Demonworld (51 page)

“
Surprise, bitches!” Brad screamed, and both groups fired into one another simultaneously.

With deadly precision Wallach aimed his revolver and blasted one primitive in the face, killing him instantly. Without pause he leveled his revolver at Brad, then their horses panicked as bullets tore into their necks and chests; Wallach ended up fighting his mount as it spun about wildly. Brad managed to fire two shots from his shotgun, then a hail of buckshot tore into the side of his face. He stumbled, then gunfire blasted his knee, crippling him. A dead man fell on top of him. As he fought to free himself, he saw horses and riders crash into one another and slide away from view, cursing and blasting anything in sight. The last rider regained control of his mount, saw that he was alone, then turned and followed his brothers back down the side.

Brad felt hands pulling him away from the dead man on top of him. His eyes were covered in blood, but he could dimly make out the man with the Mohawk – the one Wodan had saved from drowning. The man pulled Brad back to their hidden niche, then fell beside him.

Brad cleaned his remaining eye, then felt an awful wave of pain wash through him.

“
We didn’t do so well,” said Mohawk, crying.

“
They won’t be so quick!” said Brad, choking on each breath. “They won’t be so quick to come up that way again!”

Wallach dragged himself away from the horses and the man that had fallen into him. His own horse rose painfully, ready to serve again. “Thanks a lot,” said Wallach. He laid his revolver against the horse’s head, fired into it, and the animal dropped instantly. One horse bearing a dead man scampered nearby, and Wallach jerked a shotgun from the dead man’s clenched hands. He slapped the horse and it continued further up the pass with its ghostly burden.

“
We do it without horses this time,” said Wallach. Three surviving Ugly nodded to him, visibly shaken. “No need for embarrassment,” he said gruffly. “Let’s just get some heads for Barkus. Remember, it’s the winners who get to say what went down. None of...
this
... ever happened.”

He led them back up the steep ledge, ignoring the pain in his knuckles and knees that disagreed with his statement.

* * *

Spears of lightning flew and stabbed into the black mountains, shrieking and bellowing. Rain turned to razors in the killing wind, howling like the gates of a hateful world thrown wide open. Black, white, black, white, over and over flashed the heavens, all reason rent asunder, pure savagery laid bare, the world burning and drowning all at once.

Wodan, Rachek, Maxil, and four others climbed and ran up the slick paths of the mountain. They did not rest. Tall boulders jutted into the air, concealing them from their killers but also hiding any true path of safety from them. The paths were winding, and often they found they had doubled back and risked their lives to reach a place they had already passed. Sometimes hollow laughter followed them, laughter from a scarred mouth, and they ran harder.

Wodan held Maxil’s hand to help him keep up and to comfort him against the black world of fear they ran through. They came to a high place. The sky was black and stretched as far up as down. They knelt and rested without thinking, crouching like animals.

They heard thunder – then bullets. Gunfire smacked into the narrow platform that held them aloft. Hollow laughter rang out. In a flash of lightning, Wodan saw them: Barkus, clothed in black and sopping wet, laughing maniacally, firing with both arms, with three Ugly devils firing at his sides. The seven scattered. A woman covered Maxil, but took a bullet at the base of her skull. She fell over the edge. Maxil, moved to grab her – then teetered over the edge and fell. Wodan and Rachek screamed, ran to the edge, and saw the boy clinging to a slender crevice. His face was so small, so deathly pale in all that darkness. Stone came loose under his grip. He slid down, down, down into the hungry black. He disappeared in the darkness. There was a sharp crack and Rachek buckled. Wodan grabbed her, then someone pulled them behind an overhanging stone. The terrible laughter went on, and on, and on.

They crouched under the lee of a flat boulder, where the rain did not fall but ran in thick torrents at their feet. Rachek fell. Wodan gripped her leg. Hot blood gushed between his fingers. Tears burned behind his face.

“
Max,” she cried softly, “Ma-a-ax.”

The fear rushing through them turned into cold dread. “We’re going to die,” someone said. “We’re really going to die.”

“
Rachek,” said Wodan, bitterly, “this is all my fault. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

She looked at him, then her eyes lost focus and grew dim. The blood would not stop. She tried to touch his face, but could not. “Don’t cry,” she said quietly. “I thought it would work, too.”

Wodan lowered his face. He could not look at the light dying in her.

“
It was beautiful, Wodi,” she said. “It was wonderful.”

The storm lulled for one moment. They heard heavy footfalls. Near, very near. The storm grew again.

Wodan raised his head. He looked at all of his friends. He knew that they were trapped in a nightmare, and he knew that he was the one who’d brought them there. The horror of that idea was inconceivable to him. He knew that there was only one thing he could do to prevent it from happening.

“
I won’t let this happen to you,” he said. “I’m going to draw them away, higher up the mountain. Barkus wants me. Take Rachek and get back down the mountain. Find a checkpoint. Find the Guardians. Save yourselves.”

Wodan nodded to one of them, a strong man who took Rachek’s leg and held it tightly. Another grabbed her underneath her shoulders and prepared to carry her. Wodan rose. He squeezed Rachek’s blood between his fingers.

“
I’ll make sure my promises about a better place come true for you,” said Wodan. “Even if they don’t come true for me.”

They were too numb to protest. Quietly he left them and went into the storm.

* * *

Wodan walked slowly through the storm. He scrambled over a steep ravine. He climbed a sharp rise. He reached a tilted land where the rain hit full on, splashing off sharp boulders and running in a thick sheet that soaked his boots. He stood and waited. He had long since lost his rifle, but he was armed with Rachek’s heavy revolver, the grip still warm from her hand. He rolled a handful of bullets in his palm, killing time until he could be sure that his friends had fled the area. Finally he raised the gun and fired it into the air.

“
Barkus!” he screamed, firing again and again. “Ba-a-a-ar-ku-u-u-us, you son of a bitch! I’m over here! Come and find me, Barkus!” He screamed into the wind until his throat was raw, firing until his hand was numb. When he was down to his last six bullets, he loaded them into the revolver and waited.

Then he heard it. The laughter. It had found him.

* * *

“
It’s a trap,” said one of the Ugly.

“
So?” said Barkus. He stood tall, out in the open where the wind lashed at him. He ignored the pain of the cold water beating into him. The other three crouched under a rock.

“
I don’t wanna walk into some trap,” said another. “He’s clever. That’s how a little pussy like him gets by.”

“
You fools,” said Barkus, without turning. “Don’t you know that we can’t lose? Don’t you know that we have a devil watching over us?”

The others were silent.

“
We have the eyes of the gods watching over us, you pups!” said Barkus, grinding his teeth. “That boy’s death is guaranteed! We are marked for victory!”

“
Knew it!
” said an Ugly, peering through binoculars. The others moved to see. “Barkus, I just saw a bunch of ’em movin’ back down the mountain. That boy’s tryin’ to draw us away from the others.”

The Ugly glanced at one another, then one said, “If he’s guaranteed to die, like you say, then we should pick off the others first, right? I mean, they goin’ back down the mountain. We can hit them now, then go after the boy last, since he’s, you know, doomed or whatever.”

Barkus shook his head in pure frustration. “You shits don’t get it at all!” he said.

“
But, Barkus -”

“
Go and run, then!” said Barkus, turning on him, staring him down. “Kill those others, run home, kill yourselves, do whatever you want, I don’t care!”

Wodan’s voice rode the storm. Lightning flashed and lit the hollows of Barkus’s face.

“
As for me,” said Barkus, “I’m going to kill that boy. I don’t need any of your help. Your doubt is an affront to the gods. My soul belongs to something greater than you can possibly understand.”

His personal guard, armed with a shotgun, rose and said, “I’ll go with you, lord. You know I’d follow you to Hell.”

Barkus spat near the others, reloaded his handguns carefully, then stalked away with his servant. The other two shrugged, then went to find Wallach so they could continue the hunt.

* * *

Wodan screamed once more, then instinct licked at the back of his neck and he knew that his killers were coming. He ran among the tall boulders, crouched, and listened. He could hear nothing through the din of the storm. He moved deeper among the stones.

He caught movement from his peripheral vision, something like a cape flying. He turned quickly, fell, and aimed his gun at emptiness. Lightning flared. Nothing. He rose painfully and stalked among the stones, peering quickly around corners. He stroked the gun.

Relax
, he thought, gathering his resolve.
I don’t even have to accomplish anything. I’ve probably already bought enough time for the others to escape
.

He licked his lips, blinked rain from his eyes.

“
Barkus!” he shouted suddenly. “You out there? You hear me, Barkus? I’m not afraid of you!”

He heard laughter in the darkness, so near that his blood clotted around icicles of fear. In another direction he heard feet splashing heavily through the water. He rose and ran, crouching beneath the boulders, trying to get away from the footsteps but nearer to the laughter.

He rounded a wall of jagged rock, then turned with the idea of doubling-back, thinking that it might confuse the killers. Suddenly the rock nearby exploded, shrieking and sparking, as bullets landed inches from his face. He stalled, then ran, leaped, grabbed the top of the wall, and flung himself over the side just as Barkus emptied both barrels into the stone wall. He could feel the impacts from the other side. His chest hurt so bad from his heart pounding that he had to feel himself to be sure he hadn’t been shot. He forced himself to breathe, then slogged through the water to run further along the wall. He could hear Barkus tearing through the water, then stop where Wodan had hidden only a moment before.

Wodan hugged the wall, wondering when an Ugly would come around either side. He started to move, but picking his feet up was so loud that…

“
I can hear you, boy,” said Barkus, on the other side of the stone wall. “I know you’re there.”

Wodan planted his feet and leaned his back against the natural wall. He knew that Barkus was most likely doing the same thing on the other side.

“
How does it feel?” said Barkus. “How does it feel to be hunted?”

“
Hunted?” said Wodan. “People don’t usually go out on a hunt with two dozen of their friends and then come home with a couple of bloody survivors. This was a battle, Barkus. We threatened your overblown, fragile ego.”

“
Ego!” Barkus shouted. “You should talk, Your Majesty! I could just look at you and see that you thought you were God’s gift to the world. You need to be humbled. And so you will, when you’re bleeding out from a gut-shot. Any regrets, little prince?”

“
I just wish I’d been stronger,” said Wodan.

“
Hey, don’t get down on yourself now!” said Barkus, laughing. “You didn’t do so bad. Got me running halfway across the world just to see you dead, didn’t you?”

“
No, you don’t understand. You’ve got some potential, Barkus. You’re a natural leader. You’re just sick, rotten to the core. If I’d been stronger, I could have changed you. Taught you what it takes to be a human being. We could have fought demons together. But I’m too weak to change you. The only option I have is to kill you.”

Wodan felt power course through him as he made the decision to let go of his fear, move his feet, and kill Barkus. He turned to move – then saw a large Ugly raider standing before him, a shotgun aimed at his heart.