by James Axler
As he neared the stable doors, a short, sturdy figure lunged at him from within with a pitchfork. Without apparent haste he drew his left-hand blaster, and without appearing to aim, he fired. The pitchfork and his attacker fell separate ways.
“Consider that your reward for valor, lad,” he said as he sidestepped the late gaudy-owner’s youngest son, who had brought him warning earlier, and now lay howling and clutching a shattered shin. “Whether you prefer living in pain to having died game is a choice you’ll have to make for yourself.”
He loaded his saddlebags on his gelding’s back and rode it out into the cool night air. If they lead me to the treasure, I’ll chill them and take it for myself.
If they don’t, I’ll chill them and get on with my life.
In either case, he would collect his bounty from the baron of Hugoville—whether Jed Kylie or an as-yet-unspecified successor. Because as he’d told Jed, he always carried out a contract.
But as he’d also told the volatile baron—at his own time.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jak’s whistle brought Ryan’s chin up short as it sank toward his chest. The chestnut’s steady pace had lulled him into another brief nap, despite the dull throbbing pain of the wound in his upper-right chest, which Mildred had cleaned and bandaged as best she could by the light of a small, quick fire.
A hint of dawn glowed pale along a rolling range of hills toward the west. His friends rode in pairs along a rough rutted track that if a body was feeling generous might just be called a road. They had no reason to stay covert. Above some more low ridges ahead and to their right showed the faint light of the watchfires of the defensive line along the creek where the Uplander Army had waited in ambush for the Protectors, and where they had dug in since.
Silhouetted against that faint amber glow were the lead riders of a cavalry patrol. Presumably Uplanders, since it would be a major violation of the cease-fire truce for Protectors riders to venture out of sight of their own front lines. Given that fact, the patrol seemed pretty hefty to Ryan, perhaps twenty horsemen, he judged.
“Good,” Krysty said from his side. She rode at his right and had been trying and failing not to make it obvious she had been watching him like a hawk every step they’d ridden since Mildred had tended to him.
She reached now as if to pat his arm, which he carried in a sling, then thought better of it. “It’ll be a load off my mind to get you proper medical attention once we hit camp.”
He grunted. “Mildred did fine,” he said. “Thought you trusted her more than any of the Uplander Army healers, for sure.”
“Well, yes.” She smiled, but her eyes flicked back to where her friend rode right behind her, side by side with her own lover, J.B. She clearly feared that in her worry for Ryan she’d inadvertently insulted Mildred. “But she’ll have better light to work by. And plenty of alcohol and hot water to make sure the wound’s really clean.”
Ryan grunted. He felt a bit woozier than he thought he ought to, given the severity of the wound. The mutie mercie’s round had missed smashing his shoulder joint, and missed nicking a lung, both of which were undisguised boons.
But the big reason it hadn’t pierced Ryan’s right lung was that after punching through the pectoral muscle, it had skated along the outside of his rib cage before exiting at the juncture of the infraspinatus and teres major muscles—if he’d heard Mildred’s medical gobbledygook correctly.
“Our bones are really pretty good armor,” she had told him cheerfully, as he set his jaw against the necessary pain of her probing the raw wound. “It’s not uncommon for bullets to bounce off. Handgun bullets especially, and doubly so for the sort of round-nose soft-lead slugs that freaky bastard’s probably loading.”
The bullet had done enough, as far as Ryan was concerned. There was some muscle damage, which Mildred judged would likely heal. It had also likely cracked a rib or two. One way or another he’d be a spell getting back full strength and use of his arm. Meaning his gun hand.
She’d dumped in one of their precious few scabbie sulfa packets. Now Ryan was a little concerned infection might be setting in despite the antibiotic.
“Omega,” called the lead rider. In the starlight he seemed to wear a uniform tunic, and he carried a scabbarded saber, marking him as an officer or at least a sergeant.
“Glory,” Doc called back, completing the challenge-countersign.
“No like,” Jak whispered as the troop split to ride down either side of the line of companions. Ryan frowned.
“Fit to fight, Ryan?” J.B. asked below his breath from right behind.
“No,” Ryan said, with a grin his friend couldn’t see. “But I can manage anyhow. Eyes skinned, everybody.”
“Why...?” began Mildred, then clamped it down as the first of the Uplander riders came abreast of Jak and Doc in the lead.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” Doc said. The lead rider grunted something that might have been a return greeting and swung his mount aside. The rest kept riding, parting like water around a rock to avoid the companions, but otherwise scarcely acknowledging they were there.
Even half out of it Ryan could almost smell the tension in the cavalrymen, and not just their boots and unclean clothing, the oil on their weapons and the sweat of man and horse.
“What a relief to see an Uplander patrol,” Krysty said. “We have a wounded man, so—”
The trooper leader whipped out his saber. “Take ’em down, boys!” he screamed. “Remember, the reward goes for dead or alive!”
* * *
“ALL RIGHT,” Baron Al Siebert said, trying to cram an arm clad in off-white long johns into the sleeve of his uniform tunic as he lumbered into the parlor of the house where he was headquartered. “What was worth rousing me out of bed for at this indecent hour of the morning? The sun’s not even up, gentlemen, and I haven’t yet had my coffee.”
Colonel Cody Turnbull compressed his lips to hold in a retort. He himself had been up an hour already, had washed and shaved himself before turning out in his customary immaculate uniform.
But he had little trouble letting it past. Leaving aside how much practice he’d gotten in overlooking his general’s inexcusable slovenliness, excitement thrilled like a jolt in his veins. He found it hard to stand still, and kept shifting his weight from boot to polished boot. A slogan from one of his idols from the history books sang over and over in his brain: action this day.
Still, the colonel hadn’t expected action quite this soon.
“It’s important, I’m afraid,” said Oliver Christmas, his sec boss. The big fat man was, as usual, even more rumpled than his boss, with a wing of his white shirt hanging untucked from his black civilian trousers and a lock of his comb-over standing straight up from his cannonball head like a weird bird’s crest. He had, or claimed, no military rank, so his habitual sloppiness had at least that justification. Though Turnbull felt inclined to cut him little slack. Although Christmas was undeniably zealous in his job of protecting the Uplander commander in chief, and had proved quite effective at the task, Turnbull couldn’t shake his conviction that such exterior untidiness could only reflect a disordered mind within.
“What do you mean, Oliver?” said Al, with his big homely face rumpling into a fierce scowl.
The sec boss gestured. One of his men, identified as a sec man by the white armband above the green one on the sleeve of his checked flannel shirt, came in supported by one of Christmas’s personal crew in full green uniform. The left side of the staggering man’s face was a mask of blood, with fresh flow shining crimson above a darkened stain of blood that had begun to dry.
“We were riding picket not half a mile south of the lines and ran into a probe by Protector cavalry,” he said. “The fight’s still going on.”
“If you listen, sirs,” his escort said earnestly, “you can just hear it.”
Big Al’s frown turned from fierce to thunderous. His beard bristled as his small pig blue eyes practically disappeared beneath bushy
brows.
In the stillness—not usual in HQ, where at least a buzz of conversation was almost incessant—Cody heard it now. Convenient, he thought in surprise.
The iron had grown hot earlier than anticipated. Would his fellow...patriots be alert enough to strike it while it glowed?
Christmas blew out a gusty breath through big pink-and-gray lips. “I better go see what’s going on, General,” he said. “Stiffen up the perimeter security. This might be a feint to cover a strike from another direction.”
Then he frowned and passed a hand over his pate. The rebel lock of hair smoothed down, then sprang defiantly back up.
“Though mebbe I should stay in case they mean to make a play for you here,” he said worriedly.
“Sir,” the green-coated sec man said, “we’re here. We can handle it—in the unlikely event those lowland cowards get that bold.”
Al waved a hand. “Go on, Oliver,” he said. “I’ll be fine.”
Though he personally seemed to like his sec boss, and Christmas seemed to return the feeling, the baron resented security and was always eager to be relieved of any reminder of it. He usually insisted on his bodyguards, except for Christmas himself, at least staying out of his sight. He hated being nursemaided, as he put it.
“All right, Randy,” Christmas said to the man who’d shown the wounded trooper in. “You’re in charge here while I’m gone.”
Despite the unmilitary address, the officer braced and snapped off a salute that warmed Turnbull’s soul.
“Sir! The baron will be safe in my hands.”
“Whatever.” Christmas lumbered out like an annoyed grizzly.
An aide came in with a big steaming mug of something that was only coffee by nature of dash added, for the principle of the thing as much as anything else, and handed it to the baron. He sipped and nodded appreciatively.
Cody nodded approval to the aide. He had personally selected the staff duty roster for today. He could rely on this lad to do what needed done.
With Christmas gone, the stage lay open, awaiting only the proper players for history to be made. The “probe” was remarkably fortuitous, since just such a diversion had been planned for this morning, to get the potentially troublesome Christmas out of the way. Did my associates stage this? Turnbull wondered with a twinge of something like alarm, since they should, for courtesy at least, have informed him what to expect. Or does Providence truly guide our hands?
In walked Captains McCormac and Asaro. Baron Al looked at them through the steam rising from the mug he held to his lips.
“Phil and Phin, eh?” he growled. “What brings you to brighten my morning? You usually are less likely to see this unearthly hour than I am.”
Asaro’s long lean face darkened beneath his razor-cut sideburns, but his shorter, wider companion laughed his standard jolly laugh and patted Asaro’s arm.
“Relax, my friend,” he said. “For you see, things are about to change.”
With a waft of lavender scent and the air of a queen, Jessie Rae Siebert swept in, holding the skirts of her green silk dress off the floor. Haughtily she took her place in the chair reserved for her beside her husband.
“Good morning, my dear,” Al said, looking a bit surprised.
“We’ll see about that,” she said with a smile.
“What are you talking about now?” he said. “It’s too early to be cryptic.”
“Allow me, Baron,” McCormac said. If Al noticed the slight implicit in the use of his civilian title as opposed to his military one from an officer in uniform, he didn’t show it. He likely hadn’t noticed, Turnbull reflected.
“You see, a lot of us men of standing and influence have long been concerned about your refusal to take the steps—obvious and readily available steps, honesty compels me to add—to end the threat of the treacherous Association cattle herders to our Alliance forever.”
“Not to mention the way you’re giving them a free shot at the treasure,” Asaro asserted. Turnbull shot him a worried glance. He was clearly doing an even poorer job of holding back the anger that always simmered just beneath his skin than usual.
Then again, Cody reassured himself, what could go wrong at this stage?
The thought made him want to laugh out loud in relief, but he refrained. Unlike Asaro—or their mutual commanding general—Turnbull was well experienced in controlling his emotions, as a man of gentle breeding.
Baron Al snorted. “‘Treasure,’ my big fat fanny,” he said. “If Jed wants to waste his few remaining resources chasing after a mirage, so much the better. Works to our advantage. Not that I’d put Jed as the type to fall for such a triple-stupe fantasy. But I suppose desperation can do that to a man.”
“Phil,” McCormac said smoothly, “please. Allow me.”
Asaro jutted his foxlike jaw but nodded almost convulsively.
“Our men don’t believe the story of a fabulous trove of predark technology and wealth is a fable, Baron,” his fat fellow baron said. “They’re grumbling in quite a discontented way.”
Al laughed. “When did you start paying mind to soldiers’ gossip, Phin McCormac? You always dismiss them as no more than rabble, anyway.”
“What I’m telling you is that we—men of standing in the Alliance as well as the army who take our responsibilities seriously—”
That seemed to penetrate Al’s rhino hide. “Are you saying I don’t?”
“—have been concerned at your refusal to take decisive action against our vile foe since you failed, inexplicably, to give pursuit on the day of our glorious victory on this very spot. And you have continued to coddle our enemies in the negotiation, rather than forcing them to heel. And now—” he cocked his head and held up a hand toward the south, where the blasterfire murmur suddenly cut off “—we see the price of what we may charitably call your incompetence. You refused even to act when General Kylie mobilized the Grand Army in clear violation of the cease-fire to hunt this treasure you stubbornly refuse to believe in.”
“And now the devils are openly attacking us!” Asaro almost screamed.
His associate’s lips tightened, but he forced them to curve into the tight semblance of a smile, and his side whiskers bobbed as he nodded.
“Just so.”
“What are you saying, gentlemen?” Al asked, with what struck Turnbull as astonishing calm, given his volcanic nature. “It’s time to start walking all around the muzzle of the blaster and get to the damned trigger.”
“Very well, Baron,” McCormac said formally, sticking hands behind his back and puffing out his chest. “We have come in our capacity as officers and barons to make a much-needed change.
“You are herewith relieved of command over the army of the Uplands Alliance, Al Siebert. We thank you for your service.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Even as the officer shouted his treacherous command, Ryan had his horse in motion. Guiding it with his knees, he turned it right and sent it racing straight at the line of troopers riding in what was even more obviously an envelopment move down that side of his own little party.
Along with his SIG-Sauer in a shoulder rig beneath his left arm, he had a scabbied Peacemaker in a holster on his left hip. He drew the wheelgun fast with his good hand.
A clean-shaven rider, eyes wide in the still-dim light of dawn, tried to raise a sawed-off scattergun. Ryan stuck his own big handblaster over the neck of his prancing chestnut and blasted him through the base of the throat. His target fell backward from the saddle, discharging both barrels in a shout of flame and flash of noise.
The rider he’d shot had been on the left. The one who had just passed was now on Ryan’s right as his horse bolted. The greencoat—whose sleeve wore the white brassard of Al’s bodyguard detail—was hauling out a blaster and trying to turn to get a shot at Ryan.
Holding the burly Peacemaker across his body, the one-eyed man fired three times, holding back the trigger and slipping the single-action trigger with his thumb. He saw trail dust fly fro
m at least two hits on the back of the sec man, who slumped over his horse’s neck as she bolted.
Ryan raced his mount a few paces into the weeds, hearing hoarse cries, some turning to screams, and blasterfire behind. He reined her in and turned. He had a clean getaway before him, but that would mean leaving his friends, and that he wouldn’t do.
Unlike the time the Protector patrol had gotten the drop on them, relaxing by their campfire, his people had already been alerted by the sec patrol’s odd behavior that things might not be right. Following the standard principle that the best way to handle an ambush was to charge straight into it, his friends had all clearly done just the same thing Ryan had. With a quick count he saw to his relief that all six of them had made it off the road.
They’d broken out to both sides, though. As Ryan did his check, he saw Doc stab a sec man to his left and then blast one to his right with the shotgun barrel of his LeMat and then he joined Krysty and Ricky on the far side of the track.
Ryan blasted off the final two shots in his wheelgun’s cylinder. Then, holstering the blaster, he fished out the SIG-Sauer and cut loose. His friends joined in.
Horses screamed and bucked as the companions shot into the now totally confused scrum of cavalrymen. A couple went down, one pinning the leg of its howling rider beneath it. It was unfortunate to have to shoot the beast, who didn’t have any blame in this fight, but even a lightly wounded horse could take its rider out of a fight as surely as a bullet through that rider’s head. It had to be done, and Ryan and his friends all did.
The troop leader had somehow kept both his saddle and his wits. Now he brandished the sword and bellowed, “Pull back up the road and regroup! Ride, damn you!”
Then he jerked and swayed in the saddle as a shot hit him. Ryan wasn’t sure which of his friends had tagged him. It might have been one of his own men, who were shooting wildly in all directions including right into the lightening sky. Fortunately they were too occupied with their panicked mounts to aim anywhere near properly.
