Koll lobbed the first of the implo bombs into the fog. For one sickening moment Ryan wondered if it would simply stick there, like a pebble in fresh dough, but it vanished deep within. The second one followed it, thrown with all Koll's most desperate strength.
"Back," said Doc calmly, speaking in a conversational tone to the eight others who stood near him. He led the way by shambling quickly around the bend of the trail, behind the rock wall.
"Koll!" shouted Ryan. "Get the..." but the words died in his throat and for a moment he closed his eye, turning away.
The fog had sensed the threat to its existence. The tendrils had shot from its base, faster than a shooter drawing his blaster. They slapped at Koll's feet and legs, before he could take more than a half dozen steps toward safety.
Ryan was the last of the party to move with Doc out of sight, and he saw it all. As the first coiling arm of the fog touched Koll, sparks flew from the man's flesh. Orange and blue fire sprayed out into the cold day as if from a welder's torch. Koll dropped his rifle and screamed, rolling onto his back and kicking. For the briefest of moments he managed to break free from the caressing tendril.
One fell across him, not hard, but more flames spat from Koll's body, at the top of his thighs, near the groin. He arched back, and the scream rose higher and higher. Smoke and the smell of burning filtered through the crackling air. The screams continued, thin and piercing, like a stallion's at the gelding.
Another tendril lashed at Koll's face and he raised his hands to take the impact, thrashing at the unknown power. Now there were a dozen or more of the thick gray tendrils enshrouding him, cording and swelling. Koll was lifted into the air by them, drawn toward the main expanse of the fog.
All this occurred within the eternity of seconds before the first of the implo grenades went off, followed a second later by the other. Ryan ducked away at the familiar hollow boom, bracing himself for the bizarre sucking feeling that came from the antimat bombs. He and the Trader had found a small supply of them years ago in a ravaged Redoubt close to the great swamps where once the Mississippi had rolled. Nobody, not even J. B. Dix, greatest of armorers, understood what they did. All that was obvious was that they caused an implosion and matter was pulled into a vacuum of limitless smallness.
Ryan looked back around the cliff immediately after the noise had faded. The fog was coiling and shredding as he watched. It seemed to be disappearing into frail towers that crumbled in on themselves. In less than a dozen heartbeats the dreadful monster had completely gone, leaving nothing but the cold wind and driven hail.
"Cerberus was a sentient creature, and designed precisely thus, Mr. Cawdor. Yet it was weak precisely where it needed to be strong. Now it is gone, my dear sir, and taking that poor fellow with it. Who cried so loud, did he not?"
Koll had disappeared with the double implosions. At least most of him had.
His right arm, two fingers missing, with the shoulder and neck and much of the right side of the lower skull, still lay in the middle of the mangled roadway. The survivors walked up the trail, pausing by the remains of the corpse. The missing fingers had been sliced away as though with a razor, and the rest of the torn flesh was cleanly severed. Both eyes were gone, as had the top of the nose. The jaw had been hewn through by an unimaginable force, and the flesh of the cheek and chin was laced with a pattern of tiny burns and scorch marks. The teeth were splintered to powder in the jaw.
Taking into account the massive injuries, there was very little blood.
"We goin' to leave him here like this for the wolves and bears?" asked Sukie, trembling with shock.
"No. Can't bury him. In the river, J.B.?"
"Best we can do."
As gently as they could, the two men stooped and gathered up the remains of the man who had been one of the strongest of the crew of the war wag. Swinging the dismembered mass once and then heaving it as far out as they could into the singing void, they watched as it fell into the river and joined the waters that flowed from the glacier way up above them.
They stood mutely for several seconds. Ryan broke the spell by turning to lead them up the trail. Now that the fog had vanished, he noticed a peculiar thing. On their side of the barrier, the road was in terrible condition, puckered and scratched. A hundred paces or so higher up it was in perfect condition. Smooth and flat, unbroken by the century of neglect, untouched by weeds. It went straight for a while, then curved sharply to the right, as though it ran into the face of the cliff.
Neat, rectangular white stones lined the side of the road, marking off the edge of the ravine. There was even the remains of a white line painted down the center of the trail. The nine men and women walked slowly along, cautiously checking all around them. Ryan stopped when he heard Doc start to chuckle.
"What in the big fire's so funny, Doc?"
"My apologies, sir, but the sight of us all stepping as if we walked upon the shells of eggs is risible. You see, the fog with its claws and its teeth will have kept everyone out for a hundred years. And those within are surely deceased. So where is the threat?"
"We're in. Someone else might be in," replied J. B. Dix.
"Only if they were watching and have followed us. And I doubt there are many people in this part of the Darks."
"What about them feathers and the skull and all that stuff? "asked Abe.
That silenced Doc's laughter.
Though the wind kept howling about them, the ferocious cold of the past few days was gone, and none of them put up their hoods again. Doc kept one hand on his ancient hat. The air was notably fresher and Ryan noticed that none of them was sweating now, as they had been in the presence of the fog.
Okie strode forward to join Ryan at the front of the group. Her dark hair was tied back like Abe's and she kept one hand always near the butt of her pistol. When she spoke her voice had a distinctive Eastern twang to it.
"What d'you figure we'll find in this stockpile? Gas? Bombs? More guns?"
Ryan grinned. "Quien sabe?"
"What?"
"Means who knows. Picked it up from a Mex mutie down south. But whatever's there has to be good to be guarded like that."
"And nobody to stop us," she said.
There was a faint hissing and a dull thunk. A gasp. Ryan spun on his heel in time to see Abe dropping to his knees, hands to his throat. His neck was pierced clean through with the shaft of an arrow, tipped with bright red feathers.
Chapter Sixteen
Hennings and Krysty were first to the stricken man, while the others, weapons drawn, faced around, their blazing eyes seeking the enemy. But there was nobody to be seen. The cliffs towered above them, with pockets of snow scattered here and there. The road wound beneath them, and the sheer drop to the river was still at their other flank. Ahead, somewhere, was the mythical Redoubt.
"Where?" snapped Ryan.
J.B. pointed up and behind. "Arrow came from there. He's behind us. Or they're behind us."
"How is he?" He moved to stand where Krysty cradled Abe in her arms. The shaft, with its barbed tip, still stuck through his throat at a grotesque angle, blood trickling from both sides. The shaft was made of some sort of aluminum compound. It was streaked crimson. The feathers were the same kind as they had seen on the warning totems.
Henn looked up. "Bad, Ryan. Bad."
Abe was fighting for breath, fingers moving convulsively on Krysty's sleeve. Her bright red hair framed his pale face. His eyes flickered, seeking Ryan, finding him.
"Doesn't hurt..." he said, voice muffled with the blood that was now seeping through his lips. "But a blasted arrow, for nuke's sake! Be funny..." he coughed a great gout of arterial scarlet "...funny if..."