Fire erupted all around her. It touched the trees and filled the air with the stink of burning pitch, it ran in liquid waves over the snow and left smoldering ground behind. Ayaan dropped to her knees with her arms over her head as a second explosion tore into the roadway, a third, fire everywhere and the noise, a fourth, the noise was hammering at her, the air was jumping with it she could see pine needles leaping up off the ground as if the entire planet had been picked up and given a good shake.
She rolled onto her back and slid down into a hollow, into a little space of snow where a boulder had sunk into the earth. She reached out her hands and pulled Nilla in after her. Nilla started to speak but Ayaan shook her head no. She peered up, around the side of the boulder, and saw a helicopter hanging there in the air, close enough to touch, no, that was just her poor depth perception, the inability of her dead eyes to focus properly. The helicopter stood in the air over the flatbed, white and orange, and mummies leaned out of its crew hatch, mummies in the name of the Prophet mummies'did they want revenge? Did they seek revenge for the forty-nine mummies she had killed on Cyprus, she wondered?'and then there were more explosions, brilliant flowers spreading overhead, fire, and smoke.
Her brain rattled in her skull like an animal trying to get loose. She pulled her arms in close to her body, brought her chin down. Made herself small. Nilla's dress was stained, ruined, and they were both soaked in snow melt and splattered with cinders, some of them still on fire. Ayaan brushed at the embers on her jacket, ran her fingers through her hair to shake them loose. The helicopter just hung there in the air. Rifles started firing back from the ground, living cultists with rifles shooting at the helicopter but its pilot knew enough to stay out of range. Where were the machine guns? She had inspected the .50 caliber machine guns on the flatbed herself, had stripped and cleaned them on the long trek when she had been glad for anything to do, anything to break the boredom. Where were they, why weren't they firing back? They had plenty of range.
The helicopter assault must have targeted them. Smart. Nilla started climbing up, clambering up the side of the boulder but Ayaan pulled her back down. They were only ten feet or so from the roadway, the column. Even if the mummies didn't get them the column might, it had to turn around. It was the only logical move. The column had to turn around.
Where was Erasmus? Where was the truck? She hadn't seen it in days, it had been sent to scout ahead but they needed it now. The column had to turn around. There had been a narrow defile in the side of the mountain maybe a quarter mile back, it wouldn't be easy but the column had to turn around and head for the relative safety of the rock walls. Where was Erasmus? The column could move a lot faster, could get turned around a lot faster with the truck, the straggling cultists could clamber up onto its cargo bed, they could hang on to the outside of the truck.
The Tsarevich wasn't turning the column. The column was still plodding forward, surging ahead at maybe three miles an hour as if there had been no attack, staying its course as if nothing had happened at all.
Another explosion tore through the thin air. Debris and metal fragments like flying daggers and body parts went flying, human body parts and it didn't matter if they'd been alive or dead or undead, human bones and flesh went flying over Ayaan's head like a horizontal rain of gore.
Where was the fucking truck? She heard it before she saw it, saw it only moments before it went roaring right over her head, its wheels barely gripping the road. Mud and cinders poured down into her defile, splashed against the boulder. The truck roared past'and then she heard the distinctive fizzle and bark of an anti-aircraft missile jumping out of its launcher and she saw the rocket's exhaust, a thin banner of white wind superimposed on the blue sky. She opened her mouth wide in exultation, in excitement, and whooped with joy as the missile bent like a perfectly hit football in the air, bent right for the fleeing helicopter. Something fell out of the side of the helicopter as it banked to try to throw off the pursuit. Something fell out and dangled there on a line like a spider.