A brown cloud boiled up off the surface of the flatbed, a welter of splinters and debris. One of the machine gun mounts went flying, spinning end over end away from the flatbed. The dead men still tirelessly turning their cranks spasmed in place as debris peppered their bodies and threw them against their chains.
When the smoke cleared a meter-wide hole could be seen in the top of the flatbed, a gaping crater where there had been solid wood. Standing in the middle of the hole was the Russian boy. His cheeks weren't even smudged with soot.
No, Sarah realized, he wasn't standing in the crater. He was floating above it. He hadn't moved, literally'he was floating in mid-air even though the flatbed had been blown out from under him. Sarah studied him with her occult senses and breathed an oath. She struggled to get her helmet back on straight. 'That's not him'it's a projection, Ayaan, a mental projection! Just an illusion.'
'Seelka meicheke,'Ayaan swore. She threw the launcher down to the deck of the helicopter with a clang. Osman backed off, out of firearms range, though the remaining machine gun on the flatbed was spinning free and unattended. Every eye in the helicopter looked to Ayaan.
'Alright,' Ayaan said, after a moment. 'Osman, set down on top of that dune.' She pointed at a rising swell of the desert maybe a kilometer away.
The women in the cargo bay looked at each other and some of them gasped. Fear gripped Sarah too tightly in its sweaty grasp to let her utter a word. If she could she would have asked Ayaan if she had suddenly lost her mind. The helicopter provided the only real advantage the living possessed against the dead'the ability to fly away. If they put down now, with an army of the dead within striking range...
Osman knew a direct order when he heard it, though, and did what he was told.
Monster Planet
Chapter Three
Ayaan knelt and touched the sand, then her heart, then her forehead. It was a very old gesture, one that predated the Epidemic: she was thanking the Earth, her mother, and her God for the right to make war. The other women hurried to copy her, but Sarah refused to go along. 'Okay. Okay, so this is stupid.' She knew she sounded whiny and selfish but she couldn't help it. 'Someone tell me why we're doing this again? The ultimate lich of all time is over that hill and we're going to stand here and fight him on foot. Even though we have a helicopter and we could just leave.'
'You have never understood what orders mean,' Fathia said, rising to her feet, her rifle swinging in her arms. The barrel wasn't pointed at Sarah'it never would be, not unless Fathia truly intended to kill the younger woman'but the implied threat was meant to be taken seriously. 'You were a foundling that she took like her own child''
Ayaan raised her hands for silence, and she got it. 'Do you know why we came toEgypt ?' she asked, her voice low, soft as the sand under their feet.
'There was nothing to eat inSomalia ,' Sarah replied. It was true. When the dead rose, when the Epidemic came famine had already ransacked the Horn of Africa. With few living people left to raise crops the food shortages had turned into outright starvation.Egypt , with its modernized cities full of markets and groceries, had promised at least some preserved foods. Cans and jars full of tinned meat and pickled vegetables. Ayaan had brought her unit out ofSomalia in the hopes of a better life and she had delivered on her promise.
Ayaan nodded. 'We've come so far. I won't be driven out now.'
A protest bubbled out of Sarah's heart. 'We're in danger. When we find ourselves in danger we fall back to a defensible position. You taught me that.'