by James Axler
"Square one," J.B. growled, his hands tightening on the grip of his Uzi.
The canvas tent was exactly where they remembered, but even if they had been interested in checking it, slaves had torn the material and they could see nothing was under the canvas but gas canisters and still forms lying on the ground.
The five-story tower dominated the courtyard, the gallows to one side, the bloodstained crosses to the other. A large garage door was partially hidden by ivy, its windows covered with plate steel. Two sec men stood guard, both armed with pistols and shotguns. They constantly swept the crowds with the scatterguns, and shot anybody who dared to get close.
"Take them," Ryan said, leveling the Steyr.
The companions did the same with their blasters, and on Ryan's command cut loose at the same time. The guards were slammed back against the door, spouting blood in a dozen different spots. The older guard managed to fire his shotgun once, and then collapsed onto the street. A slave snatched it from his grip and raced away, whooping and howling, brandishing it like a trophy of war.
Hitting the wall alongside the door, Dean stood guard while J.B. took the keys from a guard's belt and unlocked the door.
The room was cavernous, covering the whole ground floor of the tower. The floor was stained with the grease and oil from a hundred vehicles, the walls lined with shelves and stacks of boxes, the entire place brightly illuminated by electric lights. But none of that mattered when they saw what was prominently sitting in the middle of the floor.
"By the Three Kennedys!" Doc roared, clutching Shard so tight the man whimpered in pain.
It was Leviathan, intact and undamaged, glistening as if washed and waxed, surrounded by slaves busy removing the very last tire.
Chapter Twenty
In a hundred different locations outside the stone wall, a soft hissing began to sound from the ground. Fleeing slaves toppled over in piles, fell down stairs and plummeted to their deaths from the scaffolding in the mine. Sec men rolled off horses, and officers tumbled from moving motorcycles, many of them mangling limbs and wheels with grisly results. In less than a minute, a profound silence encircled the ville, punctuated only by the crackle of small fires, labored breathing and the soft whoosh of distant rockets launching from the top of the Citadel toward the predark war machine battering at the massive iron gate.
IN THE GARAGE, J.B. raised his shotgun and fired a round into the air. "Put those tires back on!" he shouted. The kneeling slaves froze at the booming discharge, then hurried to do as they were ordered.
"Look out!" Krysty cried.
J.B. turned as a snapping whip wrapped its leathery length around his gun barrel and the blaster was painfully yanked from his grip. He heard his hand crack, and saw his index finger was bent backward into an unnatural angle. He clumsily raised the Uzi.
Laughing, Eugene snaked the whip around his obese form and lashed out again, entwining the leather around J.B.'s throat. Turning purple, the Armorer clawed at his neck, gasping for breath.
Ryan swung the SSG-70 in a short arc, pointing the big-bore barrel toward the sneering eunuch.
"Shoot me," Eugene chortled, his bloated belly jiggling obscenely, "and your man dies! Now drop your weapons and surrender!"
A pistol cracked, and the whip was torn from the eunuch's grip in a spray of bones and blood. He stumbled backward, screaming in pain and clutching his shattered hand when the Steyr boomed. Eugene flew backward, his face no longer whole.
In a flurry of motion, Mildred was at J.B.'s side, along with Jak, one of his many knives cutting the man loose. Doc stared down at the man cradled in his anns, and the smoking pistol peeking out from his bloody bandages.
"Dead?" Shard asked softly.
"As a doornail," Ryan replied, jacking in a fresh round. "Good shooting."
He smiled weakly. "No problem."
Then a wail came from behind the stack of boxes along the wall.
"Master?" a man asked, walking over to the faceless corpse. The blood on the concrete was spreading into a pool.
"He shot the master," a woman accused, pointing at the companions.
"Kill them!" another shrieked. "Kill them all!" And the people charged, shooting weapons, a pack of snarling dogs at their heels.
"Take cover!" Ryan shouted, dropping into a crouch. The rest of the companions dived into combat positions, their blasters firing steadily.
THE WESTERN GATE WAS glowing a dull red, sending off waves of heat, and a terrible glare shone from the other side brighter than the sun.
Shielding their faces, the sec men on the battlements fired their blasters blindly between the stone turrets, not willing to risk losing their sight by looking directly at the Beast. Staves were shoved into pry holes, and men strained to tip over vats of boiling coal oil. The fluid sloshed over the rim of the vats and hundreds of gallons rushed down fluted gullies to pour over the war machine below. The heat of the laser cannon ignited the oil and the Beast was engulfed in a fireball. More oil was poured down, while the guards steadily fired their blasters and tossed what few grens and plastique they had.
STANDING ON THE ROOF of the Citadel, a lieutenant grimaced at the sight. It was impossible to see through the flames, but the fact that the gate continued to grow hotter was a strong indication their weapons were having little effect on the predark monster. It was yellow-hot now, glowing like a furnace. Soon it would reach white-hot, then soften and melt.
"Corporal of the guards!" he yelled.
Lowering his binocs, a man hurried over to the officer. "Yes, sir?"
"To hell with waiting. Hit the bastard thing with everything we have!"
"But sir, the deputy ward ordered us-"
"Fuck that jackass, and his bitch sister!" the officer stormed, placing a hand on his holstered blaster. "Hit it now! With everything! And that is a direct order."
The corporal saluted and raced to obey, but filed away the comments for future consideration.
FROM THE PARAPETS, a bugle sounded a clarion call, and men rushed to obey. It sounded once more, holding the last note for a good while, and as it died, the whole wall jumped as explosive charges removed the hinges of the gate and the sizzling iron portal thunderously dropped to the ground.
The Beast charged out of the inferno, its laser pulsing at anything that moved. A flimsy barricade of overturned wags barred its path, and the tank lumbered forward to crash through when the radar began to beep wildly in warning. But it was too late.
"Fire!" the sergeant screamed, brandishing a torch like a rifle.
The short fuses of the hidden cannon were lit. They weren't the dainty field guns hidden among the slave cottages, but garrison guns, the bulwark of the yule's armada. These monsters needed four horses to move them, took a charge of ten full pounds of black powder and fired cold-iron balls so enormous it took two strong men to lift them into the muzzle. When they spoke, the world trembled.
At point-blank range, the titanic cannons roared.
Ragged pieces broke off the angular hull of the Beast with a screech of tortured metal, and the laser winked out.
Victorious cries came from the amassed troops, and again the cannons vomited flame and iron.
Masked by the thick swirling smoke, the fiery daggers of the discharges reached out to starkly silhouette the Beast. The bugle sounded a brief tone, and more troops joined the fight, firing their blasters from the battlements. Wet nimrods were rammed down hot maws to extinguish sparks, barrels were packed to the bursting point and the cannons roared, their carriages leaping from the cobblestones by the force of the discharge. Rockets streaked in from every direction adding to the hellstorm, blasters never stopped, the dull thud of grens mixed with the sharp whomp of plastique and huge arrows from the gigantic arbalests disappeared into the roiling smoke.
Then the fiery lance of a LAW streaked in from atop the Citadel, closely followed by the four whispering black birds of the HAFLA, the deadly missiles leaving contrails in the foggy air. The volley became a barrage, a
fusillade, a bombardment.
The destruction seemed to go on forever, the lake of smoke swamping over the guards high on the stone wall. No longer able to see where to point their weapons, the sec men held their breath and waited, weapons at the ready. Nothing seemed to be moving in the dense cloud of discharge fumes. The gray smoke was slowly thinning, but it would take minutes before they would know the results of their trap.
STEPPING OVER the bleeding bodies of men and dogs, Ryan walked to Leviathan and rapped on the side of the tank with the butt of his rifle. "It's over," he announced loudly. "Come out and finish putting the tires back on."
Doc bent and spoke to the people huddled under the vehicle. "You will not be harmed," he rumbled, using a polite, but firm tone. "We are on your side. Just fix the tank, then you can run away if you wish."
Several of the cowering slaves remained where they were, unsure of what to do. However, the rest crawled out from under the vehicle and slowly started to assemble the wheels, constantly glancing over their shoulders at the armed people standing around them. Reloading her pistol, Krysty surveyed the garage with a practiced eye, searching for any more possible trouble spots, when she stopped and carefully walked over to a dead man. The ground was coated with brass cartridges from the Uzi, and walking was a tricky matter.
"Will you look at this," she stated, and took the revolver from his warm hand. "I'll be damned."
"Found something?" Mildred asked, pocketing her spent shells and loading in fresh rounds.
The redhead nodded. "This is the exact same type of blaster I lost in the city. Smith & Wesson Model 640, .38-caliber revolver, nickel-plated, adjustable sights, J style frame, combat trigger." She searched the man for bullets, finding the unexpected bounty of an untouched box. Then she solemnly laid the Ruger on his gaping chest in exchange.
"Thank you," Krysty said, hefting the revolver. "The balance is perfect, not nose heavy like that blasted Ruger."
"Dirty," Jak said, wrinkling his nose as if the weapon smelled.
Krysty smiled. "So it'll take me a while to clean properly. Worth it. Fits in my palm like it belongs there."
"At last your arm is complete," Doc muttered sardonically, wiping some blood off his swordstick. "My compliments, Sweeney, on the good fortune."
Asking a silent question, Krysty looked at Mildred, who shrugged in response. "I think it's from an old play," she said.
"I'm going to check inside," J.B. said, walking among the dead. "Make sure everything is working."
"Watch for traps," Ryan warned, never taking his vision off the slaves. "You there, tighten the nut more."
The slave nodded and did as requested. "Fellow slaves, hear me!" Shard said, sitting against a packing crate, bullet boles forming a pattern around him in the battered wooden slats. "When you are done, you can all follow us out of here to freedom. These aren't the new masters, but your liberators!"
"The guards also have blaslers," a brave soul pointed out.
Shard laughed in scorn. "And who would dare to try and stop Leviathan, killer of the Beast!"
The workers whispered that among themselves like a litany and the work proceeded faster.
"How many tires do we need to move?" Dean asked, joining his father.
Ryan scowled. "At least six. But we better have eight, though, just to be safe. The rest we can throw in back and put on when we get the chance."
Father and son watched the work proceed, and the lug nuts of the eighth tire were being tightened when J.B. popped into view from the rear doors of Leviathan and whistled sharply. The companions hurried over curiously.
As the interior of the tank came into view they gasped in shock. The inside of the war machine was completely different. Velvet drapes lined the armored walls, hiding the lockers and supply racks. The floor was cushioned with a soft carpet, the chairs more resembled red velvet thrones and red tassels dangled from damn near everything.
"Check the console." J.B. laughed. "They got gold leaf and silver embellishing the bastard controls!"
"Gaudy house," Jak said, a wry smile on his face.
"I wouldn't know, son," Doc intoned. "I have never been to anyplace as nice as this. Other than the Grand Hotel in Vermont."
"Hey!" J.B. called. "Look here! The ammo bins for the 75 mm recoilless rifles are packed to the brim."
"Full here," Jak added, checking the ammo boxes of the port .50-caliber machine gun.
Dean rushed to the rear. "So are the 40 mm rapidfires!"
"They rebuilt and reloaded everything," Ryan said in wry amusement. "Must have been planning on using it as their private war wag."
Mildred laughed. "We should thank them for the gifts before we leave."
"If we have missiles again," Krysty said, trying to activate the launch controls, "then we can put a couple of these babies into the Citadel." She fumbled with the switches, but couldn't get a response. "Somebody start the engines, I want to get a reading on these."
Ryan moved for the driver's seat, checking for traps first, but the chair and dashboard were clean.
"We have a problem back here," Doc announced, looking inside a cabinet. "All of the MRE food packs are gone."
"What did the heirs replace them with?" Mildred asked, sounding concerned. "Roast quail? Caviar?"
He closed the door. "Nothing. The locker is empty."
"That's trouble," Dean said, his stomach giving a soft rumble. He never seemed to be able to get enough to eat these days.
"Rather have bullets than food any day," J.B. said, toying with a golden tassel attached to a trigger assembly. "Hope they didn't mess with the feeder mechanisms."
"Damn fools," Doc agreed dourly. "You double-check the guns. I'll go check on Shard and the Pep Boys.
Cursing softly, Ryan tried again to start the engines, but nothing happened. "Something's wrong," he stated. "We got no power to the diesels."
"I'll check," J.B. stated, and, removing a hatch, he wiggled under the console. Tense minutes passed as he muttered to himself and twisted uncooperative wires.
"Well?" Ryan demanded as the Armorer crawled back into view.
"Try it now," J.B. suggested, dusting off his hands.
Experimentally, Ryan pulled the choke and pushed the start button. Instantly the big engines roared into life, the console coming alive with indicators and quivering dials.
"We have missiles," Krysty announced, tapping an indicator. "So what was the problem?"
"The fuse to the ignition was gone," J.B. replied, taking a seat at the starboard .50-caliber machine gun. "No problem. These things always have spares in a plastic box nearby. Don't want to get trapped in the middle of a battle because of a lousy piece of plastic."
"We got eight," Doc said, tossing a tire into the vehicle. "Help me get these on board."
Dean and Jak jumped to assist in the task, while J.B. and Krysty kept watch at the blasterports.
With the aid of Mildred, Shard carefully climbed inside the craft, moving as if his bones were made of glass. He could only stare about the tank in awe. The physician tenderly directed him to a wall seat and helped the man operate the safety belt.
"It's like a dream," he whispered. "Truly, you are the parole board."
"Not quite," Ryan said, starting the diesels. Under the floor boards, the twin power plants rumbled in barely restrained fury, softly vibrating the entire vehicle.
Tires bounded into the tank through the back doors, the men grunting from the exertion.
"Ready," Doc announced, slamming shut the rear doors and shoving home the lock.
"Eight?" Cawdor asked.
"Check. Two at each corner, one behind the other."
"Good." Ryan shifted gears. "J.B., man the left machine gun, Jak take the right. Dean and Doc, rear rapidfires. Krysty, load the recoilless rifles with AP shells. Mildred, watch over Shard. We don't want those wounds opening up again."
Everybody moved with a purpose. Spinning the steering wheel, Ryan directed Leviathan around in a halting circle until it
faced the garage doors. Thick chains were wrapped around iron stanchions, locking the aluminum doors firmly in place. Ryan put the pedal to the metal and the tank crashed through the thin plating into smoky night.
"Is it safe to be on the streets like this?" Shard asked, sounding worried. "What about the guards? The ward and his heirs? Surely they'll want revenge for killing Eugene and reclaiming the-" he paused and nearly smiled "-our tank."
"As long as the sec men are busy fighting the invaders," Ryan said, checking the radar screen which was clear. "they won't have any chance to bother with us."
J.B. added, "The guys trying to get in are always a bigger concern than the folks trying to get out."
Shard nodded at the wisdom.
"Can't storm the front gate," Krysty said, checking the rearview mirror. "That's probably where the main fight is. We can blow a hole through the wall at any point with the missiles, but I sure hate to use them up."
"Go down that street," Shard said, pointing to the tight. "I know of a private escape tunnel for the ward."
"Anybody else know?" Ryan asked sharply.
"The door is hidden." Then he frowned. "But I don't know how to unlock it."
"Just show me where," Ryan said grimly, working the clutch and gears. "I'll get us in."
As Leviathan rolled away into the night, the waiting slaves broke ranks and looted the bodies of clothing and weapons. Dashing into the streets, the armed slaves separated to spread the word of the coming freedom.
WITHIN THE BANK of smoke masking the western gate, a faint shape could be seen in the thinning haze. The updraft caused by the glowing gate was forming a breeze that was quickly dissipating the discharge fumes of the half-score cannons.
Some of the troops tried to dart into the smoke for a better look, but quickly backed out, hacking and gasping for breath.
"It lives!" a man screamed, running out with both hands outstretched, clawing the air, his eyes dead-white orbs of cooked flesh. There was a flash of light and the man vaporized.
A blazing rod of destruction, the laser swept the yard at chest height, sec men, gunners and cannon all disappearing in its vitriolic energy beam.
