by James Axler
Every fleeing ñandú jumped at the sound and turned.
Ryan whipped his longblaster off his shoulder and shot the man out of the saddle. For a moment there was no sound other than the fwap-fwap-fwap of the ñandús’ webbed talons tearing up the soft earth and the echo of the shot. In Ryan’s experience, slavers didn’t like a stand-up fight. They were bushwhackers and night creepers. He’d hoped the death of their leader would send the raiding gauchos into retreat, leaving most of their gear behind. He clenched his teeth as the gauchos screamed in bloodlust. They had flanked the shore party’s position, and now they charged from all directions. The birds that had fled followed their angry flock back into battle by instinct.
“Take cover! Crew below, wait for it!”
Manrape walked up to a pair of concussed ñandús. They had found each other and wrapped their necks, and like two drunks, each appeared to be the only thing holding the other up. The bosun slashed his red painted bayonet across their entwined throats, and arterial scarlet sprayed. The giant birds’ legs folded, and they fell beak-first to the hard concrete. Manrape jumped between them and went prone like a man taking cover behind his horse.
“Ryan!”
The one-eyed man ran forward and jumped into the avian revetment. It stank of wet feathers, blood and dying, bowel-releasing bird. The wind and the rain were picking up. Miss Loral and Strawmaker ran for the cover of what appeared to be three stories’ worth of collapsed brick chimney.
“Doc!” Ryan shouted. “Take cover!”
The old man stalked to the middle of the plague house’s foundation. The wind whipped his white hair and his frock coat back to reveal the blue uniform coat beneath. He swept his swordstick behind him in his left hand and held his LeMat revolver in his right as if he were in a duel. Ryan knew where this was going. Doc had been held prisoner in the most horrible conditions, had suffered the most profane indignities. The old man despised human bondage in every form.
Doc wasn’t taking cover this day.
He cut a rakish figure as he exposed his perfect teeth, and moral outrage put color in his cheeks. Gaucho blasters began to crack as the bird riders closed. Doc ignored the incoming fire and took careful aim. The hat of the closest charging gaucho flew off as Doc shot him in the head. The ñandú kept charging forward. Doc cocked his revolver again, flicked the hammer cone and fired the LeMat’s shotgun barrel. The bird squawked horribly as it took a palm-full of buckshot to the chest and collapsed in the road. Doc’s rakish figure was also turning into a blaster magnet.
Ryan scanned and fired.
The gauchos were good. Not only were they adept at loading and firing in of the saddle, they also used every fold of ground to their advantage as they circled, and the ñandús were as fast as most wags with the pedal floored. Ryan picked off three riders and then knocked down their birds. Manrape waited for them to come within range of his scattergun. Bullets thudded into the corpses of the giant birds they were using for cover.
Strawmaker stood up from behind the crumbling masonry with his bolas whirring. He cast and his target ñandú honked as its entangled legs got left behind and it went beak-first into the ground. The rider expertly leaped from the saddle and landed on his feet. Strawmaker extended his new blaster in a fair imitation of Doc and pulled the trigger. The troubadour’s first shot fired in anger knocked his opponent to his knees, and his second shot left the attacking gaucho facedown dead in the dirt.
Miss Loral’s AK cracked in rapid semi-auto. “Strawmaker, take cover! Take Doc with you!”
Manrape’s scattergun began to boom. Blood burst and feathers flew.
Ryan began pulling pins. “Gren! Gren! Gren!” Ryan hurled his smoke grens. Multicolored smoke began to billow in the ruins. The ñandús began honking and recoiling. They had been bred not to mind blasterfire, but Ryan had bet that like the thunderclap of a concussion gren, the giant birds did not like roiling opaque clouds of colored, brimstone-smelling smoke. The gauchos swore and dug in their spurs. Their birds shook their short wings and bobbed their heads in hesitation.
“Cellar team!” Ryan shouted as he shot. “Now!”
Jak charged out of the basement with his .357 in both hands. His first shot blasted the nearest gaucho from atop his bird. The ñandú leaped ten feet in the air like a fighting rooster splaying its talons for the kill. Jak’s second shot shattered the bird’s scything beak and most of what lay behind it. Hardstone came up out of the cellar firing well-aimed, short bursts that shattered man and bird. Manrape bounced up and leaped over his meat shield.
Ryan snarled as he fired his magazine empty. “Bos’n!”
Manrape charged for the purple cloud ahead and the riders behind it. “In through the smoke, Ryan! It is the fighting sailor’s way!”
Ryan clawed for a spare magazine. A gaucho burst through the roiling red smoke on the flank Manrape should have been covering. The ñandú rolled its eyes and honked in terror, but it obeyed the savage spurring of its owner. The altered avian fixated on Ryan and surged single-mindedly toward its prey. The gaucho raised his lance for the kill.
“Fireblast...” Ryan shoved up his empty longblaster to block the attack.
“This is for you, gaucho boy!”
The gaucho turned his head to see the startling sight of Skillet emerging from the cellar. The cook’s giant harpoon longblaster belched smoke and fire, and half a pound of barbed iron smashed the gaucho from the saddle.
“This is for ya buzzard!” The second iron hit the ñandú just behind its wing. The giant bird made a sound like a burst balloon and fell bonelessly on top of its rider. Skillet shook his head at Ryan’s bird fort.
“Quit laying on my barbecue, Ryan!” The cook dropped his spent weapon and yanked his two-handed, carcass-breaking cleaver from over his shoulder. “In through the smoke like an able seaman!”
Ryan rose, muttering as he reloaded. “In through the smoke...” Fire discipline had gone to hell. He had to remind himself that once the hulls touched, sea fights devolved in large-scale brawls. Regardless of the fact that they were on land, the Glory crew followed its hard-won fighting instinct to dominate any fight or lose their ship. Ryan advanced firing. Despite their numbers, the gauchos were outgunned and now struggling to control very reluctant birds. Being riders from the cradle, they did not want to jump from the saddle until it was too late.
Ryan’s shore party fell into an easy rhythm of killing birds first and then shooting their riders in mid-dismount acrobatics. Skillet screamed like a banshee and hacked off a ñandú’s head. The gaucho screamed like a rabbit, and Skillet gave him the same. Ryan made a mental note he wanted Skillet with him in any future boarding party. The Deathlands warrior fired the Scout dry and dropped it on its sling. A 9 mm blaster was small for giant birds, but he had two of them and he filled his hands with Glock and SIG. He shoved the Glock at a charging gaucho and pulled the trigger. The weapon jack-hammered in his hand. The burst climbed up the ñandú’s chest in recoil and continued up the gaucho riding it. Man and bird fell in different directions as the weapon racked open on empty. Ryan admitted the Glock had possibilities.
He raised the SIG and scanned. The wind and the rain shredded the smoke and beat it down. Ryan ran his eye over complete carnage. Hardstone was sending a fallen gaucho out of town with the butt of his AK to the skull. Miss Loral was cleaning her dirk on the cape of a dead opponent. Doc and Strawmaker stood back to back with sword and gaucho knife and empty revolvers. No enemies stood. A few birds and gauchos writhed and moaned.
Ryan scanned the shredding smoke. “Sound off!”
Every member of his party called back alive and well. Ryan barked orders. “Skillet, reload! Manrape, hold the perimeter! Loral, grab a blaster from below and then you and Strawmaker come with me!” Ryan reloaded the Glock and his longblaster. Miss Loral ran below while Doc showed Strawmaker how to reload his weapon. Miss Loral
came up and gave the thumbs up on her new weapon. The three of them formed a wedge and walked to the gaucho wags.
A stunned ñandú rose and Ryan raised his Scout. Strawmaker held up his hand. “Wait!” He took up a fallen lance and snapped his fingers. “¡Che! ¡Che! ¡Che!” The bird blinked, and its new owner grabbed a stub wing and expertly heaved himself into the saddle. Strawmaker pointed his lance at the slaves. “Those are Mapuche Indians. They are a warrior people. The only thing that stopped them from slipping their ropes and trying to kill the gauchos was that they are on foot, and they know the ñandús would eat them. Best to have a man on a bird when you negotiate with them.”
“I like the way you think, Strawmaker. Do you speak Mapuche?”
“I do.”
“Translate for me exactly.” Ryan scooped up a dead gaucho’s knife. “Which one is the leader?”
“Probably the one in the front glaring at you.”
Ryan walked up and flipped the knife blade into his hand and held out the hilt. “Here.”
The man took the knife.
“Ask him what his name is.”
Strawmaker began translating as the man cut his bonds. “Shisho.”
Ryan nodded. “Tell Shisho he and his people can take the gaucho’s clothes and weapons and as much bird meat as they can carry. They can have ten of the guanacos for walking rations to get wherever they need to go. I need the wags and the rest.” Ryan turned on his heel and walked away.
Strawmaker called after him. “Shisho says it would take weeks of crossing the southern estancias and the territory of enemy tribes on foot. Without horses they will never make it back to their lands. They will die or become slaves again.”
Ryan turned. “Not my problem.”
Shisho gave Ryan a Koa-worthy stone face.
“Tell Shisho if I had horses, I’d give them to him. But I don’t, and I have to go.”
“Shisho believes you and thanks you, but he asks where you are going.”
“Out on the ocean.”
Strawmaker laughed at the response. “Shisho says you must have a very big canoe.”
“Bigger than he’s ever seen. If he wants to see it, tell him to follow me.”
“Shisho says the orcas will eat you.”
Ryan turned and looked Shisho in the eye. “Tell Shisho I already took care of the orcas.”
Shisho’s eyes widened. Strawmaker laughed once again at his response. “He says he believes you.”
“Ask Shisho if he’s ever eaten ñandú.”
Shisho laughed. So did Strawmaker. “He says no, that would be something.”
Ryan called back. “Skillet, make a fire pit and get some bird on the barbecue! I’ve got twenty hungry lubbers about ready to sign up! Hardstone, help him! Jak! Doc! Bring the wags around. Let’s start loading that cellar! Manrape, with me!”
Shisho cut his people free. They swiftly acquired knives, blasters, bolas, boots and bloodstained clothing. Ryan turned to Miss Loral. “We’ve done what we can here. I think we made enemies with that estancia farther inland Strawmaker was talking about. I say we strip that cellar and bring it, fifty beasts on the hoof, the maté and twenty waisters ready to train up for the Horn to Oracle.”
“We’ve succeeded beyond all expectations,” the first mate stated. “We better get out of here and under sail before the gauchos can swarm on us.”
Jak climbed into a wag, opened the pigeon cage and began stripping them of their message tubes.
Strawmaker bristled. “You are interfering with el correro, Jak!”
“What?” Jak asked.
“The mail! Interfering with the mail is highly frowned upon in my lands!”
Ryan took a big step forward. Strawmaker instinctively pulled on his reins and backed up his bird. “You’re going to read me the mail, Strawmaker,” Ryan intoned. “Then we’re going to eat it.”
“Mmm.” Manrape sighed happily. “Squab.”
Chapter Nineteen
As the wag topped the dunes Ryan stood and waved his scarf overhead in a circle. Cheers rang out aboard ship. Shisho and his people stopped short at the sight of the Glory at anchor. Ryan had to admit that from their perspective it was one nuke-big canoe. The long boat and the dinghy lay pulled up out of the surf, and Koa seemed to be in command of the beach party. They’d dug fire pits and brought out barrels in preparation. Koa hurled out a “Mahalo, Ryan!” that might have been heard in the Andes. Ryan grabbed his pack and jumped down.
He turned to Miss Loral. “I relinquish command.”
“Aye, Mr. Ryan.”
The first mate began shouting orders. “Strawmaker! Take Shisho and his people before the captain and interpret. See if they want to join up. Skillet, fetch Boiler and get these guanacos skinned and salted away. Tell him to fire up these pits and get these oxen roasting. Bos’n, unload the wags. See the loot we don’t need on the ship brought before the mast for distribution or bidding! Hardstone, tell Chips and the carpenter’s mate to break down these wags for their planks! We’re going to need them. Ryan, report to the captain! Then all of you requisition a tot of grog and grab some hammock. Handsomely done, shore party!”
The weary party gave themselves a ragged cheer that turned into answering thunder from ship and shore. Ryan went to the dinghy, and Wipe and Onetongue rowed him to the ship.
Onetongue grinned. “How wa’th it, Ryan?”
“We had a rough fight but found some food and mebbe some sailors.” Ryan patted his pack. “Found a cache.”
Onetongue pulled oars and happily eyed Ryan’s bulging pack without an ounce of avarice. “Anything good?”
“A few things.” Ryan reached into his pack and pulled out a sky-blue XXL fleece sweatshirt with a white stripe across the chest and a sun face on it. Strawmaker had explained that this had one been his land’s flag. “Figured this might fit you.” Ryan pulled out a matching wool watch cap. “Figured this too, for that bald head of yours.”
“Aw jee’th, Ryan!”
“You and Hardstone were the first crew to show me any kindness. A man takes care of his mates.”
The mutant looked close to blubbering. “Aw jee’th...”
Wipe looked covetously at Onetongue’s loot. Ryan reached into his jacket. Among his other accomplishments, Wipe was the ship’s confirmed onanist. Ryan had learned that twice since Oracle had become captain he’d rigged a grating and had Wipe lashed for “polishing his dolphin” on duty. Ryan handed Wipe the 1999 April issue of Swank still in the plastic wrapper.
“We’re Phalanx. Try not to look at it on watch.”
Wipe gazed upon the ’zine, enraptured. “Oh...”
“Row!” Onetongue cajoled. The dinghy soon clunked against the side of the ship and Ryan scrambled up the Jacob’s ladder.
Commander Miles nodded from the top of the gangway. He was walking with a stick now rather than a crutch. “Captain is expecting you, Mr. Ryan.”
“Aye, Commander.” Ryan went down the gangway. Gallondrunk stood guard at the door with his walrus iron held at port arms.
The brain-damaged giant’s voice boomed. “Mr. Ryan to see the captain!”
“Thank you, Gallondrunk. Send him in.”
Ryan entered the captain’s cabin. As usual, Oracle was poring over a table covered with charts and old books. Purser Forgiven stood at his side. Ryan saluted and handed Oracle a few folded sheets of printer paper from the cellar. “Shore action report, Captain.”
He gave a separate sheaf to Mr. Forgiven. “List of loot taken, Purser. Signed by myself and Miss Loral.”
“Thank you, Mr. Ryan.” Forgiven scanned the sheets. “Oh, very good. Captain, I recommend we get Mr. Rood working on the generators immediately.”
“Indeed.” Oracle frowned at what he read. “This disposition of the nati
ves isn’t good, I gather?”
Ryan set down a handful of the tiny pigeon scrolls. “Strawmaker translated them. Spada’s sent out the word. We’re pumping so many rads now we glow in the dark. No one’ll come near us.”
“Strawmaker and Miss Mildred as ordered!” Galloondrunk bawled.
Strawmaker entered the cabin with Mildred. “The Mapuche are ready for your inspection before the mast, Capitán.”
“Very good. Miss Mildred?”
“At cursory examination they seem to be disease free. Suffering a bit from hunger and exposure and torn-up feet, but decent clothes and two meals of barbecued pigeons and ñandú have helped. Of course, they’re going to spend the next week puking, but that will give their feet time to heal. They might have their sea legs by Tierra Del Fuego.”
“Thank you, Miss Mildred.” High-pitched shrieks broke out on the main deck. Oracle raised a coal black brow at his ship’s minstrel.
Strawmaker flinched.
“Captain,” Ryan said, suppressing a smile. “I think the Mapuche just met Mr. Squid.”
Oracle nodded. “Mr. Strawmaker, Mr. Ryan and Miss Loral seem to be of the opinion that we will find no safe harbor in these southern lands.”
“Jefe Spada has painted you as hostile raiders and the Glory as a pirate ship. The annihilation of the slavers will most likely cement this reputation. I had hoped to go inland. I know several border jefes who have forests on their estancias. Some are known for their magnificent wood working. I had hoped to get wood for spars and masts, but I fear that hope is gone.”
“Wood and cordage.” Oracle gazed upon his one-hundred-year-old charts of the South Atlantic. “There is one place left.”
Purser Forgiven’s head snapped around. “The Falklands?”