Kenner shifted in his boat, looking from the birds to Rohn and back again. “Shouldn’t we…ah…”
“Shoot,” Rohn said. “Now.”
The Cerberus men opened fire with their pistols, shooting into the onrushing feathered mass. The first report startled Gallo, the noise deafening with its proximity. She clapped her hands over her ears, too late to silence the ringing noise.
In the sky above, the approaching swarm split apart, seeming to curl back on itself. Two of the birds simply dropped, mortally wounded by the random shots.
“It’s working,” Kenner shouted above the din. “Keep shooting.”
As if to embarrass him, at almost that exact moment, the guns fell silent. The men had shot out the magazines in their weapons and were now reloading. The lull was only a few seconds long, but it was enough for the Stymphalian birds to renew their advance. The firing resumed and the birds scattered again, but the flaw in Kenner’s plan was now obvious. Once the Cerberus men ran out of bullets, there would be no way to drive the birds off. Instead of frightening the creatures away, the shooting had merely advertised their presence.
Kenner seemed to realize this as well. He gripped Rohn’s shoulder. “We need to fall back.”
“It is too late for that,” Rohn answered. There was no dread in his tone, only a hint of disgust at Kenner’s foolishness.
Kenner flinched at the dire pronouncement. “Stagger your shots,” he cried. “Make every bullet count.”
The Cerberus men were already doing that, trying to work out a sequential pattern that would maintain the rate of fire and cover reloading periods, but the noise of the shots was no longer having the desired effect. More birds were being drawn off from the main cloud and despite the fact that some of the rounds were finding their marks, the swarm was closing fast.
Gallo felt like a spectator, watching a disaster unfolding, powerless to do anything to stop what had been set in motion. It took a moment for her to grasp that she was not merely an observer. When the birds finally attacked, she would be killed along with everyone else.
The realization hit like an electric shock, galvanizing her into action. She rolled over the side of the raft, not caring that doing so nearly capsized the little inflatable boat. The water was only about waist deep, shallow enough for her to walk, but she swam, striking out for Dourado’s boat.
Behind her, the Cerberus men assigned to guard her shouted for her to stop, but neither they nor any of the others attempted to pursue her. Dourado, however, had understood the earlier signal, and followed Gallo’s example. When Gallo saw the blue-haired woman splashing toward her, she changed course, angling in the direction of the ruins. “This way!”
Dourado stared at her in disbelief. “You want to go toward them?”
“Trust me!”
It was a spur of the moment judgment call, but Gallo was fairly sure that the birds would pass them by and attack the source of the noise. She was also certain that the birds and the salamanders were natural enemies, perhaps existing in a predator-prey relationship, and as long as they were in the water, she was more worried about things that swam than things that flew. They had encountered the salamander at the furthest reaches of the sinkhole, while the birds seemed to occupy the center, so it stood to reason that a denser population of birds would mean fewer salamanders. She did not have time to explain this to Dourado, and there was a very good chance that she was wrong about it, but the truth of the matter was that her decision had nothing to do with choosing the safest escape route. The only thing she really cared about was seeing the Amazon city.
The sound of flapping wings intensified as the flock’s leading edge drowned out the noise of sporadic gunfire. Then a scream split the air. Gallo glanced back and saw one of the Cerberus men, or rather what was left of him, topple over the side of his boat. A red mist hung in the air above the remains. The birds that had attacked him were already thrashing toward the other men in the boat.
Gallo heard the snap of bullets creasing the air right above her, then the splash as they smacked into the water nearby. Although the men were not shooting at her, the errant shots were as dangerous as the birds. Judging by the attack’s ferocity and the general pandemonium unfolding behind her, it wouldn’t be a problem for much longer.
Gallo turned her gaze back to the island and kept swimming. She chose a breaststroke, keeping most of her body underwater, hoping it would be enough to hide them from the winged attackers.
It almost was.