Authors: Dean Murray
Jack's
wolves made it back only a few seconds later and Carson's people
weren't far behind them. A slender brunette whose name I couldn't
remember shouldered me aside once she had a tourniquet on Jasmin's
arm.
"It's
only temporary until I can get her sewn up."
I
stood, looking around to see where I was needed, but the medics
seemed to have everything well in hand. One of Jack's people had
grabbed the radio on their way back. I accepted it with a nod of
thanks and then depressed the transmit button.
"The
operation was a success, but we've got wounded, get up here as
quickly as you can."
"We're
on our way!"
I
let the hand holding the radio drop to my side as I started towards
the back of the trailer. I only made it two steps before Jack swore.
He
was white as a sheet and it was obviously painful for him to raise
his hand, but he was pointing off to the west. I turned to see what
he was pointing at and my blood ran cold.
The
plane that I'd noticed from before the attack had gotten closer, but
that wasn't the worst part. The plane had loosed a thin trail of tiny
black shapes, shapes that were descending with the blinding speed of
an unchecked fall.
They
were moving our direction as they fell and there were nearly thirty
of them. It had to be the Coun'hij. Nobody else would have been
sending in people this late into the fight. Shawn would have just
stayed in the plane once it was clear that we'd carried the battle.
It was ironic that they'd hit on the same delivery mechanism that
Jack had been counting on using to get us out if things went bad.
Ironic, but terribly inconvenient.
I
did some quick calculations in my head. We were a hundred yards from
the edge of the canyon and we had wounded. It was going to take time
to get our people to the extraction point, but by the same measure,
Rachel and the others were still a ways from the road. They had at
least two or three minutes of driving cross-country across some nasty
terrain before they'd even be able to start up the gigantic hill that
separated us from them. We just didn't have very much time left.
I
lifted the radio back up to where I could talk into it. "Belay
that order. Go with the original plan, we've got company, we'll be
coming to you."
Carson
and his people must have overheard Jack's oath. They all arrived a
couple of seconds later. Carson was supporting Grayson, who seemed
uninjured but strangely disconnected from everything.
As
Carson set Grayson down his people started picking up the wounded. I
knelt down in front of Grayson. "Can you stop them, Grayson? We
need your help or we're in trouble."
Carson
shook his head at me. "Don't waste your time. Either he'll help
or he won't. Either way our course is the same. We've got to get the
wounded to the extraction point."
Our
people were already moving. The uninjured wolves, who were all back
in human shape by now, were lifting the worst of the injured up onto
the shoulders of a few of the less injured hybrids. It was the
quickest way to move everyone, but it was going to be close.
I
looked over at the falling black-clothed figures and saw the first of
the parachutes deploy. They'd waited until the last possible second
in order to make sure that they would have the minimum flight time
possible.
I
threw myself into the back of the semi and sprinted towards the
gigantic cage secured to the very front of the trailer by massive
nylon straps. The tired-looking man who looked up at me had been
beaten at least half a dozen times. The collection of mottled bruises
across his arms had to all be fairly recent to not have already
faded. Apparently the average Coun'hij enforcer was every bit as
sadistic as Brandon or Vincent.
The
cover that made it impossible for someone on the inside of the cage
to open it up was incredibly complex, but the actual locking
mechanism was dead simple. It took me all of two seconds to throw
open the door to his cage and half support, half drag him out of it.
I
could feel the clock ticking in the back of my head as we made our
way to the back of the trailer. "Agony, I presume?"
"Yes,
who are you?"
"Alec
Graves. You may not have heard that I ran away from home a few weeks
ago."
Agony
stumbled and would have fallen down if I hadn't been supporting him.
"When you say it like that you sound like a rebellious
teenager."
By
the time we reached the end of the trailer he was walking better and
he actually just threw himself off the back, shifting to hybrid form
a split second before he landed. I followed suit with an equivalent
surge of power.
Carson
was waiting for us just behind the trailer. All of our seriously
wounded people were already back at the edge of the canyon and
everyone else was spread out between us and the enforcers, most of
whom had already landed.
I
was just in time to see the last of the new arrivals undo their
parachute from a height of about ten feet up. They too shifted shapes
as they hit the ground, landing in a spray of dust and rock shards.
I
turned on Carson to demand an explanation for the scattered
formation, but he preempted my question.
"They
needed to be close enough to quickly dispatch anyone Grayson manages
to drop. I told them to keep enough distance that they can make it
back to the extraction point ahead of the enforcers if it comes to
that."
I
opened my mouth to approve his decision and then it happened. Our
people had done exactly as he'd ordered. They had plenty of
separation between themselves and the Coun'hij's people. There was
enough room that no normal hybrid could have hoped to run any of them
down, except that they weren't up against a normal hybrid.
One
of the figures in the front of the enforcer ranks suddenly exploded
into motion so fast that even in my hybrid form I couldn't fully
follow what had happened. One second our people were calmly falling
back towards our wounded teammates and then in the next one of our
hybrids had fallen, hamstrung by the one hybrid I'd been most worried
about running into.
Brandon
didn't even bother finishing off the hybrid he'd maimed. He left
Carson's man lying in the dirt and sprang at another of Jack's
wolves. She was fast, but even her preternatural speed wasn't enough
to save her. In two seconds Brandon had dispatched two of our people
and everyone we had was in full flight back towards us.
"Jump!"
Both
of the individuals Brandon had attacked had fallen without any sound
louder than his claws rending their flesh. It was an eerie kind of
near silence for such wanton slaughter. My voice shattered that
silence, cutting through the air with all of the urgency I felt.
I
didn't do any fancy estimates this time because I'd already done
them. From the second I'd arrived at the ambush site I'd been
worrying about what would happen if Brandon arrived. I'd already seen
that the wounded hadn't started putting on their parachutes. They'd
probably been worried about giving away the fact that we had an exit
strategy in place.
Under
other circumstances it wouldn't have been the wrong call. Brandon and
his people would have moved towards us even more quickly if not for
the fact that they thought they had the bulk of our forces trapped
between them and a sheer drop of more than six hundred feet. That
time had bought me the breathing room to get Agony out of his cage,
but it was going to get a lot of people killed now.
Some
of our people were hurt badly enough that they would need help
putting on their parachutes and others were going to have to
team-jump off because they wouldn't be able to jump far enough out to
avoid the cliff on their way down. We needed time, time for people to
get their parachutes on, time for the less injured to get back and
help throw their fellows far enough out that they could clear the
cliff face.
I
was already in motion as I yelled the order for my people to get out
in whatever way they could. The spot where Carson and I had left our
swords was far enough away that there was a chance I could have made
it there a second or two faster if I'd shifted to wolf form, but I
couldn't risk it. I was already risking muscle cramps based on how
many forms I'd worn in such a short time.
I
couldn't court the risk of seizing up in the middle of what was
headed my way, so instead I dug deep for every ounce of speed that my
hybrid body was capable of mustering. I went from stationary to full
speed within the first three steps and was still clawing for every
bit of traction that I could muster.
Even
for a hybrid, with our enhanced endurance, it still wasn't possible
to sustain a full-out sprint for forever. By the time I'd covered
half the distance towards the sword, my breath was already coming in
big gulps. I wasn't out of gas yet, but my body was telling me that I
couldn't keep up this ruinous pace for much longer.
The
temptation to slow down, even just the little bit that would be
required to make it so that I could keep the pace up for hours, was
intense. It wasn't nearly as intense though as the desire to yell and
tell Brandon who he was up against.
We
hadn't spent much time around each other in hybrid form so there was
a good chance that he hadn't recognized my single yell ordering
everyone to flee. I heard him kill another one of my people in the
time it took me to cross the halfway point. I'd expected the
butcher's bill to be even higher than that, but apparently our wolves
and hybrids were spread out enough now that it was taking him longer
to run them down.
The
sound of footsteps dogged me. I was almost certain that it was
Carson, or maybe Agony behind me, but I didn't
know
that was the case. I'd whited out mentally from the exertion of
getting so far so quickly. It was possible that the two of them had
done the smart thing and headed for the wounded like I'd ordered. If
it wasn't them I was probably okay, unless it was Brandon behind me.
Nobody else should be able to run me down, not in the amount of time
it would take me to reach the swords, but Brandon could.
I
took another impossibly long step and decided the risk to my people
was too great to wait any longer.
"Brandon,
come fight someone who can give you a challenge. I beat you once, I
can do it again."
Two
more long seconds passed. I didn't hear anyone else die which meant
that my ploy had worked. Brandon had stopped chasing my people and
was after me instead.
I
wasn't going to survive, but I'd known that going into this battle.
I'd beaten Brandon because fighting on the roof of a moving train
favored me in almost every respect. Even with those advantages I'd
still almost died and it had been little more than sheer luck that
had saved me.
Brandon
would more than likely make quick work of me, but the simple fact
that he'd detoured away to dispatch me would give my people the extra
few seconds they would need to get away.
I
started to lose my balance, but I used that to my advantage and
converted my fall into a long roll that started almost directly above
my sword. I came up winded but with a sword in my hand. I spun around
to find that Carson had just finished grabbing his own weapon and
Agony was only half a step behind him.
"Agony,
run for the cliff! This was all to get you out of here."
"Sorry,
Alec, but I'm staying. The way I see it the two of you probably have
a decent chance of holding Brandon off. Even if we can't kill him, if
I can get in a couple of good strikes I might manage to cripple him
forever. Putting a monster like him out of the picture is more
important to the resistance than I'll ever be."
I
shot a frown at him, and then there wasn't time for any more talk.
Brandon arrived, blurring with speed, and his first attack nearly
knocked the sword completely out of my hands.
Adriana Paige
Ambush site
Southern New Mexico
Sitting motionless and quiet underneath the
huge silver blanket for six hours was much harder than I'd expected
it to be. Taggart and I had arrive at the ambush point in the company
of Isaac, Heath, Dom and the others well before dawn and set up near
the stream and then spent a mind-numbing amount of time waiting.
Our
position was necessitated because while Heath could make us invisible
and mask our scent he couldn't do anything about our heartbeats. He
said that the stream would probably cover up any sound we might make,
but he went even a step further.
When
Heath had concealed himself from us in the parking garage there had
been enough other heartbeats for his to get lost in the background
noise. This time he'd brought half a dozen small electronic devices,
all of which played recordings of running water.
It
was eerie to lie on the ground and just trust that Heath would be
able to edit the sensory feed of anyone else in the area. It got
downright surreal when Alec and the rest showed up a couple of hours
before we were expecting the caravan to come by.
I'd
thought that my feelings for him had been strangled by the knowledge
that he'd addicted some poor girl to his touch, but the reality was
just the opposite. My feelings came back with a vengeance when I saw
him.
The
moment when he and the other guy walked over and set their swords
down less than twenty feet away from me was the hardest. It took
everything I had not to call out to him.
Taggart
hadn't trusted Alec from day one. I was pretty sure that he thought
Alec was there to ambush anyone who tried to free Agony, but I knew
that wasn't the case.
Even
before Alec and the others attacked the Coun'hij enforcers, I knew
that Alec was there for the same reason we were. The fight between
Alec and the rest was like a symphony of violence.