Sunchild

by James Axler

  The same was happening on the other side, except that it had become a race between Jak and Doc to see who could come up and fire first. Doc was surprisingly swift for such a frail-looking man. His deceptive strength was matched by a burst of speed that saw him roll and aim in a fraction of a second.

  But the albino was quicker. Death had always been Jak's trade. Hunting animals or people, it amounted to the same thing. The Colt Python barked fractionally before the roar of the LeMat, causing the two attackers standing to their side of the road to dive haphazardly for cover that wasn't there.

  Things were now equal, and also stalemated. With no cover for either side, it was a firefight that could only end in complete annihilation for one side. There was nowhere to run and hide as the laser rifles crackled their beams of intense light and heat, failing to find range because of the fire from the more conventional blasters.

  There were more of Ryan's people firing, but they had the problem of reloading, while the laser rifles seemed to have an indefinite life.

  Automatically, Jak and Krysty had fallen into firing alternately to allow each other and Ryan more loading time, also covering Doc while he reloaded the LeMat.

  On the other side of the road, J.B. kept up short bursts of Uzi fire while Dean and Mildred alternated shots with their blasters.

  "Time for a little change," the Armorer muttered to himself as he laid down the Uzi and extracted the M-4000 scattergun. J.B.'s favored shot from the blaster were barbed flechettes that would cause considerable damage, even at this range.

  Covered by Dean and Mildred, and pushing his fedora back on his head, J.B. lined up the M-4000 and let fly with the scattergun. The barbed metal charge spread out in the air, scratching the paint on the side of the wag, scraping the opaque glass on the helmets of the nearest two attackers and tearing into their flesh. The thin material of their uniforms was no defense against the charge, and both went down beneath the hail of hot barbed metal.

  Whether they had been chilled was unimportant. It brought the brief and bloody firefight to a close as one remaining male attacker kept up a covering fire while the remaining woman hurriedly gathered the laser blasters, throwing them into the rear of the brightly colored armored wag. That done, she climbed in and helped pull in the man whose knees had been ripped to shreds, and who had been attempting throughout the firefight to edge toward cover.

  The man covering their retreat edged toward the rear door, pausing only while the woman assisted one of those wounded by the flechettes to struggle into the wag.

  With one last covering blast, the man climbed into the wag, the door slamming shut as the engine coughed into life. The wag shot forward enough to complete a tight turn before screeching past them and back down the blacktop the way it had come, disappearing toward the horizon.

  Ryan and J.B., on their respective sides of the road, had already signaled the firing to stop, and the retreat had been carried out with only the bare minimum of cover to stop the laser blaster taking accurate aim. It was pointless to waste valuable ammo on a retreating force.

  The companions regrouped on the blacktop, looking down at the corpses of the chilled attackers.

  "What do you make of that?" Ryan asked.

  "Not see sec like that before," Jak said, gesturing at the corpses.

  "Or blasters like that. They're impressive when they work," J.B. added. "No idea of how to shoot in a firefight, though."

  "Perhaps just as well in the circumstances," Doc added. "Interesting that they should take such care to recover their arms, do you not think?"

  Krysty looked down the road, where the wag had vanished over the horizon. "They came from the way we were headed," she said quietly.

  Dean pursed his lips, shaking his head. "Hope they don't come from the ville we're headed for, then."

  "You hold that thought, son," Ryan said. "Because we've got to press on, see what we find."

  Chapter Six

  The map found by J.B. in the diner showed them that the remains of the blacktop was the main route from the redoubt to the remnants of Seattle. With the sparse vegetation surrounding, Ryan felt uneasy that his people would be exposed and in the open as they followed the route. On the other hand, at least it would be easy to see any other traveling parties.

  They continued the route in silence, the clear sky an orange blue that shimmered under the rays of the sun as it beat down on them. What would be better— the acid rain and a cooler temperature, or the humid heat of the blazing sun? Ryan thought.

  He watched with concern as Doc seemed to wilt visibly in the heat, his overstressed body finding the blazing heat hard to handle.

  Dean and Jak dropped back in order to help Doc, with J.B. bringing up the rear and not allowing the party to straggle too much. They were still tight enough to adopt defensive positions with speed, if required.

  But so far the route march had been uneventful.

  Over the past half mile, the level of plant life, cover and vegetation was growing thicker and more verdant, the previously empty horizon becoming crowded with the skeletal remains of buildings. They were now overrun with mutated growths, bizarrely colored flowering plants with thick, toughened stems growing up around the concrete. Ryan went over the advantages and disadvantages. The cover would protect them from the elements and hide them from any potential enemies, but it would also hold unknown hazards and hide any potential enemies from them.

  Casting his icy blue eye to the melting heat of the sun, feeling the sweat run down his forehead from his soaking hair, he reckoned that right then the shelter from the sun was worth any amount of hazard. Besides, the fact that they were reaching the ruins meant that they were approaching the outskirts of Seattle, and their destination.

  "Does the map give us any sign of how the hell we get into the tunnels and old subways?" Mildred asked in a harsh, cracked voice, forcing every word through her dry vocal cords. They had been unwilling to use water from their canteens except at specified intervals, conserving the valuable water they had obtained from the ruined diner. Conserving it for Doc, if he needed more than the others.

  The old man was leaning heavily on his lion's-head swordstick, the silver glinting in the sun.

  "I must confess, I shall be glad to attain shelter," he croaked.

  Krysty reached out to Ryan for the map. "Can I look at it?" she asked.

  The one-eyed warrior handed over the map, sensing that she wanted to try to feel any danger that may lie on the path ahead. He would never understand her mutie sensibilities, but he trusted them implicitly.

  Krysty took the map from him and studied the bare markings of the terrain. The ville of Samtvogel stood alone and to the southwest of the city ruins as they approached it; the unnamed ville built beneath old Seattle stood in front, the entrance hidden somewhere amongst the undergrowth and concrete.

  Krysty returned Ryan's intent gaze in a similar fashion. Her hair, already close to her skull, plastered by sweat in the glare of the sun, clung even closer.

  "There's something… It's not right now, but there is going to be a problem. Gaia! I wish this wasn't so clouded."

  Krysty handed the map back. "I just think we need to be more on guard than ever."

  THE FIRST DANGER came all too soon.

  Once they had penetrated the outer growths of the city, it became apparent that the surface was uninhabited. It was also apparent that the thickness of the vegetation, mixed with the concrete debris and remains of old Seattle, would make it imperative that they send a scout to find a route and spot any immediate dangers. Ryan had noticed that Doc was finding the going hard, despite his best efforts to keep pace, and the line was straggling and dangerously loose, with J.B. dropping too far back for safety.

  Ryan halted them on a street corner, where the remains of an apartment building was all that stood visible and identifiable in the foliage. The thick green plants were multicolored at their heads, but all had the same thick green stems, the size of Ryan's arm, with sticky follicles that se
creted a sweet smelling sap. It was a milky white at the tips of the hairs, and all the companions were cautious to avoid contact with the stems, in case the sap was in some way toxic to the skin.

  The way had been fairly easy up until this point, as the remains of old roads and sidewalks were still visible, and hadn't been infested with the thick-stemmed plants, instead being covered by a carpet of what appeared to be a creeping vine of some kind. It had a sentience within it, and a couple of times the tendrils responded to the way Doc's swordstick came down, the smaller point concentrating the weight it carried enough to cause the tendrils to rear and try to grasp at the cane, wrapping themselves around its length.

  The building on the street corner still had three floors upright, even though the rubble from the wrecked upper floors spilled across one part of the intersection, cutting it off from an easy access. The lobby of the building was intact, the plate-glass doors standing open, miraculously in one piece, although pitted with small stones that had fused to the glass, and a web of minute cracks that connected the stones.

  "We'll rest up here," Ryan announced as they gathered. "We need to recce the surrounding area before we go any farther. It's getting thicker out there."

  "And more humid and sweet smelling," Mildred added. "We really need to find out how thick those mother plants get, because we can't risk what might be in that sap."

  "Want me recce?" Jak asked, knowing already that Ryan had selected him.

  The one-eyed man nodded. "Take a look at the map, try and get us in the right direction if possible."

  "Always route if look hard enough," Jak said with a grin. He took the map from Ryan and studied it. Jak couldn't read well, but a diagram or map was a different matter. From his earliest days hunting on swamps and bayous down in Louisiana, Jak had learned to look at a diagram as he would a spore on a tree. The fact that there was little, if any, writing on the map made it easier for him to absorb.

  He handed the paper back to Ryan. "Hope not hide entrance too good," he said with a twinkle in his eye. Ryan laughed. There wasn't an entrance constructed in the whole of the Deathlands that Jak Lauren couldn't find.

  When the albino had slipped through the doors and disappeared noiselessly into the vegetation, Ryan and the rest of the companions made themselves as comfortable as possible in the lobby of the building. It wasn't difficult, as much of the furniture had been left intact. Only the elements that had penetrated this far, and the brave tendrils of plant life that had ventured into the less welcoming atmosphere, had made any effect.

  There were three large leather sofas scattered across the rich carpeting, now overlaid with mildew and growths of moss. The leather had a layer of dusty, almost verdigris-like spore, which J.B., Dean and Mildred cleared from each one. Otherwise, they were probably as comfortable as they had been before skydark.

  Doc settled his weary frame on one of them, reclining until his head rested against one arm.

  "Wake me when young Jak returns, my dear Ryan. I fear I must rest…" His voice was already drifting off to sleep.

  "Not before I check those wounds," Mildred muttered, moving across to him to run a medical eye over Doc's dressings. The wounds hadn't been that deep, but when any antiseptic procedures were at a premium, Mildred could never be too sure.

  The wounds weren't infected, and Doc was asleep before she had finished.

  "I think we all need that," Krysty said, noting that Ryan himself looked weary.

  "I'll take first watch, Dad," Dean added.

  The one-eyed man assented, and they rested while Dean and Mildred took the first watch.

  JAK SKIPPED across the roots of stunted trees and over the beds of creeping vines with scarcely an impression, and no sound at all. Despite his heavy boots, he was able to distribute his weight in such a way that he left no sign of his passing…or at least, no sign to anyone other than one as skilled in the arts of tracking as himself.

  The details of the map were in his head, and he applied them to the landscape around. As he moved farther into the forest, the thick-stemmed plants were joined in the landscape by small, stunted trees with no height but trunks at least three times the thickness of any other tree Jak had ever seen. Their gnarled and twisted roots broke ground regularly, surfacing beneath the creepers to form an ankle-breaking obstacle should an unsuspecting foot catch in them.

  It was impossible at times in this part of the old ville to tell where the buildings began and ended. What hadn't been destroyed in the nukecaust or earth movement had since been taken down and crumbled by the inevitable forward march of the forest, the mutie heart of postskydark nature claiming back what man had destroyed.

  Jak scaled one of the trees. It rose no more than eight feet from the ground, but by standing on the topmost branch, which was thick and sturdy in relation to the trunk and so could easily support the slender albino, Jak was able to see through the dense growth of stalks, and also through the multicolored heads that spread their sweet yet pungent scent across the air.

  It was while he was balanced on this branch that he saw them. Although, to be accurate, he heard them before sighting them…

  There was little noise in the forest. It seemed that any animal life found it hard to survive in the conditions, and so there were only insects and a few small birds. Their chatter and high-pitched noises were soon cut out of his hearing by Jak's attuned ears. They were still registering, but were disregarded as he searched for other sounds.

  Like the humming…no, not humming, a chanting of some kind. Jak could make out sounds formed into words of some kind, but not in a language that he could recognize. There was a variety of male and female voices; this he could tell by the differing frequencies.

  Jak scanned the horizon, drawing close into the large oval leaves on the branch as he did so, instinctively using as much cover as possible, even though it was unlikely that they would be aware of his presence. It was proving hard to locate their direction, as the trees and plants acted against each other, the wood becoming a sound dampener, and yet the plants and their flowers acting as sounding boards, amplifying and distorting the sound as the party approached, making its true direction difficult to determine.

  Jak's instincts told him to keep his attention focused on the direction from which he thought it had originally come, so he turned back that way and carefully scanned the horizon. His eyesight was slightly impaired by his lack of pigmentation, but his other senses more than compensated for this by being ultrasensitive, finely honed by his years of hunting and stalking.

  It didn't take him long to locate them. They were crashing through the trees and brush with little regard for stealth, chanting loudly. They numbered twelve in all, six groups of two with a pole strung between them. Their clothing was a multicolored collection of old rags, dyed brilliant purples, oranges, pinks and yellows, which mirrored the plants around. They had probably found a way of extracting the color from the flowers and using it as a dye. They had obviously been hunting, as they had something strung from the poles, something just a little too obscured by their own bodies for Jak to make it out. Something that looked as if it were an animal. The alarm bells sounded in Jak's brain. How could they have been hunting an animal when all his senses screamed that there was no animal life in this forest?

  Jak assessed their direction. They were headed for the outskirts of the old ville of Seattle, and presumably out to the other ville, the one with the stupe name…and there was only one route out, one which would take them right past Jak's companions.

  The albino slipped down the tree. He had seen enough to judge the party. That they had been hunting suggested knives or blasters. This made them a danger, one he had to warn his companions about before the party reached the old apartment building.

  JAK HAD a good start on the hunting party, and was faster. He was back at the ruined apartment block in next to no time, and outlined what he had seen.

  "Sounds like these aren't from the ville we want," J.B. said.

  Ryan agr
eed. "They don't sound like the bastards we met on the way, and they're headed the wrong direction."

  "Think they're from the other ville?" Dean asked.

  "Possibly. Best thing is to take cover, let them pass. Watch them. No point wasting ammo on a firefight that might bring more forces down on us from who knows where."

  The lobby of the old apartment building sheltered them well from the path through the old street, as the pitted and scarred glass was opaque, and the most accessible path through the forest undergrowth was some yards from the glass doors. Still, Ryan was concerned that the oncoming party of hunters may spot signs of the companions passing, so he ordered the companions onto the second floor of the building, going ahead to check that the stairwell was safe, and that enough of the floor on the first level was intact and stable enough to support their weight. The windows on that level were blown out, but the foliage entwined around the building was thick enough to provide them with cover as they observed the passing hunting party.

  Jak slipped out the front of the building to check for any obvious signs of their passing and entering the ruined building. He wouldn't have time to completely cover their tracks, but as this was a war party returning home, he felt fairly sure that covering the most visible signs of progress would suffice.

  While Jak did that, Ryan took the old stairwell beside the apartment building's elevators. It was sturdy, and still firm beneath his testing feet. Krysty and Dean followed, with Mildred, Doc and J.B. at the rear.

  On the first floor, there were five apartments. In their time, they were fairly spacious and comfortable. But now they were covered in creeping vines, powdered with mildew and fungi spores, the fabrics and wooden furniture having long since capitulated to the humidity and fungi. Only the metal frames and remnants of old tech such as long since defunct TVs and stereos stood relatively unscathed. They were strange reminders of the days before skydark in an environment nature was otherwise successfully reclaiming.