approaching from there—” he nodded as his gleaming red eyes caught hers “—and plenty of them.”
Even as he spoke, the others became aware of a crashing in the undergrowth that was growing nearer with every second. A pack of the mutie animals was approaching at speed.
Ryan unslung the Steyr, and slammed the bolt. “Triple-red. Fire as soon as you sight,” he yelled. Even as he spoke, he was aware that the gloom of twilight under the cover of the trees would make for great pools of shadow that would disguise the movement of the creatures. Hoping the light would hold out long enough, he knew there would be places where he would have to shoot on sound alone, which would be difficult once the firing started, obliterating all else.
The first of the mutie creatures, driven by a lust for blood and, perhaps, some primeval desire for revenge, appeared from the undergrowth only a few yards from where they stood. It leaped across the intervening space, its powerful haunches propelling it through the air. Ryan raised his rifle and fired a solitary round. The creature’s flight was checked, the force of the shell almost changing the mutie’s trajectory as it spun sideways, falling to the ground with a hideous cry of pain. A second shell finished it off. The one-eyed man was taking no chances that the wounded animal might fight back.
Rather than retreat, the chilling of the lead creature just made the muties more ferocious. They began to pour out of the undergrowth, reaching double figures with a frightening speed. Mildred, Krysty and Jak, armed with their handblasters, picked off the animals singly, aiming—like Ryan—for accuracy. But there were too many animals and not enough space and time in which to maneuver.
“Doc, take the left hand with shot. I’ll deal with the right,” J.B. yelled over the bedlam of squealing muties and blasterfire. As he yelled, he unslung his Smith & Wesson M-4000.
“Understood,” Doc shouted, for once not wasting words. The Armorer’s intention was clear: they were the only two of the companions with the firepower to put a serious dent in the marauding forces. While the others picked off the animals in front of them, it would be up to Doc and J.B. to try to stem the flow from the darkness beyond.
It was no time for subtlety.
Doc used the shotgun chamber of the LeMat, firing into the darkness, the percussion pistol roaring as the shot emerged from the barrel of the old blaster, moving at high velocity into the darkness, spreading out to put deadly pellets through anything that got in its way. The squeals and cries from the darkness suggested it was an effective tactic.
Likewise, J.B. fired off a blast from the M-4000. The normal shot charge from such a blaster would be effective, but the Armorer had loaded barbed-metal fléchette rounds that, when propelled at immense velocity, would turn and twist in the air, ripping chunks out of whatever they came into contact with, causing irreversible internal damage on any carcass they entered.
The twin-pronged attack had the desired effect. The numbers of attacking creatures were immediately lessened; many turned and fled in fear or injury. The rest of the companions had the precious seconds they needed to pick off whatever attackers remained.
In the aftermath, the air stank of blood and cordite, the carnage obvious, even in the encroaching darkness of the night.
“Shit, too late to find a ville now,” Ryan murmured. “We need to move on a little, pitch a camp, before the stragglers return to attack again.”
“We should be okay,” J.B. commented. “There’s enough chilled meat here to keep most of the predators for miles around busy until sunrise.”
Krysty allowed herself to shiver. “Let’s get moving, then, before any of them come out of cover.”
Doc smiled. “That would be wise. And, of course, the smell will be awful here.”
Jak snorted. “Yeah. Sooner pitch camp better—downwind, right?”
Chapter Two
Jak stayed on watch through the night. Their camp was another five hundred yards from the scene of the slaughter, but even so the albino youth felt a nagging sense that there was still danger in the air. When Ryan asked him, he shrugged. He couldn’t say what it was, but that he just had a sense of it. The woods were too alive for the night; something was making the wildlife restless.
Krysty had been unable to shed any light on Jak’s unease. She was still running on adrenaline from the battle against the mutie raccoons and couldn’t sense anything.
Jak stayed silent, as still as a rock, looking back into the darkness. His red eyes were like coals in the night, burning bright toward the scene of carnage. He refused attempts to relieve him, telling Ryan he wouldn’t be able to sleep, anyway. He could smell the blood and the hunger as the smaller scavengers came out of hiding to pick clean the carcasses the companions had left behind. He could hear the sounds of the feeding frenzy, of the crunch of bone and rending of flesh mixed with the squabbles as predators competed for the choicest pieces.
But he could hear more than that. Beyond, and almost hidden beneath the surrounding sounds, he could hear a migration. Smaller animals, birds—these were the vanguard. They were moving toward the area where the raccoon fight had taken place; but they weren’t motivated by the need to feed. It was more than that. They weren’t carnivorous creatures, and would, in truth, be at risk from the scavengers around the carcasses.
So what was scaring them so much that they were blindly running into trouble? It had to be something big, which was why he felt the need to stay awake, to listen and to try to read the sounds of the night. The sounds were too far off to be an immediate threat, but the group was moving fast enough—if the flight of the creatures he could detect was an indication—to trouble them the following day.
By the time dawn had broken, the companions were all awake. At first light, they struck camp. By this time, the flight of the smaller creatures was obvious to all, so close had it become. Yet what lay behind it…
“It’s trouble, no doubt about that,” Krysty said softly, her tone betraying the worry that she felt. Her hair was nestled close to her scalp, her doomie sense working overtime now that she had rested.
“Yeah, but what?” J.B. queried. “Is it the kind of trouble where we try and move out of the way, or is it the kind where that’ll just get us blasted in the back?”
“A dilemma, my dear John Barrymore, a dichotomy that we must solve if we are to save our skins,” Doc whispered.
“Any idea what it is, Jak?” Ryan asked. “It doesn’t sound like a sec party of any kind…” The one-eyed man had been speculating to himself that, if they were near a ville, the noise of the previous night’s firefight with the mutie raccoons may have carried. And it would be understandable if the ville baron’s response to unexpected blasterfire was to send out a party to hunt down the possible threat. But the disturbance seemed to be natural. He couldn’t hear men, horses, wags. And there had been no other blasterfire.
Jak didn’t answer him at first. His attention was still so focused on the source of the flight that it took a while for him to snap into the space occupied by his companions.
“Not men,” he said slowly, shaking his head. “Not just animal.”
“What does that mean?” Mildred asked, voicing the confusion they all felt.
“Means
