A shrill squawk broke the silence.
Infinity turned. A black bird man was coming up the hill straight for them, its tracking animal pulling frantically at its leash.
15
Surprise
Desmond was struggling to process the enormity of his mistake. Not only had his plan to reach the cave failed, but also he had led the black birds directly to Lenny and Xavier, if they were even still alive.
The creature and its tracking animal moved steadily up the hill.
“I don’t see the other one,” Desmond said. “The two may have separated to find our trail after crossing the river. Maybe we can kill it.”
Infinity grabbed his arm. “I can’t fight. You need to run.”
The bird man was just seconds away. Instead of arguing, Desmond ignored her instructions, grabbed the spear, and turned to face the creature. Infinity cursed and struggled to her feet. Unsteadily, she stood at Desmond’s side, the stone knife in her hand.
The black bird stopped when its tracking animal was just out of the reach of Desmond’s weapon. The six-foot bird man, still adorned with beaded cords around its body and limbs, gazed at them with black eyes and a face seemingly incapable of expression. Slowly, it removed the rope, crossbow, and knife hanging from its neck and tossed them on the ground, apparently wanting to fight with only its double-tipped spear. The bird man emitted a few soft whistles, and its tracking animal moved to the side, where it waited patiently.
“It’s far more skilled than the brown birds,” Infinity said. “Surprising it will be harder. But if you’re not going to run, surprise is your only chance. I’m going to make it think I’m out of the fight.” Suddenly she groaned and stumbled to the side. She dropped to her knees and collapsed onto her face, falling onto the crossbow the bird men had given them. She rolled to her side with her back to Desmond and the bird man.
“Infinity?”
She let out an exaggerated moan, followed by, “Keep him busy without getting yourself killed.” These words came out as a continuous groan, as if she were in pain.
The creature stared at Infinity for a moment. Then it turned its attention back to Desmond. It held its spear out and shook it, apparently telling him to prepare to use his own spear. Desmond had the distinct impression the bird was growing impatient in its pursuit of an interesting challenge.
Aware that he was about to be painfully tormented again or even killed if he didn’t get this right, he tried to think. Surprise. He had to surprise the bird man.
The black bird was now pacing, circling, waiting for him to make the first move.
What did Desmond know about these creatures? They had brought their young to watch forced combat, which had included the two-tipped spears each time. From the earliest age, these creatures learned the nuances of using these weapons. There was no way Desmond could beat this creature with a weapon it had probably been using all its life.
Abruptly, he stood up straight and shook his spear, mimicking the bird man’s gesture. He tossed his spear to the ground. He pointed at it and then pointed at the spear in the bird man’s hands. Then he crouched and held his bare hands out like a wrestler preparing to grapple.
The black bird stopped circling. It looked at the spear on the ground and back at Desmond.
“That’s right,” Desmond taunted. “You brave enough to fight without it?”
The bird man tossed its own spear aside. Without warning, it charged Desmond and tackled him, knocking him backward.
Desmond used the bird’s momentum to roll it to the side. He managed to get on top of it and began frantically throwing punches, trying to overwhelm the bird with raw fury. He landed a couple of solid hits, but then the bird caught his left hand in its beak. It yanked his hand instantly to the side, nearly breaking the bones. It was on top of him before he knew what was happening.
Desmond tried getting ahold of the bird man’s shoulder with his free hand, but only ended up coming away with a handful of feathers.
With Desmond’s hand still gripped in its beak, the bird had two arms to fight with. It grabbed Desmond’s free hand with one and shoved the other against Desmond’s neck, its diminutive fingers clamping down on his throat.
Desmond tried pulling his left hand free, but the bird bit down harder, forcing him to cry out. The grip on his throat tightened, reducing his cry to a garbled choke.
This was it. The bird man was obviously done playing games.
Desmond tried to breathe but could only suck in tiny gasps.
The bird man gazed down at him silently, as if it were content to watch him slowly die.
Suddenly, he heard a snap. The bird man’s head jerked to the side, it’s beak releasing Desmond’s hand as it groped at its own face. A foot-long arrow was protruding from the creature’s eye.
The bird’s grip on Desmond’s throat loosened slightly, and he took a deep breath of air and twisted his head far enough to see Infinity. She was on her back. Her feet were in the air holding onto both arms of the crossbow. She was trying to extract a second arrow from the bottom of the weapon.
Desmond turned back to the bird man.
The creature was trying to pull the arrow from its head.
Desmond stretched his arm out to the side and then swung it as hard as he could, slamming his palm into the arrow’s fletched end. This drove the arrow the rest of the way into the bird’s head, and the tip came out through its other eye.
The creature squawked frantically, splattering Desmond’s face with spittle, and it clamped its fingers harder on Desmond’s throat. Blinded and enraged, it moved its other hand to Desmond’s throat and began choking him with all its might.
“Goddammit!” he heard Infinity cry.
Desmond was busy trying to tear the bird’s fingers from his throat, but he managed to crank his head to the side again. The tracking animal was attacking Infinity, going for her face. She had dropped the crossbow trying to fight it off.
Desmond let go of the bird man’s fingers and reached across its face to grab the arrow protruding from its eye. He yanked on it, churning it back and forth in a desperate attempt to pulverize the contents of the creature’s skull. But this was having little effect, and Desmond was starting to feel the prickly swelling of unconsciousness.
In a last-ditch effort, he twisted the arrow as hard as he could. Something gave way inside the bird’s skull, and the arrow pivoted. The bird man went limp and collapsed on top of him.
He pushed the body to the side, rolled to his feet, and rushed over to Infinity.
Although twice the tracking animal’s size, she was fighting for her life. The creature was relentlessly lunging at her, its beak now red from her blood. Her forearms were shredded from blocking its attacks.
Desmond grabbed the creature’s leash and ran to the cliff, dragging the thrashing animal behind him. Without stopping, he swung it like a sack of rocks and launched it over the edge. Without emitting a single growl or squawk, the creature splashed into the river fifty feet below.
He ran back to Infinity and kneeled beside her. “Oh shit!”
“They’re just minor cuts,” she said, inspecting the wounds on her arms. “You’re getting into the cave. Now.” She crawled to the rope Desmond had dropped and gathered it up. “I’ll lower you down.”
“Give me that,” he said. He took one end of the rope and tied it around the bird man’s neck. He then extracted the other end from the coil and said, “Lift your arms.” He began tying the other end around Infinity’s chest above her breasts and under her armpits.
She said, “You can’t go down last—that thing’s body isn’t heavy enough to hold your weight.”
He finished tying the knot. “It’ll work, trust me. Now, over the side.” He grabbed the rope and sat at the cliff’s edge with his feet braced.
A squawk came from lower on the hillside. They both turned to look. The other black bird and its tracking animal were running up the slope.
“Shit! Go!” he cried.
/> For a second she hesitated.
“There’s no time to argue!” he shouted.
She rolled to her stomach and began sliding over the edge feet first. Her eyes met his. “I want you down there in twenty seconds.” Then she was gone.
A large section of the rope slid through his hands, burning and scraping his palms. He tightened his grip, and her weight nearly pulled him over the side. He turned and looked down the slope. The bird man was halfway up the hill. It squawked again and released the leash. The tracking animal sprinted ahead. It would be on him in seconds.
The rope went slack. Infinity was in the cave.
Desmond frantically rolled onto his belly and pulled hand over hand on the extra loops of rope until he felt the tension of the black bird’s carcass. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the tracking animal still charging at him. It was no more than twenty yards away. He skidded backward over the cliff’s edge, putting all of his weight on the rope, just as the creature was closing the last few yards of distance. It opened its beak and lunged for his face as he cleared the edge, pulling the dead bird’s body across the rocky ground above.
The carcass was lighter than he had thought, and he was sliding down the cliff face frighteningly fast. Just as the dark cave opening came into view, the black bird’s body suddenly stopped sliding. Desmond lost his grip on the rope and began falling. Something gripped his ankle and pulled. He was slammed onto his back in the mouth of the cave. He rolled onto his side, trying to suck in air, the impact having knocked the wind from him.
Infinity released his ankle and frantically pulled at the rope, which was still tied around her chest. “The bastard’s pulling me out!”
The rope was being pulled steadily up, lifting Infinity to her knees and then onto her feet. Still gasping for air, Desmond threw his arms around her legs just as her feet were lifted from the rock floor, holding her in place.
A few seconds later the rope slackened and Infinity dropped into a heap on top of Desmond. The rest of the rope was now dangling over the lip of the cave. It had broken or been cut.
Desmond was finally starting to get his breath back, and he sucked in huge lungfuls of air. Suddenly he remembered Lenny and Xavier, and he turned away from the cave opening. After his eyes adjusted, he saw that his friends were lying a few yards away at the back of the cave. They were both splotched with blood. And they weren’t moving.
The cave ceiling sloped down sharply, so Desmond crawled to them. Xavier was sprawled on the cave floor in front of Lenny, with a blood-stained rock gripped in his hand. Desmond felt his face. It was warm. He pressed his ear to Xavier’s chest and heard his heart beating. “Xavier!” He shook his shoulder.
Xavier sputtered, opened his eyes, and raised the rock as if he were going to swing it. “Desmond?”
“What happened here?” Desmond asked.
Xavier looked past Desmond at Infinity, and then he turned back to Desmond. He was obviously confused. “Birds. Big ones. They started showing up at sunset. I think they roost in here.”
“They attacked you?”
Xavier nodded. “Big ones.” He looked back at Lenny. “Oh, God, is he dead?”
Desmond leaned past Xavier and put a hand on Lenny’s wrist. “No, he’s alive.”
“Twenty, maybe more,” Xavier said. “Not happy we were here. They started attacking us. Never quit until morning. All night, they kept coming. Lenny lost consciousness after a few hours. I had to stay awake and fight them off. Otherwise they’d have torn him apart. They finally quit at daylight, and then I must have fallen asleep.” He looked out the cave opening. “What time is it? How long until bridge-back?”
“We’re getting close.” Infinity said. She crawled back away from the cave’s mouth. “Move aside, tourists. Let me examine him.”
Desmond moved to the side.
With obvious effort, Xavier used his arms to move out of her way. Suddenly his eyes got wide. “What is that?”
Desmond turned. Suspended in the cave opening by a rope tied to one of its feet was the bird man’s tracking animal. Before any of them could react, it was lowered to the cave floor, where it flipped over onto its feet and charged them.
Xavier was the closest, and he raised his rock to defend himself. But the creature grabbed his arm with its beak, and Xavier cried out in pain.
Immediately the rope tightened again, flipping the tracking animal upside down. It held on tightly to Xavier, and as the rope was pulled from above, the rising animal started dragging him to the mouth of the cave.
Desmond dove for the creature and managed to grab its free leg. He pulled down as hard as he could. The creature’s bones cracked under his full weight. Astoundingly, it still didn’t release Xavier’s arm.
The creature kept rising, threatening to pull both Desmond and Xavier to the edge of the cave. The bird man above was stronger than Desmond had thought possible.
“It’s breaking my arm!” Xavier cried.
Desmond’s feet were now inches from the edge, and still the animal was being steadily pulled up. “Infinity, help!”
She stumbled forward and grabbed the tracking animal by the neck.
Xavier’s eyes were desperate. “Careful, don’t yank on it!”
With the weight of all three of them, the creature finally stopped rising. Suddenly the rope went slack, and Desmond, Xavier, Infinity, and the tracking animal collapsed to the floor in a writhing heap. Apparently the bird man above had decided to let go.
The creature’s broken bones wouldn’t allow it to get to its feet, but it flailed and scratched with its clawed forearms, still not releasing Xavier.
Infinity crawled away from the pile of bodies. “Use the rock!”
Desmond snatched the rock Xavier had dropped and began pummeling the creature’s abdomen with it.
“Don’t hit its head!” Xavier cried.
Desmond continued wildly pounding at the creature’s body. But this was having no more effect than hitting the rubber dinosaur back at SafeTrek’s training field. He noticed one of its ruined legs sprawled outward at an unnatural angle, so he slammed the rock on the knee joint, crushing the bones.
This time the creature let go. It lunged toward Desmond, its bloody beak gaping. Xavier was on his back but thrust his good foot, kicking the animal toward the cave opening. He scooted his body closer and kicked again, sending the creature over the edge to the river below.
For several seconds after the splash, nobody made any sounds except heavy breathing.
“The bastard still has one more rope,” Infinity said eventually. “We have to expect him to use it.”
Desmond scanned the cave’s floor. He found a few more loose rocks small enough to pick up. He gave one to Xavier and one to Infinity, keeping the blood-soaked rock for himself. These were the only weapons they had.
“He’s got the same problem we had,” Desmond said. “Nothing to tie off to. Except his dead friend.”
Infinity got to her feet, shaking and unsteady. “We’re not underestimating it again. Get over here and get ready, both of you.”
Xavier had been inspecting his arm, which looked pretty torn up, but now he stopped and stared up at her. “What’s up there? Is it worse than the thing that just about broke my arm?”
She nodded. “Bigger, smarter, and highly skilled.”
Xavier began pushing himself into position at her side. “This cave was supposed to be safe. It was the worst idea ever.”
Desmond stepped to Infinity’s other side. She was struggling to remain standing, and he worried she might fall over the edge. “Xavier,” he said. “when you hear what we’ve been through, you may take that back. This is the safest place I’ve been since we bridged.”
A sound came from above, like something heavy sliding over rock. A black body dropped into view, having kicked away from the cliff face just above the cave opening. It swung back in as it dropped, and then the black bird darkened the cave entrance as it landed on its feet before them. It released its ro
pe from its beak just as the body of the other bird man fell past behind it.
Another splash came from below.
The bird man had a two-tipped spear in one hand and a stone knife in the other. It swiveled its head, taking in the scene, and then crouched low to the ground.
A thought ran through Desmond’s mind—If you’re not going to run, surprise is your only chance. Just as the bird man pushed off with one foot to attack, Desmond dove forward, driving his shoulder into the creature’s chest before it could react.
He felt the bird man flailing in the air as they both fell from the cave. They fell forty feet in less than two seconds and hit the water. The bird man’s back struck the riverbed, and Desmond’s head slammed into its chest. Stunned, Desmond sucked water into his lungs. He coughed and sputtered, trying to get to his feet in the waist-deep water. When he finally stood up, he retched, spewing water from his lungs and esophagus.
The black bird rose to the surface beside him. The creature wasn’t moving. Desmond grabbed one of its arms and flipped it over, face down. It began drifting away.
“Are you insane, Des?” It was Xavier’s voice.
Still coughing, Desmond looked up. Infinity and Xavier were leaning out of the cave, watching him.
“Tourist, give me an injury report.”
“I think… I’m okay.”
“Good. Now, make sure that bastard is dead. Use a rock. Or hold its head under until you know.”
The bird man was still face down, drifting slowly with the current. If it wasn’t dead already, it would be drowned soon. Desmond stayed in place and counted to sixty, watching it float away. He decided that was long enough.
A carnivorous fish picked at his groin, and then several others began biting his legs. He made his way to the sand bar opposite the rock bluff. He turned to the west, where the sun was getting closer to the horizon. An hour until sunset, maybe two. Even though he was in an alternate universe, it was still August 4th here, and he was still in Missouri. It had to be close to 7:00 PM.
He looked downstream. The body of the first bird man—the one Desmond and Infinity had killed—had jammed up against a few boulders. The rope the second bird man had used would still be tied to the first. Desmond made his way along the sandbar to the body, waded out to the rope, and then pulled the body to shore. He looked at the dead creature and then up at the cave on the cliff face. The bird man was easily 150 pounds. It wouldn’t be easy to drag, but there was nothing else up there to tie the rope to.
Bridgers 1_The Lure of Infinity Page 15
