Instinct: A Chess Team Adventure - By Jeremy Robinson Page 0,68

contract.

It fueled her.

The men moved through the jungle, using their flashlights to follow King and Pawn’s escape route. But the wet jungle floor made their footing unsure. Queen counted the flashlights. Four. She felt for the weapons she’d taken from the tent.

The ice pick. The hook. The branding iron.

She dropped the ice pick and hook to the jungle floor. The implement of her torture would be her weapon. The dropped items would serve a different purpose.

Queen waited.

The men approached, almost at a run.

Then a flashlight glinted on metal. The men stopped, bent, and inspected the ice pick.

Queen descended.

She brought the branding iron down on the man standing behind the others that were crouching. He didn’t see her coming, and his consciousness barely registered his death. The wet splat of the man’s body hitting sodden soil couldn’t be heard over the torrent of water falling from above.

She rounded on the other three men like a lion, roaring as she dove into them, swinging the brand like a sword, aiming for their foreheads, leaving a brand of her own, in blood. The men were well trained, but her ferocity made them shout and cringe. For a moment she wondered if they thought she was one of the creatures waging war against their camp. She could hear them in the distance, hooting like savages. But before she had time to ask, all three men were dead, bloody star-and-skull brands beaten into their skulls.

Queen collected their flashlights and firearms, hiding them behind the tree. She would collect them later, but the rest of her vengeance would be carried out using only the brand. Leaving the weapons and dead men behind, Queen set out for the camp.

Staying low, she emerged from the jungle into the dull glow of the burning camp. Her blond hair hung around her shoulders, matted with water and blood. The star-and-skull wound on her forehead shone red in contrast to her wet, white skin. She took in the chaos of the camp, looking for her target.

The VPLA fired into the forest at the other end of the camp. Mortars occasionally exploded in and around the camp, claiming more trees than soldiers, but the shouting and rapid gunfire revealed the enemy’s approach. Her chance to strike, perhaps her only chance, was now.

She broke from the jungle and ran past one of the burning tents. As she rounded the tent into the camp proper, she wound up and clubbed a VPLA soldier in the back of the head. He landed facedown in the mud, unmoving. Queen shook a hair-covered chunk of flesh out of the brand and ran across the camp, clubbing soldiers from behind as she moved. They were so distracted by the booming battle being waged between their compatriots and some unseen, but very loud force, they never thought to look behind them. It wasn’t a noble attack, but when the odds are against you, fight dirty. Better to lose face than your head. And she felt no guilt about slaughtering the lot of them. Not after what they’d done to her.

Queen stopped in the center of the camp. Five soldiers lay dead in her wake. Then she saw him. Trung. He stood near the front lines. A brave soldier. Shouting orders, working things out. No doubt defeating his enemy.

Flamethrowers lit up the forest beyond, followed by inhuman shrieks, confirming the turn of events.

Not if I can help it, Queen thought.

She charged, heading straight for Trung. He stood between two men, who repeated his orders to the others fighting in the jungle. The two soldiers would go first, then the major general. She would do him special.

A mortar exploded behind Queen. The shock wave nearly knocked her over, but she remained upright and moving. But Trung had glanced in her direction and saw her coming. He shouted to the men standing next to him. Queen hurled the branding iron, striking one man in the face. As the other brought his weapon up, Queen dove, rolled, and came up with a fistful of mud. She launched the mud into the man’s face and dove left as he fired.

Pockets of mud exploded as the bullets ripped through the earth at Queen’s feet. Leaping up, she shot the heel of her hand into the nose of the muddied soldier, shattering his face and sending bone fragments into his brain, killing him. Blood sprayed from the man’s ruined face and coated Queen’s. She looked for Trung, but the camp was now empty. Gunfire faded in