[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Alice's mind was a mask of concentration, filtering out everything other than the immediate threat in front of her, and her hands and legs moved as if by their own volition, driven by years of training and combat experience.Another Biter went down before her and then she saw the Red Guard officer.Alice saw the officer was armed with a short sword and as Alice watched, she swung it in a deadly arc, decapitating one of Alice's Biters.Hatter was now behind the officer and Alice saw him grab the officer's arm and bite into it.Before Alice could see what happened next, a Biter came in front of her.His teeth were dripping blood and his face was torn in several places.He lunged to bite, but Alice swiped with her knife first, catching him in the throat.Before he could recover, she shot him in the face.She paused for a second to get her bearings.It seemed that Hatter had succeeded in taking out the Red Guard officer; and without someone to control and co-ordinate them it would be easier to pick off the remaining Biters.Alice heard a scream and looked up, and for a second her mind refused to believe what her eyes were seeing.The Red Guard officer had a large chunk of flesh torn out of her left arm but she was hardly out of the fight.No human could have been bitten by Hatter and not been affected.The officer pivoted on one leg and kicked, making solid contact with Hatter's face, stopping him in his tracks.In one fluid movement, she turned and brought her sword up and cut through Hatter's stomach, slicing upwards as she cut through his chest.The move would have killed any human, but Hatter was oblivious to pain, and the unexpected resistance only enraged him further.He tried to claw the officer's face and she swerved out of the way in the nick of time, losing her glasses and mask in the process.Before Hatter could attack again, she had cut him off at the right knee with her sword.Hatter collapsed on the ground and she brought her sword down on his head.'No!'Alice ran – but it was too late.Hearing her scream, the Red Guard officer stood up to face her.Now Alice was close enough to see her features and she stopped, her mind trying to reconcile to the impossibility of what she saw before her.The Red Guard smiled.'This is an unexpected bonus.I had not hoped to meet you so soon.Now die at the hands of the Red Queen!'***Alice brought up her gun to fire, but Li’s hand shot out at blinding speed, and the gun flew from Alice’s grip.She looked down to see a metallic star embedded in her right palm.Even before Alice had fully pulled it out, Li was upon her, screaming with her sword raised above her head with both hands.Alice brought up her knife to parry the blow and barely succeeded, the razor sharp edge of the sword slicing through part of her left arm.Alice might have felt no pain, but she realized that she was up against a formidable enemy, so she rolled out of the way to gain some space and time to think.Li’s red eyes were glowering and she hissed in rage.‘I have heard much about you, Yellow Witch.Now I will avenge all you have done by cutting your head off and taking it with me.’Alice had her knife ready, but she knew that her enemy would have a big reach advantage with her sword.She seemed to be perhaps only a few years older than Alice, and like the other enemy Biters she had seen, her face and skin seemed relatively unmarked.She came in again, thrusting with the sword, and Alice side-stepped her, twisting the knife into her stomach as she passed.As Alice regained her balance, she saw Li spit in contempt.‘You cannot gut me like a mere human, witch!’This woman was unlike any enemy she had ever faced.Biters were simple to deal with; they knew nothing of tactics nor skill.Human adversaries, no matter how skilled or strong, were at a disadvantage versus her because they would tire, fall victim to wounds – she would not.However, for the first time she was facing someone like her, and she would have to rethink how she fought.Li struck again and Alice again weaved out of the way, this time sweeping Li’s leg under her as she passed.Li hit the ground hard as Alice turned to face the next attack.She did not know where this half-Biter had come from or where she fit into the Central Committee’s plans, but one thing was clear.She was making an elementary mistake: she was fighting angry.Li swung her sword again and grunted in despair as she missed and overshot and once again Alice stabbed her in the back before rolling away.Li and her elder brother had been brought up in a Red Guard Academy since she had been five years old when her father had been called up on duty in the Deadland and her mother killed by Biters in the chaos following The Rising.The Central Committe had identified gifted children and trained them from an early age, hoping to create the vanguard of a new China when things stabilized.As the war raged on, the graduates of the Academy became the elite officers of the Red Guards.With her impressionable young mind filled with tales of brutal hordes of Biters and of terrorists threatening the Mainland, Li had grown up with the certain knowledge that one day she too would serve her nation in this war.Then as the war continued to rage in the Deadland and more and more Red Guard officers were rushed into frontline combat as Zeus units began to mutiny, her father and brother were sent to the Deadland to combat the menace posed by the terrorists led by some Yellow Witch.Rumors in the Academy spoke of a half-Biter monster who could not be killed.Then came the news that both Li’s father and brother had perished in the fighting.At that time she had not yet graduated, but based on her skills had already been assigned to a Special Forces unit.She sent a petition to the Central Committee, pleading to be sent to the Deadland, hoping she would have a chance to avenge her father and brother.When Commissar Hu himself visited her and told her that she was to be part of a special unit to be inserted in the Deadland, she was ecstatic.When she learnt what she would have to endure, she began to have second thoughts.Then she was shown photos of the Yellow Witch, who it was said had been personally responsible for the death of her brother.She talked to combat veterans who told her about how her brother had been about to surrender, but had been killed in cold blood by the Witch.She was shown photographs of her brother’s mutilated body.She had nobody or nothing to live for and she wanted to get revenge, so she signed up for the special program.And now she finally had her chance at vengeance.She was screaming at Alice to attack, but Alice held back, waiting for Li to commit to another strike.Alice knew that her only chance at a decisive blow was to the head and she would just wait for Li to make another mistake.Li had had years of the very best training.Alice had nowhere near that, but she had learned from years of living and surviving in the Deadland.Li reached into her belt and hurled another shuriken at Alice.Alice ducked, the star whizzing past her.However that gave Li the time to rush forward with her sword, slicing deep into Alice’s side.The sharp samurai sword cut into Alice’s flanks where her belt was.Alice looked down and saw that it had sliced through the book she carried tied there at all times.The sword strike would not have finished her, but she would have had a pretty hard time trying to fight with her guts spilling out, and that would have slowed her down enough for Li to finish her off [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]