The coat tore itself apart, shredded right before the captain’s eyes, and the clothes beneath it did the same, peeling away even as the man continued charging forward on his horse. One pace and the fabric was splitting. Another step forward and the horse was knocking two soldiers aside. A third step and one of the soldiers fell to the ground while the other kept his balance. A fourth step and Folsom was drawing his weapon, intent on killing the fool horseman. A fifth step and everything changed all at once. The horse let out a shriek and lost its balance, falling forward and crashing to the ground. He was a horseman himself and knew instantly the beast had broken its neck. The rider fell forward and blurred as he caught himself on his palms. That was the only way he could think of it. The fabric on his body was torn apart and so was the flesh beneath it. Folsom looked and his eyes refused to see properly. Great flakes of flesh and hair split away from the shape of the man and when he moved forward, standing instead of sliding across the ground, which seemed an impossibility by itself, he was not a man anymore but something entirely different.
The thing still had two legs and two arms, yet beyond that he would have been hard pressed to say what might seem humanoid about it. The body was wrong. Too broad, and covered in wiry fur. The head seemed to grow directly from the torso, and while he knew the thing must surely see, the only features that made any sense were the teeth that filled a mouth far too large for the rest of the hellish shape.
The thing roared again and Folsom aimed and fired, and then fired twice more. His aim was true, and a hole blossomed in the center of the demon’s chest. It stepped back and then fell back and landed in the dirt, rolling and thrashing, slamming into the shuddering, dying horse, which once again let out a scream of panic and pain.
His men did their best to get away from both shapes, but even as they tried to escape, the other horsemen were coming and they, too, changed. While Folsom was busy trying to kill the first nightmare, a pack of equally-unsettling things dropped from their horses, snarling, bleating, screaming, and attacking the members of the Cavalry.
They were none of them the same. Each was a different form of nightmare; some thickset and low to the ground, others long-limbed and far too tall for a human. The horses fled, kicking and screaming up a hellish noise, crushing everything that got in their way as they made as much distance as they could from the hellish things.
The only thing they had in common was that each and every one of the nightmares was, indeed, as white as snow. They were ghostly, horrid things that scared him to the point he thought he’d piss himself.
The thing he’d shot got back up. It wasn’t completely white anymore. There was a lot of blood spilling from the wounds he’d put in it, but that didn’t seem to be enough to stop it. There was no face, just that damnable mouth full of fangs as it screeched and leapt at him.
And then the pale white man he’d been ready to lock in irons pushed past him and fired a shotgun blast into the open mouth of the thing. The barrel was just past Folsom’s face and he felt the detonation as much as he heard it. After that he wasn’t hearing much of anything. His ears seemed too stuffed with cotton to make sense of the words spoken.
Just the same, he understood the gesture when the albino swept him aside and fired the second barrel of his weapon. The thing he shot did not get up again. They were tough, but they were not indestructible.
Crowley was next, moving past him with no sign of a weapon in his hands and that mad grin of his spreading across his face.
His hearing was coming back enough that he heard the words from the smiling man’s mouth. “What are they, Mister Slate?”
The gaunt man shook his head. “No idea, Mister Crowley, but I believe they are connected to whatever is drawing me here.”
One of the things, too thin and too tall and reaching for a private who was screaming and staring down at the stump where his hand had been, turned its attention to the man named Slate and let out a sound like a cat hissing, if that cat was the size of a bear.
Crowley stepped around the gaunt one and blocked the oversized hand that reached for the albino. He struck hard enough that the nearly-skeletal thing reared back in shock. It was almost twice as tall as a man and had a face that was stretched and thin and filled with teeth the size of knives.
“No. I don’t think you want to do that.” Crowley kept smiling.
Folsom shook off his confusion and decided to handle the matter. The revolver kicked when he pulled the trigger and he watched the left half of the thing’s neck explode in a gout of crimson that splashed both of the men.
Slate flinched as the thing screamed and clutched at the wound. That made Folsom feel a little better about his own fear.
Crowley stepped in closer and kicked the spindly leg of the thing with the heel of his boot. Bones snapped and the ghostly white demon fell as surely as if struck by an axe.
Folsom felt something touch his leg, and almost shrieked. He looked down and aimed his Colt at the source of whatever was touching him. It was Song. Half of the Chinaman’s face had been carved into bloody red trenches and his eye was missing. He clutched at Folsom’s pant leg and let out a sound. And then he died.
Folsom shook his head, angrier at the loss of the heathen than he would have ever expected. “That’s enough of this madness!” he roared, and all around him the soldiers stopped their panic, or at least calmed it down. They were soldiers and they were used to combat. What they needed, what they always needed, was someone to lead them. “Kill these damned things!”
To make his point he aimed at the next of the things close enough for him to hit, and fired. The shot went astray and only clipped one overly large ear on the beast. When it looked at him, really looked at him, Folsom knew he’d made a horrible mistake. He’d have apologized if he could have found the words, but it was on him far too quickly. Folsom let out a yelp as clawed fingers ripped into his coat and the beast lifted him into the air, baring impossible teeth and roaring directly into his face.
Folsom aimed his weapon and fired, and nothing at all happened.
He tried again.
Nothing.
“Well, damn.” It was all he could think to say.
The captain was staring at his death, and Crowley was tempted to let it take him. As a boy he’d been a scared, confused little thing. As a man he smacked of too much cocky attitude and too little common sense. Worse, he was actually making himself useful. It was easier to ignore men who were useless and cocky about it.
Still, at the moment there were other considerations, like the damned things chewing their way through a dozen soldiers. They were monsters, yes, but nothing he’d ever seen before. They did not reek of the demons he was used to, and they were not spirits in any sense he was familiar with.
When he’d come to the New World he’d done so to study these exact sorts of creatures. There had been a definite excitement in finding new and interesting beings in a land he had never been to before.
That excitement had not changed. Adding to it was the sheer variety of shapes that these creatures took. They were, he had no doubt, of similar ilk. They had to be.
Even things that ran in packs seldom liked to mingle with different creatures.
That was the part that made him smile.
Crowley saw Lucas Slate grab the thing holding the captain and haul it backward by the scruff of its bullish neck. It let out a yowlp of surprise and so did the Cavalryman. The good news for the captain was that it let go of him. That was also the bad news for Slate. The thing he was holding onto moved like a sack of cats held over a roaring fire. It twisted and whipped its arms in wide arcs and screeched as it turned on Crowley’s companion, and both of them stumbled back and fell.