Deathlands 068: Shaking Earth

by James Axler

  The scavvies’ notion of first aid to fallen foes was administered with knives, rifle butts, handy rocks, or in the case of a couple of wounded who dragged themselves into the roadway as the column moved out—one trailing his guts behind him along the ground—the tires of their support wags. Conserving ammo. No skin off any part of Ryan’s anatomy. It wasn’t all that different from the rules he’d grown up playing by.

  The city contingent rested in a hollow near Hector’s war RV, not very well drained and so somewhat marshy. They were bitching about Hector sticking them there but were in generally good spirits. They were telling the story of the abortive ambush to their buddies who had come up with Tenorio’s and Hector’s bunch, and affecting to be matter-of-fact about the whole thing.

  While Tenorio saw to the wounded and went among his people, speaking to them as if they were members of his family, Ryan, with Doc, J.B. and Jak, took stock of the forces assembled. Aside from his groundpounders Hector had three big wags mounting Browning M-2 .50-calibers, and several tripod mounted M1919A4 machine guns in .30 caliber, heavy suckers that needed to be carried in several pieces, then had to be assembled to be ready for action. Once they were properly emplaced, they were deadly. Ryan was glad he wouldn’t be trying to fumble one of the beasts together while muties were jumping out of the bushes at him with obsidian daggers in their teeth.

  For the first time Ryan saw the multiple-rocket launchers, home-built on the beds of converted pickups, which Five Ax’s patrol had fired into the abandoned ville to spring the companions from Two Arrow that first day. The projectiles they launched were likewise improvised—not terribly accurate, but all the artillery the entire army had. Hector didn’t believe in it, himself. It wasn’t macho, apparently. There were also two more city supply trucks mounted with .308-caliber MGs.

  “How did our friends bear up under their first trial of fire, Ryan?” Doc asked.

  “They’re not true coldhearts, but they’ll do what needs to be done,” Ryan said. “They don’t fear the sight of blood, theirs or anybody else’s. Whether they can stand up depends on what the Chichimecs throw at us.”

  “What about Hector’s gang?” J.B. asked.

  “Less impressive than their leader’s bombast or the barbaric splendor of his bodyguards,” said Doc. “Still, some are well-seasoned. The rest will stand so long as they fear Hector more than the invaders.”

  “And there you have it,” J.B. said, cleaning his glasses.

  THE CITY TROOPS WERE set on the right wing of the army, such as it was, and the whole mob was sent on its way north, led by Eagle Knight pathfinders on motorcycles. Ryan kept his own motorcycle scouts deployed close to their own front and covering their own right, which was otherwise open all the way to the eastern mountains. Don Hector was apparently the executive sort of leader who watched the battle and directed it from well behind the action, rather than a follow-me type. Ryan suspected that was the only way to manage a force of this size.

  Still, he wasn’t sure that was the only reason Hector was trailing along well behind the advancing force. The cacique was probably as bold as any man, one on one. But the prospect of being laid low by a blaster fired by some distant peasant would horrify him beyond endurance.

  Tenorio was still back with his fellow baron, mainly to keep an eye on him. Doc had once again stayed at the alcade’s side. Ryan was just as glad. It wasn’t as if one blaster more or less was going to make much difference in what was to come, and the old man didn’t really need to go through the panic and exertion of someone else’s fight.

  The country rolled gently away from the lake, broken up by fewer lava flows than were common further south. Once they had a couple hills between them and Hector, Ryan summoned Five Ax, Miguel and a couple of the other English-speaking city folk.

  “Spread the word to start dragging heels, just a bit. We want to let the main force get at least a couple hundred yards ahead of us.”

  “What for?” somebody he didn’t recognize asked.

  That was the price he had to pay, Ryan reckoned, for not having any official status. His orders could be questioned, because, after all, he had no standing to give orders. Of course, given what an independent bunch the scavvies were, they might’ve questioned him even if Tenorio had given him a shiny new uniform and a chestful of medals.

  “I don’t like advancing blind like this,” he said. “Chichimecs already tried to trap us once. They might spring a bigger trap, try to bag the whole army. Whatever we run into, I want Hector’s people to run into it first.”

  The scavvies spoke to each other in Spanish, but it was quickly apparent they agreed with his reasoning.

  “But what will they say?” Miguel nodded toward the larger body of troops tramping along to the west. Their own officers were yipping at them like sheepdogs, trying to urge them on faster to the unseen foe.

  “They’re such machos they’ll never notice we’re not keeping up,” Five Ax said. “Or if they do, they’ll just sneer at us for a pack of cowards.”

  The scavvies laughed and spread the word. They didn’t shrink from a fight, but they weren’t going to go running to look for one, either. And it seemed the notion of letting the first blow land on the forces of the arrogant Don Hector struck them as a fine joke.

  The look J.B. gave his old friend, though, was even blander than usual. “You sure about this, Ryan? Those Eagle Knights and sec men don’t mean a spent shell case. But what about when the big boys, the dons, tumble-wise?”

  Ryan heard his friend. What he had done was nothing shy of revising the whole battle plan on his own hook.

  “This isn’t really our fight,” he said, “but since we made it ours, I figure we should win. And I can’t go against what my gut tells me.”

  “Never saw anybody turn down a victory once it’s won,” acknowledged the Armorer. “Not even a pissed-off baron.”

  THE DAY REMAINED FINE, bright, warm but not oppressively hot. They made their way north a mile across green land and fields of crops, now sadly trampled, either by the defending forces or by the raiders. They had passed a burned-out ville maybe a mile to the east of them. Ryan kept the Hummer purring along slowly, pacing his troops, winged out maybe twenty yards to secure their own hanging right flank. The valley troops had moved out maybe three hundred yards in advance of the city contingent. As Ryan anticipated, nobody said anything to them about their tardiness. Don Hector was still in his manic phase, no doubt strutting and blustering for Don Tenorio’s benefit and his own, back on the hill by his RV. His subcommanders with his actual army were too busy snarling and screaming themselves hoarse urging on their troops, whose pace was noticeably slacking.

  “Surprised he doesn’t just give his sec men whips to drive the draftees into battle,” Ryan said.

  “No doubt he’ll think of it next time,” J.B. said.

  “Notice our boys’re slowing to keep pace with them without my having to say so.”

  “Wearing down,” J.B. observed. “Only thing runs a man’s battery down faster than marching toward a fight is actually being in it.”

  “You got that right.”

  He had three MG wags now, the fourth having stayed back with the mobile command headquarters along with about thirty city fighters, with half a dozen of Tenorio’s small corps of elite Jaguar Knights among them. They were serving as bodyguards for the alcade, and likewise a mobile reserve, that being something else Don Hector didn’t believe in. Between them Tenorio and the canny Doc surmised that Hector might have left as much as half of his armed strength back at his palace on Chapúltepec and among his subject villes, to keep the peons from getting notions about playing while the big cat was away. But everything he brought to the dance he was throwing straightaway at the invaders.

  Ryan had two machinegun wags up at the front, right now winged out twenty yards each, as far as he dared given the Chichimecs’ propensity to lurk under cover and swarm. His scooter scouts circulated in front and to the flanks in hopes of spotting any infiltra
tors and ambushers, but staying close by so they wouldn’t get wolf-packed without hope of rescue as Claudia had. When the city fighters deployed into a rifle line the machine-gun wags would this time deploy properly, to anchor either end and cross fires to the front. That was the theory, anyway; whether the Chichimecs would give them time to deploy was a whole other smoke. The third MG truck brought up the rear. When the hammer came down, it would be Ryan’s reserve, which he could send to where its firepower was most urgently needed.

  Also at the column’s rear, just in front of the machine-gun truck, were the two multiple-rocket-launcher wags, which could shoot over the heads of the foot soldiers. All told, while he would naturally have preferred to have the hard-forged and tough-tempered chillers from Trader days with him, Ryan was as well set up as he could hope to be in terms of his own forces. The kicker was that he knew nothing at all about the enemy, except there were thousands of them, fanatical coldhearts every one, that he didn’t know where they were other than out there somewhere—and that they disposed of some kind of fearsome mutie powers.

  Off to the right maybe sixty feet a metal post jutted at a crazy angle from the grass. It might have been a fence post, or a sign post, in predark times; he couldn’t know. A meadowlark was perched on it, yellow breast with the deep black V-shaped collar glinting in the sun. He sang his distinctive trilling song as if nothing could go wrong in the world.

  As Ryan watched him he took off and flew away south as if a devil were on his tail. From up ahead to the left came faint cries and the distinctive thump of shots.

  “Here it comes,” J.B. said, jacking the charging handle of his BAR and shoving it out the rear right-hand window.

  “Look,” Jak cried from the pintle.

  A black shape in the sky to the northwest. A big shape, wings spread impossibly wide against the bright clouds high-piled above the horizon. It was bearing down on the valley force. Something in the way it moved told Ryan it was a beast, a mutie horror, not some kind of sky wag.

  Coming to kill them.

  * * *

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  They heard a distinctive, slow, deep rapping, joined instantly by another voice, and another. The flying mutie’s wings suddenly went straight up and it dropped out of Ryan’s sight to the ground, well in advance of the valley ranks. Jak whooped in triumph, although he hadn’t busted off a round from his M-60.

  “What in the name of blazing nuke death was that?” Ryan asked.

  “Ma Deuce,” J.B. said fondly. “Whatever the mutie was, it’s cat food now. Flying fuckers don’t stand a chance, this day.”

  No matter how dubious Ryan was of the bulk of Don Hector’s forces, his machine gunners had seen a pack of hard fighting. They’d be steady as norms could be at the work they had to do. What remained to be seen was if that would be enough against what Howling Wolf and the Holy Child could throw at them.

  “Wouldn’t mind having a few myself,” Ryan said. That had been Don Tenorio’s own point of stinginess: the limited number of the big .50-cal MGs he had access to, he’d chosen to leave to guard the city, mostly on his handful of patrol boats, including the Paloma Blanca. While he was serious as a sucking chest wound about concluding the war with this day’s fight if at all possible, he still chose to hedge his bet. It should prove no big disadvantage. The Chichimecs had never shown sign of having war wags, and if they used powered wags at all for transport they never let them slip into sight of enemies.

  Ryan honked his horn and waved his arm out the window. The column had stopped at sight of the giant flying mutie. At his signal the men began to spread out into a rough line. Ryan wasn’t sure what kind of command structure he had under him, but the city fighters seemed to handle simple tasks and maneuvers well enough for the work at hand, so it was one more thing not to stuff his head with. He got on the squawk box to Five Ax. Miraculously it worked. He wasn’t quite up to getting what he needed to across purely by speech, but he let the Jaguar Knight know he needed a palaver now, and here he came, bent low over the handlebars of his dirt bike, grinning.

  “Make sure everybody watches the sky,” he communicated. He had no idea how to say “screamwings” in Spanish so he didn’t try. “Fliers. Bad.”

  Five Ax bobbed his head, threw up a wave of dirt that thunked against the door of the Hummer as he slewed his ride around and rode away.

  “You, too, Jak,” Ryan called. “We might have more flying friends come along.”

  “On it.” The albino youth sounded aggrieved. Well, hell, this was battle. If there was an appropriate time to be pissed, this was it.

  The battle noise from Hector’s troops was coming fast and loud now. Apparently the flying mutie’s appearance had coincided with contact with serious Chichimec forces. While he was still able to, Ryan took a swallow of water, recapped his bottle and slung it back to his belt.

  He accelerated the wag and drove to a position just east beyond the end of the line that was forming. He waved to the city fighters to keep moving. They did, and he didn’t have to tell them to be cautious.

  A gentle swell of ground hid the developing battle from their sight. Ryan moved out deliberately in advance of what had become a skirmish line. “Jak! Sing out the second you see anything. I want to put us hull-down.”

  The Hummer purred upslope. “Now!” Jak shouted.

  Carrying his Steyr, Ryan got out and climbed onto the hood. His Simmons hung by its lanyard around his neck. He raised it and surveyed the ground ahead.

  The land fell away to a broad basin, apparently flat. The key word was “apparently.” It was veined with low lava flows and greened-over rills that may have been drifts of ash long condensed into soil and rock by rain and sun, transversely cut by at least one shallow stream. Dead ground heaven, in other words, the kind where, with no obvious cover at all, you could hide an army.

  Sure enough, the Chichimecs had.

  “Called it right again, Ryan,” J.B. observed, clambering up and standing on tiptoe beside him to see what the taller man could see. “Don Hector pissed away most of the advantage his blaster power gave him and walked his men right into the bastards. But what’s this?”

  Ryan was already looking, not off to the left, where battle was marked largely by writhing, wrestling bodies where the raiders had already come to grips with the front ranks of Hector’s men, but directly in the path of his own force.

  “Chichimecs,” J.B. said, “swarming like maggots on a two-day-dead stiff. Least a thousand of them. More.”

  He looked at Ryan. “Damned good thing we hung back. They’d be on us right now like stink on a sec man.”

  Ryan nodded. There was something wrong here, bad wrong. If they’d kept up with Hector’s men, that pullulating mass of human and mutie flesh would have crushed them like a bug, for all their machine guns and rockets. But pondering would have to wait.

  It was time to chill. The city fighters were flopping down along the hilltop, using its mass for cover. The scooter scouts were chivvying the blaster wags into defilade positions like the one Ryan had parked the Hummer in, with only their gun mounts showing. Five Ax had his talkie to his mouth, feeding range and bearing data to the rocket wags.

  The mass of warriors on the horde’s left had struck at what was supposed to be the city force. Hitting only air, the invaders then did the natural thing, swarming like locusts over the bare right flank of Hector’s main force and wrapping around behind it. It was a classic outflanking maneuver, and was about to have the classic result. Hector’s battle line would be rolled up, his men would break and flee in screaming panic, throwing away their blasters as the Chichimecs ran them down and butchered them like hogs. The battle would be over in a rout.

  But in turning to rat-pack Hector’s lines, the Chichimecs bared their own flank to the late-arriving city forces.

  It was slaughter. In their eagerness to deliver the kill shot to Hector’s army, and probably to tear away the first mouthful of blood-pumping man-flesh, the mutie-norm mob had thrown
away all thought of stealth. They were rushing forward in a wave, some actually trampling down and crushing those in front of them in a feeding frenzy.

  It was like shooting babies in a barrel. Even the few city fighters armed with nothing more than handblasters couldn’t miss, though the swarm was two hundred yards away. The machine guns cut swathes of flying limbs and spewing blood like invisible chainsaws. The rockets, after a couple of volleys threw up divots out in the weeds and the launcher crews found the range, blasted bodies spinning into the air.

  “Ryan!” Jak shouted.

  Ryan lowered his monocular. Chichimecs had appeared at the foot of the rise they were forted-up behind and were charging up at them. Too many and too close to make throwing the bolt and hunting in the narrow vision field of his scope a very survivable pastime. He slung the rifle, jumped to the ground, started reaching into his backpack for frag grens, pulling the pins and lobbing the bombs over the hill. He threw three in rapid succession, releasing the third as the first cracked off. A satisfying chorus of screams answered the blast.

  Even with onrushing danger to focus his mind, it took a certain effort to concentrate against the storm of noise and muzzle-blast erupting from Jak’s M-60. He could feel its hot breath on the back of his head and neck; the shock of the blasts buffeted him, made his hair fly and seemed to be trying to tear off his right ear. J.B. was up on one knee now, firing his BAR in short savage bursts not twelve feet away, but even though it wasn’t any quieter than the 60, Ryan could barely hear it; he wasn’t in front of its muzzle.

  Ryan drew his SIG-Sauer and his panga. A human raider sprang over the hill and hacked at him with, of all things, a samurai sword. Ryan threw up his panga to block; evidently the katana was a cheap reproduction, since it failed to cut through the panga’s broad blade. With the muzzle of his SIG-Sauer an inch from the Chichimec’s breastbone, he shot the man twice. The man staggered back a couple of steps up the slope and sat down. He touched his chest, looked in horrified surprise at the blood on his fingers, looked up at Ryan. Then he fell over.