"Like fish in a barrel!" Ringo shouted without mirth while blasting away at zombies below him. "Die, you bastards! Die!"
Undead continued to advance, crawling over the twitching bodies of their comrades. They shot energy blasts up past the Rangers. They used their powers to seize pieces of burning wreckage and fling them at the defenders. The detritus smashed off the sides of the steps and splattered the Rangers with splinters of burning wood and gobs of molten tannis.
Tsukino took a piece of the black lava against his shoulder. He spun and dropped to his knees, but didn't scream. He quickly shucked his burning jacket. Ross could see the man's raw, red flesh exposed beneath what was left of his shirt. But Tsukino silently picked up his rifle and returned to shooting, jamming the stock into his other shoulder.
Ross yelled to Tsukino and Fitz, who were highest on the steps, to pull back. The Legionnaires were pushing inexorably into the avenue; if Ross waited too long, the troopers might break through the makeshift wall inside the avenue and pour out into the courtyard, cutting the Rangers off from the Hoss. Ross knew that these men and women around him had followed him here on a battle that was largely his own. They had stayed out of loyalty in the face of enormous odds. The thought of giving ground to Quantrill sickened Ross, but there was more at stake than his personal demons. Martool's enigmatic words and nature had first made him think. But then, looking into Dallas's doubting eyes had made him realize that his need for revenge was endangering the people who had followed him, in some cases, for years because they trusted and believed in him, not because he was a captain in the Colonial Rangers. He wouldn't betray them now as part of his mad drive for vengeance and, even more, he kept replaying Martool's enigmatic warning about Debbi dying at Castle Rock. Despite his natural instinct for hard-headed rationality, the shaman's words echoed in his memory and he couldn't shake them.
Tsukino and Fitz made their way down the steps and took up new positions on either side of the gate avenue. They continued to fire into the Legionnaires who climbed over mounds of their rotting fellows.
Ross ordered, "Ngoma, Ringo, back to the Hoss."
Both young men complied without question. Ringo outpaced the other Ranger, racing for the idling Stallion like a drowning man swimming for a lifeboat.
Ross fired the last of his grenades and watched with grim delight as Legionnaires were blasted off their feet and detached limbs spiraled through the air. Several energy beams slashed close to his head. He felt the breeze.
They were getting the range.
"Chennault, time to go!" Ross and the powerful, ex-Marine moved slowly down the steps, firing all the way. "Fitz, Tsukino, get to the Hoss!"
The injured Ranger and his one-armed partner hesitated to leave Ross and Chennault alone. Their commander motioned again. They turned and legged it across the courtyard to join Ringo and Ngoma as they piled into the back of the Stallion.
An energy blast flashed down the length of the avenue and slammed into the makeshift wall. Tannis fragments flew. Ross jerked his head toward the courtyard and raced down with Chennault.
Ross heard the pounding of psychic blasts on the stone wall as he leapt into the co-pilot's seat in the Stallion's cockpit. He strapped in and asked through his comlink, "Everybody in?"
"Go!" Chennault answered breathlessly.
Debbi flipped the rear door up and pulled back on the stick. The Hoss rose into the air. She felt the telltale tingles of syker probes in her head. She smiled, knowing she was the one Ranger they couldn't brainlock into crashing the Hoss.
As the Stallion soared above the empty courtyard, Ross fired the cannons into the crowded avenue, ripping a swathe through the tangled Legionnaires. The energy slashes that had been fired at the inner wall were turned up at the Stallion. The vehicle already hovered at the effective blast range of individual sykers and Debbi narrowed the target angle by turning, and the beams washed past.
Debbi spun the Stallion, ready to ascend to a higher level of Canyon Rock. Then she saw a solitary figure enter the courtyard from the city precinct.
It was Martool.
The anouk shaman calmly strode to the center of the graveyard and dropped to her knees. Martool bowed and placed both hands flat against the ground. The air around her hands shimmered with a strange energy.
"Ross!" Debbi pointed.
"I see her. What the hell is she doing now?"
The Legionnaires had returned their aggression to the inner wall. It was only moments from shattering and the undead would be loose on the courtyard barely two hundred yards of flat, uncontested ground away from Martool.
Debbi brought the Hoss back down. She heard confused chatter from the rear.
Debbi said, "Here, take over. I'm going to cover her."
"The hell you are."
She shot Ross a fierce glare. He was busy unstrapping from the copilot's seat. He pulled his Peacemaker and checked the cylinder. Then he clicked his com to the crew in back.
"Arm up. We're getting out."
As he was turning around, he caught Debbi's softening gaze.
"What?" he asked.
"Nothing." She set the Stallion down just outside the graveyard and dropped the rear gate.
Debbi and Ross met the Rangers as they dragged their exhausted carcasses out of the Hoss onto the windswept courtyard. Miller had recovered enough to join them, but he still looked disoriented. Tsukino was smearing salve on his burned shoulder. Although there was no open dissension among them, several of the Rangers' expressions showed confusion and anger and fear. They all heard the repetitive booming reverberating from the Legionnaires' attacks on the wall.
Ross stepped among his crew. "Debbi and I have to protect Martool."
"Why?" Chennault asked sharply. "Where are her people?"
Debbi didn't respond. She shouldered her Hellrazor and walked into the cemetery to stand beside the chanting Martool.
Ross watched Debbi, but said to Chennault, "The anouks have all evacuated this part of the city. They're too far away to help now."
Chennault replied, "C'mon, Ross, let's just grab her and get outta here!"
Ross studied his Rangers with an understanding eye. "Anybody that wants to go can get on board that Hoss and go. Nothing said. I'd go myself and not look back, but . . . hell, I can't explain it." He shook his head and joined Debbi in the graveyard.
Fitz followed on Ross's heels.
The rest of the Rangers stood in a silent clutch. The weird sound of the syker brain blasts slamming against the inner wall vibrated through the courtyard.
Chennault took a deep, frustrated breath. "Anybody want to leave?"
Ringo's head swung back and forth in a silent panic intently watching the others. They had been airborne, flying away from the Legion. He had just allowed himself to relax, sure they would escape, when the Hoss dropped back to the ground. Now Ringo felt sick. Dallas and Ross were both staying. But they didn't know the Legion like he did. They weren't in the Bone Camp. They hadn't heard the screaming and the wet tearing of flesh and sharp snapping of bones. They'd never been bound and blindfolded and thrown in the dirt and forced to listen to the low grumbling sounds coming from a tent full of undead feeding off moaning victims who were still conscious enough to understand their fate.
Ringo stared at the downturned faces of the other Rangers. He desperately wanted someone else to say they were leaving so he could go too. But if no one else said it first, he would have to stay. He wasn't a coward.
Chennault worked the action of her pulse rifle. "Okay. I guess that's it."
Ringo's heart felt as if it would explode. He wanted to scream. Instead, he hefted his rifle and followed the others as they took their places for their last stand.
The eight Colonial Rangers weaved into the graveyard and stood with their backs to Martool, facing the distant tannis wall. The sounds of the Legionnaires' blasts were getting louder. With each bright glow, larger chunks of tannis flew up from deep inside the avenue. The Rangers checked their guns on
e last time and felt for extra magazines. Those that had spare black guns touched them to reassure themselves they were within easy reach.
Ringo said to Miller without looking, "Don't let them take me alive, Ty."
Miller grunted, well aware of the fact that the kid had used his first name for the first time. He felt the fear that filled the air between them.
"They won't, Ringo," Miller assured the young Ranger. "I promise."
A massive, rumbling explosion roared from inside the avenue. Smoke boiled up. And there was silence.
Just two hundred yards away, a Legionnaire appeared through the smoke into the courtyard.
"Here they are," Chennault said while she sighted down the barrel of her Hellrazor. In rapid succession, she needled the Legionnaire and then knocked it to the ground with a slug.
Several more rotting figures appeared through the haze.
Ross knelt and steadied his pulse rifle on top of a teetering, tannis tombstone. "Grab a grave and keep shootin' till it's over!"
The undead poured into Castle Rock.
Chapter 26
The Rangers fired into the hordes of Legionnaires with practiced efficiency. The mix of black needles and standard ammo had become routine by now. Because of the narrow passage the zombies had to squeeze through, they were fighting as individuals. They couldn't use the screen and fire, so they were still vulnerable to the Rangers' attack.
There were so many of them and they kept coming. With each second, the distance between the undead and the Rangers narrowed.
Targets were at one hundred and fifty yards. Then one hundred. The zombies spread their front. They tried to form into squads, but the Rangers' merciless fire prevented it. Force screens flickered and failed.
"I'm out!" Ngoma shouted as he fiddled with the black gun on his Hellrazor.
Miller yanked the spare off his belt and tossed it to the younger Ranger. Ngoma popped off the empty and snapped on the new weapon.
Shots from the Legionnaires rang off the tombstones. Flashes of psychic energy roared through the air, blasting holes in the ground around the cemetery. Ringo's gravestone shattered and shrapnel sliced through the kid's face. He merely sleeved the blood out of his eyes and scuttled behind another monument.
Debbi willed Martool to hurry with whatever she was doing. The air around the immobile shaman shimmered and the effect slowly expanded through the graveyard. But there was no real feeling of power building. There was no sense that the shaman was close to any sort of climax.
The air filled with the sound of the sykers' energy flashes and the deadly popping of automatic weapons. None of the Rangers spoke. They stood or knelt behind tombstones dedicated to anouk dead. They paused in their shooting only to eject spare clips and slam home fresh ones. They all knew the odds.
The undead kept coming. The killing ground crept ever closer.
A Stallion swooped in overhead and peppered the courtyard with cannon fire. It was Stew and Hallow. Some of the Rangers looked up briefly, but there was no cheering. The Stallion might buy them a few feet of ground for a few moments, but it wouldn't save them from the advancing enemy. Already the Legion was directing their psychic assaults upward. Even Hallow couldn't multitask enough to protect the ship from the intense attention. The Hoss roared off again, energy flashes burning black along the hull.
One by one, the Rangers' black guns ran out of needles. The undead came faster. Regular ammo knocked them down, but they kept getting up.
Then Tsukino threw his empty Hellrazor down and drew his Dragoon. Chennault followed seconds later. Then Miller.
Debbi's pulse rifle clicked empty too. She tossed it aside and pulled her sidearm. With her left hand, she brought out her long knife for the hand-to-hand combat that would soon come. The undead were only fifty feet away. Their emotionless faces came closer, grinning without effort.
Ross drew his Peacemaker. He looked at Debbi. She smiled at him, grateful that he was here with her. Ross touched the barrel of his pistol to his hat brim in a brief salute.
The zombies surged through the edge of the shimmering air that surrounded the graveyard. The Rangers braced for a psychic onslaught. But none came. Some paused as if to hurl a brain blast, but no energy flare followed. The Legionnaires looked confused. Whatever magic Martool was performing, it seemed to rob the sykers of their powers when they stepped into the cemetery. Without their powers, they were nothing but stinking zombies. But there were hundreds of stinking zombies.
Dragoons roared and many of the undead dropped. There were always more and soon the dead encircled the small graveyard. Rangers shuffled back toward the center of the cemetery. Debbi kept her back to Martool with one eye on the motionless shaman. The Ranger felt a buzzing sensation up her legs as if the ground was vibrating.
A rotting hand grabbed Chennault's jacket from behind. She spun and put a shell through the zombie's head. Tsukino felt fingers on his shoulder. Bone-tipped fingers clutched the tombstone in front of Ross.
Now Dragoons clicked empty. Rangers swung the heavy weapons like clubs, caving in soft heads. Long knives slashed through tattered uniforms and scabrous bellies. Black gore flew along with flesh, bone, and fingertips.
Miller went down under two zombies. Ringo leapt to his side, battering the back of one's head with his pistol.
Chennault's anouk battle-ax slammed through the ribcage of a Legionnaire, but stuck fast in the spinal cord. The undead trooper glanced at the ax and then at the exhausted Ranger. It grinned and reached for her.
Ngoma kicked a zombie away only to have another grasp him around the shoulders. Tsukino fired his last shot into a trooper's head. Then he was tackled by two zombies and fell hard into a tombstone.
Fitz swung a Hellrazor like a cudgel, smashing decayed faces all around him. As he wheeled to strike another, wounded zombies surged off the ground behind him and climbed his back. First two, then four, and finally five undead soldiers hung on the Irishman's massive frame until he went down.
Debbi and Ross stood back-to-back with the kneeling Martool between them. Debbi heard Ross's breath heaving in and out; he was near to dropping from exhaustion. Sweat poured down her face. Her limbs burned. All she saw were faces and hands. Dangling strands of gray-green flesh, rotted teeth, collapsed noses, empty eye sockets, protruding bones. She furiously swung her knife and Dragoon. She felt the resistance of flesh and bone, and victory was measured only by the ability to draw back her aching arms for another attack.
For Debbi, it had come down to protecting her piece of ground and Martool. That was all there was in the world. That was the extent of her duty and her purpose.
Three zombies attacked Ross. He twisted and fell. Ross lifted one dead trooper wearing a captain's bars with a loose ear off the ground with his knife thrust up through its torso. Then he kicked the second off and pistol-whipped the third across the face with his Peacemaker. As the bleeding Ranger struggled to his feet, a curtain of torn, moldy uniforms descended around him and he vanished from sight.
Debbi slashed out and something seized her arm. She tried to pull back, but recognized in some near-dormant, rational part of her brain that she just couldn't. Her strength was gone. She couldn't fight on. She had nothing more she could give.
It was then the courtyard collapsed.
All around the graveyard the sandy ground suddenly cracked. Slabs of black tannis slowly raised thirty, forty feet into the air and fell back to earth like giant whales breaching the surface of an ocean.
Legionnaires were thrown off their feet. They slid scrabbling into smoking fissures, their rotting fingers snapping as they fought to stay above ground. Huge plates of tannis rolled and churned and smashed undead bodies to rotten bits. The stones began to liquefy, swallowing up the Legionnaires in large waves.
The outer wall around the courtyard trembled. Long cracks snaked from the base up the steps. The cracks widened and the wall began to collapse in jagged blocks. It made a strange sound. Instead of the roaring din of destruction,
the stone sang a hard, penetrating note.
Debbi felt a peculiar elation race through her. The sound of destruction was similar to the resonance the tannis cathedral in Temptation had made when it collapsed around her, so long ago it seemed. With a renewed burst of energy, she pulled free of the zombie that held her and rammed her knife through its head. It quivered and fell.
She spun around and seized two of the troopers who struggled with Ross. The Legionnaires seemed palsied and unable to react. She struck down those two and saw Ross recover and destroy the third.
A storm of black tannis dust rolled over them. Debbi moved quickly through the choking, dark fog to find the other Rangers. Many of the zombies were trying to get up and fighting to escape. She dispatched several as they attempted to flee. Most of the Rangers were still conscious and, when they suddenly had the space to move, began to fight again. Chennault actually laughed as she scrambled to her feet and cleaved a quivering trooper in half with her ax. Ringo staggered up and helped Miller.
The tannis cloud blew past to unveil the cataclysm that had occurred all around them. The courtyard was destroyed. The ground was a seething ocean of fluid tannis raised from below the soil. Legionnaires drowned within its black grasp. The great black wall was gone, reduced to smoking rubble. Even sections of city structures had collapsed in the disaster. Martool had somehow smashed and uprooted the territory for nearly a mile around, burying much of the Legion under it. Only the cemetery was unaffected. It stood like a weird plateau surrounded by a storm-tossed tannis sea. The Rangers all clung to it like castaways.
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