Bloodfire

by James Axler

  “How delightful,” Doc said with a frown, revolving the cylinder of his LeMat to inspect the load in each chamber. “Thus the only question is who is in the infernal contraption chasing us, Gaza, or Hawk.”

  As carefully as mixing explosives, Ryan poured the hundred-year-old coffee crystals into his partially filled canteen, then screwed the cap on tight and sloshed it about for a minute before taking a sip. It was cold and strong, but he could feel the caffeine wash away the fog from his mind, and after another swallow, Ryan passed the container around to the rest of the companions. Each took a measured swig, and the canteen was passed around twice before it was drained.

  “Needed that,” Jak said, shifting his wounded arm inside his shirt, the dried blood making the material as stiff as old canvas.

  “I really should look at that wound before it becomes infected,” Mildred said, opening the flap on her satchel and going to the teen.

  “No time,” J.B. replied, gazing toward the eastern horizon. “We got to keep going. Too damn visible on top of this dune.”

  The pinkish glow of true dawn was expanding across the sky. Soon, night would be over and the heat would really start to increase.

  Wiping the crumbs of the granola bar off his face, Dean added, “Sunup will bring out the millipedes and scorpions.”

  “We water the horses one last time and then ride,” Ryan ordered, a touch of his old strength back in his voice. Fatigue still weighed down his bones, but he felt good for another couple of miles. More than enough for them to find some shelter from the heat and the bugs. There were supposed to be some ruins to the southwest of there—those would do fine, if they weren’t too far away.

  There was hard wisdom in his words, so the weary companions saw to the needs of their mounts with what supplies could be spared. Draining off the last of her canteen, Krysty refilled it from the big leather bag she had grabbed in the corral when they stole the horses. Cupping a hand, she pooled some water in the palm and offered it to the chestnut mare. Eagerly, the horse lapped it off her skin and nudged her for some more. But as she refilled her hand, the animal sharply inhaled, then trembled all over. As the horse suddenly fought for breath, blood began to trickle from its mouth, its eyes rolling upward until only the whites showed.

  “Gaia!” Krysty cried in horror, dropping the canteen.

  Weaving about as if drunk, the animal unexpectedly dropped limply to the ground and went into violent convulsions before going very still.

  “It’s dead,” the woman said softly, then jerked her head to stare at her wet palm as a horrible realization filled her with gut-wrenching dread.

  Chapter Two

  Rumbling and clanking, the battered APC rolled along the irregular landscape of the Texas desert, its cracked headlights throwing wild columns of splayed light ahead of the war wag as it rose and fell.

  Crouched in the driver’s chair, Baron Edgar Gaza stared hatefully through the small rectangular slit of an ob port, his hands clenched hard on the steering yoke of the preDark vehicle. Once there had been periscopes for the driver and gunner to see through without exposing themselves to enemy fire, but those had been broken long ago, and now the only way to see was through small rectangular vents.

  In the rear of the war wag, four of his wives were sitting near the gun ports, their pale hands expertly cradling 9 mm Uzi machine pistols. Spare clips were thrust like knives into their belts, and each bore fresh wounds from their recent battles, bloody bandages covering their legs and arms.

  Sitting in the middle of the deck, his first wife was clumsily working on a .50-caliber machine gun, trying to figure out how to unlink the ammo belt to make the big-bore blaster feed properly. The turret and gunner’s nest rose directly behind the woman, but those periscopes had also been smashed. The 25 mm cannon had survived intact but had been removed for use in the ville keep, and now they only had a .50-caliber machine gun to mount on the pintel stanchion. It didn’t have the sheer destructive power of the explosive 25 mm shells. On the other hand, it didn’t eat ammo as fast and the brass cartridges could be reloaded.

  Gaza glanced at her, more pleased with the amount accomplished than the wealth of skin exposed from her position. Bending over the way she was, her full breasts were nearly coming out her blouse, the dark nipples clearly visible. Returning to the driving, Gaza felt vastly pleased with himself for choosing Allison. Sex was great, but a wife who could fire a blaster was worth a hundred times more than some dumb slut as beautiful as the moon but whose only talent was spreading her legs.

  Suddenly, Allison snapped her fingers for his attention.

  “What is it?” he demanded gruffly.

  The mute woman gestured to the east and flipped over a hand until it was palm up.

  Gaza frowned angrily. Dawn was near, eh? Nuking hell, they hadn’t traveled anywhere near the number of miles he had wanted. But the APC had broken down several times, and once during repairs they had been attacked by a swarm of millipedes. Damn mutie insects were harder than hell to chill, and only their rapid-fires had held them off long enough for Gaza to fix the diesel engine and get the APC rolling again. Little bastards still tried to get in through the air vents and had to be shot off with precious ammo. Damn the Core and their pet muties!

  “Okay, I’ll find us some shade to rest in during the day,” the baron said, squinting through the ob port. “In the lee of a sand dune, or something.”

  From experience he knew that driving the metal vehicle in the desert sun made it hot enough to ace a norm. They would have to drive only after sundown, and sleep during the day. That would put them at a disadvantage, since the headlights would give away their position for miles, but there was nothing he could do about that.

  On the other hand, it would make tracking the outlanders a lot easier. His original idea had been to drive north into New Mex and take over some ville as their new baron. But Allison had vetoed that plan and insisted they go to the south, directly on the trail of Ryan and the others. Actually, this pleased Gaza greatly. As much as he wanted to be a baron again, revenge on the outlanders would be even better. Besides, the man knew it was always wise to follow the advice of the doomie.

  Soon enough he would find the outlanders. Gaza only hoped that Allison had the machine gun operational by then. He didn’t want Ryan and the others merely dead; he wanted them torn into pieces too small for even the scorpions to eat. Mutilation, rape and bloody torture would have been better, but there was no time for that. Even as he hunted for the people on horseback, the sec men from his former ville might be hunting after him, as well. And they would want to do to Gaza exactly what he wanted to do to Ryan. However, his wives would never allow that to happen.

  As if sensing these thoughts, Allison turned away from the gun port she had been watching and nodded at her husband. Gaza felt his skin crawl slightly at the idea that the mutie could be reading his thoughts, and turned to concentrate on the driving. The removal of their tongues had been done simply to protect his secrets, yet it also made each of his wives oddly loyal to him, as faithful as dogs, and he trusted their judgment implicitly.

  Spewing great columns of bluish smoke, the APC angled away from the salt flats and into the rolling dunes seeking shelter from the oncoming daylight. Soon enough Gaza would find the others. Horses had to rest, but the APC could drive nonstop all night long. There was no possible escape for the outlanders from his war wag, the deadly machine gun and his doomie wife.

  By tomorrow midnight, they should be dead at his feet, and then he could get back to his plan of seizing another ville to rule and continuing his war against the Trader.

  AS THE REST of the companions rushed to her side, Krysty bent to sniff at her hand. There was no odor of any kind, but there could be no other logical reason for the horse’s violent death except poison.

  “What in hell happened?” Mildred demanded, approaching the corpse with a drawn blaster. If the physician had learned anything living in the Deathlands, it was to approach every situation
as if it was a life-or-death battle. All too often it was.

  Ryan covered the animal with his 9 mm SIG-Sauer, while J.B. knelt by the animal and checked its neck. There was no pulse.

  “It’s dead,” he stated, standing. “But this doesn’t look like exhaustion, and it’s not hot enough for heat stroke.”

  Dean glanced upward. “Screamwing get it?”

  Instantly, the other companions raised their blasters and scanned the lightening sky for any movement. Screamwings were tiny flying muties that could send a person on the last train west in a split second with their needle-sharp beaks. Small and fast, screamwings were harder than hell to shoot down and died trying to take its victim with them.

  “No, it wasn’t a screamer,” Krysty stated, throwing away her canteen. “I think the water is poisoned.”

  “All canteens?” Jak asked frowning deeply, his own blaster resting comfortably in his good hand. The blued steel shone like polished violence in the dim morning glow.

  She shook her head. “No, I drank from that before, and so did my horse. It’s the big water bag.”

  “Must be incredibly powerful toxins to cause this severe a reaction in so large an animal,” Mildred said in a clinical manner. “My guess would be a neurotoxin of some kind. Heavy metals and such would never work this fast.”

  At those words, Krysty froze in the process of wiping her hand dry on her leg. Now the women knelt and scrubbed her palm with the salty sand until the skin was bright pink. Then she spit in her palm and wiped it clean again. Seeing the actions, Doc handed her a spare moist towelette from the opened MRE, and she cleaned both hands thoroughly.

  “Calm down, it’s okay,” Mildred said, holstering her piece. “If the chemicals haven’t been absorbed through the pores by now, I’d say you’re safe.”

  “Are you sure?” Krysty asked anxiously, her fiery hair relaxing back into gentle waves.

  Kneeling by the dead animal, Mildred peeled back an eyelid to examine the pupils. They were fully dilated, but the creature could have glanced at the rising sun before dying. Drawing a knife, she pried open the mouth to inspect the tongue. There was no discoloration or marked lividity. Interesting.

  “Am I sure?” she said honestly. “Not without an autopsy. Maybe the horse had heartworms.”

  Jak snorted at that. “Dog get, not horse.”

  “People, too,” Mildred corrected.

  Tucking away his LeMat, Doc bowed his head and muttered something in the preDark language he called Latin that sounded like a poem or a prayer.

  Keeping his weapon in hand, Ryan went over to the leather water bag lying in the sand beside the dead animal. “That was the bag we took from the stable,” he said, scowling, nudging the bag with the bulbous tip of the silenced blaster. The fluid inside sloshed about like water, and there were no telltale secondary motions of anything alive inside the sack. It had been a long-shot idea, but it never hurt to check.

  “Can’t be the same. I drank from that bag,” Dean started hesitantly, then pointed and said. “No, wait, it was the smaller bag on Doc’s horse.”

  “You triple sure?” Ryan asked sternly, squinting his good eye.

  “Yeah, Dad, I’m sure.”

  “Good. Then that water is clean,” J.B. said gruffly.

  “Jak, what about your water?” Ryan demanded.

  “Not used mine,” Jak said, patting the heavy bag hanging from the rear of his saddle. “Drank canteen before.”

  Grabbing her satchel off the pommel of her mount, Mildred strode to the other horse and removed the bag as if it were a ticking bomb. Pouring some of the water onto the ground, she sniffed, then removed a small swimming-pool testing kit and ran a sample. It wasn’t much, but all that she had and it did give accurate results within a limited spectrum. Filling a plastic tube, Mildred added a few drops of chemicals and the water promptly turned a bright orange, and then went clear.

  “Damn, the water neutralized the acid immediately,” she reported, holding the vial to the sunlight. “This is contaminated with a base chemical of some kind. There’s no way to tell for sure, but I would guess it’s scorpion venom.”

  Doc raised an imperious eyebrow. “Ridiculous! Venom strong enough to kill a horse, madam?”

  “These things like the daylight, instead of the night like a normal scorpion,” she reminded him. “And the ones caged back at Rockpoint were the largest I’ve ever seen. Who knows what other attributes may have mutated since the nukecaust?”

  “Egad,” Doc rumbled, worrying the silver lion’s head of his swordstick. There was a sharp click, and the decorative head slid back to reveal several inches of shiny steel hidden inside the stick, then he slammed it back into place with a locking snap. “By the Three Kennedys, this is why those water bags were hanging near the horses!”

  “A trap,” Dean said solemnly, scratching at his cheek.

  “Makes sense,” Ryan grunted. “A bag of water just hanging there for anybody to take in a town where folks were killed over a thimbleful? It was just bait for horse thieves to take along. Then the locals could simply watch for buzzards in the sky and get their horses back.”

  “Along with the blasters and other possessions of the thieves,” Dean added thoughtfully.

  “Smart,” Jak drawled in wry acknowledgment, brushing back his snowy white hair.

  “Millie, anything we can do to clean the water?”

  J.B. asked hopefully. “Boil it or something?”

  “Too bad not have bread,” Jak said. “Drain radiator fluid through stale bread and make drinkable. Not know if work this.”

  “Piss might do it,” Ryan said calmly. J.B. made a rude noise at that, but Mildred agreed.

  “That might work,” the physician said. “Urine neutralizes scorpion venom in an external bite, so logically it should also work on tainted water. Basic chemistry there, bases and acids.” Then she paused and frowned. “However, for water this strongly polluted, it might require so much urine that the resulting mixture would be rendered totally undrinkable afterward.”

  “Well, I would certainly think so,” Doc muttered softly, trying to contain his revulsion.

  Titling her head, Mildred smiled. “I agree. Tobacco also works on scorpion bites, but with the same results. The water might be safe, but nobody would willingly drink it until absolutely necessary.”

  “Which might become the case,” Krysty said. “We’re low on water now, and have no idea how much farther it is to reach the lowlands where the Trader travels.”

  “Couple of hundred miles at least,” Ryan growled, looking into the distance. “From now on, we piss in that bag and save it for boiling later.”

  “Much much later,” J.B. said.

  “We can only do this once,” the physician warned. “We’re already dehydrated, and the ammonia content of our urine will be dangerously high.”

  “Better that than death,” Ryan said grimly.

  “Okay, do we have anything else that hasn’t been checked over yet?” J.B. said wryly, hooking both thumbs into his belt. “We could be hauling a dozen more boobies among our stolen supplies.”

  Quickly, the companions laid out their belongings and checked over every item carefully, but no other traps were discovered. That was good news, but it was tempered by the fact that the companions were now dangerously low on water and reduced to only five horses for seven adults.

  “Mebbe take turns riding,” Jak suggested hesitantly, rubbing his wounded arm. “Horses too tired for double riders.”

  Just then a large black scorpion scuttled into view from under a rock, snapping its pinchers happily at the heat of the morning sun. Standing nearby, Dean moved fast and crushed it under his combat boot, grinding the heel to make the little killer was thoroughly aced.

  “Okay, no time to waste. We leave on foot,” Ryan commanded brusquely. “We need shelter and we need it bastard fast! We’re all going to walk for a while. That will let the horses get some rest in case serious trouble arrives and we have to ride again. If
that comes, Dean goes with Jak on the stallion, J.B. with Mildred on the big gelding.”

  Krysty stepped to the man and rested a hand on his shoulder.

  “Correction, lover,” she said sternly. “We walk, but you ride. Each of us caught some sleep yesterday, but you haven’t in days. We’re alive now because of that, but right now I doubt if you could shoot the side of a barn with your longblaster even if you were fragging inside the building.”

  Inhaling sharply, Ryan felt his hair-trigger temper flare at the words, but then found himself too bastard weary to even argue. She was right. Even with the coffee working, he was on his last legs. Nodding assent, the man forced himself to climb into the saddle and squeeze his feet into the small stirrups. This had to have originally been a woman’s horse. Mebbe one for the baron’s many wives. Unless Gaza himself was a very small man. It was well trained and bridle-wise, but didn’t really seem to like a rider as large as Ryan.

  “Okay, I’m on point,” J.B. said adjusting his fedora and swinging his Uzi around to the front. He worked the bolt, chambering a round for immediate use. “Two-yard spread. Jak and Dean, take turns leading your mount. Doc, you’re rear guard. Stay razor.”

  “I am honored! And shall remain as sharp as the Sword of Damocles!”

  Annoyed, J.B. glanced at Mildred.

  “That means yes,” she stated.

  Guiding the horses by the reins, the companions started across the dune and down the other side. Ahead of them stretched the endless vista of the desert, the salty ground rippling from the gentle morning breeze.

  Allowing his tense muscles to slowly relax, Ryan swayed in the saddle. Slowly stooping his shoulders, Ryan expertly leaned forward, his hands crossed at the pommel, with the reins looped securely over twice. Slowly allowing himself to succumb to the sweet siren call of sleep, the big man’s eyes soon closed.

  Walking close by, Krysty smiled as she heard a soft sound of snoring. Brave didn’t make a warrior bullet-proof, and even men of iron needed to eat and sleep.

  AS THE COMPANIONS disappeared over the southern horizon, the salt and sandy ground of the big dune broke apart and strange figures rose from its depths, shaking off the loose debris. Standing taller than any norm, the beings were bipedal, but impossibly skinny, with every inch of their bodies wrapped in dirty rags that completely hid any possible view of their anatomy.