"Abduction for what purpose?" asked Tulley.
"Anybody's guess," replied Stroud, not wishing to state the obvious.
Saylor didn't mind stating it, however. "Took him to bait us, didn't they, Doc? Didn't they?"
"Possibly."
"Christ!" shouted Tulley. "He was right beside me the whole time. First Nails, then ... now Tulley. Who's next? Huh, who?"
"Wil, get hold of yourself!" shouted Saylor to Tulley, whose eyes went from Saylor to Anna More before he nodded and apologized.
"Tulley's goddamned right, Earl," said Blue. "Time we got out of this gig, man!"
"We're in it till it's over, you men got that?" shouted Saylor.
"Oh, Christ," Blue suddenly said, looking pale and stricken.
"What is it, Joe? Joe?"
"I ... I had to leave Nails' body to cover yous ... and, oh, God, if they got Tulley--" He was racing away with his last words toward the trees where he had left Nails' corpse.
The others pursued Blue, but when they caught up to him he was pounding his fist into a tree, and where the grass had been matted by Nails' remains there was nothing but empty space. "They've got her, too! Damn them! They've got her, Earl!"
"At least, Joe, she won't feel another thing," said Saylor.
"Can't say as much for Warren," added Tulley. "With Priest it'll be a different story."
"We've got to find him," said Anna More. "Find him and do what we can for him."
"That'd likely be to put him from his misery, ma'am," said Saylor.
"I would hope that you men would have the guts to do it for me," she said. "We're wasting time here, Abe."
Stroud shouldered his weapon and hailed the helicopters circling over. He'd have the sad duty to report the terrible turn of events to the men aloft.
"Cage, Cage! Come in, Lou!" Stroud tried to locate Cage once more. "We've lost Priest. Do you have any indications from there where he is? Are you showing any vital signs for the man?"
After some static, Cage came on. "He's alive, Stroud."
A cheer went up among them, but it was soon silenced by Stroud, who was having difficulty hearing Cage.
"He's alive, but he's in shock. They have him, Abe."
Stroud moaned in response, shaking his head, looking at the others. "Can you give us any idea on his location?"
"To your left, perhaps a mile off. These things travel fast. His only hope is if we can get to him by air," said Lou. "My only fear is that his mask might've been ripped away."
"We didn't see a thing from here, and we didn't hear a scream," Saylor told Cage.
"Why do you suppose he is still alive?" asked Anna More. "Why didn't they kill him?"
"Only one reason," said Tulley, wiping his brow where the mask was irritating it. "To bait us."
"We're going to see if we can assist with the birds," Cage told the others.
"Lou," said Stroud, "take every precaution."
"I think if I were in Priest's shoes, I'd rather die by the gas, wouldn't you, Abe?"
"Yeah ... yeah ... do it. We're on our way."
"Move out," Saylor ordered what was left of his men. Stroud and Anna More brought up the rear.
The march was over difficult terrain: swamp ooze, high grass, rock cliffs, and fallen trees slick with the green paint of wood-boring microbes and moss.
Cage came back on communications. "Abe, they've got him, all right. His camera's come back on. He's regained consciousness and he's watching one of those things chew off his goddamned arm, Abe! But Kerac's there, too, and he's fighting off the others, keeping Priest alive."
"Kerac?"
"Yes!"
"Kerac's behind the abduction, then. He's using Priest to bait us! Just as we suspected."
"Precisely."
"Could you see Priest?"
"Negative."
"Have you located where they're holding him?"
"Yes, and we're going in with the gas. Even if Priest is alive, Abe, he's been subjected to the venom. For all intents and purposes, he is one of them now--or soon will be."
"I'm sure Kerac would like to convert us all," Stroud said flatly. "All right, carry it out. We'll get there as soon as we can."
"And Abe--"
"Yeah?"
"We're running low on the gas canisters. This may be our last air strike."
"Roger that. Go for it, Lou."
"And what do we do?" shouted Tulley. "Just forget about Priest? Write him off?"
"Stow it, Tulley!" shouted Saylor. "We'll maintain discipline, for one thing."
"I say we make for higher ground. Someplace where the helicopters can pick us up," said Stroud. "We can't do any more here without further casualties, and I'm afraid Dr. Cage is right about Priest. There's nothing we can do for him, either. We've got no antidote to the venom that's pumping through his body now. If we could get him free, it would be like regaining Kerac. He'd have to be killed by one of us, as surely as we must kill Kerac and the others."
They made their way for the rock ledge ahead, which announced a ridge far above. According to every indication, it was the rendezvous point where the whirlybirds were to meet them. It was growing dark now, and even Saylor and Tulley agreed, it was time for a pull-out, that they wouldn't survive a night attack by the werewolves.
"We've got to make for the top of that ridge," said Stroud. "Looks like an hour's climb."
Saylor agreed with the assessment. "There's nothing more we can do for Priest or Nails now."
"And we go with our tails between our legs?" shouted Tulley. "We've got to salvage something from this, Earl, some shred of ... of ... something."
"We'll be back at first light," said Stroud. "I haven't given up on the idea we must exterminate these monsters."
Tulley and Blue held out a moment, looking at one another for support, before Tulley said, "All right ... all right ... we pull back."
Anna More was staring through her binoculars, scanning the upper reaches of the ridge, when she saw some movement in the underbrush. She shouted to Stroud to look. Stroud and the others took up their own field glasses and scanned. There was movement around the rendezvous point.
"Unfriendlies," grunted Tulley. "Looks like they're smarter than we give 'em credit for. But how did they know where we'd be moving to?"
"They've probably been watching us all along," said Saylor. "Bastards. They're good."
Stroud suddenly realized that it was all part of Kerac's plan. "Kerac's got Priest, holding him for the helicopters to come in while his followers circle the clearing where they'll land to pick us up. We've got to warn Cage and the others!"
"They're out of range," said Saylor.
"Damn it, then we've got to get up, cover that hill!"
"Break out our supply of the gas," said Saylor.
"And the bazooka," agreed Blue.
"Looks like you're going to get your wish, Tulley," Stroud told the other hard-bitten man.
"Yeah, some wish, huh?"
"Double time. Meanwhile try to get Cage or one of the others!" Saylor shouted to Stroud.
Anna trotted alongside Abe. "Do you really think Kerac planned all this?"
"I hope I'm wrong, but it does seem to be shaping up that way. If his friends get to the helicopters, we're all stranded here."
They picked up the pace.
-19-
Dr. Louis Cage had been monitoring what Priest's camera was picking up. He'd gone out of range of the others, and so he now concentrated on poor Priest, whose sufferings he could hear as well as see. Kerac hadn't been able to fend off the others of his kind for long. They had at it with Priest like ravenous vultures in the end, ripping off parts of him and gorging themselves before the man's eyes until he fell away in a dead faint. Kerac was furious with his brothers and sisters there on the outcrop of granite where they'd assembled, clearly daring the helicopters in, having tied Priest to the top of a tree that reached this point. He dangled there like meat on a hook, and when the occasional beast would get past Kerac to
rip a piece of Priest away, Priest and the top of the tree would sway in and out from the ledge.
The three choppers swooped in. Priest's camera equipment was now torn away, as was his mask. Cage felt he was saving the man any further pain when he dropped the final cask of deadly poison over the granite ledge. As he did so, the werewolves, now fully cognizant of the threat the giant birds brought with them, scurried down below the level of the cloud as it rose, almost useless except for putting Priest out of his misery.
"Stroud, come in, Stroud." Cage tried desperately to let Abe know the outcome, but he was too far out of range.
He could barely make out a signal Stroud was trying to send.
The other two choppers followed suit, dropping their gas into the lower tree line, trying to better target the fleeing mass of brown-backed creatures below. Cage felt the helicopter turning in a wide arc. "Take us back to the rendezvous point. We've got to get our people out now." Cage stared at the disappearing sun in the horizon.
"Yes, sir!" agreed Dave at the controls.
The other helicopters responded to this order with so much enthusiasm that they didn't circle the field of destruction below as did Cage, who desperately hoped to see that Priest was far from his misery now.
Behind choppers two and three, Cage moved ever closer to the rendezvous point, trying once more to hail Stroud, whose broken words could not be understood.
"...double-cross ... Kerac ... bastard ... knows..."
"Stroud, come in, Stroud. What're you saying?"
"...put down ... rendezvous ... rendezvous point ... safe..."
"Finally, they're ready to listen to reason!" Cage told the pilot. "Rush us to the rendezvous, Dave."
In the dusk, seeing had become impossible. It was too dark for ordinary eyes to penetrate the thick blanket of grays and greens below them from the helicopter, and it was too light to switch to infrared visual aids. But something was clearly amiss up ahead on the long ridge where they'd planned the pickup. Cage saw the smoke of gunfire first, and then he saw one of the helicopters spinning madly out of control, several of the enormous, hairy beasts hanging like maggots to its skids.
"Stroud, Stroud! Come in, come in!" he hailed Stroud anew.
But now Stroud was not answering. Cage looked over the monitors on all those below. Every one of them had racing heartbeats, their pulses screaming. The cameras showed Cage that the others were in another dogfight with the enemy, for possession of the rendezvous point, and instantly Cage knew what Stroud knew--that Priest's abduction was a feigned attack designed to draw defensive action away from Kerac's intended target.
"Cunning bastard," said Cage to himself. Cage now saw the red fire of a bazooka shot explode a plot of stones, sending several of the beasts flying like toys off the side of the ridge. Another of the gas bombs exploded, but these were the smaller, hand-held ones, their efficiency questionable.
As for Cage's lending support, chopper one was out of gas canisters. So Cage rushed to the cargo bay and pulled a high-powered rifle from the wall. It was scoped, and it had infrared sighting as well. He'd earlier placed silver bullets in its magazine, and now Cage opened fire.
Stroud had tried desperately to stay on the radio, attempting to warn off the helicopters before they made the fatal mistake of setting down here. But the beasts had seen the approaching foot soldiers, most likely smelling them first. Now they turned and cascaded down the ridge in swarms, coming directly for the small party of humans who dared open fire on them. Stroud had to forgo the radio long enough to fire at those coming directly at Anna and him.
"Lay down a barrage of the gas first!" shouted Saylor. "We're running short of the good bullets, damn it!"
"Damned smoke just makes it harder for us to see!" disagreed Blue, who grabbed up one of the bazookas and with Tulley's help began firing mortar shots with deadly accuracy. Saylor continued throwing out the gas grenades. Stroud killed two of the beasts who'd almost gotten to Saylor's position. Anna More lay down a fire line that kept others at bay.
Yet, there remained a dangerous contingent of the beasts at or near the ridge. Stroud prayed the fire display would dissuade the pilots from landing, but he couldn't count on this. He tried to fight and send warnings at once, but this proved futile. The things were everywhere, falling around them from trees, leaping out from bushes and from behind every rock.
"Come on! Come on!" Blue was shouting over the den. "Come and get this, you big apes!"
"Fire away!" Tulley shouted, and another bazooka blast did its deadly work. But the shrapnel-wounded beasts were dragging themselves away, their wounds healing within minutes. Stroud saw some of these same ones launch a second attack. And Saylor was right: the useful ammunition was running dangerously low.
The throng of were-people seemed to fly through the undergrowth, and from a distance others were coming to join the fight.
"We've got to take control of the ridge!" shouted Saylor.
"Push ahead!" Stroud agreed, pointing to the movement in the waning light at the crest of another hill in the distance that now silhouetted the army of creatures coming for them. "Kerac's band!"
"Come on, Blue! Blue!" Tulley tore at Joe Blue. "We've got to scale the ridge! Now!"
"They're trying to flank us on all sides!" shouted Saylor.
In front of him, Anna More fell to the earth and Stroud heard her scream and saw that she was being tugged along by something on the ground. It was one of Blue's walking wounded. It'd lifted up a claw and wrapped it around Anna's ankle, and was dragging her into the undergrowth when Stroud pumped several shots into the brush, the claw releasing Anna. He helped her regain her feet, and together, they raced for the summit, dirt and rock cascading underfoot.
"Cage! Cage! Don't bring in the birds! Unsafe! Kerac set us up!"
Then gunshots came from overhead, striking a beast within inches of Stroud, instantly killing him as Cage's bullet found the creature's brain. As they got over the crest, Stroud saw that the other two helicopters were in trouble. One was wheeling like a drunken animal as nine or so of the beasts hung from its skids, while the second machine was sitting stationary, the pilot dead at the controls where a horde of the monsters was feeding on him in the cockpit. The bubble glass was splattered with the pilot's blood.
"Get them off the chopper in the air!" Stroud shouted.
Anna kneeled, aimed and sent one of the beasts to the earth. Stroud brought another down. Saylor and Tulley did likewise.
The beasts were falling like flies from the helicopter, but it was in serious trouble, tilted blades cutting the branches of trees, when the blade was suddenly stopped by a large oak.
"Take cover!" cried Stroud as they all dove for safety.
The helicopter plummeted into the stationary chopper like a stone, sending up a flume of smoke and fire that lit the surrounding darkness. Several beasts ran about, their bodies inflamed. The roars of those trapped in the explosion became silent, and it became apparent that most wanted nothing to do with the raging fire.
"Everyone here?" shouted Saylor. "Sound off!"
Werewolf's Grief (Bloodscreams #2) Page 21