Arrows rained around her, clattering and rattling against rock. She leaped desperately to a crag ten feet below.
Hitting the stone, rolling, jumping up and running, she saw Mildred and J.B. on a ledge above her. They gestured frantically for her to climb and join them. She began to climb, tearing the skin from her fingers as she forced them into rough-edged handholds.
She hadn’t quite reached the ledge when some of the painted warriors raced around the base of the boulder she had leaped from. Arrows whistled up at her, the steel points cracking against rock, and one bounced off the metal band encircling the heel of her right boot.
The stuttering hammer of the Uzi sounded from above, and from below she heard the whines of ricochets and the screams of wounded or dying men.
Mildred reached down her arms and hauled her over the rim of the ledge. She lay glaring down at the warriors, her breasts heaving as she drank in the air in great, shuddering gasps.
Only a few more arrows whipped up toward the ledge; the warriors knew their enemies could kill them from above if they exposed themselves. They turned and ran back through the labyrinth of stone.
After regaining her wind, Krysty pushed herself to a sitting position, opened her blaster’s cylinder and emptied the spent cartridge casings. She put them in a pouch on her belt, then thumbed in fresh rounds.
“Ryan?” she asked.
J.B., on his belly, scanned the stony maze below. “Haven’t seen him since he was chased back up here.”
“Jak and Doc? The girl?”
“Sisoka’s with them. Don’t know where they are. Haven’t heard their blasters so far.”
Krysty glanced at Mildred. “And Joe?”
The woman cradled the Steyr in her arms and shook her head. “Haven’t been able to get a clear shot at him. If it’s not the smoke ruining my shot, he has his men around him. He must suspect we’d try to take him out from a distance.”
They heard the distant boom of Doc’s Le Mat, then the deep cracking of Jak’s Colt Python.
“We’ve got to hook back up,” J.B. said grimly. “Joe knows this layout, even if his warriors don’t. We got them outgunned, but they got the advantage of familiar turf.”
Below, the outer ring of the hide-and-wood structures erupted into flame, blazing like huge torches.
Turning slightly, Krysty tried to focus on the wavering luminescence from the mouth of the cavern.
“Only place we can go is the cave,” she stated. “If we can get inside there before Joe does, we’ll be on more or less even terms. He’s never been there, either.”
J.B. and Mildred considered Krysty’s words for a moment. A war whoop echoed, then came the familiar clapping sound made by Ryan’s SIG-Sauer.
“Let’s do it,” J.B. said, moving away from the lip of the ledge.
Krysty descended first, hand over hand, while J.B. and Mildred covered her from above. Mildred dropped the Steyr into her waiting arms, then climbed down, followed by J.B., who tossed her the M-4000 scattergun before clambering from the ledge.
The three friends wended their way through the shadows, creeping among the looming masses of stone, keeping their eyes on the glow from the cave opening. They moved into a fissure splitting a monstrous rock, so narrow they walked in single file. Ponderous chunks of half-dislodged granite hung over them. They made their way with extreme care, knowing how easy it was to start a slide by accidently kicking a keystone.
A ghostly silence settled over the tumbles, crevices and boulders, the only sounds the clinks of stone beneath their feet and the ever-present, rising and falling roar of the firestorm consuming the Wolf Soldier encampment.
They reached the end of the fissure but had walked only a few feet when the scuff and scutter of stealthy footfalls caught Krysty’s ears. She raised her hand-blaster, sinking to one knee in a wedge of shadow. Behind her, J.B. and Mildred melted into the darkness. By the dim light provided by the distant flames and the shimmering glow from the cave mouth, they saw four figures shuffle out of the darkness.
The figures halted, as if sensing their presence. For a long beat of time, nothing happened, no movement, no sound. Then Ryan’s low voice said, “The silver toes of your boots are a giveaway, lover.”