“I lost family, too,” Jak said, staring deep into the fire. “Wife and baby girl. Never get mine back. They aced. But mebbe you can go back someday.” He looked at the man. “If you still alive.”
Pursing his lips, Doc gazed at the two weapons. Hold on to the past or concentrate on living? He wanted
both, but there was only one choice. Whipping his arm forward, he threw the antique LeMat into the pond. It hit with a splash and disappeared.
“Dark night, why did you do that?” J.B. demanded, resting a fist on each hip. “At any ville that blaster would have purchased all six of us a week of room and board!”
Opening his mouth to speak, Doc paused, the complex emotions involved in the decision too complex to explain.
“After crossing a bridge, sometimes you have to burn it to make sure you never go back,” Ryan said, touching the patch covering his missing eye. “I’m proud of you, Doc. That was a gutsy move.”
Spreading out a handkerchief, J.B. started making a pile of loose .445 brass, most of it from the Webley. The sergeant had been very well armed. The privileges of rank, and all that dreck. Only a few of the rounds were originals, most were reloads, and a few were even dumdums, but expertly done.
“It was simple necessity, nothing more,” Doc said, holstering the reproduction and walking over to the pond. “I swore to do whatever was needed to return to Emily. If nothing else, I am a man of my word.” Opening the pouches in his canvas gun belt, he began tossing away the small jar of axle grease, plastic bag of dry cotton wadding, the miniballs, bullet mold and copper percussion caps. Years of scavenging vanished in only a few seconds.
“Just be careful using that thing,” Mildred warned gently. “Even a modern-day .44 kicks like a mule on
steroids, and your shoulder is far from being completely healed.”
“Truly, madam, I do not think such a precaution is needed for such an elegant piece of hardware as this,” Doc murmured, slapping his hands together to knock off any lingering residue of the black powder. “But I shall defer to your normally sage medical wisdom, and use a two-hand grip until further notice.”
“Dinner! Come and get it!” Krysty announced, walking away from the campfire. Sitting down on a log, she balanced a Boy Scout mess kit on a knee and started digging into the steaming rice and beans, along with an enormous hunk of roasted dog meat, covered with apple slices and honey.
The heady aroma was intoxicating, and getting their own mess kits, the rest of the companions quickly followed suit, using wooden spoons to fill their metal plates.
Taking a bite of the meat, Ryan nodded. “Good dog,” he said, then snorted at the double meaning.
“Needs garlic,” Jak said, taking a sniff.
Lowering her knife, Krysty frowned. “You always say that.”
“Not mean not true.” Jak grinned, tearing off a chunk with his teeth. As he chewed, his face brightened. It
was
good dog!
For almost an hour there was no further conversation, the hungry people concentrating on the meal. The smoke from the campfire rose lazily into the air, thinning away to nothing on the morning breeze. In the pond, a frog gave voice to its famous cry, and one of the horses started to loudly snore. High overhead, the
orange-and-black clouds of pollution began to flow across the clear blue sky, masking the sun, and sheet lightning crackled on the horizon.
“That was wonderful, dear lady!” Doc said, putting down his mess kit. “Doubly so, considering the rather incongruous arrival of the main course.” A belch bubbled up from within, but he politely held it in check.
However, J.B. didn’t. “Any coffee?” he asked, taking out a toothpick and starting to clean his teeth.
But before she could answer, there came the unexpected sound of blasterfire from somewhere nearby, immediately followed by the dull boom of a gren, the rattle of a rapidfire and the piercing scream of a child.
Dropping his plate, Ryan grabbed the Remington and dashed up the gentle slope of the hollow. Nearing the crest, he dived forward and landed flat on his stomach. Crawling forward the last couple of feet, he peeked over the top.
There was nothing in sight but more rolling hills. The grass moved as J.B. appeared, then the rest of the companions.
Just then, the scream came again, closely followed by the roar of a cannon. A moment later a puff of gray smoke rose into the sky from behind a hillock far to the north.
“That must be at least a thousand yards away,” Krysty said, squinting into the distance. “These hills must carry noises forever, like an underground cavern.”
“Then it is a good thing that we have taken the righteous path of the church mouse,” Doc whispered, the M-16/M-203 tight in his grip. “Shall we investigate?”
A chattering rapidfire, accompanied by numerous blasters, made up Ryan’s mind.
“No, let’s go,” he replied, lowering the longblaster. “With any luck, we should be able to ride away without being heard.”
“None of our biz,” J.B. agreed, starting to crawl back down the slope.
The scream came again, full of pain and madness.
“But they’re killing children!” Mildred cried, her face flushed with suppressed fury.
“What makes you think that?” Ryan asked, just as the scream come again. “You don’t mean that noise, do you?”
She grimly nodded, tightening both hands on the Winchester.
“That cougar,” Jak stated. “Sometimes sound like kid screaming. Fool newbies into becoming meal for cat.”
“Are you sure?” Mildred demanded. “Absolutely positive?”
Brushing back his snowy hair with the barrel of his M-16, Jak frowned. “Not know for sure unless see. But…”
However, Mildred was already in motion, crawling down the crest. Reaching a grassy plateau, she scrambled erect, to start running along the slope toward the distant battle.
The others hesitated for only a moment, then took off after her. Following the sounds of battle, the companions moved along the sloping hollows until they began to clearly hear voices, people shouting, horses whinnying, the muffled rumble of engines.
Easing up the next slope, Ryan again crawled to the top and used the barrel of his longblaster to carefully part the tall grass. In the next hollow, men were fighting, screaming, cursing and dying, blasters firing, and flights of arrows whistling through the smoky air, leaving behind swirling contrails.
Forming a circle around a campfire, situated next to a sparkling azure pool of bubbling spring water, were
a dozen horse-drawn wags made completely of wood. The things were huge, thirty feet long, with six wheels. The curved roofs were covered with punji sticks, the edges frothy with barbed wire, and the sides were composed entirely of louvered slats. The people inside were steadily firing blasters out of hinged blasterports, or releasing arrows through the narrow openings between the slats. At the front of each wag was a team of two horses harnessed to the flexible yoke, obviously designed to handle particularly rough or uneven ground.
“Nice,” Jak said with a grin.
“Strong, light, durable and easy to repair,” Doc rumbled, clearly impressed. “Behold the Conestoga wagon of the new millennium!”
Unfortunately, the lead pair of animals for each wooden wag had been aced, their bellies ripped out and their throats completely gone. Unable to move with the dead bodies in the way, the rest of the horses were trapped, whinnying in fear and jerking against the restrictive reins.
Darting back and forth among the wags were a brace of cougars, the big cats only tan blurs as they went from one team to another, terrorizing the animals into immobility, their wild screams sounding eerily like a dying child.
Racing around the trapped wags were a score of armed men riding weird three-wheeled motorcycles. Shooting black powder blasters as if ammo grew on trees, the riders of the machines were wearing lumpy canvas jackets that bristled with arrows, but there was no blood visible.
“Body armor,” Krysty stated. “See how lumpy they
are? Those bastards must have slabs of wood strapped on for protection.”
“Well, it seems to be working, madam,” Doc noted. “I observe several dead bodies, but they are all travelers. None of them is wearing one of those peculiar canvas jackets.”
“Coldhearts not fools,” Jak growled. “What they on, some kinda modified bike? Fast.”
“Those are sandhogs,” J.B. muttered. “Dark night, I haven’t seen one in years!”
“Used to have one myself, long ago,” Ryan stated in a low voice. “A sandhog will go through sand, mud and swamp that even a Harley can’t cover.”
“The actual name is an ATV, all-terrain vehicle,” Mildred said out of the blue. “Stability was their greatest weakness. They tip over easily if unbalanced.”
“How do that?” Jak asked eagerly.
“Riding sideways on this slope would do it.”
“That why stay where flat.”
“Guess so.”
He grunted. “Smart.”
“Well, no children are being chilled,” Ryan said, looking hard at Mildred. “So let’s go back. Coldhearts ace travelers every day. This isn’t our concern.” Both Doc and Mildred liked to tell tall tales about heroes who tried to save the world, but those were just stretches to entertain children, not life lessons. Nobody had enough brass to try to save everybody they met. That was just nonsense.
“Then again, if we could jack some of those sandhogs, we’d be able to reach the next redoubt in a couple of days, mebbe less,” Krysty said smoothly.
“That’s sure enough,” Ryan said, thoughtfully rubbing his jaw. Privately, he wanted to help the travelers. The poor bastards were getting slaughtered. But without a good reason, he simply couldn’t risk the lives of his friends. Kin helped kin was the only unbreakable law, and the travelers were strangers.
“Cougars and sandhogs are tough combo to beat,” J.B. said slowly.
Just then, the rear wooden door of a wag slammed open and out raced a group of travelers firing blasters and crossbows. As some of the coldhearts turned that way, the running people yanked out some lengths of curved wood, and whipped them forward hard.
Ryan was astounded. Boomerangs? He hadn’t seen those oddball weapons in many years! The desire to leave was strong in him, but the need to know more about these coldhearts was even greater.
Whizzing along low and fast, a boomerang slammed into a coldheart, knocking him off the sandhog. He hit the ground, clutching his belly, blood gushing between his fingers. On the ground nearby, the ’rang lay sparkling in the sunlight, the edge clearly studded with chunks of broken glass.
“Nice,” Jak whispered, smiling widely.
Without a driver, the sandhog continued onward, splashing through the shallow pond to roll into a campfire. Hitting the logs, it toppled over into the flames.
The other coldhearts veered away from the travelers as the cougars attacked. The man fell, burying his knife into the throat of one cat, and the woman was mauled across the belly by the other, her guts slithering out like greasy ropes. But as she fell, she drew a squat blaster,
the barrel composed of a dozen smaller barrels held together with iron rings. As the cougar leaped for her throat, she fired, and all twelve barrels discharged together. Slammed aside by the barrage, the cougar limply fell, minus its head. Then the first cougar attacked her from the side, and she died screaming under the fangs and sharp claws. In perfect harmony, the sandhog exploded into flames, sending out a spray of loose parts that rattled harmlessly against the wooden sides of the wags.
More travelers dashed out, heading for the teams of horses, their hands full of axes. As they started cutting away the dead animals, a swarm of coldhearts came howling down the slope of the hollow, screaming, and whirling petards over their heads.
The travelers in the wags cut loose with thundering volleys of blasters, arrows as thick as swarms of bees. Most of the coldhearts were hit, but not a man fell. Reaching the floor of the hollow, the coldhearts released the ropes of the petards. The small jugs lofted high to gracefully descend through the smoky air and crash into the top of a wooden Conestoga. But there was no explosion, only a burst of some watery substance that dripped into the louvered slots. Almost instantly, the people inside the wag stopped shooting and went deathly still.
The travelers working to free the horses suddenly started to wobble, then lay down.
“Poison! These bastards want the wags intact!” Krysty snarled.
“No, it’s probably just an anesthesia, such as ether,” Mildred guessed, chewing her lip. “That’s easy enough to make, if you know how.”
“Catch fire?” Jak asked casually, laying aside the M-16 rapidfire and swinging a crossbow from behind his back.
“Hell, yes. Even more than gasoline!”
“Let’s see,” he whispered, levering in an arrow and releasing it immediately.
Twirling a petard, a coldheart running past the burning sandhog jerked as an arrow lanced through his neck. Gurgling crimson, he staggered into the flames and dropped the ceramic jug. As it crashed, a fireball engulfed the coldheart. Shrieking insanely, he began to run about, beating at his burning head with flaming hands.
Braking to a stop, a coldheart on a sandhog shot the dying man in the back to end the pitiful wails of agony.
“Fuck taking prisoners!” a skinny man of Asian descent bellowed, brandishing an AK-47 rapidfire. “Chill them all!”
Yelling something inarticulate, the coldhearts on foot charged toward one side of the ring of wooden wags. Revving their engines, the coldhearts on the sandhogs went to the other side and began hammering the wags with blasterfire.
“Divide and conqueror, eh?” Doc growled, kneeling in the tall grass to trigger a long burst of 5.56 mm rounds from his M-16/M-203 rapidfire. “Not this time, my dear Julius!”
Preparing to throw a petard, the skinny Asian man dropped the jug to jerk wildly as the hail of 5.56 mm rounds arrived. Blood spurted from his arm, but aside from that minor wound, he appeared undamaged.
“Doc, this isn’t our fight,” Ryan said with a scowl.
“Is it not, sir?” Doc retorted, jerking the arming bolt on the rapidfire to clear a jam.
Suddenly, a small boy appeared from underneath a wag and ran barefoot to the team of horses. Pulling a huge knife, he began sawing at the tangled reins, until a sandhog drove by and the coldheart fired a 12-gauge scattergun. With most of his face removed, the boy was violently thrown backward to land in a crumpled heap. Still horribly alive, he lay twitching, covered in gore, as the laughing coldheart drove away, waving the scattergun in victory.
A surge of visceral rage swelled within Ryan at the callous act of chilling, and he struggled to control the urge to ace the coldheart in return.
More petards crashed on top of another wag, and the people inside stopped fighting. The travelers in the others redoubled their outpouring of arrows, but the blasters were shooting slower, as if the defenders were low on ammo and carefully placing their shots.
Carrying a small hatchet, a teenage girl dashed out from underneath another wag. Promptly, the travelers inside cut loose with a sustained barrage of blasterfire, the dark billowing smoke masking her completely.
As she started hacking away the reins, a fat coldheart scurried across the uneven ground to throw a net. Caught in the strands, the young woman tried to cut herself free when the coldheart braked to a halt and shot her in the wrist. Blood erupted from the hit, and the hatchet went spinning away. Pulling out a knife, she started sawing at the net, but the coldheart hopped off the sandhog to race over and slam her in the back with the butt of a longblaster. She collapsed with a cry,
then stabbed her blade into his boot. Screaming obscenities, the coldheart shot her in the other hand, then proceeded to bludgeon her with the barrel of the weapon. She threw dirt into his face, even as an arrow took him in the arm. As the longblaster fell, the coldheart drew a knife and grabbed the young woman, to haul her up and hold her in front of him as a shield.
“Stop fighting or the slut gets aced!” he bellowed, drawing the blade across her chest, cutting open the blouse. The material started to turn red along that path.
“Chill us both!” she screamed, ramming an elbow into the belly of the fat coldheart.
With a grunt, the man released her and she kicked him between the legs. As he doubled over, she grabbed up the knife from his hand and slashed his throat from ear to ear. Turning, she started back toward the horses, when black holes appeared across her shirt and red blood erupted from her chest. Staggering onward, she reached the reins and feebly hacked at them until going still.
Saying nothing, Doc looked at Ryan and waited.
“Okay, Doc, you’re right. Let’s nuke the bastards!” he snarled, working the arming bolt on the Remington. Standing, he aimed and fired.
Far away, a coldheart jumped backward from the trip-hammer arrival of the 30.06 round. He landed in a crumpled heap directly in front of a speeding sandhog. Jerking the handlebars, the driver tried to avoid the corpse and failed. The front wheel hit the dead man, and the bike flipped over, the driver briefly screaming as the machine came crashing down on his head. There was a crunching noise, and the screaming stopped.
Moving steadily down the grass slope, the companions cut loose with a hellstorm of hot lead from their blasters as they ran from tree to bush, always staying behind some sort of cover. For several moments, the chattering rapidfires went unnoticed amid the raging battle, and a dozen coldhearts died. Then a skinny coldheart pointed in their direction and triggered a long burst from his AK-47. A swarm of sandhogs wheeled sharply about, the riders unleashing a barrage of handblasters and scatterguns.
Diving for cover behind some chilled horses, the companions waited a moment, then returned fire, their blasters blowing off the knees of several coldhearts. As they fell, Mildred used her ZKR target pistol to administer a coup de grâce into the unarmed top of their heads with surgical precision.
“Reinforcements?” a bald coldheart yelled, triggering a cobbled-together Ruger .44. “Must be mercies!”