Instinct: A Chess Team Adventure - By Jeremy Robinson Page 0,35
later, he lay still on the path, as dead as Rook had been only minutes before. His attacker stood over him.
Queen.
Faster than anyone had seen, she’d launched her fist into the man’s throat, crushing his windpipe. If he were conscious, he’d be struggling to breathe, but the impact robbed him of any fighting chance he had. He was dead by the time the others reached her.
“Damn, Queen. You put the fear of God in that guy.”
“He wasn’t running from me.”
“Then who?” King asked.
“Or what,” Sara added.
Her lips twitched. “Someone else.”
King didn’t like that answer, but if Queen didn’t know, she didn’t know. “Any more?”
“He was a scout. Got past us before we set up the perimeter. There were three of them. Knight followed the other two.” Queen looked at each of them. “He’s not back yet?”
“Up here.” Knight’s voice came as a whisper. If not for the comm systems they were all wearing, no one would have heard him. They looked up, though no one knew exactly where to look.
Rook found him first. “You sneaky monkey. How the hell did you get up there?”
Knight lay on a hut roof, his legs splayed wide, dispersing his weight over the thatch. Focused on what he saw through the scope of his PSG-1 semiautomatic sniper rifle, he quietly shushed Rook. “Two in the field, coming this way.”
The muzzle of the PSG moved slowly and steadily as Knight adjusted his aim, following the two figures. He couldn’t see the short men in the grass, only their wake as they moved through it. The grass on either side of the men began moving.
“Hold on,” Knight said. “Two more targets . . . make that four. They’re heading for the first two.”
Knight watched as the four new shapes moving through the grass converged on the two scouts. It was like watching lions stalk gazelle—unseen predators. They were only ten feet apart now. Thirty seconds more and they’d meet, just a few yards from the edge of the field. “Take cover. These guys are going to go at it.”
King took Sara by the shoulder and started pulling her away. But as he did, she got a whiff of something pungent. A mix of urine and feces, as foul as the rancid smell of death all around them, but totally different. It smelled . . . wild.
She shook free of King’s grasp and ran to the man that Queen had killed.
“Damnit, Pawn. Get your ass back here.” He charged after her.
Sara knelt next to the man and rolled him over. She jumped away upon seeing his back. The man had been half dead when Queen got to him. Four bloody tears in the man’s shirt revealed matching half-inch-deep lacerations.
King stopped before launching himself on top of Pawn. He saw the man’s back.
Sara looked up at him. “Whatever killed everyone in this village is still here.”
“King, get down.” It was Knight. A whispered warning. King jumped on top of Sara, pinning her to the ground, shielding her, and the vial of blood in her backpack, with his body.
The tall grass at the edge of the field burst with a fury of motion. Knight’s four new targets had just engaged the two remaining scouts. Grass danced madly as the sounds of battle filtered through—fists pounding bodies, tearing flesh, breaking bones.
The two men had been attacked and killed so quickly that neither had had time to run, fight, or even scream. King fought the urge to shudder. He’d never seen anything like it. Not that he saw anything. The clear mental image created by the sounds told him everything he needed to know.
A body fell half out of the grass. The man’s black scarf covered what little of his face remained. The rest looked like it’d been gouged out by a jagged-edged ice-cream scoop. The body was yanked back into the grass and a new sound emerged.
Chewing.
“Knight, what do you see?”
“A lot of bloody grass,” Knight replied. “Wait. Something brown is . . . shit!” King looked up at Knight and saw him duck as a detached arm flew over his head.
His quick movement shifted his weight on the roof and the thatch gave way. He fell through and landed on the hut floor.
Rook ran to the hut, his FN SCAR-L assault rifle at the ready. He squatted next to one of the hut’s stilts and covered the area. “Knight?” he whispered.
Knight grunted and slid himself to the hut’s entrance. “Here.” His ribs throbbed, probably bruised, but he wouldn’t complain. He