It stopped screeching, and stopped moving.
That was the easy part, Cade knew. Gunfire and shouts still sounded behind him in the main tunnel. He had to get the men to come this way, fast.
He dropped the beacon, reslung his sword, and grabbed the MP5 hanging from its sling on his side. Breathing hard now, Cade rushed to the first beacon he’d dropped and saw his men fighting desperately. The glare of the IR was helping them, to be sure, but the ghouls were relentless, slowly adjusting to the blinding light.
Cade reloaded his MP as he shouted, “Pull back! This way, to the second marker, move!”
Attuned to their boss’s voice after many campaigns, the team immediately adjusted their tactics and began taking purposeful steps toward their commander. Cade offered covering fire, and realized the floor of the main tunnel was littered with empty magazines. Ammunition was going to be a problem moving forward.
As they reached him, one by one Cade shoved them past and into the smaller tunnel where he knelt guarding the mouth. “Go, go, go!”
As the team retreated, Cade saw the situation was much worse than he’d thought. Ghouls from both ends of the main tunnel filled it now; too many to count. He looked up at the rocky ceiling, and wondered if his plan was still tenable.
Too late now; he was committed.
Riley, of course, was on of the last men to come toward him. He had an IR beacon in his left hand the way Cade had done, firing his MP5 with his right, tucked in close to his body for stability.
“Riley!” Cade barked as the ghouls closed in.
Riley dropped to one knee beside the commander.
“Drop the roof on them,” Cade ordered, and opened fire at the ceiling.
Riley followed the order immediately, pointing his MP5 high and matching Cade’s IR targeting beam with his own. The men emptied their magazines just as the nearest ghoul reached for them.
Rather than the low rumble of the earlier cave-in, this one began with a crackling explosion of stone and dirt. It rained down on the two Templars, who rolled backward out of the way as the ceiling above and just ahead of them let go, releasing metric tons of earth and rock.
Cade lurched to his feet and jogged backward, Riley beside him, assessing the damage being done. Whether by luck or the blessing of God Himself, the ploy worked, burying a number of the ghouls and blocking the way to this smaller tunnel into which the Templars had escaped.
The two men paused and listened, waiting to see if Cade’s gamble would now cost their own lives by bringing the entire tunnel down on them. All they heard, though, was the sound of their own heavy breathing.
“Nice job, sir,” Riley said. He tipped his head down the corridor toward where the other men were in a defensive formation, awaiting orders in a clutch around the second IR beacon. “Now where does this lead?”
Cade pulled his magazine, and discovered he was clean out of ammo. “Damned if I know," he said. "They dug it from somewhere, so it can’t be a dead-end if they were coming from that direction.”
Riley nodded.
“Do another check, make sure everyone’s all right, and count mags. I’m out.”
“Me, too,” Riley said with a wry, veteran’s grin. “I’ll check.”
Riley went to the men while Cade stayed put and glared at the mass of rubble blocking the tunnel. It had been a terrible gamble, he knew, causing that collapse. But as the first peek of a ghoul’s claw knocked aside a handful of pebbles, he knew it had been the right thing to do. There were too many of them, and if they’d made these tunnels, they could clear this mess pretty quickly. All he’d done was slow them down a little.
But a little had saved lives. That’s what mattered right now.
Cade kept his eye on the claw that was wriggling forth from the bottom of the rock pile. Most likely the ghoul on the other end of that claw was smashed to pulp, but he couldn’t take the chance of finding out.
Bottom line: they were outclassed down here. It wasn’t just the tight confines of the tunnels, it was the strength of the enemy. Echo was one bad-ass group of ordained soldiers, but good soldiers knew to stay in their “OODA loop.” Observe, orient, decide, act.
Cade observed; he oriented; and now he had decided.
It was time to bug out.
He walked to the men and took a report from Riley. “We’re hurtin’ on ammo, sir. Less than one mag per man right now.”
Cade scanned the men. “Casualties?”
“No, we’re fit as fiddles, but a lot of the body armor got shredded.”
The knight commander nodded. “All right. Nice work back there, gentlemen. Now it’s time we pull out. We follow this, see where it takes us, and make a beeline for anything that looks like an exit topside. We’re going to need backup on this particular bug hunt. Saddle up.”
Echo Team acknowledged the order and got to its feet, ready to roll.
The hand of the ghoul caught beneath the rubble punctured through the rocks, scrabbling to make its small hole bigger. Soon enough, the ghoul would break through.
“Move out,” Cade ordered.
They still faced a long night ahead.
10
This tunnel was even more claustrophobic than the last; the men, some of them as big and broad as Moro and Riley, only able to squeeze through one at a time. Cade sent Riley ahead, armed with one of the precious MP5 mags and four IR beacons gathered from other members of the team. The men in the middle were the most vulnerable; Cade had organized the party to have men with magazines at the front and rear, while those in the middle would have to rely on their swords. It wasn’t a major deficit, considering the enchantment of the blades had proven more effective than the 9mm slugs from the MPs. But that meant, of course, relying on hand-to-hand melee combat the next time they made contact.
And they would make contact, Cade was sure of that. He was three men deep from the front, letting his exceptionally trained and skilled Templars pave the way while he studied the walls and ceiling as they went, keeping his OODA loop on full alert.
What would actions could they take if the ghouls burrowed into the tunnel right now?
From the left? The right?
Above?
Below?
With each scenario, Cade’s battle-hardened mind sought solutions to potential attacks. None of them ended well for the Templars.
Twenty minutes into the tunnel, Riley gestured for a halt, and the team took a knee. Cade climbed to the front, behind his XO.
“Feeling a draft,” Riley whispered. “I think we’re gonna find a room around this corner up here, Commander. It’s sounding different.”
Cade grunted that he’d heard the report. A room of some kind? That could be great news, or terrible news.
Only one way to find out.
“Nice and easy,” Cade said.
“Yessir.”
Riley crept forward, and Cade stayed close behind, ready to spring out with sword or gun the instant it was called for.
Then, uncharacteristically, Riley stopped as he turned a corner in the tunnel that veered right, a hand coming up to his mouth. “Oh, God, sir . . .”
Cade smelled it, too. He gently urged his comrade forward a few more steps so he could clear the corner. Riley went, coughing softly into his elbow as he did. Cade didn't blame him.
He’d smelled death before, many times. Usually it was suffused with other battlefield odors—gunpowder, smoke, blood. Not this time. This was altogether a different miasma that threatened to choke the vet.
Then as Riley kept moving forward, Cade began to pick out shapes and forms with the night-vision mono. His finger tickled the trigger guard of his MP5, wanting to slide in and be that much quicker on the draw if any the pale figures moved.
But they didn’t.
At first Cade thought they were very tall creatures, perhaps some new “species” of ghoul, for they glowed green in the invisible beam of his monocular. They were humanoid, with limbs hanging down along their flanks. But their motionlessness was
as unnerving as the ghouls’ initial silence had been.
What in hell are these things?
“Sir,” Riley said as they crossed the threshold from the tunnel into this large cavern, which had clearly been carved out just like the tunnels had.
Cade pulled up beside his old buddy and took in the horror in front of them as its nature became clear.
The figures were not ghouls. They were humans. And they were not moving because each and every one of them was dead.
They only appeared tall because they were suspended two feet in the air, hanging from iron hooks.
It was a meat locker.
In the cool stillness of the cavern, the naked bodies of the dead did not sway. They only hung, heads tilted down, staring at an eternal emptiness that made this black cave look warm by comparison. The smell emitting from the corpses was tangible at this range, a solid wall of the odor of decay that climbed into Cade’s nose and scrambled down his throat and into his guts.
“The town?” Riley asked, his voice level.
“Some of them anyway,” Cade agreed.
“Ghouls known for curing their food, boss?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
Very little blood had pooled beneath the bodies, Cade saw as they drew nearer the first body, a young man with dark hair and almost hairless skin. In fact, other than the giant metal hooks embedded beneath the shoulder blades of each victim, the dead were remarkably unharmed.
The dead? Cade thought. Dead, or—
Cade felt more than saw the rest of the team entering the cavern, taking up flanking positions and remaining silent. He grabbed Riley’s arm with one gloved hand.
“Check for a pulse.” He wasn’t about to touch the young man’s body. Lord alone knew what images might invade his mind.
Riley gave him a short, questioning look even as he pulled a small pulse oximeter from a cargo pocket. Then, as he reached out for the index finger of the closest victim, Riley’s expression dropped. He understood the order one second before he slid the pulse ox onto the finger of the body.
His report consisted of one word, and Cade understood it immediately even without looking at the red digital numbers.
“Fuck,” Riley whispered.
The young man was alive.
The people in here were not dead, not yet. Not all of them; the odor of decay wasn’t fake, there were certainly some decomposing bodies mixed in with the rest, but at least some, like this man, were paralyzed. Paralyzed, and hanging from meat hooks in a pitch black cave, choking on the taste of death that hung fetid and sour in the air.
* * *
Even as the horror of the victim’s situation set in like cold tentacles wrapping around his intestines, Cade’s earpiece buzzed to life.
“Commander, movement down the tunnel!”
Back to work.
He pulled Riley closer as he spoke through his jaw mic. “Moro, up front.” To Riley he said, “Ghouls are coming up the tunnel.”
Riley gave him one nod as Moro arrived from the cadre. “Sir.”
“Find me a way out of this room. That’s your job. Go.”
Moro stepped to the right wall and began following it, sliding a hand along its rough surface in the manner of a search and rescue operator.
Riley glanced at the ceiling. “Another cave in?”
Cade studied the rock quickly, then shook his head. “No. It was a gamble last time, we can’t take the risk.” He dropped his gaze and looked around as far as his night vision would let him. “We need to—”
Then he realized the solution was right in front of him.
“Sir?” Riley pressed.
“—Ambush them,” Cade finished, half to himself, then activated his mic. “Echo, on me, up front! Double-time.”
Riley half-grinned at the tone in the commander’s voice. “You’re gonna do something ridiculous, aren’t you?”
“Not much choice,” Cade said, and his team gathered around them. He could see the men were tense and anxious, knowing the ghouls were on their way. Cade stood before them, shoulders pulled back.
“All right, listen up. Here’s the plan.”
11
The ghouls had been industrious and efficient, but that didn’t make them smart. While they’d been able to pull off two ambushes on the Templars—which Cade suspected had been orders rather than a plan the undead hatched of their own free will—they were still unnatural beings that couldn’t possibly hold a thought in their decaying heads.
That was Cade’s hope, anyway. If they really did retain all of the tactical training that Duncan feared, then the next few moments would be short, bloody, and lost to Templar lore with no one every knowing what had happened to him and his men.
It suddenly occurred to Cade that the new preceptor might be pleased with that.
Fortunately, the ghouls behaved as Cade hoped. That didn’t automatically mean his quickly formulated tactic would work, necessarily…but it was a start.
The Templars spent mere seconds putting the commander’s plan into action as the sound of dozens of ghoulish feet scratched in the tunnel beyond. They got into position and waited in silence for their foe to appear. With no beacons glaring at the moment, the Templars had only their night vision monos to see by. The bodies of the dead and the dying hung from their hooks, a grotesque parody of humanity
They waited. The undead came closer, naked blue feet scraping through the tunnel like rats. The image was not a calming one.
They waited—
And the ghouls arrived.
The ghouls ran full tilt into the cold cavern of bodies. From his hidden position, Cade couldn’t count them; twenty? Thirty? More?
They piled into the room, the eerie silence broken only by the slap of the ghouls’ feet on the floor and the sound of their claws clicking. The ghouls spread out, not in a tactical formation but rather like bugs, like roaches, scattering in every direction, searching for their prey.
Wait for the last one, Cade thought. Wait for the last bastard to come through…
It was another ten seconds before all of the ghouls had come into the cavern, by which time they’d fanned out all through the room; it measured no more than fifteen yards deep and fifteen wide. Close quarters, but less close than the tunnels had been. A small favor, since the Templars now had the added pressure of trying to avoid hurting or killing any of the victims still alive on the hooks.
Cade let his hatred of the supernatural beasts grow white-hot as the ghouls swarmed through the room. The Templars didn't have time to find every survivor, much less treat them. The ghouls had to come first—needed to be slaughtered before the men could effect any kind of triage on these victims who were as naked as their captors.
From the time the first blue-skinned ghoul turned the corner into the cavern to the time the last careened inside was no more than five seconds. If he waited for the sixth second, they’re would be Templar casualties.
Cade opened fire, springing the trap.
He and several of the men hung behind hanging bodies, using their off-hand to cling to the top of the hook like Tarzan swinging on a vine, and their dominant hands to fire the MP5s into the mass of ghouls. The hanging bodies provided just enough momentary cover for the ghouls to be confused by the source of the attack. Bullets flew straight and true into the bodies of the beasts. Some hissed and spun to search for their attackers, but most of whom simply ran forward, straight into the searing lead as if it were a nest of hornets instead of deadly 9mm ammo.
The ghouls acted en masse, scrambling toward the bodies on the hooks, whether they could see the Templars or not. The goal of the ruse was not to put the bodies at risk, so when the last of the enemy cleared several feet past the tunnel entrance, distracted and attentive only to the gunfire, a second group of Templars who had crouched along the walls opened up with their IR beacons.
Invisible light lit the room brightly, making Cade and the other Templers hanging from the hooks turn away from the sudden flare and stop firi
ng. The light also caught the ghouls’ attention, who skidded to a halt and spun, searching for the source of the sudden brightness.
Dismissing the gunfire now that it had ceased, the ghouls raced back the way they had come, headed for the two lines of Templars lined along either side of the tunnel entrance. Several of the men opened fire, expending the last of their magazines, primarily aiming not to kill the ghouls but merely to slow and confuse them. Laser sights from the MP5s crisscrossed the cavern, creating a latticework light show in the dust kicked up by the ghouls’ feet.
The ploy worked. As the ghouls ran toward the IR light, the remaining Templars—who had stayed beyond Cade and his firing line, out of what he’d hoped was the limit of the ghouls’ infra-red vision—chased in from behind them with their swords. With more room to maneuver now, the knights could bring the blessed weapons to full capacity, swinging high and hard for the heads of the undead.
Cade and the other men who were clinging to the hooks dropped to the floor and charged ahead with their comrades, slinging or even dropping their MP5s in favor of their swords. Cade’s last, pleased, coherent thought before the adrenalin of battle kicked in was that even if the ghouls could think, those in the back of the crowd never had a chance to wonder what had happened to them.
The Templars swung through the rear echelon with the fury of God’s own vengeance. Their blades chopped through necks and impaled ghouls through their backs. The wounded monsters released their keening wail while others dropped motionless on the floor.
A few of the ghouls in the front of the charge dropped beneath withering MP5 fire coming from the Templars along the wall. Cade kept his men in the periphery of his mind, hyperaware of his surroundings and wanting to be sure they were okay.
Riley’s dark skin notwithstanding, he looked for all the world like an ancient Viking, swinging his great sword in wicked right and left arcs, cleaving one ghoul after another in two. Though his face was largely obscured by his hefty monocular, the Templar’s smile shone brightly in the gloom as he did God’s work. He might have even been laughing as he ducked a glancing blow from a determined ghoul, then brought his blade up between the beast’s legs and parted it in half. Riley was first and foremost Cade’s XO, a duty he took with deadly seriousness. But in this moment, unleashed from his duties to simply join the others in open combat, he was clearly in his element. Ghoul after ghoul dropped before him, and bluish body parts piled up around his boots.
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