by S. S. Segran
Nageau followed Kody’s finger and found the muzzle. “Wonderful. Saiyu is in the trees behind that building. I will notify her.” He clasped his apprentice’s shoulder. “Good job, youngling.”
Amidst the battle, the youth with the torn ear snuck back out of the trees. There was no activity this side of the mining site, with the exception of the gruesome uproar coming from the steel building ten yards from him.
Through the folds of the cloth bag he carried, the blue of the explosive charges peeked out at him. When he fled earlier, he’d felt ashamed, spineless. Now he was determined to redeem himself and aid his brethren. He trooped toward the steel structure confidently, ignoring the braying inside.
There was no way he could have known that he was in the sights of an armed worker who had circled behind the infirmary. The man silently moved toward the villager as he knelt at the back of the steel building and fiddled with the blue cube.
The worker aimed his weapon and called out, “Psst, Injun!”
The youth jumped. He saw the threat lurking to the side, the barrel of a gun pointing straight at him. His expression transformed into a look of pure terror and he scrambled back to the trees.
The mine worker, an experienced marksman, waited calmly until the villager was perfectly aligned in his crosshairs before firing a few rounds. The youth flopped onto his back, trembling for a few moments before going still.
The worker lowered his weapon and went over to the intruder who lay splayed before him, eyes glassy. “Bang, you’re dead.” The man picked up the blue cube. The explosive wasn’t armed but he didn’t know it and didn’t want to take chances. He put the cube back inside the bag and flung it into the trees before strolling away in search of another target.
Hajjar groaned as he regained consciousness. Opening his eyes, he was met by the brightening sky. He tried to recall what had happened but his senses were returning slowly. It wasn’t long before his ears began to work again and he picked out a smorgasbord of sounds, predominantly shouts from guards and workers. Then it all came rushing back.
As he pushed some rubble off himself, he heard his name being called. He looked around, a frown creasing his brow, until his eyes landed on his radio nearby. He picked it up. “Somebody called?” he asked hoarsely.
Ajajdif’s voice came on. “I did. Are you okay, Elias?”
Hajjar stiffly got to his feet. “Yeah.”
“Good. Get the Marauders out. And keep your eyes peeled for the intruders.”
“Yes, sir.” The head of security dusted himself off and pulled out a 9mm Glock from its holster. Holding the weapon in one hand, he crossed over to the Marauders’ enclosure.
As he punched a code into the security keypad, something whistled past his ear. He flinched on instinct just as an arrow bounced off the steel building and landed by his feet. He whirled around, both hands gripping his sidearm, but no one was there. His eyes narrowed in suspicion.
He reached behind him, pulling open the heavy door with one hand. As he turned around and stepped in, another arrow zipped just over his shaved head and hit the second door in front of him. He slammed the first door shut and picked up the projectile.
“Arrows against guns?” he scoffed. “They really think they can outdo us with these?” He shook his head, pressing his thumb against the scanner. As he walked inside, he boomed to the terrified handler behind the counter. “Get my controller! I’m setting the Marauders loose!”
54
Ajajdif scanned the site from his window, striving for clear shots at the intruders as they tangled with his workers near the guard post. The intruders seemed to have guessed that someone was eyeing them from across the site and danced around his employees. The workers always ended up being the ones in his sights instead.
Piqued, Ajajdif swung the muzzle of his weapon around to see where the other intruders were. A group of them stood not far from the destroyed mess hall, firing arrows from their crossbows.
A tall brunette with light-brown skin was at the center of that group. She appeared mature but was lithe and elegant in her movements, making it impossible to guess her age from afar.
Ajajdif watched her carefully as she called instructions to the others. Looks like she’s their leader, he thought. Gunning her down should weaken the link and give his workers a slight boost. A girl, perhaps fifteen or sixteen by her looks, hung back around the woman while the others actively sought out the workers and engaged them in skirmishes.
Ajajdif inhaled and could hear the pounding of his heart in his ears as he held his breath. He aligned the crosshairs on the woman’s head. Just as he was ready to fire, the excavator’s cylinder that had embedded itself into the wall behind him came crashing down. Startled, he squeezed a shot but his aim was off.
The bullet struck the woman in the chest. She buckled from the impact and stumbled back into the arms of the teenager, who looked shell-shocked. Ajajdif knew the hit would be critical enough to put the leader out of action. He eyed the girl as she lowered the woman to the ground. He deliberated taking her out as well, but decided to leave her alone. He needed to save his ammunition for the real threats.
Tegan knelt beside her mentor, unable to tear her eyes away from the blood on Tikina’s chest. The Elder’s breathing was rapid and shallow. Her skin was quickly becoming clammy and moist with sweat.
Tegan whimpered as her mentor’s head lolled and her eyelids began to droop. She placed her hands on the wound just a couple of inches above Tikina’s heart, trying to stem the flow of blood, but kept pulling back each time the Elder hissed in pain.
Tegan had taken a basic first aid course in school but she wasn’t prepared for anything like this. The simple training she’d gotten was rendered nonexistent as dread set in her mind.
What do I do, what do I do, what do I do?
Tikina’s eyes suddenly flew wide open and she grabbed her apprentice’s hand, holding it with an iron grip. “Tegan,” she murmured. Her apprentice leaned in. “You must take over for me. Use Chayton and Akira, youngling. Use them.”
“What about you?” Tegan croaked.
“Leave me.”
“No! You can’t ask me to do that, not when you can’t even move!”
“You must, Tegan!”
Tegan shook her head angrily. “No. I’m not leaving. I’ll find a way to help you.”
“Do not do this, youngling. I . . .” Tikina’s voice ebbed as she faded into unconsciousness.
Stifling a scream, Tegan looked around for anyone to help her but the other members of the team had spread out under Tikina’s orders. She looked down at the Elder and desperately fought to remember everything she’d learned, but her mind continued to draw a blank. She harangued herself, again pressing her hands against her mentor’s wound.
The door of the Marauders’ building swung outward and the four creatures stalked out, their unsheathed claws digging into the soil. They paused, drawing themselves up to their full height, and took a long sniff. With raucous growls they lunged across the wrecked vehicle shed in search of the trespassers.
Hajjar followed after them, admiring them as if they were the single most wonderful entities to have ever been created. Without realizing it, he tightened his hold on the remote that controlled the Marauders, relishing the power in his hands.
He kept track of the Marauders as they terrorized the intruders who scrambled away whenever the beasts drew close, but Hajjar knew they would not last. The hybrids were designed to kill.
Tayoka and Jag had just about finished dealing with the three men they’d faced off against. The last worker, not yet tied, was face-down on the ground. As Jag stuck a dart in him, the snarls of the beasts on the other side of the mining operations grew more distinct.
He turned and froze when he saw shadows streaking across the site, moving so fast they were almost blurred. Jag and Tayoka watched, speechless, as one shadow jumped onto the back of a villager, sending him tumbling down. The man let out an ear-splitting, inhuman sound that wa
s quickly cut off as the beast clawed and tore into him.
Jag could barely look at the grizzly sight. Never had he witnessed a creature attacking for the exclusive need to sate its instinct to kill. It seemed as though the creatures were enjoying the massacre.
He backed away from the scene and glanced at where he expected Tayoka to have been standing. Instead he saw the Elder sprinting toward a giant man by the beasts’ building. He yelled out to Tayoka and took off after him, but the Elder turned around and held a hand up, instructing Jag to stay put.
It took only a couple of seconds for Tayoka to reach the big man. The Elder moved too fast for his opponent to dodge out of the way. Tayoka leapt, landing a scissor-kick to the man’s neck. Twisting his body, the Elder forced the man down.
The giant, stunned by the surprise attack, shoved Tayoka away and got back up. Tayoka did the same, glowering. The big man had to bend his head to look down at the Elder. Taking a couple of steps back, he tucked away a black device and whipped out his pistol, aiming it.
With a lightning move, Tayoka struck the gun out of his hand and kicked it aside. The giant watched the weapon slide away, then snarled at the Elder and threw himself toward the other man.
From their concealed position behind the building that Nageau had pointed out, Saiyu, Mariah and the man with the eyepatch prepared for an assault on the sniper. The man crawled on his stomach from behind the building, and unknown to the sniper at the window, positioned himself right next to him.
Saiyu and Mariah were on the opposite side of the building. The Elder signaled to Mariah to stay close as they readied themselves to barge through the door and take down the man behind the gun. They stopped cold when they heard a crackling sound. Mariah could just make out the burst of a radio conversation that came from inside the building.
“. . . ETA two minutes. Comin’ in hot. Flight Zero out.”
She heard a mumbled response, most likely from the sniper, but it was almost inaudible. As she crouched beside Saiyu, she thought through what she’d overheard. Coming in hot? That’s military jargon, isn’t it? She went cold at the notion and immediately looked up the sky, half-expecting to see an aircraft. Nah . . . this is a mining operation, not a military excursion. It’s gotta be something else.
The barks and roars of the beasts had stabbed fear into Aari. He stuck close to his mentor, but even Ashack seemed to have gotten flustered as a pair of massive, black-furred monstrosities stalked two villagers. With easy, coordinated moves, they trapped the men.
The villagers knew that flight was not an option. They took defensive positions and covered each other. The men put up a brave fight but within moments the beasts dragged both of them down.
Aari nearly bit through his tongue as he watched it all unfold. Ashack, who’d planted himself protectively in front of his apprentice, unleashed a distraught bellow. The speed of the attack had taken even him by surprise, leaving him helpless, unable to use his light-bending abilities to save the men.
A lamenting cry shook Aari from what he’d just witnessed. Some distance behind him, Tegan knelt beside Tikina’s limp body. Aari grabbed Ashack’s arm and turned him toward his friend and the fallen Elder. He searched his mentor’s face for direction. In his peripheral vision he noticed the beasts tilt their heads up, taking a whiff and picking up a scent. They seemed to know that there was an injured quarry.
Both Ashack and Aari recognized the danger. The Elder met Aari’s eyes briefly, his intent clear. With a nod, Aari broke into a mad sprint. “Tegan!” he screamed.
That jolted Tegan to look up at him. She seemed confused by his panic, but then her gaze drifted to the ominous silhouettes charging behind him. Aari grabbed her and without slowing his stride, hauled her along at full speed toward what was left of the mess hall.
Tegan was in near panic. “Tikina! We can’t leave her!”
“Ashack’s got her covered!” he yelled back. “Just run!”
Tegan glanced back but couldn’t find her mentor. The beasts stalled, yards away from where Tikina should have been, seemingly flummoxed. Then one of them locked on the fleeing teenagers and gave chase. Tegan goggled. She tore away from Aari’s grip and raced past her stupefied friend. “Hurry!” she screeched.
Jumping over rubble, they careened through the dining section with the beast no more than fifty feet behind them. The creature growled, sounding a lot closer than it actually was. The teenagers vaulted over a serving counter and leapt onto the half-demolished wall behind it that separated the dining area from the kitchen. They dropped to the floor of the galley and looked around for somewhere to hide.
Aari happened to glance up and saw a trap door in the ceiling, the kind used by maintenance crews to service exhaust fans. He clambered onto a counter and reached for the trap door. It was locked. He searched frantically and found a fire extinguisher attached to a pillar next to him. Grabbing it, he smashed the trap door open and pulled himself through the ceiling, puffing out a breath.
He looked down for Tegan and saw her staring up at him in dismay. “You could’ve told me about your plan!” she griped.
“Plan? What plan? I just found a hole in the ceiling!”
The sound of the beast scrabbling over the broken wall doubled the friends’ pulses. Aari reached his hand down. “Come on! I’ll pull you up!”
Tegan climbed onto the counter and stretched up. He managed to grab hold of her fingers but she slipped and fell to the floor. As she sat back up, the enormous paws of the beast reached over the rubble, its razor-sharp claws raking into the drywall, gouging the plaster.
Tegan shuddered and looked up at Aari, realizing she was out of time.
The beast that had stayed behind while its comrade went after Tegan and Aari sniffed where Tikina had been. It was confounded. The Elder’s scent filled its senses but she was not where its nose told it she should be.
Abandoning the search, the beast looked at Ashack a few dozen yards away. The Elder went rigid. He needed to conceal Tikina but that required line-of-sight between them. The beast bared its gore-soaked fangs and moved toward the muscular man, quickening its pace until it was sprinting. As the gruesome creature made a final lunge at him, something black and furry rocketed out of nowhere and smashed into it, throwing the beast off its course.
Ashack exhaled the shaky breath he’d been holding. Chayton stood in front of him, bristling with his fangs exposed as he fanatically shielded the Elder from the beast. The wolf was nowhere near the size of his muscle-bound opponent but was prepared to fight as if it were his own life he was defending.
Vastly outweighing Chayton, the beast drove the wolf to the ground, hooking its three-inch claws into his chest. Chayton let out an agonized howl and shoved his paws against the creature. Clawing away, he pushed himself up, limbs trembling from the shock of his injuries. He looked back at the beast, ears straight and forward, the fur on his spine on end. The beast slowly licked its black lips and began to circle with the wolf.
Ashack, careful to not attract attention to himself, edged toward Tikina. When he drew close enough, he ceased bending the light and she became visible again. He crouched beside her, taking stock of the bullet wound, then gently lifted his friend.
The open door to the barracks was twenty feet away and he reached it without incident. The workers were all outside battling the villagers, leaving the building vacant. Ashack carried Tikina past ranks of bunk beds toward a corner of the building furthest away from the door, and set her down on one of the lower bunks. Pulling a leather pouch from his belt, he tended to her as best he could.
Outside, Chayton had managed to scratch both sides of the beast’s face and nicked its ear, but the larger creature was hardly bothered by the lesions. It grabbed the wolf’s scruff and shook its head vigorously, ripping out clumps of fur.
Chayton snarled and twisted away. He pounced onto the beast’s back, biting and piercing its flesh. The creature swung around and the wolf fell backward.
Seizing its chance, t
he beast reared up and came down on Chayton with its full weight, crushing the ribs of the smaller animal. The wolf struggled to breathe but was rapidly weakening. He tried to push the beast away but all he could manage to do was feebly cycle his front paws above him.
The beast peered down at him, cropped tail up in dominance. It rose on its hind legs once more, letting out a triumphant roar, before crashing down again and digging its jaws into Chayton’s neck. His vertebrae crushed, the valiant animal went limp instantly.
Kody witnessed the fight between wolf and beast from above, grief-stricken. No amount of training could have prepared him for what he’d seen. That was flat out murder. Chayton was dead, being ripped apart like the beasts’ other victims.
Sickened by the carnage around the demonic animals, Kody turned away with a cold shiver running down his spine. He looked toward the mess hall he’d seen Tegan and Aari enter with one of the beasts following. He itched to run into the destroyed building after his friends to make sure they were alright, but there was no way he could get down to the site both safely and quickly.
Beside him, Nageau called on the crossbowmen to fire at the beasts. The arrows with the more powerful immobilizing compound struck the animals, two arrows each to the three creatures in sight.
Kody expected the animals to drop like a basket of rocks from the doubled dosage, but instead, the beasts halted, reached with their teeth for the arrows protruding from their bodies, and yanked them out. The crossbowmen let fly several more arrows, all hitting their targets precisely, but again the beasts simply wrenched the projectiles free.
“This is not working!” one of the men shouted.
“I will warn the others!” Nageau shouted back. “Do not let your arrows go to waste! Fire at the workers!”
As the bowmen signaled their understanding, Nageau sent a telepathic blast to the Elders. The beasts are impervious to the darts! Inform the others!
