In single file, the companions entered the absolute blackness of the subterranean passage, the bloody hounds mixed between them and sniffing constantly.
Chapter Seventeen
The sound of sporadic firing came from the streets, the brown shirts in the windows of the keep spraying the people below with their AK-47s. The floor was slick with spent shell casings, the atmosphere of the second floor misty with fumes from the volumes of expended cordite rounds.
“What the hell do you mean he’s still alive?” Overton roared, grabbing a sec man by the throat.
“Dogs attacked the riders in the forest,” the man wheezed, struggling to breathe in the iron grip. “We saw most of it through our longblaster scopes.”
“And the dogs didn’t attack Ryan?”
“No! Just sniffed around them.”
After a moment, Overton released the messenger. “Nathan,” he growled furiously. “I don’t know how, but Nathan is behind this.”
Leaning against the stone block wall, the messenger merely nodded, massaging his bruised neck.
“Ryan freed the hostages, the people have risen in revolt, then he escaped our trap, slaughtered over a dozen mounted sec men and by now is most likely long gone.” Jian Hwa Ki rose from the table covered with maps of the ville and magazines for the longblasters. “Perhaps we should take the LAV and leave while we can.”
Fists clenched, Overton directed a furious stare at the man. “Now? When we are so close to victory?”
“When we are close to getting chilled,” corrected the sec chief of the blue shirts.
“Leave? Never!” Overton snapped, drawing his Desert Eagle blaster and brandishing it. “I would rather attack the armory and make them blow their own ville to bits first!”
The sec men in the windows slowed their attack on the defenders in the street at those words, then continued with renewed vigor. Clearly, the situation had shifted to victory or the grave. So be it. Death was part of a sec man’s job. Some of them were veterans, some green fish, but all knew the way of the world. If you wanted to win everything, then you risked everything.
“Yes, sir!” Ki said, snapping a stiff-armed salute to his commander. “Then what do you suggest, sir?”
Holstering his piece, Overton chewed on a lip for a minute. “How many men do we have?” he demanded.
“Eighty here in the keep,” Ki replied, tilting his head in thought. “Mebbe another fifteen guarding the APC and motorcycles in the garage.”
Digging in a pocket, Overton tossed the little man a ring of keys. “Take a platoon of men, get the APC and start sweeping the ville with its chain gun and cannon. These hillbillies can’t have anything that can stop that armored war wag.”
“As you command,” Ki said, tucking the keys into a pocket in his blue pants. “However, what about the men in the armory?”
The black-baked impostor sneered. “Use the poison-gas containers in the APC and chill them like rats in a cage. Nathan may be free to act against me at last, but Ryan is long gone, and we still have more blasters, better blasters and the APC.”
Turning to a window, Overton drew his blaster and started to fire at the furtive brown shirts, the booming large caliber rounds blowing holes through whatever cover the men hid behind and chilling them.
“This fight is only just beginning!” He laughed, standing brazenly in the window and shooting anything that moved.
A FAINT LIGHT APPEARED in the distance, diluting the solid darkness of the long tunnel. Ryan crawled a little faster at the sight and soon emerged into a well-lit area inside a tall cage made of iron bars. A dozen armed men stood behind the bars.
Standing, Ryan moved out of the way so the others could leave the tunnel and join him near the door to the cage. Their claws clicking on the concrete floor, the black dogs milled about the companions in a threatening manner until Nathan stepped away from the sec men and gave a sharp whistle. Instantly, the animals froze, then sat and stared at their master, tongues lolling from their open mouths.
A brown shirt unlocked the door to the pen, and the companions slowly walked out of the dog pen as Nathan tossed a handful of meat scraps to the mastiffs, speaking softly, using each dog’s name in turn. The leader of the pack offered its head to the baron and was rewarded by a brief scratching behind the alert ears.
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