His words were drowned out by a sudden barrage of sound. The helicopter. Redfield had brought them back safely. A sense of relief swept through him, along with hope. Professor Bruttenholm turned--and as he did, he saw the look of unease upon the face of Sarah Rhys-Howard.
The chopper roared over the top of the north ridge, whipping up clouds of dust in the archaeological dig. Redfield was not a fool. Such a close approach would infuriate Dr. Bransfield's team, disturbing their work, perhaps damaging delicate artifacts. Protocol would have been to approach along the lakeshore, as they'd done last night.
But protocol was out the window.
Red emergency lights blinked urgently on the undercarriage of the chopper. They meant crisis. They meant disaster.
"Sarah," Professor Bruttenholm said calmly, "fetch Meaney and Neil, and rendezvous with me at the chopper with all speed."
The dragon-men were fast. One of them caught up to Tenzin when they were still eighty or ninety yards from the nearest cave entrance. Hellboy cursed as he heard the guide cry out in pain. Jangbu started shouting, but he couldn't figure out if the village elder wanted the other one to gut Tenzin or leave him alone. His hands--long, yellow talons, really--were gesturing wildly.
"Stasia! Abe! Get in there and find the girl!" he shouted as he skidded to a halt in the brittle grass and switched directions.
"Try not to kill them," Abe called back.
"Doing my best!"
Hellboy understood. Despite the Uzi, Abe tried his best to be a pacifist. Hellboy didn't mind beating the crap out of dragon-men if they were attacking him, but he'd also like to avoid killing any more of them if it could be avoided. Whatever was in their genetic makeup, these people had children, right in that village.
Tenzin slammed the butt of his rifle into the skull of the creature on top of him. The dragon-man rolled into the grass, and Tenzin was up. He was a smart guy. He didn't even think about trying to use his rifle. There were too many of them, at least fifteen, and more coming from the village.
Hellboy reached his side just as several of the dragon-men leaped for Tenzin. They fought side by side, the guide grunting with frustration, anger, and effort as he clubbed them with his rifle. Hellboy backhanded one of them with his stone fist, slapped another away with the gun in his left, and grabbed a third with his tail, slamming the creature to the ground hard enough to break bone.
Jangbu kept shouting. Lucky for the old one that he was slower than the others, but still he was coming.
Hellboy grabbed Tenzin's arm and pulled him toward the caves; then they were running again. "What's he saying?"
"Until now, he was telling them not to take our lives."
"And now?"
"Stop us entering the caves, no matter the cost."
"Wonderful."
Hellboy barreled onto the rough, rocky soil that marked the base of the mountain. The cave entrance lay just ahead. The dragon-men were swift. He was just glad they didn't have wings. That would have been very bad. It also made him wonder what they were, really. It was easy to think of them as dragon-men, given the local legends, but he had no proof of that.
Jangbu started shouting the same thing over and over.
"Stop them," Tenzin said quietly.
A strange feeling passed through Hellboy as they ran up to the mouth of the cave where Abe and Stasia had gone into the mountain. Something in the desperation of Jangbu's shouts did not seem savage to him, only sorrowful.
Then they were inside the cave. The morning light did not reach very far into the dark depths.
A snarl came from behind them. Hellboy spun. One of the dragon-men tackled him, and he fell, one sheared horn scraping the stone wall of the cave. The thing grabbed him by the head and started slamming his skull against the floor of the cave over and over. The pistol flew from Hellboy's grasp. Fire flickered in its eyes like a reptilian jack-o'-lantern.
Hellboy caught the motion of Tenzin raising his rifle from the corner of his eye.
"No!" he shouted. He bucked against the dragon-man and threw it off. The creature tried to lunge for him again, and Hellboy grabbed hold of it in midleap, redirected its momentum, and slammed it against the wall. The dragon-man's skull made a dull, unpleasant thunk against the rock, and when he slid down to the ground, he left a streak of blood behind.
"Crap," Hellboy muttered.
He had dropped his gun. Now he snatched it up and turned toward the cave entrance. Backlit by the morning sun, he saw several more of the villagers rushing in after them.
Hellboy pulled the trigger. A spray of rock chips erupted from the wall just inside the cave, but it gave the men of Nakchu village pause.
"Go," he snapped.
Tenzin ran. Hellboy followed, still aiming at the cave entrance, until they were around the corner and out of sight. The caves were riddled with small shafts that let light in at intervals, and they hurried through patches of light and darkness.
"Abe! Stasia!"
The tunnel became narrower, and lower. Hellboy bent and kept going. Tenzin was ahead of him, which was good. Hellboy was pretty durable. The guide somewhat less so.
"Stasia!" he shouted.
The whispering and clicking sounds of pursuit came up the tunnel behind them.
"Here!" came the call from ahead.
Her voice.
Hellboy followed Tenzin into a vast cavern. Far above their heads, small windows in the rock allowed light in. He spotted Stasia first, almost in the center of the room. She had her gun in her hand, but her features were twisted in anguish.
"What is it?" he asked. "The girl? Did you find her?"
With the look on Anastasia's face, he didn't know if he wanted an answer. But then she shook her head. Hellboy didn't understand. He glanced around, looking for Abe. He spotted his friend in a darker corner of the cavern. Abe emerged into a shaft of morning sun. He had the Uzi in both hands, but it was almost as though he'd forgotten he was holding it.
"Abe, what--"
But then Tenzin started to whisper a prayer, and Hellboy looked past Abe, focusing on the walls of the cavern for the first time. Boxlike shelves had been hewn in the wall, and upon each of them lay a corpse in death's repose. Some of the remains looked almost human. Others were twice ordinary size and had skulls with jaws like a crocodile's. He spun around. Every wall was the same.
Then Hellboy saw the strange crenellated shapes in the floor where Stasia stood, and he knew that the pale things jutting from the ground were the bones of a true dragon.
"This is why they didn't want us to come in," Abe said.
Stasia gazed at Hellboy. "It's their crypt."
The sounds of pursuit grew suddenly much louder. All four of them turned at once, leveling their weapons at the same entrance Hellboy and Tenzin had used, though there were at least two other tunnels leading away from the burial chamber--probably to other crypts.
Two dragon-men burst into the chamber. Upon seeing the intruders, they stopped, threw back their heads, and howled in grief. Then, with a hiss, they started across the crypt, flames licking from their eyes.
A voice barked behind them.
The two dragon-men stopped and turned to stare at Jangbu, his white, knotted beard making him unmistakable.
Then another villager slipped past Jangbu and into the chamber. He raised his hands as though in surrender. Smoothly, his features changed again, and in the space of a few heartbeats, he appeared human again.
"What's this?" Abe asked.