The echoes of the explosion were swallowed up by a grinding roar that grew louder with every passing heartbeat. Peering through the shifting planes of smoke, he saw the entire edge of the ridge sliding from view. The “Deguello” ceased trumpeting.
Rock cracked and split, then the entire wall of the gorge was in motion, flowing down in a grinding, crashing torrent. Ryan got to his feet and peered down. He had only the briefest of glimpses of buckskin-clad men jamming the narrow passage below, then they were blocked from sight by the down-rushing tons of dirt, shale and sandstone.
The few of the Cadre still out on the plain stared at the bouncing storm of stones in wide-eyed shock. Their upturned faces blanched, and they began to race toward the wind wags. There was less than a dozen, and they all clambered aboard the largest craft, fighting one another to align the sail and to start the engine. There was no strategy, no order, only the half-mad desire to flee.
Turning away, Ryan looked down over the Amican defenses. Everyone was looking up at him. He waved, and the people below waved in return, voicing a wordless victory cry. The few who were able began to dance. He picked up his SIG-Sauer and absently brushed away the grit.
Halfway down the hill lay Felicity’s body, arms outflung, face turned to the sky. Far above her, with wings outstretched, a hawk glided gracefully on the air currents.
The sickening odor of scorched human hair and flesh was more overpowering than the acrid reek of burned powder. Sprawled facedown at the far end of the hilltop was John Hatcher. Smoke curled from the seat and legs of the man’s pants, but moans of agony bubbled from the loose-limbed, fire-blackened shape. John Jacob Hatcher was still alive.
Ryan limped over and toed him over onto his back.
His long hair was crisped black, only a stinking, smoking fuzz covering his head. His beard was a smoldering patch of charred bristles, and his face was covered by red, raw patches and huge, leaking blisters. He gazed down at him and Hatcher gazed back, trying to bite back the groans. He breathed in whistling gasps, his lungs and sinuses cooked.
Staring into his eyes, Ryan removed the map from his pocket, unfolded it and waved it before Hatcher’s eyes. Then he touched one corner of the parchment to a tiny flame on the man’s pant leg, and the map went up in a flash of fire and cinders.
Ryan blew the handful of ashes directly into Hatcher’s face. The ashes scattered, dancing on the breeze. The wind shredded the gray scraps to bits, leaving only a thin residue adhering to Hatcher’s peeled, sticky flesh.
Hatcher’s chest rose and fell, then rose no more.
“I gave you exactly what you wanted,” Ryan whispered. “No quarter.”
Chapter Eleven
The voice spoke in Ryan’s mind as he slept, penetrating his dreams. There was a nonhuman quality to its vibration that set even his slumbering mind bristling with suspicion. It was a voice he had heard before.
Grandfather, Great Spirit, you have been always, and before you no one has been.
Ryan knew he was dreaming, knew he was stretched out on a cot in Amicus, sleeping the sleep of the utterly exhausted. His mind crawled at the inhuman, relentless tone of the voice as it spoke again.
Grandmother Earth, you who have shown mercy to your children who have ripped and burned and poisoned you, I shall heal you!
“I shall heal you,” Ryan heard himself say.
Then his eye snapped open, and he lunged up from the cot, reaching for his blaster and panga, staring wildly around the dim room. A shadow slid past the open window and was gone before his blurred eye could focus. He scrambled to the window, shoving aside the blanket serving as a curtain. He heard the padding of feet out in the gray, oyster-hued light just after sunrise, but he could see nothing.
He stood at the window, confused and a little angry, his mind still fogged by fatigue. The tension of nerves eased. There was nothing out there in the dark but a few lights and bodies that had yet to be recovered. Scraps of pink and orange glowed in the eastern sky. The cool air still retained a faint odor of blood, gunpowder and seared human flesh.