Instinct: A Chess Team Adventure - By Jeremy Robinson Page 0,69
the distance.
The VPLA had fled.
The soldier knocked down by the branding iron grasped her ankle. Queen shouted and kicked him in the throat. The man flopped over like a dying fish, gurgling for breath. She bent down and picked up the branding iron. It wouldn’t go to waste. She clubbed the man’s head once, putting him out of his misery. An act of mercy. More than they would have done for her.
Through the hiss of rain, Queen heard shouts and wet footfalls. She turned back toward the camp and found twenty terrified regular VPA soldiers staring at her. Queen stepped into the clearing, hair in clumps, face coated in blood, branding iron in hand, and seven dead VPLA Death Volunteers lying behind her on the ground bearing bloody brands matching the one on her forehead.
The men lowered their weapons and stepped back, their faces showing a terror that only comes upon seeing the supernatural. To them, Queen appeared as a vengeful spirit. The dead returned in search of reprisal.
They neither ran nor met her hate-filled glare. They simply stepped aside and allowed her to enter the jungle on the other side of the camp. Right now, her anger was directed toward the Death Volunteers. They seemed to understand that much, and wanted to keep it that way.
As Queen walked through the camp, past the VPA soldiers and the dead men, she noticed that one of the men she had killed clung to a backpack. Sara’s backpack. She bent and took it, and an AK-47, from the man’s hand as she walked past. She glanced inside the pack briefly and saw everything, including the blood sample, still secure inside. Quickening her pace, she disappeared into the jungle like the apparition the soldiers believed her to be.
Thirty feet into the jungle, the VPLA camp behind her blossomed bright orange and let out a demon’s roar. Fire had spread despite the heavy rain and reached an ammo depot or fuel tank. Whatever it was, the resulting explosion was massive. A wall of heat washed through the jungle, creating a loud hiss as the falling rain and saturated leaves, trees, and forest floor flashed into steam. Queen fell as the shock wave rushed over her body. Out of range of the heat, she quickly recovered and looked back at the camp. Through a copse of burning trees she saw a crater where the camp had been.
In the wake of the explosion, the jungle fell silent. Both forces were either dead or in hiding.
In the silence, the breaking branch behind her was like a warning klaxon.
She spun around wielding the AK-47. But before she could pull the trigger a strong hand caught the barrel and pointed the weapon up. Queen’s shot ripped through the canopy above and disappeared into the sky, falling back to earth miles away.
It was the only round she got a chance to fire.
THIRTY-ONE
IT FELL FROM above, lashing out with its strong, thick-fingernailed hands, and ripped open a gash in Somi’s right leg. As she shouted in pain and fell, Rook spun and fired three shots, opening a jagged six-inch hole in the creature’s chest.
“What the hell are these things?” Rook shouted as he twisted around, searching for more targets. But the creatures were staying low, out of sight. Rook realized they were smart—smarter than anyone would believe after one look at their ugly mugs. The first to attack from the doorway had been a diversion while the other snuck up from the side. A simple tactic, but it had almost succeeded. Now the others were up to something.
For a moment Bishop wondered if the creatures had found Knight. As hoots and growls echoed around the grotto, bouncing off the walls, emerging from the bone huts, or above them, he realized all of their attention was on him, Rook, and Somi. As long as they were trying to escape, Knight would be safe. But how long they could hold out . . . well, he didn’t want to think about that. He would survive, of that there was little doubt. Short of having his head taken off, his body would regenerate back to full health. But not his mind. It would descend into a madness that might frighten even these creatures. Since death was preferable, he hoped a confrontation could be avoided altogether.
Bishop helped Somi to her feet, listening to the intricate variations of the animal voices sounding out around them. “They’re talking.”
The language was unlike anything any of them had heard