dropped it took him out of my line of sight. After that, I never picked him up again. He must've moved like a shadow! But the wind was behind him, and Rapput wasn't the sort to fail to cash in on little mistakes like that. Li had said human troops were always unpleasantly surprised at the Artemu's natural night-fighting ability, and I can only suppose poor Murphy was equally shocked. One instant I couldn't see anything but the entrance to the cave, then the next there was a blur and scream. Two screams, really. One human, and the other something . . .
. . . alien.
"Murphy?" the officer demanded after a long, long silence. "Sing out, Murphy! We can't see you!"
Then something round and dark came sailing through the air toward me. I flinched away, but needn't have. The projectile rolled gently to a halt at the officer's feet.
It was Murphy's head.
At first I was as shocked as anyone—my jaw dangled as if by a thread, and I felt my eyes bugging wide. Then my mind began operating again, and I lowered my head back to the ground so my relatively clean face wouldn't reveal me. All life is a battle, I heard Rapput's voice say, and everything is a potential weapon with which to gain advantage.
"I . . ." the officer tried to say, his voice laden with revulsion and terror and worst of all indecision, "I don’t . . ."
"Fire!" a new voice declared, this one tinged with rage as counterproductive as the officer's terror had been. "Fire, fire, fire! Kill them all!"
Then the peaceful mountain night was well and truly shattered. An ear-splitting volley of mixed full-auto military and heavy magnum-class hunting rifles erupted into the night, belching flame and superheated metal. Even one high-powered hunting rifle was normally enough to turn my ears inside-out; now a whole slew of them were blasting away as quickly as their bolts and levers and whatever could be worked. With the military rifles going all-out as well, I wanted to make my hands into claws and dig into the ground like an animal to hide from the painful racket and hug myself into a ball until the pain was gone and sanity returned to the world.
But I didn't. Instead I lifted my short shotgun, lined it up on the officer's back, and pulled the trigger.
I hardly heard the thing among all the noise, but the kick! Oh heavens almighty, the kick! Fire erupted from my shoulder as the dozen or more pellets of the double-ought, high-brass load splashed into not just the officer's back but also that of the woman standing beside him. Lying on my belly put me in a poor position to absorb recoil in the first place, and I knew from watching Dad shoot that even a full-grown and properly-braced man would've had difficulty dealing with the aftermath of the hellfire I'd just unleashed. But I was only half done; suppressing a moan I swung the barrel to the right, where four Free Staters stood clustered in a tight group. I didn't even feel it when I gave them the second barrel, or at least I didn't right at first. Three of them fell in an instant, while the fourth clutched desperately at his chest for a moment before falling as well.
Then I was up and gone before the rest could recover, running downslope as best I could with my right side from almost the hip up burning like fire and what felt suspiciously like the broken ends of bones rubbing together inside my shoulder.
23
The men chasing after me bellowed obscenities I'd never heard before in hot-blooded fury, while here and there bullets popped and sang as they whipped through the foliage. My shoes squished with fresh blood, and I bit off scream after scream for fear of offering my enemies a better target—not that I was able to suppress them entirely. My every step was matched with a deep stab of shoulder-agony, causing a whimper that threatened to explode into a full-throated cry at any second, and which I swallowed down only with the most terrible of efforts. The joint felt like it was filled with broken glass.
Perhaps a hundred yards down the mountain I finally had the presence of mind to stop and reload my weapon. Not that I wanted to use it again—if I'd never seen another firearm until I died of old age, that would've been fine with me. While both my brother and I had plenty of shells, I had only one shoulder left.
For the first time since I'd taken off running, I took a moment to stand still and think instead of blindly fleeing. Upslope, the Free Staters were still blazing away, which in turn meant Rapput remained trapped in the cave. But it was all a waste of lead; the niche was deep enough that nothing could hurt him unless someone came in close. This in turn required a carefully coordinated effort between the firebase and assault party. With the commanding officer dead—I was quite certain he was a goner—and everyone else in a state of panic after being fired upon so unexpectedly from behind, well . . . Most likely the Staters were scattered all over the mountain by now, imagining saber-toothed Artemu behind every shrub and firing blindly into the darkness. As if by confirmation, I heard something large running down the slope not far off the path I myself had just taken. I pushed my back up tight against a tree . . .
. . . and whoever it was went dashing headlong by, unleashing bursts from the hip with something fully automatic.
Most of the fire still seemed to be coming from uphill, however, and presumably some sort of order would eventually be re-established. Until then, Rapput was fairly safe. Only Timmy and I were in danger.
I looked around again, this time far more thoughtfully and carefully than I had before. If my brother and I were able, Rapput had explained, we should try to meet up at an old, gnarled cedar tree we'd passed on the way up during the last vestiges of daylight. It was a memorable tree in the mostly pine forest, and therefore a good landmark. But . . .
Where was I?
I almost broke out weeping, I was so miserable. My feet were in ruins, my shoulder was worse, and I'd had to abandon my comforter, the sole warm garment I possessed. It was also getting nothing but colder, and I didn't have my uncle to snuggle up to anymore. But . . . But . . . But . . .
Instead of crying I sighed, tucked my useless hand into my waistband, and at random began staggering cross-slope to my right. As Dad often said when there was work to be done, the tree wasn't going to find itself.
I'm not sure how long it took to find the cedar—I don't remember much of the trip and what I do recall is a sort of a nonsense-nightmare in which the trees became dead Artemu Freestaters and Timothy was a ferocious hunting dog and I was a wounded buck left lost and alone to die the slow death after being wounded by a careless hunter too lazy to follow a blood trail. Somewhere along the line I recall firing the shotgun some more, this time with the stock braced against a tree trunk, and reloading it over and over. That part was probably real because Tim says I was bleeding from a bullet crease in my neck when we finally found each other, and a medium-caliber slug had also passed cleanly through my right upper arm without doing any serious damage. Plus I was nearly out of ammo. But that was later—all I really recall is stumbling down the hill on benumbed, bleeding feet, crippled arm flapping about like an agony-generating shoelace.
"Jeez!" Tim greeted me, face pasty white in the blackness. I heard a distinct click as he engaged the safety on his weapon. "You look awful, Robert!"
I didn't have the energy to answer. So instead I first wobbled about a bit, then collapsed at his feet. When I woke up again, we were lying close against a rock face and I was feeling the most desirable sensation in the universe on my face. Could it be real? Yes, I decided when I opened my eyes, it could. What I was feeling was the warmth of a tiny but rapidly growing campfire, and it was wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!
"Jeez!" Timothy repeated when he saw me blink. "I was scared it was too late!"
I sniffed at the smoke, and then coughed uncontrollably. Tim scowled at this but made no motion to stop me. "They'll find us," I rasped at last. "Smoke. Light."
"Smoke, yes," Tim agreed. "Light, no—we're right at the edge of a cliff, and the light only shows on the drop-off side. By the way, be extra careful if you decide to go for a walk!"
I gurgled my appreciation of his sense of humor—at the moment I didn't think I'd ever take another step again.
&n
bsp; Tim shuffled closer and looked me over. "You must've been in a real fight!"
I looked away. "Don't remember any of it. Honest."
My brother nodded. "Well . . . while you were out of it I scouted your backtrail in case someone was following. It looks like a whole squad was doing exactly that, until you bushwhacked them but good." He shook his head in admiration. "Maybe you should be the one to carry the best gun."
I coughed again. "This fire . . ." I complained, too drained to say more.
"You'll die without it. Maybe me too." He was quiet for a moment, the crackling and spitting of the fire filling the silence. "You really, really scared me, Robert. I couldn't even tell for sure if you were breathing. So the fire stays. Get as warm as you can while you can—I'm going to keep watch. If someone comes, I've found another good place for us to hide."
I nodded back. "Thanks, Tim."
"Don't mention it," he replied. Then he was gone.
My twin was right; the fire probably did save my life. The longer I absorbed its warmth, the better I felt. Not that things ever got to the point of being anything resembling wonderful, mind you. The shivering messed with my shoulder, and soon the bullet wound in my arm throbbed as well. But my feet! The more they thawed, the worse they hurt. It felt like I was walking a bed of