Shadows (Ashes Trilogy 2)

“Easy.” Pulling the Eagle free, he put the muzzle to the horse’s ear. “I’m sorry, girl,” he said, and took up the slack on the trigger.

“Peter?”

“I’m all right!” Blinking against tears and the fine misty blowback of Fable’s blood, Peter looked back toward his men. The remaining wagons were gathered in a rough stagger, and his people were shielded for the moment. Peter counted five more horses down and at least as many men. There was a throaty growl of weapons fire as his men fought back, but Peter knew they were outmatched and outgunned. As if to underscore the point, he saw the head of a faun-colored mutt, which had been cowering beneath a wagon, suddenly explode. What was left keeled over, legs jittering, blood spurting in thick ropes from the raw stump of its neck.

Rage grabbed Peter’s gut. Targeting men, even horses, was one thing, but killing that poor dog was a taunt. Like flipping the bird. Same as that crazy lady torching her barn and—

Wait a minute. His thoughts coalesced to an icy clarity. She soaked the hay with—

“M-Mom?” A voice, frightened and too young: “Daaad?”

Oh shit. “Tyler?” He didn’t dare raise his head. “Tyler, stay there! Stay—”

“Mom.” Tyler’s voice was watery and weak. “Mom.”

Peter shut his eyes, just for a second, and thought about it. The smart play was to leave the boy. From the sound of his voice, Tyler was hurt pretty bad and probably beyond any real help. So, go to Tyler and he’d accomplish nothing. Get himself pinned down and maybe even killed. Besides, captains lost men all the time. Shit happened.

The thing was—no one had ever accused him of being too smart.

Peter took off from a low crouch, darting down the hill as fast as he could. Didn’t bother weaving. The road was too rotten and treacherous with Fable’s blood. He was just as likely to break his neck as take a bullet. Over the thunder of his heart, he heard his men screaming as bullets buzzed around like angry hornets. Something plucked at his back, but then he was coming up on Tyler’s horse—fifteen yards, ten, five . . .

The horse’s hindquarters gave a sudden, spastic jolt. For a split second, he thought the horse was still alive, then realized the shooters were leading, anticipating his next move. Have to jump for it. Ten feet away, he dug in with his left boot, pivoted, swerved right—and then felt something smack into his left side, really hard, like this one cow, a nasty milker he’d never learned to avoid as a kid. Stumbling, he launched himself in a flat, ungainly dive. His head and chest cleared the horse, but then he ran out of air and came down half in and half out of a hollow formed by the horse’s belly.

And found Tyler.

Or, rather, what was left.

12

Tyler’s horse had fallen at an awkward angle. Judging from the blood splashed over the animal’s poll, it had driven into the ice headfirst and broken its neck. Unfortunately, Tyler’s foot never had come free of that stirrup. So when the horse collapsed, the boy’s body had gotten pinned from the waist down beneath a thousand pounds of dead meat.

Oh my . . . Peter’s stunned gaze tracked from the shelf of the boy’s ribs to the sharp drop-off where Tyler’s pelvis thinned to the thickness of a piece of construction paper before disappearing in a very wide, very red pool. A gory, steaming spool of intestines and blood-smeared fat spilled through a rip in the boy’s belly. The horse’s weight had been so great and the bag of the boy’s body so fragile that whatever hadn’t flattened had simply burst.

Peter’s blood turned to slush. Tyler’s steaming guts slowly undulated and bunched like thick, moist worms because the connections weren’t quite severed, the body not yet ready to give up. Like the jittering legs of the headless dog. Like Fable’s doomed run. Tyler’s insides smelled, too, rank and feral as a gutted deer.

“D-Daaaad?” Fresh blood, red as lava, bubbled over Tyler’s lips. There was something wrong with his eyes, too. The left fixed on Peter, but the right roved off-center, searching for a target it would never find.

“I’m h-here,” Peter said, and then realized that his teeth were chattering. He was, suddenly, very cold. His right leg moved, but there was something wrong with his left. It wouldn’t budge, like it no longer belonged, and he was still draped over the horse’s body, not completely under cover. Latching onto the withers, he pulled. Pain clutched his left side. When he moved, something squelched. His parka was soaked. He put a numb hand to his side. Liquid nudged his palm in a rhythmic surge like water from a bubbler, and his hand came back glistening.

I’m shot. Another twist of pain now, worse than before. Artery . . . bleeding out—

The air came alive with those hornets again and then someone tumbled over Tyler’s horse, dropping in a heap alongside. “Peter?” someone said, and then Peter felt hands grab his shoulders and pull. The pain was unbearable, and Peter screamed.

“Aw, Jesus.” Then Weller must’ve gotten a good look at Tyler, because his voice trailed to a hoarse groan. “Shit.”

“W-Weller.” Peter was trembling so badly he bit his tongue. How much time did he have? Two minutes? Three? “L-listen . . .”

“No.” Shoving the sodden parka to one side, Weller jammed his knee into Peter’s back, ignoring Peter’s agonized shout. There came a long, meaty rip, and then Weller was fisting a wad of cloth into Peter’s side. A bomb of agony exploded in his gut, jerking loose another breathless scream, but Weller only rolled Peter onto his back, then cinched something down tight around Peter’s belly as bullets zipped and whirred. “Using my belt,” Weller grunted. “God damn you, don’t you die, Peter, not now, not when we’ve come this—”

“No. L-listen.” Peter’s tongue was thick, the words mired deep, as difficult to extract as molten chewing gum from the deep treads of a boot. But he had to say something important; Weller had to know. “H-haay—”

“Hey yourself. Now shut up and let me—”

“No.” Peter’s head moved in a feeble roll. Weller would take time tending to him that his men didn’t have. “H-h-hay . . . fi-fire—”

“Fire. Jesus, you mean the hay?” Weller said, and Peter heard the moment the idea clicked. “Yeah. All that gasoline, there’ll be smoke, and the wind’s behind us. If we can duck behind a wagon . . .”