by Ronald Kelly
Jamal slowly entered the open door of the trailer. The interior was cramped and choked with dark shadows. Only a few rays of stray sunlight filtered through the small, curtained windows. He took a step forward, searching for movement within the darkness. It came a moment later at the end of the trailer's narrow hallway. Something tall and dark stood there, watching him. He could see the faint twinkle of pitch black eyes regarding him contemptuously.
"Come out and show yourself," demanded Jamal. "I want to see the face of the demon I am about to slay."
Low laughter echoed through the trailer, sending a cold chill down the mercenary's spine. Then his adversary stepped into view, flashing a great gray smile bristling with cold malice.
Jamal's mind reeled with the impossibility of what stood before him. It was a Zulu warrior. The black man was dressed in the traditional fur and feather garb of the most bloodthirsty and ruthless fighting tribe on the Dark Continent. He wore the ceremonial war bonnet and breast plate of a Zulu chieftain, and his weapons included a primitive oval shield and an iron-tipped spear garnished with carved ivory and colorful beadwork—the Iklwa, as the tribesmen called it.
The mercenary was shocked by the lanky African who confronted him, for he had just read an article on the warriors of Natal in Khiem's copy of Soldier of Fortune earlier that morning. The Zulu who now strolled down the hallway toward him was a dark duplicate of the photographs that had graced the article, right down to the gray and black Zebra skin pattern of the massive shield.
Jamal squeezed back on the trigger of the Uzi as the warrior began to advance toward him. He aimed for the Zulu's head and the ebony eyes in the pits of his skull. But the warrior only laughed, thwarting Jamal's intentions by raising the oval shield and deflecting the burst of gunfire. A couple of slugs ricocheted back at the commando, hitting him in the shoulder and thigh. Jamal stumbled backward as the warrior attacked, raising the Iklwa overhead. The long spear seemed to be fused with the warrior's fist, as if it were a physical part of his body and not just a lifeless implement of destruction.
The mercenary discarded the Uzi and drew his Gurkha knife. He flung it with panic-driven muscles. It struck the Zulu across the forehead with enough force to split the skull of a normal man. But the thing that came for him was not a form of mortal flesh and bone. The heavy blade bounced off the warrior's brow with a metallic clang, leaving no visible mark.
Then the Zulu was upon him, arm striking out. Jamal screamed as the point of the spear penetrated his ribcage, slicing cleanly through his left lung and emerging from the muscle of his back. He was lifted off his feet and carried backward, impaled on the shaft of the Iklwa. The point of the spear drove deeply into the trailer wall and Jamal found himself dangling there, his weight settling downward, ripping the wound even wider. He coughed and sputtered on the blood and tissue of his damaged lung, and stared at the leering black face of the Zulu. Then the spear was abruptly withdrawn from both the wall and his body, dumping his agony-wracked form onto the cluttered floor of the trailer.
As the life ebbed from his wounded body, Desmond Jamal stared up with dying eyes as the dark warrior before him began to lose shape once again. The skeleton of the Zulu seemed to fold in on itself and the flesh melt into a dark pool, the same as the rhino. The seething sludge bubbled and whirled, growing much smaller in size and mass. When its metamorphosis was complete, it had taken the form of a black raven. The dark bird eyed him cruelly, a sinister smile creeping along the edges of its gray bill. Then it winged its way through the open doorway and vanished over the tree tops, heading for the eastern side of PaleDoveMountain.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Daniel Lopez cursed venomously in Spanish as he picked his way through a dense tangle of razor-thorned thicket. He wasn't the only one cussing up a storm. The other members of Green Team came up with quite a few inventive and colorful expletives as sharp briers snagged and pulled at them, ripping camouflaged fatigues and exposed skin.
The going had been easy during the start of the journey up the eastern face of PaleDoveMountain. The forest had been heavy in places, but they had made good progress. Now, when only twenty minutes separated them from their planned rendezvous with the others atop the rocky peak, they found themselves trudging through a hazardous labyrinth of wicked thistle and prickly blackberry bramble.
Lopez thought of the explosions that had echoed from the far side of the mountain and the lack of response he had received from both Khiem and Jamal on his walkie-talkie. The only team leader he could raise on the radio was Frag Hendrix, and the commander seemed just as concerned and perplexed about the break in communication as he was.
The Nicaraguan took a pair of binoculars and studied the terrain above the choking thicket. The bramble gave way to bare stone five hundred feet farther on. In fact, his point man, Mentz, should have emerged from the thicket by now. He was surprised to see no sign of the man waiting for them on the boulders above.
Lopez was about to summon Mentz on the radio when a burst of automatic fire erupted from the underbrush ahead. He struggled through the brier patch, catching quick glimpses of his other men as they, too, rushed toward the location of the excitement. Lopez was crashing through a thick wall of cocklebur when he nearly ran head first into Ferguson, a young soldier that hailed from the Arkansas Ozarks. The mercenary tore through the thicket as if the devil himself was in hot pursuit.
"What's wrong, Ferguson?" he asked, stopping the frightened man. "What went on up there?" He was shocked by the pale cast of the man's face and the wild look in his eyes. Ferguson had less combat experience than the rest of Hendrix's outfit, but he was a tough man and not one subject to hysterics. Therefore, it was disturbing to see the soldier shaken to the point of going AWOL.
"It's Mentz," he gasped, shaking his head. "He's dead."
"What happened to him?" Lopez demanded grimly. "Did you see what killed him?"
Ferguson swallowed dryly, an expression of confusion creasing his face. "It was a badger. A freaking badger wasted Mentz."
The creature that Ferguson mentioned flashed into Lopez's mind and he nearly laughed at the absurdity of it. A badger was a small woodland animal that looked like a cross between a skunk and a fat groundhog. They were feisty and ferocious little mammals, but they weren't dangerous enough to seriously injure a grown man, let alone kill one.
"Just catch your breath and tell us what you found," Lopez told him. The rest of Green Team had heard Ferguson's frantic race through the thicket and they now converged on the cocklebur patch to find out what was going on.
Ferguson breathed deeply, trying to steady himself. "I was about fifty yards behind Mentz, when I heard a big commotion up ahead. There was this weird crackling noise and then a low snarling. I pushed through the underbrush and found Mentz lying there in the middle of a small clearing. He was covered with blood and it looked like his throat had been ripped clean out."
"And this badger," urged Lopez. "Where does it fit in?"
"It was crouched on top of Mentz's chest, grinning at me with a mouthful of ragged meat…meat from Mentz's throat!" Ferguson shuddered at the memory and then went on. "It was sort of strange-looking for a badger. Pitch black with dark gray stripes down its back. And it had the beadiest little black eyes I've ever seen on an animal. Well, I let loose with my AK-47, planning to blow the ugly critter away, but the bullets glanced right off him. It was the damnedest thing I ever saw. I emptied a whole banana clip into the little bastard, but it shrugged off those rounds like they were no more than raindrops. I reckon that's when I lost it and got the hell out of there."
"Take us to where you found Mentz," Lopez told the soldier.
Moments later they were standing around the clearing in question. Mentz was nowhere to be seen, but there were signs that confirmed Ferguson's wild story. Mentz's beret lay in the center of the clearing, along with his radio and canteen. And there was a large amount of blood splattered across the ground, along with a number of skid marks across the bare ea
rth, leading deep into the heart of the thorny thicket.
"Looks like something dragged the poor guy off," said Gillotti, a big Italian who sported a sawed-down riot gun.
Lopez looked to Ferguson. "Are you sure what you saw was a badger?"
"Sure it was!" claimed the young commando. "I know a badger when I see one."
Abruptly, a stirring in the underbrush drew their attention, as well as their guns. A brittle crackling sounded ahead of them, then a peal of hearty laughter. "Badgers!" scoffed a booming voice with a heavy Spanish accent. "We don't need no stinking badgers!"
Before they could react, the wall of thorny bramble parted and something dark and dangerous burst into the clearing, something that made the members of Green Team doubt their sanity for a maddening moment.
It was a Mexican bandito on an ebony stallion. The man was dressed entirely in black, from his high-peaked sombrero to his gray-spurred boots. His ghastly gray face sported a bushy black mustache and a coarse growth of stubble, as well as cruel eyes as dark as chips of raw coal. Twin bandoleers of gray cartridges crossed the outlaw's broad chest, like props straight out of an old B-western. But there was nothing quaint or nostalgic about the weapons the bandito carried. One gray hand clutched Mentz's Armalite assault rifle, while the other held his 9mm Beretta.
"Die, you filthy gringos!" whooped the dark bandit, leveling his weapons and firing into the midst of Green Team. A couple of mercs fell immediately, a deadly pattern of .223 slugs stitching across their chests.
The others broke from their inactivity and ripped loose. Bullets swarmed like angry bees through the clearing, engulfing the bandito and his raging steed. The horse reared, but not with fear. It bucked wildly, gray hooves flashing. A hoof struck Ferguson in the crown of the head, caving in his skull as if it were an empty eggshell. Two more dropped beneath the deadly hooves, while others bit the dust under the bandito's steady gunfire.
Gillotti stepped forward with a war cry, firing his twelve-gauge point blank into the chest of the dark stallion. The murderous steed ignored the buckshot and kept right on coming. Gillotti continued to pump and fire, his Italian temper reaching its peak as the horse drew nearer. The black lips of the stallion curled back, exposing jagged gray fangs in a grimace of pure ferocity. Its long head flashed out, jerking the smoking shotgun from Gillotti's grasp and flinging it into the thicket. Then it turned back to the big commando, its sharp teeth closing around the strong column of his neck and decapitating him with a single, savage bite.
Lopez suddenly found himself to be the last one standing among the crowd. He sprayed the horse and rider with a quick burst from his MAC-11 machine pistol, but the 9mm slugs seemed to have no visible effect on the hellish duo. He pulled a grenade from the front of his flak vest and, pulling the pin, lobbed it beneath the dancing hooves of the dark stallion.
A burst of fire and shrapnel swallowed them for a jarring instant. Lopez peered through the pall of smoke and dust, trying to detect the ruined remains of the dark bandit and his savage mount. Suddenly, the two emerged from the dissipating vapor, fully intact. The Mexican rocked in his saddle, throwing back his sombreroed head with uproarious laughter. "Nice try, amigo!" he grinned with crooked gray teeth, then aimed the 9mm pistol and put a round through Lopez's left shoulder.
The mercenary stumbled backward with the force of the gunshot and landed on his back in a tall stand of thorny thistle. He ignored the lancing pain in his shoulder and struggled to his feet just as the black head of the horse probed through the high stalks, razored teeth gnashing furiously. Lopez knew then that retreat was the only defense against the madness he now faced. He tore through the prickly mass of brier and bramble, heading back down the mountainside.
For a while, Lopez could hear the crazed bandito crashing through the brush behind him, whooping and hollering and firing his pistol into the air. The dark beast—which actually seemed to be a living part of its rambunctious rider—crashed through the dense thicket, snorting like a fire-breathing locomotive. But as Lopez escaped from the bramble and emerged into the greenery of the open forest, he became aware that he no longer heard the noise of pursuit dogging his heels.
He continued on down the eastern face, putting as much distance between himself and the dark bandito as possible. Once, he heard a shrill screech sound from overhead and was abruptly dive-bombed by a gray and black feathered hawk. He batted at the pesky bird for a frantic moment, then chased it away with a burst from his MAC-11. The hawk flew onward down the mountainside and vanished into a dense, grove of lofty oaks.
Lopez ran out of steam halfway through the grove and stopped to rest. He recalled the horrid defeat of Green Team, the way they had been mowed down by the bandito's guns and slain by the hooves of the black stallion. He took the canteen from his belt and bathed his face with lukewarm water, trying to cleanse away the sweat of exhaustion and fear. He was about to call Hendrix on his radio and inform him of his team's loss, as well as the dark threat that stalked the mountain, when a low guttural hissing drifted from the foliage overhead. Slowly, he raised his eyes to the treetops and froze in horror.
A huge snake was uncoiling itself from the tree that he stood beneath. He recognized the serpent, for he had encountered quite a few during his warfare in the jungles of Nicaragua. It was a giant anaconda, a thick gray snake with black oval spots decorating the considerable length of its body. Lopez was stunned by the sheer size of the reptile. Most of the anacondas he had come across were no longer than sixteen feet long. But this one was surely twenty-five feet from head to tail, if not thirty.
Lopez dropped his machine gun and drew his machete from the canvas sheath on his belt. He brought it down upon the neck of the descending serpent, intending to hack the anaconda's head from its body. But the jungle knife had no effect. The edge didn't penetrate the skin. It only threw sparks as it glanced off the scaly hide time after time.
Suddenly, the mercenary found himself entwined within the steely coils of the great snake. His arms were pinned against his body by the tightening spiral of reptilian fury and his convulsing hand lost hold of the machete, which was bent and broken from its fruitless attack. Gradually, Lopez felt himself being lifted from the earth. He was spirited into the treetops by the anaconda, whose tail was wrapped around an upper branch of the oak. Lopez struggled, but there was no slack in his imprisonment. He could feel the coils of the snake constricting, first expelling the last breath of air from his lungs and then crushing every bone of his skeletal structure. Agony gripped him as the pressure within his body built, pushing the limits of his physical being. Then the coils of the serpent contracted rhythmically, wringing the last bit of life from his tortured body.
An explosion went off in Daniel Lopez's head as his brain hemorrhaged and a fountain of gore shot from his nostrils. The last thing the mercenary saw before death claimed him was the glittering black eyes of the anaconda. And the last thing he felt was the coldness of its black tongue licking the blood from his face as if it was the sweet nectar of victory.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Jackson Dellhart was in the dark as to the events taking place on the surface of PaleDoveMountain. He had attempted to make contact with Frag Hendrix by way of his walkie-talkie, but the density of the rock and coal that surrounded them played havoc with the radio signals and all he got was heavy static. Distant echoes of activity thrummed through the core of the mountain every so often, tremors that were probably caused by explosions. Dellhart couldn't tell for sure, but then he really didn't concern himself with the progress of the operation outside. Hendrix and his men were professionals who had hired out to dozens of armies and fought dozens of wars in the past. Surely the conquest for PaleDoveMountain would prove a much easier task for the battle-hardened mercenaries than many of the conflicts they had experienced before.
"There's a light up ahead," Vincent Russ told him quietly. "And I hear voices."
Russ was right. The darkness of the tunnel was gradually giving way to the faint f
lickering of firelight a few yards farther on. Also they could detect the indecipherable murmur of human voices echoing from an inner chamber of great size. "You two behave yourselves," Dellhart warned Rowdy and Alice. "Remember, I've still got my gun on the kid."
As if in reply, Dale kicked back with the sole of his sneaker, skinning the man's shin for the fourth time since their descent into the heart of the mountain. Dellhart tightened his grip on the boy's arm and shook him roughly. "Try that again, you little bastard, and I'll kill you. Understand?" Dale calmed down a bit, but the youthful eyes behind the glasses continued to glare up at Dellhart in bitter defiance.
A few minutes later, they were out of the cramped corridor and emerging into a massive cavern of glistening gold. Dellhart stood there, stunned by the vast amount of precious metal that coated the inner walls of the chamber, but he wasn't foolish enough to drop his guard. He and Russ herded the three captives onward. As they made their way into the open cavern, they spotted the multitude of tiny hovels that pocked the golden walls. The openings were dark, but they were not unoccupied. Things cowered there in the shadows, their pink eyes glimmering in the sparse glow of the torches.
Dellhart and Russ directed their captives toward the mouth of an inner chamber, where voices drifted from within. They hid against the outer walls and waited for the inhabitants to emerge. They appeared a moment later. Dellhart recognized most of them from the photos in his project files. First came Glen Tucker and Mable Compton, then two albino women carrying the injured Gartrell Mayo on a homemade stretcher constructed of cut samplings and interwoven vines. The last two to leave the chamber were Jenny Brice and another albino, who bore an uncanny resemblance to Lance LaBlanc, the pagan publisher of Satyr magazine.