“Thieves!” J.B. bellowed, firing single shots from the Uzi, unwilling to go full-auto and possibly kill the horses. One murky figure cried out, grabbing a shoulder. Another doubled over, clutching his stomach, and toppled to the ground.
The companions clawed for their weapons and rolled away from the campfire as the invaders seemed to stab themselves in the faces with tiny sticks. Dodging left and right, J.B. fired twice more, then something gentle hit his chest. He glanced down and saw a tiny barbed quill jutting from a button.
“Blowpipes!” he cried, plucking the deadly barb from his clothing, trying not to touch the glistening end. It had to be poison of some kind.
A thundering roar illuminated the night as Doc triggered the LeMat. Three more of the shapeless figures holding blowpipes cried out in pain and fell aside, throwing their arms wide. A roar shook the darkness as Mildred fired the S&W shotgun, then the gunshots overlapped one another as the companions unleashed a hell-storm of lead and copper at the intruders. Many of the figures dropped to the ground, but the ones behind them leaped on the horses and galloped away, vanishing into the night.
“They got the horses!” Krysty cried, kneeling in the cold soil, two hands supporting her S&W .38. She strained to catch a glimpse of the thieves, but even her vision couldn’t find a target in the blackness.
“More wood!” Dean shouted, and dropped a load onto the campfire.
The circle of light expanded, and something went motionless in the tall weeds nearby. Springing forward, Mildred grappled with a man who broke free from her clutches and started running. Jak threw a knife and the figure stumbled, then Ryan tackled the intruder, driving him to the ground.
Wrestling in the thrashing weeds, the man escaped again and Jak slashed for the neck. The blade missed the target, but scored a deep furrow across a leaf-covered shoulder. Pivoting, the intruder snarled wordlessly, lashing out with hands full of vines. The thorns raked Jak’s face, just missing his eyes. The teenager thrust a knife into the man’s belly as Ryan clubbed the thief over the head with the SIG-Sauer. With a crunch of bones, the man fell to the ground.
“Over here!” Krysty shouted, an oil lantern held high.
In the yellowish light of the fish-oil lantern, the humanoid on the ground gasped for breath.
“Mutie,” Jak growled, wiping his blade on the dirt. He usually cleaned the knives on the clothes of the dead, but this time that wouldn’t work, as the horse thief was naked. Sort of. The humanoid creature was covered with vines, but he wasn’t wearing them; the plants were part of him, the roots buried deep into his skin. His clothing was merely leaves of different colors mimicking cloth.
The mutie spasmed once, then went still. The leaves limply drooped, the vines turning brown.
“Symbionts,” Mildred said, inspecting the still form. In death, it simply looked like a man partially covered with ivy. Then she noticed the thorns on the hands. Experimentally, she closed a limp hand into a fist, and barbed thorns extended from the knuckles. Releasing the hybrid, she stood. “Plants and man intermixed. They can’t live without each other.”
“Bastard good disguise,” Ryan grunted in annoyance. His shirt was slashed, but the skin underneath only lightly scratched, with no bleeding. “Triple-blasted stuff probably alters to any style, so they can pretend to be part of your group in the darkness.”
“Certainly easy enough to tell in the light,” Doc agreed. “But by then it is probably too late for most norms.”
“We killed six,” J.B. announced, the Uzi held steady. “But there were at least twenty more from the tracks. It actually looked like some acted as shields, dying so the rest could get the horses.”
“Gaia,” Krysty muttered. “They sure wanted the animals badly.”
Breathlessly, Dean burst through the weeds. “They took everything,” he panted, “horses, tack, reins, all of it. Nothing’s left.”
“Fireblast,” Ryan said, removing the half clip from the SIG-Sauer and slamming in a full magazine. “I don’t care if it’s a bastard army of the things out there. We’re going after those horses. Without them, we’re on foot. J.B., gather what supplies we have and divide them into six packs. Mildred, bank the fire so it’ll last through the night. Nice and big. Understand?”
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