by Axler, James
The worst part was the waiting. Ryan and J.B. stood, at night, staring into the darkness beyond the beacon fires that marked the ville's boundaries.
"Think we're ready to attack those bastards and get our ticket out?" Ryan asked.
J.B. took off his glasses. "Ready as ever," he replied, pausing to polish them and replace them on the bridge of his nose before finishing the comment. "Though that's not saying much."
Ryan nodded. "Either we're outnumbered or we hope that they can pull together long enough. Some choice."
"Just don't expect firepower miracles, that's all."
"I know. It's enough to make you cry." Ryan smiled. J.B. answered him with the kind of look that could pass between old friends but would have started a fight between strangers in any bar or gaudy across the Deathlands.
"Question is, when do we move?" J.B. continued.
Ryan stared out into the dark, squinting his good eye to try to focus on the swirling darkness. The storms made the night seem like a solid thing he could reach out and touch, like a physical barrier between themselves and the redoubt. In some ways that's exactly what it was.
"Got to trust Abner on that one," Ryan said quietly.
"If nothing else, his people know the valley. We have to go with them."
"Sure, but excuse me if I get an itchy feeling down my spine when I think of it," the Armorer commented with a dryness that made Ryan laugh out loud.
Wiping a tear of laughter from his eye, Ryan said simply, "Yeah, sure be good to move."
RYAN SOUGHT OUT out Abner the next morning, coming on the baron as he was still in the rusty iron bed, with the latest in a long line of girls young enough to be his granddaughter. Hell, for all Ryan knew, they might well be. It wouldn't be the first time he'd come across that sort of sickness. He remembered Baron Willie Elijah and his wives Roonie, Toonie and Poonie, and their daughters Roonie-Two, Toonie-Two and Poonie-Two. Fireblast, they were all from the same wife that Willie had first taken.
"Morning, One-eye," Abner grunted, stretching so that his fat belly wobbled, farting so that the girl next to him giggled. "Shut up, girl," he commented in an offhand manner before returning his attention to Ryan. "So what can I do for you, friend?"
"I was talking to my people last night. We want to move as soon as possible."
Abner pulled a face. "I don't know about that, friend Ryan," he said sweetly. "See, it's got to be the right conditions. Otherwise my people stand a chance of getting chilled big time."
Ryan pulled the panga from along his thigh, slowly so as not to alarm Abner or the girl. Nonetheless the long and wickedly gleaming blade made her eyes widen, and Abner looked distinctly uncomfortable. His hand reached under the covers, and Ryan heard the muffled click of the hammer on the blunderbuss he kept down there.
Ryan began to pare his chipped and hardened nails with the panga, smiling over the top of the blade. "I'd be careful with that blaster, Abner. One day it might go off and blow your pecker clean away. And you wouldn't like that, would you?" he continued, switching his attention to the girl. She shook her head, wide-eyed with complete incomprehension.
Ryan looked quickly back to Abner—not from any sense that the baron would pull the blaster on him, but more to escape the waves of revulsion that overcame him, seeing the young girl next to the old man.
"Just what do you want from us now, One-eye?" Abner growled.
Ryan shrugged, still paring his nails. "Nothing. Just a chance for us both to get what we want. And don't worry, I'm not going to try to kill you. I know Mac's back there just itching to put a hole in me."
A grating, humorless laugh came from the doorway where Mac had his blaster trained on Ryan.
"I like you, One-eye. You and your people got balls, even the women. Sure learned a lot from you. Still more to learn if you don't get yourself chilled too soon."
"I've got no intention of that," Ryan said in a level tone, not taking his attention from Abner. "All I want is to know when we're going to move."
"Can't yet," Abner said tightly.
"Why not?" Ryan asked with a studied casualness. He suspected the baron of cowardice, and he didn't want that to hold up their chances of getting out, perhaps even rescuing Doc if the old man was still alive.
Abner stayed silent. It was Mac who answered.
"The storms, Ryan. We get a nose for them here. Guess we have to if we're going to survive. They're always here, but some are worse than others. If you look out east from here, you can see the swirls of dust rise up mebbe twenty, thirty feet into the sky. That means we got some real sons of bitches out there. Whip your skin off you in five minutes. Can't move through them at any kind of pace without your legs turning to jelly. No way we'd be in any fit state to fight, even with your training."
Mac's tone had been level, reasoned. Even the way in which he had addressed Ryan by name rather than as "One-eye"—as everyone in this rad-blasted pesthole had since he'd arrived—convinced the one-eyed warrior that the sec man was leveling with him. Ryan didn't trust him, but he felt certain that the sec man had a respect for his skills that Ryan felt was mutual. Mac was as good as they got in this nameless ville.
Slowly, keeping a watch on Abner's hand hidden beneath the blanket, Ryan resheathed the panga.
"So how long do those kind of storms usually last?" he asked, directing the question over his shoulder at Mac rather than at the baron.
"Hard to say exactly. The storm ain't exactly a believer in accuracy. It doesn't carry a wrist chron, you know."
Ryan smiled. "Roughly, then."
Although he couldn't see, he could almost feel the sec man shrug. "Mebbe a day, mebbe a week. This one…I dunno, it might not be long one. Can't rightly say why, but when the dust gets that high, it usually means that the storm blows itself out pretty quick. Don't hold your breath, though."
Ryan nodded and turned slowly to face the sec man. "Don't fret yourself, Mac. There's no chance of me doing that. Every breath is precious," he said carefully before walking out of the shack, past the fat sec man, who shuffled out of the way, lifting the long-barreled blaster to allow the one-eyed warrior to pass.
When Ryan was out of earshot, Abner slowly let back the hammer on his blunderbuss. "Bastard outlanders. I'll be glad when that mother and his people are gone. If we're really lucky, the insiders will chill them while they chill the insiders, leaving it all nice and peaceful for us."
"Don't hold your breath," Mac muttered softly, echoing his words to Ryan.
THE STORM WAS RAGING. The wind whipped dust and dirt through the air, which was almost solid with the force of the howling winds. Small stones and pebbles rattled off the reinforced windshields of the wags, bouncing off the metal-and-canvas covers that Murphy had made his men erect before leaving the redoubt. They had wags that weren't convertible in such a manner, but Murphy—like the Murphys before him—felt safer if his men could see around for 360 degrees. The metal, covered-in wags might protect them better from the worst ravages of the storms, but they sure as hell didn't help them see outsiders creeping up on them. When the storms lessened, the covers came off. They were only used in the most violent of storms.
Murphy sat in the lead wag with a group of five men, a driver beside him and four men on the bench seats that lined each side of the wag. There were three other wags, each with similar personnel, which totaled twenty-four. Not exactly a large task force, but enough for their needs.
The outsiders really were stupid, Murphy mused as the wag bounced over the terrain. They never expected a raid when the storms were this bad, despite the fact that it was always the time that Murphy picked. He'd have thought that even the most stupid of them might have caught on by now.
It never occurred to Murphy that it wasn't that simple, that the outsiders couldn't see them coming, and that they couldn't mount solid defenses because they didn't have enough old tech to compete.
"Bridge coming up, sir." The driver, Pri Firclas Bailey breathed hoarsely. The dust always got into his lun
gs, making him hawk and spit and fight for every breath. But he was a good soldier and never complained. Murphy admired that. That was why Bailey was one of his chosen few.
"Very good. Take it slow, as usual."
"Sure thing, sir. Not much chance of there being any of that scum around, not in this," Bailey wheezed between coughs.
"Nah, why else choose a shitty time like this?" Murphy replied with a grin. He picked up the handset of the crackling radio. "Alpha One to Beta, Gamma, Delta. Praise the Lord, there's a bridge coming to take us to the promised land. Follow the one true path. Don't go for the endless sleep. Over and out."
He put the handset back, only half listening to the crackly and distorted replies from the other three wags. He knew that they would be following orders and following him. He trusted his men implicitly in a combat situation. They knew the penalties for deviation—always assuming that they could get back to base.
The bridge across the chasm was camouflaged. Murphy's grandfather had built it about as far away from the old two-lane blacktop as he could, then covered it with a camouflage paint that made it hard to pick out from a distance. He figured that the outsiders always followed the line of the old road, wary of straying too far because of the mutie wildlife. To build the road here made sense, and the camouflage paint was the final touch. Although such paints had already existed in pre-dark times, this was something special. This had a chemical in it that made it adaptable to weather conditions and levels of humidity, with a life of a hundred years.
Which meant that it had a couple of decades left before it became visible for any outsiders brave enough to wander this far. Hell, Murphy thought, in a couple of decades there wouldn't be any of that scum left.
The wags rattled over the bridge, which sagged ominously as the first wag hit the metal. Even though he trusted it implicitly, Murphy's guts still gave a little tremor of fear every time he hit the bridge.
Over the chasm, they headed onward through the storm. Wallace wanted a fresh supply of body parts, and Murphy had a blood lust to quell. The unfinished business with Cawdor and his people was still eating at him. Hell, he might even find them there, if they'd managed to avoid getting chilled by the outsiders. The thought of it made him feel warm inside.
The wags were now careering through the brush where the mutie squirrels lived. The evil little critters evinced a certain death wish. Their territory was being invaded again, and they didn't like it.
The wags rattled and thumped as the bodies of the squirrels hit the sides, high-pitched squeals of pain and anger, fury and death penetrating the canvas-and-metal shell. Small rips appeared where the most tenacious of the creatures managed to get its jaws into the sides of the wags.
"Those little fuckers never learn, do they?" Bailey commented.
"They certainly don't, son," Murphy replied impassively. "Stupe bastards'll probably make themselves extinct at this rate. But you've gotta admire their guts, Bailey."
"Something like that, sir." Bailey coughed, fighting to keep control of the wag as the wheels skittered on bloody corpses.
"It's okay, Bailey. We'll soon be past the brush and into the homestretch. And that's where the action really begins." Murphy unholstered his blue 9 mm Beretta and kissed the barrel.
That had never failed him yet.
JAK WAS SQUATTED on a mound of earth just past the last beacon fire, now damped down for the daylight hours. Dean was with him. While Jak was still and impassive, staring into the storm, Dean was itchy and fidgety, unable to settle.
"I'm still not sure what the hell it is we're supposed to be keeping a lookout for," he complained. "Nothing can move out there, not in that."
"Not want stay, not stay," Jak commented quietly. "Not forcing you."
"I know," Dean replied, struggling for the right words. "I kind of don't want to, but feel like I should."
"Why?"
"Because you feel like something's going to happen."
Jak turned to Dean, and for a moment there was a hint of suspicion in his red eyes. "Not a doomie," he said tersely. "Just bad feeling. Not know what, why."
"Not just you," Dean said. "Krysty's had a weird feeling today. I heard her tell Dad before he went to see that bastard Abner. Krysty doesn't get bad feelings for nothing."
Jak didn't reply, but now he knew why Ryan had picked today to find out when Abner was actually going to act. The bad feeling returned to him, intensified. It wasn't a doomie feeling, not like those Krysty had.
No, this wasn't a doomie feeling. It was more the kind of gut tension you got before a fight. The feeling that a chilling was in the air.
Jak returned to his vigil, Dean settling in beside him. Both of them ignored the wind and dust that stung their eyes, keeping watch for the slightest sign of activity.
Such as flurries of dust where there were previously none.
"Over there," Jak said pointing, squinting to try to get a better look.
Dean followed the line of Jak's bony white finger, not quite believing what he saw. Out of the dust clouds emerged a war wag. No, more than one. He counted four of them.
"I don't believe it," he whispered. "Four wags?"
"How they cross chasm?" Jak murmured.
"That's what I'd like to know," Dean replied.
That shook Jak from his reverie. He hadn't realized that he was thinking aloud. In one graceful, fluid movement he rose to his feet, placing a hand on Dean's shoulder.
"You keep watch."
"Yeah, you go and fetch Dad and the others. They need to see this," Dean said.
"Already there," Jak replied as he disappeared like a wraith.
Dean kept his gaze locked on the wags as they careered through the dust storms. At that speed it wouldn't be long before they were at the ville.
JAK SPED through the twisting lanes and paths that comprised the streets of the ville, making his way to the adobe hut where his companions were still billeted. Their training of the ville dwellers hadn't led Abner to give them better accommodations. Then again, looking at the sty in which the baron lived, perhaps there wasn't anything better.
When Jak reached the entrance to the hut, he could hear J.B., Mildred and Krysty talking about the possibility of making a mat-trans jump without being physically sick at the other end.
The albino burst into the adobe shack, his sudden appearance causing surprise that turned to a crackling, palpable tension as his body language communicated his urgency.
"War wags coming. Counted four. Dean still watching. Where's Ryan?"
"With Abner, last I knew," J.B. told him, reaching for his Uzi and the M-4000, checking their load and readiness for action.
"I'll get him," Krysty said, heading for the doorway and passing Jak. "You get the rest of these stupes ready. They never said anything about war wags."
J.B., grim faced, nodded. It was true that Abner, Mac and others they had spoken to had said nothing about Wallace's men coming by wag. Because of the chasm, they had all assumed that the attacking forces had to come on foot. That would make them easy to spot and easy to make a head count. But in wags?
"Round them up," J.B. said, striding toward the doorway. He had barely the trace of a limp now, but was still a little concerned about putting too much strain on the ankle. He'd have to watch his positioning as much as was possible in any firefight. "We'll take it in three. Okay?"
Mildred and Jak agreed. The ville was small enough for them to divide and alert the population quickly enough. So far they'd heard no alarm being raised, so did that mean that the ville was usually completely unprepared when Murphy's sec men were sent by Wallace?
J.B. marveled at the fact that there was still a ville at all as he went from shack to shack in his allotted section of town, yelling that an attack was on the way. He could only put their continued and precarious survival down to the protection of the elements that seemed to work against their survival in so many other ways.
RYAN WAS JUST LEAVING Abner's shack when Krysty found him. He was itch
ing for a fight, the baron having irritated him with his offhand manner.
"What is it?" he snapped as he saw her rush toward him. It was a reaction caused by a deep sense of foreboding and the beginnings of an adrenaline rush. Action was imminent. He could tell by the way that her hair had coiled at her nape, and by the depth of concentration in her eyes.
"They're coming, lover. Jak and Dean have seen them approaching."
"How many?"
"Can't tell. They're in wags. Four, they counted."
"Fireblast!" Ryan whirled back toward Abner's shack, mounting the veranda and grabbing Mac through the open doorway. The fat sec man had his back to Ryan and grunted with surprise as the one-eyed warrior pulled him through the doorway. Ryan spun the man so that he faced him. "They're coming. Why didn't you say they used wags?"
Mac looked at him blankly and said ingenuously, "But you never asked. Besides, they've never come in storms this bad. Not often."
Ryan cursed. No matter how much a person trained someone, a stupe was still a stupe. Taking a deep breath and marshaling his thoughts, which raced on a rush of adrenaline and his fighting instincts, Ryan said, "Okay, you know the plan. We let them come and then attack. We need sec uniforms to get into the redoubt, and we need one of them alive. Getting a wag will be a bonus, I guess. Let's go."
Ryan and Krysty left Mac to prepare his sec forces— such as they were—while they raced on the double to the mound where Dean was waiting. Krysty told Ryan briefly how J.B., Mildred and Jak were rounding up the ville dwellers. Indeed, the ville was now a hive of activity, with the armory broken open and the dangerous homemade and altered blasters being passed out among those who had trained to shoot under Krysty and Mildred.
Ryan and Krysty reached the mound where Dean was waiting. He didn't turn as they approached, keeping his eyes focused on the approaching wags.
"A couple of minutes, no more," he said without preliminaries. "They're making good time. No more than four wags. Do we still follow the original plan, Dad?"
"Even more necessary," Ryan replied.
"Right. Got to get the bastards out of the wags first," Dean replied.