Horses reared, dumping their riders, wolves twisted and fell, painted warriors catapulted from wooden saddles. The hail of blasterfire continued, a torrent of death spraying in all directions. A bullet fired from Jak’s Colt Python struck a pony in the chest.
The beast lurched to a thundering fall, throwing its rider, and Jak managed to jump clear. Another shot from the heavy .357 blaster took the wolf-rider in the right eye, punching a fist-sized, scarlet-squirting crater in the back of his head. More lances arced their way, sticking quivering in the earth.
The charge of wolves and horsemen wavered, then broke. Wolf howl and war cry rose and fell as the attackers retreated in the face of the deadly and accurate fire. Departing hooves drummed on the grassy sward. A comparative silence followed, and Ryan called a cease-fire.
At least a dozen bodies, man and animal, dotted the plain. Joe shouted a cry of victory and held his long blaster over his head. Then something in the shadows attracted his attention, and he moved toward it quickly.
Ryan followed him and saw the Lakota approaching a crouching wolf. The fur of its right haunch was matted with blood, and its leg was obviously injured. The beast turned its face toward them. It didn’t snarl. It continued to crouch, glaring from Joe to Ryan, as if trying to decide which human presented the greater threat.
With a start Ryan recognized the wolf as Sisoka’s “friend,” the one she had called Blood-sniffer, and automatically he raised his blaster. The gold-green eyes flamed into his, and Ryan hesitated before squeezing the trigger.
Then, despite an injured leg and with eye-blurring speed, the wolf sprang directly for Ryan’s throat.
Involuntarily stepping back, Ryan stumbled on an uneven patch of ground. He barely saw the motion of Joe’s weapon as the Lakota swung it at the plunging wolf.
Ryan heard the thud of metal against bone, felt the wolfs massive weight slam into him and knock him sprawling. He elbowed the limp body of Blood-sniffer off him and scrambled to his feet.
He heard running footfalls and J.B.’s angry voice demand, “Why didn’t you just shoot the fucking thing?”
Joe smiled, a thin slash of triumph across his high-planed face. Nudging the motionless animal with a toe, he said, “He’s far more valuable to us alive.”
Ryan and his friends looked around at the carnage of corpses in silence. Somehow all the bullet-blasted bodies seemed blasphemous in this valley.
Joe lifted his rifle over his head, turned his face to the moon and uttered another shrill, fierce scream of victory.
“We have a prisoner!” he exclaimed in a voice full of exultation. “And we have given our enemies their first taste of our new weapons and warriors!”
Krysty came to Ryan’s side. The Smith amp; Wesson trembled in her hand. She looked more shaken than he had ever seen her. She stared at the dead animals lying on the moon-washed sward, her sentient hair coiled tight against her nape.
“Ryan, Joe was right. These wolves are intelligent,” she whispered. “This is wrong.”
Rather than agreeing or arguing with her, he announced, “Everyone reload.”
As he rammed a fresh clip into the SIG-Sauer, he glanced down at the senseless wolf, completely at a loss as to why Joe would want to make an animal, no matter how well-trained or intelligent, a hostage.
Krysty was rightthis was wrong, in an intangible fashion he couldn’t easily identify. The battle wasn’t like the conflict with the Red Cadre or so many others over the years. He couldn’t shake the shameful sensation that he and his friends had invaded the promised land, a new Eden, their weapons enacting the role of serpents.
“We must go on and quickly,” Joe declared, “or more of the Wolf Soldiers will be here.”
Kneeling, he lashed rawhide thongs around the fore and hind paws of the unconscious wolf. With a wide strip of leather, he muzzled the beast, securing its jaws tightly.
As he tightened the knot, the wolf stirred slowly, its eyes opening. It didn’t move, but a low whine escaped its black-rimmed lips. Its eyes blazed with fear, then with such a potent rage that Ryan felt his belly turn a cold flip-flop.