Allegiance

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  By the time Rhino rounded the corner, the third guard was dead, and Felipe was wiping the two knives on his tangerine cape.

  Mac moved ahead of the group, pulling out a key to the back entry of the brothel. He unlocked it and gently pushed the door open.

  Rhino’s spear tip went inside first. Felipe drew a cutlass and went next.

  Candles lit the corners of the dark room, illuminating a dozen stalls cordoned off by drapes. An empty desk and two couches occupied the front of the room. Curtains covered the only window, and the metal front door was closed.

  By now, Isaiah would have taken down the guards in front and would be on his way to help. That meant they had only one Cazador left to kill.

  The Barracudas filed inside the brothel. Rhino used the tip of his spear to pull back a drape of the first space on the left, while X did the same going the other direction.

  Rhino found a mattress and bedside table but no Vargas.

  Rhythmic grunting came from across the room, and Mac pointed his cane at a draped stall.

  Nodding, Rhino took point, X on his right flank.

  Killing a man while he got his rocks off wasn’t the bravest way to do it, but it would save a lot of problems later on, and Rhino didn’t feel any compunctions whatever. Ending the threat Vargas posed would save many lives, and when Sofia did return, they would be closer to the freedom they both had dreamed of. His heart thumped at the thought of seeing his woman soon.

  He approached the drape where the grunting was coming from. Reaching out with his spear shaft, Rhino prepared to pull it back with the blade, but movement just behind the bottom of the drape stopped him. He could see boot soles in the half inch of space just underneath. Not just one pair.

  “Back!” Rhino shouted.

  He ducked as several arrows burst through the drapes and cut through the air. With his spear, he swiped under the curtain hard enough to sever a foot.

  An agonized scream rang out as the drapes of other stalls opened. Cazador soldiers poured into the room, raising swords and spears.

  Two men rushed out of the room in front of Rhino, and he swung his spear, taking a head off clean. Then he back-stepped away from the wide swipe of the other soldier’s sword. The man stumbled out of the enclosed space, right onto Rhino’s spear.

  He had taken three Cazadores out of the fight in twice as many seconds. When he turned to help his team, everything seemed to slow down.

  X and Mac fought back to back in the center of the large room. Both had arrows sticking out of their robes.

  Felipe had lost his cutlass and threw one of his daggers into a soldier slashing at him with a sword. Then he sidestepped a low jab from a spear and stabbed the wielder twice in the neck.

  The front door swung open, and in rushed the two Praetorian Guards Rhino had seen out front earlier. Following them in was a third man with an arrow nocked on his bowstring. He aimed it at Rhino and let fly.

  The shaft caught Rhino in the shoulder. Adrenaline kept the pain at bay, but he did feel the deep cut of betrayal of his old friend and trainer.

  Isaiah took another arrow from his quiver and shot it into Rhino’s other shoulder. At this range, he shouldn’t have missed the heart. That told Rhino the old man was disabling him so Vargas could finish him off.

  Screaming in rage, he thrust at a Cazador soldier who came from the side with sword upraised. The spearhead ripped through the man’s exposed chest, opening him from navel to sternum.

  The two Praetorian Guards moved in front of Isaiah to intercept Rhino, and Rhino jabbed at the one on his left. The soldier tried to parry but hadn’t given himself enough room. He backed into Isaiah, knocking a third arrow from his bow.

  Rhino impaled the guard, through the stomach and out the back. He jammed it farther, hoping to get Isaiah on the same skewer, but his wily old mentor had jumped away.

  As the other guard drew back his sword to strike, Rhino clicked the button in the middle of the shaft and twisted, disconnecting the two halves of his spear.

  Leaving the top three feet of spear stuck through the first guard, he thrust the other half up under the second man’s chin, through his palate, and into his brain before he could bring his sword around.

  Rhino was down to the knife on his belt, but instead of drawing it, he pulled the arrow from his left shoulder. Isaiah was renocking the arrow that the staggering Praetorian Guard had knocked loose. He managed to bring it up and release it, but nerves must have thrown off his aim, and the arrow sailed past, an inch from Rhino’s face. Rhino used the opportunity to slam into Isaiah and knock him to the ground.

  “No!” Isaiah yelped as he squirmed under Rhino’s weight. “Rhino, please, don’t!”

  Rhino wrestled Isaiah onto his back and raised the arrow he had plucked from his shoulder.

  “No!” Isaiah yelled again.

  With both hands, Rhino jammed the bolt into the center of his chest. He heard a satisfying crunch, then gurgling as blood filled Isaiah’s lungs.

  “Why?” Rhino grunted. “Why did you betray me?”

  A voice in Spanish answered, “Because I paid better.”

  Rhino turned to see Colonel Vargas sitting on a bed in one of the small rooms, watching with a bemused smile.

  The fighting outside the stalls had all but ended. Six Cazador guards stood in the open space, their weapons pointed down at X and Mac, who lay on the floor, bleeding from the arrows and sword and spear wounds.

  Felipe was the only one still on his feet, fighting two soldiers near the back exit. But he was down to one dagger, and both men had swords. He kicked the leg out from under one soldier, ducked the other’s sword stroke, and jammed his knife into the face of the downed man.

  Then he punched the second guard in the temple and jumped on him, knocking him down. His sharpened teeth clamped down and ripped the man’s throat out.

  Vargas gestured toward the young warrior. “I want that one alive,” he said.

  Two guards left X and Mac to help subdue Felipe. They tackled him to the floor, but he fought on, biting and head-butting. A third soldier finally went over and hit him in the head with his sword hilt.

  Rhino remained on top of Isaiah, knowing that he would soon draw his last breath here in this grubby brothel. In trying to ambush Vargas, they had walked right into a trap. All because of the waste of air that now lay trapped and dying under Rhino.

  Isaiah’s lungs rattled as they filled with blood. Rhino finally pushed off him and stood. Unsheathing the long blade on his belt, he bent down and sliced his old mentor’s throat from one earlobe to the other.

  Isaiah looked up at him, but Rhino didn’t give him the honor of looking into his eyes. He wiped the blade on Isaiah’s robe and turned to Vargas, who finally stood and walked over to Mac and X.

  “I’d say you fought bravely,” he said. “But trying to kill a man while he’s fucking is below cowardly.”

  Vargas drew his sword and angled the blade at the king’s neck. An arrow stuck out of X’s right arm, and another protruded from under his collarbone.

  “I should have killed you when I had the chance,” X growled.

  Vargas smiled. His bulging eyes flitted to Rhino. “Since you showed me such respect by trying to kill me with my pants down, I won’t give you the honor of a good death.”

  He gave a nod, and two of the men guarding X and Mac moved cautiously toward Rhino, while a third stepped away from Felipe.

  Rhino threw off his robe, and the men stopped as if daunted by the sight.

  “¡Mátenlo!” Vargas yelled.

  The men advanced, and Rhino held up his long knife. Both shoulders throbbed from the arrow wounds despite the adrenaline rushing through his body.

  He deflected the first sword blow, but the next two left a long, curving gash across his ribs, and a deep cut to the opposite hip. He staggered backward.

/>   “no!” X yelled. He fought to get up, but the Cazadores clubbed him back down with their spear shafts and kicks to his gut.

  Rhino locked eyes with X just before the three soldiers swarmed. They weren’t cautious, however, and moved with haste. He jabbed his knife into the mouth of a man in the act of stabbing Rhino in the belly. The other two men stabbed from the side, finding little resistance.

  The man Rhino had killed slumped onto him, and Rhino held on to the corpse as the other two men stabbed again and again. The heat turned to ice.

  Pushing the corpse off him, Rhino then grabbed one of the swordsmen by the neck. The other guy jabbed Rhino’s belly again, but before he could pull the sword out, Rhino reached down with his other hand and grabbed the man’s arm and held it.

  Rhino crushed the windpipe of the soldier he was holding and dropped him in a heap. He punched the remaining guard in the face, crushing his nose, then dropped to his knees with the sword jutting from his gut and an arrow in his shoulder. He knew that his many wounds were too deep and too many to survive. He would never see his sweet Sofia again. All he could do now was try to save his king and his men.

  Only four soldiers remained in the room—easy odds if he weren’t bleeding like a speared Siren.

  Vargas gave the nod to finish off Rhino. The first warrior approached uncertainly, eyes wide with fear. He brought his sword up, but before he could deliver the final stroke, Vargas ordered him to stop.

  X mumbled something that sounded a lot like “Go fuck yourself.”

  The guards, who had stopped beating him, gave him a few more kicks to shut him up.

  X still managed to nod at Rhino, and Rhino nodded back.

  “I changed my mind,” Vargas said. “I do want to be the one to kill you.”

  He walked over and raised his sword in both hands, his crazed eyes looking as if they might pop out of his skull. And then, to Rhino’s astonishment, one did.

  Vargas crumpled to the floor as X turned a small pistol on the other guards.

  The crack of gunshots filled the room, and one after another, the remaining Cazadores fell. Mac thrust his sword cane into the groin of the last soldier, and Felipe got up and ran over to Rhino.

  Blood pooled around his body as the young warrior tried to stop the flow. X and Mac scrambled over to help.

  Rhino looked at Vargas’s ruined face and cracked a smile. His eyes went back to X, who could only see out of one eye.

  “King Xavier, tell Sofia she will always be my queen,” Rhino said. He slumped to his side, but X caught him under the arm.

  “Breathe, General,” X said. “You’re going to be okay; just stay with me, and don’t stop breathing. You’re a beast, man. These are just little flesh wounds.”

  Rhino smiled one last time at the man he respected above all others in this world.

  “I wish I was immortal like you, King Xavier, but alas, I’m just a man,” Rhino said, his voice growing faint. “I will always serve you. Even in the next life, I will be watching over you while you fulfill the prophecy.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  The assault rifle jammed again when Les tried to fire at a Siren. Cursing, he worked to free the round as more beasts closed in from the sky, buildings, and road.

  The predators were drawn to Discovery’s nuclear-powered engines and the noise of the battle raging inside the tunnel.

  “Timothy, don’t let up!” Les said over the comms.

  The twenty-millimeter Miniguns on the bottom of the airship raked the sky with tracer rounds, catching the beasts as they swooped down for the fresh meat.

  There was plenty of it to be had. Team Raptor had evacuated over thirty survivors from outside the bunker. From their frightened faces, most of these people had never been aboveground. A few, however, pitched in to help carry Arlo and Edgar. Both divers were conscious and had their armor back on, but neither was in any condition to fight.

  Once they made it out of the tunnels, they had decided to make their stand above the sinkhole. For the past half hour, Les and the uninjured divers had held their ground and waited for an opportunity to board the ship hovering five hundred feet above them.

  But they were running low on ammo, and the time for getting these people into the air was running out. Timothy couldn’t bring the ship down without first clearing the landing zone. The sheer numbers of hostiles meant that many of the injured would never make it aboard if they made a run for it, even with help from the others. And the people from the bunker weren’t wearing much protection aside from the gray jumpsuits and plastic filtration masks.

  “Sir, we’ve got a mass of hostiles heading your way from the south,” Timothy reported.

  “Fire the missiles!” Les yelled back. Giving up trying to free the jammed round, he let the rifle hang over his chest and pulled his pistol to fire at a Siren making a run at them. Three rounds took it down, and it skidded into a mass of vines.

  A missile streaked away from the airship, and a loud boom rocked the next block. Following the noise came the alien shrieks of dying Sirens, and the cries from more of their comrades flocking toward the area.

  Les went back to working the jammed round free as he scanned for Horn and his skinwalkers. The fiends were still out there, probably watching and waiting to make their move.

  But they weren’t the only monsters to worry about. The roar of a bone beast cut through the thunder and the chatter of automatic gunfire.

  Les finally managed to free the round and aimed at a Siren swooping toward the airship. He fired a burst into its spine, sending the beast spiraling to earth.

  “Changing!” Rodger shouted.

  “Down to my last magazine!” Sofia yelled.

  Michael shot a gliding Siren with a bolt to the chest, and it augered into the earth.

  A burst of automatic fire cracked next to Les as Rodger started on his fresh magazine.

  The city sounded like a war zone.

  The silhouetted figures of more Sirens emerged on buildings fronting the roads. Others swooped in from the sky. The twenty-millimeter rounds from the turrets on the airship cut them to pieces, but ever more of them came on, like sharks to a bleeding carcass.

  Les knew they couldn’t wait any longer to get to the ship.

  “We have to make a run for it!” he yelled.

  Michael waved the group forward and set off on point, firing his laser rifle to clear a path.

  “Timothy, bring Discovery down,” Les ordered. “And open the launch bay when you’re about to touch down.”

  “Copy that, sir,” replied the AI.

  The airship began to lower, the wash from the turbofans blasting down onto the street. Les fired three-round bursts at the beasts climbing over the piles of rubble.

  A pack of twenty had already reached the landing zone. They bounded over the carcasses littering the broken asphalt.

  “Take them down!” Les yelled.

  Bullets and laser bolts brought down more and more of the beasts. But each time one fell, another took its place, black maw open, jagged teeth dripping ropes of saliva. The ravenous creatures seemed crazed for a chance at food.

  Muzzle flashes lit up the sky under the lowering airship. Tracer rounds, looking like mini laser bolts, sprayed outward as Timothy worked both Miniguns, blowing apart the mass of the Sirens.

  That did the trick. The beasts scattered in all directions, some of them bolting, others limping on the ground, dragging mangled wings.

  The launch-bay doors parted, and a platform extended downward. The turbofans clicked off, and the ship’s landing feet crunched against the ground.

  “run!” Les yelled.

  He turned and waved, his heart racing at the sight of Sirens flanking them from the sky across the sinkhole. Others came pelting down from the ruined buildings, and now that the ship was grounded, the Miniguns couldn’t fire on any of t
hem.

  “Mags, Sofia, get these people to safety!” Les yelled. “Michael, Rodger, on me! We have to hold those Sirens back!”

  The three men formed a line, laying down covering fire while the rest of the group made a run for the launch bay with the injured. Gunfire cracked in that direction as Sofia and Magnolia took down any beasts foolhardy enough to try picking off a human.

  “I’m out,” Rodger said, drawing his handgun.

  “Sir, I can’t get a shot with the Miniguns,” said Timothy, “but Alfred has rearmed Cricket with grenades.”

  Les looked over his shoulder as the drone flew out of the launch bay, its arms extended with the blaster and grenade-launcher attachments.

  “Instruct Cricket to fire at the flanking Sirens,” Les said.

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Timothy replied.

  As the drone joined Les and team, the fired grenades detonated around the sinkhole, collapsing the edge and burying many of the beasts on the ground.

  More grenades hit the crushed building on the right side of the road, ripping apart the Sirens streaming over the pile.

  Les and the other divers, meanwhile, concentrated their fire on the creatures coming in by air. Together, with Cricket’s help, they held back the horde while the last civilians loaded into the launch bay.

  “Captain, we’re in!” Magnolia said over the comms. “Get back here!”

  Les checked his six and then tapped Michael on the shoulder.

  “Rodge, let’s go!” Les said.

  The men ran and Cricket followed, still launching grenades to cover them. The ground rumbled from the impacts, and the air filled with the cries of wounded and dying Sirens.

  They were halfway to the launch bay when something burst out of a shop entrance on the right side of the road. The thing shook dust and concrete from its massive frame of muscles and bony armor.

  “Bone beast!” Michael yelled.

  The hulking mutant stormed out onto the sidewalk. A black-taloned hand ripped a steel signpost from the ground. Holding it like a spear, the beast hurled it through the air.