The men on the ground simply disappeared.
Those on the roofs of the scattered structures fired bootlessly down into the stampede, trying to scatter or head the herd, but the raging animals could no more turn aside for their efforts then could a roaring white river for a single trout. Some fell beneath the soldiers’ bullets causing miniature pile-ups here and there, shoals of dead animals around which the rest flowed in undulating brown currents.
The men who stood on the roofs looked to be standing surreally on clouds of choking dust. Then suddenly some ill-chosen structure would begin to sway, there would be groaning wood or a crackling as nails were torn from splintering boards, and all the men atop would scream and flail as they plunged into the river of cattle in a clatter of boards. Some tried to leap to neighboring roofs only to bring those rickety structures down too. Some grasped the edges of rooftops for dear life, endangering all, only to have their hands mashed by the butts of their comrades’ rifles in between shrill apologies. These fell cursing.
The Rider saw one such man slip into the river of cattle, and watched the progression of his blue kerchief as it was swept down the hillside like an autumn leaf dropped in a swift moving brook.
“They have destroyed the seal,” Kabede said.
That was true. The giant seal Kabede and the cavalrymen had managed to inscribe in the dust had been wiped away. Now DeKorte and LeBouclier would be able to attack the men in the Yenne Velt again, drive them to suicide as Jacobi had.
The Rider fished once more for his spectacles.
Then he noticed those cattle that had not poured into the narrow trail leading down into the valley were tumbling down the mountainside to their deaths. What had driven them to such rashness? He knew cattle were naturally spooky, but these animals were utterly terrified. They had heard no preceding gunshots or calls to initiate the stampede.
It was amazing enough that DeKorte and Bouclier managed to move these animals up the back of the ridge in the night without drawing their attention. How had they induced them to run hell bent down the steep mountainside this way?
Then, as the tail end of the stampede came in sight and began to dwindle and the clouds of dust to settle, the Rider had his answer.
The dead came walking behind.
Closer now, the Rider could see the progression of decomposition upon those of Escopeta that had crossed the desert at their heels, their exposed wounds rotting in the hot sun. Included in that initial group, the Rider saw the family of Mexicans DeKorte had rode in and killed a few days ago, and some in the white cotton dress of the local Indians. There were smaller walkers among the rest too. Shuffling in and out of vision. Children.
Only this morning the Army had outnumbered them. Now the Rider quickly scanned the rooftops. All that remained of the garrison was scattered and clustered on top of five buildings. No more than twenty-five men against the oncoming horde, which looked to be at least twice that number. Less than half of the soldiers had kept their rifles in their desperate flight from the stampede.
Weeks was on his knees on top of the blacksmith. Cord was with him.
The Rider looked past them, to a knot of six men gathered on the dangerously sagging roof over the open stables, where the overexcited horses were shaking their heads and crowhopping in their stalls. His was there, but more importantly, all those terrified cavalry ponies too.
“God,” said Belden, watching the slow but sure advance of the crowd further up the pass. “Are those what I think they are?”
“If we can get the survivors to the horses, we can probably escape altogether,” the Rider said. “Only DeKorte and LeBouclier could keep up with us.”
“Good plan,” said Kabede, watching the last of the cattle pass beneath them, uncovering a dark field of mashed corpses half-buried, broken beef, and animal shit.
“Lieutenant!” called one of the men on the stable roof. “Lieutenant Cord! What do we do?”
“Cord!” Belden shouted.
Cord looked over at Belden.
“Let’s get the hell out of here! Boots and saddles!”
“Those people…” Cord called back. “They don’t appear to be armed!”
“Never mind! They’ll still kill you if they can, and there’s too many!” Belden yelled.
The walkers came on, close enough to see their messy wounds without the need of glasses.
The Rider looked about. There was no sign of DeKorte or LeBouclier. He had thought they would come at the head of their army, but they didn’t even seem to be behind it. Nor were they anywhere he could see in the Yenne Velt. He wondered…was this too easy? Not that it would be easy to get the survivors down and on horses. There would be no time for saddle or harness. There would be scant seconds to spare at the rate of the mob’s advance.
But since the torreón they had been driven. Always driven, like cattle themselves. Driven across the desert, driven apparently, to this post. Driven to the parade ground by Jacobi’s murders, and then trapped there by the exploding insect things they had implanted in Manx, Jeffries and Milton, so that the cattle had nearly wiped them all out.
He watched the advance of the zombies, so like a line of pawns. Where were they driving them now? Down the mountain? To the edge of the precipice over which some of the cattle had fallen?
If they gained the horses, what then? Ride hell bent down the mountain, away from their advance. Into the arms of…what?
What if they just stayed here? These things might not have the strength or motor skills to climb. But then, there were so many, they might crawl over each others’ shoulders like army ants to ascend, mindless in their doggedness.
“Lieutenant?” called the man on the stable roof again, desperate for any order.
Then the top of his head popped high into the air, riding a tall gout of blood and brain. His skeleton seemed to waver and liquefy, limbs jellifying as he slackened and slid off the roof.
For an instant the Rider thought it was some new diabolism, but they all heard the big report of the rifle, the sound bouncing off the rocks, making it nearly impossible to pinpoint. Somewhere up on the ridge? Yes. The sharpshooter had to be up there somewhere.
The men on every rooftop took perhaps five seconds before understanding, and by that time a second soldier on the stable roof caught a big bore bullet in the neck that sent his head swinging sickly on his shoulders as if by a busted hinge. The rest of the men were diving off their respective platforms before his corpse tumbled.
Driven from the rooftops to the ground where the horde could reach them.
Again, their hands were being forced, but the Rider found himself rolling off the roof anyway. They put the guardhouse between themselves and the ridge.
They could feel the tramp of the mob coming down the trail, and some of the soldiers began to scream and blubber. Then came the snapping of shots. Pistols and rifles. Whether the soldiers were firing up at the ridge to discourage the sharpshooter, or into the crowd of advancing zombies, he didn’t know.
“Horses?” Belden wanted to know.
Bigelow, his face a sheen of sweat, his breath coming in scared, rapid puffs, broke away from the guardhouse of his own accord and sprinted for the stables, where the men who had been atop it were wrenching open the stalls. Kabede made a grab for him, but missed.
Bigelow ran halfway there, then the shot came. He leapt sideways in the air and fell, one arm lazily bent over his ear, the other behind his back. Blood began to spread on the sand.
The sharpshooter again.
The Rider watched a trooper who had swung down from the stable roof jerk one of the bucking horses free of its stall by its hackamore bridle. Struggling to pull himself up on its back, suddenly the horse reared up, a bullet passing through its head, actually piercing its left eye and emerging from its right. It fell on the rider, and as the soldier struggled to free himself, another bullet from the sharpshooter caused a red wound to blossom on his chest, ending him.
“They don’t want us getting to th
e horses,” Belden observed.
“All the more reason to do it then,” the Rider said.
Cord and Weeks were down, looking warily around the corner of the shack they’d been atop. Cord had his saber out, anticipating a close fight.
“We’ll be shot down,” said Kabede. “It’s a killing field out there.”
“No,” said the Rider. “Not all of us. Not if we all go at once.”
“He’s right,” Belden agreed. “That don’t sound like a repeater. It’s too big. Got to be single shot.” He flashed a smile at the Rider. “Just like old times.”
“Well, not just,” the Rider grinned.
“Cord!” Belden yelled. “Get ‘em all to the horses! On the count!”
Cord nodded.
“Rally on the stables at the three count!” Cord bellowed in a surprisingly loud voice, trying to space his orders between the volleys of gunfire. He held his saber up and whirled it over his head impressively. The gunfire died down, replaced by shouts of assent as the troopers passed the order to each other.
“Rally on the stables! At the count! Keep your heads down! Listen for it!”
“On my mark!” Cord called, lowering his saber and cocking his pistol. “One! Two! Three! Fall back!”
All around men broke cover and converged on the stables. The Rider, Belden, and Kabede ran too.
Passing from the cover of the guardhouse, they saw the front of the undead horde had reached the opposite side of the building. A hasty bunch of the things spilled out from around the corner of the blacksmith’s too, and pulled down a man who stopped to aim his rifle at them. Cord hacked wildly with his saber to try and free the man, chopping off grasping hands and fingers, but it was no use. He broke away and led the charge to the stable.
The undead groaned, baring teeth, pale eyes rolling, as they lurched at them with renewed vigor.
Kabede jabbed one in the chest with the Rod of Aaron and it crumpled to the ground and did not move. Yet Belden shot another in the head, blowing a quarter of its skull away. Still it advanced, as if it had merely taken a punch to the face.
The Rider took note as he ran of the reactions of the walkers to the attempts of the other soldiers to stop their pursuit. After the first man, most didn’t stop and aim. Those that insisted on doing so were almost always swarmed and overpowered. The Rider didn’t see just what the things did to their victims, but he heard their screams.
The majority of the troopers fired randomly as they fled, blowing holes in torsos, shooting off limbs. The things appeared to feel no pain and beyond the momentary force of the impact, these shots had no visible effect. Even those that fell over after sustaining crippling damage to their legs simply crawled or staggered on the ragged stumps.
Twelve men reached the stables altogether. Weeks and Cord were among them, and the Rider noticed, the bad drummer, Hutch. But for the four who had dropped down from the stable roof, the zombies and the occasional boom of the sharpshooter on the ridge accounted for all the rest.
After the disaster of the first would-be escapee, the four from the rooftop were huddled on the floor of the stable, in the stalls with the animals, and these made room for the newcomers without protest. But this was the warm weather stable and there was only one wall. The rest was open but for the fence rails, and soon the things would be reaching in at them.
“Get on those horses, men!” Cord hollered when he ducked under the roof and saw the wide-eyed troopers hugging their knees.
“No offense, lieutenant, but fuck that!” one of the troopers chuckled.
“Yeah, that sniper’ll clip us like turkeys!”
“And what the hell are them things out there?” whimpered a third. “You shoot ‘em and they just keep comin’! I seen ‘em pull Flaherty’s arms out of his shoulders!”
Trooper Hutch suddenly slapped his hands to his eye and started shrieking, and fell to the hay covered floor.
“Shut him up or them horses’ll trample us!” Weeks ordered.
But the other soldiers fought each other for the furthest spot from the afflicted trooper, fearing he might explode or deliver some clicking monstrosity any moment.
Kabede pushed past and gripped Hutch by his shoulders.
“Help me!” he yelled.
The Rider slid to his knees next to Kabede and held the bucking trooper against his better judgment.
Freed of restraining Hutch, Kabede pulled the man’s grasping hands away from his own face and nearly recoiled at what he saw.
Sticking out of Hutch’s eye was a wriggling, disembodied finger. An index finger, torn off just beneath the second joint, where the broken bone protruded. It was hooking its way between the man’s eyeball and socket bone nearest the nasal cavity, trying to push behind.
The soldiers gasped as one.
“See!” said the soldier who had demanded to know the nature of the multitude descending on them. “Even the pieces come at you!”
The Rider was dumbstruck. Every part of these things was animate, independent of the whole.
“Lieutenant! Get them mounted!”
Cord nodded to himself, forcing his gaze away from what was transpiring in the corner.
“Alright you men, form two firing lines across that rail.”
“They don’t care if you shoot ‘em!” one of the soldiers whined.
“They still get knocked back,” Cord reasoned. “Keep ‘em outta here. I want you one by one to leave the line, find a horse and mount up—starting with you, Hale. Go! You men, fire at will.”
As the soldiers lined up shoulder to shoulder and began firing in lines (five crouched in the front, five standing behind) out at the slowly advancing dead, Kabede forced Hutch’s arm under his knee and picked up the Rod of Aaron.
“What’re you going to do?”
Kabede pinched the bone of the wriggling finger like a man grabbing the tail of an escaping rat. It fought his grip, struggling to burrow into Hutch’s head. How had it gotten there? Had it crawled along the ground after being shot off, or had it been stuck to his clothes somehow? The Rider watched as with his other hand, Kabede touched the head of the staff to the finger.
Immediately it slackened and with a jerk, Kabede plucked it out, eliciting a new scream from Hutch and a fresh gush of blood.
Kabede wrinkled his lips and flung the finger outside.
Weeks had seen everything, and he yelled to them, “Hell! Get out there and put that stick to the rest of ‘em!”
“He’d be shot down!” the Rider said. “Besides, he’d never be able to take them all. There’s too many.”
“Not on foot, I couldn’t,” Kabede said.
The Rider looked at him.
“Forget it. That sniper would kill you as soon as you got out there.”
“They want us all to ride down that hill,” Kabede argued. “We can’t.”
The farrier, Hale, first man on the horse, wheeled about, trying to keep the mount from bucking as beside him, another trooper pulled himself on a roan’s back.
“Lieutenant, where are we going?”
Cord was preoccupied, listening to Kabede and the Rider.
“You’re right,” he said. “They are driving us down there. What do you think?”
“I don’t know as we have much choice,” the Rider said.
“There’s one other choice,” Belden said. “Up and at ‘em.”
“You want to charge his position?” Cord asked.
“We don’t even know where he is,” said Weeks.
“He can’t kill us all,” Belden said.
“If we run up there and then we can’t find him, he damn sure could pick us off.”
“Maybe you’d rather ride off the edge of the mountain, Weeks,” Belden snapped, exasperated.
“Orders, sir?” Hale shouted again, his voice cracking now, the eyes of his horse bugging and screwing.
The front line had mounted, leaving the dwindling second line to fire into the pressing crowd, which was at the fence now, reaching for th
em, groaning. Soon they would run dry. There would be no time to reload.
“I will ride up the ridge,” Kabede said. “You go down the mountain. They are driving you there for some purpose. You must fight them there.”
“You’re sure?” the Rider said, clasping Kabede’s arm.
Kabede nodded and ran for a horse.
“Up the ridge!” Cord bellowed.
Hale and the other five mounted men burst from the stable, pistols blazing, and forced their shrieking mounts through the grasping, clawing crowd.
“You men fall back and mount up.We’re taking the ridge.” Cord ordered, jumping in front of them and swinging viciously with his saber, swiping off limbs and heads, doing all he could to keep them outside, to just keep them back for a few moments more.
Nobody had to tell the firing line twice. They dropped their empty rifles and leapt onto the waiting horses. Drawing pistols, they streamed out after Hale’s charge.
The Rider ran for the south end of the stable, to hop the fence there. An arm caught his elbow. It was Belden.
“I’m comin’ with you.”
Cord was screaming. One of the things hand caught his sword arm and bit into the pit of his elbow. Blood gushed up its nose and forehead as its teeth tore into his artery. He dropped his sword, and instantly six pairs of hands grabbed him and he was pulled kicking over the fence and out into the mob.
“Cord!” Belden yelled, moving to help.
This time it was the Rider who caught him.
“He’s gone.”
They saw the last of the horsemen clatter out into the melee, heard pistols and yells and screams, and above all, the unspeakably fast boom boom boom of a rifle, different from the first. It was smaller, but not like any repeating rifle either of them had ever heard. The shots were so close together that the sound became a constant roar, and the Rider lost track of their number.
Merkabah Rider: Have Glyphs Will Travel Page 9
