by James Axler
Grant let a slow, disgusted breath hiss out between his teeth. Lowering the binoculars, he gently disengaged the detonation cap from the plastique, unpock-eted his trans-comm and pressed the button to open Kane's channel.
His partner's voice filtered out of the palm-sized radiophone. "You set?"
"You might say that," Grant replied, softening his deep, rumbling voice. "We've got company. Roam-ers."
He easily pictured the expression of incredulity crossing Kane's face. "Roamers? You sure?"
"It's a safe bet they aren't Mormons."
"How many?"
"Looks to be about twenty," answered Grant, "though there are a few stragglers on foot."
"Arms?"
"Home-forged muzzle loaders. Blades and axes. The usual."
The small comm unit transmitted Kane's deep sigh of irritation. "Come on down, then. You've planted the C-4, right?"
"Right, but I'd rather not patch it in to the proximity detonators with the Roamers around."
"That," said Kane grimly, "depends on the Roamers."
Grant pocketed the trans-comm and squinted through the eyepieces of the binoculars again. As a general rule, Roamers were dangerous only to isolated outland settlements. Outlaw nomads, they used resistance to ville authority as a justification for their raids, murders and rapes. Inasmuch as they stayed as far away as possible from the villes, Grant often wondered who they thought they were fooling by paying lip service to a political cause.
As he focused on the man riding point, a memory from a Magistrate briefing a couple of years before ghosted through his mind. He attached a name to the face of the manLe Loup Garou, the Wolfman, chieftain of the most vicious Roamer band in the western Outlands.
Hanging by a looped thong from his saddle horn was a curiously shaped handblaster. Though Grant was familiar with all types of gunspredark and postdark it took him a moment to identify the pistol as a tap-action flintlock, or an imitation. A double-barreled weapon, it featured a design that allowed one lock to fire each barrel in turn.
Seeing such an archaic blaster didn't surprise him overmuch. One of the first priorities the drafters of the Program of Unification had set for themselves was the disarmament of the people. Still, books and diagrams survived the sweeps, and self-styled gunsmiths continued to forge weapons, though blasters more complicated than black-powder muzzle loaders were beyond their capacities.
Even such a rudimentary firearm in the hands of Le Loup Garou would have earned him an immediate termination warrant, had Grant still been a Magistrate.
He lifted his gaze beyond the mounted people. On foot behind them staggered six women and four children. Stark naked and tethered to each other by thick leather collars and lengths of rawhide, they made a chain of human misery. All of them were copper-skinned with the flowing, jet-black hair of Indians.
A pair of Roamers marched beside the stumbling captives, urging them along with curses and strokes of long whips that raised blood-edged welts with every flail.
Grant ground his teeth, no longer wondering at the presence of the raiders. They had attacked the Indian settlement, and the captives were either the sole survivors or those they were able to steal. Despite the loathing he felt for the Roamers, he almost hoped the first possibility was the case. If not, then Sioux and Cheyenne warriors would be on the coldhearts' trail. If they were, the Roamers' route through the Darks was not arbitrary or whimsical. They hoped the superstitious regard in which the Indians held the mountain range would discourage pursuit.
Grant knew very little about the culture of the few scattered Indian bands living in the hinterlands, but he didn't think that a tribal taboo would prevent the warriors from rescuing their women and children.
Stowing the binoculars, he screwed the detonation cap back into the explosive block, then began picking his way carefully down the cliff face. His fingers gripped cracks in the stone, and rivulets of gravel started beneath his boots, rattling and clicking. The descent was more difficult than the ascent, and not for the first time he wished Domi were with them. Nimble and strong, she could climb like a scalded monkey.
He huffed and puffed and swore as he clambered to the gorge floor. He dropped the last ten feet. Brigid and Kane were there to meet him.
"What the hell are Roamers doing out here?" Kane demanded harshly.
An inch over six feet, every line of Kane's supple, compact body was hard and stripped of excess flesh. His high-planed face held a watchful expression, as did his narrowed gray-blue eyes. His thick dark hair was tousled, and his left hand pushed through it impatiently. He kept his right hand, his gun hand, free. His holstered Sin Eater was strapped to the forearm.
Brigid said, "They're wanderers, like gypsies were supposed to be. They can be anywhere."
She was tall, full breasted with a willowy, athletic figure. A curly mane of red-gold hair spilled over her shoulders and upper back, framing a smoothly sculpted face dusted lightly with freckles across her nose and cheeks. The color of polished emeralds glittered in her big eyes.
Grant massaged his sore shoulder muscles and worked his stiff fingers. "There's a reason why they're in this particular spot. They've got Indian prisoners taken from the settlement. They're probably hoping to throw warriors off their track in the mountains."
A few years older than Kane, a few inches taller and more than a few pounds heavier, Grant was a very broad-shouldered man. A down-sweeping mustache showed jet-black against the coffee brown of his skin. Beneath it, his heavy-jawed face was set in a perpetual scowl. Like his companions, he wore dark trousers and a shirt of tough whipcord.
"I think it's Le Loup Garou's little social club," he added.
Kane's eyes flickered in recognition of the name, and he sighed in angry exasperation. "Why can't anything be simple?"
Grant ignored the query, assuming it was rhetorical. He nodded toward the mouth of the gorge. "We can't let them through the pass. The road leads only to Cerberus."
Tersely Kane replied, "There are too many to fight. So that leaves the time-honored tactic of the bluff."
Brigid raised a skeptical eyebrow. "How do you propose we run a bluff on twenty barbarians?"
"Not we," answered Kane. "Me."
Grant groaned. "Here we go. Don't you ever get tired of making up shit as you go along?''
Smiling crookedly, Kane opened a pouch on his belt and removed a small oval of black plastic. He extended a thread-thin antenna and pointed it toward the cleft above them.
"Wait" Grant began.
Kane depressed a tiny stud on its surface. "The charge is armed."
Eyes flashing green sparks of anger, Brigid snapped, "We've just spent two hours setting up the microwave sensor perimeter. Blowing the plastique ourselves isn't part of the plan."
"I'm making shit up as I go along," Kane reminded her dryly. "If I can't bluff the Roamers into turning tail, we'll have no choice but to drop the hammer. Besides, what difference does it make if Mags touch off the proximity sensors or if we're the ones to light the charge? The results will be the same. Boom."
Pausing, he scanned their faces before clarifying his take on the situation. "I don't want Roamers knocking at our door any more than I want Mags."
Neither person said anything.
"Look," Kane continued, trying for a reasonable tone, "if they can be scared off, we'll disarm the charge and go back to the original setup."
"What about their captives?" asked Brigid.
Kane shrugged. "Not our business. If warriors are following them, it's their lookout to rescue the prisoners, not ours."
"The Cerberus policy of isolation," Brigid muttered darkly.
His voice and eyes went cold. "Now you're getting it."
He tossed the transmitter to Grant, who caught it gingerly with both hands. Affixing the trans-comm to an epaulet on the left shoulder of his shirt, Kane said, "Keep your comm channel open. Depending on what I say, you may have to ignite the charge, but don't do it unless I say so specifically. Get over
to the wag and stay out of sight."
Brigid and Grant gave him lingering, bleak stares, then did as he said, turning and walking toward the thicket some thirty yards away. Kane strode down the blacktop to the very mouth of the canyon. Finding a granite boulder, he leisurely leaned against it and crossed his arms over his chest, hiding the Sin Eater from view. He hoped he wouldn't have to use it.
Chapter 3
Within one minute, he heard the steady clopping of hooves, the jingle of harness and the murmur of voices. The gorge mouth was narrow, only a dozen yards from wall to wall, and it wouldn't permit more than three riders abreast along the furrowed blacktop.
Inside of two minutes, the Roamers turned a bend in the rock wall. Le Loup Garou caught sight of Kane immediately and he reined his horse up so sharply it whinnied in protest. He froze motionless with astonishment and lifted his left hand to halt the people behind him. A half shout went up, reins were jerked and weapons drawn. Instantly several rifles were leveled at Kane, but the sudden shock of finding one man lolling casually against a boulder stayed their fingers on the triggers.
Le Loup Garou and Kane inspected each other silently. Slowly a smile stretched the chieftain's lips. ' 'What is your thought, encroaching on the territory of the Roamers?" His soft voice was touched by what might have been a French accent a long time ago. Now, decided Kane, it was just an affectation.
"Since when do Roamers have territories?" he retorted.
The man's smile widened into a disdainful grin. He was missing two teeth, and the others were darkly stained and cavity speckled. "Any piece of ground we cross becomes ours simply by dint of our passage."
"Not this particular piece."
Le Loup Garou furtively eyed the undergrowth, the canyon walls above and behind Kane, suspecting the stranger had blastermen hidden on all sides.
Calmly he said, "We wish only to go to the mountains. That is all."
"Sorry," Kane replied, "the mountains and this pass are private property."
Le Loup Garou's eyes narrowed, puzzled and uncertain. "The property of who?"
"Me."
"Claimed by one man?" demanded Le Loup Garou incredulously. "Just what kind of man are you? You're too smooth for an outrunner, too pale for a peau-rouge .''
"A peau what?"
"Redskin."
Kane imitated Le Loup Garou's scornful grin. "I am an expatriate."
The Roamer chieftain rubbed his chin contemplatively. "I have never heard of that tribe."
"It's not a tribe. It's more of an occupation."
Le Loup Garou nodded. "Ah. We pursue our own occupations."
"So I've heard. Chilling, robbing, enslaving."
The man shrugged. "I wish only to pass. If you so desire, I will pay you a toll."
"No," Kane said flatly.
Le Loup Garou's shoulders stiffened. "I offer you a gift, then. A red girl, still young and juicy. She claims to be a virgin, but with savages, who can say. I chose her for myself, but a man like you will appreciate her as much as I."
"I don't take gifts from scum."
The man raised his voice slightly in anger. "I do not care for your manner."
"Not many do. I've had complaints about it before."
"For a single man facing many, you are being extraordinarily argumentative."
Kane ignored the observation. In a soft, icy whisper, he said, "I've no more to say to you. Turn about and go. I won't tell you again."
Le Loup Garou snarled like his namesake. Quick rage flickered like a flame in his black eyes. Behind him, the Roamers peered at Kane, their inclination to chill him conquered by curiosity and apprehension about hidden guns.
Thrusting his head forward, Le Loup Garou growled, "I won't tell you this againbe practical. Let us pass or you will die."
Kane eyed the hollow bores of the rifles pointing at him, then tensed his wrist tendons. The Sin Eater unfolded, and the butt slapped into his palm. Casually he brought it into view, but he didn't aim it. Le Loup Garou stared, gaping open-mouthed. He leaned back in his saddle, away from the handblaster.
"Chilling you may serve no practical purpose," said Kane coldly, "but by God, you tempt me."
The chieftain struggled to regain the composure he had lost at the sight of the Sin Eater. "I've seen blasters like that before, in the hands of sec men."
"Sec men" was an obsolete term still applied to Magistrates in hinterlands beyond the villes. A low murmuring, in thick, hate-filled tones, passed among the Roamers. Magistrates were feared and despised all over the Outlands. To chill a Mag was the fondest hope of marauders like the Roamers.
Though he didn't otherwise move, Le Loup Garou's hand crept toward the tap-pistol hanging from his saddle horn. Kane swore silently. Regardless of what else was said, the chief intended to draw his pistol. He had no choice. If Le Loup Garou backed down in front of a sec man, his people wouldn't forget and his position as their leader was doomed.
"I'm not a sec man," Kane declared. "I told you what I was."
Le Loup Garou's hand continued to creep toward the blaster.
"This isn't necessary." A steel edge slipped into Kane's voice. "Nobody has to die. Do as I say and ride out."
Le Loup Garou's hand stopped moving, his slitted black eyes locking on Kane's. The tension suddenly went out of the man's posture. His shoulders heaved in a dismissive shrug, and he half turned in his saddle toward the people behind him as if to say something to them.
Kane hissed softly in disgust. "Ah, shit."
The chieftain's attitude of resignation didn't deceive him. As far as the human wolf pack was concerned, their leader had been challenged by a hated enemy, and failure to accept the challenge was tantamount to a death sentence.
Le Loup Garou swiftly twisted in the saddle, his hand darting for his blaster. At the same instant, Kane lunged around the base of the boulder. Only his steel-trap coordination saved him as three rifles exploded more or less simultaneously.
The balls gouged white scars in the rock, ricocheting away with high-pitched whines. Le Loup Garou bellowed orders, and the nearest Roamers dismounted, others heeling their steeds forward, jostling and bowling over their people on foot. Horses neighed, reared, throwing riders from their backs. The attack was so disorganized, so impulsive, that Kane almost laughed.
Leaning around the boulder, he saw savagely screaming Roamers swarming at him from both sides. He aimed and fired a triburst. The bullets impacted against flesh at 335 pounds of pressure per square inch. Shooting to wound with a Sin Eater was rarely an option. Even a bullet striking a limb resulted in hydrostatic shock.
The rounds he fired didn't strike limbs. Three Roamers rushing forward in a shoulder-to-shoulder wedge absorbed the trio of 248-grain rounds with their upper bodies. They went down together, legs flailing madly in reflex motion.
Kane caught a glimpse of Le Loup Garou thumbing back the locks of his pistol, trying to frame his head in the sights. Kane drew back as the twin barrels belched flame and smoke, spattering the boulder with lead. He crouched lower, knowing that making a break for the gorge would be dangerous. He could be riddled before he made a dozen yards. A crude single-shot muzzle loader could chill him just as effectively as an autobl aster.
Le Loup Garou shouted a fierce command. Kane hazarded a quick look around the base of the boulder and saw a Roamer, ragged garments flapping around him, racing toward his position, flintlock rifle at his shoulder.
Kane pressed the Sin Eater's trigger, and the round caught the Roamer in midstride. With a wild screech, he staggered, jackknifing at the waist. He crashed headlong against the opposite side of the bullet-pocked boulder.
The Roamers sprinted for cover outside the mouth of the gorge, unnerved by Kane's uncanny marksmanship and the deep-throated reports of his pistol. Still, they were too infuriated to engage in a complete retreat. They pulled their neighing, stamping horses out of the zone of fire, for which he was relieved. He had no stomach for shooting animals, especially horses.
&nbs
p; Brigid's voice, tight with worry, filtered from the trans-comm at his shoulder. "What's going on?"
"They don't want to leave," he replied. "Stand by. I'm going to make a run for it."
Kane sprang up and dashed into the gorge. As soon as he showed himself, he heard an angry howling burst from the throats of the Roamers. He was a swift runner, but the loose and treacherous rocks underfoot prevented him achieving his full speed.
Mushy pops echoed up and down the canyon, and gravel gouted all around him. Glancing back, he saw Le Loup Garou running around the boulder., discolored teeth bared in a grimace. Smoke dribbled from one of the bores of his tap pistol. Well over a dozen of his band, men and women alike, followed him, pounding close-packed between the gorge walls. They triggered their flintlocks as they came, their pace spoiling their aim. The high canyon walls magnified the gunfire, making it sound as if an entire battalion fired volley after volley.
Still, Kane heard a little whump of displaced air as one ball passed close to the right side of his head, fanning his cheek with a swirl of cold air. He returned the fire with his Sin Eater, knew he missed and didn't try again.
His eyes sought out and located the cleft high in the wall where Grant had planted the charge. Into the trans-comm, he shouted, "Light it!"
Brigid's voice, crackling with tension, responded, "You're too close!"
A bullet plucked at the sleeve of his shirt. He shouted again, louder, "Light it!"
With an earsplitting, teeth-jarring crack the block of C-4 erupted in a flash of orange flame and white smoke. The concussion shoved him stumbling forward, but he managed to maintain his footing. Kane risked an upward glance. The air went on shivering with the echoes of the explosion as ugly black fissures spread out in a spiderweb pattern around the cleft. Then the entire cliff face appeared to be in motion. It tottered, seemed to suspend itself in midair for a long moment, then toppled.
As it fell, it sheared away the softer ledges beneath, breaking them apart. A seething avalanche of roaring rock slabs and dirt cascaded along the steep face of the cliff, augmenting its bellowing fury with tons of stone torn loose by its rush. Great crags and shards came raining down.