reeled away, crying like a scalded kitten, Hun used her own broad-bladed dagger
to slit his throat. Blood from the jugular pattered onto the concrete floor,
making it slick and treacherous.
Krysty ducked and weaved against a taller Indian, her hair seeming to foam back
and forth in the man’s face, blinding him. But she did not carry a long-bladed
knife, and she was in desperate trouble. Meanwhile Ryan punched a grinning face,
knocking it away from him, and raised the panga as he closed on Krysty’s
attacker.
The impact jarred Ryan’s arm. But the steel was honed enough and weighted enough
to hack clean through the skin and flesh and bone of the neck. The head, eyes
staring, tongue moving, rolled and bounced among the fighters’ feet, while the
body gradually slumped to the floor as though reluctant to submit to death.
“Thanks,” she panted, trying to back away to join Doc near the door through to
the gateway.
“Anytime.”
Henn was staggering, blood streaming from a cut along the side of his thigh,
with Finnegan holding off a pair of the Indians, each armed with a triangular
ax.
“Make for the door!” Ryan yelled, going to help Finnegan cover Henn’s retreat.
Hun got there first, stabbing the nearest of the attackers so hard that the
steel snapped and she withdrew only the hilt, grinning at the shocked and
puzzled expression on the bronzed face of the man she had just killed.
Doc, Krysty, Henn and Finnegan were through into the anteroom, watching
anxiously as their friends still battled on. Nine or ten of the Indians were
down, dying or dead. But four more had come in, two armed with bows and arrows.
“Back!” shouted Ryan again, pushing Hunaker in front of him, parrying a lunge
from a feather-tipped spear, turning and spilling the man’s guts in loops of
greasy intestine around his feet.
Okie stood, legs braced, to one side of the doorway, the M-16 steady in her
hands, waiting a chance to open fire at the enemy without harming the electrical
equipment in its serried banks.
J.B. followed Hun through, then Ryan was in the doorway, tapping Okie on the
arm. At the far end of the control room, more of the Sioux came pouring in,
screaming and shouting. An arrow hit the wall at Ryan’s side, and he snapped off
a 3-round burst at the man who had loosed it. The rounds kicked the man onto his
back, knocking others over with the violence of his dying.
Another arrow clipped Okie’s right shoulder, pinning her to the wall by the
material of her jacket. “Bastard!” she hissed, reaching and snapping the shaft
of the arrow, and throwing it contemptuously on the concrete. Then she ripped in
half the man who had wounded her. His body jerked and danced, held up by the
force of the bullets that stitched him apart. As she took her finger off the
trigger he fell sideways, crashing into one of the consoles, where sparks flew
and a siren began to howl deep in the recesses of the Redoubt.
“That screws it,” hissed Ryan, grabbing Okie and pulling her after him. There
wasn’t time to close the intervening door. The rest of them were already in the
glass-walled chamber, beckoning to Ryan.
More arrows sliced by them, one plucking at the hem of his coat. J.B. yelled for
them all to get down. The armored door began to close the moment they were all
inside.
Ryan was last. A final shaft missed his left elbow by a hairsbreadth, hitting
the control panel to the gateway, splintering one of the numbered buttons,
breaking the plastic cover, revealing all the mass of tangled multicolored
wiring beneath. As the door closed, Ryan’s last glimpse of the Redoubt in the
Darks was a worm of smoke inching from the damaged control.
An arrow pinged against the glass, but the thick plate held fast. The fog rose
about them and the metal disks glowed brightly. Ryan felt himself being sucked
into the maelstrom and fought against losing consciousness. But the physical
disturbance was too severe, and the darkness swamped his mind.
RYAN OPENED HIS EYE.
As before, his seven comrades were lying all around him. J.B.’s glasses had