Hell Road Warriors

by James Axler

  “Ryan!”

  Ryan snapped off four rounds into the stickie man in front of him and fired a double tap into the one behind.

  Thorpe cackled with glee. “Bred my stickie men special to climb up the side of a ship or over the walls of a ville! I tell you it’s hard to get a stickie to do anything! Tie a woman down for them and half the time they don’t know whether to kill her or poke her!”

  A stickie man rolled up from under the catwalk right next to Ryan. He slapped it between the eyes with the slide of his SIG-Sauer and fired his blaster dry into the next one coming down the catwalk.

  Thorpe roared with mirth from behind his cover. “But once I got my half-breeds, these boys are crackerjack creepers!”

  Ryan dropped his spent blaster. There was no time to reload. There was no time to unlimber the Scout. He heard the slap of stickie feet behind him and saw three running toward him. Ryan scooped up his detonator, flipped off the plastic shield of the arming button, pushed it and flipped the switch. He took what might be his last second on Earth to cover his eyes with his palms, shove his thumbs into his ears and curl into a ball.

  The gate braces blew in a string.

  Ryan’s world turned into orange light and thunder. The stickie men behind him went up with it. The catwalk he lay upon took most of the wooden shrapnel. The swinging section of the great gate groaned as everything that braced it suddenly blew apart and it swung with the current. The section of catwalk Ryan clung to sagged with damage and his boots scrabbled over the edge. He heard the Queen’s steam whistles shrieking in victory and people on the far tower shouting his name desperately. Thorpe roared with rage from his own tower top. “You’re dead, boy! You’re cut off! I’m gonna throw you in the lamprey pit, and when I eat my pie tonight I’m going to taste your blood! I’m gonna watch them suck you dry, boy! I’m gonna—”

  Ryan rose, shoved his slaughtering knife between his teeth and dived for the Queen.

  It was a long plunge, but the canal was deep and Ryan hit the turbulent water like a knife. The cold hit him like a fist to the heart, and Ryan instantly kicked upward. He breached the surface and saw the Queen steaming toward him. The LAV, convoy and crew spewed blaster flame in all directions as the mighty ship headed for the gap. Ryan hurled his arms ahead of him and his hands slashed like axes into the water in an all-out sprint. He turned his head, sucked air with every other stroke. As he turned his head, Ryan looked down and saw the lampreys rising from the river bottom for him in a swarm.

  He knew he wasn’t going to make it.

  The first lamprey arrived, seven feet long and staring at him dopily with its blank blue eyes. There was nothing dopey about the rubbery, inverted cone mouth filled with teeth. It wasn’t the first time he had faced off against this type of creature.

  Ryan took his slaughtering knife from between his teeth and stabbed it straight down the lamprey’s throat. The creature spasmed into a paroxysm of wriggling and sank downward. He stroked ahead, but faltered as he felt a cone of thorns close around his calf and a rasplike tongue begin boring into the hardened muscle. Ryan turned turtle in the water and pulled his knees into his chest. His blade sheered the offending lamprey’s mouth off at the gill line. Ryan lurched as he felt the horrible, thorny kiss against his right buttock. He twisted and stabbed through a gill hole. A thorn-filled maw twisted against his knife arm, trying to find suction. Ryan stabbed the lamprey just beneath its head and ripped down its belly, opening it like a letter.

  The battle had taken him six feet below the surface and his lungs burned. He stroked and kicked for the surface.

  Ryan flinched as a horrid lipless mouth gained the seal between his shoulder blades. He gasped as the rasplike tongue scraped his spine. White fire shot down his back and down his left leg. His lungs and throat reflexively filling with water, Ryan clawed toward the surface. A lamprey latched on to his bleeding right buttock, and another hit his inner left thigh. They wriggled and yanked against him to drag him back down. A lamprey hit him in the stomach, and its tongue tried to bore past the hard plates of his abdominal wall. He ignored them and clawed for the surface. Only there would there be surcease or any kind of rescue.

  Ryan broached the water like a drowning man rising for the third and last time.

  He saw the Manitoulin whaleboat a dozen yards away, but it was trying to oar past huge chunks of lock debris.

  “Ryan! Ryan!” Everyone was shouting his name. Hunk Poncet’s voice called out in clear command from the Manitoulin whaleboat. “Kagan! Kosha! Quinn! Man in the water! Lamprey!”

  Ryan sagged beneath the water for the last time as the lampreys dragged him down. The monster poodles hit the water in an answering wedge. Ryan’s struggles weakened with blood loss and the weight of the fish sucking him dry. The dogs beelined for him. Lampreys boiled around the giant dogs in the water, nuzzling and twisting and trying to attach themselves, but the water-shedding, corkscrew coats of the poodles confounded their jawless efforts. The giant poodles ignored the lampreys attacking them and instead took a dim view of those latching on to Ryan. Kagan’s jaws clamped on the lamprey boring into Ryan’s back, and she began savaging the parasite like an old slipper. The lamprey spasmed and released as its cartilaginous spine crushed beneath Kagan’s teeth. Kosha and Quinn joined the fray, ripping savaging and releasing. Kagan’s teeth closed around the sling of Ryan’s Scout, and she began pulling him along like a canine outboard motor. Kosha and Quinn rode like convoy guards, snapping at any fish trying to latch on to their charge. The prow of the whaleboat appeared in front of Ryan’s face. Hunk and his men hauled him out of the river.

  “Ryan! You did it! You really did it!”

  The Manitoulin men pulled the poodles aboard. Kosha still had a lamprey in her jaws. Hunk’s big earnest face loomed into Ryan’s. “Talk to me!”

  Ryan coughed and threw up water for a long time. He finally sagged back and wiped his chin wearily. “Get on the radio. Tell Krysty I’m all right.” He lay back between the benches, watching as Kosha savagely yanked her head back and forth to cease her lamprey’s struggles. She dropped her prize at Ryan’s feet. “Put that in a pie for me.”

  He nodded at Kosha. “Good dog.”

  Kosha wagged her tail happily.

  She liked Ryan.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Lake Superior

  All eyes turned in the Queen’s makeshift main sick bay as Krysty walked in. She raised an eyebrow at the sight of Ryan lying naked on a cot with his rear end propped up in the air by three rolled blankets like a man over a barrel. Mildred worked at dressing the grotesque lamprey wounds. She was currently working on Ryan’s right buttock. The man stoically stared into the middle distance without flinching.

  Krysty smirked. “Lover? You look like you got gang-banged by stickies.”

  “Feel like it,” Ryan grunted. He thought back to the last seconds of the fight on the great gate and Thorpe’s hybrid pirates. “Almost did.”

  Krysty looked to Mildred. “How is he?”

  Mildred swabbed the tongue wound in the middle of the bite perforating Ryan’s posterior. “The wounds are disgusting to look at, but for the most part they seem clean and nearly ninety percent superficial. Only the tongues went anything near deep. He half drowned in the river and the lampreys left him a couple of pints short. Rest and food will take care of what ails him.”

  “Then let me provide the initial repast!” Doc walked in jauntily carrying a trencher board with a stoop of spruce beer and a steaming lamprey pie. “Ryan, may I present you with your antagonist, courtesy of noble canines Kagan, Kosha and Quinn!”

  “Doc!” Mildred stared disbelievingly. “Get that out of here!”

  Ryan lifted his head and sniffed the air. “Nah, Doc, bring that here.”

  The old man brought over the platter and set it at the
foot of the cot. Ryan scooped up a spoonful of lamprey, mustard and onion pie. He shoved it in his mouth and chewed. Maybe everything tasted better after beating death, maybe it was the sweet taste of victory, or it might just be that Ryan’s blood was the secret ingredient that every lamprey pie called out for. Whatever the reason, to the one-eyed man it was damn fine pie.

  He mumbled though a full mouth. “Those dogs get steak tonight.”

  Mildred watched Ryan wolf his food. “Well, he’s hungry, always a good sign.”

  Ryan took a healthy slug of spruce beer. “Thanks, Doc. So, how are things?”

  “Well, my friend! Did we not all see you sail forth in your iron wag! All saw you take the tower and run forth across the great gate! All saw you shatter the gate at the risk of your own life and your mighty dive into the river! You are the hero of the hour! Even Mr. Six speaks of you in only the most glowing of regards!”

  “I had help.” Ryan nodded up at the man from the past. “Including you, Doc. You and your catapults. You did real well.”

  Doc was visibly moved by Ryan’s rare praise. “Thank you, my friend.”

  “Jak and Six brought the LAV back?”

  “Yes, the main pirate ville is on the north bank of the canal, so he drove up along the southern shore until they reached the calmer waters of Whitefish Bay, where upon sighting us they sailed to meet us.”

  “Did we get Thorpe?”

  Doc sighed. “Alas not, while you rested the rogue retreated into his island tower. With time the mangonels could have battered it open, but it was time we did not have. J.B. and the captain debated sending in a landing party to take it by storm, but again all feared the time and casualties it would cost. But I believe the hammer blow has been struck. The gate has been shattered, and with catapult fire I leveled his capstan house and severely damaged the gate frame. He cannot rebuild before the freeze.

  “Loud Elk and his men are already sailing posthaste for the Bruce. Before the ice comes, Loud Elk said that Thorpe will receive a First Nations delegation. He will be allowed to vacate the premises and save himself and his men’s lives. Should he fail to reason he shall find himself at war with the First Nations and every ville on the Lakes that wishes free passage. J.B. estimates his casualties were nearly fifty percent. His power is broken. Should he return to a life of piracy upon the Lakes, I suspect his future will be short and grim.”

  Ryan didn’t like leaving an enemy behind but there was little to be done about it now. “What about the pirate ville?”

  Doc shifted uncomfortably. “Captain McKenzie wished me to bombard it with pitch. I refused to, on the grounds that it was a civilian encampment undoubtedly filled with women, children and noncombatants. The captain was quite put out by this. Some of the catapult crew were close to rebelling against me. However, J.B., bless his heart, backed me. In the spirit of compromise I agreed to set their pier afire and sink any ship in dock larger than a canoe. We left it burning. Thorpe now has almost nothing in the way of naval force projection.”

  Ryan craned his head around at Mildred. “What about our casualties?”

  Mildred sighed. She had been very busy during the battle. “Captain McKenzie eased seven sewn up into their hammocks over the side. I got three who are going to be dead by nightfall and another four critical. Another ten were hit badly but are going to make it. The ship’s healer is a lush, but he does seem to have a lot of experience patching bullet holes.”

  Ryan nodded and ate. The Queen of the Lakes had started the journey overcrewed, now she was short-handed. Convoy men would have to take up the slack. “How’s Yoann?”

  Mildred paused in her ministrations. “Bad. I’ve done all I can. The amputation site is clean. There’s been no blossoming of parasites anywhere that I can tell, though I’ve still got him under restraints. I’m sticking with my prognosis that whatever is ailing him is a blood infection. His fever will break on its own or it’ll kill him. Right now he’s roasting alive. So for the foreseeable future it looks like you’re still Grand Marshall of the Host. Not that anyone has a problem with that, except maybe Six, and even he’s pretty damned impressed with you right about now.” Mildred leaned back and gave her work a critical eye. “You’re done.”

  Ryan pushed away his empty platter. “I’m fit to leave?”

  “You took a beating and you lost blood.” Mildred shook her head. She knew that unless this particular patient was missing a limb her advice would probably be ignored. “I’ve seen you worse. I’ve been told it will be a few days of sailing on the Superior to get where we’re going. If I were you, I’d take advantage of it and rest.”

  Ryan rolled over gingerly and perched his left buttock on the edge of the cot and looked at the bandages swathing him. His impressive collection of sucking flesh wounds made him loathe to put on his clothes. He gingerly stood and draped a blanket around himself to mostly avoid his dressings. “I’m going to go talk to the captain. C’mon, Doc,” Ryan said.

  He slung his Scout and limped out of the sick bay. Everywhere he went convoy, crew and islander hailed him. Many pressed forward to clap him on the back. Doc warded off Ryan’s admirers with just short slashes of his cane. “Captain’s business! Make way!”

  Ryan eased himself up the stairs to the bridge. McKenzie, Mr. Smythe and Six stood in the wheelhouse looking quite pleased with themselves and the world. “Ryan!”

  They clustered around him. Ryan winced as his wounded back and shoulders took a good-natured pounding and he accepted a wooden teacup full of something. He winced again and tears nearly came to his eyes. As near as he could tell he was drinking diesel fuel with a vague hawberry tang to it. The hooch blossomed into warmth in his stomach. “Thanks.”

  Doc gasped at the Manitoulin firewater and its effect. “A most potent…potation.”

  “To the victor—” Six grinned and slugged back his cup “—the spoils.”

  Ryan shook his head at a second cup and Mr. Smythe filled it again anyway. “We haven’t won yet.”

  McKenzie grunted over his cup. “I hear you. We got a hundred more battles and a thousand klicks before we’re all back home and bedded down for winter.” The first genuine smile Ryan had seen on the captain split the man’s black mustache and beard. “But we did something today, Ryan, and rad-blast you, I want you to admit it! We were something to see!”

  A rare, genuine smile crossed Ryan’s face. He quoted Donnie Goosekiller. “We counted some wicked good coup. They’re going to talk about it for years.” Ryan raised his cup. “They’ll talk about the men who did it forever.”

  Hawberry brandy sloshed as the cups clashed together. Ryan gazed down at McKenzie’s charts of the Great Lakes. “Where’re we headed?”

  “The last place they’ll expect.” McKenzie’s finger stabbed down onto the northwest edge of Lake Superior. “Thunder Bay.”

  THORPE, KING OF THE PIRATES, stood on the northern shore of the canal and watched his kingdom smolder and sag in the aftermath. The great gate was shattered at the seam. It looked as if some leviathan had taken giant bites out of it like a sandwich. On the southern tower frame three of the six great leather hinges had snapped when the current had slammed the gate’s enormous weight against the shore. The frame was split, and the great gate hung at a horrible angle like the sail of a sinking ship with its hull beneath the water. The gate slowly swung in the current and made horrible, creaking death groans of strain. Thorpe’s master builder stood beside him and wept like a man watching his firstborn son go into the grave before him. The lock had been his idea, his masterpiece, and Thorpe’s fortune. The old man’s scalp locks were gray, and among the pirate tattoos covering his body he bore the mark of the mason’s on his chest.

  “She’ll snap,” he said, “rip free by nightfall. Best we cut her loose before she takes the tower frame with her.”

  “We’ll rebuild,
” Thorpe said.

  “Yes…” the mason whispered.

  The pirate king and his mason both knew it was a dream that would shatter with the oncoming winter.

  An entire new gate would have to be cut. The capstan house was rubble. Even under ideal circumstances it would take all of spring and summer to rebuild, and now Thorpe’s forces were at half strength. He had no ships, barges or piers and he was out of time. He had little enough time just to prepare for winter. He shook his head. There was little to prepare. His people lived off the toll. Without it he would have to buy or trade for supplies to get through the long cold months. Many villes might refuse him, and he wasn’t sure he had men enough to force the issue.

  He’d have to slaughter and smoke the capstan cattle to keep his people alive. He’d have to slaughter his stickie men, as well. They couldn’t be trusted not to nightcreep their own if things got lean. Word would already be spreading. Canoes would be crisscrossing every stretch of water with the news that Captain McKenzie was back on the Lakes and the Queen had run the locks. Even if he could erect some semblance of a barrier, Thorpe knew many would refuse to pay. He would have to go back to pirating on the waters and make more enemies. Come the spring, half the Lakes would be blasting for him. And before that, there was the Queen’s return run to contemplate.

  It was enough to make a man go back to picking berries.

  “Do it.” Thorpe sighed bitterly. “Cut her free.”

  “Yes, Captain.” Thorpe called himself king, but his own people still called him “Captain.”

  “Captain!” Thorpe turned at the call of his highest-ranking surviving pirate, Grizz. Grizz was an aptly named bear of a man with long braided hair and long braided beard. Grizz was running toward him, bearskins and braids flapping, waving his arms hysterically. “Captain!”

  “I got concerns, Grizz!”

  “Coldhearts, Captain!” He pointed south. “Coldhearts!”