by James Axler
Trying to find the left shoulder, Ryan swung his rifle and both cats dodged. Fireblast, they were fast! Choosing a different target, the one-eyed man pumped a 7.62 mm round directly into the left eye of the male cougar. The animal jerked at the impact and shook its head to snap a bite to the left. But now their horses refused to advance and were backing away from the gate.
J.B. put a spray of 9 mm Parabellum rounds into the female and she turned toward them with eyes of green fury, her mouth scissoring the flapping piece of face.
Struggling with the heavy H&H rifle, Krysty fired just as her horse bucked, the heavy slug smashing into a burning adobe house and blowing a gaping hole in the mud bricks. Then Mildred fired four fast shots directly in front of the cougars, the lead glancing off the cobblestones, the noise and sparks making the pair retreat slightly.
Yanking on the bolt, Ryan yanked out the clip and stuffed in his last loaded spare. The big cats were too heavily muscled for anything but the .475 round to penetrate from a distance. The short Parabellum nines and the black-powder rounds just couldn’t get in deep enough to reach any organs. The shoulder was the only really vulnerable spot. The muscle was thin there and a well-placed shot could reach the bone, blowing out a halo of bone splinters like shrapnel directly in the heart. But it was a bastard tricky shot, especially on an animal that could move faster than most wags could drive. Their speed was incredible!
Using both handcannons, Doc fired and missed. Switching to the shotgun, J.B. hit the female and wounded her in the side, but nothing fatal. Krysty fired again, but it was only a graze. Dean banged away steadily with his Browning, making the male turn, and Ryan paused before firing again, hitting the cougar smack in the left shoulder.
The beast froze from the pain, galvanized for a half a heartbeat, and then it slumped to the ground. Puzzled, the female made a noise at its mate, then turned its attention to Ryan and worked its rear legs, hunching up for a charge when the sec men appeared at the mouth of the side street. The cat whipped around, startled by the intrusion of more people.
“We’re wasting time and ammo!” Ryan shouted, as a shot hummed by his head. “Use a gren!”
Already with a sphere in hand, J.B. pulled the pin on the implo gren and threw.
Landing between the sec men and the cougar, the device activated on impact, generating its killing gravity field, compacting men, animal, street and buildings in a microsecond pulse of total destruction. As the dust cleared, only a mangled pile of twitching flesh remained at the bottom of a mirror smooth crater, none of the ooze could easily be identified as either man or cat.
“Good thing that worked,” J.B. said with a sigh, easing his grip on another gren. “Only one of these babies left to use on the gate.”
“Nuke that,” Ryan said, studying the width of the steaming crater. “Use it on the wall right here.”
“Here?” the Armorer repeated, looking at the imposing barrier. “If the grav field doesn’t go all the way through, we’re trapped for good.”
“Better chance here than of us reaching the front gate alive,” Ryan countered, the alarm bells starting to ring once more. “Those are for us, and I’m betting that they know where we’re headed.”
Nodding in agreement, J.B. galloped to the end of the street, set the timer and heaved the gren. His aim was good, and it landed on top of the twenty-foot wall with a clatter.
He was already riding back to join the others when a sec man appeared on the parapet of the wall holding the gren and raising it high to throw back down.
Chapter Sixteen
Watching from the window of the keep, it seemed to Baron Gaza that the sky was on fire, with pieces of burning cloth dropping into the streets everywhere, embers swirling thick as sand fleas over the adobe buildings. Several roofs were already smoldering, others blazing away, orange tongues licking at the stars.
For some reason, his wives were terrified of the outlanders and wouldn’t allow him any closer than he was to an open window. As if somebody could accurately shoot a longblaster this high!
“They didn’t breach my private armory, did they?” Gaza demanded, shifting uncomfortably on the stool.
He had caught a piece of shrapnel from the exploding wags, and a healer was cleaning the wound before sewing it shut. The old man was slow, but the best in the ville. Which was why Gaza had hobbled the man, cutting the tendons in his legs so he couldn’t escape. Rockpoint ville had no slaves, but there were many different levels of freedom here.
His eldest wife, Allison, started to nod yes, then shrugged. Unlike the other wives, the blonde had a gift, a talent, a feeling for things that couldn’t be described. Sometimes it was so haunting it was like trying to hold a moonbeam in your hand. Other times it was a slap in the face that something bad was near. This day had been such an occurrence, and while she didn’t exactly know what it meant, Allison knew enough to keep her beloved husband under cover. And still he had been nearly chilled when the outlander wag exploded. Such a fireball!
The room was lush with furnishing, a wooden table covered with linen and silver bowls of cactus fruit. Bottles of aged shine, and sparkling clean water stood about for anybody to sample, and there was a huge roast of camel filling a center plate. Pictures adorned the walls and there were rows of books. Each of them lovingly preserved by the wives, and untouched by Gaza. Some bore the great name of Texas on the cover, but most spoke of things indecipherable.
“Black dust, it’s like skydark out there!” the baron grunted, as the probe dug into his flesh.
The old man apologized, and the mute wives rushed forward to stroke their husband and show the healer how to do his job.
“Away with the lot of you!” Gaza shouted, shoving them away. “I can’t fragging stand it when you all hover around like I was made of glass. Get out and check on my horse. Take ten guards armed with rapidfires. I’ll be there shortly after Hawk reports on the temple.”
The slim redhead called Kathleen waved her hands in concern.
“Damn door is jammed and they had to smash through. I already sent sec men to climb onto the roof, so if the outlanders are inside, they’re trapped with no way to escape.”
Allison glanced at the burning ville and signaled that there was still much danger, and she didn’t want to leave him alone.
“I’m fine, woman,” Baron Gaza said, gritting his teeth from the pain. “Hawk is coming, and Darvis has been with me for a decade.”
There were powders, even jolt to ease the pain, but those clouded the mind and Gaza needed to stay sharp. This Ryan was a tricky bastard, worthy of being a baron himself. Walked right in the gaudy house used by his officers to buy a meal. That took some major balls, or a hot steaming ton of stupidity.
Reluctantly, the women departed to do his will, taking the guards from the room, their steps echoing along the stone corridors until out of range.
Outside, there came the snarl of a cougar and the scream of dying men.
“Ouch! Careful, fool,” Gaza muttered, turning on the healer. “Just because we’re alone for a minute doesn’t mean you can start rushing the job. That hurt!”
Then the baron stopped talking as he felt sharp steel pressing hard to his throat, the body of the healer warm against his back.
“Did you think I would forget, or forgive?” the wrinklie wheezed, forcing the knife harder into the flesh until a thin line of blood formed along the blade. “You took my daughter screaming to your bed, then sold her to the Devils as a gaudy slut when she didn’t bear you a child.”
“Please, no,” Gaza begged, reaching for his blaster only to find the holster empty. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the weapon laying on the table near the roast. When had the wrinklie taken the blaster?
“Let me live,” the baron pleaded. “I’ll give you anything you want. Horses, women, blasters! Anything you desire!”
Sliding the blade along the soft skin cutting new avenues of crimson, Darvis leaned in close and breathed on the baron’s ear, sending chills
down his spine.
“Anything?” the healer asked mockingly.
“Name it!” Gaza whispered pitifully. “Take my own wives!”
“Now that is a deal, my lord. What I desire,” the healer growled, spittle striking the cheek of the trembling baron, “is to piss on your fucking grave!”
The knife started to cut in then for real, and Gaza screamed in terror when a blaster roared and something slapped against the baron with a wet sound, blood, hair and bits of flesh spraying onto the floor.
Staggering to his feet, Gaza saw Hawk walking in from the doorway, his blaster firing again and again into the limp body of the whitehair.
“Damn traitor, good thing I arrived when I did,” Hawk said, kicking the dead man to make sure the job was finished. “Are you okay, my lord?”
“Th-thank you for saving my life,” Gaza stammered, running his hands over his face, the fingers coming away streaked with pinkish brains and a sticky clear fluid. “Nuking hell, this is such a waste! It really is.”
“He wasn’t that good a healer, my lord,” Hawk said, cracking open the cylinder and dumping the spent shells into a pocket for reloading.
Unexpectedly, there came the clockwork noise of a hammer being locked into the firing position from the dining table.
“Not him, you. You are the waste,” Gaza said softly and fired.
Hawk felt a searing white-hot pain in his chest and staggered from the blow, his weapon falling from numb hands. The baron fired once more, driving Hawk backward, and the man went out the window with a startled cry.
“Did you really think I would let anybody know I had begged a wrinklie for my life?” Gaza growled at the empty window, massaging his throat. “The healer may have been insane, but you were a fool, old friend.”
“Such a waste,” Gaza repeated, holstering his piece and shuffling from the room, holding his aching side. He still needed that wound stitched shut. This time he’d have the wives do the job. At least they could be trusted.
MOVING FAST, Ryan fired the Steyr without aiming, and the wall guard dropped the implo gren from his hand, the shattered wrist pumping blood from both sides.
A split second later there was a blinding flash, and the entire wall seemed to shake as wide cracks spread out like lightning bolts, making bricks tumble off.
Dust clouds rolled from the vibrating barrier, the horses rearing and whinnying in fright. Seizing the reins, the companions fought to stay on their mounts and the rumbles dissipated through the side street, rattling window shutters and shattering clay pots. As the aftereffects of the implosion slowly faded, Ryan could now see there was a gaping hole in the thick barrier reaching all the way through, only some glassy rubble covering the few yards of ground to the black desert outside.
“Walk them through,” Ryan said, sliding off the horse and leading it through the dangerous wreckage. If the animals broke a leg at this point, the escape was finished before it began.
Everywhere on the streets, people were screaming, blasters firing, horses screaming.
“They’re coming through!” a sec man screamed on the wall, his shaking hands dropping cartridges as he tried to load a scattergun.
Coming through? The feebs thought it was an invasion, not an escape, which gave J.B. an idea. While the others started traversing the littered passage, the Armorer rode to the mouth of the side street and tossed the last box of .22 cartridges into a burning pile of cloth where the canopy had collapsed. As he raced back to join the others, the bullets started cooking off, lead banging in every direction.
“Coldhearts are in the ville!” J.B. bellowed at the top of his lungs through cupped hands. “Cannies and muties at the front gate! Protect the keep!”
Incredibly, the cry was repeated by others and carried along. Soon the sec men on top of the gate-house started shooting into the billowing smoke in mindless panic.
Meanwhile, the rest of the companions had reached the desert past the wall, only to discover outriders pounding toward the breach. Climbing on their horses, Ryan and the others peppered the enemy riders with blasterfire as the sec men on the wall started shooting crossbow arrows, the deadly hum of the barbed bolts chilling as they thudded deep into the sand.
Caught in the cross fire, the companions had no choice but to leave and kicked their mounts into action, sprinting for the safety of the night.
“We can’t abandon, John!” Mildred yelled, moving to the motion of her mount.
“Not going to! Just drawing away their fire!” Ryan answered, clicking on the nukelamp.
The men on the wall shouted in surprise at the blinding beam, and Ryan leaned far over in the saddle and dropped the lamp on the sand as the companions kept galloping away. Thinking the outlanders had stupidly made a stand, the guards concentrated their weapons on the nukelamp until it was hit and darkness returned to the desert.
Already at the breach, J.B. started walking his horse through as fast as possible, when it tripped and caught a leg on a jagged pile of debris. Diving out of the way, J.B. just missed being crushed by the animal as it went tumbling. Scrambling to his feet, the Armorer saw the animal was crippled, its right leg bent at an impossible angle, badly broken in several places. Without hesitation, J.B. put a short burst from the Uzi into the horse, grabbed the saddlebags, then took off running. But the bags weighed more than he could carry, and the man reluctantly dropped the spare water and nukelamp.
Reaching the low stone wall of the boundary marker, the companions slowed their horses to take stock of the situation. The desert ahead seemed clear, but the outriders were still somewhere in the darkness, and the wall guards were getting better with those blasters now that they figured out it wasn’t an invasion. If Gaza got his hands on J.B., he’d be aced on the spot. They’d have to make a stand.
“Doc, Jak, watch our backs!” Ryan ordered. “The rest of us, let’s start clearing off that wall and give J.B. some cover!”
“All for one, and one for all!” Doc said in a loud clear voice, drawing both of his huge pistols and cocking back the hammers.
Holding the reins in one hand, Dean gave a sharp nod at that advice as he pulled out the Browning. Never leave a friend behind, or a coldheart alive, as his father always said.
Dodging some loose bricks still falling from the smashed wall, J.B. hit the sand running and started to follow the hoof prints, holding tightly on to his munitions bag to keep it from flapping about and slowing him. Then a rumble sounded to the left, and he felt the ground shake as horses came thundering out of the darkness. Whistling loudly, J.B. headed toward them, thinking it was his friends. Then blasters started sparking in the darkness, a round tugging on his leather jacket. Mounted guards! Zigzagging in the night, J.B. opened up with the Uzi, the hardball ammo mowing down the first row of animals, the second row plowing into the dead. The shouts of pain were music to his ears, then the submachine gun jammed on a bad round and J.B. began laying tracks while jerking on the bolt to free the brass from the ejector port.
“Outlander!” a guard cried from above, and crossbow bolts flew through the night thicker than a swarm of bees.
As the jam came free, J.B. raced for the desert, firing bursts over his shoulder until the Uzi was empty. Pulling a concussion gren from the munitions bag, he pulled the pin and released the spoon to flip the explosive charge high into the air. It detonated with a tremendous bang, the shock wave slamming sec men off the parapet to fall to their deaths.
At the sound of the gren, Ryan turned and squinted. There was a hellish light pouring through the breach in the ville wall from the burning buildings, and in the glow he could make out a running figure wearing a fedora and glasses.
“John got out alive!” Mildred cried in joy.
“We go back!” Jak stated firmly. “We stay here!” Ryan commanded, reining his horse to a stop and sliding the Steyr off a shoulder.
“Dean, get going son!”
The young Cawdor wheeled his mount and started for the ville racing across the sand, staying
just out of the light washing through the breech.
Working the bolt, Ryan chambered a round and raised the sniper rifle to his eye for only a moment before firing. Silhouetted by the fire, a black shape on top of the wall cried out, the crossbow in his hands firing its quarrel into the guard beside him.
Leveling the .30-30 longblaster, Mildred began to slowly squeeze off rounds and sec men fell off the wall, then Krysty, Jak and Doc trained their weapons on the outriders as they appeared coming over a low dune. The mounted sec men had tried to outflank the companions, and paid dearly for arriving too soon.
Crouched low in the saddle, Dean urged the horse on to greater speed as he pounded across the flat open ground, his body moving in perfect rhythm to the massive animal. The distance between him and J.B. was decreasing by the second, and reaching behind, Dean released the lacings and the saddlebags slipped to the ground, making room for his passenger. This was why his father had sent Dean. He was the only person small enough to share a horse with J.B. and not fall behind from the weight of two riders.
The ground around J.B. was puffing dust as the ville sec men started to find his range. The Armorer was running in a zigzag to avoid offering a steady target, but he was starting to tire, and the range was too great for his shotgun, the last gren, or anything else he had. His lungs were burning from the frantic effort, and his precious glasses kept threatening to bounce off his face as he pounded the sand.
Reloading the Nitro Express, Krysty choked off a scream as an arrow went through her hair, cutting off several of the living filaments, and Jak cursed as he dropped the Winchester, blood flowing down a limp arm.
A buzz went by Dean, and he felt something wet trickling down his cheek. Blood? Hot pipe, that had been close! A half inch more and he would have been impaled on the shaft of the quarrel. Blasted locals were too damn good with those crossbows.
Reining the sweaty horse to an abrupt halt, Dean offered J.B. a hand, and the man scrambled on, kicking the beast hard in the rump with the heels of his combat boots.
