Jazz nodded his agreement, said, 'It's time we got on down. I've still got a spot of weapon-training to do. And after that… I want you very much. That's assuming I can still manage it, of course.' He grinned — but only for a moment.
Wolf, who had been still and silent for some time, began to growl low and throatily. His ears twitched nervously, went flat to his head.
'What — ?' Zek stiffened, looked startled; and for the first time Jazz noticed how quiet it had gone, and the thickness of the mist where it rolled down from the mountains. Zek clutched at him, her eyes suddenly flown wide.
'What is it?' he husked.
'Jazz,' she whispered. 'Oh, Jazz!' She half-closed her eyes, put a slim hand to her forehead. Thoughts…' she said.
'Whose thoughts?' Gooseflesh rose on his spine, his forearms.
' Theirs.r
Panicked shouts came echoing up to them; shockingly, an explosion tore the night: one of Jazz's grenades, left with Lardis. A weird, bestial roaring commenced: a primal sound. 'What the hell — ?' Jazz lifted Zek down from their niche in the rock, turned from her to begin making the descent.
'No, Jazz!' she cried, then clapped a hand to her mouth. And: 'Oh, be quiet.,'' she whispered. More explosions followed, hideous screaming, then shouting in blunt, commanding tones. Following which all was a tumult of sounds — battle sounds, and desperate!
'They were waiting for us!' Zek hissed. 'Shaithis, his lieutenants, a warrior, hidden away in the deepest recesses of the rock. And there are other warriors out here!'
Something huge launched itself from a position higher than their own. It throbbed in the thin mist that curled over the treetops, a dark shape speeding down the sky, trailing appendages which tore through the higher branches of the trees almost directly overhead. It, too, began to roar.
Jazz took his SMG from behind his back, automatically loaded up. 'We have to help,' he said. 'No, I have to help. You stay here.'
'Don't you understand?' she clutched at him, stopped him before he could get started. 'It's all over! You can't help. That was a warrior, one of several. If you had a tank and crew you still couldn't help!'
As she spoke there came a last, booming explosion and dull orange fire blazed momentarily through the screen of trees and mist. There sounded a fresh bout of screaming: human screaming, nerve-shattering, from many terrified throats. Then through a barrage of lesser shouts and yelps, Shaithis's booming voice, reaching up through drifting cordite-stink and mist:
'Find them! Find Lardis and the hell-landers! As for the rest: destroy them all! But don't let the warriors glut themselves. I have been hurt, and now I take my vengeance. Now it is my turn to inflict pain! Now find the ones I want, and bring them to me!'
'So much for Lardis's defences,' Jazz groaned.
'He was ambushed,' Zek sobbed. 'His people didn't stand a chance. Come on, we have to get out of here.'
Torn two ways, Jazz ground his teeth, turned his head this way and that. 'Please, Jazz!' Zek dragged at him. 'We have to save our own lives — if we can.'
They couldn't go down, so they started up. But -
Before they could take more than two paces there came a hoarse panting from below, a scrabbling amidst the shrubbery. White-faced, Jazz and Zek shrank back into the shadow of the rock, stared at each other. A figure came reeling up through the trees, clawing at the base of the rock, thrusting itself from bole to bole. In Zek's ear, Jazz whispered: 'A Traveller?'
Her face strained in concentration. The panting was louder, frightened, almost a sobbing. Jazz thought: it has to be a Traveller. He let the stumbling figure come closer, reached out from cover and grabbed him. At the same time he heard Zek's hiss of warning:
'No, Jazz! It's — '
Karl Vyotsky!
Vyotsky, seizing his one chance to make a break for it — or perhaps simply fleeing from the horror of what was happening below.
The two men recognized each other in the same moment. Their eyes bulged. Vyotsky's mouth flew open in a gasp of complete astonishment; he started to bring up his gun, drew breath for a mighty shout — which went unuttered. Jazz clubbed him in the throat with the butt of his SMG, tried to kick him and missed, slammed a blow to his face. Vyotsky's head rocked on his shoulders; he went crashing backwards, off-balance, probably unconscious, into brambles and mist-damp shrubbery. The ground mist rolled over him as he went sliding out of sight.
Jazz and Zek listened with bated breath, their hearts pounding. They heard only the hoarse, unending screams from below, a gigantic snuffling and bellowing, loud crunching sounds. And in another moment they started in again to climb.
They forced aching muscles to the limits of effort, drew level with the dome of the rock and climbed above it, ran waist-deep through clinging mist and tearing undergrowth where the ground levelled out a little. Then they were climbing again, still not daring to pant too loudly, hearts and lungs straining as they forced weary legs to pump and tired arms to drag them through the foliage. But the sounds from below were gradually fading, and trees and mist both were thinning out.
'A vampire mist,' Zek gasped. 'They cause it to happen. Don't ask me how. I should have known, should have heard them in my head. But they knew about me and were shielding themselves. Wolf knew, I think. Oh! — where is he?'
She needn't have worried; the animal hounded her heels like a faithful dog. 'Save your breath,' Jazz growled. 'Climb!'
'But I might have heard them, might have given a warning if I wasn't so tired. And if- '
'If your mind hadn't been on other things? You're only human, Zek. Don't blame yourself. Or if you must blame someone, blame me.' Jazz dragged her up onto a shale-covered ledge in a slippery rock-face. They had come through the tree-line to the cliffs, the feet of the very mountains themselves. Clear of the mist, they could see a fading orange glow far to the south. It was the sun, and it was down. Sundown, and nowhere was safe now. But at least in the clean light of the stars they could see where they were going.
The ledge was wide but sloped outwards a little; it ran crookedly, steeply upwards. Echoing cries still rang from far below where the mist boiled as before; fewer screams now, mainly the signal calls of monstrous searchers and the answers of their fellows. Then -
Zek gave a massive start, drew air in a plainly audible gasp of terror. 'Vyotsky — he's coming!' she said. 'He's following us — and Shaithis himself is not far behind him!'
'Keep still!' Jazz grabbed her. 'Shhh!'
They listened, watched. Down below at the edge of the tree-line, the mist parted and Vyotsky came into view. He looked left and right but not up, started toward the base of the cliffs. Perhaps he thought they'd skirted the cliffs, and maybe they should have. But at least on the ledge no one was going to surprise them.
Jazz aimed his SMG, scowled and lowered it. 'Can't be sure of hitting him!' he whispered. 'These things are for close-quarters fighting — street fighting. Also, the shot would be heard.'
Again the mists parted and the awesome cloaked figure of Shaithis flowed out of them. He looked neither left nor right but inclined his head back to stare directly at the fugitives. His eyes glowed like small fires under the stars.
'There they are!' the vampire Lord shouted, pointed. 'On the ledge, under the cliff. Get after them, Karl. And if you'd be my man, don't let me down…'
As Shaithis glided forward, Vyotsky passed out of sight into the angles of the cliff face. Jazz and Zek heard shale sliding, Vyotsky's surprised yelp and his cursing. He was on the ledge and had discovered how slippery it was.