Free Doomsday Warrior 08 - American Glory by Ryder Stacy

they had come far. “Good boy,” he rasped. With his mind fighting the desire to fall back into unconsciousness, he managed to strap himself on the saddle. Then—darkness.
    The floodlight of the full moon, which sliced down through a thin layer of green strontium clouds high in the stratosphere, lit the side of the crater with a garish brilliance, so the hybrid could see every square inch ahead of him. Placing one wide foot after another, it made its way down the slope, moving between boulders and cracks and sheets of gravel ready to slide away at the slightest motivation. But the ’brid had always felt more comfortable on this side of the crater anyway, almost playing at some points, as it would slide for yards at a time down a loose layer of sand. At last it reached bottom and immediately headed straight for the thick woods which began on the base of the eastern slope of the nuke hole and stretched on for a good twenty miles. It hit the woods in a flash and started down the wide logger trail that had been carved out a century ago. The shadows created by the branches lit from above by the wild eye of the moon made it nervous. It remembered again how it feared the woods in the darkness. And with Master asleep, there would be no loud noises, no flashes of white—and then blood. There would be no protection but its own stone-hard hooves and chomping-flat teeth—and its speed.
    If an animal can feel fear, knowing something may attack it, then Eisenhower felt fear. And if an animal can feel courage—overcoming its fear to advance onward—then the ’brid exhibited the same. For it marched through the low overhanging branches filled with a million leaves, twisting its long neck from side to side, trying to keep every square inch of the semidarkness in view. From time to time it could see fiery eyes glowing back at it from the shadows. But it would just speed up and keep on going, never slackening for a moment, never letting down its guard.
    Suddenly it saw five shadows, motionless, waiting. The ’brid knew by the low, white furred bodies that they were wolves. It had been attacked by them before—but Master had destroyed them. Now they waited, knowing there was no way off the trail, that the woods were too thick and densely woven for a creature as large as this mutant descendant of the horse family. Eisenhower looked back at the trail behind him and saw three more shapes lope down from the woods and start up the wide dusty animal-made pathway.
    In its primitive heart the hybrid felt the urge to panic, to thrash its forelegs wildly, to buck and stomp. But in its mind, a mind honed and taught by the Master, it knew better. To stay was to die. To fight was to die. There was only one way. Gathering its strength, the ’brid snorted a whale-like puff of smoke through its steaming nostrils, clapped its front right hoof against the ground three times, and then started forward. One of the most notable attributes of many breeds of the 21st-century hybrid horse is its ability to accelerate. With upper thigh muscles as wide as a man’s chest, the animals can put out a prodigious amount of accelerative energy in a very short period of time. With just fifty yards to go until it reached the waiting jaws of the wolf pack—now sidling carefully forward, their heads down, their shoulders hunched, checking out the prey and the best way to kill it—the great mass of pure muscle took off like a racehorse from the wire. It pushed down harder, stronger with every ringing clap of its hooves on the hard ground. At fifty feet it had hit 25mph; at a hundred feet, 35. It came at the wolves with a steely look in its eyes—ready to die if it had to, but knowing it would take a field of carcasses with it.
    The wolves suddenly grew fearful, high-pitched squeals of confusion emanating from their vicious jaws. They barked at one another, trying to figure the thing out—how to cut it off. But the ’brid wasn’t about to give them time. It came on,