Брайан Макклеллан - War Cry

Her lips tighten, and she spits at him. The enemy commander reels back, blood spattering his face and clean uniform. He shouts, kicking her in the stomach, then draws his pistol.

I want to ask her what she is doing. I silently beg her to stop fighting—to surrender and live through this thing. Selvie and Harado attempt to gain their feet. My friends scream at the enemy commander, who waves his pistol under their noses and then puts the barrel against Aleta’s forehead.

She meets my eyes, and I realize with startling clarity that she is buying me time. She sees that I am spent, and must know from my state that I have no strength. And yet she still has faith to try and gain me the time I need to sneak up on these bastards.

The enemy commander shouts in Aleta’s ear, shoving the pistol hard against her forehead. She leans into it, looking him in the eyes, then turning her head toward me. She smiles at me at the enemy commander pulls the trigger, and the bullet snuffs out her life.

It is the strength I need. I surge forward, that smile frozen in my mind as my steps become quick and forceful.

The enemy’s men are too busy beating my friends with the stocks of their carbines to see me coming. I do not kill the commander. I open his stomach before he can scream, and then I turn on his men.

There are around a dozen enemies left. I know that two of them are Changers, but I do not know which they are. I slash and cut, moving as quickly as I dare. My vision is a haze, my hearing almost nonexistent. Only the image of Aleta’s smile floating in my head keeps me going as I bury my talons in a stomach, open a throat with my claws, and bite the stock of a carbine in two as it is thrust in my face.

A pistol shot goes off under my elbow, and I tear off the arm of the man holding the weapon. A shotgun blast to the base of my spine drives me to my knees, and I turn to take another blast in the chest. I recover and maul the woman holding the shotgun before she can reload, and I leap for a man shoving a new clip into his machine pistol.

The enemy Changer tackles me from the side. He is smaller than me, but he is relatively fresh, and I feel his talons tear into my shoulders as we wrestle in the dust. I lean into him, letting the talons tear deeper, and bite off his face with two snaps of my jaw.

I leave him screaming and writhing to finish off his comrades. Three more enemy soldiers empty their weapons into me, the hot shot hitting my body like stinging nettles on the end of a blackjack. Two die quickly. One tries to run, and is shot in the back by Selvie, who has recovered a pistol from the enemy commander.

I stumble to one side, my Changed body slick with blood—my own and that of my enemies. My legs give out and I fall to my knees. I am barely conscious as the remaining members of my platoon re-arm themselves and regain their feet. I don’t even have the energy to wince at the seven blasts from the shotgun it takes to put down the enemy Changer, or feel satisfaction when Selvie executes the commander I disemboweled.

I feel someone touch me and I jerk around, almost snagging Bellara with my claws. She gives me a moment to recognize her before coming closer. She puts her hands on my cheeks and looks me in the eyes, and calls for Harado.

“Where is the other Changer?” I ask. My voice is barely audible through the twisted nature of my Changed form, and my own weakness.

“Garcia killed him with the machine gun,” Bellara responds.

Killed by a machine gun. Hardly able to call himself a Changer. I try to chuckle, but it comes out as a gurgle. Harado tells me to lie down. I ignore him, and make Bellara help me to my feet.

I remain standing, ostensibly a guard as Selvie and Harado sweep the canyon, though I doubt I could move if even a single enemy appeared to attack me. They find three more of our platoon still holed up in the caves, and I can see the fear and wonder in their eyes as they come out to see the destruction that has been wrought.

I remain Changed, fearful that my wounds would kill me on the spot if I become human again. Bellara remains at my side, clutching my leathery, blood-slick hand. She talks to me in a quiet voice.

“We thought you died from the fall out of the cargo plane,” she tells me. “But Rodrigo scouted the next day, and claims he saw you hiding in a valley. We’ve been waiting for you to return ever since.”

I try not to cry at the news that they waited for me, and I stay quiet with the terrible knowledge that their waiting got most of them killed. I try to look past the carnage, noting the crates of supplies stacked in the mouth of the caves, and tell myself that they were able to eat like kings for the last week of their lives.

“Rodrigo…” I manage.

“I know,” Bellara says, her face somber. “I saw Benny go down.”

I want to tell her that he was still alive when I left him, that she should send someone down to check on him, but I know that he is already dead, and the plain outside our canyon is dangerous. Telling her he might be alive would be a cruelty.

Besides, there is no one to send. Everyone is wounded—I see now that even Harado’s hand has been hurt by shrapnel—and Selvie’s venture to the mouth of our canyon ends with a report that there is still movement down in the foothills. I am unable to give them any guess as to the number of enemy wounded I left alive, or if there was a squad or two that I missed.

Bellara reveals that she dropped her illusions when she took a bullet in the shoulder, and was unable to get them back up because a Changer took her captive. They singled her out, wanted her alive. I can hear the catch in her throat as she says this, though her expression remains unchanged. I put my grotesque head on her shoulder and close my eyes, hoping she takes it as some sign of comfort.

I tell them of Paco’s defection and the loss of so many of our soldiers to the enemy amnesty. I tell them I gave away our position, and repeat myself so that they can mete out any judgment they see fit. A third repetition passes without comment, and I feel hollow inside. They do not judge me. They will not judge me.

Selvie ignores her wounds and begins to organize a retreat farther into the mountains. We must regroup, heal, and return to Bava, she says. We must tell them what happened here.

Bellara gently leaves my side. She winks from existence a dozen paces away, and I try to call out for her, but I have no strength. Each pain reemerges with movement. I wonder if I will have to remain Changed for weeks before I am healthy enough to be human again. Despite Harado’s bandages, I have lost a great deal of blood.

I wonder if I am dying, and find it curious that I don’t dwell on my coming death. I think that perhaps no one wishes to face their own mortality. Perhaps self-denial is the last pleasure a soldier feels.

I do not die, though the hours tick by. My surviving friends move the bodies and attend to our wounded. Their wounded are shoved to one side and forgotten, or forced at gunpoint to help Selvie inventory what we will need to retreat into the mountains. Bellara returns, and reports that there are only a handful of the enemy left able to fight, and they have concerned themselves with trying to repair one of their jeeps. She also reports motorbikes on the eastern horizon.

I try to get myself to move at that news. I remind them of Paco’s desertion, and that the enemy still has more men. Selvie seems to be the only one with the strength to keep moving, and insists we arm ourselves. The enemy wounded are forced into the mouth of the canyon, where their presence will foul enemy grenades and gunfire.

I soon hear the sound of the motorbikes. By the pitch of the engines I guess they are ours, which means Paco and his cronies have come to finish the job. Bellara tells me to relax, and gives me a carbine even though my Changed fingers are too big for the guard. We hunker down behind a boulder and wait. I close my eyes, trying to gather my strength for one last fight.