"Wait, slow down," Uncle Mike said over the radio. "You want what, where?"
"Rocket launchers," I said. "And personnel to fire them."
"You"re sure about this?"
Will and I exchanged a look. "A melted dark angel and an exploded giant roach agree, Colonel. My blood is toxic to these things."
"Okay, I"m sending a team up to you. There"s no way you could make it down here; they"re putting it to us."
"How bad?"
"We"ve lost thirty-four men so far." He yelled something about ammunition running short down the line. "And we"re crawling."
"Should I come down there?"
"No, stay where you are. Let me send a team-it"ll be faster. Watch for them and clear the way if need be. If your idea works, it"ll help all of us."
"Sir, yes, sir."
"How"s Cruessan?"
"I"m okay, sir," Will said. "I just needed patched up."
"Listen," Uncle Mike said. "Do exactly what Klimmett tells you. If that"s to sit out, you sit out, understand?"
Will made a face. "Understood, sir." After Uncle Mike signed off, he said, "A scarred hand doesn"t bother me. Being out of the fight and watching men die does."
I nodded. I didn"t think I could take another Lanningham on my watch today.
Jorge joined us, having killed off a huge swath of intruders. At a momentary break, while the battle raged downrange, he listened to our idea with avid interest.
"This could work," he said, nodding. "I"m sorry I didn"t think of it."
A tiny spark of hope had worked its way into my chest. If this did work, would it work on the Shadow Man himself? Could I splatter him with a little Archer blood and end this thing?
Murphy climbed up the peak of High Dune, where we were waiting. He was toting a shoulder mounted rocket launcher. Two more soldiers trotted behind him, each carrying a load of rockets.
"This better be good, Archer," Murphy said. "I was nice and comfy, firing useless rounds into that crowd of nightmares down in the infantry pool."
"He makes it sound like the kiddie pool," Blakeney said, shooting him an annoyed glance.
"I don"t think the Master Sergeant was trying to say it was a cakewalk." I jerked my chin at Murphy. "He just likes to complain."
"d.a.m.n right." Murphy set down the rocket launcher. "Now what?"
"Now, I bleed."
The two newbies eyed me warily as I stripped off my slimy jacket. It had dropped a good ten degrees since we arrived, even though we were still an hour from sunset. I shivered as the cold air hit my sweaty back. Or maybe because I was about to intentionally slice myself open.
With my knife.
"Tink, go easy," I said. "The first time we did this, you almost killed me."
That was an accident. And I saved you then-you"re the one who fell on the blade.
"Way to pa.s.s the blame." I needed to find a place that would bleed easily, but not impede me from fighting later. Fingers and hands were out so I went with my left forearm. Holding my knife as steadily as I could manage in the rising wind, I nicked the skin right above a vein. Instantly, a big bead of blood welled up.
"Let"s poison some rockets," I said, then tapped my earpiece. "Colonel? Tell the other wielder teams to clear the field. We"re about to test Will"s theory."
"Done," came his reply.
Murphy opened the case and pulled out two rockets. Blakeney took one and smeared my blood onto the warhead. Murphy did the same with the second.
"All right, let"s see what this does."
Jorge"s smile was terrifying. "Damage. Lots of damage."
Uncle Mike called off his own artillery units, waiting for us to fire. The shadow ma.s.s seemed to be regrouping on top of the next dune over. It was half the size it had been when we arrived.
"Eyes and ears," Blakeney said. "Ready."
We all moved clear and put our fingers in our ears.
"Firing!" shouted Murphy.
The rocket burst from the launcher and streaked into the shadows. There was a m.u.f.fled boom, then nothing.
"It didn"t work," I said, disappointed. We"d have to go back out there, risk more men.
"Wait-look." Jorge pointed at the center of the ma.s.s.
Smoke was rising from it. And the shadows were wailing.
"Fire again," I told Murphy. "Blakeney, more rockets."
The other two soldiers hurried to help him. For the next few minutes, we found an odd rhythm. Poison a rocket with my blood, load it, fire, repeat. The wails from the dark army rose in volume.
Uncle Mike came on the radio. "I can"t believe what I"m seeing. They"re coming apart out there. From what I can tell, the rocket"s impact has no effect. But every shadow hit with shrapnel starts to disintegrate right afterward. It"s like we sprayed them with acid."
"Permission to clear the field sir," I said, helping Murph smear another rocket.
"Fire away."
Five minutes and twelve rockets after we started, the dunes were empty, save the smoking, scorched remains of the enemy.
We weren"t done, though. The sky had faded out to a dark gray and the sun"s light was reduced to a ten-watt glow. I was being put on notice.
"Now what?" Will asked, turning in a circle.
I wiped the blood from my arm. "The Dark Master is telling me this isn"t finished."
The sand shifted under our feet again. I tensed, holding my knife tight. Ahead, the enemy battlefield was crumbling away. Brownish protrusions rose up out of the ground.
"Colonel? We"ve got a problem," I said.
"We see it. Stand by."
The protrusions kept rising slowly, sloughing off sand and monster ash in great piles. Dust filled the air, and the ground rumbled as if a dozen small earthquakes were happening all at once. After a minute, I finally realized what I was seeing-rock. Lots of it. Tink buzzed around in my head, calling out in her own language to her brothers. I sure hoped they knew what this was, because watching a mountain come out of the ground definitely wasn"t normal.
Aunt Julie and Ramirez joined us, followed soon after by Uncle Mike, Johnson and Nguyen. The rock formation had already blotted out the last of the sunlight, sending us into a premature twilight. I couldn"t make sense of it, though. It looked like a mountain, but there was a constructed feeling to it. As it rose, a dark spot began forming in the bleached-out sky directly above the structure. Not like nighttime, but an absence of all light, exactly like the Master himself. This was it. This was the final battleground.
"It"s enormous," Aunt Julie said. "Fifty feet tall and still climbing?"
"Yeah, like a house for a giant," Johnson said. "Make that ten giants."
"It"s a fortress." I turned to Jorge, my eyes wide with sudden recognition. "Right under our noses. The Shadow Man lives there."
As if he heard us, a sludgy voice growled out of the dark crevices of the rock. "You fulfilled part of the bargain, Archer. Come fulfill the rest-if you can."
I knew that voice; it was the soundtrack to all my nightmares. "Tink?"
Yes, it"s the walking Shadow, and he"s drawing his Master here through that disturbance overhead. If spirits could have a stress level, hers sounded like it was at DefCon 1. It"s time for us to move on.
I was tired after the fight, the blood loss. Dying. Moving on was the last thing on earth my body wanted to do, so it was up to my mind to make it happen. She"s in there, I thought. That"s where they"d keep Mamie-to taunt me. If he had to, the Dark Master would have the Shadow Man put her on display to make me come to them. I didn"t want to wait that long.
"Colonel, I need a small team. Keep everyone else on perimeter guard-there are a half-dozen poisoned rockets left for defense. From here I go in alone."
"Like h.e.l.l, you do," Will barked. "I"m coming with you."
I sighed. "You can"t. Not when you"re injured. Besides we need people to guard against threats out here, so none of the other wielders can go."
"We can, and all five of us will go." Jorge"s tone told me the decision was made.
"And support staff," Blakeney said. "I"m the only one left on your crew, Archer. I"m coming with you to see this thing through."
"Me, too," Murphy said, glaring at me through narrowed eyes. "We"ve earned the right to watch your back."
I threw up my hands. I was trying to keep them safe. But a small part of me was thankful. If I was going to my death, it would be good to be surrounded by friends. "Colonel, your call."
"Are you kidding?" His laugh was hollow. "I"m coming with you."
I looked at this group. I"d fought-and bled-next to every single one of them. Too many ghosts haunted my path, but today I"d walk with the living. "Fine. If we"re taking this parade full-circle, Klimmett should join us or we"ll never hear the end of it. He"s been with us since the beginning, too."
It was only right for them to be there at the end.
We approached the rock fortress slowly. Murphy had insisted on carrying the rocket launcher, loaded with a single blood-smeared rocket. The rest we left behind with Nguyen, who"d a.s.sumed command and was busy ordering the National Guard in recovery efforts for our wounded. Unfortunately, we"d found no trace of the middle school students or hikers. The sand had taken them.
Klimmett brought a small med-kit. "Anything needing more serious attention, we"ll have the National Guard medevac them. They have a helicopter."
The dunes had been churned every which way by the fortress and walking was hard. By the time we reached the outskirts, all of us were sweating. As we got closer, the crags and cliffs started to take on distinct shapes: towers, a balcony, and something that looked suspiciously like a castle gate complete with drawbridge. Dark, square openings on the ground floor seemed almost like observation windows. I wondered if he was watching us approach.
And now that we were here, did we walk right in? Or was there some kind of pa.s.sword?
Murphy shuffled past me, squinting at the gate. "It"s open. Should we-"
With a startled yell, he flung his arms out, dropping the rocket launcher, and was dragged forward. I chased after him-there was a rope of some kind wrapped around his ankle.
"Watch out for traps!" I shouted at the others as I tried to catch up to Murph. By now, he"d reached the castle gate.
The rope hoisted him up in the air by one leg, like an animal in a snare. Before I closed the distance, a curved black blade swung out of the shadowed entry and something dark hurtled my way.
Murphy"s head rolled to a stop at my feet.
The thing inside the fortress laughed, and the sound receded, like it had gone farther in. Holding my hand over my mouth-to keep from puking or screaming, I didn"t know-I ran back to the team. All of them were frozen in place, watching the gate.
It didn"t take long for my rage to catch up with my horror. Tink was practically singing with it; her anger fed mine and vice versa. "Wielders, we"re going in."
Aunt Julie turned to Uncle Mike. Rising to her tiptoes, she kissed his cheek. "I love you."
It was the closest thing to goodbye she could"ve said, and Uncle Mike looked like he"d been punched in the stomach. For a minute, I wondered if he"d stop her, order her to stay, but he didn"t. He stepped aside.
Julie joined Will, Jorge and Ramirez at my side. I nodded at each of them in turn. "Close watch, blades out."
"Sir, yes, sir," Ramirez murmured.
"Right behind you, man," Will said.
I headed for the drawbridge, careful to avoid looking at Murphy"s head lying on the sand. It was harder at the gate, because his body hung there, upside down, and blood stained the rock. Clutching the knife tight, I took one slow step, then another, half-expecting the Shadow Man to leap out at me. But he didn"t, and I crossed through the gate. Inside there was a small entryway made of stone, with a long hall curving off to the left. They weren"t making it hard to find him. Then again, that was the point, wasn"t it?
I turned and waved for the others to follow. Will started forward. When he got even with the door, he bounced backward so fast he landed on his b.u.t.t and skidded across the stone drawbridge.
Jorge"s shoulders sagged. With sad eyes, he said, "I was afraid of this."
Ramirez gave him a wary look and tried to follow me, and ended up tossed on his back for his trouble.
"What"s going on?" I asked. "Why can"t you get in?"
Will started to take a running leap at the opening, but Jorge held up a fist. "Stop! You"ll only injure yourself."
Then Jorge did something that shocked me to no end. He dropped to one knee with his head bowed. "Our knives are forfeit."
"What does that mean?" Will snapped. "I can still hear Coach Shaw!"
Jorge pinned him with a cold stare. "And what is he telling you?"