Ice and Fire

by James Axler

  "Are the redcoats coming?" Doc asked in a hoarse whisper.

  Ryan didn't try to guess at the strange allusion. The meaning of the question was plain enough. "Yeah. Out front. Hiding behind a big wag. Be at the front door in four or five minutes."

  "Can't we blast some and stop them down?" Lori asked eagerly.

  "No. Best plan is to keep them guessing. If it's dark and quiet and there's no sign of any of us, they'll be uncertain. That means frightened. Nobody wants to be first up the ladder or number one through a closed door. It'll slow them."

  They padded through the kitchen in single file, past the antique pots of copper and brass and the scrubbed tables. Jak looked at the rack of old knives with bone handles. Ryan caught the glance.

  "Leave them be."

  Ryan eased the back door open a couple of inches and saw the stocky figure of J.B. standing close to Carla.

  "They're coming out front, pushing a wag ahead of them. Still don't figure they're likely to rush at us out of the darkness."

  The Armorer grinned, his teeth showing white in the night. "Guess not. I haven't heard a gnat fart out back. If they got it covered, then they're either very good or they're keeping themselves way, way off there."

  During their whispered conversation, Ryan had been peering down Ruby's trim garden, past the neat rows of okra and beyond the outhouse to where the brush began. And where the steep-sided draw ran behind Main Street

  .

  "We go now?" Krysty asked.

  Ryan hesitated. "What can you hear?"

  Krysty shook her head. "Wind's blowing this way. All I can hear's the gas plant. Drowns anything else out."

  "Jak, you got the best night seeing of any of us. You make anyone that way?" He pointed toward the desert.

  Jak stood silent for a long moment. "Think there's one or two about fifteen feet left of outhouse. Crouched behind heap of cut wood."

  Ryan strained his eye to try to see what the albino had spotted. But it was all a dark, swimming blue to him.

  There wasn't time for any more doubts. Behind them, at the front of the hotel, the night exploded with the dull, heavy sound of scatterguns and the busy crackling of pistols. And the distinctive chatter of John Dern's M-16.

  Glass broke and wood splintered, and above the noise they heard the angry screech of Ruby Rainer's voice protesting the ruination of her property.

  "Let's go," Ryan hissed, leading the way with his pistol in his left hand and the eighteen-inch steel blade of the panga in his right.

  JAK HAD BEEN partly correct.

  Zombie had placed Mealy in charge of the rear guard. Six men were sitting down, talking quietly, behind the cords of kindling. Two more were crouched at the side, keeping watch for signs of movement in the building.

  They had been warned to look out for anyone sneaking quietly out of the darkness, but they weren't prepared for the utterly ruthless speed and violence as Ryan and the others hit them.

  "Fastest and hardest," had been another of the Trader's endless number of homilies—most of which concerned better ways of chilling.

  Mealy had time to set his finger onto the trigger of his shotgun but he didn't have time to pull it. The long cutting edge of the panga opened his throat in a screaming, red-lipped cry, nearly slicing his head from his broad shoulders. As the biker fell in a welter of blood, Ryan was already among the circle of relaxing men, his steel blade hissing and singing, jarring on bone, ripping through flesh.

  J.B. took out one of the men who had been watching the rooming house, his Tekna knife driving forcefully into a soft stomach. The Armorer twisted his wrist brutally hard, letting the saw edge spill the sentry's intestines into steaming coils about his feet.

  Doc's swordstick flashed and stabbed the other sentry neatly through the center of the chest, between the upper ribs and clean through the heart. As he withdrew the delicate rapier, the man slithered to the dirt, eyes wide in shock.

  "Touche, " Doc said.

  Any cries of fear or pain were totally drowned by the bedlam from the front of the small hotel. By now every window in the Rentaroom had been smashed by lead.

  Nobody out front heard the muffled sounds of eight of their fellows departing from this life.

  It all took well below a minute.

  "Anyone hurt?" Ryan asked, panting from the exultant burst of adrenaline energy. He stooped and wiped the blood from the panga blade on the long duster coat of one of the corpses. "No? Good. Then let's go down into the draw and get moving."

  "Hell's bloody bells," Rick gasped. "I don't believe it. Seven, no, eight men. You just ran at them and killed every last one."

  "The longer it takes before they realize we've gone, then the better chance we got."

  J.B. agreed with Ryan. "And we've just brought the odds down some on our side. They find these good old chills, and they'll lose some balls for the fight. All helps."

  Baron Edgar cleared his throat. "I'm not sure that I can lend the dignity of my office to this butchery. If it wasn't so dark I'd know all these men. Probably once called them my friends."

  "Shut up, Baron," Ryan said, coldly dismissive of the old man.

  "But this is my ville. I must insist that—"

  Ryan grabbed him by the collar, lifting him up on the tips of his toes. "Shut up, Brennan. It's not your ville. Never will be again. And you don't insist anything. Not now and not ever. Just shut your mouth tight and do what you're told."

  Carla took his arm. "Don't speak to him like that, Ryan. He's an old man."

  "And he won't get any older if he doesn't stay buttoned."

  "You got a cold heart, Ryan," she said quietly.

  "Yeah. But I'm alive. Now, let's move."

  THE MOON VANISHED behind a swooping bank of dark chem clouds, which brought with them a distant rumble of thunder and the threat of rain.

  Visibility dropped from adequate to nil. Even Jak, with his heightened night sight, couldn't see more than a couple of paces ahead of them.

  After Rick—and then Lori—had fallen on the rough ground of the valley bottom, Ryan called a halt. "Go on like this and we'll have a broken ankle. Best stop awhile."

  "They'll catch us," Carla protested.

  They could still hear the crackle of small-arms fire behind them. By now Ryan guessed that someone in the attacking group would have figured that the birds had flown the coop. From what he'd seen of Zombie he didn't figure the bikers' leader was a great tactical fighter. But surely they would have moved in on the hotel when there was no sign of life.

  "We go on we're in trouble," J.B. said, peering up at the sky.

  "If we're making for the old park, I can lead us."

  "What?" Ryan couldn't believe what he was hearing. "That you, Brennan?"

  "Sure is. I'm as mad as fire day about all this. Sure I was kind of shocked for a while back there. Now I want to go and beat the living shit—pardon me, Carla—out of the Motes. I used to play in this draw when I was a kid. I know every rock. Let me go first, and you keep in tight."

  "I don't know, Ryan," J.B. said doubtfully.

  "Me too," Jak added.

  "It's not that much of a risk," the baron insisted. "I mean it. I feel like someone who has been through a long, dark tunnel. Snakefish is my ville. I can get us there. I've sat it out for way, way too long, Ryan. Not anymore."

  It was a difficult decision. Ryan didn't relish hanging around only a half mile from the hotel. He wanted to move along the draw and circle around to come up behind the headquarters of the bikers. But to let the diminutive, elderly man lead them? That was something else.

  The wind was rising from the north. Ryan knew that the old park was near the gas-processing plant, on ground a little higher than the ville. But in the almost total blackness he wasn't that confident of leading the group there.

  There wasn't much choice.

  "All right, Baron. Go ahead. I'll follow. You tell me when there's any danger. Holes, ruts, slopes… any kind of deadfall. I'll pass the word down the lin
e. It'll be slow, but it could be safe."

  "Fine, fine. I'll be doing something useful. Hit a lick at those demons, the Motes."

  The wind continued to rise, whipping up clouds of dust and sand, making everyone try to cover their mouths and noses. The baron led the way with surprising confidence, picking his way along the bottom of the draw, calling out occasional warnings that Ryan conveyed to J.B. and the others.

  Ryan figured that by now they would have discovered, in the center of the ville, that the cage was empty. But he doubted many of the good people of Snakefish would be enthusiastic about following the gang of outlanders into the black heart of the chem storm.

  "How far to the park, Baron?" he called out, having to repeat the question twice before Edgar heard him.

  "I'd say about ten minutes. If this wind gets up more we could have trouble. Folks die in these parts when the twisters start."

  Above the endless noise of the wind, Ryan had several times caught the sound of distant thunder. And there was lightning—not single stabbing forks, but vast explosions of smearing light that covered half the horizon and burned purple images into the retina, causing blindness for several seconds.

  The sides of the ravine had begun to close in, giving more protection from the wind. Every now and then the lightning would illuminate the area immediately ahead. But the path was winding and treacherous, with no sign that they were anywhere near a road.

  It was good news that they were nearly to their destination. The combination of blackness, the chem storm and the dazzling lightning was becoming impossible to overcome.

  Edgar Brennan stopped and turned around, a few paces ahead of Ryan. The static electricity in the night air had made his fringe of white hair stand out like a halo. Behind him, around a turn in the trail, was open space.

  "We're there!" he yelled. "We made it, Ryan! Made it!"

  A deafening clap of thunder failed to drown out the explosion of the sawed-off shotgun.

  The double-barreled charge hit Edgar Brennan in the center of his back, the impact driving him toward Ryan. He fell facedown, arms spread like a star.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  "KNEW YOU'D TRY this way. Left the others. Came out here on my own and waited. Through the wind and the storm. Knew you'd come." The voice, a howl of delight and triumph, came from around the corner, just out of sight of Ryan and the others. "Get some good jack from the Motes for this!"

  The voice was unmistakably Zombie's.

  Baron Edgar Brennan had died instantly, almost at Ryan Cawdor's feet. The probability was that he never knew what had hit him, never had a split second's glimmering of the knowledge that eternity had claimed him.

  "No, Pa!" Carla cried, seeing her father's slaughter in the almost continual sheets of violet lightning.

  "Mine," J.B. growled, touching Ryan lightly on the arm.

  Zombie, still yelping his delight, walked around the bend in the trail to examine his prize. The smoking scattergun was in his right hand. He was smiling behind the beribboned beard.

  "Bastards," he said, spying Ryan and others. "Figured the baron'd done a runner alone."

  "Mine," J.B. repeated.

  The biker grinned at them through his jagged, broken teeth. "You're all dead. Every road's blocked. Only way out's past the snakes. You'll all die in the desert. Give up now."

  "Chill him, John," Carla said quietly. "Do it to him. Now."

  "Yeah," Zombie mocked. "Do it to me, you little prick. I wanna see you do it to me."

  "Sure." J.B. shot him once in the throat and once in the lower stomach. The snap of the Steyr blaster was oddly muted in the eye of the storm. The big man dropped his shotgun, his face contorting with pain. He slumped to his knees, trying to cover the wounds with his hands.

  "Feel fucking cold," Zombie said, sitting back on his heels, face puzzled. His fingers moved from the bullet holes and fell into his lap, resting there. "Oh, it's burning me. Like flames of ice."

  "Again," Carla demanded.

  "Waste of a bullet. Already wasted one on him."

  "Then let me, John. He was my father. Give me your blaster."

  "No need." Ryan walked to Zombie and pushed him with the flat of his hand. The biker fell limply to one side, rolling onto his back, eyes staring sightlessly at the chem storm that flared overhead.

  TILTING HIS WRIST CHRON so that the numbers reflected the bursts of lightning, Ryan was able to make out the time. "Just after eleven," he said. It was later than he'd figured.

  "Can we bury the baron?" Carla asked.

  The wind had eased a little, and the center of the chem storm seemed to be passing. As the lightning became less frequent, the darkness was longer and deeper. Ryan had kept the others in the shelter of the draw, not wanting to risk leading them into the open. It looked as if Zombie had been on his own, but there wasn't any point in taking any chances.

  "Mebbe later," he replied. "If there's time."

  "It doesn't much matter. I guess it's not hurting him any. Not now. I'm glad you chilled Zombie for me. For him, John. I'll never forget you for that."

  There was an awkward silence between them.

  The others sat quietly, away from the corpses. Lori was picking dirt off the heels of her boots, wiping the little silver bells clean; Doc was at her side, whistling tunelessly to himself; Jak simply sat still; Rick was lying stretched out, clutching his walking cane. His face was ghostly pale, his breathing fast and shallow. Watching him, Ryan was beginning to wonder whether the freezie was going to make it—even if they did get past the rest of the ville and reached the gateway in safety.

  Krysty leaned against a large, frost-scarred boulder, eyes closed. Sensing that Ryan was looking at her, she opened her green eyes.

  "How d'you read it, lover?" she asked.

  "Not good if they got the blacktop covered. We can't get any transport to move any distance. Desert'll chill us, like the biker said. What we have to do is find some way of bringing Mote and his buddies into a serious firefight. Distract them and hold them long enough for us to get through Snakefish and out past the snakes. No way we can avoid them. Just step careful and light. But…" His voice trailed doubtfully away.

  Krysty smiled at him. "I don't see any better way. They won't come at us until first light. We gotta be ready. Either in the old park ruins or in the gas-processing plant. Gaia! The smell from that place fills my nostrils."

  Ryan kissed her unexpectedly on the cheek. "Lover, you've just given me the seed of an idea. It might just…"

  "What?"

  "No. Let me think on it. Try and get some sleep. Nobody's going anywhere until we get close to the dawning."

  RYAN, KRYSTY, J.B and Jak kept watch in turn through the night. As soon as there was the faintest pink lightening to the east, Ryan woke everyone in the group.

  Rick rubbed the sleep from his eyes. "Always feel better first thing," he said. "Soon as the day starts it's all downhill. Is that the sun I see?"

  "False dawn," J.B. told him.

  "How can you tell?"

  The Armorer gave him a thin, humorless smile. "Secrets of our trade, freezie. But since you're one of us, I'll show you. Watch."

  He stooped and picked up a white, smooth pebble, tossing it from hand to hand. He looked at the walls of rock that rose twenty or thirty feet above them.

  Ryan grinned at Krysty. He'd seen J.B. pull this trick before, in a different place and at a very different time.

  "Watch the stone," J.B. ordered.

  He lobbed it as high as he could in the air. Everyone watched it rise then disappear into the darkness, before suddenly reappearing. J.B. put out a hand and caught it cleanly. "Now, you all lost sight of it, didn't you?" Everyone nodded dutifully. "I'll do it again, in five minutes or so. Then you'll all see the point of it."

  The storm had drifted away to south toward the old looping Rio Grande and the barbaric wilderness that had once been the country of Mexico.

  Ryan went around a bend in the draw and pissed against a rock,
the urine steaming in the cool of the morning. Jak appeared at his side, on a similar mission.

  "Ryan?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Me an' J.B. could circle and start diversion. Keep 'em off rest."

  "No, Jak. Nice offer. We got Rick and we got Carla, and we got Lori and Doc. None of them are that strong in a firelight. We go down or we go through. But we do it together."

  "Sure. Just thought—"

  "Thanks, Jak. I mean it." He patted the slim boy on the shoulder.

  When they rejoined the others, J.B. was holding the pebble again. "Come on, guys. Might learn something. I know you've seen it, Ryan. But the kid hasn't."

  "Don't call—"

  "Sorry," he said hastily. "Watch the stone now."

  It spiraled way up, vanishing like before. Then, at its highest point, it reappeared, startlingly white, catching the first rays of the dawn from beyond the visible horizon. Krysty clapped her hands.

  "Great, J.B., great."

  "Nice," Jak nodded.

  Doc beamed. "A fine example of the multifarious uses of physics, my dear Mr. Dix. If I was only back in my lecture room at… But I am not. And I never will be. So, let that pass."

  The stone dropped into the dirt. Ryan rubbed at the stubble on his chin. "Tells us what we need to know. They'll likely be out here at full light. Best find some place to be ready for them."

  A TWO-WHEEL WAG was parked in the entrance to the Sierra Sunrise Park, its chrome glittering, the flake finish bright. It was Zombie's beloved Harley-Davidson Electra Glide, propped on its stand, the sissy bars raked back. Carla walked over to it and tapped her thumb on the gas tank.

  "Full." She hesitated, looking at the others. "Nobody objects if I take it, do they?"

  J.B. answered for them all. "Nobody got a better right to it, Carla."

  She swung her leg over it, straddling the soft leather of the narrow seat, hands on the grips. "The ville's done and I don't want to stay. I'm not running from the fight. It's just that it's not my fight anymore. I'll move on, away. Full tank'll take me a long ways off."