From a branch high above him came two loud, echoing reports from a rifle. The sniper was less than fifty feet from Eli and Moishe, and what happened to the bullets Buck could not say. A burst of flame shot from Moishe’s mouth straight to the soldier, who somehow kept a grip on his weapon until his flaming body slammed to the stony ground. Then the rifle bounced twenty feet away. He burned quickly into a pile of ashes as if in a kiln, and his rifle melted and burned too.