form a rugged hillside from which trees of all shapes and sizes grew. Had he not seen it from the front, he might never have suspected that anything manmade resided under his feet. Silently, they worked their way through the overgrowth until the light from the torches blazed from beyond the next row of trees, and then lowered themselves to their bellies and scuttled toward the edge.
Tasker locked stares with McMasters and pushed himself up just high enough to peer over the precipice. While he couldn't see the guards directly underneath him from that vantage point, at least he could confirm that neither of them had wandered away from their posts far enough that they could clearly see the jungle growing on the roof above them.
He eased back to his stomach, pressed his index finger to his lips, and craned his head to listen.
Faint voices drifted up from below. He couldn't make out their words, but he didn't have to either.
He turned back to McMasters and gave a single nod.
McMasters licked his lips and rolled over onto his back. He reached into the front pocket of his jacket, removed the object as they had discussed, and turned back over again. Holding it tightly in his fist, he pulled the pin with his opposite hand.
The grenade would shred the sentries and undoubtedly collapse the entire ancient structure.
They just needed to make sure that they weren't on top of it when it fell.
Bushes shivered to Tasker's right.
They weren't alone.
McMasters shoved himself to all fours, staying as low as he could, and crawled toward the edge. With the grenade in his right hand, he leaned out over the unsuspecting men below.
Colton watched the branches across the clearing slowly tremble back into place. Again, the forest fell deathly still.
'Where are they?' Sorenson whispered. 'I can't see a blasted thing.'
Colton could feel them all around him. The weight of unseen eyes made his skin crawl.
The creatures were smart, too smart to blindly charge out into the light. But they weren't passively waiting out there for their prey to make the first move either. They were the hunters, and the darkness was their ally. Colton sensed them surrounding the clearing, just out of sight in the protective embrace of the shrubs and shadows.
The noose was tightening, and soon---
He felt a gentle tap on his right shoulder and leapt away from the wall before the pebble that had fallen from the lip above him even hit the ground. Twisting in midair, he raised his weapon toward the roof of the building and squeezed the trigger.
Automatic gunfire chattered.
McMasters was thrown away from the edge and into the air. Geysers of blood trailed him as he flopped backward.
Tasker watched the arm holding the grenade go limp and the hand relax. The grenade tumbled through the underbrush toward the dark side of the building.
McMasters's body formed a rainbow arch, frozen in time by the strobe of a lightning strike. Dark shapes lunged out of the shrubs and attacked him in midair with a flurry of claws and teeth. Clothes tore and skin parted. A rain of blood patterned the mud, but Tasker only felt it spatter his legs as he propelled himself diagonally to his right. He barely managed to get his legs underneath him in time to launch himself over the front corner of the structure.
Light flashed behind him. With a clap of manmade thunder, the concussive blast hurled him out over the nothingness in a fiery cloud of shrapnel.
IV
There was a muffled
The entire building was coming down.
Merritt grabbed her hand and pulled her back to her feet. The rifle in his free hand clanked against the incendiary grenades he had clipped to his hip and the spare magazine he had jammed into his pocket.
'Get out of there!' Colton shouted from the doorway. 'Now!'
She glanced back at Galen and Leo. They both struggled to stand on the shaking floor.
'Come on!' she shouted, jerking Leo to his feet. He latched onto Galen's arm and dragged him away from the rear wall.
From the edges of her peripheral vision, she saw that enough of the rubble had fallen from the barricades to create dark gaps toward the top, through which clouds of dust funneled. Dark shapes twisted and thrashed in an effort to force their way through.
Something struck her shoulder from above and drove her to the ground, wrenching her hand from Merritt's. She cried out and grabbed at the searing pain. More and more of the stone ceiling cracked away and fell around her.
A shadow passed through the swirling dust, grabbed her around the torso, and hauled her to her feet.
'Hurry!' Merritt shouted directly into her ear. He half-carried, half-dragged her through the collapsing chamber and into the night air, where the dust diffused into a golden fog. She couldn't even see the forest twenty feet away.
Merritt dropped her to her hands and knees in the mud. She coughed and retched into a fern before finding the strength to stand. Her legs trembled. Or was it the earth itself?
She turned toward the building. Shadows raced in her direction through the haze. She saw the vague outline of the trees above the roofline as they fell, canting sideways and toppling on the plummeting stones. A massive expulsion of dust billowed from the jumbled ruins.
'What's happening?' she screamed.
'There's no time,' Colton snapped. 'We're too exposed here. We have to find a more defensible position.'
'Is everyone accounted for?' Merritt asked.
'I count six,' Sorenson said. 'Time to move.'
'Who's that over there?' Leo asked. He pointed toward where a human shape was sprawled facedown in the mire a few yards away.
'I don't know,' Colton said. The
'They want us to run,' Galen whispered. 'Like field mice.'
'I'll take the lead. Sorenson, you cover our asses. The rest of you, keep close together and stay right behind me.'
'Where are we going?' Merritt asked.
'I can only think of one place where we'll have any chance of defending ourselves.'
'Jesus,' Merritt whispered.
'Move out,' Colton said, and struck off to the west at a jog.
Sam hurried to catch up with him. Another shrill avian cry echoed through the darkness.
She turned toward the sound.
Even through the rain and dust, she could clearly see the undergrowth rustle in the wake of something that
