by Jack Conner
He set off in the direction of the ridge that the missile had come from, then stopped dead. He’d been so completely blown off course that he no longer knew in which direction the ridge lay.
“Hell,” he muttered, and noticed for the first time that his cigar had been lost.
As he started to retrieve another one, a better plan occurred to him. Instead of him going after the Libertarians who’d fired the tactical nuke—it could have been nothing else—he’d let them come to him.
“Step into my web, you bastards.”
Would they come? Surely there would only be a handful, for how many werewolves could Liberty claim to possess, and how many would their leader devote to so simple a task? Just a few, surely. And, being of slim numbers, they would not approach the site of the explosion for fear that a pocket of Castle soldiers had survived.
On the other hand, they’d have noticed Kharker’s bird and concluded that it may yet hold some survivors. Since it was obviously a perimeter scout, it would not likely be armed very heavily. It followed that if the Libertarians wanted Castle soldiers to interrogate, they would descend on the downed chopper.
Kharker climbed a tree and waited.
In less than a minute, four shades approached, carrying machine guns that would shred even the flesh of an immortal. At their hips they wore wicked sabers.
Bastards, Kharker thought. Cowardly ambushing bastards.
As he took a bead on the leader of the quartet, he made a mental note to keep at least one of them alive for questioning.
He fired. The round of the elephant gun tore through the head of the leader and slammed through the chest of the shade directly behind him. Without a sound, the leader fell to the ground, the remains of his shattered head leaking gore across the snow. By the time he struck the ground, the other three had fanned out and were lifting their big guns to target their attacker.
Kharker fired again. A second Libertarian fell to the snow, nearly decapitated by the powerful round.
At this second shot, the surviving two located Kharker and opened fire. Kharker, anticipating this, had dropped to the ground immediately after his second kill. Above him, the bullets of the machine guns tore apart his place of concealment, but he was already on the move, finding cover and circling for an attack.
Realizing that their shots had failed to bring down the sniper, the two Libertarians slipped into the scarce underbrush, their guns at the ready. One of them, hearing something behind him, swiveled in time to see Kharker barreling down on him.
The Libertarian raised his gun and fired, blowing a hole in the Hunter’s abdomen, but this did not slow the arc of Kharker’s machete. The blade cut through its victim’s neck, separating the Libertarian’s head from his shoulders. Even as the body fell, Kharker grasped the head by its sweaty hair and brought it in close so that he could stare into its awestruck eyes. The mouth opened, tried to say something, but could not.
“Don’t worry, my friend,” replied the Hunter. “I’ll be back for you shortly.”
The last Libertarian, having heard the battle, emerged from the underbrush. Half a dozen rounds tore into Kharker before he found cover behind a nearby tree.
“Damn,” he said, feeling the wetness with his fingers.
His attacker continued firing and the bullets slowly began to tear the tree apart. Angered beyond the point of reason, Kharker leapt out and hurled his machete at the last Libertarian. The blade buried itself in the man’s face.
Once the body had fallen, he retrieved his machete from the remains of his enemy’s skull and slipped the blade back into its sheath, not bothering to wipe off the blood.
Making his way back to the beheaded Libertarian, Kharker placed the head back on the shoulders and let the immortal’s innate power do its work. As the wound mended, Kharker rose to his full height and placed a booted foot on the chest of his enemy, then pointed his rifle at the man’s face.
The wound healed quickly, although a vicious scar remained that would only disappear after the creature had fed. The man blinked and cleared his throat to test the limits of the damage, but he couldn’t contain a smile when he heard the sound of his throat working once again. Then he looked up at Kharker and his smile faded.
Kharker pressed his boot more firmly on the man’s chest, pushing him into the snow. “Talk,” he said.
The Libertarian set his chin. “I’m no rat. You can kill me now if that’s all you want.”
“No.”
Kharker yanked out his machete and severed one of the Libertarian’s arms. As the man screamed, the Hunter pressed him further into the snow.
Once the man had subsided, Kharker said, “This can go on all day if you like, son. However, I think it would be in both our interests if you loosened your tongue a little.”
“If I talk, will you release me?”
“If you don’t, I’m sure to kill you. And I’ll do it slow. Now tell me this: why did you bring the nukes along? That wasn’t part of the plan.”
“Just in case.”
“In case of what?”
“Mistress Maleasoel thought that you might betray us to Roche Sarnova, so she obtained some leverage. If, in the raid on the Castle, we found ourselves trapped, we were to use them to barter for our lives. If Blackie wouldn’t let us go, we’d bring the whole place down with us.”
“The threat of killing Jean-Pierre wasn’t enough?”
“That was just to bring you into line, but Malie wasn’t sure that you held enough sway over the Dark Lord.”
“How many nukes?”
When the man hesitated, Kharker raised his machete for another swing. “How many?” he reiterated.
“Four,” said the werewolf.
“Why should I believe you?”
“Because I’m telling the truth! Please, let me go. The sun is up. With my wounds, I can’t survive in daylight much longer. I’ve got to get underground.”
Kharker pondered, not yet willing to dismiss the man. Of course, he was right; a werewolf could not use his powers to heal during daylight—not much, anyway. Really, though, Kharker should deliver the creature to Blackie for a more in-depth interrogation. After the major loss that Roche had just suffered, he deserved some answers. Not only that, but, wounded and still stunned by the turn of recent events, Kharker couldn’t think of the proper questions.
“What of Jean-Pierre?” he said. “How’s he doing?”
A grin crept across the Libertarian’s face. “The albino is dead.”
“What?”
“He tried to escape and the Captain killed him.”
Mind reeling, Kharker almost fired his rifle, but stopped himself at the last moment.
“Did you see his body?” Kharker said.
“No, but I trust in the Captain’s word.”
“That would be that D’Aguila fellow.”
“Of course. He’s taken—”
The Libertarian stopped himself just before he divulged anything more.
Kharker sensed his captive had been about to say something important and twirled his machete around menacingly. “What is it?”
“Nothing.” The man squirmed. “Can I go now?”
“You’ve got more to spill, but I’ve not the patience to sit here and talk to you further. So get up, you’re coming with me.”
Unable to stop himself, the Libertarian spat at Kharker’s leg. “Fuck you, Khark! I told you, I’m no rat! I’d rather die than be taken to the Castle for interrogation.”
“Then die.”
The Hunter sheathed his machete, bent down, grabbed a handful of matted hair and pulled the Libertarian to his feet. Shoving his captive before him, Kharker moved back into the area where his helicopter had come to rest. Hopefully, a radio would still be functioning and he could contact the Castle.
Just as he was thinking of how to phrase news of the disaster, his captive lunged to the side and started running.
“No!” roared Kharker, and ran after the man.
As soon as th
e Libertarian had gone ten feet, he slipped into his wolf form and kept running. Werewolves can’t roam the surface in daylight, not in their beastly form, and as soon as the Libertarian found a clearing, the sun drenched him in fire.
The werewolf screamed as the sun found him. His momentum carried him beyond the clearing, but by the time he reached the shadows he was already disintegrating. When Kharker came to stand over him, he found little left but ash and bones.
“Son of a bitch!” Kharker said, as it hit him. “The question. The stupid question ...”
In that horrible moment, he realized the most important piece of information the man could have provided, the question that he hadn’t thought to ask.
“God damn it all to hell,” he said. “It should’ve been the first thing I asked him—where the fucking Libertarians have gone to!” Still swearing, he looked down on the charred bones. “No wonder you killed yourself. I guess you were right, you stupid loyal bastard. You weren’t a rat.”
Behind him, he heard stirring. He spun, rifle at the ready, to find three Castle shades watching him curiously. Kharker recognized one as the pilot of the bird that had carried him here.
“Lord Kharker, I’m glad to see you alive,” the pilot said. “We were thrown from the chopper when it hit the ground, and when we didn’t see you …”
The Hunter waved the words away. “Do any of the radios work?”
“No, sir.”
“Then follow me.” Kharker started back in the direction of his skirmish with the Libertarians. Without question, the others followed.
Shortly Kharker stared down at the place where the leader of the Libertarians had fallen. The man was gone, and so was the second one that Kharker had felled. From the tracks in the snow, the Hunter surmised that the second one had recovered from the wound in time to hoist his leader up and carry him off into the wilderness. They would be long gone by now.
Which left the fourth one, the one that had taken a blade through his face.
Kharker grinned when he stumbled across the still unconscious form. His wounds were mending fast, though, and Kharker could not allow this one to turn into ash as had his previous captive. So, without further thought, he severed the werewolf’s head. Hoisting the head by the hair, he turned to his three companions and pointed to the body with his machete.
“Carry it,” he ordered, and marched off in the direction of the tactical nuclear explosion. Behind him, he could hear the Castle soldiers fighting over who got to carry the headless corpse. He smiled wider and entered the wasteland.
* * *
When communication was lost with the attack force, Roche Sarnova dispatched a lone unarmed bird with a human pilot to investigate the fate of Colonel Wheatshear’s company. Ten minutes after the pilot had departed, he called back in to relate his findings. First, he described the scorched piece of earth that had so recently been the Libertarians’ headquarters.
“A tactical nuke,” suggested De Soto, who sat with the other officers in the War Room, listening to the human’s grim voice.
Sarnova nodded, his worst fears confirmed. Now he would have to get a relay to his spies in the mortal governments of the world, the ones that would’ve seen the nuclear explosion on their satellites. He had to erase that fact from mortal knowledge. Relaying that message would not be half as difficult as facing Ludwig’s widow.
The pilot went on to describe the band of survivors that huddled in the clearing beyond the wasteland.
“Five of them,” came the pilot’s voice. “No, one of ‘em’s dead, head cut off. One of ‘em’s holding up the head up to me ... fuck ...”
Then the human’s voice changed, became more gruff. “Blackie, are you there?”
“I’m here,” Sarnova replied, realizing what had just happened.
“Sorry to mess with your pilot’s head,” the voice said. “Anyway, this is Kharker here, if you didn’t know. Guess yer boy’s told you the news by now. I got one of them, Roche. One of the Libertarians is in my hands right now, or at least the important part. Before I make your pilot lose control of his craft, I better let him have the use of his mind back. First, I request you send someone to fetch us soon. I doubt yer boy’s chopper would carry us, but this headless Libertarian isn’t going to last much longer in the light of day, if you see what I mean. And if I put the head back on him, he’ll just kill himself like the other one did. I’ll put him under the snow temporarily. That’ll help, but I think the swifter you get us back, the better.”
“Agreed. And well done, my friend.”
“I’ll be seeing you.”
“Khark, you still there?”
“No,” growled the pilot after a moment of silence, and Sarnova recognized the human’s familiarity with psychic dominance—and his dislike of it. “He’s out of my head. But he’s right. I can’t fit all five of them in here. If the Libertarian is that important, I could set down and take him back in time.”
“No. If he recovered, he’d kill you on your way back. Just hold your position, apprise us of any further developments. We’ll be sending out another chopper to collect Lord Kharker’s party.”
Within half an hour, the Libertarian was healed, drugged, and thrown into the dungeon for questioning.
Kharker was escorted to Sarnova’s chambers, where he told of the nuclear blast that had killed many Castle soldiers and how he’d barely survived it. After some brandy, he gladly recounted his battle with the Libertarian soldiers. However, his jovial façade faded toward the end.
“Jean-Pierre’s dead,” he concluded.
Roche nodded in sympathy, then raised a mug.
“To the memory of Jean-Pierre!” declared the Dark Lord.
Kharker raised his own mug, then hesitated. “No.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll not believe him gone until I feel his corpse in my hands. For all I know, D’Aguila lied to his men. Or perhaps that damned Libertarian was simply trying to get my goat.”
Sarnova noted the determination on his old friend’s face. Still, there was a great deal of doubt etched into the Hunter’s gruff features, and Roche knew that, despite his words, Kharker feared the worst even as he denied it.
“So you’ll not approach Sophia, the albino’s, ahem, daughter?” Sarnova said. “You’ll not inform her ...?”
“Not until I know for sure. Besides, I shouldn’t be distracting you with my troubles. For gods’ sakes, you’ve got enough of your own. Half your air force is gone, and more than half of your daybeasts. Compared to that, my troubles are small.” He raised his mug in a toast of his own. “To the fallen men and women of the Castle, that their deaths shall be avenged!”
Roche joined him in the toast, glad that Kharker was strong enough to set his grief aside, but at the same time afraid that the Hunter’s pride would refuse to admit that his own sorrow was justifiable.
Shortly, Kharker left the Dark Lord for some much-needed sleep, though Roche doubted that his friend’s slumber would be restful. Once Kharker had gone, Roche made his way to the dungeon to view the interrogation of the captured Libertarian. When the lead interrogator saw him watching, he stopped his grisly business and approached.
“How goes it?” Sarnova demanded.
The flayer beamed. “We’ve learned that Maleasoel has failed to join the Libertarians. She’s presumed dead—as well as all the troops she took with her! Fully a third of them were at her side and were supposed to rejoin the Libertarians already here with even greater numbers, but she never showed up.”
“Why?”
“He has no idea, although he suspects Captain D’Aguila does.”
“D’Aguila?”
“In the wake of Maleasoel’s disappearance, the Captain has assumed command of the Libertarians.”
Sarnova smiled. “Does our prisoner suspect foul play?”
“No. Apparently the Captain was Maleasoel’s lover.”
“All the better reason ...”
The flayer shrugged. “Maybe the Cap
tain killed her to gain control over the army. It could be. However, this soldier suspects nothing of the sort. He feels only loyalty to his captain.”
Sarnova sighed, but he was glad that the Libertarians were not as strong a force as they might have been. On the other hand, they didn’t really need reinforcements if they had more nuclear weapons at their disposal. Which lead him to his final, and most important, question:
“Does he know where the rest of them are?”
The flayer let out a breath. “No. Believe me, he’s not lying. I have ways of getting at the truth.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“He says that this D’Aguila character anticipated his raiders might get caught and didn’t tell them where the new camp was to be set up.”
“Then how were they to get there?”
“They were to meet at a predetermined spot, where another lycan would join them, one who knew where the camp was. If the lycan thought that they were being monitored by us, he simply wouldn’t approach them. From that point, if he thought them okay, he would lead them, underground, to the new base.”
Sarnova ground his teeth, trying to keep his expression as blank as possible. “Keep it up. Maybe he’ll divulge something else.”
The flayer smiled. “Whether he does or not, my Lord, I assure you that I will indeed keep it up.”
With that, the man went back to his grim but apparently enjoyable task. Sarnova left the dungeon behind, not even slowing his step at the sound of the screaming at his back. In his mind, the Libertarian deserved every single second of it.
* * *
“This is bullshit,” someone said. “I’m hungry.”
Raulf punched him in the face. “Stow your whining and get back to work.”
Sullenly, the man obeyed, a trickle of blood staining his chin. Around them the remaining Libertarians were beginning to set up their new headquarters. It was slow, tentative work, as they had to perform the project solely from beneath the surface of the new mountain. If even a portion of the surface snow collapsed, the sun would pour in and many lives would be lost. They went in slow, carefully measured movements, though not without some grumbling.