“Take the high ground before more come!” Will leaped onto the corpse and used it as a ramp to the ceiling. Rhea followed, along with Horatio.
More Kargs clambered onto the roof from the edges of the house.
Rhea quickly gave Will a boost onto the rooftop of the next floor, and then leaped up on her own. Horatio followed, also unaided.
They then took up defensive positions on three sides of the roof and fired down into the fray. She aimed for the tentacles that dangled beneath the creatures, and every creature she hit soon turned around, screaming as it ran away.
“High ground is isn’t the greatest for targeting underbellies!” Rhea said.
“No, it’s not,” Will agreed. “But it’s great for disheartening them!”
They kept sending Kargs running away, until the last of them turned around and fled, the entire herd routed.
“Well, that was fun,” Will said, coming up beside her. “The fight was a bit too noisy for comfort, however. Best we move on as quickly as possible. I’m just going to cut myself some meat…”
“Wait, what?” Rhea said with a mixture of disgust and disbelief. “Meat? You eat them?”
Will leaped down to the rooftop of the first level below. “Saves on rations. Besides, when you cook it, it tastes like chicken. Makes sense I suppose, since the original Kargs were genetically engineered from the base DNA of roosters. All those latent T-Rex genes and whatnot.”
Will approached the gaping hole the Karg carcass had fallen through.
“Careful…” Rhea said.
Will shrugged, and produced a small bag, along with a knife. He lay flat on the rooftop, next to the hole, and lowered his upper body inside. Rhea flinched as he reached underneath the Karg’s carapace—she half-expected the creature to lurch at him, but it did no such thing.
Will began sawing at a large tentacle.
The creature shuddered, and Rhea almost leaped down, ready to grab him from its clutches.
Will raised a calming hand. “Just reflexes. Hasn’t realized it’s dead yet.”
He continued sawing, and when the tentacle section fell away, Will lifted it out of the gap and hunkered down on his knees. He set the knife down beside him and squeezed the tendril between both palms, turning his hands in opposing directions, just as if he was wringing out a piece of laundry. When he was satisfied that most of the blood had drained free, he stowed the piece in the bag and wiped his hands—and knife—on his cargo pants.
“That’s about all we have time for,” he said, standing. He shoved the bag and knife into his backpack and turned toward the clearing below.
“We got trouble,” Horatio said. “Southwest. Giz has spotted more bioweapons.”
Will glanced at Rhea. “Guess we’re not abandoning the high ground just yet.” He raised an expectant palm.
Rhea reached down and helped him back onto the highest level.
Weapons drawn, the pair hurried to the far side to join Horatio on the southwest corner of the roof. Since the robot was lying flat, when Rhea and Will approached the edge, they switched to a low crawl.
Will gazed at the tree line and narrowed his eyes.
“Werangs,” Will said.
13
Not wanting the Werangs to spot her, Rhea shrank away from the rooftop edge. She kept them in view just enough to study them.
Werangs were lumbering, ugly things, most about twice as big as the average Karg. Resembling a cross between bears and sharks, they had the black, furry bodies of the former and the gray, scaly heads of the latter, replete with parallel rows of razor sharp, triangular teeth. Those heads also had long tentacles dangling from either side, which the Werangs used like the feelers of an ant to search for scent trails. The tentacles could also be used to batter or grip prey.
The bigger Werangs carried the Kargs they had caught fleeing the farm. Holding them either directly in their mouths, or in the tentacles that lined their heads, the creatures proceeded forward warily, as if worried about disturbing whatever it was that had spooked the Kargs into their jaws in the first place.
Other Werangs—those not harboring prey—went forward to scout the outbuildings. Some of them poked their huge heads into the gaps of the main house below and retrieved the bodies of the dead Kargs within.
When the scouts were apparently satisfied that the farm was safe, they began to raise their heads one by one and issue low-pitched calls. As more and more joined in, a loud, monotonous hum descended over the clearing.
The sounds ceased a moment later. Those Werangs that had discovered Kargs in the house began to dine upon them, while those that had carried their prey into the clearing dropped them. Some of the latter Kargs were still alive, and tried to flee, but the Werangs rammed their shark-like heads into the carapaces and bit down, cracking the hard shells with ease.
Rhea looked away from the gorier scenes. She didn’t enjoy watching death, regardless of whether it involved pretty birds or deadly bioweapons.
The creatures spread out so that there were one or two dining on each body, but there weren’t enough dead Kargs to go around. There seemed to be an obvious hierarchy among the Werangs, because some of the smaller ones tried to sneak bites from the carcasses occupied by their bigger brethren, only to have the larger creatures snap or lunge at them, chasing them away.
The smaller creatures began to invade the different buildings, including the main house, searching for corpses that the others might have missed.
One of those runts, smaller than the others, made its way to the lower level rooftop. Small was a relative term, of course—the creature was about the same size as a large Karg. With those tentacles feeling out the surface, the Werang advanced, hugging the edges of the next level, whose rooftop Rhea, Will and Horatio sheltered upon. The bioweapon was on a course to pass by directly underneath them.
Back away, back away! Will sent.
The trio quickly moved
