Call to War: Hunter Wars Book Six (The Hunter Wars 6)

by SD Tanner

To his surprise, Lucie smiled softly at him and gripped his hand more tightly. It was just as Ip said, Lucie really was still there. In a sudden flash of insight, he saw them living far away from the madness, happy and whole again. He thought maybe he and Lucie could have everything they so often spoke about on those long and happy nights.

  Smiling back at her, he said decisively, “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY: Born to be King (Hull)

  “Finally!”

  Ruler smirked and said silkily, “They’re so stubborn and stupid. It was easy to get them to agree to a battle.”

  Sitting like a man, with his long legs spread apart, he could see under Ruler’s short skirt. It wasn’t an attractive sight, and based on how often Ruler scratched his crotch, he was pretty sure his latest body was diseased. He couldn’t understand why he would want to come back as a woman, but then he thought the body Ruler chose didn’t look much like a woman anyway. Ruler had reappeared a month after he killed himself in New York, being carried on a litter by a group of hunters, and looking like a Roman courtesan. He was used to Ruler’s eccentric sense of sophistication, but that was peculiar even by his low standards.

  Ruler added, “Of course, I don’t need to fight them in a battle. I could just as easily have my demons and the dead kill them at their bases.”

  Knowing Ruler’s preference for dramatic shows of power, he asked, “But why would you want it to be that easy? That’s a boring way to make a point.”

  Pursing his red lips into a full pout, Ruler said, “True and I do so love a bit of drama…and violence.”

  Determined to encourage Ruler to confront Gears in battle, he nodded enthusiastically. “This way you get it all. Blood, fear, anger, terror, and best of all, you get to see the Horsemen fuck up.” Wanting to paint a picture he knew Ruler would enjoy, he added, “You’ll have them on their knees before you, and then you can kill them one by one.”

  “For as much as I enjoy your twisted little mind, Hull, that’s your fantasy and not mine. The Horsemen bow to nothing and they’ve no reason to. The best we can do is weaken them, but they’ll never stay down.” Looking mildly irritated and with a slight shrug, he added, “It’s not the way the universe works and they know it.”

  Worried he might lose his commitment to a battle, he said decisively, “Well, you can at least put ‘em in their place. If you kill Ip first, that’d piss Gears off. You know how he feels about her.”

  He knew Ruler found Ip annoying, and the opportunity to kill her while Gears watched would tempt him from taking the easy option. As he expected, Ruler narrowed his eyes thoughtfully and then gave him a wide smile, while he clapped his hands and declared gleefully, “Oh what fun! This is going to be epic!”

  Now confident Ruler would take Gears on in battle, he remembered the reports he’d received about the damage they’d done to their equipment. “They fucked up a lot of our gear.”

  “So what? Your toys are fun, but we don’t need them. We have hunters and demons and I’ll send my bats to fuck up their toys as well.”

  “Bats?”

  “Yes, yes. The demons and the dead. They’re enjoying their time out of hell and they’ve been cooped up for far too long.” Dropping his long legs to the floor, Ruler stood up and almost affectionately patted his shoulder. “Don’t worry, my pet. We don’t need your toys.”

  He didn’t like being called a pet by Ruler, but he was so focused on finally beating Gears in battle, he ignored the slight. Walking out of the barracks and onto the street, he surveyed the damage to the vehicles that lined the road. Gears and his brothers had done a thorough job of making most of the armored vehicles and all of the birds at three bases inoperable. He had more vehicles, but losing over four hundred of them was going to make it difficult to transport his equipment and army. Ruler was convinced they could beat Gears using the Army of the Dead Souls who could control the millions of hunters. Although that was true, he wanted a more traditional battle, one where he would beat Gears at his own game.

  “Don’t be stupid, Hull. As long as you win, why does it matter how you won?”

  After his failed fights with Gears, he didn’t underestimate him. “What if it doesn’t go the way you plan? What if Gears has some tricks you don’t know about?”

  “This isn’t my first tangle with War. I know what he can and can’t do.” Smirking, he said smugly, “But I’m not sure he knows what he can do.”

  “What can Gears do?”

  “Nothing if he doesn’t wake up to himself, and until he does, he’s a big dumb dog.”

  He really didn’t think Gears was stupid and shook his head worriedly. “Have you ever won?”

  Ruler’s perfectly smooth and bronzed forehead creased into a frown. “I’ve ruled, so by default I’ve won.”

  He shook his head adamantly. “That’s not the same as winning ‘cos they can rule in your favor. I’m asking if you’ve ever beaten them in battle.”

  Now becoming angry, Ruler stamped his sizeable foot and asked petulantly, “What do want from me? You’ve got thirty thousand possessed humans, millions of hunters, and you still have an arsenal of toys. Plus the gates to hell are open and my demons are happily wrecking their bases.” Puffing a stray strand of dark hair from his eyes, he asked dramatically, “What more can I give you?”

  Everything Ruler said was true, and wondering if he was more worried than he needed to be, he sighed. “Yeah, alright, settle down, mate. I still have to get the Army of the Dead Souls to the battleground.” Looking again at the wrecked vehicles and birds, he added, “They did a lotta damage in a single day. I don’t think we should underestimate ‘em. They’re relentlessly resourceful, and you’ve only given me a week to move the Dead Souls to the Ranch.” Spreading his hands wide, he asked, “How am I supposed to do that without vehicles and air support?”

  Although the demon super hunters communicated telepathically and he’d used that to train them, it hadn’t made them good soldiers. They could use a gun, drive a truck, fly a helicopter, but it was as if they had all the technical skills and none of the know-how. They lacked initiative, so much so, that when Gears and his brothers attacked, they’d run around uselessly and couldn’t mount any sort of defense. Stupid, he thought, they’re just plain stupid.

  “They’re not stupid, but they don’t see the world the way you do. You see everything in terms of logistics and practicalities, and they see the world as a playground. What interests you, doesn’t interest them and why would it? They spend their eternity in hell and that’s a very different place from here.” Giving him a sly and smug look, Ruler added, “Well, at least it was different until the gates to hell opened.”

  Walking the length of the road, they were met by Callum, Grant and Eddy. All three men were with the original Hull’s Army, but since being possessed they were now his lead men in the Army of the Dead Souls. Even though they were possessed and infected with a strain of the hunter virus, he hadn’t found them any more or less useful now dead as they had been alive.

  Sounding flat, Callum asked, “What’s the plan, boss?”

  “Ruler’s agreed to a final battle, and we need to move the entire army to Red River County in Texas,”

  “Bitchin’,” Eddie mumbled with a nod.

  He rolled his eyes at Eddie’s casual reply. “The problem is, you wankers let ‘em wreck all of our birds and a fair share of our armored vehicles.”

  Sounding bored, Grant asked, “What do we need ‘em for?”

  “How the hell am I supposed to move thirty thousand men? Last time I checked, none of you idiots can fly.”

  “Demons can fly,” Eddie mumbled.

  Sighing deeply, and trying to keep his temper in check, he replied with exaggerated patience, “Maybe so, but your kind can’t and you’re the fuckers who are gonna do the fighting.”

  In a dull voice, Grant said, “It’s no big deal. We’ll run there.”

  “Yeah,” Eddie replied complacently.

  “Run?” He echoed almo
st stupidly. “It’s a thousand miles away. How the fuck are you gonna run there?”

  “With our legs,” Eddie replied informatively. As if to demonstrate his point, he began to bounce from one foot to the other mimicking a running motion.

  “You can’t run a thousand miles.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, for one thing, it’s a long way, you idiot, and for another, we also need to transport the weapons.”

  As if talking to a child, Grant said, “We’ll put the weapons on the trucks and we run the army alongside them.”

  The Army of Dead Souls was only made up of men infected by a version of the hunter virus and no women were allowed to join. In his view, women were weak and he had other uses for them. Hunters were tireless, and to be fair, he’d never seen any of the Dead Souls or hunters sleep.

  Now wondering if they might have the right solution, he asked, “How long can you run for?”

  “Eternity.”

  Not having thought of that option, he said uncertainly, “I suppose we could use the vehicles we have left to transport the weapons. And I guess the Dead Souls can collect hunters as they go.”

  Suddenly he saw himself in the lead vehicle with the Army of Dead Souls and hunters in his wake, bearing down on Gears and his feeble survivors. It would make a spectacular entrance, and he would become the master of the ceremonial slaughter of the weak. He’d never thought of himself as a fanciful man, but even he could see the cinematic qualities of the scene he was playing in his mind.

  “I like it,” Ruler said with delight. “You should wear something special for the occasion.”

  Nodding, he turned to Callum, Grant and Eddie and ordered, “Load the working vehicles with everything we’ve got, and tell everyone at all locations to get moving now. We’ll rendezvous at Terre Haute on Interstate 69, and then we’ll head to the Ranch. I don’t wanna be late for my date.”

  It took most of a day to load their trucks with artillery shells, ammunition and the towed artillery, so it was late afternoon by the time he was sitting in a truck being driven by Grant. Behind, ahead and beside the truck were Dead Souls running in perfect beat with the hunters. Looking out of the passenger window, he closely watched a Dead Soul keeping pace with the truck. It wasn’t anyone he recognized, but the man was maintaining his sprint like an engine. Unlike the living, who would be sweating and out of breath, the possessed man’s face was impassive, and he didn’t seem to be breathing any harder for his efforts. Running alongside the man were hunters. They were lean, brown, naked and bald, with their sinewy leg muscles pumping in a steady rhythm, and their arms swinging in perfect unison. Impassive and calm, the hunters kept up the pace, seemingly oblivious to its purpose.

  Grant said calmly, “We’re dead, Hull, you’ve said so yourself.”

  Puzzling at the endurance of the man running by his side, he replied, “I know, but the constant movement must be damaging their bodies.”

  “I suppose, but a human body can last for a hundred years. It’s pretty difficult to fuck up a corpse, and that’s all we are.”

  “Does it bother you? Being dead, I mean.”

  “Being dead ain’t a whole lot different from being alive. I can still do all the stuff I did before, only now I can do more, like control hunters and I don’t feel pain.”

  He mulled over what Grant said and concluded he wasn’t sure he was right. He’d known Grant as a man and now as a Dead Soul, and there was a difference, albeit a subtle one. Grant and the others didn’t seem to have much emotion other than boredom, or amusement at the suffering of others. They lacked fear, insecurity and even anger, and without those emotions they didn’t seem human. It made them effective killers, but poor soldiers. All his life he’d quarantined his emotional responses thinking they weakened him, but now he wondered if it was his ability to feel that made him the only one able to lead an otherwise disorganized group of psychopaths.

  They made good time, travelling night and day, mile after mile, gathering more and more hunters and Dead Souls as they went. Ruler was travelling behind him in his long black limousine, and although they stopped regularly to refuel, they maintained a constant pace and made good time. When they stopped to refuel again, he stood on top of his truck, and looked over the sea of bodies that were still running past them. With their heads bobbing as they sprinted, the hunters and Dead Souls paid no attention to him, and there were millions of them running in a single direction. Calm and steady, as if driven by the beat of the same drum, their lean and mostly naked bodies moved as a single force. The noise around him had been growing steadily for days with the sound of millions of feet stamping, and the air was thick with dust. Climbing down from the top of the truck, he settled back into the passenger seat, and they re-joined the movement of the bodies that didn’t stop, not even for a moment.

  Occasionally they ran into debris and vehicles blocking the roads, but with millions of hunters under his control, he was able to clear the roads within minutes and continue to make his way to the battlefield. He would have preferred to travel by air, but there was no point arriving early, and he was enjoying having an entourage. On all sides of him was an endless sea of movement, as millions of the undead stormed across the country.

  Smiling to himself, he thought smugly, I’m soon to be King.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Road to hell (Captain Ted)

  There were forty thousand troops in the convoy, travelling in over two thousand vehicles in a long line down the dirty grey road. They worked in an adapted army structure composed of battalions, platoons and squads, and while it hadn’t been easy, it helped pull together so many people and transports. Given they didn’t have a typical army command model, they’d formed people into squads of six to eight, assigned up to ten squads to a platoon, and each battalion represented a fighting force. Every platoon had a platoon leader and two medics. Almost two years of training their people paid off, and everyone knew their jobs and to obey their orders.

  Hatch and his fleet ran supply drops for days. He could expect to find food and ammo at the rendezvous point in Daingerfield and at the Ranch. Using the Black Hawks like a packhorse, they’d transported supplies in large, heavily loaded crates hanging beneath the birds for days on end. It made his job easier, and he was able to focus on moving the people and not the supplies. Their biggest problem was arming people with hand-to-hand weapons. Up until now, their main concern was having people trained and armed with guns, but now he was scrambling to find machetes, axes and knives. It was all very well for Gears to tell him to give people close quarter weapons, but an altogether different problem finding enough of these types of weapons for forty thousand fighters. Fortunately most of the combat shooters had their own stash of machetes and blades, but the survivors joining the battle were not as well equipped.

  The number of untrained survivors who elected to join the battle surprised him. In his mind, they were civilians and the people he was supposed to be protecting, but he supposed this was like any last stand, and every man, woman and child was willing to fight to the death. In the end, there were more volunteers than he had transport for, and he turned people away from the convoy, but he wasn’t sorry about doing that. He thought if they took too many untrained people, his trained scavengers and shooters would spend more time protecting them, and less time attacking their enemy.

  Through his radio, he heard Cutter ask, “Have you heard from Gears?”

  “No.”

  “Aren’t you worried?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s fine. They’ll be here when they need to be.”

  “How can you be so confident?”

  “Everything’s fine,” he replied simply, and he believed it was.

  It looked like Ruler had the upper hand and they couldn’t win, but he was convinced they would. While the truck he was sitting in rumbled on, he looked through the windshield, but was oblivious to the passing scenery. Like everywhere they went, the landscape was flat, d
ry and a dirty brown color, with no signs of life. The cars long abandoned on the side of the road were so rusted and filthy, they blended into the drab looking land. Allowing his mind to wander, he couldn’t explain it, but he knew they’d win the battle against Ruler, just as he knew Gears would show up when he was needed. It wasn’t as if he knew any more now than he ever did, but there was a quiet confidence growing in him with every mile they travelled. Maybe I’m in denial, he thought, but if I am, I don’t see it makes any difference. Even as that thought crossed his mind, he knew it was a lie. His confidence stemmed from a belief they’d win, and he had no rational explanation for his conviction.

  He decided they should drive at night, and rest during the day when the hunters were hiding from the daylight. Packed in their trucks and armored vehicles, the hunters had little chance of catching them as they drove, and with safety in numbers, he presumed they could defend themselves if they did. As it turned out, they ran into very few hunters and he wondered where they were. Aside from a few flat tires and vehicles breaking down, they mostly travelled without any significant delays. He’d broken the convoy into two teams, with himself and Cutter leading around a thousand vehicles each. Even with less vehicles to manage, he was busy keeping them organized and dealing with small issues as they cropped up. It would have been easier if Gears, Pax and TL had travelled with them, but he knew they needed to set up the battle with Ruler. While he was monitoring the refueling at Jackson, Mississippi, Cutter strode up to him and turned his radio off so they could talk privately.

  “What’s the real plan here? You gave me the flick on the radio.”

  “Yeah, well, we shouldn’t be talking about mission plans on an open radio. You know better than that.”

  Cutter looked a little abashed. “Okay, I get that, but what’s the plan?”

  “When Gears gets here, we’re gonna split the people into battalions. He knows the battlefield really well and he says we need six battalions. One will be the front line, and we’ll have two battalions flanking each side. Behind the front line we’ll have reserve troops we can deploy where we need them. The front line and flanking battalions will have field medics, but we’ll have stage one medical tents with the reserve troops, and full medical support at the Ranch for the injured. He wants arty set up two miles behind the reserve troops. That’s four combat battalions, plus two support battalions. Front line, left flank, right flank, reserve, arty and medical. He reckons, given we know the weapons will fail, we won’t need logistics to keep them supplied with ammo, but if we do, we’ll use the reserve troops.”