Havoc by Ann Aguirre Read Free Book Online Page B

teeth snapping, and long strings of frothy spit surging each time they opened their mouths.
Are they . . . rabid?
Their eyes didn’t seem to focus clearly, and their long, curled nails were encrusted with grime. The new Queenslanders pushed the defense, lashing out with the brutal strength that had been such a pain in the ass when they served Grigor. Since she hadn’t let them drink, they were sober and angry, lots of pent-up aggression to work off. Mungo’s men fell in droves, in no way equal to Queensland recruits. Dred held her own with a lash of chain and slice of her blade. Spilled Munyan blood reeked, as if the men were rotting from the inside.
    She lurched backward, stumbling over a pile of entrails, and slammed into the wall. A begrimed fist smashed into the metal beside her head, hard enough to leave a dent. While they might be revolting, they were still killers. Dred swept with her chain, tripping her opponent, and as he struggled to keep his feet, she finished him with a swipe of her knife. The battle was madness all around, a cacophony of threats and screams, snarls and grunts from Grigor’s former recruits that sounded almost like pleasure. A shiver went through her.
    This truly is hell.
    When his men were nearly gone, Mungo broke and ran. She considered giving chase and decided that was exactly what he wanted. It might even be an ambush, though that could be giving the monster too much credit. Possibly he was all hunger and instinct at this point. Once the dying stopped, she checked the turrets, careful to keep her reaction from the rest of the men.
Not much ammo left. I have to check on the other guns and see what we have in storage.
The drafted Queenslanders bumped chests hard and slugged each other with roars she recognized from Grigor’s reign.
Damn. I wish I knew whether I should quell that. But it’s not like it’s a song glorifying his territory.
    In the end, she let them celebrate before saying, “There’s something seriously wrong with Mungo’s crew.”
    One of them turned with a look of thinly veiled contempt. “Yeah, they
eat
people.”
    â€œ
Medically
wrong,” she said icily.
    â€œI read you can get diseases from eating your own kind,” a guard put in.
    She turned to him with increased interest. “Really?”
    â€œYeah, especially if there was something wrong with your dinner’s brain.”
    That might explain a lot about Mungo’s territory if they were all diseased and getting worse. It meant they weren’t a threat long term, but in the short term, their actions would be impossible to predict. She made a mental note to ask Tam about it; the spymaster seemed to be fairly well informed about a wide variety of subjects.
    Dred raised her voice. “Good work, all of you. Let’s get this blood mopped up.”
    With luck, the rest of the checkpoints had held as well.
    *   *   *
    TAM was already some distance from Queensland when the sirens went off. He hesitated, and Martine said, “We can’t turn back. They can drive off the attack without us, and if you’re serious about scouting the other territories, this might well be the best time.”
    She had a point. With Mungo’s forces committed to the run at Queensland, they’d be paying less attention to their own borders. “Then we’ll continue on.”
    In the old days, prior to the conflict with Priest and Grigor, he would’ve needed to be far more cautious, as there would’ve been other scouting patrols coming this way to spy on Queensland as well. Before, there would’ve been traps and cloak-and-dagger games as he made his way toward his goal. But this time, the corridors were eerily deserted, just scarred metal and old stains marking days long past. Nonetheless, he couldn’t stop checking behind them, as if the ghosts of enemies past might be stalking them.
    â€œYou’ve never taken