Damn!
The Wack pounced on his back, bearing them both to the grass, iron fingers closing around his throat, the Commando useless, pinned under his chest.
Damn!
Blade tried to rise, but the crazy on top of him was endowed with the abnormal strength of madness.
“Want the legs!” the Wack babbled.
The legs?
“Legs taste good!” the Wack cackled. “Legs taste good!”
Blade groped for the dagger on his left wrist, finding the handle, drawing the knife from its sheath and sweeping it back and up.
“Uuuurrk!” The Wack, shocked, released the death grip.
Blade shoved upward, dislodging his assailant. He clutched the Commando, whirled, and fired. The crazy flopped and tossed as the bullets ravaged his body.
Definitely time to get the hell out of here!
The next blackened form was already coming at him from the other side of the tree.
Blade pressed the trigger as the Wack swung a tire iron, expecting the chattering blast would decimate the lunatic.
The Commando jammed.
Blade brought the Carbine up, blocking the iron. He brutally jabbed the stock into the Wack’s throat, crushing the windpipe.
“MUH-EET!”
Blade threw caution to the winds and ran, heedless of the risk and the undergrowth impeding his progress. He considered dropping the Commando, but the gun was too valuable to lose. Holding the useless Carbine in his left hand, he drew a Vega with his right.
Something swished through the air and imbedded itself in Blade’s left thigh. He stumbled and went down, intense agony racking his entire leg.
What the…?
Blade probed, his fingers contacting a thin shaft sticking into his thigh.
An arrow! He’d been shot with a damn arrow! The Spirit help him!
The brush around him came alive with soft rustlings and indistinct whisperings.
The Wacks were coming for him!
Blade angrily gripped the shaft with both hands and wrenched the arrow free. Moist blood flowed freely over his thigh.
The nearest shrub parted and someone stepped into view.
Blade grabbed the Vega and fired three times.
Whoever it was fell out of sight.
Blade shuffled forward, determined to escape. There was still a chance he could shake his pursuers. He had to find Geronimo and Joshua! He had to!
“MUH-EET!” came from behind him, the basso bellow of the town crier.
The weeds thinned out, ending in a paved square that once had served as a parking lot for fifty automobiles.
Blade paused, wavering over the peril of exposing himself in the open.
But then what choice did he have? Pressing his left hand on the arrow wound to suppress the flow of blood, he hobbled across the tarmac, the hairs on the back of his neck tingling from a sense of anticipated menace.
Another arrow zinged by his right shoulder.
Blade twisted, catching a glimpse of a form standing near the pavement. The bowman notching another shaft. Blade raised the Vega, carefully sighted, and fired. The boom of the gun and the scream of the Wack were instantaneous.
As Hickok would say, Got ya!
Blade limped on, heading for the far side of the parking lot. There appeared to be dense brush and trees ahead, and if he could reach that cover, he could elude the crazies on his heels.
The pounding of feet on the tarmac behind him reached his ears.
Blade glanced back over his shoulder.
Four Wacks had burst from the weeds, intent on catching him before he could attain the other side.
Blade knew they’d be on him before he could fire twice. This was no time for the gun. He smiled grimly. This situation called for dirty infighting, his specialty. He quickly holstered the Vega and drew his two Bowies, reassured by the feel of the heavy handles in his hands. Let them come!
They did.
The first attacker came at him with an upraised shovel, the tool held over his head. Blade jumped in close, before the Wack could swing, and slashed the Bowie in his right hand across the zany’s left wrist.
The Wack’s left hand dropped to the ground, the man frozen in his tracks, horrified, watching the hand flap for a few seconds as the fingers twitched.
“Clorg!” the crazy shouted, terrified, holding the stump up to his face and gaping as blood spurted in every direction. “Clorg!”
Blade was already in motion, avoiding the first stab of the second assailant, who leaped at him with a knife. A flash of pale flesh revealed Blade’s target, and he buried his left Bowie in the man’s neck. To the hilt.
He fiercely twisted the blade, then yanked the Bowie clear.
The third Wack came in fast and low, diving for Blade’s legs.
Blade cried out as the attacker collided with his injured left leg, and he went down, trying to orient his position in relation to the two Wacks still capable of fighting. He lashed with his right foot and caught the man who’d tackled him in the face, crushing the Wack’s nose.
Where was the fourth one? Blade struggled to rise. There had been one more when…
Chapter Eleven
“Where are the others?”
“Be quiet.”
“But we can’t desert the others!”
“We’ll find them. You’ve got to stay silent, Joshua.”
“It’s so hard for me to think,” Joshua complained, his head reeling.
“You’ve been hurt,” Geronimo stated. “You need rest. I don’t know how bad your injury is.”
Geronimo, supporting Joshua with his brawny left arm, led him deeper into the trees they had discovered on the other end of the wide paved area.
“I don’t think I can stay awake,” Joshua mumbled sleepily.
“Just for a little bit more,” Geronimo urged him.
“I’ll try,” Joshua feebly promised.
Geronimo glanced back, extremely concerned. Blade should have caught up with them by now. Had he been killed or captured? What did the Wacks do with their victims? Bertha had told them the Wacks ate other people. Great Spirit! How disgusting!
“I can’t go on,” Joshua muttered drowsily. “I’m sorry, ’ronimo.”
Joshua passed out.
Geronimo lowered Joshua to the grass. They were in a small space between two large trees. The two trunks would provide some shelter and seclusion. Geronimo flattened and pressed his right ear against the ground.
Footsteps. Coming their way!
Geronimo squatted, holding the Browning. He wasn’t about to leave Joshua. If the Wacks found them, he would go down as a Warrior should.
He gazed at Joshua. Funny. Joshua wasn’t a Warrior, but he’d performed superbly back on University Avenue, despite his pacifist, spiritual convictions.
Someone grunted.
Geronimo tensed, ready.
“Any sign of them?” a voice fifteen yards away asked.
“Nope,” replied another.
“Clorg not be happy,” said a third.
“Clorg will be happy with one we got.”
“Not much food,” complained the second man.
“But is big one.”
“Not much food,” the second man insisted. “Maybe two feeds if that.”
“We find more tonight.”
“Let’s go back.”
“Okay.”
“Say, Miffle?”
“Yes?”
“Seen my finger? I dropped it.”
“Your own fault,” Miffle said. “Should not carry with.”
“Didn’t mean to cut it off,” apologized the Wack. “Was skinning skunk.”
“We knew.”
“Let’s get big man back to Fant.”
All three laughed.
The voices faded.
Geronimo, puzzled, stood. They hadn’t made much sense, but he did gather they had captured a “big man.” Had to be Blade. What should he do now? Stay with Joshua or go aid Blade? His mind whirled. If he stayed here, the Wacks would cart Blade off to wherever they lived and eat him.