When the Devil Dances

“How?” the oolt’os leader asked with a frustrated snarl. “They move through these hills like Sky Spirits.”

“But they cannot fly,” the oolt’ondai said with a flap of humor and pointed at the map.

After a moment the younger Posleen hissed in humor as well.

* * *

Jake leaned against a relatively ancient hickory and gasped for air. He was sure that some time in his long career he had been this utterly exhausted, but when was a good question.

He was on a saddle just below the summit of Lynch Mountain and all the hounds of hell were on his path. The wood was open, mostly big old hickory, oak and beech, and showed sign of heavy foraging from deer.

To either side of the saddle, to the north and the south, the ground fell off in sheer cliffs. The spot would have been a good place for a last stand if Jake Mosovich had any intention of committing suicide. As it was it was just a damned good place to stop and catch his breath before the last push.

The last four hundred feet of Lynch Mountain loomed above him, looking just about straight up. The only way up was a narrow ridge that led from this knife-edge saddle up around in a curve to the left and then eventually to the summit. The path was, fortunately, covered for most of the way. Fortunately because the Posleen, as far as they were concerned, had him well and truly trapped and the entire brigade force was dead on his trail.

He glanced down the hill and shook his head. Give the bastards credit for tenacity. He had called for fire on his backtrail again and he was fairly sure that the lead, at least, of the brigade force was getting shredded by the artillery. There had been a number of unreduced houses on the hill and, but by the time the artillery was done they might as well have been destroyed by the Posleen.

Now, though, it was time to go. He pulled a small device out of the side of Nichols’ rucksack, pulled a pin, set a dial and tossed it on the ground. He was both lightening his load and putting a “sensor” in place; the effect of the device would be practically nothing compared to the artillery. Then he threw the Barrett over his shoulder and started out along the saddle. The path was actually about ten feet wide, but it fell off a couple of hundred feet to the east and west so in a way it felt narrow as a string. On the far side an old path continued up the ridge and there were occasional very old trail blazes, the faded orange paint pale against the grey of the tree-bark.

He scrambled up through the mountain laurel and rhododendron, grabbing at the granite and schist that were jutting up now through the thin soil, and climbed as fast as his quivering legs could carry him. The alternative didn’t bear thinking on.

About forty five seconds after he dropped it, the plastic oblong quivered, turned over and — with a slight “huff” of expelled air — threw out three fishing lines, complete with treble hooks. Then, with an almost unnoticeable clicking noise, it slowly pulled the lines in until the treble hooks caught on the surrounding vegetation. At that point the device was apparently satisfied and settled back into quiescence.

* * *

Orostan flapped his crest in agitation and glanced at the portable tenaral again. The humans had not cut back to either side, so they could only be continuing up the hill. The oolt’ondai had split his force around the artillery fire — it was clear that it was not being observed — and thus had avoided significant casualties there. But it would be necessary to cross a narrow lip of land to reach the crest of this hill and that would entail tremendous loss.

“This is not going to be pretty,” Cholosta’an said.

“Tell me to eat, nestling, why don’t you,” the oolt’ondai snapped back. “Sorry, but that is obvious. Nonetheless, if we are going to run this abat lurp to ground, we must close with it.”

“Well,” the younger Kessentai said, with a slight flap of his crest, “we could just sit here and starve them out.” He looked over at the oolt’ondai and hissed at the expression on his crocodilian face. “But I guess not.”

The oolt’ondai appeared not to hear as he took a series of breaths. “Fuscirto uut!” he cried. “Forward!”

* * *