The Savage Horde

Chapter 39

Rourke dropped the man to the ground, turning toward the mob, a Detonics pistol, freshly loaded, in each hand.

"Paul—we can't haul these guys any further!"

"I know," Rubenstein's voice came back, sounding odd.

"If I don't get out—and you do—"

"I'll get back—I'll find them—I swear it to God, John—"

"And Natalia—"

"I'll take care of her—"

The younger man was beside him now—no rocks to hide in, nowhere to run, out in the open, the savage horde of wildmen running toward them brandishing spears, clubs, knives, a" bizarre assortment of guns—and the torches lighting the night, their glowing brilliance leaving floaters on the eyes as Rourke watched.

"John—"

Rourke stabbed one of the pistols into his belt, his right hand going out, to Rubenstein's shoulder. He said nothing, just looked at the man—his friend.

He moved his hand away, retaking the Detonics . in his fist, his fingers balling on the checkered rubber of the Pachmayr grips.

Rourke had predetermined it—he would save one round, to shoot Paul if somehow it looked the wildmen would take him alive. It was better than the cross, far better.

He held the pistols at his hips, ready.

The mob was slowing its advance, the leaders or front runners—Rourke couldn't tell which—waving their torches in the air.

The mob stopped, then began to advance, slowly, at a determined walk. The isolated shouts and curses were gone, but the voices now becoming one voice, a chant, the words chilling his soul. "Kill the heathens! Kill the heathens! Kill the heathens! Kill—"

"John—remember how you used to tell me—trigger control?"

Rourke nodded, words hard to come for him, his throat tight. "Yeah. I remember."

"It's been like a second life anyway, hasn't it," the younger man's voice murmured, Rourke not looking at him.

"Yes."

Rourke turned to look at Rubenstein, the pistol—the battered Browning High Power—clutched in his right fist. His left hand, as if an automatic response, moved to the bridge of his nose, to push back the wire-framed glasses.

"It has—a second life," Rourke nodded, seeing his friend he judged perhaps for the last time.

The mob was less than fifty yards from them now, the smell of the torches acrid on the night air, the faces of the men and women who held them gleaming and reddened, glistening sweat.

The chanting of the mob had stopped.

One man stepped out of the front ranks, a torch in his right hand, a long bladed knife in the left, the torchlight glinting in streaks of orange and red from the steel—blood was there. He shouted, the crowd otherwise hushed.

"Kill the heathens!"

Rourke snapped the pistol in his right hand to shoulder height and fired once.

The -grain JHP brought the man down, the body

lurching into the crowd, the torch igniting the animal skin covering a woman near him. Her scream was loud, but died in the shouts of the mob as they broke and ran— toward Rourke and Rubenstein.

Rourke waited, remembering a tine his father had quoted often, but only as a joke. It was no joke now. "Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes."