Debbi bit her lip in frustration and readied her Dragoon. The Ranger intended to use her own black gun, no matter Martool's personal preferences or superstitions. When facing a Skinny, you better bring it all.
Martool extended her hand and the stone wall shimmered like water in a wind. The black tannis pulled back from her touch and a gap formed. With amazing speed, Fareel and Sahrin raced through the opening.
Debbi followed. She took a position between the two massive and watchful anouk warriors. Her pistol flashed around the room, seeking a target. She recognized the room as the central Council chamber where she first learned of the siege. The vast room was silent but for the crackling of torches, the creaking of the warriors' leather, the wet sounds of their feet on the stone floor.
Tekkeng was nowhere to be seen.
But what could be seen was horrible.
The chamber was littered with anouk corpses and pieces of corpses. The slaughtered members of the War Council were scattered about the shadowy and cavernous room. Fresh anouk blood dripped down the black walls and puddled on the floor.
Debbi dragged a rough sleeve under her nose in a vain attempt to wipe away the warm stench of death that filled her nostrils. Behind her, she heard Martool's breath escaping in a gasp of disbelief. The grisly scene battered the normally staid shaman beyond her capacity to control her reaction. Both anouk warriors turned their fearsome heads to look at their chief, for orders and for support in the face of the horrible tableaux.
Martool moved into the slaughterhouse. Her footsteps made a sucking noise as she strode through the congealing blood. "He's killed them all. The entire Council." She reached down and pulled a sodden feather and tannis head piece from the red mire.
"Except you," Debbi said. "Is there anyplace safe you can go while we hunt him down?"
Martool laid a gentle hand on the face of a murdered anouk who was wide-eyed with fear even in death. "No. The only path is to find him and destroy him. And only I can do it."
Debbi heard a squelching sound behind her. She thought it was Fareel and Sahrin moving across the blood-covered floor. She turned to see blood rising. It moved up from the floor like a viscous pillar and formed into a shape. Then it moved.
"Tekkeng!"
Fareel and Sahrin reacted before her word was completed. Fareel's arm flashed and his star-shaped atax, trailing its violet energy, flew at the lanky, gray creature that had appeared out of the fresh blood of his victims. Tekkeng ignored the attack and fixed his malevolent gaze instead on Debbi as she tried to thumb the black gun. She felt her fingers wrenched apart so violently she thought they might be torn from their sockets. She was horrified to see her Dragoon catapult into the darkness.
The atax struck Tekkeng, but this weapon, capable of devastating damage, merely glanced off the Skinny's shoulder causing him to make a vague noise of discomfort. The atax immediately lost its purple glow and dropped to the floor.
Fareel rushed the Skinny brandishing his war ax and screaming with brutal fury. Tekkeng didn't react other than to shift his eyes from Debbi to the warrior. Fareel flew off his feet as if struck by a bomb. He hurtled through the air and smashed into the massive scale model of Castle Rock that covered one wall of the vast chamber. The representation of Castle Rock collapsed in an avalanche of tannis, burying Fareel under a mountain of smoking detritus.
Martool raised her arms. Two columns of shining, liquid tannis rose from the floor on either side of Tekkeng and smashed together like an earthquake, crushing the Skinny between them. The shaman gritted her teeth and clenched her fists. The tannis hardened and compacted with bone-smashing force, grinding the Skinny between them.
Without warning, the twisting tannis pillars exploded. Glassy razor shards filled the air. Debbi dove as shrapnel whizzed past. It tore through her hair. She felt several pieces pop through the cloth of her jacket. Others cracked against the walls.
Just as she raised her head from the wet floor, she saw Tekkeng flash across the chamber. His limbs were grotesquely stiff and unmov-ing as if he was a lifeless puppet propelled by a string. The Skinny's long, bony arms lifted and clawed fingers clutched Martool around the throat. The shaman screamed briefly before the sound was cut off. The room filled with palpable hate wafting off Tekkeng. The air ripened with the roiling stench of corruption.
Sahrin roared and raised his broadsword high over his head despite the savage shrapnel wounds clearly visible across his muscular body. He made two long, bounding steps and drove the sword down through Tekkeng's shoulder blades. Violet sparks showered the area as Sahrin gave a lung-wrenching howl and shoved the black blade into the Skinny's wretched body until the hilt wedged against the bony frame.
Tekkeng screeched. He arched his back, scrabbling with one hand for the pommel of the sword. Sahrin grabbed Tekkeng's other wrist and wrenched the palsied hand off Martool. As the clawed fingers dragged loose, they left raw gashes in the shaman's throat. Sahrin took the gasping Martool into his arms and hurried her away from the ghastly, writhing Tekkeng.
Debbi scrambled to her feet. Her Dragoon was lost. But Sahrin wore a black gun across his back. The anouk warrior concentrated only on carrying Martool to safety. Debbi couldn't call to him because of the ear-splitting keening of the Skinny that reverberated through the chamber. She ran after Sahrin, skidding and slipping with each bloody step, and caught him by the powerful forearm.
"Give me your gun!" the Ranger cried. "Quick!"
Sahrin clutched Martool tighter to his chest by way of refusal. Debbi wedged her hands under the shaman's limp form.
"I'll take her," Debbi explained. "I need that gun!"
Sahrin reluctantly let her take his burden. The Ranger's knees nearly buckled under the weight of the seven-foot female anouk. Sahrin's eyes remained locked on his wounded chief as he started to shrug the rifle strap off one shoulder. Then his eyes widened. His mouth gaped.
"What's wrong?" Debbi asked, struggling to stay on her feet.
A clawed gray hand burst out of Sahrin's chest with a wet, snapping sound. Debbi's felt hot blood slap against her cheek. Sahrin's face froze in shock and he slumped, already dead. He dropped heavily to the floor to reveal Tekkeng poised behind with his arm soaked in gore to his barbed elbow. The Skinny scornfully tossed the tannis great sword onto Sahrin's body.
Debbi instantly swung her back to Tekkeng in a futile attempt to protect Martool with her own body. Strong fingers seized her jacket. She tensed for the blow, but instead she was jerked back hard. Martool fell from her arms. Debbi smelled Tekkeng's vile stench as she had in New Hope, a musky smell with a weird spiciness underneath. The horrible creature spun her around and she stared into its rotten face. Tekkeng's toothsome mouth dribbled with mucus from his frothing screaming fit.
Images of fetid passions ripped through Debbi's mind. There was no language involved. It was pure, pounding hatred. She saw unwanted images of Banshee overcome with a living death. Debbi felt physically ill from the waves of sickening, debilitating fear and horror that lashed into her. It was an all-encompassing desire that knew no compromise short of complete humiliation and prostration of this world. And it would never stop short of death.
Debbi lifted her foot and gripped her dagger. She struck at Tekkeng's grotesque head. The blade deflected inches away as if it hit a steel shield. The Skinny grinned and drew in a sucking gurgle of delight at the Ranger's dismay.
Debbi's vision grew faint and distant. The horrible visage of Tekkeng faded into a fog. She would've welcomed the obscurity, but she knew it meant she was dying. The Skinny was killing her, feeding on her.
Debbi was failing. She failed her mother and now she was failing Martool. And the Rangers. They didn't even know Tekkeng was inside the city. Would her friends be killed too? And Ross? She had just gotten him back.
The fog lifted suddenly. She saw Tekkeng clearly and the Skinny's eyes were oddly still and lifeless. She realized in that instant that he was psychically locked. From a black needle. Debbi drove the dagger in
to his throat. Then again. And again. The blows made a dry, crackling sound like a sheath driven into ancient parchment.
She ripped herself free from his stiffened grip. The Ranger dropped to the floor and unceremoniously yanked the pulse rifle from Sahrin's limp, mutilated body. Resting on one knee, she popped the Skinny with several more black needles. Then she emptied the rifle's magazine into the cadaverous thing.
Tekkeng's body jerked with each shell. The Skinny refused to drop even though his clawed feet barely touched the floor, suspended by whatever weird force kept him upright. Still, the barrage shredded him. Pieces of his putrid flesh tore away from the bone. When the gun clicked empty, he was little more than a skeleton with stray gobbets of meat dangling from glistening bones. The skull-like mouth creaked open as if to speak. Then the Skinny clattered to the floor in a heap.
Debbi turned slowly, warily, toward Martool, fearful of what she was might see. Surprisingly, the shaman was conscious and propped on one elbow with her eyes barely open. In one hand, she held Debbi's Dragoon.
The Ranger scurried across the room and put an arm around Martool's trembling shoulder. She eased the exhausted anouk down. The Ranger asked, "Is that Skinny finally dead?"
Martool swallowed with painful difficulty and shook her head.
Debbi exclaimed, "What? Are you sure? He looks pretty damned dead to me."
Martool croaked, "He can't die as you know it. I can seal him away to prevent him reforming. But that is all I can do to him for now."
"Whatever it takes." The Ranger inspected the nasty gashes on Martool's throat. "I'm sorry, but he got Sahrin and Fareel."
Martool shook her head. "Sahrin is dead. But Fareel is alive."
Debbi felt a little ashamed for wishing the warriors' fates were reversed. She pulled a packet of plastiskin out of her jacket. "And you're alive too."
"That doesn't matter now. Only you." The anouk released her hold on the Dragoon and lifted her hand as if it was something disgraceful and unclean. "Only you."
Chapter 22
Rumer Curtiz was the Colonial Ranger temporarily in charge of Temptation. Prior to the Worldstorm, when he came to Temptation for safety, Curtiz had served in an isolated line cabin on the banks of the slow, muddy Lancer River where he more often carried a clipboard than a gun. He had filled his days watching caravans cross on the ferry, breaking up fights in the one riverside saloon, and occasionally filing reports from the watermen about weird fish trying to eat their boats. He never even had trouble with Reapers or anouks. Lancer Crossing was too penny ante for them to make the effort to raid. It had been a great life.
Running Temptation was a different matter altogether. It was a confusing, frustrating headache. Ross had taken most of the Rangers with him to the Red River and the others were on long patrol in the surrounding countryside. The job was becoming so frustrating for Curtiz that any unusual sound he had heard over the last three weeks instantly transformed in his mind into the sound of Ross and the returning Hosses. He would run to the window like a child looking for Santa, expecting and hoping to see the old Stallions settling into the equipment yard behind headquarters. Needless to say, he had been disappointed many times every day.
Then, one day, he heard a sound that he swore was a Stallion landing out back. But he didn't rush any more. It was probably the wind. It was always the wind. He slowly stood up from the desk in the squad room and strolled into Ross's office. He lifted the shade over the still-broken window and peered out.
A shuttlecraft was landing in the equipment yard.
However, it was not a Colonial Ranger Stallion. It was a thin profile craft that made their old Hosses look like the rust-covered freighters they were. And this sleek vessel had Hellstromme Industries markings.
The raptor-like ship settled amidst a dust cloud. A side door slid up and a ramp rolled out. Two heavily armed men strode down with very heavy pulse rifles at the ready. They scanned the area as they waited at the base of the ramp.
A woman stepped out of the ship. A beautiful woman, Curtiz thought, in a punishment sort of way. Even with the coverage of dark sunglasses, she looked slightly shaken beneath an aura of deadly calm and competence. He had seen it in newcomers to Banshee before. It was impossible to hide, even for the best actors. As she stepped down the ramp in a suit more stylish than anything seen in Temptation for quite some time, two more troopers rumbled out behind her.
When she reached the ground, she noticed Curtiz's head in the office window. She stared at him through black glasses. He suddenly realized that the first two soldiers had their weapons pointed at him.
Curtiz kept his hands in plain sight on the window frame. "Easy there, ma'am. Tell your boys I'm a Colonial Ranger. It wouldn't do to shoot me."
The woman paused for a long moment as if contemplating the idea. Then she tapped one of the soldiers on the arm and they both lowered their rifles.
"Are you Captain Dave Ross?" the woman called through the wind.
"No, ma'am. My name is Curtiz. What can I do for you?"
"You can call Captain Ross for me, Mr. Curtiz." She started toward the alley to the main street. "And preferably by the time I get in the front door. Thank you."
Curtiz came back into the squad room in time to see the front door swing open and the black haired woman sweep in with two of her guards. She tossed her briefcase on a desk and popped it open. She laid out a holo-reader and a palmcorder.
The olive-skinned Curtiz watched, stroking his thick moustache.
The woman didn't look up from tapping the palmcorder's keypad. "I don't see Captain Ross yet."
"Good eyes. What do you want?"
"It's obvious. I want to see Captain Ross. Could you get him, please?" She sniffed the air. "It smells terrible in here."
"You should've been here a couple of weeks ago. It's a freaking garden party now." Curtiz massaged his pounding temples. "Who are you?"
The woman finally glanced up, obviously annoyed at having her concentration interrupted and her requests ignored. She looked Curtiz up and down critically. Then she gave him a patronizing smile as if the Ranger was an unintentionally disobedient child. "My name is Lithia. I am the regional manager for Hellstromme Industries." She paused to let the information sink in.
Curtiz raised a questioning eyebrow when there was no further elaboration. "That's good. What are you doing here?"
Lithia typed on the keypad of her palmcorder and read the screen. "Rumer Curtiz? Prior to the Worldstorm, you were posted at Lancer Crossing."
Curtiz tilted his head in interest. "Yeah. How'd you know that? What do you have on that minicomputer there?"
Lithia assumed a patiently understanding air. "We at Hellstromme Industries know many things. Is Captain Ross coming or not?"
"He's gone."
"When will he be back?"
"I pray any second. But I wouldn't count on it."
Lithia's eyes darted from side to side. "Where has he gone?"
"Out to the Red River Valley."
The woman's face showed concern. "Why?"
"He got a distress call from one of our Rangers. He took a posse and went out."
"I see. Well, when did he leave?"
"Little over three weeks ago," Curtiz answered. "Haven't heard from him since."
"He's been gone for three weeks without communication? In the Red River Valley?"
"I'm not any happier about it than you are, Ms. Lithia. But if there's anybody who can take care of himself, it's Ross."
Lithia nodded faintly to a chair and one of her guards pulled it out for her. She regarded the dust on it and remained standing. She gazed up at Curtiz in deadly earnest. "I'm here as an official liaison to the Colonial Rangers."
"Okay."
Lithia busily tapped the palmcorder. "How many Rangers are in the area?"
Curtiz eyed the trooper next to the woman. His skin looked odd. "Um. Yeah. I don't think that's any of your business, ma'am. You need to talk to Ross."
"Ross isn't he
re, is he?"
"Nope."
"Who's in charge in Captain Ross's absence?"
Curtiz continued to study the guard. "That's a good question. Technically, it'd probably be Stew. But we're not much on technicality around here. I imagine it would be Dallas."
"Then is Dallas here?"
"No. She's the one Ross went to Red River to rescue. Is your man there a robot?"
"They are automatons. I would appreciate some cooperation, Ranger Curtiz. Since I am here as a Hellstromme Industries liaison to the Colonial Rangers, I would appreciate it if I could get someone in authority with whom to liaise."
Curtiz sat heavily on the desk and screwed up his face in confusion. "Ma'am, I'm not authorized to liaise with anybody. You'll have to wait for Ross. Or Dallas. Or Stew."
"So evidently, anybody but you." She shook his head ruefully. "What about your town council?"
"Yeah, well, that could be a problem. There were three men on the town council. We threw Fairchild out of town because he subverted the militia and tried to open the gates to the Reapers. And Peck was eaten by cannibalistic zombies. Or at least we think he was. Doc Dazy hasn't identified all the bones yet. There's still the other guy, Atkinson, but he hasn't been the same since the Undead Legion was here. He just sort of stares off into space most of the time these days." Curtiz thought for a second. "Man, our town council sucks."
Lithia eyed the Ranger over the top of her glasses. "Are you sure Ross is even coming back?"
Suddenly the office door flew open. A young boy with a Ranger badge pinned to his shirt stuck an excited face inside and shouted, "There's robots outside!"
Curtiz's head jerked up at young Stephen's entrance. The two troopers whirled on the boy with their guns up. The Ranger went for his Dragoon with impressive speed before Lithia could even react. Luckily the automatons didn't fire. Curtiz eased his finger off the trigger as Lithia ordered her men to stand down. Stephen didn't seem to notice that he was almost blasted out of existence. He stared at the two mechanical men with fascination.
"There's robots in here too!" he cried with delight.
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