Instinct: A Chess Team Adventure - By Jeremy Robinson Page 0,82

others. She would have liked to inspect the dead male, but couldn’t risk getting caught again. She followed a diagonal course in the same general direction as the girl. She wouldn’t leave King and Pawn behind. Circling around toward the enemy would give her a chance to follow, but would also confuse those trying to track her. They might not expect her to give chase, especially when even the little girl could have killed her. Surprise had allowed her to kill the larger male. She had to be sure surprise remained on her side.

A loud hooting filled the forest. The others were returning.

Queen caught a glimpse of five large males moving through the trees faster than she could run on land. She ducked behind a fallen palm and watched, afraid to move lest she be heard. The five males’ vocalizations reached a crescendo when they discovered their dead counterpart. If Queen were caught again, they would do much more than knock her out. The inhuman shouts continued as the five pounded down the path, back the way they’d come.

Queen smiled. They might be stronger, faster, and more agile than her, but they weren’t the smartest primates in the jungle. Of course, she had no idea how long they would follow the path before realizing Queen had not taken it. They might not be strategists, but they weren’t exactly dopes, either. They could talk, after all.

Not eager to test their IQs, Queen watched the five males vanish into the jungle, then set out after the others. What had started as a noble mission to save the world from some new bioweapon had descended into a dirty fight for survival. First Delta versus VPLA Death Volunteers. Now man versus beast.

THIRTY-SEVEN

KNIGHT DREAMED OF his mother, calling him in for lunch, and then woke to silence. He had slept through the wailing calls of the Nguoi Rung, through the echoed reports of Rook’s powerful handgun, through the gruesome death suffered by Somi, and lastly, through the shouts issued in Rook’s direction from Red, in plain English. Had he heard any of this he might have not lingered upon waking. And as a result he would not have made the mistake that carried him deeper into the ancient layers built by inhuman hands.

He sat on the bed of bones and rubbed his head. Though his slumber had been sound, his body ached after lying on a bed of knobby limbs. He stretched his back, breathed deep, stretching his battered rib cage. Relief came as a pop in his sternum signified a realignment—of what he couldn’t tell, but he felt better.

In the darkness created by the bone structure, he had a clear view of the space outside. He could see the wall of the cavern, glowing green, and the skeletal structures at its base. The view was just a sliver of the interior, but the cavern’s light was steady. He looked for movement. A shifting shadow. A flicker of light. Anything that would betray the presence of somebody, or something, waiting for him. He slowed his breathing so that he could no longer hear his own breath, and listened.

He saw nothing.

Heard nothing.

Then stood.

His ankle throbbed, sending him back down onto the bone bed, which rattled under the sudden return of weight.

Knight froze, watching and listening again. When no one approached he was even more sure that he was alone. In the quiet cavern his rattling bed would have been like an alarm bell. Or dinner bell.

Leaning over, he took hold of a conjoined radius and ulna that made up a decorative pattern running the length of the bed and yanked them free. He then separated them from each other with a quick pull. Though the bones were solid, the tissue holding them together turned to powder in his hands. Using duct tape kept in his cargo pants he lashed the forearm bones to the sides of his wounded foot and lower leg.

Not exactly a gel cast, Knight thought, but it will have to do.

He stood with a grunt, but the pain was bearable. The makeshift splint would serve its purpose, to help take the weight off the ankle and distribute it to his calf. Limping, he moved to the doorway and took a peek outside. Nothing but the emerald sheen of ancient bones.

He slid silently from the doorway and rounded the side of the building that had provided his refuge. He peeked around the corner and saw a long, straight passage, what could only really be