Desert Kings

by James Axler

  “Heard it. Others?”

  “Not really, no.”

  “Damn.”

  Settling into the monotony of long-distance travel, the two men turned their talk to battle plans for confronting Delphi. Slowly the storm clouds followed the sun over the horizon and the black velvet of night filled the sky, the stars twinkling brightly around a low, bloodred moon. Around midnight, the companions stopped for food and a bathroom break, and to pour the last of the juice into the fuel tanks. The barrels were deadweight now, bone-dry empty. In less than a day, they would be back on foot. In preparation for that, Mildred and Krysty started making backpacks of food, while J.B. and Ryan sorted through the collection of blasters, taking only those in the best condition. There was a minor excitement when a solie was found hidden under a wooden box they had been using as a seat, but the deadly little mutie was long dead from starvation. However, the knowledge that it had been living among them, waiting for release to strike was rather disturbing. Stabbing it with his panga, Ryan flipped the corpse over the side and cleaned the blade.

  Just then, a soft hooting came from the darkness and the companions scrambled to get back inside the war wag. Hastily starting the engine, Jak drove away fast, the headlights sweeping across a group of stickies for only a second before they were left behind. The hoots came louder for a minute as the muties gave chase, but the sounds faded as the wag picked up speed. Soon there was only the noise of the diesel and the hum of the predark tires on the hard-packed sand.

  “At least they weren’t holding any weps,” Ryan stated, easing the safety back on his SIG-Sauer and holstering the blaster.

  “Thank Gaia for that.” Krysty sighed, her hair flexing as if anxious. “That’s something I never want to see again.”

  “Another good reason to chill that damn cyborg,” Mildred muttered in unaccustomed anger. “The world is quite screwed up enough as it is without his insanity to help things along!”

  “I zero that,” J.B. stated, releasing the pistol-grip safety on his 9 mm Uzi blaster. “The Trader always said that if something wasn’t broke, then don’t try to fix it!”

  “Amen to that, brother!”

  Soon there was the faint smell of salt in the air, waxing and waning with every tuft of the breeze. But the smell got steadily stronger as the ground changed from stubby grassland to sandy barrens and finally into a desert. The companions pulled neckerchiefs around their mouths to keep out the loose windblown salt. The granules stung their eyes, but there was nothing they could do about that, so it was ignored like so many of life’s small pains.

  “This is it, the start of the Great Salt,” J.B. said, resting his folded arms on the top plank of the splintery wall. “Dark night, we haven’t been here since…” He paused to frown.

  “Not since we last tangled with Delphi,” Ryan finished. “Yeah, I know. What the frag is it about this particular slice of hell that keeps drawing us back again and again?”

  “Just coincidence. There isn’t anything special about it,” Mildred declared firmly. “After all, this is just desert, miles upon miles of hot, dry, sandy nothing.”

  “Mebbe,” the one-eyed man muttered uneasily. “But it does make me wonder sometimes.”

  “Anything look familiar, lover?” Krysty asked, scanning the plains and dunes around them. The heavy tires of the wag were kicking up a huge dust cloud. In the daylight, they’d be visible for miles. Hopefully, the same would be true for Delphi.

  “Familiar? No, rocks are rocks,” Ryan replied. “There’s nothing special about anything in the Great Salt, and it’s been a long time.”

  “I seem to recall that we had just left some partially melted ruins and were trying to reach the mountains when the stickies attacked,” J.B. said, stroking his chin. “We were near a gorge…an arroyo? No, it was a cliff overlooking a huge green lake….”

  Studying the ground, Ryan felt foolish looking for the tire tracks of War Wag One. But that had been many years ago. The one-eyed man frowned in concentration. But I’ve been here long before our encounter with Delphi, he realized, feeling the years slip away. I rode this sand with a Colt on my hip, and my missing eye still giving me headaches just before a rain storm.

  With a squeal of brakes, the war wag came to an abrupt halt that almost threw the companions to the floor. After a moment, they recovered and looked over the plank wall to see that the Mack was stopped near the edge of a cliff. Dully illuminated by the bloated moon was a vast shimmering expanse of gray that stretched outward from the cliff for miles.

  “We’re here,” Ryan said, feeling an odd surge of excitement in his stomach. “Bad Water Lake.”

  “Can’t see a thing. Jak, ace the lights!” Doc commanded.

  Obediently the headlights went out and darkness covered the land. It took several minutes for their sight to adjust to the gloom, then Ryan went to the rear of the flatbed to unbolt the hatch and hop to the ground.

  Walking carefully to the edge of the cliff, the companions kept their blasters at hand as they stood facing the huge lake. Long minutes passed, and there was only the sound of the wind and the ticking of the cooling engine block. Nobody spoke as they studied the seemingly endless expanse of gray. There was no reflection of the moonlight on the waves, so there was obviously something covering the water, chems mebbe, or scum.

  We’ve seen similar things before in the Oarks, and Pacific, Mildred noted, crossing her arms. Once, very long ago, Bad Water Lake had been called Lake Powell. She caught a special about it once on the Travel Channel. Built to power some hydroelectric dam whose name she couldn’t recall, Lake Powell was one of the biggest reservoirs in predark America, and one of the largest in the world. The rough and craggy shoreline was longer than the entire west coat of North America from Alaska to Mexico. There had been several attempts to stock the artificial lake with fish, and they’d all failed until somebody got wise and seeded the lake with plant life first for the fish to eat. Then the lake had become a sportsman’s paradise. But that was before skydark.

  Now, a cliff extended along the lake like the wall of a ville, impossible to traverse. Here and there were broken canyons, deep recesses where the cliff crumbled down to the shore of the lake, offering limited access. The rock formations were beautiful, rising and flowing along the shores as if formed by the hands of a loving sculpter. Gigantic boulders were perched miraculously on top of small peaks, and a soft wind whistled through arroyos as if they had been carved to become musical instruments. Dotting the distant shoreline were the hulking wrecks of houseboats, huge vessels, two, three stories high, the gold trim and silver brightwork still shiny in the Utah sun. And covering everything was a thick layer of green scum that looked as hospitable as an open grave.

  “So have the mighty fallen. This had been a playground for millionaires in my time,” Mildred said, resting both arms on the railing. “They all tried to build fancier boats than their neighbors, the vessels soon becoming ridiculously expensive. Several of them were worth millions of dollars…a baron’s ransom,” she deftly translated for the others. “They had jets instead of propellers, plasma-screen televisions, fireplaces, wine cellars, heliports, everything you could possibly think of, and then some.”

  “Then the war hit,” Ryan said in a tolerant voice. “These millionaires probably turned against each other for the last supplies of fuel and food.”

  The physician shrugged. “Some would have had some weapons on board in case of thieves or pirates. It was rare, very rare, but it did happen sometimes.”

  “And so their Bacchanalian paradise ended like this,” Doc intoned dourly. “To become a sargasso of death and destruction. The damn fools probably had enough to start a proper ville, and live in safety, but no, they each wanted it all, a thousand little barons fighting over the last few scraps of civilization until they destroyed themselves.”

  “Pride goes before a fall.”

  “As does stupidity, madam,” Doc growled, the cool wind ruffling his silvery hair. “And as the good bo
ok suggests, I do not suffer fools gladly.”

  “Corinthians 11:19,” Mildred replied, settling the matter.

  “Hey, what there?” Jak asked, pointing.

  Everybody turned in that direction. Far off in the distance was a large block shape sitting motionless in the gently rippling sea of gray.

  Pulling out the longeyes, Ryan extended the Navy telescope to its full three feet and studied the scummy lake until finding a sandy island located in a small cove. Son of a bitch, there it was, exactly as he remembered. A couple dozen adobe buildings clustered around an open plaza. Ryan thought the ville had been on shore, but there it was, smack on the island. He had to have gotten lost tumbling off the cliff. This was the ville from his dreams.

  No, this place was real. I have been there and walked those streets! Ryan frowned. Then a split tick later, I awoke miles away.

  “Any islands here from your time, Millie?” J.B. asked, adjusting the position of the wire-rimmed glasses on his nose.

  “No, this is something new,” the physician stated, taking hold of the canvas strap of her med kit. Clearly, from the rock formations, the water level of Lake Powel had lowered over the intervening century. But enough to form an island? The land mass would have had to be only a dozen or so feet below the surface.

  In spite of the weak moonlight, the one-eyed man could still make out a lot of the features of the little ville. It was surrounded by sand dunes set so perfectly around the adobe buildings they were obviously fakes. The streets were empty, devoid of wags, carts of any kind. The only movement came from some torn curtains fluttering in the evening breeze. A large Yucca tree grew inside a broken house, the branches going out the windows, the roof seriously off-kilter. Not a damn soul was in sight. No sec men or civilians. Not even a horse, dog or chicken was visible. Just a couple of fat Gila lizards lounging near some cactus plants. Forked red tongues lolled from the open jaws, and the rainbow-speckled hides of the lizards glinted brightly in the moonlight as if they were made of polished metal.

  “Easy swim to island. Any sharks?” J.B. asked, scowling at the featureless gray expanse.

  “No, just game fish,” Mildred replied. “Nothing dangerous that would frighten the tourists like pike, or barracuda. Much less a great white!”

  Just then, something broke the surface of the lake, causing a low swell to rise and move across the water for a long distance, then disappeared into its depths once more.

  “Then again, I could be wrong,” Mildred relented sagely, rubbing the back of her neck.

  “Don’t…don’t I know this place?” Doc asked so softly the words were almost lost in the breeze.

  That made Ryan pause and lower the Navy telescope. Those were almost the exact same words the old man had said when they’d met for the first time. Suddenly the one-eyed man had the feeling that huge pieces of the puzzle about skydark and the redoubts were moving closer together, almost near enough for him to get a glimpse of what was actually happening….

  Squinting hard, Krysty suddenly pointed. “What’s that?”

  Bright lights suddenly appeared across the bay.

  Moving fast, the companions dropped flat to the ground, drawing their blasters and clicking off safeties.

  Adjusting the focus on the scope of his Steyr, Ryan swung back and forth in gentle arcs until locating the array of lights.

  “Wags,” he whispered unnecessarily, knowing the distance was far too great for the sound of a voice to carry. It would probably take a blaster shot a second to get there, if it could reach that far.

  “How many?” J.B. demanded, wiggling his glasses for a better view. But it was hopeless. To him, the lights were merely bright smeary blobs.

  “Four sets of headlights,” Ryan reported, sucking a hollow tooth. Then he got them in focus. Shitfire, those were LAV 25 armored personnel carriers. Two of them had 20 mm Vulcan miniguns mounted on top, while the others had something else, but he wasn’t sure what they were. The hulls were camou-colored, the splotches of green, red and brown dotted with gray smears from soft lead bullets ricocheting off the resilient predark armor. All of the machines were equipped with tires and treads, making them able to drive on land or across water. Suddenly that island didn’t seem so distant or unreachable.

  “Whoever these folks are, they riding in LAVs,” Ryan stated bluntly. “Two with a Vulcan, and two with what looks like…” There was a bright flash of red and orange. “Yeah, they’re flame-throwers. A screamwing attacked and they fried it in flight.”

  “Damn good shooting,” Mildred praised in a growl. “This has gotta be Delphi.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “Gaia, we have no chance against four of those predark war wags,” Krysty stated bluntly. “Remember those electric motorcycles Delphi gave the Rogan brothers to try and ace us? If these are mil versions of anything like those, I say we scrub this recce and leave.”

  “I agree,” J.B. said, the words tasting like ash in his mouth. “We are outclassed and outgunned. I’d go up against one, or even two of them, but four…” The man didn’t finish the statement. He really didn’t have to.

  Infuriated, Ryan was forced to agree and started to say so when door opened in the rear of the armored wags and people climbed out and into the light. There was a score of men in matching camou jumpsuits, along with a busty blond woman carrying several blasters. She seemed to be in charge; everybody jumped when she pointed at something. Then a thin man stepped out of the crowd and walked to the very edge of the cliff to stare down at the island.

  Cold adrenaline flooded Ryan at the sight. The fellow was tall and thin, with blond hair plastered against his head. His clothing was different from the others’, a smooth tan in color clear. A holstered blaster at his hip, and there was some sort of glass, or crystal rod, tucked into a shoulder holster. Walking along the precipice, the man moved with a slight limp, then he turned away from the others and raised a hand and studied the glowing palm in private.

  “Delphi,” Ryan whispered, putting a wealth of raw emotion into the single word. Working the arming bolt of the Steyr, the Deathlands warrior set the crosshairs directly on the chest of the hated cyborg. The wind was puffing from the left, which wasn’t good, but he could compensate. The range was extreme, but he’d once aced an enemy even farther away. One pull of the trigger and it was all over. Doc would be free, and the danger ended. The coldhearts would fight among themselves over control of the LAVs, probably destroying the machines and one another. It couldn’t be better. Then I’d be free to recce the blasted island, Ryan thought.

  Pulling in a long breath, he held it for a moment, then stroked the trigger. The muzzle-flash was still visible when he tracked the longblaster to the left, where the wounded man would fall, and he fired again, then shifted to the right and fired twice more.

  The shots were executed swiftly, and Ryan rode out the recoil of the last shot as the first 7.62 mm hollow-point round arrived like silent thunder. Doubling over in pain, the cyborg grabbed his stomach as blood gushed from the hideous wound. Stumbling to the left, Delphi recoiled as the next rounds arrived, but there was no blood, and he didn’t seem affected in any way.

  That was when Ryan saw two black blobs hovering in the air just in front of the cyborg, and instinctively understood those were his bullets. Fireblast, the bastard had turned on his force field! the one-eyed man thought.

  Slowly straightening, Delphi removed his hands from the bloody cloth, apparently undamaged, and brushed away the bullets hovering in front of him like flies stuck in amber.

  The big blonde and the other uniformed sec man were running around in confusion, firing their BAR longblasters at nothing in particular. Swinging his head back and forth like a droid scanning for targets, Delphi suddenly paused and looked directly at Ryan far across the midnight bay, and smiled.

  The sight was unnerving, but Ryan fired two more rounds directly into cyborg’s face, the 7.62 mm slugs slamming to a dead stop inches away from his grinning visage.

 
Delphi shouted something over a shoulder, and the two war wags with cannons on top began to spit flames.

  Bursting into action, the companions rose to race away from the edge of the cliff, but the rain of 20 mm shells arrived a heartbeat later and the ground erupted in powerful explosions. Salty dust filled the air as a section of the cliff broke away with Ryan yards away from safety.

  “Gaia, no!” Krysty screamed, advancing a step. But there was no reply from within the swirling dust cloud.

  Chapter Twenty

  From within the moonlit cloud, a hand raised into view and grabbed hold of the sawgrass. As they clenched into a fist, blood seeped from between calloused fingers as Ryan pulled himself over the precipice and got an elbow onto solid ground.

  Finished reloading, the 20 mm miniguns began to hammer away once more as the rest of the companions rushed forward to grab the one-eyed man and haul him away from the crumbling edge. Scrambling to his feet, Ryan charged for the war wag a second before the shells arrived, the barrage of detonations throwing up gouts of flame and creating a dense swirling cloud of dirt and salt.

  Taking refuge behind the war wag, the companions heard a low rumble and another section of the weakened cliff broke away to plummet to the shore in a stentorian cascade. After a few minutes, the incoming fusillade of shells stopped and an eerie silence covered the land. There was only the panting of the companions and the soft pattering of loose rocks tumbling off the cliff to the shore below.

  “Dark night, that was close.” J.B. exhaled, wiping his face with the back of a gloved hand. “Too damn close for my taste!”

  “Well, I wasn’t going over a second time.” Ryan coughed, then hocked and spit brown onto the rocks. “That was for nuking sure!”

  “Now what?” Jak asked in real concern, hefting his Kalashnikov rapid-fire. “Blasters chew Mack apart when get close!”

  “And there’s no damn cover to hide behind!” Krysty cursed. Each of the companions was coated in grainy white, looking like something that escaped from a shallow grave.