Nick Carter began to run as fast as he could over the rough terrain, the beam of the flash picking up the blood spoor now and again. He had the rifle ready and his face was grim and cold — and he knew that he was frightened as never before in his life. For the girl and for himself. What was it?
He came to the valley rim. Here he had put in a piton and a short length of line to help the girl back down the cliff. He fell to his belly and crawled to the rim, put the powerful beam of the light down the side of the cliff. Nothing but drifting snow. And the smell! That putrid odor floating up out of the valley. And a little blood on the snow near the piton.
Killmaster slung the rifle and went over the side of the cliff. If the thing, whatever it was, came at him now he would be helpless. As be felt his way down the perilous sheer façade, flattened, fighting to keep from being blown off the surface like a fly off a wall, he understood that the creature must have come down this same way. Carrying the girl!
A snow gorilla? Wild stories floated around Tibet about such creatures. Yeti? Abominable Snowman? How crazy could you get! But something had taken the girl, had curled a steel barrel like a pretzel, and had gone down a sheer wall with over a hundred pounds' burden as easily as in an elevator. And there was always the smell — like thousands of pounds of fresh dung!
He came to the overhang where he had rigged a line so Fan Su could rappel down. It was faster. He hooked an arm and leg over the swaying nylon and slid down, rifle extended in one hand and finger on the trigger. His fur-booted feet hit the rock below and he dropped off, sweeping the area with the flashlight.
She was lying huddled on the snow a dozen feet away from the edge of the cliff. He ran to her, sweeping the light around, seeing nothing but tracks leading away. And blood. She had wounded the thing, at least.
He knelt, knowing what he was going to see, and put the light on the quiet body. She was dead. Her quilted suit was torn to ribbons — she must have put up a hell of a fight — and her delicate features had been swept away with a slash of feral claws. Her slender throat was torn to bits, and beneath the torn jacket he could see terrible bites on her arms and shoulders.
Nick could not bring himself to look at her ruined face for long. God knew that he had seen enough of bloody death, but this was too much even for his staunch heart. He pulled the ripped coat over her face and weighted it with rocks against the wind.
He picked up the rifle and went to the first track, half a dozen feet away. The wind down here in the shelter of the narrow valley was not so fierce, and he could follow the spoor with no difficulty. In the protected lee of a rearing slab of basalt he found the first perfect, complete, footprint of the creature. He knelt to study it.
It was all backward, reversed. The paw, foot, claw? of the thing had two toes in front and three behind. He did not really want to believe it yet, but his eyes were seeing it now. Sweat trickled icily on him, and at the same time he felt as cold as he had ever felt.
He followed the tracks to a cave entrance near the stairs. The hole leading into the cave was low and narrow; he had to double over to put the beam of light into the opening. He saw more blood spots and, on the dry rock inside the cave, another of the smudged prints. After that no prints, only blood leading across the arching cavern to another dark hole on the far side. The odor was almost overpowering, sickening Nick, nearly defeating his will to enter the place.
Come on, he told himself. Come on, you cowardly sonofabitch, come on! Get it. Kill it. Whatever it is — kill it!
He went into the cave on his belly, using the light sparingly now — the batteries were beginning to go — and following the trail of blood.
The hole on the opposite side of the cave led into a narrow rock tube that twisted and turned like a tunnel in a primitive mine. At places he could hardly raise his head, and his big shoulders, made bigger by the padding he wore, would barely slide through. But the blood spots led him on. It was in here somewhere.
There was a subtle difference in the smell now. It was still a terrible stench — he had vomited already without stopping his crawl — but now the smell was fresher. Closer and stronger. And, somehow, infinitely more evil.
Killmaster first began to realize what he was up against when the tube led him into another cavern. The blood spoor crossed the floor of this cave and disappeared into another hole, another passage, on the far side. The damned caves were all connected!
He lay panting and sweating, shaking now and again with fear and fury, and looked at the snow being blown past the entrance on the gale. Would they fly in this weather? Could the B52 drop the helicopter successfully in a storm like this?
At this moment Nick didn't give a damn. He crossed the cave, flopped to his belly, checked the rifle, and wedged himself into the tube. The thing had to stop sometime. To fight. Or perhaps to die. Maybe it was bleeding to death even now.
It turned into a nightmare. A ghoul-haunted dream in which he pursued the blood and the smell through endless rocky tubes and corridors and never caught up. Once he saw a glint of red in the darkness ahead of him. Eyes staring in the ink. The light was nearly gone now and he could not see what belonged to the eyes — only a hulking thing in shadow. He fired, and knew he had missed even as the echoes crashed in his ears. The thing moved on, out of his view. Only the smell was left, that terrible retch-making odor. Nick Carter crawled on, the flashlight only a feeble yellow glimmer.
He began to understand that the creature could think, at least to a degree. It had been hurt and it had connected the source of hurt with the gun in Nick's hand; either that, or the flash and report of the rifle had warned it. He never caught sight of it again and the smell began, by degrees, to grow fainter.
When at last he came to another open cave he was stunned to see gear lying around. It was their cavern, the one they had been hiding in all that day. A rock hole led off to the rear, shielded by rocks, so he had not spotted it before. He had not really explored the cave anyway.
Nick Carter glanced at his watch. It was a quarter of twelve! He glanced at the passage leading back into the cave, then to another, and another, and he knew he was beaten. His lean face worked and he growled deep in his throat and, for that instant, there was something of the beast about the AXEman.
But he was beaten. He knew it. He accepted it.
He paused in the cave only long enough to replace the batteries in the flashlight; then he made his way to the flares in the middle of the valley. He had to bend and fight his way against the wind, but the snow had lessened. He lit the flares, saw them splash scarlet torches in the night, outlining the pad for the helicopter. If they came at all. He did not really care — if they didn't come, couldn't get down, he knew what he was going to do. Hunt the thing again — hunt it until one of them died.
He went back to where Fan Su lay. Snow had half covered her body. He did not look at the face, just picked her up and carried her back to the blood-red flares. Then he waited, staring up into the swirling storm.
The big double-fanned helicopter, buffeted and tossed by the wind, came dropping out of the clouds at 12:13 on the nose. Thirteen minutes late.
Nick ran to the 'copter as a door opened cautiously. They were showing no lights.
Someone said: "Yellow Venus?"
"Yes." He handed up the girl's body. "Put a blanket over her."
Killmaster remained in the rear of the big helicopter with the girl. The sergeant went back to the lieutenant who was piloting the chopper.
"He says to get out fast," the sergeant told his superior. "He says all hell is going to break loose around here in a few minutes."
The lieutenant nodded. After a moment the sergeant said: "I got one good look at the guy's face back there. He looks like he's been through hell already. I never saw anything like it. I dunno — maybe it's the stiff with him! Must be bad. He wouldn't let me see the face. They hand us some sweet jobs these days!"
The lieutenant only nodded again. He was grim. It was going to be a long, tough flight to
Sikkim and they were only just going to make it on their fuel. He concentrated on his own worries.
Suddenly the big helicopter lurched, swung and dipped, dropped and started to flip on her side. The pilot righted it. The sergeant was staring at a growing red and yellow burst of flame below and far behind them. More blasts shook the 'copter as a terrier shakes a rat.
"Jesus!" said the sergeant. "The guy wasn't kidding."
Nick Carter watched the unholy blast break and shimmer along the horizon. The 'copter fell like an elevator. He reached to pat the covered face.
"I'm sorry, honey. At least we gave you one hell of a funeral pyre."
* * *
notes
Примечания
1
See Nick Carter — Dragon Flame.
The Red Guard Page 15