Even as he fought to not get sick from the slaughter, Dean filed away the type of attack in his mind. The cats were a pair, male and female, working as a team. He had never seen animals do that. Most muties attacked in a mob but without any order, these killers weren’t even eating the people they aced. Just chilling and moving on to find another. The very idea made the boy wish he had taken a longblaster instead of a crossbow from the temple armory, and he clenched his hand around the checkered grip of his Browning Hi-Power, privately wishing it was something more than a 9 mm pistol.
“They seem to be heading for the gate,” Krysty said, struggling to keep her horse from bolting. The combination of fire and the cats was driving the animal into a frenzy.
“Stay behind the cats,” Ryan ordered. “They’ll clear the way for us.”
“What if they turn?” Doc demanded, the Webley held in his right hand as he cocked back the hammer with a thumb.
“Left shoulder!” Ryan stated, holding the reins in his left hand, the right keeping the Steyr braced in his hip for immediate use. “Not the heart or head! And don’t fucking miss!”
As if understanding the words, a cougar glanced backward to snarl at the mounted people, and the companions leveled their arsenal of weapons at the beast. For a moment, it seemed like the male cougar was going to charge, then the female sprang sideways and seized an old woman by the throat ripping away most of her neck. Gushing a horrible fountain of blood, the wrinklie fell to her knees, as the cougar mauled her with its front paws. Her high pitched scream never stopped as the blood sprayed everywhere. Then she went limp and the cat raised its gore streaked face to snarl at the sky.
At the sight, Krysty started to aim the Hollands & Hollands, but stayed her hand. The old woman was already dead, and they needed the help of the cats to reach the gates. Once there, she would blow their heads off with the Nitro Express.
Horses, dogs, civilians and sec men fled from the approach of the cougars, the chaos in the smoky ville increasing as the alarm bell began to ring again from the keep. Or was it sending a message to the sec men? There was no way of knowing.
With the bravado of ignorance, a sec man jumped out of an alleyway firing two big bore wheelguns at the big cats in a storm of lead. But they dropped to the ground at the first round and then leaped, the male seizing his gun hand by the wrist and the female raking her claws across the man’s head, flipping over the scalp to fall across his face. Bare white bone gleamed from the smeared blood of the open head. As the guard tried to shove his scalp back in to place, both cats sank their teeth into his chest and ripped out vital organs.
That was when several shots rang out from behind the companions. Turning in their saddles, they fired a volley at the group of sec men coming up the street. The ten or so guards were moving from doorway to alley, trying to always stay behind cover as they closed in toward Ryan and the others, the companions now trapped between them and the big cats.
“Flank attack!” J.B. yelled, spraying the Uzi in a figure-eight pattern, the 9 mm Parabellum rounds ricocheting off the houses and streets in a hellstorm of lead until the clip went empty. “Which way, the men or the cats?”
“Fuck them both! Head down the side street!”
Ryan shouted, kicking his horse in the rump and urging it on to greater speed.
Galloping loudly on the cobblestones, the companions thundered past the snarling cats and down the side street. But the cougars followed, looping after the riders.
The stupe sons of bitches had to think the friends were running away in fear, Ryan realized in frustration, and instinct was forcing them to chase after them. That was when he saw the street was a dead end, terminating at the ville wall. Trapped again! Now there was no other choice. They had to ace the cats before the animals got underneath the horses and ripped out their bellies.