Last Son of the War God

by Clay Martin

  He was enthused to see the tribesmen all awake and facing out in a makeshift perimeter. It looked like they got the message after all. There was a charred body in the remains of a burned out sleeping bag, so he could chalk that up to a success. Wounded would have been better in many ways, it would have tied up more resources. But he would settle for dead. Dead was good too.

  Watching, he wondered what would happen next. Maybe they would come after him again, and maybe they were broken. If they made a move to walk out of here, he would have to go cut them off. No one gets to leave the party until it’s over. If they stayed in their little perimeter, they would eventually run out of water, which offered its own opportunities. Where the fuck was the Sheriff? His minions couldn’t keep absorbing losses with him not present, it would look bad on his leadership. And Mike really wanted to kill him out here in the wilderness. Preferably with one of his own men’s guns. Let the FBI run forensics on that, see how the story shakes out.

  “Ah, here he comes” Mike mused, watching a dirt cloud form up the road. As long as he wasn’t in a van, everything was fine. It wouldn’t do to have the capability to take everyone out at once. A brown sedan congealed into view, which was curious to say the least. Personal car perhaps? Didn’t want to risk a 300 Norma taking out the Crown Vic? That would make things easier, thank you.

  As Mike was formulating a new strategy, a second vehicle appeared on the horizon. Mike focused his binoculars, and his happiness evaporated. A truck, but more importantly a truck with kennels on the back. The Sheriff had brought in the dogs. Fuck!

  Mike hated dogs. At least he did if they were on his trail. Once a year or so, a training event would be against dogs. It did double duty, teaching the dog guys how to pursue, and the Team guys how to evade. From day one at SERE school though, one lesson remained. You cannot beat a dog. No one can. No neat running water trick, no doubling back, and on a long enough timeline, not enough speed or head start. You can’t hide your trail, and you can’t outrun them forever. The only thing you can do with any hope of success, is beat the handler. Mike was not amused by the idea of being chased by dogs today.

  Only one thing to do. He needed a count of how many dogs, and what kind, since that information was available. Watching the dogs unload, he was further dismayed. Bloodhounds are excellent trackers, but they aren’t vicious enough to attack a man. That influences strategy. The three dogs circling the new skinny man obviously in charge of them were the furthest thing from. They were massive, probably over 100 pounds each, and looked like wolves. Leave it to fucking Idaho to have some kind of half wild vicious mongrels to track convicts. The handler being a skinny fellow also meant he could probably move. No time to go dig up his rifle, Mike was working with what he had in hand now.

  The best way to handle this problem was going to be to separate the dogs from the handler, and then the handler from the group. The second part was probably going to be easy. He was fresh, while no one else was. Also, he probably wasn’t part of the tribe, or else he would have been brought in earlier. That meant they held less sway over him, and cared less about his fate. Creating distance between him and his dogs was going to be the problem. The dogs were sniffing around the truck he had used as cover last night, that meant they were minutes at best off the trail. Time to get a move on. He took his jacket off and rolled it into a long tube, tying it across his body. Plenty of heat would be coming from the chase ahead.

  Mike took off at a jog, tracks and noise meaning a lot less than scent. Scent, there was nothing he could do about anyway. He stayed to the ridgeline as much as he could. Vertical distance helped separate the men from the dogs, but dogs could climb faster than him too. Ridgelines were the path of least resistance. He had a spot in mind for dealing with the furry missiles at his back, but it was going to take some creativity to reach it. Knowing he had a lead in distance, and for once there was no risk of stumbling across other enemy forces, Mike moved toward a wide-open area he had spotted the day before. Easily a half a mile wide and steep of slope, it must’ve been burned out in a forest fire, and then collapsed in a mudslide later. The other side followed a crescent shape ridge, effectively creating distance while turning his field of view back to the grassy open field he crossed before. The distance was around 600 meters across, plenty to keep him safe in the trees from casual observation, but close enough he wouldn’t miss the pack of hounds on his trail. He needed to know the time lag behind him, and this was a good way to find out. Once he was parallel with the open spot, he slowed to a fast walk. Conserve energy for what could be a long day, and to make sure he didn’t miss his pursuers. Snarling cries of beasts on the hunt preceded them, echoing across the canyon between them. Mike shivered involuntarily. Canine howls tugged at his primate brain, back to the race memory of a time when wolves had been a constant threat. That his ancestors had fought hordes of them with not much more than a sharpened stick was humbling. A bravery and ferocity that allowed his bloodline to survive down to him inspired renewed awe. He would make them proud this day.

  Not long after, the animals appeared in a triangle shaped formation, following the pack leader. Noses to the ground, they moved like a force of nature. No chance of tiring these beasts out, they were ravenous for a kill. Mike checked his watch. Ninety second later, the skinny man followed right behind. Mike guessed he was following the barks and yips mostly, no way he was keeping them in sight. Good enough for his needs. Mike resumed running, and saw the first of the tribesmen break into the clearing just as the dog handler exited the other end. They were sucking wind for sure, the last few days taking its toll.

  Mike needed an accordion effect, now that he understood the timing. A chance for the dogs to have to wait for the handler, and an open sprint after. That would give him the space he needed for a magic trick. Running towards the flowing river, Mike read the terrain looking for a sharp incline. That would denote a section of very hard rock, not easily eroded, likely to still be standing over the riverbed. He found what he wanted as he felt a slight drop in the ambient temperature, telling him he was close to water. Bursting out of the timber, he found himself ten meters above the stream. Perfect. The only thing men can do, terrain wise, that dogs can’t is climb sheer rock face. The height was enough they were unlikely to jump, something he would have done himself if he was sure of the depth. Mike lowered himself over the edge, thinking of the dark sorcery that is the opposable thumb. It had brought man to the top of the food chain with all the things it could do. Hold a club, fire an arrow, cord a rope, and certainly provide purchase in granite. When his feet touched the water, he let go with his hands, and fell less than foot to the hard stone bottom. Bounding through the flowing water, he turned upstream for fifty feet, and then exited the opposite side. He was sure to leave plenty of visual sign, he didn’t want the handler wasting time. On the other side, he headed upwards in a zig zag pattern, the switchback style of an experienced mountain climber. Just like back in Kosovo. The end game neared.

  Finally, he arrived at the place he had been searching for. High above the river, a flat outcropping of stone, sheer cliffs on three sides. The peninsula of rock offered an ideal setting for his trap. Looking down, he saw the beasts dumbfounded. Back and forth they ambled, unwilling to give up the trail, but too smart to jump. The biggest sniffed down the rock ledge, and suddenly turned to snap at one of the others that had gotten too close to him. Frustration was visible even at this range. Mike breathed deeply, forcing oxygen into his burning muscles. Pulling out his binoculars, he set in to watch the show.

  Minutes passed, and finally the skinny man found his animals. They turned to him as if expecting an answer. The man puzzled a few minutes, looking at the scuffmarks traveling down. His gaze turned to the far riverbank, taking it in with slow precision. His face grew animated as he spotted disturbed earth on the other side, and he led his dogs back into the woods from the embankment. A short time later, they reemerged at ground level with the water, across from
his tracks. Money. Mike had gambled that his ruse was common around here. Most people assume running water is a way to evade dogs, but only to a point. You have to exit the water sometime, if it’s even deep and fast enough to mask you in the first place. A tracker just has to follow both sides of the river until he picks your trail up again. Mike had gone upstream, as most will do, in the mistaken belief that the water will carry your scent away downstream, leaving you free and clear. The handler probably assumed Mike slowed down after this, as most will do once they think the chase has ended. Leading the hounds across the water, he put them back onto Mike’s trail, and turned them loose. Confident they would have their prey in short order, he sent them charging into the woods.

  Sitting on his stony perch, Mike continued to watch the man. He waited for the others behind him, finally growing impatient and drawing a large arrow in the sand with a stick, pointing the direction he was headed. Mike set his binoculars down, and reached into the pouch behind his holster, retrieving his 10mm suppressor. Men were one thing, attack dogs quite another. Taking on three with primitive weapons was suicide. Besides, the dogs were in this against their will. They had no capacity for judgement in action, and had been bred for this one task. They couldn’t understand right and wrong, only instinct and whatever training had been beaten into them. They deserved an easier death than the men that wielded them. Weapon assembled, he waited, back to the cliff. The terrain he had chosen would channelize them together, ensuring he didn’t get flanked. Torn apart by sharp teeth was not a way he would choose to go.

  He heard the howls of blood lust closing in on him, and the hair on his neck stood up. The wolves smelled victory close at hand, prey drive pushing them faster to the kill. Poor dumb bastards. Not that they would have listened, but this wasn’t a lone hairless ape clutching a flint spear in terror. It was a man holding the cumulative power of 100,000 years of evolution in weapon form in his hand. He lowered to a knee, giving him a better optimum angle for shooting targets low to the ground. The wolves broke the cover of trees and sprinted straight at him, Alpha in the lead.

  Mike didn’t want to cut it to close, but he also wanted them well outside of a range they could retreat once it started. Suppressors sound like pin drops on TV, but in real life they barely make guns hearing safe. He hoped he could kill these animals without the men hearing the shots, hence the can. But inside of pistol range, it would still sound like thunder claps.

  The distance closed. Mike wanted Alvin York targeting for this, taking the targets in the back first. If the others did turn and flee, that gave him the most chance of cutting them down before escape. It was harder to calculate, but necessary to ensure he wiped them out. Animal behavior is unpredictable. The leader was bearing down on him fast, so close now Mike could see the froth on its teeth, its hunger to sink fangs into flesh. Its ferocious eyes shown its one minded task, warm blood and torn meat. Mike willed himself steady. Decades of combat time or no, he felt the primal fear. Adrenaline charged his system, and he tamped down the desire to turn an flee. Somehow fur and fang was scarier than bullets and bombs, deeper felt. Pack predators have been enemy to man longer, and the sight of three in a full charge tugged all the way back to stone age instincts. Mike raised his pistol, setting the red dot electronic sight on the left most target first.

  The load was a custom build, 200 grains of XTP hollow point moving at 1,250 feet per second. That was right at the chamber pressure max, and only a fool would shoot it often. But as a defensive round, it was second to none. The recoil was so hard, only years of heavy handgun shooting and inhuman forearm strength combined made it possible to shoot quickly. As the trigger broke, Mike was already pushing the gun hard to the right, acquiring the next target. The dot was true and the trigger press clean, no need to see if it hit. He knew it did. The heavy 10mm slug hit the first wolf in the top of its left shoulder, mushrooming with the impact of bone, and driving a ruined wad of meat through the rib cage and out the far side. It was dead before it hit the ground. Firing solution acquired on the far right, the Dan Wesson barked again. 200 grains of expanding lead and copper smacked the target square in the chest, turning sternum into jagged, sharp projectiles of bone, and dragging them along as it exited the rear hindquarter, thirty-four inches of penetration. A muffled yelp escaped its throat as it crumpled face down against the stony ground. Slide still moving to the rear in cycling the gun, Mike slammed it left again to the last target, slack coming out of the trigger. He felt the wrongness of it the millisecond the recoil impulse ended. Years upon years of experience told him without looking his gun had failed to fully eject the spent cartridge, and had slammed a new one home behind it. Double feed. The longest malfunction to correct, and the most involved. On auto pilot, he automatically turned the gun sideways, locked the slide back with his left hand, and ejected the magazine. Looking over the top of the gun, his conscious thought processed impending death. There wasn’t enough time. Double feeds can be cleared by very quick hands in 2.5 seconds, and Mike’s were superhumanly quick. But in less than a single second, his face was going to be torn off by the pack leader. If those gleaming white fangs sank into him, he was a dead man. No time for another weapon, and not enough space to bring the pistol down like a club. Out of options, Mike sank his butt to the granite, and tucked his support leg underneath him, and grabbed the pistol with one hand on the warm suppressor, the other on the grip. Hands lowered slightly, his neck and face presented an irresistible target, burned into canine DNA since the dawn of time as the optimal choice. The wolf leapt for his jugular, and as he did so Mike snapped the steel and titanium boat anchor sideways into its mouth, at the same time kicking his forward foot up under the animals rear leg, and rolling backwards with all this strength. Sutemi Waza, the sacrifice throw. Mike hadn’t done that throw in years, but it flowed through his muscles as natural as rain falls from the sky. A gift from the Gods, or his subconscious, or luck, or maybe just programming down deeper than we like to admit is possible. 120 pounds is heavy for a dog, but very light for a man. The wolf sailed over his head, jaw clenched around the pistol, eyes wide open in disbelief, hanging on for all it was worth. Rolling all the way up onto his shoulders, Mike snapped his arms to the ground with all the strength he had left in them, accelerated by the combined momentum of both bodies. The animal impacted on its back with a bone crunching snap, half its body over the ledge, but still it held on. Mike could smells it’s breath, ivory colored daggers less than a foot from his own face. Quickly, he rolled to the right, twisting the dog’s head in a savage jolt. Dragging his knees closer to the edge of the cliff to deny his opponent footing, he stood. Raw hate and terror reflected back at him, front paws holding tight to the ground, rear paws scrambling for purchase. Hanging tight with his two handed grip, Mike brought a knee up in a savage blow to the wolf’s lower jaw, finally breaking its bite. As it released, Mike whipped the pistol into the air one handed, crashing it down on the beast’s head, sending it tumbling to the rocks below. Gulping air, he forced his shaking hands to reload the pistol with his only spare magazine, racked the slide, and recovered the one he had dropped earlier. Every survival instinct in his body screamed run. Almost being eaten had jarred his nerves something fierce, but he had a task to finish. He mentally double-checked the timeline, figuring it had taken all of about five extra seconds to deal with the last creature. It had seemed like a lifetime, but it was over in the space of a few heartbeats. “Good luck not dreaming about that.” He said out loud to himself. He had at least two minutes of prep time, more than enough. Finding his other two victims fifteen meters away, he selected the lightest looking of the two. The other he pitched off the cliff to join his friend. Scooping the carcass up onto his shoulders, with the chest wound facing down, Mike created a blood trail off the ledge and back into the trees. Finding what he wanted, he faced the body into a bush, concealing its wounds with foliage. Time to handle the sick fuck that had created these monsters and turned them against him.

 
Mike correctly assumed the skinny man would get here first, and most importantly alone. The others seemed to have learned that particular lesson, but this guy was new. No matter how craven a man like this might be, he would still be concerned about the welfare of his weapons. Whether because he felt the sacred bond of dog and man, or he wanted to know the status of his investment was immaterial. If it looked like they might be hurt, the first instinct was to find them and be sure. In a low crouch, he came to the scene of the battle clutching a shotgun. Out in the open, Mike thought he looked ridiculous, but no doubt thought he was moving tactically. Given an enemy with projectile weapons at his disposal, Mike would have watched that open area for hours first before he dared step foot in it. If ever. The handler found the blood trail right on cue, and began following it, head down. That would be acceptable behavior with a posse at your back, someone to cover your six. He had defaulted to prior habit, and now it would cost him. Mike pulled his borrowed hatchet from his belt, a gift from one of his kidnappers. He had carried this useless extra two pounds of steel all day, time to get rid of it. He thought about ditching in many times during his movement, but somehow kept forgetting. Mike peeked from behind a thick pine, less than six feet from the furry bait. The skinny man saw his treasured pet, and lost all sense of situational awareness. He dropped next to the dog, stroking its fur and calling its name. As he pulled its head up and noticed its injury, Mike stepped to the side of him opposite his barrel. “Lizzy Borden calling mother fucker!” He said smiling, as he cleaved the hatchet down, striking him square in the forehead with all his might. His victim had a flash of recognition before his eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed in the dirt.