by James Axler
Moving at a full gallop, the three riders charged directly into the narrow opening between the gate and the limestone wall. The ever-widening passage was narrow, but they scraped through. Reining their sweaty mounts to a ragged halt, the sec men jumped to the ground and grimly started forward.
“Get the queen!” Major Goldberg bellowed, holding a hand to a bloody bandage wrapped around his chest. “Wake her! Find her, and get her down here triple fast!”
“I’m here already, Major,” a tall woman announced loudly, as the crowd of sec men respectfully parted to clear a path for her.
Queen Margaret Angstrom was a tall, shapely woman, her long auburn hair artfully draped to hide a missing ear taken from her in childhood by a mutie. As befitting her rank, the queen was wearing the matching pants and shirt of an ancient police officer, only now the collar and cuffs were embroidered with fancy scrollwork.
Black leather riding boots rose to her thighs, and the dark blue shirt was unbuttoned slightly to show off the emerald necklace given to her by the king on the birth of their first child, and a plain gold ring was on the second finger of her left hand. Slung low around her trim waist was a hand-tooled leather gunbelt supporting twin S&W .357 Magnum revolvers and a double row of live cartridges.
“Ma’am!” the second sec man cried out, going to a knee. Both men were covered with cuts, bruises and numerous blood-stained bandages, as if they were the unlucky survivors of an explosion at a bullet factory.
“Ma’am, we have to talk privately,” Goldberg said in a tight voice.
“Where’s my husband?” the queen asked, her voice taking on a slightly worried tone. “And where is the rest of the recon team?”
“Aced...all of them,” Goldberg stated without preamble. “Chilled by outlanders. A one-eyed man named Ryan chilled the king.”
“My husband...Frank...chilled?” she said, going very pale.
“They’re all aced,” the major snapped impatiently. “But more importantly—”
“Liar!” the queen screamed, slapping the major across the face.
Startled, Goldberg staggered from the unexpectedly powerful blow, but didn’t quite fall over.
“No, it’s true, my queen,” one of the kneeling sec men said, his black eyes narrowed to mere slits. “Forgive me, ma’am, but the king is truly chilled, shot by a gang of cowardly outlanders!”
“A bomb got everybody else, Your Highness,” added the other sec man in a strange guttural voice, the bandages around his neck immediately starting to well new crimson stains.
“No...impossible...” the queen whispered, a hand going to the necklace.
The middle-aged Asian sec man bowed his head. “Sadly, it is true, ma’am. All of it!”
At the startling news, hushed murmurs rapidly spread across the army of sec men, and then through the civilian population. For several minutes Margaret Angstrom did nothing but breathe heavily, her face undergoing a wide variety of expressions.
“Are...are the outlanders chilled?” she asked in a monotone.
“Still alive,” Goldberg said gruffly. “They had been taken prisoner, but they somehow escaped and blew up the campsite.”
“I see...” the queen said slowly, raising her left hand to stare at the gold wedding ring. Then in a blur of motion, she pulled both revolvers and fired them simultaneously into the major’s face.
The barrels were so close to his face that the muzzle-flashes engulfed his features as the titanic .357 Magnum rounds punched out both of his eyes. The major staggered backward just as the steel-jacketed hollowpoint rounds blew out the back of his head in a grisly spray of bone, brain and blood.
A shocked silence exploded across the ville green.
“The major didn’t show the proper respect for the falling of his lord,” Queen Angstrom loudly announced, a vein in her forehead visibly throbbing. “You there...Corporal!”
“Ma’am?” the Asian sec man asked, slowly standing upright.
“With everybody else chilled, you are hereby promoted to the rank of major,” Queen Angstrom said, sliding the revolvers into their holsters. “Congratulations, Major...”
“Svenson, my lady. Yang Svenson.”
She nodded as if that was important for some reason. “Congratulations, Major Svenson. Have a private take care of your horse, then see the healer about those wounds.” She looked at the bloody corpse on the ground. “Afterward strip this fool of anything valuable. Everything he owned now belongs to you.”
“Thank you, my queen!”
“Then assemble a war party, and bring me the heads of the outlanders packed in salt! I want them as decorations on the mantel above my fireplace. Understand?”
“Consider it done, Your Majesty,” Svenson said, snapping off a salute. “May I take Kevin and Sue Jones, the wall guards? They’re the best nuking shots in the whole Granite Empire, and the leader of the coldhearts is almost as good.”
“Take whoever you want.”
“Thank you!”
“Excuse me, Your Majesty?” asked the other sec man, still kneeling. “May I ask a boon?”
“Proceed,” Queen Angstrom said in a dangerous tone, the pulse in the vein quickening.
“Please allow me to lead the patrol sent to avenge the king,” he asked, looking upward. “I can help identify the outlanders.”
The queen glanced at the new major.
“Sounds good, Your Majesty,” Svenson said. “Corporal Goldberg helped build the cage they escaped from and saw their faces, while I have not.”
She blinked in surprise. “Goldberg?”
“The major was my uncle,” the corporal said, looking her in the face.
For a long moment the queen said nothing, then shrugged. “Granted,” she announced. “Find the outlanders, and your family won’t be punished for the failures of your relative. However, if they escape from you again...”
“Never, ma’am!” Corporal Goldberg declared, slapping a fist to his chest. “Death first!”
“Getting chilled would be the least of your worries,” the queen replied.
“On second thought, Major, don’t assemble a war party,” the queen said, using stiff fingers to brush back her long ebony hair. “Take a hunting party instead. Ten, mebbe fifteen, at the most. The best hunters we have. Find the outlanders, but do not kill them.” She inhaled deeply. “Then use a pigeon to send back word to me. I’ll take over from there.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Svenson said, a hard smile slowly forming. “It will be done as you command.”
“Make damn sure that it is,” she growled, turning on her heel.
As she walked across the ville green, every sec man gave a stiff-armed salute, and all of the civilians bowed their heads. Several of the older civilians were openly crying, while frightened children tightly hugged the legs of their grim parents.
On impulse, Angstrom looked up and saw the gaudy slut on the balcony of the tavern stepping into a dress. As the civilian wiggled the lace garment up to her shoulders, Angstrom nodded in approval and kept walking.
“I wonder if they are paying homage because your husband was a good king,” a familiar voice said from behind, “or is it merely a show to appease your wrath?”
“Was he a good king?” Margaret Angstrom asked, glancing over a shoulder.
“Absolutely!” John Kelley replied, flashing crooked teeth. “The Granite Empire is wealthier than most predark cities, and no man, mutie or machine has breached our primary wall in a dozen years. We have running water, and the tribute from the other villes keeps us all well fed in the winter months. What more can anybody ask of a ruler?”
“A child that lived would have been good,” the queen whispered, the words nearly lost amid the general murmurs coming from the crowd.
Opening his mouth to speak, Kelley closed it with
a snap and remained mum.
Noticing the action, the queen patted the man on the shoulder. “My husband always said that you were smart.”
Shrugging in reply, Kelley maintained the safety of silence.
Short and skinny, the old man was dressed in leather pants and shirt, the garments covered with so many patches it was difficult to tell where one ended and the other began. Predark sneakers were on his feet, and his bright orange plastic vest was composed entirely of pockets, each one containing a tool of some sort. Every inch of his exposed skin was marked with overlapping scars, some of them fresh, and thick welding goggles hung around his neck on a braided leather strap. Heavy canvas gloves were tucked into his gunbelt, and a Remington .22 derringer was holstered at the small of his back.
“John, I want the Fire Hammer ready to hunt down these coldhearts,” the queen said, heading up the sloping street toward the cinder-block house at the top of the gentle hill. “Are all of your modifications finished?”
Kelley grinned eagerly. “Absolutely, Your Majesty! The rebuilt step-up transformer delivers almost double the voltage to the primary firing chamber, and the new—”
“So, it works?” she interrupted tiredly.
“Absolutely! Would you like a demonstration?” Kelley asked hopefully. “There’s a baker who raped an old woman due to go to the whipping post at noon. I would be more than happy to use him as a live target.”
“Yes, that sounds fine,” the queen said, breathing in deeply. “However, at the present, I wish to...” A ragged sob escaped from the woman, and she quickly turned away to wipe her face with a silk handkerchief.
“Noon it is, my queen,” Kelley said, starting down the hill.
“No, wait! Stay with me,” the queen said with a wave, motioning him to return.
Hesitantly, Kelley started back.
Violently shaking herself as if trying to dislodge an annoying insect, the woman grabbed him roughly by the shirt. “Talk to me,” she commanded. “Tell me of your machine. Explain about volts and comps, and all the tech that makes the Hammer work.”
“The details are very complex, Your Majesty,” Kelley said awkwardly, scratching his head again. “Normally, I reported such things to the king, but—”
“Now he is gone, and it is my responsibility,” Margaret Angstrom stated, releasing the man. “The barons will only obey me out of fear, and the only thing they are frightened of is the Hammer.”
“Quite true.”
She almost smiled. “So, talk to me about the foundation of my empire. Tell me everything. And if the Fire Hammer’s demonstration is successful, I believe I’ll assemble my own war party and head out after Svenson.”
Chapter Five
Long into the night, the companions rode hard and fast into the foothills. To avoid being followed, Ryan had them double back on their tracks, ride single-file for a mile, and take off in different directions, only to converge again in an hour.
As expected, Mildred had the pieces of the roasted elk wrapped in clean cloth and stuffed into a saddlebag, along with any other food she had been able to find: a plastic bag of salt, a plastic bottle of shine and some odd rods of an amber crystal.
“These look like maple sugar sticks,” she explained, passing around the items. “But I’d give them a lick first, before biting hard.”
Eagerly, the companions divided the portions of roasted elk while riding. This wasn’t the time, or place, to stop to make camp.
“S’good!” Ricky commented, chomping off another piece.
“Take normal-size bites,” Krysty advised, doing the same thing. “You don’t want to choke and make this your last meal. Right?”
As comprehension flared, the youth nodded and forced himself to slow down. But a few moments later he was savaging the elk steak again, clearly unable to control his ravenous hunger.
“Kid eats like a sec man.” Ryan chuckled.
“Shoots like a sec man, too,” J.B. declared with an obvious note of pride.
Ryan gave a rare smile. “Sure does. The kid’s got some bastard skill.”
As a light snow began falling around midnight, Jak thought he saw a man wearing the buckskin uniform of the Granite Empire watching them from a distant hill. Quietly alerting the others, Jak dashed into the storm to try to sweep around the hill to ambush the sec man from behind. If the scout was a vanguard, he needed to be killed fast and silent. However, by the time Jak reached the hill, there was no trace of the sec man, the falling snow covering any possible footprints or tracks.
Reluctantly, Jak returned to the others and the companions rode hard and fast for the next couple of days, heading high into the mountains. They didn’t waste any time trying to muddle their tracks. Speed was the only concern. This so-called Granite Empire seemed too well organized for Ryan’s taste, and if the new king wanted revenge, then the sooner the companions were out of this part of the Deathlands, the better. In spite of the fact that the last redoubt had been empty of any useful supplies, the mat-trans chamber worked fine.
Conversation grew sparse as more snow fell from the rumbling sky, masking the rugged landscape in a gentle mantle of downy white. The progress of the companions slowed as they needed to hunt for food along the way. Luckily, the area was rich with game: squirrels, cougars, beaver...most of it gene-pure norm, and the companions ate well every night.
However, over the next few days, the landscape grew wild. Crooked arroyos merged with vertical escarpments in a crazy pattern of hills and valleys that steadily flowed upward to merge with angular black mountains.
“Near redoubt?” Jak asked, expertly skinning a rabbit while riding his horse. The animal nickered unhappily at the smell of fresh blood.
“Damned if I know,” J.B. said in annoyance, folding away the patched plastic-coated sheet. “None of these mountains are on any of my maps.”
“Must be more nuke-scaping,” Doc said, turning up his collar to the bitter wind.
Following the remains of a predark road, the companions climbed ever higher into the soaring mountains, and soon found themselves looking down at the top of a thick forest. The snowy pine trees stretched to the horizon, then curved away to follow the bank of a partially frozen river.
“How beautiful.” Mildred sighed. “It looks just like a postcard.”
“New Hampshire is pretty,” Doc rumbled in his deep bass. “But by God it’s a stygian wasteland in comparison to the sylvan fields of Vermont!”
“That’s only because you grew up there,” J.B. noted, using a cloth to clean the snowflakes from his glasses.
“Indeed! How clearly I recall snowy days like this,” Doc said wistfully. “I would be clearing the front porch with a broom, while in the kitchen my mother would be...” His voice trailed away.
“Doc, four o’clock!” Ryan snapped.
Instantly, Doc spun with the LeMat in his fist. “I see nothing, sir,” he growled, squinting into the swirling snowstorm.
“Stay alert, I saw something move,” Ryan told him, then nodded to the others to let them know it was a lie.
“I saw cougar,” Jak lied in an easy drawl.
“A big cat would scare away any small game,” J.B. said, adjusting his frosted fedora. “Be tough for anybody to do a nightcreep. This might be a good place to make camp.”
“Lots of dry wood around,” Krysty noted, sliding off the saddle.
“I could eat,” Ricky said eagerly, although trying to sound casual.
“As could I, young Mr. Morales,” Doc said, holstering his weapon. “If hunger is the best sauce, then call me Bernaise!”
Wordlessly, Jak arched an eyebrow.
“He’s hungrier than a cannie in a lettuce patch,” Krysty said, scratching her horse between the ears. “Me, too, for that matter. Gaia, it feels like years since we had that fried salmon
for breakfast.”
“I’ll cook if somebody else gets the firewood,” J.B. added, putting his glasses back into place.
“Deal.” Sliding off his horse, Ryan heard his boots crunch into the thin covering of new snow. With a hand on the SIG-Sauer, he looked at the surrounding hillside.
There was a lot of empty space between the trees and bushes, affording an excellent view of any approaching dangers, and to the east was a ragged cliff, the tops of pine trees just inching into view.
Clearly, this had once been a parking lot along the roadway. Probably one of those lookout points that Mildred had told them about. Sounded crazy, a special place just to look at the scenery? But then, a lot of the things predark folks did were crazy.
Quickly, the snow was scraped off a patch of ground exposing the cracked asphalt underneath. Loose rocks were gathered to form a circle, and branches were neatly piled inside the circle. Six butane lighters were applied in unison, and soon the branches were burning, the growing waves of heat bathing the faces of the tired companions like a healing balm.
“This is the last of the Granite supplies,” Mildred announced, setting a saddlebag onto the snow. “After this, we eat what we catch.”
“Prefer fresh,” Jak said, tossing the cleaned rabbit carcass near the crackling campfire.
“Now, I like those military self-heats and MRE food packs,” J.B. countered, spearing the raw rabbit on a stick and hanging it over the flames. “There’s nothing quite like corned beef hash or spaghetti with meatballs!”
“Hey, bread!” Ricky announced, opening a backpack. Grinning widely, he lifted a hard roll into view, then took a small bite. “Cornbread!”
There were more than a dozen of the tough rolls. As the delicacy was quickly passed around, everybody took a bite.
“Damn near broke a tooth,” J.B. complained, rubbing his jaw.
“I think the secret ingredient is cement,” Mildred said with a pronounced scowl.
“Bah, no weevil alive could ever penetrate this culinary Gibraltar!” Doc espoused, pulling his sword. But then he paused and slid the Spanish steel back into its ebony sheath.