in smoking heaps. The creature still showed no sign of slowing down.
Another Vickers crew provided a distraction as Stanley and I ran to the top of a hill for a clearer firing position. Looking down range with field glasses, I spied another figure laying in the sand looking up at me through binoculars of his own. Seconds later, a shot whizzed past our heads. The report echoed through the canyon. It was an Austro-Hungarian Imperial sniper — probably the chap directing the movements of the unicorn. I gesticulated to Lawrence and pointed below so they could use the range-finder to get a fix on his position. Stanley and I hit the dirt, but two more shots flew by, one of which grazed Stanley’s bicep.
Two Bedouin bent low, creeping over the sand to outflank the sniper on either side. One held a pistol, the other an upraised scimitar. The evening sun was a lowering red cinder, dipping to the horizon, burning our eyes. The creature was no longer distracted by the Vickers crew. Stanley’s arm was bleeding freely as he squinted painfully through the gunsights into the fading sun at the beast, now charging at us up the dune. “Umph!” he said, pointing. “I know, I know!” I said. I popped another magazine into my Lee-Enfield and clicked the bayonet into place. I squeezed off one shot, then two, then three more: all hits. The creature flinched, but kept on. Stanley fired a blast from the leviathan rifle. A miss. The unicorn was ten yards away. Two more shots from the German sniper kicked sand in our faces — but it was too late. Stanley had the unnatural beast in his crosshairs. He squeezed the trigger again. There was an explosion of spray and a geyser of purple blood as the round tore into the warcorn’s right front flank. It collapsed to its front knees, whinnying.
In shock, Stanley, myself and the Austrian sniper all stood up at once. He cursed us and raised his rifle, but just then one of Auda’s men came up behind him and shot him point blank. We thought the melee over, but then the wounded warcorn staggered to its feet. Stanley rushed to put another round in the chamber of the Nitro Express rifle, but the action was jammed. There was no time to reload my .303. The unicorn’s eyes flashed red as it galloped towards us, expending the last of its energy in one final homicidal charge. I knew from our previous experience with it, that it had acid for blood and to engage it in close combat meant certain death.
It screeched furiously and as it ran towards us, I held up my rifle as a harpoon and fixed my stance. When the beast was ten paces away, I hurled it like a lance with all my might and dove to the side. As I rolled up I saw the monster collapse to its knees, toss its head from side to side, fountains of purple foam pouring from its mouth. My bayonet had lodged in its left front flank up to the hilt and my entire rifle stuck out of the creature, who, enraged but fading, tried to shake the foreign object loose. Stanley held up the butt of his gargantuan .577 Nitro Express Rifle to deliver the coup de grace by caving in its skull. I motioned for him to stop. I wanted to witness this beast’s death agony. After what I had seen it do to men unprovoked, I wanted to see it suffer as much as possible, before it expired. Then I choked on the thought. It was barbarism, pure and simple.
Finally, it finished thrashing and keeled over to one side, twitching briefly. It let out one final, weak squeal and was silent, its tongue lolling out of its mouth. I knelt down carefully and pulled my rifle out of its body. The bayonet was deformed where the steel blade had touched the unicorn’s acidic flesh. It was still smoking from the heat of the acid burns. I doffed my keffiyeh, mopped my sweaty brow and leaned in close to the creature. “You see,” I whispered. “You can be killed, and we will kill you.”
I heard a voice say, “Allah be praised. It is good.” I turned around and saw Auda and Lawrence standing over my shoulder.
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