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"So much for my nose, Val. I've heard of wolves in sheep's clothing, but this is above and beyond."
"Concentrate on your ears then," Valentine suggested.
They cut a trail at the base of the hills. Tire tracks informed him that vehicles passed through this area, circling the hills. Farther up the slope, they could see a metal platform projecting out of the trees, still well below the crown of the hill. It looked like a guard tower, but was missing walls and a roof.
"Maybe it's still under construction," Gonzalez theorized.
They moved up the gentle, tree-dotted meadow sideways, approaching the tower from a higher elevation. After completing the half-circle, listening all the way for telltale movement, they gained the tower base.
Concrete anchored the four metal struts supporting the thirty-foot platform. It was built out of heavy steel I-beams and was well riveted and braced. There was no ladder going up. It was new enough that scars in the earth from its construction were overgrown but not yet eroded away.
"What the hell kind of a lookout post is this?" Valentine wondered. "That's a lot of steel to hold up nothing."
Gonzalez knelt in the dirt beneath the structure. "Look here, sir. These tracks: small, narrow boots with heavy heels. Almost small enough for a woman."
"A Reaper?"
"That's my guess," Gonzalez said.
Valentine's spine bled electric tingles. A Reaper stands on that platform? he thought. Watching what? Standing guard? What the hell is so valuable that the Kurians are using Reapers as sentries?
He looked at the cross-braces. He might be able to climb it, if his fingers held out. Of course, a Hood would have no problem going up, but it presented quite a challenge to a human.
"I'm going to climb it. See if I can't get a look at the top. Maybe there's some sign of what it's used for up there."
"Sir," Gonzalez said. "I wouldn't advise that. Listen."
Valentine hardened his ears and heard thunderous hoof-beats echoing from somewhere over the hill. A lot of hoof-beats. Valentine suspected that these riders would not be scared off by the symbols carved into the butt of his rifle.
He looked at Gonzalez, meeting his scout's alarmed eyes, and nodded.
They ran.
Trained Wolves running though heavy wood, even downhill, have to be seen to be believed. They kept up a punishing pace through the thickest forest, a pace no horse and rider could match through this ground. They cleared fallen logs with the grace of springing deer. Their footfalls, like their breathing, sounded inhumanly light. The Wolves hunched their bodies atavistically forward, clearing low branches by fractions of an inch. The sound of the distant riders faded behind them, absorbed by hill and wood.
They reached the cow meadow, over a mile from the metal platform, in less than four minutes. Valentine altered the downhill course, and regained the wood. Still at a flat-out run, they were halfway to the line of skulls when Gonzalez was shot.
The bullet struck him in the left elbow as he brought his arm up while running. He spun, staggered, and continued running, gripping his shattered joint close to his body.
The sniper panicked at the sight of Gonzalez continuing straight for his hiding spot. He rose, a monstrous swamp-troll apparition trailing green threads like a living weeping willow. The sniper raised his rifle again with Gonzalez a scarce ten yards away.
The scout threw himself down at the shot. Valentine, a few yards behind Gonzalez, was breathing too hard to trust himself to shoot accurately. He shifted his grip to the barrel of the rifle and wound up as he dashed forward.
The long camouflage strips hanging from the Quisling's sleeves caught in his rifle's action. As he struggled with it, Valentine swung his gun baseball-bat style, using the momentum of his charge to add further force to the impact. He struck the sniper full in the stomach, emptying the man's lungs with the harsh cough of a cramping diaphragm. Valentine dropped his gun and drew his parang from its sheath on his belt. As the gasping Quisling writhed at his feet, Valentine stepped on the man's back and brought the blade down on the vulnerable back of his neck once, twice, three times. The blows felt good, sickeningly good: a release of fear and anger. The body, its head severed, twitched as the man's nervous system still reacted to the blow to the midriff.
Valentine moved to Gonzalez, who now sat up, shaking and swearing in Spanish.
"Vamos!" Gonzalez said through clenched teeth. "Get to the horses. I'll catch up."
"I need a breather, bud," Valentine said, and meant it. He listened to the distant horses. They were far off, maybe far enough.
"No, sir... I'll catch up."
"Let's get a tourniquet around your arm. I don't want you leaving a blood trail. I'm glad your legs are still working," he said, tearing a rag off the sniper's gillie suit, which served that purpose admirably. His hands flew into action with quick, precise movements, binding the wound. "Now hold this," he said, twisting a stick around the knot. "Does that arm feel as bad as it looks?"
"Worse. I think the bone's gone."
"Just hold it for now. We'll get you a sling once we get to the horses," Valentine said.
