Crimson Waters

by James Axler

  He paused a moment to let that last word bore into her skull.

  “I haven’t lived as long as I have,” he said, “by thinking I’m smarter than my coldhearts. I thought of that. That means Tiburón could, too, if I guess right and he’s the man in charge of this little surprise party.”

  His eye had never twitched from the glass.

  “Oh, he is, Señor Ryan, be assured,” Ricky said. “You and your friends—I mean, our friends—are a most valuable prize. El Guapo wouldn’t trust a lesser man than his sec boss. And he wouldn’t trust any man at all, not even his filthy pet shark, to find the treasure ahead of him.”

  Ryan nodded behind his longeyes. He shifted the device to the left. It was braced on his backpack. The man lay on his belly on that razor-toothed uncomfortable rock, same as the rest of them. Jak, however, squatted under a pink-flowering bush a few yards upslope of them, making sure nobody caught them from behind.

  “And speaking of Shark Boy,” Ryan said suddenly, “I got a good ten men moving through the trees over there. Mebbe a dozen. And... Yeah. Shaved head, gray skin, more snout than skull. Big fucker.”

  “De veres,” Ricky said. “It is truly Tiburón you see.”

  “Can’t you take him out?” Mildred asked, a trifle more shrilly than she would have liked. “You know, snipe him from here?”

  Ryan shook his head. “No chance. Too long a shot to make reliably. Only thing it would do is give away our position.”

  “It’s just as long a shot for them as it is for you, Ryan,” J.B. said. “And it would make them go to ground. Slow them down just that additional little bit to give us a chance to lose them.”

  “It would,” Ryan agreed, “if this Tiburón hadn’t split up his force. Least two wings, I reckon, north and south of the main group.”

  J.B. blinked, then nodded.

  “Do you see them, lover?” Krysty asked.

  “No. It’s just what I’d do, if I was a coldheart boss.”

  He studied the distant hunting party a minute or two longer. Mildred felt her skin begin to crawl with nervous anticipation. What if he’s right? she wondered. What if there are more of the bastards, heading out to surround us? What if they’re closing in on us right now? What if they’re creeping up even as we dawdle here beating our gums?

  She realized she’d hear the same thing from pretty much all her companions, maybe even Ricky, wet behind the ears though he was: we fight, we run. We win. Or we die.

  Standard operating procedure.

  “What’s so funny, Mildred?” Ryan growled, easing himself back down out of sight behind the rock and the bush.

  She realized she had to have chuckled out loud. “Only me, Ryan,” she said. “Only me.”

  * * *

  RYAN HEADED EAST to increase the distance from the coldhearts as shadows lengthened and the sun sank toward the early end of a mountain day. The terrain that way was up and down, mostly wooded but with patches of open space and heavy brush.

  “I’ll take us north or south, whichever feels right,” he said as they trudged up a rocky slope. It exposed them to observation from a lot farther away than he liked. But whatever he did, there’d be trade-offs.

  “Any particular reason we’re headed right up this steep hillside?” Krysty asked. “Instead of around?”

  “Yeah. I want to avoid the obvious high-speed routes. If we keep them guessing which path we take, it gives us better chances to slip away clear.”

  He glanced back over his shoulder at the sun. “I’m looking to make it until nightfall,” he said, “then shake the bastards off for good. Tiburón doesn’t have him any ace trackers, does he?”

  Ricky said he didn’t think so.

  “What happened to always assuming the worst?” Mildred asked.

  “If the worst happens,” Ryan said, “we’re stone chilled. Why plan for that?”

  “Don’t you ever get tired of being right?”

  “It hasn’t been a problem so far.”

  He didn’t mind the banter. If they got to feeling so beat down they couldn’t speak their minds, they couldn’t help one another survive.

  Ryan was a bit more concerned about Jak. The teen had been less than stoic when Ryan told him to keep an eye on their path and stay out in front. That was the direction pursuit was least likely to come from, which was his beef. Jak wanted to be the first to spot the danger to his friends. And perhaps the first to dig into danger with one of his pet knives.

  But the threats they knew about came from behind and left and right. It was keeping an eye skinned for the danger you didn’t know about that kept dirt from hitting you in that selfsame eye.

  Jak acted a tad testy. Krysty said he was feeling threatened by the new boy. Ryan would have thought maybe the kid would like somebody to talk to who was more his own age. But apparently that made him get on Jak’s nerves more.

  Still, Jak would learn to adjust. He was a survivor.

  He was also ace as a scout, but there was only so much he could do. As quickly became clear when a bullet cracked by Ryan’s head. From the report a heartbeat later, he could tell it came from his left. Off to the north.

  One of Tiburón’s flanking patrols had spotted them.

  Even before he glanced that way, Ryan shouted, “Run!”

  “But, Ryan!” Mildred yelled. “I see them—”

  “No!” he shouted before she could say shouldn’t we shoot back?

  Under normal circumstances, the answer was yes! Take cover and teach yet another bunch of bullies that they couldn’t miss fast enough to catch up with dead-aimed shots. But these circumstances were in no way normal. Even Deathlands normal.

  “You want to get caught between fires?” he roared. “Run, for fuck’s sake!”

  That, he reckoned, was enough to remind everybody that if Ryan had been right about Tiburón sending out the one patrol, he was definitely right about the pincers’ second jaw. Too close to bet your life against. And the southern team would be homing in on the ruckus right now, practically drooling in blood lust.

  The main force didn’t concern Ryan much. He was fairly confident they’d left it well behind. The companions had taught the EUN some sharp lessons about getting frisky with them. And why bustle into an ambush when Tiburón had patrols out to hunt the quarry down and pin it so he could finished it off at leisure?

  Ryan never looked back. At this point, his companions would follow. Or they’d die.

  More shots cracked off from their left. He heard shouts. Glancing far enough ahead to be sure he wouldn’t put a foot wrong and twist his ankle, he finally looked that way.

  The ground here was broken by short, steep hills and narrow valleys.

  The EUN team was coming over a ridge he judged was a shave less than a hundred yards off. Actually, it was a pretty long sight line in this kind of country; bad luck the pursuers had gotten such a long glimpse at them.

  Or was it? Ryan realized he’d much rather the enemy spot them at long range and let the usual coldheart chase reflex take over, causing them to hoot and holler and fire their weapons without much chance of hitting what they fired at, rather than announce their presence with a volley of blasterfire at powder-burn range, the way the first bunch had. His companions couldn’t keep riding their luck forever.

  The trail led them through low scrub and grass, and jogged right around what looked like the end of a lava flow, higher than their heads.

  When he dodged around it, he saw Jak’s face peering at him from a pink-flowered bush several yards ahead. The kid was heading back to lend his friends a hand.

  Wrong call. “Go on!” Ryan shouted, waving at him. “Lead the way east! Make sure we’re clear. Go, go, go!”

  They needed speed now, not another blaster. Jak would just be another rabbit in the trap if the closing jaws snapped tight. Nuke it, if they did get pinned down they might have a jolt-walker’s chance if one of their people stayed free to do some well-placed back-shooting—or, being Jak, stabbing.

 
; But Ryan preferred not to find out.

  They pounded up a slope, risking brief exposure crossing a bare hilltop. That drew blasterfire from the south, even farther away than the bunch that was now northwest of them. The two patrols were burning lots of powder, but that was to be expected. Even for a halfway army like the EUN, good fire discipline usually meant they might let off single rounds or short bursts instead of blazing through a whole mag every time they touched a trigger.

  Then Ryan was pounding down the far side. He crashed through a shin-high bush, judging that gave him less chance of putting a boot wrong than vaulting it. The rest of the way was open with loose gravel down to a trickling stream about twenty-five feet away. But his sense of balance could manage that.

  He risked a look back. Krysty was helping Mildred down the scree. He was glad to see neither woman had a blaster drawn.

  After Krysty and Mildred came Doc, holding his swordstick by the middle. His eyes were clear and his cheeks were flushed by the afternoon heat, though the humidity had finally dwindled as they worked their way higher up into the cordillera. But he didn’t seem to be laboring or breathing hard. His endurance was one thing that hadn’t suffered during his travails. Then again, the miles they’d hoofed over the years since he joined up, some at similar rates of speed, would either keep you fit or chill you.

  Ryan led them down the stream. No point in avoiding obvious routes right now. The coldhearts knew where they were, close enough to be all over them in a heartbeat if they slowed. He was hoping to gain distance.

  The converging EUN teams were still shooting and shouting. At what, Ryan had no clue. None of them was currently within eyeshot of their prey, although that could change in a heartbeat.

  Where the stream dribbled into another, slightly more enthusiastic one, Ryan cut to the right. He saw Jak jump out of a weather-twisted scrub tree at the crest of the next rise and crouch at its base. He was staring right at Ryan.

  A red mist of anger boiled up inside of Ryan, and he opened his mouth to yell at the albino teen for his disobedience. Ease up off the trigger, a reasonable voice said in his head.

  The adrenaline crackling in his blood had him hyped up and on the razor’s edge. Fortunately, some keen part of his brain was always working. Jak had a rebellious nature but tended to follow Ryan’s orders, especially when the shit-hammer was quickly descending. The only reason he’d have headed back from breaking a safe trail for his companions was if he’d run into something up ahead that was even worse than what was fast coming up behind.

  What, Ryan couldn’t think of.

  But Jak’s soft one-word call gave him his answer in spades.

  “Monster.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Fuck me,” Ryan murmured, more to himself than the albino youth lying up at his side. “Will you look at that bastard?”

  Time pressed hard. Their friends were holed up in the rocks at the top of the outcrop where Jak had come back to meet them. With any decent luck they’d pulled out far enough ahead of the pursuit that the coldheart teams had flowed together into one, chasing straight after them. Even if they got the same luck the Deathlands usually dealt—bad—they had decent cover as well as concealment on three sides and could stand off both jaws of the trap.

  For a spell.

  But the sight that greeted Ryan through a scraggly wisp of bush was the sort to give the strongest man pause. And it did.

  The beast stood on a high brow of bare granite.

  “Armor cat,” Jak said quietly.

  “Yeah. A big one,” Ryan said.

  Even at a good sixty yards, its mere presence was terrifying. It was huge, the size of a wag. It was built more like a wolf than any cat Ryan had ever seen, with a deep chest and high back. But its face was clearly feline, like a bobcat’s. Or a tiger’s.

  True to its name, the bastard was armored. Really armored. Its body, face and limbs were covered in dark brown plates that shone like metal in the sun, but Ryan thought they were more like a bug’s chitin. The plates looked thick and tough, accentuated by little tufts of fur that bristled out of the joints here and there. Ryan felt a sinking surety that those plates would shed even the pointy-nosed copper-jacketed bullets that left his longblaster as easily as a duck’s ass shed drizzle.

  The cat also had sharp, bony spikes protruding from its shoulders. Just in case it looked too cute and cuddly without.

  “Bastard must go a thousand pounds without even allowing for that shell of his,” Ryan said. “Don’t know how you’d even down something like that, without a wag-chiller missile. My best advice would be to aim for an eye and hope for the best.”

  The eyes were big and yellow. Standing still, the creature was an easy shot for Ryan at that range, even with a fairly brisk breeze blowing crosswise down the sliver of valley that separated them. But the monster’s head never stayed still, and the armor plates that formed its brows looked extrathick. All the cat had to do was lower its head and there went your eye shot. A creature that size generally had a skull hard enough to shed a glancing shot, even without all that hard shell.

  “What do?” Jak asked. He was practically quivering with eagerness. Ryan wasn’t sure for what. To run? To fight the thing?

  Both, mebbe. Ryan quirked a grin. “Listen close,” he said. “I’ve got a plan, if you’re crazy enough to try it....”

  * * *

  JAK WAS, OF COURSE.

  He had crept to the base of the slope above which the armor cat still stood, arrogantly surveying its domain. It hadn’t yet seemed to notice him. Fortunately, the wind still blew crosswise, meaning it wouldn’t carry his scent to the cat. Otherwise he’d have been attacked already.

  The albino teen judged it was trying to figure the meaning of all the noise going on off to the west. The shooting had gotten more concentrated, somehow. Jak could tell it was now going both ways. His friends were shooting it out with their pursuers.

  He didn’t fret about them. They could look out for themselves, and they had Ryan with them, which shifted the odds in their favor.

  Anyway, he had all the worrying he could handle about his own skinny ass. Especially since he was about to lay it on the line in the most triple-stupe manner imaginable.

  He stood up.

  “Hey, fuckface!” he shouted, waving a hand over his head.

  The monster looked down at him, an almost puzzled look on its face.

  Stooping, Jak grabbed a chunk of lava and threw it at the creature. The rock bounced off its low, armor-plated forehead.

  “Pussy!” he yelled.

  The big yellow eyes blinked once, slowly, then the armor cat roared and sprang.

  It was an impressive leap, a terrifying leap.

  A fatally surprising leap. The mutie’s enormous mass flew the whole thirty feet straight to where Jak had been standing and taunting it.

  Fortunately, Jak had not only moved the instant it did, but his reflex was to move at an angle away from the axis of the armor cat’s jump, the way he’d avoid a punch or knife thrust by dodging at right angles.

  He actually felt the earth shake as the creature crashed down right where he’d stood, by which time he was flying down the narrow valley at top speed.

  The armor cat bounded after him. Jak dodged through a stand of saplings, hearing them splinter as the monster rushed into them, hot on his heels.

  The cat could easily run him down. But Jak could change course like a rabbit, which the thing proved it couldn’t when it slammed side-on into another boulder pile. Shaking off the torrent of lava rubble and dirt that fell on its head, it roared in annoyance and launched after him again.

  Also, while it could run him down like a coyote taking a three-legged gopher on the flat, that didn’t seem to be its preferred mode of hunting. It liked to get close and spring. The cat couldn’t be bothered to take less than a good twenty-five feet at a shot, which gave Jak, who kept glancing back over his shoulder, ample time to change course while the beast was in midflight and couldn�
��t switch direction.

  Hunter as he was, he could see why. When the mutie cat fell from the sky like that, it would just pulp anything less sturdy than, well, itself. Or maybe a light war wag.

  He sensed frustration in its snorting, panting breaths and the way it kept shaking its head, as if trying to loose a horsefly from an armored earhole. Just when he reckoned it had finally figured out its strategy wasn’t working, Jak ducked behind a big moss-grown granite boulder.

  The monster blundered past, its huge clawed feet digging giant furrows in the purple dirt as it realized its quarry had vanished.

  Jak, meanwhile, had scrambled up and over the rock and gotten a head start. “Missed!” he yelled over his shoulder.

  The mutie cat bellowed with rage and bounded after.

  The albino teen led the chase around to the north of the heights where his friends were. If sound were any clue, they were holding their own in a brisk firefight. It sounded to Jak as if the two pursuing forces had, in fact, joined up; most of the shots seemed to come from the same general area southwest of him. It was only a matter of time, though, before whoever was in charge of the combined patrols sent out a squad to flank the now-pinned-down party and deliver the kill shot.

  In fact five men were just setting out around the north side when Jak burst out of the brush several yards in front of them, running directly toward them. Beyond the men, he could see the rest of the party firing up at the promontory from behind rocks and stunted trees.

  Their faces lit with sadistic glee as the slight albino youth suddenly appeared, running right up on their blaster sights with his white hair flapping behind like a banner in a breeze.

  Their abrupt shift from triumph to pants-filling terror gave him his cue. He dived to his left into a bush. Putting down a shoulder, he rolled and came up with his Python in his left hand and his big bowie in his right.

  It was a gesture of utterly futile defiance; whichever foe he wound up facing would make short work of him.

  But he wasn’t facing any enemies at all. As he expected—hoped—the armor cat had caught one glimpse of the coldhearts and thought that many prey were better than a single skinny one. When Jak came up on one knee, the armor cat was already in the air, trailing a joyous snarl.