The Savage Horde

Chapter 31

The waves made a soft, almost rhythmical slapping sound against the gunwales of the gray inflatable boat; Rourke crouched in the prow, the CAR-ready, Rubenstein beside him, Cole and his three troopers filling out the center and aft section, two of the three troopers rowing.

There had always been considerable talk about a sixth sense, but nothing concretely proven, at least as far as Rourke considered it. But if there were a sixth sense—and gut feelings had convinced him long ago there were—he felt its activation now.

"I feel something," Rubenstein murmured beside him.

Rourke smiled, saying nothing. Beneath the bomber jacket against the cold, he wore a dark blue crew neck sweater from the submarine's stores—but he still shivered. It wasn't the cold doing it.

There was a whitish outline gleaming ahead—the shoreline where the waves lapped against it now. The tide was high, and this cut the distance to the rocks beyond the beach.

"Kill those oars," Rourke commanded, stripping away his leather gloves, stuffing them into one of the bomber jacket's outside patch pockets, then dipping his hands into the water on both sides of the prow. "Use your hands," he rasped, his fingers numbing from the water temperature already—but there was no choice.

It took several minutes of the slow movement, barely

able to fight the waves rolling back from the shore, to move with the tide and reach the land. Rourke throwing a leg out, water splashing up over the collar of his combat boot, then his other leg out, Rubenstein into the water too now. The surf splashed against the prow of the boat, turning into a fine, icy spray, Rourke flexing his fingers against the fabric of the boat as he hauled at it, snow still coming down—no more heavily than before, but no less heavily either.

"Come on, Paul," he rasped to the younger man, then to Cole, "Get your butts outa the boat and give us a hand! Come on!"

Cole sprang from the boat, dousing himself in the water, his three men following suit but with less lack of grace. Water dripping from him, Cole reemerged, cursing—"Shut up, damnit!" Rourke snapped. The boat was nearly up from the surf, Rourke glancing to Paul, saying, "Together," then hauling at the rubber boat, over the last roll of breakers, both men heaving together, the boat onto the sand.

"You and you—you help 'em," Rourke rasped to the three soldiers. "Get the boat out of here—back in those rocks. Secure it in case the tide does get higher."

Rourke swung the CAR-off his shoulder where it had hung muzzle down. He pulled the rubber plug from the muzzle and dropped it into his musette bag where he carried some of his spare magazines and other gear. He shifted the rifle forward, working the bolt and chambering the top cartridge out of the freshly loaded thirty-round stick.

He started forward across the sand, feeling he was being watched, waiting for it to come—It came.

"Kill them!"

The shout—somehow oddly not quite human.

Ill

Rourke wheeled, snapping the CAR-'s muzzle forward, ramming the flash deflector into the face of the man—man?—coming for him. The machete dropped from the right hand as the body reeled.

"No guns unless we have to," Rourke half shouted, flicking the safety on for the CAR-IS. He stepped toward the attacker, the man starting to move, a revolver rising in his right hand, already the sounds of more of the attackers going for Rubenstein and the others coming to him over the sound of the waves, over the whistling of the wind. Rourke's right foot snaked out, cross body, catching the man's gunhand wrist, the revolver sailing off into the darkness.

Rourke let the rifle slide out of the way on its sling, his left foot coming up, going for the man's jaw. He missed, the body rolling across the sand, coming upright. There was another knife, smaller than the machete, but not by much.

Rourke grabbed for the AG Russell Sting IA in his trouser band, the small knife coming into his palm, the black skeletonized blade shifting outward in his left hand as the man—he wore a motley collection of clothing and animal skins—made his lunge. Rourke sidestepped, the man steaming past him, Rourke's knife hammering down, the blade biting into flesh somewhere over the right kidney, the body's momentum tearing the blade through and down, Rourke's left wrist hurting badly, the knife slipping from his grip.

He turned, hearing something—feeling something. Two men—like the first, half in the clothing of "civilized" men and half in animal skins, unshaven, hair wildly blowing in the wind. One had a long bladed knife secured, lashed to a pole—a primitive pike or spear. The second held a pistol.

Rourke violated his own rule; not bothering with the CAR-, not having the time to get at it, snatching at the i

Detonics under his left armpit, his right fist closing on the black rubber Pachmayr gripped butt, his right thumb jacking back the hammer, his first finger into the trigger guard as the pistol came on line, twitching against the trigger, the gleaming stainless handgun bucking in his hand, the man -with the pistol taking the impact somewhere near the center of mass, the -grain JHP

throwing him back into the sand.

The one with the improvised pike was swinging it, the blade making a whooshing sound as it cut the air. Rourke edged back, hearing more gunfire now from the beach— the light rattle of Paul's Schmeisser, lighter than the shotgun blast he heard following it.

Rourke edged back, the pike coming again, Rourke dropping to his right knee, scissoring out his left leg for a sweep as the man followed up on his lunge, the blade inches above Rourke's head, Rourke's left leg connecting behind the right knee of the man with the pike. The body started shifting forward, like a deadfall tree in the wind.

Rourke rolled left, pulling his right leg after him, the body slapping down against the sand, a shout issuing from the man. "Kill them! Kill the heathens!"

"Heathens," Rourke muttered, rolling again, getting to his feet.

The man was starting up, his pike coming up, Rourke feigning a kick with his right, half wheeling, snapping out his left combat-booted foot. His leg took the shock, his left knee aching as the toe of his boot impacted against the right side of the man's face.

Rourke wheeled, two more of the wildmen coming for him. He dodged left, one of the men—a machete in his right hand—bringing the blade down hard through the air, barely missing Rourke's right arm.

Rourke pumped the Detonics, nailing the second man, this one with a gun.

He wheeled, the sound of the machete in the air again

making him do it. The blade arced past his nose, the man's arm at maximum extension. "That's never a good idea," Rourke cautioned him, wheeling half left, snapping his right leg out in a double kick to the man's face, the man falling backward.

Rourke started down the beach, Rubenstein locked in combat with a man twice his size, Rubenstein's pistol high in the air, over his head, the wildman fighting him holding it there. Suddenly, the wildman doubled forward, Rubenstein half stepping away, rubbing momentarily at his right knee, then pushing the Browning High Power forward, the man starting to rise, both hands clasped to his crotch.

The muzzle flash against the darkness of the sky, the rocks and the water were brilliant for an instant, the high pitched pop of the mm almost lost in the wind and the noise of the surf, then drowned in the scream of the wildman as he spun out, both hands going to his neck. He fell, Rubenstein turned, backing off from a second man, Rourke starting toward him. The second man had no weapon Rourke could see. He swung his right fist, a classic barroom brawl haymaker.

Rubenstein blocked it neatly with his left forearm, stepped into the man's guard and launched his right fist forward, the man's head snapping back, Rubenstein's left crashing down across the exposed jaw, the body sagging down to the knees.

Rubenstein's right knee smashed forward, against the tip of the jaw, the wildman's head snapping back again—there was an audible snapping sound. The body sagged down, lurching forward, still kneeling, not moving—dead, Rourke judged.

"Come on, Paul!"

Rourke started toward Cole and his men, the four battling twice that many of the wildmen.

Rourke slipped the CAR-forward, the safety going off under his right thumb, then the stock telescoping under his hand.

The nearest of the wildmen turned from Cole and the others, starting for him.

Rourke was shifting the sling off from his left shoulder. There wasn't time to finish it. His right foot snapped out, catching the man's crotch, the wildmen screaming but not stopping. Rourke wheeled three hundred sixty degrees, free of the sling now.

As the wildman spun toward him, he arched the butt of the CAR-up, the heel of the flat metal buttplate catching at the tip of the wildman's jaw, the head snapping back, Rourke smashing out with the full flat of the butt for the center of the man's face.

Rourke wheeled half right as the body dropped away, tucking down his right elbow to recover the stroke, slashing down with the muzzle of the CAR as if there had been a bayonet in place. The flash deflector laid open the right cheek of the man coming at him with the machete. Rourke snapped his left foot out, going into a forward ^thrust, the flash deflectored muzzle punching into the attacker's Adam's apple. The man went down.

Rourke took the step forward on his right, pivoting, the bayonetless rifle in a high guard position, a wildman with a spear rushing him. Rourke swatted the spear away, taking a long stride out with his right leg, dipping low, snapping the butt of the rifle up in an arc, the toe of the butt impacting against the left cheekbone of the man with the spear, the body falling back as Rubenstein stepped in from the far right, the pistol grip of the Schmeisser connecting against the man's left temple.

Rourke wheeled, sidestepping as Rubenstein advanced on two of the wildmen, one armed with a riot shotgun, another with an assault rifle. Rubenstein's MP-was already spitting, Rourke snatching the Detonics from his belt, thumbing down the safety and emptying the pistol's remaining four rounds into the two men.

Rubenstein started forward, Rourke reaching out the right hand which still held the empty Detonics, the slide

locked back over the spent magazine.

"Wait!"

Cole was the only one still fighting—a wildman roughly his own size, blond shoulder length hair falling across his face and half obscuring the irregular beard.

The man was barehanded—so was Cole, his rifle gone somewhere, the . he'd threatened Rourke with still in his holster.

The wildman's hands reached out, Rourke not shifting his eyes as by feel he swapped for a fresh magazine in the Detonics, leaving the six pack intact, getting one from his musette bag.

By feel again, he found the slide stop, thumbing it down, hearing the slide rake forward.

Cole had the . out of the holster now, the man he fought swatting it away, the pistol discharging skyward. Cole slumped back, making to fire the . again as the blond haired wildman came at him. Nothing happened.

Rourke pumped the Detonics' trigger once, the wildman's head exploding on the left side, the body sprawling back across the sand.

Cole was looking up, at Rourke, then down to his gun. Rourke took four steps forward and stopped beside Cole. He reached down, carefully taking the pistol.

The slide was only part way into battery, the full metal case -grain hardball round somehow jammed diagonally, bullet pointing upward.

"Odd," Rourke almost wispered. "Jam like that in a military gun. Wouldn't have happened though if you'd fed that round into the chamber off the top of the magazine." Rourke thumbed the magazine catch release, pulling the magazine out, the half chambered round jamming it. He counted the glimmers of brass in the witness holes, the bottom hole empty only. He jacked back the slide, popping the seventh round out of the breech and into the palm of his right hand. "Like I told

you." He flashed what he hoped was his biggest smile as he tossed Cole the empty pistol, the magazine and the loose round.

Rourke turned away, under his breath muttering, "Shit—"