“Dark night,” the Armorer breathed, “I nearly chilled you, Jak!”
Jak grinned like a white wolf. “Hearing better than think,” he said. “Near now,” he added.
Ryan assented. “Time to take formation. What about the cover, Dean?”
“Some big stems and leaves over the window, but it goes low and that’s bad.”
“Okay, you and Doc take in there, and keep well back. J.B., you and me take one side of this, Krysty and Mildred the other.”
“Me?” Jak asked.
“Take the stairwell. It’s the only way up, so if they see us they’ll have to come that way. One man can cover it for now, and someone will join you if a firefight starts.”
“Not firefight.” Jak shook his head. “They carry knives, but no blasters.”
“Sure?”
The albino nodded.
Ryan smiled grimly, his mouth a tight line. “That’ll make it easier if it does blow up.” The chanting was louder now, and the sound of the hunting party’s movement through the forest could be heard clearly. Ryan’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Assume positions.”
Jak disappeared into the hallway, heading for the stairwell. Ryan and J.B. took up position at the window, with the one-eyed warrior using the cover of the plant life to assume an upright posture, while the Armorer took a lower position. On the opposite side of the window, Mildred and Krysty took up positions mirroring the men. In the bedroom, with less cover, Doc and Dean took each side of the long window, shielding themselves with the wall at the expense of reducing their field of vision.
Beneath, the chanting grew louder, the procession of the hunting party coming into view.
“Bastards,” Dean breathed, his jaw dropping and bile rising in his throat. He had to breathe hard to stop himself from being violently sick as the party came fully into view.
Doc, who was on the blind side of the window, risked peering around. He withdrew his head rapidly, not wanting to believe what he saw.
“Truly,” he whispered to himself, “if there is a God, he has forsaken this place…”
In the lounge, shielded by the plants, the four companions exchanged looks that registered a mixture of anger and disgust. They had seen many things in their travels, experienced many kinds of degradation and horror. But this was somehow among the worst.
The hunting party beneath was now in full view. Their ragged clothes, wrapped around them like robes rather than worn, were multicolored and dyed from the flowering plants, as Jak had surmised. He had been correct in observing that none of the six below carried blasters, just long knives that were a mix of hand-hewed blades wrapped onto wooden hafts with twine and a couple of old knives, rusty but still honed enough to provide a jagged sawing edge. As they approached, the companions could see that the hunters were muties, each with his own particular traits. One had a vestigial arm growing from his chest, the tiny, half-formed fingers on the end clenching and unclenching in time with his step. Another had a completely bald head that had dewlapped layers of skin that sunk over his one eye, which was located near the center of his head. The dewlap was covered in open sores. A third shuffled on a stumped foot that had a thickened pad of calloused skin where the toes turned under. The fourth was enormously barrel-chested, with a thin, tapering waist and sticklike legs that had straining whipcords of muscle supporting his weight and balance. The fifth was unevenly made, with his head sinking into his body at an obtuse angle.
But it was the one at the front who seemed the most mutated. In many ways, he was a perfectly muscled specimen, with flowing blond hair, a chiseled jawline and the high keening voice that cut across the others. His eyes glowed with an insane, messianic light, and he strode evenly on legs that were strong, with well-muscled calves. His torso, however, was an immediate and grotesque reminder of his mutie heritage: for in the center of his chest, poking through the saffron-and-yellow robes he wore, was the head of another body, small and stunted, that grew from his stomach. The eyes on the head of the small “twin” looked around with a similar gleam to that of their “owner.” By his bearing, as well as his position, this mutie was the leader of the party, setting a fairly swift pace at the head of the first pair.