Way of the Wolf

by James Axler

  "Like a good hunting knife, trust cuts both ways," Ryan replied. It was a saying the Trader had often used. He looked past the sec chief, but he could no longer see Philox or the men who rode with him.

  Liberty bared his teeth.

  Ryan quietly hoped none of the gang looked up. The ropes above had been impossible to completely hide among the branches, and white scarring showed where limbs had been hacked away. The skin around the scar on his face tightened as the final cards were about to be played. He had seven rounds for the Steyr, and a full clip plus three for the SIG-Sauer.

  Usually the companions didn't get so low on ammo. There were places to trade, and there were the redoubts that they had access to that sometimes hadn't been opened in a hundred years. Pressing on past Hazard didn't make any kind of sense unless they were better armed. And if it had been possible to trade without getting their throats cut, Ryan would have been all for it. Only Liberty and his band didn't have a reputation for dealing from the top of the deck.

  In quick succession, Doc unveiled the denim shirts and pants in neat stacks on the woolen blanket. From there he moved on to the dozen packs of manufactured playing cards they'd raided from personnel lockers in the redoubt. Deathlands had their own pasteboards, many of them crude and hand-drawn.

  In some areas, a deck of predark playing cards brought top jack.

  "Let me see that deck," Liberty demanded.

  Doc reached down for the cards. Ryan remembered the deck, remembered talking to J.B. about it, both of them agreeing that it would capture the eyes of most of the gang. The cards held pictures of creamy female beauties from a bygone era, clothed rather than naked like some of the decks, and oozing a sexuality that had affected Ryan, as well, as he'd looked at them.

  The box said they had been drawn by someone named Gillette Elvgren, some time in the 1940s. The pictures seemed subtly more provocative than many of the sexually explicit ones Ryan had seen. Nudity was commonplace in Deathlands, but the flirty near innocence exhibited in the drawings of the women on the cards was something seldom seen.

  "Ah, a connoisseur of fair feminine beauty," Doc said, handing over the deck. "Do be careful with it. They are quite valuable."

  Liberty took the box and opened it. He fanned a number of the cards, some of the mounted men crowding in close to him to get a better look.

  Ryan gazed in the direction Philox and his men had gone, guessing he'd never see the men. Nor would he see Jak, because the albino was one of the deadliest killers around.

  The sec chief shoved the cards back together and reverently placed them within the cardboard box. "What else do you have?" He made no effort to hand the cards back, and a handful of the men around him cast covetous eyes on the prize their leader had selected.

  "A few knives," Doc said. "Military blades with a sheen and a luster not seen often in these times." He unfolded another section of the blanket to reveal a half-dozen sheathed combat knives. One of the gang asked to see a blade that could have doubled as a small machete. Doc passed over the weapon.

  The man drew the blade from the leather sheath. The keen edge splintered the weak sunlight that penetrated the tree canopy. Murmurs of appreciation followed the knife as the man whisked it through the air. He shaved the back of an arm with it, startled by the bright line of blood that followed one of his passes that had pressed too hard.

  "Show the rest of it," Liberty ordered.

  Ryan knew the gang leader was only buying time. The deal had been closed with the deck of cards, and the larceny in Liberty's warped soul wouldn't let him settle for anything less than all of the prizes displayed on the blanket. Trader had a saying: before a man learned to recognize honest emotion in a lover's eyes, he had to learn to spot greed in the eyes of a man waiting to cut a deal.

  The one-eyed warrior saw greed all over Liberty. The sec chief wasn't used to playing his cards close to the vest. Most people he dealt with saw it coming.

  "I have salves and ointments," Doc said, "antibacterial lotions for preventing infections, and antibiotics for inflammations and diseases that do occur in spite of the best efforts." The tubes and vials lay spread out across the blanket, each clearly marked by the Red Cross emblem and military markings. Doc held up a short, wide-mouthed blue jar. "There is even some topical anesthetic, good for dental problems, as well as limited invasive surgeries." He turned to face Liberty again. "As you can see, sir, I have quite a selection of valuable merchandise."

  "Stuff you got," Liberty admitted, "is worth a lot of jack."

  Doc grinned, but Ryan felt like a fist was squeezing his insides. His breath came shorter and clearer, the adrenaline pumping through his system. It was coming down to it.

  "A man in my position," Doc said, "likes to hear that as an opening comment from a potential buyer."

  "Where did you get this stuff?" Liberty demanded.

  "Scavenging," Doc replied. "This area is still rocked by the occasional quake." The companions knew that from an earlier jump to the region. "My friend and I stumbled across a subterranean site that must have been heretofore undiscovered, possibly covered over, then pushed to the surface by tremors like a boiling pocket of pus."

  "And you got lucky enough to find it?"

  "My dear sir," Doc said, "it was bound to be found by someone."

  Liberty shifted his attention to Ryan. "That the way you're gonna tell it, One-Eye?"

  "Mebbe." Ryan faced the man directly. "If I was of a mind to tell it." He knew the gang leader didn't believe him. A larcenous gleam colored the man's eyes. "I came here to deal, not dicker. If you're not interested enough, reckon we'll push on."

  "I'm interested," Liberty said. "I'd be more interested in knowing where you got this."

  "That would be stupe," Ryan said. "If we told you where, you could go get your own. You wouldn't need to buy what we got to offer."

  Liberty waved a hand toward the covered blanket. "So if I buy this, you'd tell me where you found it?"

  Ryan shook his head slowly. "I'd sell you the location."

  Liberty laughed. "You saying there's more?"

  "Mebbe."

  "And how am I supposed to trust you?"

  "I think that was my question just a short time back," Ryan said. "We're here. We could have let your people ride on past us."

  "Wrong. We cut your sign almost two hours ago. Trailed you here."

  "If you'd have followed it back instead of following us," Ryan said, "you'd have found that trail dropped off into the edge of nowhere in one of the streams through this area. Look all you want. You won't find where we came from." Jak had seen to that, then made sure the other companions had arrived in the present location without leaving a trail, as well.

  "You think you're a canny son of a bitch, don't you?" Liberty asked.

  "I'm a man," Ryan replied, "still standing in my own boots and making my own way."

  "A bullet changes all of that," Liberty replied.

  "Changes it for any man," Ryan countered easily. "I've spent a few cartridges myself, permanently changing the thinking of some folks."

  "What do you want for this, old man?" Liberty directed his question at Doc, but he didn't take his attention from Ryan.

  "How much of it?" Doc asked.

  "All," Liberty said. "All of it."

  "We want some ammo as an exchange," Doc answered.

  And Ryan knew things were about to go down now from the slight shifting Liberty exhibited, from the way the younger man's eyes narrowed. Perhaps if Liberty had been a little older, more experienced than just killing muties, he would have settled for trading. But Liberty wasn't going to play it that way.

  "Ammo?" A crooked grin lighted the man's face. He smoothly raised the Winchester from his knees and aimed it at Ryan. "Goodbye, One-Eye."

  Chapter Two

  Jak knew death as an intimate experience. It measured in heartbeats, from the last one to the next one that didn't come. A man trained in killing knew which heartbeat to act on. He waited patiently.

/>   Breathing easily, he ran a hand down the front of his camo vest. His fingertips avoided the sharp bits of metal sewn into the cloth to prevent man or beast from wanting to get too close to him. More metal bits studded his pants, providing an offense, as well as a defense.

  He stood slightly below five and a half feet tall, wiry and whipcord lean. His skin held the pallor of a corpse, mirrored by the shock of white hair on top of his head. Bone white and savagely scarred, as still as death, his face looked like a mask. Only the burning heat of his ruby red eyes showed life as he watched the men before him.

  Philox and the two men who rode with him dismounted from their horses a few yards back of the clearing where Doc and Ryan conducted their business. They unsheathed their long blasters and crept forward, never knowing that death dogged their heels.

  Lush forest growth, overgrown for decades, provided cover for Jak. He remained behind the men as they went forward. Their attention stayed on the events spinning out in the clearing. The albino teen left his .357 Magnum Colt Python in its holster, filling his hands with the leaf-bladed throwing knives he made himself and kept secreted on his body and in his clothing.

  Seated atop an outcrop thrusting from the uneven ground less than ten feet from the three men he followed, Jak saw Liberty make his move against Ryan. The Winchester came up blasting as the gang leader levered round after round into the breech and fired away. Doc scattered to the left, just as they'd planned, making his way toward the huge Le Mat blaster.

  "Keep the old man alive, you stupe bastards!" Liberty yelled above the sudden din.

  Philox and his two partners raised their long blasters to their shoulders, taking aim.

  Both hands flashing, Jak threw the leaf-bladed knives, then leaped from his vantage point. The three men howled in pain, hands reaching over shoulders to try to grasp the knives that sank deep into their backs. One of the men turned as Jak landed, alerted by the noise even over the crash of gunfire.

  The man yelled out a warning as he brought up his weapon.

  Jak whipped back a hand and released another throwing knife as he spun and ducked into cover behind a thick bole of an oak.

  The knife sank deep into his victim's throat, the man gagging instantly on his own blood. He dropped to his knees, firing his blaster into the ground.

  Hand dropping to the butt of the .357 Magnum revolver, Jak ripped the big weapon free of leather. Following his momentum around the tree bole, the albino brought up the blaster in a two-handed grip, rolling the hammer back with his thumb for a quick snap shot. He punched a round through Philox's forehead. The man's head jerked backward as the bullet emptied his brain pan across the brush behind him. He went wide-eyed, face first into the dirt.

  "Fucking ghost!" The third man panicked, trying in vain to find cover.

  Jak relentlessly pursued, bringing up the .357 pistol again. The front sight fell over the back of his target's skull, then a full-metal-jacketed hollowpoint caved it in. The albino recovered Philox's long blaster, scooping it from the ground in a quick, practiced movement. He recognized the weapon as he brought it to his shoulder—a Marlin bolt-action .30-.30 with a 5-round clip.

  Squinting through the telescopic sights, he tracked across the clearing where Doc and Ryan scrambled for their lives. The gang poured a constant barrage of fire, fighting against their struggling mounts.

  Jak slipped his finger inside the rifle's trigger guard and took up the slack, knowing the lives of his friends existed only one heartbeat to the next, with no guarantees.

  RYAN MOVED in a smooth uncoiling of muscles, not bothering with a feint. Liberty struck like a snake, with no warning and without hesitation.

  Diving to the right of the clearing, Ryan knew he pulled most of the gang's guns in his direction. He broke his fall with his left arm as he kept hold on the Steyr with his right hand. He rolled, keeping the long blaster tight against his body.

  "Get him!" Liberty yelled. "Get the bastard now!"

  Long blasters and pistols broke the stillness under the leafy canopy behind Ryan as he came to his feet behind a three-foot-high shelf of rock the brush covered from casual view. He misjudged his roll and smacked his right cheek against it. Blood wept warmly down the side of his face. He pulled himself into position behind the rock and raised the Steyr. The weapon's butt pressed into the side of his face against whatever injury he had taken. The abraded flesh stung at the touch, but parts of his face where the old scars were didn't have any feeling at all.

  Thrusting the Steyr's barrel through the underbrush, he noted that Doc was safely out of harm's way. The gang members milled around in the clearing, not yet in complete control of their mounts.

  "Philox!" Liberty roared, twisting his head to the right as he reached under the wag's seat and came away with an ammo belt.

  Ryan put the Steyr's crosshairs over Liberty's face, leading the man slightly as the gang leader moved across the wag. He squeezed the trigger, spotting the horse and rider that reared in the way only a chron tick before the big sniper weapon crashed into his shoulder.

  The 7.62 mm round cored through the horse's neck, cutting through the jugular and unleashing a torrent of blood. It whinnied in pain and fear, fighting harder than ever against the commands of its rider.

  "Fireblast!" Ryan snarled, chambering another round. He looked for Liberty again, but there was too much confusion in the clearing.

  Some of the gang members took advantage of the situation to start raiding the supplies spread out on the blanket. They remained in position, though. Ryan peered through the scope. A slight squeeze of the trigger, and one of the riders sprawled to the ground, kicking through the last reflexive movements his nervous system allowed.

  Bullets smacked into the shelf of rock before Ryan, driving him back. He found another target, so close he didn't even need the Steyr's scope. He trusted his instincts and experience with the weapon. His finger stroked the trigger, putting a bullet into the center of the man's chest and bursting his heart.

  Three bullets gone and two men down. It wasn't enough, and fighting a protracted engagement wasn't something the companions could afford to do.

  Ryan raised his voice as he swapped shots with another gang member, neither of them hitting anything. "Krysty, do it now!"

  TITIAN-HAIRED Krysty Wroth moved from hiding and made for the tree along the uneven rock face where she had taken up a position. She raised her .38-caliber Smith & Wesson Model 640 and ripped off two shots at a man closing in on Doc. Both shots went wide of their mark, but they came close enough to send the man diving for cover.

  "Down, Krysty!" Mildred Wyeth yelled behind her.

  Krysty dived at once, splaying flat on hands and knees. Still, she kept moving forward. Bullets pocked the rock face above her, showering rock splinters that stung her back and legs.

  She heard the distinctive detonation of Mildred's .38-caliber ZKR 551 target pistol banging behind her. Men yelled and cursed in pain. A shootist in the last-ever Olympic games, Mildred was hell on wheels with a pistol.

  Krysty threw herself the last few feet to her goal: the old gnarled oak tree that held the rope to spring the trap Ryan had set up for the encounter. She ripped Ryan's panga from her hand-stitched cowboy boot and rose with the knife in her hand.

  The rope snaked around the oak tree, safely hidden from most casual inspections.

  A man erupted from the ground in front of Krysty, rising up out of the brush. The maniacal face was limned in blood, and there was no way to tell if it was his or someone else's.

  "Goddamn bitch!" the man snarled. He raised a double-bitted ax that had been cut down to a hand weapon and looped around his wrist by a leather thong. "Going to cut you a little now, cut you deeper later." He swung the blade.

  A little under six feet tall and graced by nature and hard living with a strength that surprised most people, Krysty met the man's attack head-on. She lifted the panga and turned the sweep of the ax head enough to miss her. Then she brought around the panga, the razor
edge neatly slicing off two of the man's fingers. The wounds spurted blood as the digits dropped to the ground.

  The man shouted in pain.

  Krysty rammed the .38 into his face and pulled the trigger twice. The first bullet kicked the man's head back, and the second turned it sideways.

  As the dying man dropped to the ground, Krysty turned and swung the panga at the rope coiled around the tree. The keen-edged steel sliced through the rope as if it were wet paper.

  Sheared of its moorings, the rope slithered through the tree branches. As she watched it, Krysty sent a small prayer to Gaia, the Earth Mother, to watch over her companions and keep all safe from harm.

  She took up cover behind the oak tree as she listened to the crash and thunder of heavy objects smashing through the trees overhead. She barely made out the thick tree trunk that swept down at the gang still trying to steal their trade goods.

  Then it was among them, over a ton of falling wood that Ryan had selected from farther up the hill. Steel cable had been easy enough to come by in the redoubt, and Ryan, Dean and Jak had returned for it after the one-eyed man had picked the ambush spot and made his plans.

  Short loops of the steel cable jutted from the underside of the huge tree trunk. The loops folded out big enough to catch a man's arm, hand or foot, and it was thin enough with the force coming up with it to slice right through skin, flesh and bone as it passed.

  It was also in a man's instinct to lift a hand to defend himself against something he thought was falling on him. Ryan had counted on that.

  Krysty watched the tree trunk arc through the trees, staying less than two feet above the ground just as Ryan and Doc had planned on. Three or maybe four men lost their lives when the tree trunk smashed into them. At least that many lost hands and arms in the vicious coils of steel cable.

  A head spun free of one man's body, scissored off by the cable before he could escape. The sound of dying men multiplied below.

  Krysty extended her arm and fired her remaining two shots at a man rushing the last position she'd seen Ryan in. The man went down. Ducking behind the tree, she broke open her weapon and shook the brass loose. Her fingers moved smoothly as she refilled the cylinder. After those rounds were fired, she had only four more in her shirt pocket.