Chapter Twenty-Four

 

 

"Fireblast!"

 

Ryan had been deeply worried that the group of slavers might be close, waiting silently in the dense undergrowth to try to ambush them.

 

The last thing he expected to see was the giant jaguar that he and Krysty had seen earlier.

 

It was a gigantic brute, with a smooth-as-silk black hide, its long tail moving slowly from side to side as though it had a hungry life of its own. Its jaws were open, the needled fangs dripping saliva. Below the sloping forehead, the golden eyes looked around with an elegant disdain, its whole manner showing that it had seen nothing that caused it any fear.

 

"Should've brought the Steyr, lover," Krysty whispered at his elbow.

 

"Think the SIG-Sauer'll be enough blaster. Mebbe we won't need to use"

 

The words died in his throat as he saw a dreadful sight. One of the young women, looking to be less than fifteen, had been sleeping in the long grass at the edge of the jungle. Now, the cries of the others had awakened her and she sat up, rubbing her eyes, less than a dozen feet from the huge mutie carnivore.

 

The jaguar threw its head back and gave a roar of triumph, so loud and menacing that Ryan felt all the short hairs curling at his nape.

 

The young woman turned around and saw her doom, almost close enough to touch, and gave a weak, pitiful cry for help. Then her eyes rolled up white in their sockets and she collapsed back in the grass in a total faint.

 

The rest of the women had all fallen to their knees, most with foreheads pressed to the dirt, all chanting in their own tongue.

 

The jaguar still hadn't moved toward its helpless prey, its tail moving faster, its eyes fixed on Ryan and Krysty. There was the momentary hope that it might have fed recently and might turn around and leave the riverbank.

 

With infinite slowness, Ryan had half turned, so that his body concealed his right hand as it inched toward the butt of the bolstered automatic, feeling the familiar chill of cold metal against his palm.

 

There was a flash of lightning and a crack of thunder from the north, with its promise of a storm closing in on them. But right now that didn't concern Ryan.

 

The blaster was clear of the leather, and the jaguar still hadn't made a threatening move toward the unconscious girl. But it had lowered its rear quarters in the unmistakable pose of a cat readying itself to pounce.

 

The range was at least fifty yards across the foaming river, the rushing water making it much harder to judge the range and angle of the target.

 

"Make it a good one, lover," Krysty whispered.

 

Everything happened at once.

 

Ryan drew the SIG-Sauer and leveled it at the big cat, finger ready on the trigger. The jaguar began its spring at the helpless girl, jaws gaping, claws extended, and the woman with the pink necklace threw herself at Ryan, hitting him just behind the knees, knocking him to the grass. The blaster went off as he fell, the 9 mm round slicing uselessly through the upper branches of a palm tree.

 

Despite his combat-trained reflexes, Ryan was taken totally by surprise. He rolled onto his left side, lashing out with the barrel, catching the native a cracking blow across her forehead.

 

She moaned and fell back, blood seeping from a deep cut over her left eye. Ryan pushed her away and came up into a crouch, knowing that he was going to be way too late.

 

The jaguar had seized the young native woman between neck and shoulder, bringing its massive jaws together in a hideous crunching of bone. Crimson spurted from the wound, soaking her pale yellow cotton dress. She came around for a moment and slapped and kicked at the jaguar, but the mutie beast held her with its implacable power. It shifted its grip higher, teeth snapping on the skull, crushing it with effortless ease.

 

Krysty had drawn her own blaster, aiming the 5-shot .38 and opening fire. But the Smith amp; Wesson had only a short two-inch barrel and the bullet went wide.

 

The noise startled the beast and it began to back away, sliding toward the forest's cover on its haunches, dragging the corpse of its victim effortlessly behind it through the muddied, bloodied grass.

 

Krysty fired three more shots, spaced and aimed, and at least one of them hit home.

 

The jaguar howled, snapping at its shoulder, where a tiny red rose bloomed in the soft black fur. For a moment it dropped the corpse, then recovered itself and vanished into the undergrowth, snarling in a high, angry whine.

 

Ryan was on hands and knees, frozen for a moment, before replacing the SIG-Sauer, unfired, into its holster. He stood and sighed.

 

"Fuck that," he said. "You got it."

 

"Only winged it. Range and everything was all against me. Head-on, it wasn't much of a target with the girl's body hanging in the way."

 

"I know. Did well to wing it."

 

"Why didn't you shoot?"

 

"No point." He looked around at the other women, who crouched, heads down, still chanting what he guessed was some kind of a prayer. "I could have saved her if it hadn't been for this bastard stupe." He kicked at the semiconscious woman by his feet. "Get up!" he shouted. "It's gone. Over. Girl's dead!"

 

In the struggle the woman's necklace had broken, and the tiny shards of pink stone lay in the emerald grass. She opened her eyes. "Did you kill jaguar?"

 

"No. Thanks to you, it got away."

 

"I wounded it," Krysty said, busily reloading her own blaster. "But it got away and took the body with it. Probably already eating it." She spit in the dirt, aware that she had lost her usual calm. "Gaia! Why did you do that?"

 

"Jaguar is god. Any man or woman picked by jaguar is picked by gods. It is"

 

"An honor?" Krysty suggested sarcastically.

 

"Yes. Good word. Honor. Dies for honor. Could not let you shoot jaguar like shooted god. Bad luck many days of life. Very bad luck."

 

"It was bastard bad luck for that poor little girl," Ryan said furiously. For a couple of pieces of small jack he would have drawn the SIG-Sauer and put a bullet through the woman's head. But he managed to control himself.

 

One by one the rest of the natives rose to their feet and stared out into the forest, then turned to gaze at Ryan, Krysty and their wounded friend, who had finally struggled to her feet and stood wobbling, looking defiantly at the two Anglos. "Any woman will have been happy to die with the jaguar. You from outside do not understand this. Do you?"

 

Ryan shook his head. "No. Glad to say I don't." There was another vivid flash of pink-purple lightning and a deafening peal of thunder that followed almost simultaneously. He felt the first heavy spots of the storm strike him in the face.

 

"Are you going after the animal?" Krysty asked. "At least get the child's body back before it's eaten?"

 

"No. Jaguar eats spirit. All is good. Help in taking fish. Just as Jak will" She stopped speaking at another, even louder crack of thunder, almost on top of them. "Rain bad. Go back now."

 

She turned and rejoined the other women, all of them walking toward the village, vanishing within yards as the spots of rain became a torrential downpour.

 

In less than thirty seconds, Ryan and Krysty were drenched to the skin, as wet as if they'd jumped straight into the middle of the river.

 

Visibility was down to fifteen feet.

 

"Got to get shelter!" Ryan shouted, having to clutch at Krysty and put his mouth close to her ear for her to catch what he was saying above the noise of the storm.

 

"Sure. Rain's hurting my head."

 

It was true. The raindrops were so large and so incessant that the beating on top of the skull was actually painful.

 

They took cover under a massive teak tree, pressing themselves against the trunk, keeping out of the worse of the direct rain. The storm seemed to be squatting astride them, the sound and fury filling the forest.

 

Krysty put her arm around Ryan, for comfort against the raging of the elements. "Bad one!" she yelled, aware that he had nodded, but unable to hear his reply.

 

It was as vicious a chem storm as they'd known.

 

The lightning was so constant and blinding that Krysty closed both eyes, Ryan pressing the palm of his hand over his good eye. The air quivered with thunder, and the jungle seemed to be saturated with the bitter taste of ozone.

 

Twice in five minutes the ground around trembled as a lightning strike brought down one of the giant trees that surrounded them. Every now and again the rain would ease for a moment, enabling the couple to see the alarming rise in the level of the river. It had turned into a frothing, muddy maelstrom that was already lapping at its banks.

 

"Gonna have to move!"

 

Krysty could just feel Ryan's words, rather than hear them. She squeezed his hand to show that she had understood him. "To the village?"

 

"Unless river bursts and we get flash flood. Close to it now." A rumble of thunder surrounded them, so intense that Krysty put her hands to her ears, expecting to find them bleeding. Ryan tried again. "If rain eases again, we'll run for it."

 

 

 

THE RAIN DIDN'T EASE again. If anything it pounded down with renewed vigor. Ryan checked his wrist chron by the constant silver glow of the lightning, finding that the storm had been raging for only twenty-five minutes, a time that seemed an eternity.

 

Once the river went, it would be highly dangerous to remain where they were, but to have moved from cover earlier during such a cataclysmic tempest would have been suicidal.

 

Krysty tugged at his hand. "Look!"

 

The rain swirled around in an impenetrable blanket, but it parted for a moment, showing that the inevitable had happened. The river was no longer confined between the banks and was spreading steadily across the clearing toward them.

 

It seemed that the heart of the darkness had passed, and the lightning was no longer a constant. There were gaps between the flash and the rumble, showing that the storm was moving away from them.

 

"Let's go!" Ryan yelled. Still holding on to Krysty's hand, he led the way through the rain, moving quickly in a stooped run, away from the flooding river.

 

Away from the village.

 

 

 

A NARROW HUNTING TRAIL doglegged up the side of the valley. It was more like a muddy river than a track, and climbing it was slippery and difficult. Orange water streamed down from higher up the hill, filling the deep ruts. Half the time Krysty and Ryan were on hands and knees, battling their way toward the top.

 

A large fir tree had been struck by lightning and lay across the trail, its bark smoldering.

 

As Ryan started to climb over, the earth shifted below it and the tree began to slide toward the edge of the trail and a sheer drop to the flooded river.

 

With an effort he pushed off, his boots slipping on the sodden bark of the tree, managing to roll free before it toppled over the brink and vanished into the veil of rain.

 

He lay flat on his back in the slimy mud, water pouring over him. Wiping dirt from his eye, he blinked up at Krysty. "You all right, lover?"

 

He grinned, his teeth white through the mask of yellowish mud. "If this is all right, then I guess I am."

 

 

 

EVERY TWIST AND TURN of the track seemed to take them farther from the village.

 

The lightning was now two or three miles away, the thunder subsided to a sullen background roar. But the rain continued to fall with remorseless intent.

 

Both Ryan and Krysty had a highly developed sense of direction, but the winding, bending track and the overpowering presence of the storm were so distracting that within less than an hour they found themselves lost.

 

"We're not really lost," Ryan insisted. "I'm fairly sure that I know which way the village is. Just that I'm not at all sure that I know how to get back there."

 

"I think it's in that direction," Krysty said, pointing a finger into the ceaseless rain, a little to their left and behind them.

 

"Yeah. About what I figure, also. But there's been no side trail off to the left at all, and we still seem to be climbing higher and higher."

 

"I reckon we're moving away, lover."

 

Ryan nodded, water dripping from his dark, curly hair, now matted to his skull. "Best we stop until this stops. Then we should mebbe backtrack. Hope the river's gone down. Get across it and then straight home again."

 

"What if the river stays high?"

 

"Then we go upstream until we find a place that we can get across."

 

She smiled at him. "Thing I love about you, Ryan Cawdor, is your permanent optimism."

 

He grinned back at her. "Thing I love about you, Krysty Wroth, is the way you pretend to believe my permanent optimism. Really helps."

 

"Thanks, kind sir."

 

 

 

THE STORM finally moved on, the sheeting rain sinking to a wearisome drizzle that reduced visibility and dripped from the mournful trees.

 

"Been hours," Ryan said, wiping moisture from the face of his tiny wrist chron and peering at the liquid-crystal display. "Be lucky to get back tonight."

 

"Think they'll send out a search for us?"

 

"Doubt it. Not yet. J.B. will have seen the storm and heard about it from the women. He'll guess that we probably got ourselves caught up in it. Had to shelter. Evening's coming on. They won't worry until around the middle of tomorrow."

 

Krysty sighed. "Could've used a quiet night in bed. Still, least we can probably find somewhere dry to hole up. Climb a tree, lover? I don't fancy staying on the floor with all the wildlife around here."