Waging War (33 page)

But then a tiny pinprick of light flared
about two-thirds of the way up the farthest tree, and I realized
what they said was absolutely true. Smoking could kill a
person.

After memorizing the terrain between my tree
and the snipers’, I scrambled back down my tree and sprinted back
over to where Archer and Nancy waited. Ringo ran up right behind
me. “You saw that?” he asked a little breathlessly.

I nodded and spoke to Archer. “There’s a
stand of tall trees, maybe half a kilometer from here, with a clear
shot of the north side of the bridge. They’re in that.”

“How do you know?” I couldn’t tell if Nancy
believed me.

“Saw a lighter spark.”

She nodded like she’d expected it. “It’s why
I quit smoking myself. The smokers were always the first ones hit
in the trenches during the Great War.”

Not to mention the cancer,
I almost
said, but just caught myself in time.

“We should split up and approach from either
side,” Nancy continued. “Archer and I have the firepower, so we’ll
take the lead.” She held up her hand to halt my protest before it
could form. “We won’t actively aim to kill, but I’d like to get
them out of those trees, and even better if they run.” I nodded,
and she continued. “You two follow us in case they do make a break
for it. If I had to guess, I’d say they have a vehicle stashed
somewhere in the woods near the road up ahead. If they run, be
ready to cut ‘em off.”

Archer looked like he was about to protest
Nancy’s arrangement, but I was already nodding. “Sure. That sounds
fine. Ringo and I are both climbers, so we can keep an eye on them
from whatever tall trees we come across.”

Archer’s expression darkened. I thought the
protectiveness thing must be kicking in again for him to be
annoyed, although Nancy seemed pleased enough with the arrangement.
She started off through the brush, but Archer hung back.

“What? I’ll be fine.” I dared him to
challenge my ability to stay safe, but instead he grabbed me by the
shoulders and gave me a rough kiss. I gasped against his mouth, and
he broke away and glared at me for a second before following Nancy
through the brush.

I stared after him, then turned to Ringo.
“What the hell was that?”

Ringo shrugged. “Probably jealous. Might
‘ave a little fear and concern mixed in for good measure, but ‘e’s
mostly just green-eyed.”

“About what?” Nothing Ringo said made sense
to my brain.

“About us. ‘E thinks ye chose me.” Then
Ringo nodded to my clothes. “Ye goin’ to lose those?”

My mouth definitely dropped open. Had
everyone around me suddenly gone insane?

“Excuse me?”

Ringo’s eyes widened, and then he doubled
over. My first thought was that he’d somehow just been shot, until
I realized his shoulders were shaking with laughter. “What’s so
funny?”

“Ye thought I meant we …” He pointed back
and forth between us. “I meant ye should lose the clothes so ye can
Shift and go as the Cat.”

Oh. My face flamed and the twelve-year-old
in me wanted to punch him. So I tried for poise instead. “Right.
That’s what I was thinking. Can you carry my stuff, or will I need
to stash it near the bikes?”

Ringo was still snickering to himself. “I
can carry it.” He graciously turned his back to me, and it took me
about twenty seconds to strip down and pile everything, including
my daggers, onto my boots. I tucked my underwear into the pocket of
my trousers – he didn’t need to be messing with those.

The Shifts were getting easier, especially
the practical ones that weren’t driven by emotion. My Cougar and I
said hello to each other, and I prowled around scenting things
while Ringo tucked my stuff into something he could wear slung over
his shoulder.

“Try not to get shot, will ye?” He still had
a smirk in his voice, so I butted into his knees and made him
stumble. My Cat didn’t care about poise. I took off at a full
sprint and Ringo cursed under his breath. I knew it wasn’t for the
hit, but for the fact that I was so much faster than him in this
form.

It was exhilarating to run in Cougar form.
My night vision was pretty spectacular, and I was able to keep to
the shadows, even on the moonless night. I slowed to a fast slink
to give Ringo a chance to catch me, and even at the much slower
human ninja pace, we still made great time.

I scented Archer and Nancy ahead of us and
leapt into the branches of a big oak to see what I could of the
terrain. Ringo waited at the bottom, and I thought, with some
satisfaction, that he sounded a little winded.

The snipers’ nest was just ahead of us, and
Archer and Nancy were sticking close to a line of underbrush that
hid them from the view of anyone in the upper branches. Nancy had
taken the lead, and I snickered as she walked through a spiderweb
and did the get-it-off dance to knock it away from her face. Their
position was a good one for invisibility, except, I realized with
the equivalent of a mental scream, the snipers weren’t both in the
tall trees. One of them, Grunty from the size of him, was
positioned at the base of the tree in which his comrade was
perched.

And Grunty had just seen Nancy’s spiderweb
dance.

Fire-Fight

He was utterly silent as he hoisted his
rifle to his shoulder and looked for the source of the motion. The
silence was a good thing, because at least Loogie might still be
unaware of them, but Grunty would find them in about ten seconds if
he had a night vision scope. It was technology Ringo had assured me
the German army had begun to use, and who better to have scopes
than snipers?

I growled with as much menace as I could
throw into my Cougar’s voice and leapt out of the tree. Ringo dove
out of my way as I barreled through the brush, straight toward the
tree where Grunty stood. I pushed every muscle I had into a full
sprint because I was about to have two sniper scopes trained
directly on me. I just hoped Archer would figure out that he needed
to get himself and Nancy out of sight.

The first bullet came from above and hit the
ground about five feet behind me. That meant Grunty couldn’t see me
yet, but Loogie had me in his sights, though his judgement of my
speed was off. Right, well, he wouldn’t make the same mistake
twice.

I shifted direction suddenly, lunging to my
left just as another bullet hurtled down from above. He was still a
tad slow, though his judgement was getting better.

But I was smarter.

I leapt up the trunk of a tree, ran along an
arterial branch, and jumped across the open space to the next tree.
Loogie hadn’t been expecting that, and only shot into the first
tree long after I had already left its branches. I didn’t know
where Ringo was, but I hoped he was staying out of sight. Archer
and Nancy were still in danger if Grunty decided the human threat
was bigger than the feline one, so I zig-zagged out in the open a
couple of times, just so Loogie would let loose a volley of shots
and keep Grunty’s attention on me.

One of those shots actually came from the
side where Archer and Nancy had taken cover. It went wide and high,
so I hoped Archer had gotten a good hit in on Nancy when he
realized she was aiming at the Cougar. The side shots stopped after
that, so I guessed he had.

The overhead cover was thinning, and there
were only a couple more places I could see to dodge the bullets
that now fired from both sniper weapons. I altered my speed and
direction with each step, but dirt clods and rocks were hitting me
as bullets ricocheted off the ground. A big boulder loomed ahead,
and I darted behind it, just as a Grunty shot split the hairs on my
tail.

I crouched behind the boulder, confident
that neither shooter could hit me if they held their positions. But
Grunty was on the ground, and if he took about twenty steps away
from that tree, he’d have me back in his sights.

My heart pounded beneath my Cougar skin and
my breath came in shallow pants.

It was a good run
, she said. I was a
little surprised until I realized her tone was one of agreement
rather than praise. We’d done it together, minds and body working
in concert, instinct and thought combining to keep us intact.

I ran down a mental list of my escape
options, none of which were particularly comforting. I thought
Archer knew where I’d ducked out, so hopefully he and Nancy would
be able to come up with something distracting enough to give me a
chance to run.

Shifting back to human was an option if I
had any hope at all that a naked girl in the woods would distract
the snipers. I thought it was just as likely that Loogie would
shoot me
because
I was a naked girl in the woods.

The shots had stopped, but with my predator
sense, I could hear the crackling of footsteps on dirt. I tensed,
ready to spring either at Grunty or away from him, depending on
which side of the boulder he came around. I wasn’t ready for the
sound of an impact, or for Grunty’s sudden appearance on the right
side of the rock – face down in the dirt. I leapt away and almost
reversed direction to attack when I saw a figure appear where
Grunty should have been standing.

“Saira. It’s me!” Ringo’s fierce whisper
broke through my Cougar’s fight instinct. Just in time too, because
he had to leap behind the boulder to avoid the shot from Loogie’s
rifle over our heads. He put a hand out to my neck, and I realized
we were both trembling, most likely from adrenaline, though terror
wouldn’t have been unreasonable.

Another shot clipped the edge of the boulder
and sent bits of granite flying at us. One of them must have
clipped Ringo’s cheek because I could smell blood on him that
hadn’t been there before.

He dropped to his stomach and slithered
forward toward the form of Grunty, still sprawled on the ground at
the base of the rock. Blood dripped down from Grunty’s scalp, and I
thought he might have hit his head on the rock when Ringo pushed
him from behind.

Ringo reached a tentative hand forward and
gripped a piece of leather. Slowly and carefully, he pulled the
strap until he had Grunty’s sniper rifle in his hands. The hands
were still shaking, but Ringo’s grip was firm as he slithered
backward away from the edge of the boulder.

He finally sat up and leaned back against
the rock. There were tears in his eyes as he pulled the rifle into
a shooting position. But the rifle was too long and it trembled too
much in his hands. He switched his grip to use the rifle like a
club if he had to, then wiped his nose and finally looked into my
Cougar’s eyes. He burst out in an embarrassed chuckle and rubbed
the tears away fiercely.

I sat next to him with my back against the
boulder and leaned into him. His hands didn’t leave the rifle
except to wipe away snot and tears, but I could feel the adrenaline
shake slip away and sensed his composure returning. I didn’t think
Ringo would ever tell me why the tears came, and I probably
wouldn’t ask him.

Grunty was still breathing, but I wasn’t
sure he would regain consciousness. That left one treed sniper. I
wanted him to run, but not until we were close enough to the road
to be able to intercept and follow. And now that he knew where we
were, he could just keep a line of sight on our rock and wait.
There was nothing ideal about this scenario – nothing at all.

Ringo and I had Grunty’s sniper rifle, so if
we had to, one of us might be able to take a shot into the trees to
scare him out. It was hardly ideal because of the fire we would
draw to our barely protective rock, and I knew our best bet to get
out of this alive and intact was to run. I was faster than Ringo,
and could draw Loogie’s fire away from the rock so he could escape.
It might be the only way to get back out to the road in time to
follow Loogie when he inevitably ran.

I got my Cougar body into a crouch so Ringo
could read my body language. He looked at me for about half a
second, then shook his head. “No, ye can’t be another distraction
to the sniper. We run together or not at all,” he whispered
fiercely.

I lifted my lip to show him teeth.
I’m
meaner than you,
I said to him in my head.
I’m faster, and I
can take his fire so you can run.
Ringo looked at my expression
and matched it with a fierce one of his own.

“Fine, if you do that, I’m not running. I’ll
stay here and shoot until one of us runs out of bullets. Ye will
not get shot for me.”

I growled at him and would probably have
bitten, except for the explosion.

BOOM!

We barely even had time to think before we
leapt forward and bolted. I took the lead because Ringo paused a
half-second to sling the sniper rifle over his shoulder, but then
he was right behind me. The night sky was on fire with orange and
red and gold, and I realized the Maquis must have blown the bridge.
It was about the only thing that could have distracted Loogie
enough for us to escape, and despite my prickly conscience about
the train that could have been on it, I was absurdly relieved.