Two of the Werangs were also scaling the boughs to directly pursue the man. They kept their eyes downcast for the most part, using their tentacles to feel out a path, and looking up only occasionally to judge where the cyborg was. It prevented the man from successfully shooting them down. He did strike at their feelers with his energy rifle, however, and that did slow the Werangs somewhat, because they momentarily retracted their appendages when struck.
None of them had seen Rhea, of course—they were too distracted by their current prey. As such, Rhea was able to approach undetected, and closed with one of the Werangs that circled the base of the tree. Its back was to her, so she leaped onto its leg and climbed using fistfuls of fur.
The creature started, then twisted its head and upper body sideways in an attempt to bite her off. She climbed faster, avoiding those jaws and the tentacles that lined it.
A second Werang charged into that one, toothy maw snapping at Rhea. She swung upward, landing on the first’s back, and leaped out of the way. The first angrily snapped at the second, intimidating it, so that the intruding bioweapon backed away. Rhea was going to take a shot at the exposed eye when she spotted a third Werang stampeding in. It leaped, obviously hoping to clear the first Werang while snatching her off its back.
She somersaulted into the air and avoided the snapping jaws of the newcomer. She arced back down, landing on the base of its neck at the same time the creature slammed into the first Werang: its hind-legs had failed to clear the bottommost creature, and had caught against the side.
The first creature was unable to hold up the weight of the third and collapsed. The second meanwhile was coming in for another pass.
Rhea took a running jump off the back of the third and landed on a nearby tree. An oak. She began climbing. The oak was only a few trees away from the cyborg’s. She wondered if the man had seen her yet—if he had, he showed no sign of it at the moment. She tried to check his public profile now that she was closer, but still got nothing. Had to be disabled.
Maybe he’s a bandit after all.
Well, it didn’t matter. She was committed. Even a bandit didn’t deserve to die this way.
The tree shook below her, and she knew one of the Werangs had struck it. Not wanting to risk the tree uprooting, she pulled herself onto one of the upper boughs and leaped across to the next tree, which was almost as tall as the oak the man climbed. She doubted the Werangs would be able to uproot this one.
The Werangs below continued to crash into the base of the trunk. Some of them had begun to assault her tree as well. She ignored the shudders that passed through the bark, and hoped the roots were strong enough and deep enough to resist the blows.
She was at eye level with one of the two Werangs that scaled the tree across from her. It had kept its head tilted downward to protect its sensitive sight organs from the man, but that head posture only placed its eye directly into her line of fire. Indeed, the creature was looking right at her.
Grinning maliciously, Rhea raised her pistol and fired. The creature shut its eye lid just in time, and continued climbing, keeping the eye closed.
Glancing up, she saw that the man had finally noticed her. But he spared her only a moment’s gaze before returning his attention to the scaling Werangs. He shot at their tentacles—all he could do really—but the bioweapons took the blows stoically, letting their tentacles recoil as they climbed ever higher. The man continued to clamber as well, and while the tree was tall, it wasn’t infinitely so. The cyborg man would soon run out of tree…
Rhea pulled herself onto one of the bigger boughs, and slowly edged toward the precipice. She didn’t dare look down. She leaped.
As she approached the head, those tentacles tried to snatch her up—apparently the Werang had been peeking from beneath its eyelid.
She shot at the closest ones with her pistol, sending them shrinking back, and twisted her body at the same time to avoid the remaining appendages. She landed on the hairless face, close to the eye, and with her free hand squeezed the gray skin tightly for purchase.
Tentacles still came at her, attempting to rip her off, and she was forced to shoot at them continually. More energy bolts started to come in from above, striking those tentacles, and she realized the cyborg was helping her.
She stopped shooting at the tentacles, trusting the other cyborg to protect her, and holstered the pistol to make her way toward the eye, forming handholds by bunching up fistfuls of skin as she went.
The Werang started frantically moving its head to and fro in an attempt to be rid of her but couldn’t shake her free.
She positioned herself above the eyelid, so that her feet dangled down in front of it while she hung on with her scrunched fingers. The tentacles came in faster, but the cyborg managed to hold them all at bay, for now. But all it would take was one appendage to get through…
She shoved the tips of both boots into the crevice formed between the upper and lower folds of skin that composed the eyelid. She pressed down hard with one boot, and with the other, she yanked upward. She strained, but after a moment managed to pry the eyelid open slightly. It was all she needed.
She let go of the skin above
