Axler, James - Deathlands 65 - Hellbenders

by Hellbenders [lit]

  Like Jak, she was able to pick her way along the irregular pathway cut into the top of the rock and find herself a place to hide and observe.

  Now they had only to wait for the trade-off to begin.

  The lead wag from Charity stood at the entrance to the arena. Directly opposed was the lead wag from Summerfield. Both had their engines ticking over, both were waiting for the other to move first.

  "Come on," Jenny whispered to herself as she watched them from her secured position. She looked up at the sky, and hoped they would move soon.

  IN THE SUMMERFIELD WAG, Baron Tad Hutter was feeling much the same. So, too, was Elias Tulk, but for different reasons.

  Hutter glanced up at the gathering sky and frowned. "That asshole Jourgensen better start moving soon, or else this storm is gonna make things impossible."

  "Mebbe he's waiting for you to make the first move," Tulk said. "Mebbe you should, 'cause it sure looks as though he isn't gonna."

  "Shit, I don't wanna give him any ground at all, but…" He indicated to Tulk to put the wag into gear and begin to edge into the arena.

  ON THE FAR SIDE, Baron Al Jourgensen watched as the lead wag from the Summerfield convoy started to move into the arena.

  "Okay, let's do it," he said simply, indicating for his own driver to begin.

  The two convoys began to move slowly toward the center of the arena, each moving at a crawl to try to keep pace with the other, neither side willing to reach the middle before the other. The problem being, where was the middle of the arena? The lead wags in both convoys, stop-starting in a stuttering procession, reached a point where they were about thirty yards apart when Hutter signaled to Tulk to stop. As his wag shuddered to a halt, so Jourgensen signaled his driver to stop.

  The two convoys now sat, facing each other, only thirty yards apart. They were both far enough into the arena for the rear wag in each train to be well within the boundaries of the openings in the outcrop. There was plenty of space behind each wag for the Hellbenders to pen them in before beginning their attack.

  From their promontory positions, Jak and Jenny watched the wags proceed with mixed feelings. Jak was immobile, his red eyes fixed on the two trains, waiting patiently. Jenny, on the other hand, was less than patient, shifting uncomfortably on her perch and dividing her attention between the convoys and the sky. She was careful not to disturb or dislodge any of the rocks that surrounded the small perch she had made for herself, but nonetheless found it difficult to remain motionless. She felt itchy for action of some kind as the minutes ticked by and no one moved in any of the wags.

  But that didn't mean that nothing was happening.

  "GET THE WOMEN shackled and get them out in the open." Baron Al's voice crackled over the radio.

  "This is it, then," Claudette said to Ayesha.

  The baron's daughter nodded. "Let's get this done, then."

  "You'll never get away with it, you do know that, don't you?" said the sec man who had been riding shotgun. "Even if this attack from your so-called allies happens, chances are that you'll all still buy the farm. Is that really what you want?" he added, directing this away from Ayesha and Claudette and toward the other women, who had picked the shackles from the floor and were starting to put them on without closing the mechanism—even the bloodstained Anita, who had tried to clean herself up with water from the wag's supply rather than appear conspicuous. "Go through with it, keep your heads down, and all you'll get is shafted by the men of Summerfield until you make them some babies. Is that so bad?"

  Ayesha shrugged. "Don't you get it yet, stupe? We don't want that. We don't want to be told what to do. We want to have lives where we aren't pieces of shit to be used and abused, and frankly we'd rather get chilled than go through with it. Your way we die a long slow death for sure. But we stick this out and fight, then mebbe we've got a chance of getting away. And that chance is worth more than you could ever give."

  "That's a lot of words to prepare to buy the farm," he said quietly.

  "Which is something you would have done a long time ago if not for the fact that we need you to lead us out, so as not to look suspicious," Claudette said harshly as she unloaded the Uzi. She tossed the empty blaster to him, and he caught it before it hit him full in the face. "You can take this, but remember that I've got a handblaster, and I can draw it real quick if I have to. Understand me?"

  He nodded. "There should be two sec men with you. Otherwise Baron Al'll know something's wrong straight away. Davey should have been the other one," he added, with an indication of his head to where the chilled sec man was still slumped.

  "How inconsiderate of me to end his miserable fucking life, then," Ayesha replied sarcastically. "The driver'll just have to take his place. Will my lovely father spot that? I think not." She explained, before the sec man had a chance to answer, "Because you all look alike to him. You're just the scum that do his dirty work. So get your fat ass over here," she said to the driver, signaling him to climb over the seats and join them in the rear of the wag.

  "Why?" he asked, puzzled.

  "Oh, a triple stupe, as well, eh?" Ayesha snapped. "You know as well as I do that the two guards wouldn't both get out of the front of the wag. Everyone else in the convoy will expect one man from the rear, with the women, and one from the front, where he was riding shotgun. You're replacing the boy from the rear is all. Now fucking move!" she yelled, gesturing with her knife.

  The driver clambered over the seat and slid into the rear of the wag, passing near to Claudette, who gave him a warning kick—hard—to dissuade him from any idea he may have of trying to attack her. But he was just a driver, and had figured that this would be the easiest ride in the convoy. He was now pissed off and frightened. If any of the things Ayesha had said about the Hellbenders were true, there was little chance of him getting back to Charity in one piece. But every moment he could stay alive was still of the utmost importance to him, and so he complied with her request.

  Ayesha gave him an empty blaster and joined Claudette in appearing to secure herself in the shackles. But she still had the knife in the palm of her hand; Claudette had a handblaster up the sleeve of her shirt, and some of the other women had the liberated blasters concealed about their bodies.

  "Do it now," Ayesha snapped.

  The sec man in the front of the wag slid out of his seat, opening the door of the wag and jumping out, running around to the back and opening up the rear of the wag. Gesturing with the empty Uzi, he beckoned for the apparently shackled women to get out of the wag. This they did, with Ayesha in the lead and Claudette somewhere in the middle, looking behind her all the way to keep an eye on the driver who was acting as second sec guard. When they were all clear of the back door, the rear guard closed the door to hide the chilled body within from the eyes of the sec wag behind them.

  "Keep it hard," Ayesha whispered to the other women, aware of the eyes from all the sec wags that were now trained on them. There was an immense pressure on them to appear "normal" as they were seemingly led to their exchange.

  "Same goes for you assholes, too," Claudette added to the sec guards in an undertone.

  From the wags in front and behind, sec guards had appeared, climbing onto the roofs of their wags, and training their blasters on the opposing convoy. They didn't look down at the procession of women as they passed.

  OVER IN THE OPPOSITE convoy, Hutter watched the women as they started to walk along the side of the convoy. He was almost visibly salivating as he caught sight of Ayesha. Tulk, seated beside him, could almost read his mind, and felt physically sick for a moment, until he considered the fate that was about to befall his baron.

  "Ready the men," Hutter ordered, and Tulk gladly swung out of his seat and away from his loathed leader. He opened his door and jumped down from his wag, signaling to the other wags as he did so. Without the radio communications enjoyed by Jourgensen, Hutter had to rely on something as basic as one man sending out a signal. But at that moment, having witnessed the express
ion on the baron's face, Tulk was glad of that.

  At his signal, the sec men from Summerfield took their places on the wags, some keeping watch on their opposing number, others mounting guard over the primitive flamethrowers erected over the seed crops and supplies.

  FROM HIS POSITION on high, Jak watched the women being apparently led from the wag, and wondered what was going on. They were supposed to be in the wag that had brought them, and to secure it. He waited to see if Jenny would make a signal at this, suspecting that the Hellbenders wouldn't care about a promise made to Ayesha in return for her help. When no signal to attack came, he wasn't surprised.

  Jak's dilemma now was what to do. Should he make the signal himself and precipitate the attack, or should he wait to see what Jenny would do before acting? He had a suspicion that she would leave it until the Summerfield sec were unloading their side of the trade, thus leaving everyone out in the open and much more vulnerable to attack and, much as he regretted what appeared to be selling Ayesha down the river, the hunter in him said that this course of action made much more sense.

  And yet he was wrong in part. Jenny had only had part of her attention on the movement below; the movement above was more immediately disturbing. The clouds had started to move violently, and the wisps of breeze were snaking down to begin stirring the dust around her.

  The change in air pressure made Jak look up, and he cursed softly to himself.

  DOWN ON THE ARENA FLOOR, Claudette looked up as she felt breeze stir her plaits, and then down at the whirling eddies of dust that started to move around her feet. Her eyes met Ayesha's.

  "They better fuckin' hurry," she murmured.

  As the first load of seed crops were unloaded and the women readied themselves for the approach of the Summerfield sec, the dust began to rise from the floor of the arena to swirl around their lower legs.

  "Shit!" cursed Jourgensen and Hutter, almost simultaneously.

  Again almost simultaneously, Jenny and Jak yelled into their handsets, "Go!" before beginning a rapid descent to the wags below.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The wind began to howl through the jagged gaps at the top of the rocks and swept through the entrances at each end of the arena, conflicting currents meeting in the center and lifting great whirling eddies of dust and grit that stung the eyes and coruscated the skin. The noise from the beginning storm was enough to drown out the sound of the wags hidden in the channels at each side as they gunned their engines into life and began to roll through the narrow rock tunnels to circle out of the exits, turn and make their initial attack.

  J.B. waited until Jenny had slid down the rock and into the wag, breathless and already covered in a thin film of dust from the atmosphere outside.

  "You okay?" Mildred asked her as the woman settled in her seat and coughed violently.

  Jenny nodded. "Yeah, just about. That's a wicked dust storm blowing up out there, and I figure the worst of it may just blow through these holes, so we should get out as soon as possible."

  "Get this thing going, John," Mildred affirmed.

  "Already there," J.B. muttered through clenched teeth as he moved the wag forward.

  It was going to be a delicate balance between speed and getting out of the channel in one piece. Already the storm had increased in intensity to such a degree that the sand and grit that had been churned up was hitting the windshield of the wag with a loud, clattering rain that threatened to pit the toughened sec glass that had been fitted on the preDark vehicle. But that wasn't what worried J.B. The problem was that the rain was so dark and consistent that he couldn't see where he was going. Funneled into the channel from the outside, the wind, sand and grit were forming a visibility barrier that was preventing him from really putting his foot down on the accelerator and getting the hell out of the tunnel. If he took the narrow passage too fast, he was running the risk of driving the wag straight into the rock and not only damaging the wag itself and risking vulnerability in the firefight to come, but also jamming the vehicle across the channel and blocking the wags behind from making progress.

  Sweat stood out on his forehead as he concentrated on keeping the vehicle straight, trying to define the darker shapes of the rock walls through the opaque mist of dust. He ground his teeth, keeping a foot poised on the brake to apply it the second it was necessary, while keeping pressure constant on the accelerator.

  "Chill, John," Mildred muttered, "you're doing fine." But even as she said it she was aware, as was the Armorer, that the Hellbenders in the wag were impatient, their body language telling of the tension waiting to be unleashed.

  PERHAPS THEY WOULD have been less so if they had realized that Correll was encountering exactly the same problem trying to negotiate his way out of the opposing tunnel.

  The gaunt man had already started moving his wag before Jak was down and into the wag driven by Lonnie.

  "What's hurry?" Jak said phlegmatically as he regained his seat.

  "I guess Papa Joe wants to get out of there before that storm gets too much," Lonnie replied as he, too, set his wag in motion.

  "All very well, but we can't risk too much speed in these conditions, not if we want to get out in one piece," Danny pointed out.

  "You saying you don't want to fight? After all this time, and when you finally get the chance?" Catherine posed aggressively. The small blonde was hyped up and agitated, moving on her seat in such a manner as to suggest that Danny would be the first to be chilled if he said a word out of place.

  For Dean and Jak, this attitude just brought home the problems the companions faced if they hoped to get out of this alive.

  Doc, however, had a few words that he hoped would calm the feisty blonde until the right time for action.

  "My dear girl, we all want to come out of this little contretemps without being chilled. And we want a chance to actually face the enemy. All young Danny was doing was pointing out the folly of more haste, less speed. It was not a reflection on his, or indeed our, courage."

  Catherine looked at Doc, suddenly still in her seat. She carried with her a puzzled expression that told the others she had no idea what he was talking about, but at least it had opened the tap on her pent-up aggression, her confusion dissipating it.

  Dean tried not to smile. A second later, even this was forgotten.

  "Shit!" Lonnie yelled. "Rockfall!"

  He dipped and swerved the heavy wag as the boulders started to fall from above. The howling gale had dislodged more than just shale and loose gravel. Larger rocks and stones from the top of the rock wall had begun to tumble into the narrow channel, clattering onto the roofs and hoods of the wags, hitting the ground in front of them and causing the drivers to take evasive action.

  "Let us hope it leaves us enough space to negotiate this obstacle course and get out of here," Doc muttered.

  Lonnie swung the wheel to try to dodge the obstacles, ignoring the loud bangs and crashes on the roof, hoping that they wouldn't hit the windshield and shatter it.

  "Great, we'll be fucked before we even get out of here," Catherine murmured with disdain.

  "Have some faith in our pilot," Doc returned.

  "Thanks," Lonnie gritted, "but I'm not that sure that I have that much faith in the bastard storm."

  IN THE LEAD WAG, Correll was also cursing the sudden rockfalls.

  "Fate could not do this to us—not when we have come so far, my love," he yelled, addressing the box that still sat on his lap as he drove.

  He swerved his wag in and out of the falling rocks— those that he could see through the sudden dust storm that whipped against the windshield, obscuring his view of the track ahead.

  Ryan looked over at Krysty, whose hair was clinging to her scalp and neck as if it were trying to envelop her, the tendrils of Titian red curled around her pale flesh.

  "Hang on," the one-eyed man muttered through clenched teeth. "We get through this, the rest of it is going to be easy."

  She spared him a smile. "Or easier, at any rate," she
murmured.

  "Nuking hell, but the fates are on our side after all!" Correll exclaimed with a triumphant shout. "We're out."

  Looking through the windshield, Ryan could see that the violence of the storm appeared to have abated a little, as there was now sky and light visible through the particles of dust, dirt and rock that swirled in the air. They were clear of the tunnel, and Ryan braced himself as Correll put his foot down and took the wag out into the empty desert with a sudden burst of speed before swinging the wheel with an incredible force, turning the wag at a tight angle so that it almost lifted onto two wheels. He felt the force of the turn fling them all across the wag, heard the screech of the wag's brakes as it complained in its very structure about the gravity-defying feats that were demanded of it.

  "Fireblast! I hope the other drivers are as good as you— otherwise we'll lose wags like this," he shouted at Correll.

  The gaunt man turned his head for a second and gave a ghoulish grin: "They can do it—I just hope J.B. is up to it."

  THE ARMORER WAS ASKING himself the same thing at almost the same moment. There hadn't been the rockfalls to contend with in their channel, the upper level of the rock being a little more secure, But the storm had clouds of the dust and dirt whipped up and flung them against the windshield, blinding J.B. He kept his speed up and steady, but knew that the exit to this channel was narrow—much more so than the exit that Correll and the drivers on the other side of the outcrop would have to contend with. He squinted and cursed to himself as he tried to see where the channel narrowed and the exit gap occurred.