Rhea glanced over her shoulder.
Behind her, the tips of the Werang’s tentacles had already appeared along the edges of the rooftop as it followed their most recent scent trail.
14
The other side! Rhea sent.
But Will and Horatio were already diving past the chimney. She followed them and ducked behind it before the Werang’s head appeared. She pressed tightly against Will.
Be ready, Will transmitted.
She hefted her pistol in both hands, waiting for the word.
Perhaps we can try for the hole in the first-floor roof, Horatio suggested.
Too late now, Will sent. Besides, there are Werangs inside the house.
Rhea gazed at the rooftop. But not the attic, she thought. She could conceivably tear away the planks, or punch a path through, however the noise would draw the creature even faster. No, the only play here was to fight the Werang head on and hope they could cause enough damage to scare it off. And if not, she was soon going to be so many machine parts.
Seeker tentacles appeared along the upper left side of the chimney, next to Horatio.
But then a scream came from the east. It was deeper than the screams of the runt, as if belonging to a bigger Werang.
Those tendrils instantly withdrew. The rooftop shook violently; that, along with the loud thuds that accompanied the vibrations, told Rhea the Werang was retreating toward the scream.
The shaking stopped and the thudding receded in volume; through Gizmo’s cameras, she watched the Werang weave across the grounds below.
She cautiously peered past the edge of the chimney, wanting to confirm with her own eyes that the creature was indeed gone. There was nothing there.
She returned her attention to the drone’s feed and focused on the source of the commotion to the east. She spotted a man dangling from the branches of one of the dead trees that lined the perimeter. He was dressed in grey fatigues, with a mid-length black cape dangling down his back, and a thick utility belt at his waist.
No wait, not a man, but a cyborg of some kind, judging from the long, robotic tail that protruded from his tailbone area at the bottom of the cape. It slithered behind him, tipped by formidable-looking spinning blades.
He was firing an energy rifle with one hand at a Werang below him. The creature attempted to dodge the blows and screamed whenever the man scored a hit. The Werang suddenly leaped at him, but he jumped to the branch of another tree three meters away—definitely a cyborg, given the strength and agility such a jump required. The branch broke beneath him, but he was already vaulting onto a more sturdy candidate.
Two more Werangs arrived, one of them the big creature that had just vacated the rooftop. The first threw itself at the base of the tree, attempting to knock it over. When that didn’t work, the second leaped up, its shark-like jaws breaking through the thick branches, and forcing the man to jump to yet another tree. He fired in midair, but missed his mark, hitting the Werang just below the eye.
“You really gotta equip that drone of yours with a laser,” Rhea said. She waited a moment longer, tensing up all over as she watched. Then: “I’m helping him.”
She raised her pistol.
Will shoved her arm down. “Don’t. You’ll give away our position.”
“Then I’ll leave the rooftop before opening fire. So you’re not exposed.” She started to stand.
Will rested a hand on her shoulder, stopping her once again. “You can’t save him. Probably a bandit anyway.”
She tried to check the man’s public profile but got nothing: probably too far. Then again, if he were a bandit, he would’ve probably disabled it.
“I thought bandits congregated in groups out here?” she said.
“Lone wolves aren’t unheard of,” Will clarified.
“It’s also possible he was separated from his friends,” Horatio chimed in. “Or they were killed off. Either way, listen to Will: there’s nothing we can do for this man.”
Rhea watched the lone fighter continue to hold his ground against those bioweapons. A Werang leaped up and swiped at him, but he dodged, and cut off a portion of its foreleg with the rotating blade of his robotic tail. He followed up with a rifle blast that just missed its eye, and he was forced to vault onto another tree as a second Werang snatched at him with those shark-like jaws.
“You found me alone in the Outlands,” she said. “You didn’t automatically assume I was a bandit.”
Will exchanged a curios glance with Horatio that made Rhea wonder if Will had in fact assumed such a thing.
But then Will shook his head. “Your case was different. You weren’t surrounded by bioweapons. We didn’t risk too much in reviving you, especially considering you had no body. This dude’s screwed. There’s nothing we can do for him. Not unless we all want to die. Think of it this way: he’s not dying for nothing, but giving his life so that we can live. Let him be our decoy.”
Rhea gazed at the trapped cyborg a moment longer. He had been lucky so far, but he wouldn’t last for much longer, not with more Werangs joining the fray all the time: every runt with nothing to eat was rushing to take part in the excitement. The bioweapons that had gotten there first snapped at these new arrivals, trying to stave them off.
She glanced over her shoulder, toward the opposite side of the clearing. The other, bigger Werangs continued to eat their captured Kargs peacefully. They couldn’t see this latest disturbance, as their view was blocked by the main farmhouse, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t hear it—tentacles perked up when there was an exceptionally loud sound, such as a snapping branch. Even so, for the moment these Werangs were content to ignore the fighting and enjoy their meal.
She returned her attention to the fore. A fight had broken out between two of the runts as they fought over who would have the privilege of capturing the tasty
