The Survivor - Page 72

“We’re not sure,” Riley said. “Kagan and those Ice Rangers have something planned for Nadim. All we know is that we need to get off this side of the mountain in the next ten minutes.”

“Seven and a half,” Cade said. “We have to go.”

Bailey stood and motioned toward the deer. “I can’t leave them!”

Maya gripped her arm. “We can’t take them with us, Bailey. They’re both too weak. They’ll be safer here.”

The girl crossed her arms. “Then I’ll stay, too.”

“That’s not happening.”

Cade stepped toward Bailey and leaned close. “Whatever is about to happen, these deer will be safer here than out there in that storm. They’re far enough back that they’ll be okay. This is the safest place for them on the mountain. They’ve existed here for hundreds and hundreds of years. And I promise you that we’ll come back here to check on them. Right away. Trust me. But we’re running out of time, and there’s no way we’re leaving you, Bailey.”

Riley could see that the girl wasn’t totally convinced, but Cade’s tone let her know that he was prepared to forcibly remove her from the cave if necessary. Bailey knew this was a losing battle.

Bailey finally nodded as she made the decision. “I asked Riva to trust me, and it worked out okay. I guess it’s only fair I trust you to fix this for me. But I’m coming right back.”

“Of course.” Cade smiled and looked up at Maya. “This girl definitely takes after her mother.”

“For better or worse.” Maya took Bailey’s hand and gestured to Tazka Kun. “Come on. We’re not leaving you either. Let’s go!”

“Where are they?” Nadim said.

His squad had followed the deer over the mountainside, but as they rounded the Angel’s Hammer rock formation, the animals had vanished.

The wail from the nearby peak had stopped, and the animals’ beautiful calls could no longer be heard.

“What the hell?” Bevan said. He scanned the area with his binoculars. “There were hundreds of them. They couldn’t have just… disappeared.”

“Maybe somebody should tell the unicorns that.”

“Look!” Nadim pointed to a nearby cliff. “Something flickering.”

“It’s just the snow.”

“No, you fool. It’s something else. Do you see it?”

“Holy shit!”

A moment later, dozens of human figures took flight from the cliff and soared toward them!

Nadim’s breath left him. What in the hell…?

They looked like angels descending from heaven above.

Not angels, he realized in frustration. More like demons. It was the Ice Rangers outfitted in their white uniforms and using winglike arm extensions to ride the air currents down toward them. If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he never would have believed it.

The first wave of rangers touched down on their skis. They darted across the icy plateau attacking his squad one man at a time, eliminating them with the most astonishing display of martial arts moves he’d ever seen. Most of the rangers attacked with a series of strategic blows, but some used lengths of razor wire pulled taut in front of his own snowmobile-riding assault team, effectively decapitating them. When his men finally started to pull out their guns to respond, the rangers ducked and swerved around them with almost superhuman speed. The snowmobiles were slow and positively clunky in comparison.

Within two minutes the rangers had eliminated half his squad without firing a single shot.

Nadim screamed into his radio. “Shoot them! Shoot them all!”

But the icy plateau was already strewn with the blood and corpses of his assault team, and the ones who remained were clearly hesitant to engage.

The second wave of Ice Rangers touched down in front of them. This group was on snowboards.

RAT-AT-AT-AT-AT-AT-AT!