In the last fraction of a torn second, the hound tried to avoid the blow, but it was too far committed to its attack. The knife opened up its throat, blood jetting sideways, soaking the dry earth fifteen feet away. The howl died, and the animal jerked and kicked, hooked on the blade like a gaffed salmon. Ryan used the impetus of the rush to push it away, withdrawing the knife, feeling hot blood spurting over his wrist. His thrust had been so deadly that
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it had penetrated into the chest cavity, and as the dog fell there was blood and air frothing from the cut.
The black beast stumbled forward, muzzle striking the dirt, its hind legs scrabbling to give it purchase to turn and go again at the man. But Ryan was quicker.
He stooped and hamstrung the dog, crippling it, leav-ing it a whining, helpless thing. It snapped feebly at him as he moved back, but it was no longer a threat.
Even as he straightened, Ryan saw the second, third and fourth hounds come leaping into the small clearing.
J.B. stood straight and calm, waiting until the last sec-ond before ducking and turning, hand faster than the eye could follow. He opened up the dog’s belly, spilling its guts in bloody loops, stepping away from the crazed ani-mal as it bit and tore at its own stomach.
Krysty faced a smaller, leaner dog, a sinewy bitch that jumped incredibly high, going for the woman’s exposed throat. Krysty’s reflexes were breathtaking. She stooped, knife held point up, and stabbed the dog through the center of the breastbone, ripping its heart in rags of pumping muscle. The creature tried to twist in the air, teeth meeting with an audible click, but it was dying even before it hit the earth.
Three of the four were down and done in less time than it took to draw a deep breath.
The last of the dogs was a grizzled veteran, seamed along the flanks, one eye staring blankly ahead of it. It hesitated between the three potential victims for its slav-ering teeth. Krysty was off-balance, and Ryan saw the dog turn to her. He shouted, trying to distract it, drawing its attention to where he stood above the corpse of the chilled pack leader.
It came in on a crabbing, sidling attack, keeping its belly low to the earth, head to one side, watching Ryan
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through its good eye. In the brief pause Ryan could hear more dogs coming toward them. And the clatter of hooves. Someone was shouting in an enraged, hoarse voice.
“Watch it!” J.B. called out.
The warning wasn’t necessary. This animal wasn’t like those in the first trio. This was a wily campaigner that saw three of its pack dead or dying and a man with a long sil-ver tooth in its hand. It came in, feinting to spring, then snapped at Ryan’s knee. He only just dropped his guard low enough, cutting the dog along its shoulder.
But it was lightning fast, biting at Ryan’s knife hand despite its own wound. The teeth missed, but the muzzle rapped him across the knuckles.
Making him drop the blade.
“Gaia!” Krysty yelled, quickly reversing her own knife to throw it at the dog, but the animal was too close to Ryan to take the risk.
The dog jumped for the throat, jaws gaping, its foul breath making Ryan gag. Its sightless eye rolled skyward, the other fixed on the man’s face with a demonic intent. There wasn’t time to dodge.
As it jumped, he braced himself for the charge, grab-bing at the raking front paws, gripping one in his right hand and one in his left. A Tex-Mex puma hunter from down south, near Lubbock, had told him this trick dur-ing one long night of drinking.
Ryan had never had the chance to try it before now.
And he was only going to get one chance to try it. Or the crossbred black dog would rip his face off.
With all of his power, Ryan wrenched the animal’s forelegs apart. There was a ghastly sound like splitting a hickory log with a long-handled ax. The hound’s rib cage was burst apart by the savagery of the man’s attack, rup-