Ryan didn’t hesitate. As the shell from the shifters’ big blaster soared toward his roost, he scrambled down the back side of the hill as fast as he could.
Holding tight to his longblaster, he descended the sandy slope in leaps and bounds, mentally bracing himself for the impact. It came within seconds, when he was three-quarters of the way to the bottom.
The shell burst against the opposite face of the hill with enough force to kick his legs out from under him. Amid a shower of debris, he slid and tumbled the next thirty feet to the base of the hill, coming down on his back and shoulders.
Wincing at the painful landing, Ryan threw himself over to get his hands and knees under him. He quickly boosted himself into a runner’s crouch, then got all the way to a standing position.
As far as he could tell, his back and shoulders were the worst of his injuries. Nothing was broken, and he’d managed to hold on to his weapons and ammo.
It wasn’t a bad result, but he couldn’t afford to waste time counting his blessings. He needed a tactical status, and he needed it now.
Adrenaline burning in his bloodstream like a bomb’s lit fuse, Ryan charged around the base of the hill for a look at the battlefield. What he saw was about what he expected: the shifter front line advancing from fifty yards away, firing more or less indiscriminately at the surrounding hilltops.
In the few seconds that he was standing there, some of the frontline shifters spotted him and swung their weapons to shoot in his direction. Ryan immediately flung himself back behind the curve of the hill, planning to clamber back up to regain some altitude.
Instead, he found himself being struck in the middle of his back with the butt of a longblaster.
Ryan pitched forward and whipped around, getting a look at the person who’d attacked him. He fully expected to see a shifter there, a sneaky point man who’d run ahead of the oncoming attackers and gotten behind him.
But that wasn’t at all what Ryan saw. Instead of a shifter, a six-foot-four woman with platinum blonde hair glared back at him. Union.
He wasn’t completely shocked, though, after what Jak had told him she’d said. She’d pretended to be an ally—a frigid one, to be sure—but now the mask was off, and she was moving in for the kill.
Without a word, she stormed forward and lashed around the butt of her Heckler & Koch assault weapon, aiming for his head. Ryan ducked just in time, and the stock whipped past above him.
Spinning the automatic longblaster back, Union caught the barrel in one hand and the grip in the other. But before she could squeeze off any close-proximity shots at Ryan, he charged and tackled her backward, taking her all the way to the ground.
Ryan landed on top of her and latched on to the longblaster, jamming it lengthwise against her throat. He pressed it down with all his weight, hoping to black her out, but she used the ground under her as leverage and threw him off with one sudden twist.
As Ryan rolled one way, she rolled the other, coming up facing him with the H&K pointing in his direction. Ryan kept rolling, making it down into a dip in the sand just as she squeezed off a shot that narrowly missed.
Breathing deeply, Ryan waited until just after her second shot, then launched himself to his feet and sprinted for the closest hill. Legs pumping, he barely outran her next shot, diving behind the hill as if he was slicing into deep water there.
“Hey, One-Eye!” she shouted in a taunting voice with a heavy foreign accent. “You forgot your longblaster, big fella! What’re you going to do without that?”
She was right; he’d dropped the Scout in the ambush. But it made no difference to him. He still had the 9 mm SIG-Sauer and all the deadly odds and ends he needed, including his fists and feet. And now that he recognized that accent and realized what her nationality was, he was more motivated than ever to hammer her down hard. Because not only had she betrayed his team from within, but she was part of the nation that had brought the Deathlands into being in the first place.
“I am coming for you, One-Eye.” Her accent was Russian. “When I am done, I will wear your balls around my neck, on either side of that one eye you have left.”
Ryan drew the SIG-Sauer, checked the magazine, flicked off the safety and started around the hill, then doubled back when he heard her footfalls coming around the same side. He darted halfway back to the spot where she’d originally surprised him, wondering if she was coming up behind him or doubling back herself.
Then, following his gut instinct, he sprang up the hillside instead of staying at ground level. He quickly climbed twelve feet up the base and flung himself on his belly with the SIG pointing downward.
Seconds later, he saw Union creeping along below, crouching and peering ahead for some trace of him. She would be an easy shot, though he wasn’t going for the kill; he still needed answers regarding her betrayal, her true motivation and whomever else she might be working with.
Before he could squeeze the trigger, though, she saw something on the ground—a footprint?—and swung up the H&K and blasted a round up the hillside. Fortunately, she wasn’t as quick a shot as she needed to be, and the round went wide by a foot.
Ryan responded by putting a 9 mm slug square in her left shoulder. The impact spun her back, and she followed it around the curve of the hillside. Looking down, he saw her blood trail speckled in the sand, but she was otherwise out of sight.
He wasted no time leaping to his feet after that. Now that she knew where he was, altitude was no longer his friend.
He skirted the brim of the hill, following the blood trail below until he ran out of trail. Somehow, she’d stanched the bleeding enough to take it out of the equation, at least long enough to confuse him.
Then, where the hell was she?
Ryan continued to ease along the brim, keeping the SIG up and ready for quick action. A little farther, and he started to wonder if she was nearby at all, if perhaps she’d given up the hunt and gone in search of a medic.
Just then, something caught his eye: a single red spot on the sandy hillside up ahead. Blood.
Somehow, she’d gotten the higher ground.
Turning to look up the hill, he saw her sprawled six feet above him, grinning behind the sights of the H&K. The barrel of the longblaster was pointing right at him, and she started to squeeze the trigger.