Then he punched the second guard in the temple and jumped on him, knocking him down. His sharpened teeth clamped down and ripped the man’s throat out.
Vargas gestured toward the young warrior. “I want that one alive,” he said.
Two guards left X and Mac to help subdue Felipe. They tackled him to the floor, but he fought on, biting and head-butting. A third soldier finally went over and hit him in the head with his sword hilt.
Rhino remained on top of Isaiah, knowing that he would soon draw his last breath here in this grubby brothel. In trying to ambush Vargas, they had walked right into a trap. All because of the waste of air that now lay trapped and dying under Rhino.
Isaiah’s lungs rattled as they filled with blood. Rhino finally pushed off him and stood. Unsheathing the long blade on his belt, he bent down and sliced his old mentor’s throat from one earlobe to the other.
Isaiah looked up at him, but Rhino didn’t give him the honor of looking into his eyes. He wiped the blade on Isaiah’s robe and turned to Vargas, who finally stood and walked over to Mac and X.
“I’d say you fought bravely,” he said. “But trying to kill a man while he’s fucking is below cowardly.”
Vargas drew his sword and angled the blade at the king’s neck. An arrow stuck out of X’s right arm, and another protruded from under his collarbone.
“I should have killed you when I had the chance,” X growled.
Vargas smiled. His bulging eyes flitted to Rhino. “Since you showed me such respect by trying to kill me with my pants down, I won’t give you the honor of a good death.”
He gave a nod, and two of the men guarding X and Mac moved cautiously toward Rhino, while a third stepped away from Felipe.
Rhino threw off his robe, and the men stopped as if daunted by the sight.
“¡Mátenlo!” Vargas yelled.
The men advanced, and Rhino held up his long knife. Both shoulders throbbed from the arrow wounds despite the adrenaline rushing through his body.
He deflected the first sword blow, but the next two left a long, curving gash across his ribs, and a deep cut to the opposite hip. He staggered backward.
“no!” X yelled. He fought to get up, but the Cazadores clubbed him back down with their spear shafts and kicks to his gut.
Rhino locked eyes with X just before the three soldiers swarmed. They weren’t cautious, however, and moved with haste. He jabbed his knife into the mouth of a man in the act of stabbing Rhino in the belly. The other two men stabbed from the side, finding little resistance.
The man Rhino had killed slumped onto him, and Rhino held on to the corpse as the other two men stabbed again and again. The heat turned to ice.
Pushing the corpse off him, Rhino then grabbed one of the swordsmen by the neck. The other guy jabbed Rhino’s belly again, but before he could pull the sword out, Rhino reached down with his other hand and grabbed the man’s arm and held it.
Rhino crushed the windpipe of the soldier he was holding and dropped him in a heap. He punched the remaining guard in the face, crushing his nose, then dropped to his knees with the sword jutting from his gut and an arrow in his shoulder. He knew that his many wounds were too deep and too many to survive. He would never see his sweet Sofia again. All he could do now was try to save his king and his men.
Only four soldiers remained in the room—easy odds if he weren’t bleeding like a speared Siren.
Vargas gave the nod to finish off Rhino. The first warrior approached uncertainly, eyes wide with fear. He brought his sword up, but before he could deliver the final stroke, Vargas ordered him to stop.
X mumbled something that sounded a lot like “Go fuck yourself.”
The guards, who had stopped beating him, gave him a few more kicks to shut him up.
X still managed to nod at Rhino, and Rhino nodded back.
“I changed my mind,” Vargas said. “I do want to be the one to kill you.”
He walked over and raised his sword in both hands, his crazed eyes looking as if they might pop out of his skull. And then, to Rhino’s astonishment, one did.
Vargas crumpled to the floor as X turned a small pistol on the other guards.
The crack of gunshots filled the room, and one after another, the remaining Cazadores fell. Mac thrust his sword cane into the groin of the last soldier, and Felipe got up and ran over to Rhino.
Blood pooled around his body as the young warrior tried to stop the flow. X and Mac scrambled over to help.
Rhino looked at Vargas’s ruined face and cracked a smile. His eyes went back to X, who could only see out of one eye.
“King Xavier, tell Sofia she will always be my queen,” Rhino said. He slumped to his side, but X caught him under the arm.
“Breathe, General,” X said. “You’re going to be okay; just stay with me, and don’t stop breathing. You’re a beast, man. These are just little flesh wounds.”
Rhino smiled one last time at the man he respected above all others in this world.
“I wish I was immortal like you, King Xavier, but alas, I’m just a man,” Rhino said, his voice growing faint. “I will always serve you. Even in the next life, I will be watching over you while you fulfill the prophecy.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
The assault rifle jammed again when Les tried to fire at a Siren. Cursing, he worked to free the round as more beasts closed in from the sky, buildings, and road.
The predators were drawn to Discovery’s nuclear-powered engines and the noise of the battle raging inside the tunnel.
“Timothy, don’t let up!” Les said over the comms.
The twenty-millimeter Miniguns on the bottom of the airship raked the sky with tracer rounds, catching the beasts as they swooped down for the fresh meat.
There was plenty of it to be had. Team Raptor had evacuated over thirty survivors from outside the bunker. From their frightened faces, most of these people had never been aboveground. A few, however, pitched in to help carry Arlo and Edgar. Both divers were conscious and had their armor back on, but neither was in any condition to fight.
Once they made it out of the tunnels, they had decided to make their stand above the sinkhole. For the past half hour, Les and the uninjured divers had held their ground and waited for an opportunity to board the ship hovering five hundred feet above them.
But they were running low on ammo, and the time for getting these people into the air was running out. Timothy couldn’t bring the ship down without first clearing the landing zone. The sheer numbers of hostiles meant that many of the injured would never make it aboard if they made a run for it, even with help from the others. And the people from the bunker weren’t wearing much protection aside from the gray jumpsuits and plastic filtration masks.
“Sir, we’ve got a mass of hostiles heading your way from the south,” Timothy reported.
“Fire the missiles!” Les yelled back. Giving up trying to free the jammed round, he let the rifle hang over his chest and pulled his pistol to fire at a Siren making a run at them. Three rounds took it down, and it skidded into a mass of vines.
A missile streaked away from the airship, and a loud boom rocked the next block. Following the noise came the alien shrieks of dying Sirens, and the cries from more of their comrades flocking toward the area.
Les went back to working the jammed round free as he scanned for Horn and his skinwalkers. The fiends were still out there, probably watching and waiting to make their move.
But they weren’t the only monsters to worry about. The roar of a bone beast cut through the thunder and the chatter of automatic gunfire.
Les finally managed to free the round and aimed at a Siren swooping toward the airship. He fired a burst into its spine, sending the beast spiraling to earth.