Ahern, Jerry - The Savage Horde

Rourke, the Detonics still in his left fist, used the fist to push himself up, his right arm starting to get the feeling back. Another man was charging at him.

He pumped the trigger—the Detonics bucked in his hand once, then once again.

Rourke wheeled, half stumbling, coughing still, his throat burning—half from the pressure of the strangler, half from the smell of Henderson's burning flesh, A woman with a machete was rushing him. Rourke fired the last round in the pistol, her body taking the slug, reeling, falling.

The slide still locked back, Rourke jammed the pistol into his belt.

He flexed his right fist as he reached up awkwardly with his left hand to the Detonics under his left arm. His thumb coiled around the front strap of the grip, he ripped, the pistol coming free of the leather. He twisted the gun in his hand, worked the hammer back and .started forward, toward Henderson.

The man Rourke had gutshot was getting to his feet, the torch still in his hand, the arm beyond the hand blackened where the flesh had singed in the heat of the pyre's flames.

The man swung the torch, Rourke stumbling back, firing the Detonics, hitting the wildman executioner in the face twice, the head exploding like an overripe melon hitting concrete.

On the ground near the base of the cross was a machete. Rourke wrapped his still numbed right fist around it, trying to find a way of reaching past the tongues of flame.

"Damn!" he rasped.

The flames were too high, too hot.

He pulled back, Henderson still screaming.

"Think! Think, Rourke—think, damnit," he shouted to the flames, to himself.

"Look out, John!"

Rourke wheeled, the Detonics in his left fist punching forward. It was Rubenstein, visible past the turned forward and down windshield of a jeep, the jeep bouncing and rolling from the far side of the ring of crosses.

Rourke shouted, "Paul—drive her into the base of the cross and jump clear—hurry!"

There was no answer, just something halfway between a wave and a salute, Rourke sidestepping, pulling the trigger on another of the wildmen, this one with a spear. The body lurched back and fell.

Rourke's right hand was working again—it pained but functioned. He dropped the machete, ramming the second Detonics into his belt beside the first one, swinging the CAR-forward, spraying out the magazine into the wildmen as they ran from the oncoming jeep.

The CAR-was empty and Rourke let it drop in its sling, drawing the Python from the flap holster at his hip, double actioning one of the -grain jacketed soft points point blank into the chest of one of the wildmen. He turned, the jeep snaking past him, one of the wildmen clambering onto the hood. Rourke pushed his right fist to full extension, double actioning another round from the six-inch, Metalifed Python, missing, then firing again.

The second shot caught the wildman on the hood of the jeep in the left side, the body rolling off, gone. Rourke jumped back, Paul's jeep crashing through the flames at the base of the cross, Paul jumping clear, rolling, coming up, his subgun firing into the wildmen.

Rourke snatched up the fallen machete from the ground, shifting the Python to his left fist, jumping the flames at the perimeter of the pyre, reaching the cross, Henderson screaming, his legs afire. Rourke dropped the revolver and the machete, lowering his hands into the

damp ground and the light covering of snow, scooping up handfuls, putting them on the flames. There was a dead wildman near him.

Rourke snatched at the animal skin half covering the man, using it like a blanket, swatting at the flames, smothering them, then throwing his body over the animal skin to deny the flames the last of the oxygen they needed.

He pulled back the animal skin, the smell of burnt flesh nauseating him.

He found the machete, hacked with it at the ropes binding the ankles to the stem of the cross. Flesh fell away, stiffened, blackened.

But the legs were free, Henderson moaning incomprehensibly.

Rourke started for the ropes on the leЈt wrist, recoiling for an instant—spikes had been driven through the palms of the hands.

He felt something, snatching up the Python from the snowy ground, firing it point blank into the face of an oncoming wildman.

The big Colt in his left fist, he hacked with the machete in his right—at the ropes tied around the wrists of Corporal Henderson.

There was a gutting hook near the base of the machete—or whatever its purpose, it looked like a gutting hook. Rourke started to work at the massive nail driven through Henderson's left palm—he stopped. He touched his hand to Henderson's neck, then set down the machete. He raised the left eyelid—Henderson had died.

Grasping the machete, raising to his full height, Rourke turned—a wildman raced toward him, a butcher-sized Bowie knife in his upraised right hand.

It was a sucker move, Rourke thought.

He stepped into the attacker's guard, batting away the knife with the six-inch barrel of the Python, then slashing the machete in a roundhouse swing, severing the

attacker's jugular vein—the life had gone from the body before it plopped to the ground, spurting, splashing as the heart still pumped.

Rourke dropped the machete—Rubenstein's subgun was still firing.

Rourke could hear it.

He pumped the last two rounds in the Python into another of the wildmen, then bolstered the revolver still empty.

A fresh stick for the CAR-from the musette bag—he inserted it up the well, stuffing the empty away.

He worked the bolt, pumping the trigger, taking out two more of the wildmen, using only six rounds.

He let the CAR-hang on its sling, taking'one, then the other of the Detonics .s—he rammed fresh magazines up the wells of both pistols, from the Six Pack on his belt, putting the empties in their places, filling the slots.

One pistol in each fist, he started forward—there were still men to save—men with mangled bodies, bleeding wounds—men who hadn't yet been set aflame.

He started firing, killing.

Chapter 36

"No, damnit, Miss Tiemerovna—"

"Natalia," she nodded.

"All right—then no, damnit, Natalia," Gundersen shouted. "I'm not takin' a woman KGB major wearing a bathrobe and an arctic parka into a rubber boat for a shore party to investigate what sounds like a battle royal—got it?"

"Damn you," she shouted.

"Thank you very much for the good wishes—you can stay in the sail if you like—come on, O'Neal—let's launch," and Gundersen started across the missile deck and over the railing side cleats toward the rubber boat.

Natalia screamed after him. "Nyehvozmohznoh!"

Gundersen looked up as he took the ladder. "And what the hell does that mean, lady?" "It is Russian—you are impossible!"

"Thanks again," and Gundersen's head disappeared from sight.

She shivered—she wore a hospital gown under the robe and the arctic parka only covered the upper half of her body, the wind blowing up under the robe.

Almost as if Gundersen could read her mind, she heard him shout, "And get that damn woman a blanket to wrap around herself before her legs freeze!"

"Aye, sir," a voice called back.

"A^e," she snarled.

Chapter 37

He had fought his way to Rubenstein's side, the two men standing now, back to back.

"Gotta move on those crosses," Rourke shouted. "Get some more of them down."

"Of the six I freed," Rubenstein shouted over the steady roar of the high pitched subgun, "only two of them were able to move—one guy on the ground was using an assault rifle I liberated."

Rourke said nothing, eyeing the battleground—there were still dozens of the wildmen, attacking in small packs, sporadic gunfire coming toward them now.