Maelstrom (7 page)

“How come you know so much about ’em, then?” Stites’s tone was skeptical.

The Hunter considered before making his reply. “With you magic weapons, maybe you not fear ‘super lizard,’ as you call him, but to slay even one with this”—he motioned with the crossbow—“I learn as much as I can about him. Also, even while I hunt other beasts, he always hunt me. I survive him long time, so maybe I learn much.” He grinned hugely at Stites’s expression. “Enough? We see.”

“Then what brings you along?” Bradford inquired, visibly perplexed. “We cannot pay you.”

The Hunter blinked pragmatically before turning back to the trail. “If he gone, this place be safer hunting for short time. Maybe long time. The Great Nakja-Mur reward me for meat I bring. . . .”

“Oh.”

For the rest of the morning they crept carefully along, the Hunter in the lead, sometimes on all fours, tail twitching tensely behind him. Occasionally he paused, studying the ground disturbance in the dense carpet of decaying leaves and brush. Sometimes he motioned them to silence and listened, perfectly still, often for a considerable time. Silva grew certain that the ’Cat was using his nose as much as his ears. Ultimately, almost reluctantly it seemed, he’d move on. During one such respite, he gathered the eight others around him and spoke in a whisper that seemed almost a shout. Strangely, for once there were no raucous cries or any of the other sounds they’d grown accustomed to. Their quarry had passed recently indeed.

“We close,” he hissed. “He pass this way soon ago. He know we come; he search for place to spring trap.” The others, even Dennis, looked nervously around. “No, not here. He need more space. Maybe be clearing close ahead. He be there.”

The jungle slowly came back to life, and even at their careful pace, the expected clearing soon appeared. It was much bigger than they’d expected, perhaps a hundred yards wide and longer than they could tell from where they stood. Blackened stumps, and new, fresh leaves testified to a recent lightning fire. They squinted for a moment in the dazzling sunlight, accustomed to the gloom of the trail, but the sun soon passed behind a cloud. The midafternoon showers—so common this time of year—awaited only the inevitable buildup. A dull, distant grumble of thunder echoed in the clearing. Silva unslung the BAR and raised it to the ready.

“No,” pronounced the Hunter. “He not be so near opening. As I say, he want get us all. That need more room, I think. We go down main trail through burn. Where trail pass near jungle on either side, that where he strike.”

“Are you suggesting he’ll employ a
strategy
?” questioned Bradford, amazed.

“You ask, ‘he plan this?’ I let you judge. Super lizard is greatest hunter on all Borno. He not stupid.” He looked meaningfully at Silva’s BAR. “I not stupid. You magic weapons kill him easy? Kill him fast?” Silva nodded confidently, although deep down, he was less sure than before.

“But I must see him alive!” Bradford insisted. “I must see him move! Really, I didn’t come all this way solely to view a dead allosaur!” He turned to Silva. “I know you mean to kill this magnificent beast, and I understand your motive, but I insist you allow me to have as close a look as possible!”

The Hunter strode into the clearing with a strange chuckle. “You see alive, you see move, you see close. Hope you not see
too
close.”

Tentatively, in single file, the others followed him. Silva walked behind the naked ’Cat, and Stites, armed with a Springfield, brought up the rear. All the others, including Bradford, carried one of the Krag-Jorgensens they’d discovered in crates in
Walker
’s armory. They were fine rifles, probably commissioned with the ship, but weren’t quite as powerful as the .30-06s carried by the two gunner’s mates. Their heavier bullets and slightly lower velocity might provide better penetration against something the size of a super lizard, however. None of the massive creatures had ever faced such formidably armed prey in all of history. That was the hope, at least, for all the comfort it gave them.

Two hundred yards into the opening, the Hunter paused. “You see him, you shoot very fast?” he asked Silva. Truthfully, Dennis nodded. The BAR was a handful for most men, but he was less encumbered by it than Stites was with his ’03. Certainly less than the shorter Lemurians were with their Krags. “Then stay here short time. I walk ahead. Tempt him with me.”

“What you want me to do?”

“You know when time comes. Just no hesitate for Braad-furd, or I be ‘turd’ like your friend.” Whistling a strange tune through his missing teeth, the Hunter stepped forward and continued walking, apparently unconcerned, as the trail neared the edge of the trees.

As he drew closer, even those behind thought they heard a new sound in the denseness around them. The cries of the lizard birds and grunting shrieks of the ground dwellers had largely returned. They even heard the distant bellowing squeal of a rhino-pig echo in the burn, but there was something else, indefinable—perhaps an anxious breath. The Hunter stopped about sixty yards ahead. He still whistled, but the tune had become monotonous. He appeared as casual as before, but his long tail swished rapidly, tensely, agitated. He was looking at the ground. For an instant his gaze swept across the jungle to his left; then he stooped and collected some stones. Abruptly shattering the natural quiet, he began a shrill, frightened barking sound, hopping to and fro. Whipping his arm forward like a sling, he flung his first stone into the trees. The only response was an indignant grunt, but the breathing came quicker, more defined. More barking and a second stone invited a deep, rasping inrush of air. Even before the third stone flew, the jungle erupted with a heavy, gurgling moan, and several substantial trees fell like grass blades.

Silva had been keenly staring at the jungle, BAR at his shoulder, but when the massive head rocketed from the darkness amid a cloud of leaves, branches, and fleeing lizard birds, he hesitated for an instant, despite his promise. The head appeared almost twice as high as he’d expected, and by the time he acquired the target, it was already descending, murderous jaws agape, toward the Hunter on the trail.

No one else fired either. Not even the other ’Cats had ever actually
seen
a super lizard before. Silva knew the Mice had—perhaps this very one—and they’d both emptied their rifles into it before it simply stalked off. But nothing, certainly not their surly, monosyllabic description of the thing, could have prepared them for what they saw. Bradford only gasped in astonishment. Two great, rapid strides brought the thing completely in view, and it had to be fifty feet from nose to tail. Unlike many other creatures they’d seen, including the Grik, no fur or feathers of any kind adorned its hide. The skin was coarse, wrinkled like an elephant’s, but blotched and streaked with a wild variety of dull colors. Even fully exposed, it was almost perfectly camouflaged against the dense jungle beyond. Only the sun, peeking from behind the clouds at a providential moment, showed them more than a rippling blur as it stooped to seize the Hunter with six-foot jaws lined with improbably long, sickle-shaped teeth.

Fortunately, with the agility of the cat he so closely resembled, the Hunter somersaulted out of the way, but he hit the ground hard and it was clear another step would pin him beneath the creature’s terrible claws.

“Great God a’mighty!” Silva chirped, squeezing the trigger. A mighty
BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM
filled the clearing. Possibly, in his haste and surprise, the first few shots went wild. But Dennis was an excellent shot, and the familiar recoil of the heavy weapon pounding his shoulder steadied him. His training and experience took over. In a businesslike fashion, he confidently emptied his first magazine into the beast. Even before he snatched another to replace it, other shots sounded.

Silva didn’t know how he expected the monster to react to the fusillade; a stately collapse would have been nice. Even a dramatic tumble and a long, flailing, writhing death would have been fine with him. What he didn’t expect it to do, after absorbing most of a magazine from his BAR and numerous shots from his companions, was turn in their direction. The Hunter forgotten, it produced an ear-numbing roar and charged, its long-legged pace making it shockingly swift.

“Shit!”

Magazine in place, Silva racked the bolt and hosed the creature as it came. He knew he was hitting it, but the bullets appeared to have no effect. Way too soon, he burned through all twenty rounds and the bolt locked back. He turned to run, while groping at another magazine pouch, and saw that everyone else except Courtney Bradford had already fled. Even Stites. Bradford still stood, rifle hanging slack and apparently unfired, gaping at the charging beast.

“C’mon, you crazy son of a bitch!” Silva screamed. He tugged at the Australian’s arm, and the two of them ran for their lives. They raced across the clearing, back to the trail through the jungle, gasping in the sodden air and at the unexpected, unaccustomed exertion. Silva reasoned that his shots must have had some effect or the super lizard would have caught them already, but even the confined space of the trail provided little impediment. The creature only lowered its head and surged after them, crashing through the brush and shattering trees. They gained a little, though, and Dennis managed to insert another clip and blast at the thing’s head periodically as it came for them, gnashing and snapping through the undergrowth like some insanely huge crocodile.

“This close enough for you, Courtney?” Silva rasped.

They could see only a short distance ahead, but after only a few minutes of running as fast as they could, the trail that earlier took them over an hour to cautiously follow widened as they neared the pipeline cut. Bradford was spent, gasping, coughing, staggering as Silva pushed him along. He couldn’t go much farther, and Dennis couldn’t leave him. If the goofy naturalist got himself killed on this trip, Silva knew he might as well hang himself. After all the fighting, there weren’t many destroyermen left. He was more than average valuable, but compared to Bradford . . . He emptied his gun at the ravening jaws yet again.

They burst into the cut, and Silva was surprised to see a skirmish line of riflemen. Stites had somehow managed to stop the fleeing ’Cats, and he’d gathered the rest of the returning guards. Now a dozen armed ’Cats waited with the other man. Bradford collapsed when he saw them, and Silva managed to drag him aside before inserting another clip—his last—into the BAR.

“I thought you were dead!” Stites shouted.

“I thought you were yellow!” Silva growled in reply. Just then, shaking shattered brush from his back and roaring with a mindless, deafening frenzy, the super lizard appeared.

It was hurt after all. One eye had been churned to goo and dangled loosely from a shattered socket. A long, three-fingered “arm” seemed useless, and even some teeth were splintered or gone. Blood streamed from dozens of wounds, but it was still on its feet when it saw the new prey arrayed before it. He lunged forward once again.

“Open fire!” Silva yelled breathlessly.

A ragged volley erupted, sounding dully anemic in the humid air. For the first time the great lizard screeched in pain and staggered under the simultaneous impact of more than a dozen high-velocity projectiles. Silva continued firing short, three-shot bursts, while the others worked their bolts. Focusing on Dennis as a continued source of noise and irritation, the creature roared and swerved drunkenly toward him. Silva retreated, but didn’t run—even though less than three full strides would see him devoured. The other side of the cut was at his back, and he had nowhere to go. Besides, this monster was Tony’s killer. He was finished running. He’d kill it or die trying. He continued firing, but with much more care, aiming at the roof of its open mouth. Its brain must be in there somewhere. A single pace away, the super lizard stopped and shook its head, apparently disoriented. Great gobbets of congealing blood rained all around.

“Just
die
, you son of a
goat
!” Silva bellowed, and emptied his rifle down its throat. The bolt locked open with an audible
clack!
Out of ammunition, he simply pitched the rifle aside and drew the long cutlass, pattern of 1918, from his belt.

“C’mon,” he breathed, planting his feet a little farther apart and raising the point of the cutlass. Vaguely noticing him once more, the massive beast took a tentative step in his direction.

“Fire!” came Stites’s excited cry, and another volley, more carefully aimed than the first, slammed into the massive head.

For an instant nothing happened, and the air in the cut was filled with a gray, wispy cloud from the “smokeless” powder cartridges. Then, ever so slowly, but with increasing speed, Silva got his “stately collapse.” It almost fell on top of him. The earth shuddered as the monster toppled lifelessly to the ground amid the sharp crackle of its own breaking bones. The riddled head struck less than six feet from where Dennis stood, and he was festooned with a splatter of gore and snot.

Silva almost fell to his knees, but somehow managed to keep his feet. Angrily slamming the cutlass back in its scabbard—to hide his shaking hands—he whirled and faced a grinning Paul Stites, as the gunner’s mate rushed to him.

“What the hell’d you do that for?” he yelled, his voice filled with indignant wrath. “Goddamn it, I was just gettin’ to the good part! What’s the matter with you?” Yanking his cutlass back out, he stomped over to the head until he stared down at its remaining, unblinking eye. The thing seemed dead, but its abdomen still heaved weakly, and bloody bubbles oozed from its nostrils. He touched the eye with the sharp tip of his blade, pushing until the orb popped and a viscous fluid welled forth. The creature didn’t stir.

“That’s for chasin’ us all over kingdom come and scarin’ these poor cat-monkeys half to death,” he said. Then he drove the blade deeper, feeling with the point. Finally he shoved it in almost to the hilt, and the ragged breathing abruptly stopped.

“That’s for Tony Scott,” he muttered darkly. “That’s for killin’ my friend.”