When the Devil Dances

Jake slapped at the leaves in front of his position to put out the fire. Fortunately the God King seemed to think he was firing from about fifty meters to the west. Unfortunately, he’d missed the one shot he got at the bastard. It was difficult to tell which ones were God Kings at this range, unless they lifted their crests and these seemed to be keeping them down. There was usually a little difference in size, but not enough to be noticeable at eight football fields. God Kings were generally more heavily armed, as well, but judging by this group headed up the hill that wasn’t clear. Most of the Posleen had either heavy railguns or plasma cannon with a few hypervelocity missile launchers thrown in for giggles. Which one was the God King on the basis of weaponry was anyone’s guess. The last difference was “attitude” or at least who did what first. In this case, one particular Posleen sporting a plasma gun had fired, then all the other Posleen followed suit.

Fortunately they all fired at the wrong place, but the misses, thermal wash and ricochets had been mighty interesting for a few seconds there. A chunk of the hilltop the size of a house had been flattened and was surrounded by a growing forest fire. The trees, shrub and dirt in the area were just gone and most of the exposed rocks were smoking. If they’d fired at the right bit of mountain, or if they spotted him, his ex-wife would be getting a telegram and a check.

It wasn’t dying so much that worried him, but it really ticked him off that his ex would get the check.

“I gotta find a better beneficiary,” he muttered, taking a bead on the next Posleen in the line.

* * *

Cholosta’an darted around the oolt’ondai and put his hand on the older Kessentai’s chest. “Let the oolt’os go first, Oolt’ondai,” he said.

“I will eat the heart of this thresh,” Orostan ground out. “I swear it.”

From just up the trail came a crack of another mine and the descending scream and clatter of a Posleen falling off the narrow track. “Yes, Oolt’ondai,” the younger Kessentai said. “But you can’t do that if you are dead.”

The oolt’ondai lifted his crest for a moment then lowered it as more oolt’os trickled by. There was a steady stream making it through the artillery beaten zone and there was no way the human was going to escape this time; the other side was too sheer for even one of these damn rock-monkeys to scale.

They had made it far enough up the trail, apparently, that the human could not observe their location. But as he looked back he saw another oolt drop off the trail with a fist sized hole through his midsection and this one, in its flailing, knocked another off the path. The human was up there and still stinging them, but Cholosta’an was right; he would have to live to get any revenge worth savoring.

“Very well, youngling,” Orostan finally said with a hiss of humor. He stepped to the side to clear the path. “We’ll let a few more oolt’os get ahead of us, yes?”

“Yes, Oolt’ondai,” the oolt commander said. He recognized a few of the oolt headed up the trail by sight and smell and that indefinable sense of “mine” that said they were of his oolt’os. But damned few. “So much for being unexpendable.”

“Not at all, youngling,” the oolt’ondai said with a limited crest flap, lest the sniper still have an angle on them. “Again you prove your worth. How many Kessentai in your position would have had the head to hold back? And of those, how many would have thought to stop my impetuousness? And, last, of those very few, how many would have dared?”

“Few, fewer and fewest,” the Kessentai agreed as another “crack!” came from up the trail. “But I could wish that my oolt’os were not so few as well.”

“That we will make up for after this,” the oolt’ondai said, getting back on the path. “But I want to be there at the kill.”

* * *

Mosovich stroked the trigger one more time and rolled to his feet. He had been carefully counting the mines on the hill and the last one was, indeed, the last one. If it did not kill the Posleen that had detonated it, a short dash would take the centauroid to the crest of the mountain. That spot was in a thick stand of rhododendron and mountain laurel, but just beyond there the Posleen would be in position to flank Mosovich’s position, and, what was worse, cover the back door to the hide with direct fire.

Mosovich backed out leaving most of the boxes of ammunition and all of Nichols’ dirty socks behind. He wouldn’t, frankly, need either where he was going.

He moved over to the edge of the cliff and hefted the big rifle so he was pointing it unsupported. He couldn’t hold it up for long, and God knows, he wouldn’t be able to fire many rounds. But he wouldn’t have to.

* * *

“Don’t eat them!” Orostan bellowed as the boom of a rifle came from over beyond the obscuring vegetation. “They are mine!”