by James Axler
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!”
“Ace ’em all!” a bucktoothed coldheart snarled, wildly waving two blasters, the twin streams of spent brass arching away
“Save me the redhead!” the skinny leader of the coldhearts added, slapping a fresh clip into his AK-47. “Tiger, chill the rest!”
Spinning to get behind a wag, Ryan tried to figure out where the sniper had to be hidden, when he spotted movement. Instantly, he swung up the Remington just as a colossal musket stabbed out of a blasterport. Somebody was pointing a flintlock longblaster his way.
“If you can’t tell a friend from a coldheart, then best to use that on yourself,” Ryan said, taking his finger off the trigger before lowering the longblaster.
“Reckon I can at that, Blackie,” the shadowy man said, and the musket moved aside. “Who are you anyway— Duck!”
Dropping low, Ryan heard the flintlock discharge, dark smoke bellowing outward as the muzzle-blast slapped his face. Glancing over a shoulder, he saw the body of a coldheart twitch into death, a hole in his chest the size of a fist.
“Thanks,” Ryan muttered, shooting the Remington. The report was much less noisy, and a coldheart riding a sandhog flew off the seat to land sprawling on the ground with most of his throat gone.
“These old friends of yours?” the man inside the wag asked, busy ramming in a fresh load of powder.
“Just lending a hand,” Ryan said, blowing off the arm of a coldheart swinging a petard. The shrieking man staggered away, blood gushing from the ragged end of his shoulder. The jug lay unbroken on the soil, a hand still clutching the knotted rope.
“You helping us for free?” the unseen man asked suspiciously, tapping the butt of his longblaster on the floor to expertly set the charge.
“Well, I wouldn’t mind having those sandhogs,” Ryan said on the spur of the moment.
“Fuck that noise. Half the hogs, and half the brass.”
“Plus one of the aced horses.”
“For steaks, I guess. Fair enough. Deal?”
“Deal!” Ryan said, thrusting a hand into the darkness.
The men shook, then separated, their weapons dealing harsh justice to the thinning crowd of coldhearts.
Raking 5.56 mm rounds across a group of coldhearts taking cover in some laurel bushes, Krysty frowned as the M-16 combo rapidfire jammed with a bent brass stuck in the ejector port. Kneeling, she struggled with the arming bolt, and nearly lost a finger when the spring snapped back with deadly force. With no time to clear the jam, she cast the useless weapon aside and drew her S&W Model 640 revolver just as a hulking coldheart advanced, shoving a fresh 12-gauge cartridge into the open breech of a rebuilt scattergun.
“Stupe-ass slut. You gonna ace me with a broken blaster?” He laughed, closing the weapon with a snap of his wrist. “That piece of shit don’t even got no fragging hammer!”
Realizing the futility of trying to explain the mechanics of a compact blaster with an internal hammer, Krysty simply waited until he was a little bit closer, then stroked the trigger. The muffle flash of the snub-nose S&W .38 revolver actually entered his smiling mouth, and bloody lead came out the side of his head, carrying along bits of teeth and hair. The coldheart stopped short as if hitting an invisible wall, his sagging face rapidly draining of color. Conversing about ammo, Krysty grabbed the scattergun from his limp hand and sprayed the laurel bushes with buckshot and bent nails, generating a chorus of screams, before moving on for fresh targets.
Lighting the rag on a Molotov, a grim J.B. threw the vinegar bottle high, to land with a fiery crash in front of a running group of coldhearts. As the flames rose, they hastily backtracked, undamaged, and more angry than before.
Taking careful aim with the Winchester, Mildred cut down a coldheart sitting astride a sandhog. As he fell, the vehicle went racing past and she stepped out of the way just as a cougar raced by, its claws missing her by only inches. She actually felt the wind of its passage.
Feverishly working the lever, Mildred spun and hammered the crouching cougar with soft lead rounds until it collapsed at her boots, the fur riddled with holes. Ramming the wooden stock into its face to confirm the kill, Mildred then shot a coldheart coming her way, and ran behind a nearby wag to start thumbing in fresh shells. But her pocket was empty. The rest of the brass had fallen out somewhere in the fight.
Unexpectedly, a cupped hand came out of a blasterport holding a dozen 9 mm cartridges.
“These help you any?” a gruff voice said.
“Wrong size,” Mildred replied, drawing the ZKR with a free hand. “But thanks for the offer.”
“I’ll take those,” J.B. said as he strode forward, gathering up the brass and shoving them into the pocket of his pants. “How you doing, Millie?”
“Never better, John!” she replied, walking back into the fray, her two blasters throwing flame and death.
Staying behind the woman, J.B. maintained a regular barrage of double aught buckshot from the M-4000, wounding coldhearts and driving away another cougar that had been hiding.
Dust and gun smoke filled the air, the roar of the sandhogs mixing with voices of the dying. The travelers in the wags had taken heart at the arrival of the companions and now were shooting their crude blasters with renewed vigor. The huge miniballs hummed through the cloudy air, smacking into trees on the opposite slope with the sound of a lumberjack ax.
As his M-16/M-203 cycled empty, Doc cast it aside and drew the LeMat. The reproduction blaster felt ridiculously light in his grip, which threw off his aim, the first shot completely missing the target. The recoil made his wound hurt something fierce, and Doc felt a trickle of warmth start down his arm.
Sneering at the poor marksmanship of the old man, a coldheart revved the engine of his sandhog and raced forward with chilling on his mind.
Holding the new LeMat with both hands, Doc took aim at dead center and fired once more. The big bore .44 boomed, and the coldheart flew from the sandhog, leaving most of his internal organs behind on the plastic seat.
Doc gracefully stepped aside as the driverless sandhog raced by, leaving him in a cloud of oily blue smoke.
“Ya mutie-loving son of a bitch,” a coldheart snarled, coming out of nowhere and pulling the trigger on his blaster. “Faroot was my buddy!” But the hammer merely clicked on spent brass.
Just as the coldheart yanked out a machete, Doc squeezed the trigger on the LeMat, while fanning the hammer to quick-fire the single-action weapon. But it shot only once, the round merely grazing the cheek of the other man. As the furious coldheart slashed out with the machete, Doc deflected it with the LeMat, the sound of steel on steel ringing loudly. Incredibly, the low-grade steel of the homemade machete actually bent around the barrel of the twentieth century reproduction.
As the startled coldheart gasped at the dented blade, Doc fired from the hip, the .44 round coming out the back of the coldheart in a hot red geyser. Shooting at two more coldhearts heading his way, Doc cursed himself for a fool. This new model was obviously double-action. He had almost died because of having superior firepower. The irony of the situation wasn’t wasted on him, but the Vermont scholar banished such considerations from hi
s mind and concentrated on simply putting his next four rounds where they would do the most good.
Spotting a coldheart on a sandhog coming his way, Jak emptied his M-16 at the driver of the sandhog. As the coldheart fell off, stitched from waist to shoulder, the three-wheeler raced away to plow into the side of a wag. Still working, the pinned vehicle stayed in place, the spinning tires throwing out volumes of dirty grass.
Racing over to the corpse, Jak was surprised to discover that the coldheart wasn’t carrying an AK-47, but a Galil. The two weapons looked remarkably similar, but the Galil used 5.56 mm rounds, the same as an M-16! Quickly checking the man’s pockets for any loose brass, he found nothing. However, the leather bag hanging over the shoulder of the corpse was packed with loaded magazines, plus some plastic jars of loose brass. What a find! He had to be the only coldheart using this size ammo, and was carrying his whole supply!
Wiggling the heavy ammo bag free, Jak slung it across his shoulders, paused, then grabbed the Galil to yank out that magazine, too, when he heard a sound from behind. Shoving the magazine back in, he started to turn, until cold steel pressed against the back of his head.
“Too slow, Whitey,” a coldheart snarled, knocking aside the Galil.
Raging internally, Jak cursed himself. His greed over the stash of brass had made him lower his guard for a split second, and now he was about to get chilled, or worse.
The coldheart grabbed Jak by the feathered collar of his camou jacket.
Instantly, Jak threw himself forward, and the coldheart shrieked as his severed fingers fell off, the spurting blood from the stumps briefly revealing the layers of razor blades hidden among the feathers.
Blind with pain, the coldheart fired twice, but Jak had already moved to the side. Swinging in a crouch, the albino teen grabbed the Galil to knock aside the booming handblaster and send a burst into the man’s belly. The halo of perfectly imbalanced 5.56 mm tumblers ended his life in splattering glory.
Starting to leave, Jak noticed the fallen handblaster was a S&W .357 Magnum, which used the same size ammo as his Colt Python. Snatching it off the ground, he stuffed it into his belt for later. Waste not, want not.
Just then, a piercing whistle sounded across the battlefield, and all eyes turned toward the skinny coldheart sitting astride a purring sandhog. “Red Roger!” he bellowed, revving the engine. “Red Roger!”
Instantly, every coldheart turned and started running for the trees, pausing only to snatch up blasters from their fallen comrades in passing.
“Thank Gaia, they’re leaving!” Krysty said with a sigh, lowering her blaster.
“Not gone yet!” Ryan said, swinging up the Remington to ruthlessly shoot at the retreating figures.
As two of them fell, he saw the skinny leader again and put a round directly into his back. Pitching forward, the coldheart merely jerked at the impact, and they heard the distinct clang of metal hitting metal.
“Bastard has an iron shirt!” J.B. snarled, putting a burst of 9 mm Parabellum rounds into the escaping coldhearts.
“That won’t protect his head,” Ryan stated, levering in another round.
As the skinny coldheart began to fishtail the sandhog, Ryan shifted his aim for the engine, but then the Remington seemed to explode as it was torn from his stinging hands. Smashed apart, the destroyed weapon sailed away, and they heard the echo of a high-powered longblaster.
“Snipers!” Ryan cursed, diving to the ground and rolling to the side. As he did, dirt exploded just in front of him, the impact geysers following along until he reached the safety of a chilled coldheart.
Firing both the M-16 and the Galil, Jak sprayed the trees and bushes until the other companions reached the safety of a wag. Then he also scrambled for refuge as they cut loose with their own blasters.
Crawling behind an aced horse, Mildred pulled a battered set of minibinoculars from her med kit to try to find the enemy marksman. There was no sign of him anywhere on the floor of the hollow, so she switched to the crest. If it had been her, she would have placed an empty blaster prominently sticking out of the grass several yards from her actual position, to draw incoming fire. Sure enough, she found a longblaster sticking out of the brambles, and swept upwind to detect a subtle movement in a patch of juniper bushes.
Grimly, Mildred began to swing the barrel of her Winchester in that direction, when a BAR longblaster rose from the bushes to shoot several times straight up into the air. What the hell? Then she saw the face of the sniper and felt her blood run cold. It had been about three years, but there was no denying that strong profile and curly black Cawdor hair.
“Dean,” she whispered, then her voice came back strong. “Don’t shoot! The sniper is Dean!”
“What did you say, madam?” Doc demanded, twisting his head about to stare in open confusion.
“Dean! It’s Dean! I swear to God!”
“Mutie shit,” Ryan said, pulling out his Navy telescope.
Sweeping the crest of the slope, he soon found the sniper, crawling quickly through brambles. But as he broke cover for a split second, Ryan inhaled sharply as he looked directly into the face of his son. Then Dean was behind a maple tree and gone from sight.
“Dean,” Ryan whispered, the full weight of a father’s emotions compressed into the single word.
“Told you we find again!” Jak said, grinning. Then he frowned. “If prisoner, why shoot at us?”
Without comment, Ryan dropped the telescope and pulled the SIG-Sauer, to charge forward at a full run. A moment later, the rest of the companions followed close behind, their weapons at the ready.
Chapter Twelve
“Nuking shit storm, they saw me,” Dean muttered, working the bolt on the BAR to shove in another magazine.
Now what was he supposed to do? Seeing his father and the companions charge over that slope and into the fight had been one of the most glorious sights in his life. Then the reality of the situation came crashing down, and he cursed whatever bizarre chain of events that had led his former companions to this place. If he joined them, he would be safe at last, the masquerade finally over. But then he thought about what Camarillo would do to Althea if he did. If captured, deserters were sold to the cannies in the north, but even worse, their women were used as gaudy sluts by the coldhearts until they eventually died. He felt physically ill at the idea of Althea reduced to merely a thing for the pleasure of the other coldhearts.
There were only seconds in which to act, but Dean couldn’t decide what to do, torn between the only family he had ever known and the woman he loved. The unexpected use of that word startled the teenager. Love? When had that happened? But now he could see that his attachment to the beauty had slowly been deepening over the past few days. It was more than friends having sex, or even fellow prisoners combined against a common foe. Althea was a part of his soul, making him stronger, more alive.
The idea of trying to reach the camp first briefly flashed into his mind, but not even a horse could out-pace a sandhog on level ground. The attempt at a rescue could have disastrous results. His father and the others would never understand the complex matter without a lot of explaining, and there simply was no time for that. Dean had to leave with the other coldhearts right now, or else Althea would soon be praying to be chilled. Somehow, he had to stop the companions from following him, to buy some time, get a chance to think of a way to save both himself and Althea. Only one solution came to mind, and try as he might, he couldn’t come up with another plan. He didn’t like the idea, hated it in fact, but it would work, that much was certain. So be it, then.
Working the arming bolt of the longblaster, Dean aimed for his father’s stomach, adjusted for the wind and droppage, then moved to the left and fired. Blood erupted as Ryan spun away into the bushes and fell out of sight.
Resisting the urge to vomit, Dean turned and ran down the opposite slope to rejoin the coldhearts gathering around a railroad car chained to the rear of the Atomsmasher. Most of them were rolling sandhogs into
the open doors of the car, only a few coldhearts standing guard with rapidfires and crossbows, waiting for pursuit to arrive over the slope.
Hannigan and several more coldhearts were on the roof, feeding belts of linked ammo in a brace of squat and ugly .50-caliber machine guns. With a fiendish grin, Hannigan sat down behind the deadly rapidfire and began to swivel the vented barrel back and forth along the crest of the slope, eagerly waiting for targets to present themselves for chilling.
“Where have you been, Tiger?” Camarillo demanded from inside the grilled cabin of the huffing steam truck.
“Chilled their leader,” Dean replied, climbing into the tinder carriage. Keeping his face neutral, he sat on a split of cordwood, the BAR oddly feeling heavier than ever before.
Dully, the chained slaves took wood from another pile and continued to feed the blazing heart of the great machine.
“Nice work!” Camarillo growled. “We’ll get the rest of them next time!” Throwing a lever, he started the massive war wag forward with an earsplitting blast from the steam whistle.
To Dean the noise sounded like the end of the world, but he said nothing, and routinely began to clean and reload the dirty longblaster, his mind filled with swirling chaos.
GRUNTING SOFTLY, Ryan peeled off the blood-soaked shirt. Tossing it aside, he sat on a tree stump, the slight motion opening wide the score along his rib cage, making fresh blood trickle down his side.
“I’ve seen worse, but not on anybody who lived,” Mildred muttered, starting to wipe the area with a clean rag and some raw shine. “You were lucky. A half inch deeper, and right now we’d be going through your pockets for loose brass.”
“Lucky,” Ryan said, as if he’d never heard the word before.
Just then the bushes rustled and the rest of the companions stepped into view, their clothing decorated with hastily broken pieces of leafy tree branches as crude camouflage.
