Axler, James - Deathlands 65 - Hellbenders

by Hellbenders [lit]

  "And that reward is ours. We have all been unjustly exiled from Charity—a few of us from Summerfield—and we have been driven from our homes, family and friends by the idiocy and maliciousness of the barons, particularly that coldheart son of a gaudy piece of scum called Jourgensen. When the time comes, I don't care how or who metes out his chilling, but I sure as shit hope it's me.

  "We leave here in approximately ninety minutes, which should give us all that we need to finish loading and checking the wags. Thanks to Jenny and our good friend J.B., we know that the tools will not be found wanting, so it is to ourselves that we have to look. Have we got what it takes, people?"

  He turned and faced the map he had pinned up on the wall, tracing the route with his finger as he spoke.

  "This is the route we'll be taking. It's more or less direct, but as we get nearer the rendezvous we'll be avoiding the more obvious tracks so that we don't leave any sign of our arrival. This is something that has become more of an imperative since the chem storm, as the land around here may still be churned up and wet enough for us to leave wag trails. The other thing we have to watch for is any signs of quicksand. We don't have the time or manpower to devote to getting anyone out of trouble like that. There's gonna be a hell of a lot more of them than there is of us, so we have to conserve our energy and hit them hard and efficiently. When we arrive at the rendezvous point, this is what we do."

  He pulled the map off the wall and replaced it center stage with a hand-drawn chart that showed his tactical maneuver for the attack.

  "We form a pincer movement at the rear of these two outcrops, and as both convoys converge on the valley where they plan to meet, we close it down from each end, attacking them from the rear and hitting them hard. Then, before they have a chance to regroup, we come around the sides of the convoys, each group splitting to two, and hit them from each side, so they have no idea where to turn. And while they're turning, we hit them so bastard hard that there's nothing of the scum left. We know that both Hutter and Jourgensen are attending the rendezvous because of the importance of the trade, so that means they'll all be carrying their best sec. We hit them and wipe them out, then the ville of Charity is wide open.

  "It's a simple plan because simple is best. Make it too complex, and everyone has to remember what the fuck they're doing in the heat of battle. Make it too complex, and it's hard to adjust if something happens that we don't expect. But I'll tell you one thing—it's simple enough for us to chill the fuckers and finally gain vengeance."

  As he finished, a roar swept the room, along with cries of hate against the barons and their villes. This seemed to spur Correll on, as he yelled above the noise, "We've been screwed for too long, we've waited too long. Lives have been destroyed, people we love have been chilled, lives we wanted to live have been denied us. Now we can take all that back and show them that they had no right to take it away from us. We're hell-bent on vengeance and we will have it."

  The room was deafening as the cheers and whoops rose to a crescendo.

  Ryan and J.B. exchanged glances and looked around the room. The only people whose eyes weren't lit by the fires of fanaticism were those of their fellow travelers…and also Danny, who looked distinctly uneasy with the whole affair. It was Danny whose crestfallen and bemused expression summed up their feelings as Correll spoke again.

  "I hate the fact that the fucking chem storm threatened to ruin the whole plan. I hate it that the fuckers we've got in those villes can't tell us shit because of rad interference stopping transmission. I hate the fact that we're going into this blind compared to what it should be, but I'll tell you all something—we have right on our side, and that's what's going to see us through and help us defeat those bastards and avenge all those we've lost. Now let's get this show on the road," he yelled, whipping the enthusiasm and fire of his people into a frenetic state as they began to filter out of the room and down to the wag bays, where they would pick up the last of their traveling supplies and gun the wags into action.

  The companions were among the last to leave the room. Mildred made her way over to Ryan and whispered urgently to him.

  "I don't have to tell you, do I?" she began. "I've seen that so often in the old days. Papa Joe is about as unstable as you can get, like a volcano about to blow. Trouble is, we're going to be right in the path of it this time."

  "Yeah, I know that," Ryan returned in an undertone, "but what can we do? We've got to roll with it for now."

  "Listen, if he carries on like this, I wouldn't like to bet on our chances of reaching the interception point in one piece with him in the lead, let alone winning a firelight."

  J.B., who had heard their exchange, interjected. "It's no use worrying about that, Millie. Ryan's right, we can't back out now. We've got to run with the pack and then play it by ear. Thing we've got is that we can stay cooler than them. They're all as fired up as Correll is. We've got to trust to our reactions being better."

  Mildred fixed the Armorer with a sardonic stare, her eyebrow raised. "John, don't you realize that the last thing I'm worried about is our ability? We're not the ones giving orders, and he's got superior numbers. What I'm worried about is the few of us having to fight on three fronts instead of two. That could be stretching things a little too thin."

  "We'll have to see," Ryan replied. "We don't have any other option."

  With which decision, the one-eyed man led them after the retreating Hellbenders, toward the wag bay.

  Chapter Fourteen

  In the wag bay, the heat, smell and noise were intense. The Hellbenders were checking the wags, loading up the last supplies of ammo and grens, and settling themselves into the variety of vehicles in order to begin the trek to the ambush point.

  As the companions entered, Jenny approached them.

  "Papa Joe wants you and Krysty to go with him," she said to Ryan. "J.B., he wants you to go in the second wag with Mildred. I'll be in that one, too. Dean, you and Jak and Doc are to go in the third wag out. Each of the first three will form a lead point for the different parties when we reach the destination. He values your experience in different environments, and wants to spread you out to be as effective as possible."

  "Of course he does," Mildred murmured, although there were other thoughts that occurred to her. Ryan had wanted them to keep together as much as possible, and although it was as well that they weren't spread across the entire convoy, splitting them into three would make it harder for the group to maintain unity if they had to find a way of pulling out. It also suggested to her that perhaps Correll had a notion that they might be watching their own backs in this manner, and wanted to keep them separated to some degree.

  The one-eyed man felt much the same about this, but knew that dissent in such a situation, surrounded by the Hellbenders, hyped up to fight and believing totally in their leader, wouldn't work. If anything, the way the Hellbenders were feeling it may just get them chilled before they even left the redoubt. Although they had been accepted by the group, he was as aware as the rest of the companions that they were treading a thin line in a group that was riddled with mass hysteria and insanity.

  "Sure," he said simply, nodding briefly and turning to his people, a signal to Jenny that her task here was done. As the woman walked away to resume her last minute chores, Ryan spoke softly.

  "Looks like the three wags we take are all equipped with radio…" He indicated the wag with Correll already seated at the wheel, staring stiffly ahead and almost in a trance, and the two wags immediately behind it. They were of the stock from the redoubt, and were military sec wags, fitted with machine blasters and antitank weaponry. "That's good, 'cause at least we'll have a direct link if shit happens. We need to keep triple hard out there, especially when we reach the destination and move into position. I figure it'll blow, if it's going to, when they get first sight of the convoys converging. Until then, we keep it down and wait. This is a situation to react rather than act, okay?"

  There was a murmur of agreement from t
he rest of the companions, and they parted, moving off to their allotted wags.

  Ryan and Krysty climbed into the wag that was already occupied by Correll. He was at the wheel, staring straight ahead out of the front windshield, and didn't acknowledge their presence. On his lap was cradled a metal box, sealed and welded all around. It was about three by three, and had no identifying marks. With no seeming point of entry, Ryan wondered what it was for. Did it contain some kind of weapon that Correll had not told them about? Some kind of mysterious old tech invention that he had found in the redoubt? If this was so, then perhaps Doc would recognize it, as he had seen so much during his time as a captive of the whitecoats of the Totality Concept. But on reflection, Ryan thought it unlikely that it was weapon. The box was too crudely constructed, too amateurishly welded to be something that was legacy of the military-industrial complex that had left the world in such a condition. No, this was something that Correll himself was responsible for, and from the manner in which he was gripping the box, it had some intensely personal meaning for him.

  The one-eyed man turned to Krysty, but she had already seen the box on Correll's lap. The same things had run through her mind as through Ryan's, and she knew what he was thinking. It wasn't a good idea to ask—her hair wrapped itself tight to her when she thought of this, and without him having to even frame the question, she shook her head almost imperceptibly.

  Ryan and Krysty took their places in the wag. There were two other Hellbenders there besides Correll: Travis and Cy, who was manning the blasters and antiwag hardware that sat at the back of the wag. The comps glowed green and yellow in the dark of the vehicle, casting a sinister light on his features as he smiled a greeting. Krysty wasn't sure that she wasn't imagining it, but it seemed as though the entire party was set on a suicide mission, and didn't really need Papa Joe to go over the top. They could manage this quite easily by themselves.

  As the one-eyed man slipped into the seat beside Correll, it seemed to snap the gaunt man out of his reverie, and he turned to face Ryan.

  "Ready?" he asked, his voice no more than a hoarse husk.

  "If the rest of the party are ready to go," he stated.

  "They will be," Correll said simply and, without even bothering to check if this was the case, gunned the engine of the wag. It had been ticking over while they boarded, and now the powerful engine roared deafeningly in the enclosed space of the wag bay. The noise grew in intensity as it was joined by the roaring of the other wags in the war party.

  Correll put the vehicle into gear, and it began to move toward the exit ramp that would take them up the necessary levels of the redoubt and out onto the rock plateau.

  As the leading wag approached the sec doors, Correll leaned out, punched the exit code onto a small console and jerked the lever that would open the door. As the door lifted, he took the wag through and out into the chem-raddled morning.

  Ryan winced as the change in light hit his eye. The low-level lighting of the redoubt was replaced by the scorching sun, which hit them with no mercy as they exited the redoubt, the red, rad-bloated orb distorted even more through the haze of chem fumes that rose from the rapidly drying earth. The air stank of sulfur and a sickly sweet undertone that couldn't be identified as the quality of the air changed. Instead of the cool, cleaned air that was passed through again and again via the air conditioning and purification system, they were hit by the heat, dust and chem-soaked air that came after a storm.

  The wag turned sharply on the rock plateau, gravel and loose shale moving under the large, heavy-tread tires and shooting over the edge of the rock table, down to the base of the outcrop. It was a sharp turn to maneuver the large wags on the relatively small space and take them down onto the road that wound around the far side of the outcrop. In the second wag, J.B. gritted his teeth as he swung the steering wheel, the wheels locking as the wag spun on the loose surface. He righted it, hoping that the rear tires would hold on the shale, and followed Correll's lead. Already clouds of loose earth and dust were being thrown up by the motion of the wags, and it crossed the Armorer's mind that the wags that came at the very rear of the procession were in danger of being blinded by the opaque clouds that were being raised.

  Correll had already hit the road that wound down the far side of the rocks. It looked a steep and narrow path, and he took it at a speed that—to Ryan—verged on the suicidal. The wheels locked on the angles of the road, the rear of the wag sliding across toward the edge of the precipice, back end of the wag waving wildly into space.

  "The one problem with being so secure is that it makes it a bastard to get down again," Correll said with a humorless grin that spread across his thin, drawn face.

  "As long as we get down the right way, and not the quickest," Ryan returned.

  Correll laughed harshly but said nothing.

  The convoy of wags from the redoubt spread out down the mountain track, other drivers following J.B.'s lead in hanging back from the wag in front, allowing the dust some time to settle before they hit the lowering clouds. It also stopped the spray of loose shale and stone from battering the windshield of each preceding wag. Although the shields were of a material that could not be broken by the missiles, they could nonetheless obscure the driver's view with their constant hammering.

  In the leading wag, Ryan and Krysty both breathed a sigh of relief when Correll took the wag onto the flat of the desert floor, coming out of the final turn and gunning the engine as he hit a straight trail, intending to eat up as much ground as possible with the minimum of delay. Correll himself, and Cy and Travis, seemed not to have noticed the perils of the descent. Each was in his own little world, focusing on the firefight to come.

  J.B., sweat glistening on his forehead, spectacles slipping down his nose, took the final turn with a feeling of relief. After that descent, at that speed, any kind of firefight would be by way of light relief. Able at last to take one hand from the wheel, he pushed his glasses back up his nose and gunned his engine, changing gears and increasing speed to try to make up the rapidly widening distance between himself and Correll. He breathed out heavily through his mouth, sparing a moment for a swift glance at Mildred.

  The woman pulled her plaits tight behind her, rolling her eyes at the Armorer in a gesture that spoke of relief. Jenny watched them both, then said, "That ain't scared you already, has it?"

  J.B. grimaced. "Given the choice between a shootout with a bunch of coldheart mercies on one side and ravenous stickies on the other, and taking that road again, I'd choose the firefight. Know better what I'm doing then."

  The Native American nodded. "You'll soon get a chance to prove that, I'm thinking."

  A similar conversation took place in the third wag, driven by Lonnie. Catherine and Danny made up the numbers, along with Dean and Jak.

  "Hot pipe, anything's got to be better than that!" Dean exclaimed.

  "You're not going pussy on me, are you?" Lonnie asked without humor. His close-cropped head was rigidly set on the road ahead, and his eyes stared with a dark intensity at the wag in front. He put his foot down, gaining ground on J.B. as the Armorer increased his own speed to catch up with the leading wag.

  "Not a matter of that," Dean replied sharply. "Shit like that is stupe—get us chilled before we even get a chance to fight."

  "We don't pull out of anything," Catherine snapped. "If you go, then you go big."

  "Bit stupe to go before you get to the enemy, though," Danny said quietly.

  "Whose side you on, son?" Lonnie barked without looking away from the road.

  "It's not a question of sides," Danny replied, keeping his voice level. "It's a question of meeting the objective. Isn't that what Papa Joe has always said?"

  "Just mind you remember all that Papa Joe says," Lonnie returned. "Make up your mind where you stand, boy."

  Dean and Jak exchanged glances. Would they have to start watching their backs against the Hellbenders, as well as the convoys from Summerfield and Charity?

  Convoys t
hat they could only hope had actually left their respective villes.

  ELIAS TULK WAS A FAR from happy man. As a sec man for Baron Tad Hutter, he had been selected to ride shotgun on the leading wag to leave Summerfield, laden with food supplies and seed crops, headed for the rendezvous point. He wasn't anticipating much trouble from the sec forces accompanying the convoy from Charity. They'd be too busy trying to stop any of the women they were trading from stepping out of line. What's more, the device Hutter had his men rig on each wag would more than dissuade them. For, on each of the wags carrying a crop or supplies, a very obvious primitive flamethrower had been erected, pointing down toward the merchandise loaded on the wag.

  One wrong move, and everything they wanted and needed so desperately would be torched.

  So the problems wouldn't come from that quarter. There were more likely to be problems with the rest of the Summerfield sec wanting to stop and screw all the women they were trading before the convoy reached base again. That wouldn't go down well with Hutter, as the women were to be saved for breeding stock, and they weren't to be touched or damaged in any way. The women in the ville had proved barren for some time, and new blood was necessary if the ville was to survive. However, all the reasons in the world wouldn't stop some of the sec men going on the rampage if the rumors proved true, and the daughter of Baron Al Jourgensen was part of the trade. Not yet sixteen, still a virgin and supposed to be a looker. Unless strict discipline was maintained, she would be fucked ragged and left for dead by the entire sec force before they reached Summerfield.

  But that wasn't the problem that occupied Elias Tulk. He actually didn't care whether the girl—whose name he knew to be Ayesha—was raped and possibly chilled. Hutter wouldn't be able to stop it on his own, even though he sat beside Tulk right now, with an Uzi across his lap and a Sharps slung across his back.