Mary Ann flexed her hand. It hurt. Then she hunkered down, tucked the rifle butt into her shoulder, and waited.
Chapter 33
THE LAST STAND
Thou hast covered my head in the day of battle.
THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER
The horses were thinking about letting her catch up. Carolyn cursed the stupid animals in her mind; she didn't have breath for more. Thirst was a fire in her throat. Her burning legs were ready to collapse, and her ride receded coyly before her.
The horses stumbled from time to time. She'd have to get those ropes off them if they were to have any chance to live.
They wheeled to the left. She followed.
The stream was a sudden surprise. It was small and pretty and it ran in graceful curves. She hadn't seen it lower down. It might curve south and join the Amazon; it might seep into the water table and disappear. She could hear it bubbling now, and the thirst rose up in her like a grendel.
The horses lined up to drink. They didn't flinch as she joined them. She had swallowed two cupped handfuls before she noticed how dirty the water was. She was downstream, and the horses had fouled the water.
She spat out the grit. Thirst was still there, but she took the time to free the horses from the line of ropes. Do everything slowly and carefully. Fool yourself into being calm. She patted their necks, she called them by name, she walked around and among them and knelt to drink clean water upstream. And saved her life thereby.
When her belly was a cold fullness, she stood and looked back.
Far down toward the edge of storm, a cloud of spray rose from the stream.
Something dark came out of it. Came fast. Charlie had gone for water first, but now he was on speed and coming for the horses. Carolyn stepped back behind a rock that was only hip high. Knelt. She concentrated on arming the harpoon gun. She didn't lift her head until she was armed.
Just her eyes peeped over the rock.
The horses were scattering, all but Shank's Mare. Shank's Mare had gone thirty meters before the thing tore into her. Now she thrashed with blood spraying from her ravaged hind leg—Charlie had developed a habit—and the black streak circled back to bite away half of the horse's head. Shank's Mare convulsed, then collapsed like a bag of old laundry. The grendel hooked her with its tail and dragged her back into the stream.
Carolyn stood up and walked forward. There was no running from a grendel. Charlie was occupied and the time was now.
The horses had hidden her, and then the rock, but now... Charlie must have seen her at once. The grendel came straight at her, pulling the mass of the horse and a mass of water too, moving no faster than a jogger. It realized its problem and stopped to shake the horse free. Carolyn shot it from six meters away.
The harpoon exploded against Charlie's wide face.
The grendel came for Carolyn. It was free of the horse, and it accelerated like the best of motorcycles. Carolyn wouldn't have had time to move even if she'd had the nerve and another weapon. The thing went past her in a wind that twisted her around, and she saw it smash into the hip-high boulder, bounce over it, land tumbling, look about—
Look with what? The blast had torn its face entirely away, leaving cracked red-and-white bone. No eyes, no nose, most of the mouth blown away. A grendel's ears were nearly invisible, but she couldn't believe those weren't gone too.
There was blood in Carolyn's mouth. She had bitten deeply into her lower lip. Blood soaked into her trousers, and a line of pain crossed her leg above the knee: the tail of the thing must have brushed her. She lowered the harpoon gun and felt the pain in her cramped hands. "Stupid," she whispered. "Stupid, Charlie. Pulling a horse! I hope your sisters are that stupid."
Charlie's tail was a blur like the blades on a Skeeter. She charged in a straight line, with no clear target. Only by accident did she intersect the stream. She stopped then, sank underwater, then lifted again. To breathe. The snorkel was gone too.
Carolyn became aware that she was grinning like a grendel.
The rest. Where were they? She couldn't see them; the ground curved strongly, but they must be at least several hundred meters downslope. Three grendels—and two harpoons left. She remembered a line from Dickens and told herself, "I have every confidence that something will turn up."
She knelt to drink again, then set off to join the horses.
The mist was thin now. The sun had burned it away, giving them a warm afternoon.
Thank God. Grendels on speed would move through that heat.
The grendels struggled in knots. Screams of challenge crowded the air.
Chilled the blood. There was war where Mits had dropped the spurting tank of speed soup. A mere seven grendels had rounded that distraction to reach the Skeeter.
They must have been the bright ones. They screamed challenge at each other, circled each other, they took turns butting the cabin walls and the door; but not one had died.
Mits sat in the cargo hold fingering an ax. He watched dents appear in the steel. "I have to admit it's getting to me," he said.
"It's the only entertainment we've got," Stu said. He cracked a window and set his comcard in it with its solid-state memory set to record. "And this is for the National Geographic Society."
"You're nuts," said Mits.
Maybe. But today would see the end of one species. Grendel or man.
This, these final sounds of struggle, would be preserved for posterity.
Someone's posterity.
Too many. Cadmann knelt at the western edge of the veranda. He fired carefully, making each round count. There wouldn't be nearly enough ammunition. Not rifles, not spear guns.
"Wound up," Jerry said beside him.
"In place," Joe Sikes said. "Let her fly." The crossbow bolt flew out, over the lip of the bluff, to shatter a jar of speed extract. Something screamed defiance down there. Jerry grinned like a thief. "Winding," he said.
"Watch it!" Carlos shouted. He fired his spear gun: the grendel had come over the low wall of the veranda. The explosive bolt caught it at the withers and crippled its left side. It began to drag itself toward them. Harry Siep ran up and smashed its head with an ax. The tail lashed out and knocked Harry against the wall.
"Siep?" Joe Sikes yelled.
"Kicking. Stupid but kicking."
For the moment there were no more grendels. "Hang on here a minute,"
Cadmann said. Carlos nodded. Cadmann sprinted across the veranda to the eastern corner where Omar and Rick had set up a machine gun. Five riflemen stood with them.
"Omar. Take the gun over to Carlos and set up there."
"Uh—"
"Over there. By Carlos. Set up there," Cadmann said.
"All right." Rick reached out to lift the gun.
"Not by the barrel," Cadmann said.
"Oh." The barrel wasn't glowing, but it was hot enough to boil water.
Cadmann stood on the wall and used his binoculars to scan the area downstream. Seems strange to do this in a battle. Never to worry about them shooting back.
Grendels all along Amazon Creek. Too many of them. But for every grendel in the water, six more faced them on land. In twos and threes they toppled from the internal heat; in twos and threes they attacked the defenders of the stream, and died or won—and if they won, they became the new defenders. Grendels on speed, grendels cooking themselves from inside, couldn't reach the water because other grendels kept them from it. And none of those presently threatened the house.
But there were attackers enough.
If they could be stopped far enough away—But they couldn't be.
Cadmann touched numbers on his comcard. "Ida. What's your status?"
The dentist's voice was strained. "Maybe five minutes of power in the Skeeter. No more than that."
Five minutes. They'd spread the solar panels, but the sun hadn't come out in time. "Not enough time. Unload the superspeed. Load up the kerosene."