Meanwhile, on the far side of the bar, J.B. was talking to a sec man whom he had seen only recently.
"Yeah, I was through here only a couple of weeks back," the sec man confirmed. "I was riding with a convoy that had come across from the west, trader called Malloy. He was supposed to meet up with trader Malone down on the coast, some pesthole little ville called Godot. But before we even got that far, he got into trouble with this baron called Estragon, who claimed Malloy was trying to rip him off."
"But that happens all the time," J.B. interjected.
"Ah, that was the problem, wasn't it? Malloy really was trying to rip Estragon, which was a fucking triple stupe dumbass thing to do when you reckon on Estragon having just about the biggest stockpile of weaponry between here and the coast."
"So what did you do?"
"Only thing we could—me and some of the other boys. We jumped ship, dude. Got the fuck out as fast as possible and ended up trying to get work in the nearest ville, which is where I picked up with Conroy's crew. He pays well, and he gets rich by being hard but true—surest way for a trader to get chilled is to cheat. Play hard, but play fair if you want to survive, right?"
"I'll go along with that," J.B. said, his thoughts momentarily going back to his own days with Trader.
"Right. And besides, it landed us back here mighty quick, and this is just about the best damn ville in the whole land when it comes for getting drunk and getting laid."
The sec man downed the rest of his brew and banged his glass down on the table in front of him. He blinked slowly and heavily, then sat, missing his chair and falling to the floor. The revelers around him laughed, those who noticed in the confusion all around. J.B. was laughing, as well, a laugh that was stilled in his throat as he bent to help the man to his feet.
The sec man's skin was cold and clammy to the touch, although his face was flushed.
J.B. frowned. "You feeling okay?"
The sec man gave a short and unconvincing laugh as he rose unsteadily to his feet. "Should be able to take my liquor better'n that," he muttered.
J.B. examined him in the light cast by the lamp over the table. The man's face was flushed, but not in the way he would have expected from the alcohol. There were also signs of a rash on his forehead and under the growth of beard on his cheeks and chin.
The Armorer grabbed the sec man's arm and pulled up his shirt.
"Hey! What the fuck—" the sec man began, stopping dead when he saw the beginnings of pustules running up the inside of his forearm. "What the hell are those?" he whispered.
J.B. leaned in close to him. "You say you were through here a couple of weeks ago?" he questioned, and when the man nodded, continued, "I think you'd better come with me, my friend."
"Where to?" the confused and drunken sec man muttered as J.B. led him out of the bar. Ryan, catching the Armorer's eye as he moved past, made his excuses to Conroy and left the trader, joining J.B. outside. "Trouble?" the one-eyed man questioned. J.B. said nothing, but rolled up the man's sleeve. In the harsh glare of the bar's neon sign, it was easier for the two men to see the full extent of the infection.
"Fireblast," Ryan breathed. "Mildred's not going to like this."
"No one is," the Armorer replied. "This is where we move, right?"
"Triple sure on that," Ryan agreed.
RYAN WAS RIGHT. Mildred was far from happy when they led in the infected sec man.
"Go get Hector—and now," she said to Doc, who rushed to rouse the sleeping healer. Hector entered the med building in Doc's wake, and was grim faced as Mildred showed him the infected sec man.
"If he's been carrying this to other villes," he began, but Mildred cut him short.
"No time to worry about that now. You need to get Robertson in on this right now. If outsiders are getting it, then not only is it being spread across the land, but your ville stands right in the line of fire for reprisals, 'cause it isn't going to take this boy's employer long to work out what's happening."
"Shit," Hector cursed, "all hell could break loose. You're right," he concluded, "I should go now."
The healer turned and left. Mildred looked stonily at Ryan.
"Time?" she queried.
Ryan nodded.
"Krysty," he said over his shoulder, "go and get Jak and Dean, and get them to gather everything then come over here—and triple fast. We're leaving right now."
"Should we run out on them at this precise point?" Doc asked. "They will need our help."
"They won't need anyone's help unless we get moving and find the Gate, see what they know," Ryan snapped.
It seemed like hours but had to have been only a matter of minutes before Krysty returned with Jak, Dean and their collected belongings.
"Any chance you were seen?" Ryan asked.
"No chance. Time to take care," Jak answered decisively.
The one-eyed man nodded, then outlined the situation to the group. The knowledge that Hector was talking to Robertson—the knowledge that the first outsider had contracted the pox—would be incendiary. Chaos would break loose, and in this chaos was their chance to slip away unnoticed. The offer Trader Conroy had made Ryan and J.B. would only add to any confusion that would come in the wake of the notice of their departure.
Their route of escape wouldn't be easy. They wanted to go to the southwest, and the med building was situated to the east of the ville. They would have to negotiate their way around the edge of the ville without being noticed by the sec patrols.
Fate was to once again help them when they were in need.
With Ryan and J.B. now gone from the main drag, the bar sec was reduced—particularly the area where Conroy and his crew had taken over one bar for the night. The hired mercies had been drinking for several hours, and had pleasured themselves with the sluts they had hired. This was where it began to get difficult. The women were used to any kind of sexual act or kink, but when one of the mercies began to wave a broken bottle around and suggested its use as part of a floor show with one of the women, she could see herself not getting out alive, and retaliated by grabbing a bottle and breaking it over his head. Blood streaming, the sec man pulled a remade Walther PPK and chilled her on the spot. The sight of one of their compatriots being chilled caused the other sluts to forget they had been hired, and to fight back.
Before too long, the bar had become a battleground, with a firefight and hand-to-hand spilling out onto the drag.
A bar sec patrol who knew Ryan and J.B. should have been on duty went to what they assumed to be their assistance. They found themselves embroiled in a pitched battle that was already starting to attract revelers from other bars who were spoiling for a fight.
It was only a short while before word got back to Yardie, forcing the fat sec man onto the streets of the ville.
"Shit." He whistled through his teeth as he surveyed the pitched battle that had escalated along the main drag. "What the fuck is One-eye and Four-eyes up to?" he continued. Turning to his lieutenant, he snapped, "Halve the sector patrols and posts. Get them in here now, before we get outfought."
"Yeah, sure," his aide agreed, before adding, "What about the baron? He wanted you."
"Fuck," the fat sec chief swore. "What the hell is going on here tonight? And where the fuck are Ryan and J.B. when they should be sorting this?"
It was a question to which he would have found the answer incredible.
THE COMPANIONS DISTRIBUTED their belongings among themselves, took a few precious moments to check their blasters were loaded and ready and set off from the med building. Jak and Dean knew the outskirts of the ville better than the others, who had been confined mostly to the med building or the main drag during their stay in Crossroads, and guided them through the residential areas and past the tilled fields. In the distance, the sounds of the firefight going on along the main drag could be clearly heard.
"Sounds like Conroy's boys got a little boisterous," J.B. commented laconically.
"Yeah, shame we weren't there to sto
p it," Ryan added.
"Wait!" Jak said sharply, indicating that they get into the shadowed cover afforded by some of the dwellings.
Ryan had let Jak and Dean lead the way, with himself and the Armorer bringing up the rear. Mildred and Krysty walked each on one side of Doc, and they had traveled in a tight line, breaking only when they had to cross open ground, where they had traversed the distance singly, the others providing cover.
And now Jak's finely tuned hunting senses had given them a warning. They melted back into the shadows of the shacks as three sec men came running past them, cursing and loading their blasters as they ran.
"Well, well, that is most interesting," Doc murmured after they had passed from earshot. "I would assume, from their direction, that they are from a sentry post."
Ryan agreed. "Looks like things have really heated up. The outsider with the pox and Conroy's mercies getting blaster happy. Guess that fat bastard Yardie doesn't know what to do except pull in all his sentries."
"Making it easier for us to slip away," Krysty finished.
Jak turned and looked at them, his white, scarred face highly visible under the moonlight, even in the shadows.
"Mebbe only some sec go in—still keep frosty," he commented.
Ryan nodded. "Triple red still, everyone. Lead on, Jak."
The albino said no more, but moved out into the moonlight, leading the companions along the edge of town. They skirted the tilled fields, with the southerly blacktop cutting across the lands to their left. As they left the built up area of the ville behind them, Jak led them on a zigzagging path that took them through the scrub areas that had the most cover. Suddenly, with a gesture for them to stop, he pulled up.
"Sec post?" Ryan whispered.
The albino nodded. "Think deserted. Wait."
Without another word, the albino disappeared into the undergrowth, using the scant cover between their position and the sec post with such care that he was invisible even to the companions, who were trying to follow his progress.
Within a few minutes, Jak had returned.
"Empty," he said brusquely. "Must be in ville."
"Good," Ryan murmured. "This is what we need. Move out, but still keep low and on triple red."
Falling into the familiar formation, with Ryan in the lead and J.B. at the rear, they began to move through the scrub and out beyond the deserted sec post. The scrubland across the old, disused fields provided them with some cover until they were able to cross to the ditch at the side of the blacktop, and from there head south.
After a half hour's progress, Ryan called a halt and asked J.B. to take a sextant reading for their position. The Armorer complied, and then said, "We need to move over there—" he gestured across the blacktop "—if we're heading southwest. How far out do you think they're camped?"
Ryan shrugged. "Could be some way. I'd guess they'd put at least two days' distance between themselves and Crossroads, just for sec purposes."
"Gonna be a long haul, then," Mildred commented. "And what if we miss them?"
"They not miss us, if get close." Jak grinned.
Despite the fact that the area seemed deserted, and it was dark, they still crossed over the blacktop one at a time, keeping low while the others provided cover for whoever was making the trip. Vigilance couldn't be dropped for a moment.
Once they were all over, they headed into the scrub and the first clump of dwarf elms before establishing a camp. Ryan took first watch while the others tried to snatch some sleep. They had no idea how long it would take them to find the Gate, and they would need to be awake and alert when the sun rose once more.
FOR TWO DAYS they trekked across the lush earth of the region. There was no sign of a camp, and no indication that anyone other than themselves had passed that way for some time, which was no surprise. They knew from experience that the Gate could camouflage a camp better than any other tribe or group they had come across, and they knew that the tribe was also adept at covering its tracks. And yet it seemed that this land had been unspoiled by human habitation for some time.
The first day was uneventful. The trek wasn't difficult, and it was merely a matter of covering the territory and keeping alert for danger. The fact that there was no sign of anything except small mammals and birds made it hard to keep their alertness on triple red. Perhaps that was why the events of the second day caught them unawares. It was a double disaster that caught them off guard.
Since daylight on the first day, they had been aware of a hill much like the one that they had emerged from when leaving the redoubt some weeks before. It was right in their path on a southwesterly course, and from the first they had marked it as a possible Gate camp. Certainly it was wooded enough to provide cover, and its raised sides would enable the tribe to scout the land for miles around. So when they finally reached the foot of the hill, they ascended with caution. There was no sign of any human life, but this was, after all, the Gate tribe. Anything was possible.
"Of course, it does strike one quite forcefully that perhaps they are camped on the far side of the hill," Doc commented as they climbed.
"Well, we'll find out soon enough," Mildred said, looking back.
The gradient of the hill wasn't particularly steep, but it did have a few signs of soil erosion, and in places parts of the rock and soil had fallen away to form sudden ledges. They were passing just such a point, and as Mildred's foot came down on the spot where Ryan, Jak and Krysty had just walked, the soil and scree beneath, holding the earth onto the rock, began to move.
Mildred didn't even have time to register the shift of the earth beneath her feet before she was pitched sideways by the sudden space that appeared underneath her. She felt herself turn in the air, as if in slow motion, as she began to fall. The sky and the hillside turned around her, and she was aware of her companions appearing at the corner of her vision, jolted from view by the crack of her head against the rocks, barely cushioned by their covering of soil, as she turned head over heels, her thick coat providing some protection from the impact of her body on the rocks.
"Millie!" J.B. yelled from above, moving forward to see her tumble over down the side of the hill. He edged closer, testing the loose surface as he watched her body hit the hillside like a rag doll.
Dean's hand restrained him. "Wait! Any closer and you'll bring the rest of it down on her!"
J.B. stepped back quickly, suddenly snapped into an awareness that the younger Cawdor was right. The soil, scree and rock along the path where they had just walked was loosened to such a degree that it could tumble at any moment.
Below them, Mildred had come to a halt. She knew that every bone and muscle in her body ached, but at the same time that nothing was badly damaged. She had been lucky, but this luck was holding only by a tenuous thread.
The disturbance of the falling rocks had roused a flock of birds that nested in the dwarf elms on the summit of the hill. They rose, large and dark against the sky, with a deep cawing and croak of a call. Looking up, Ryan could count about twenty of them, and they didn't look friendly.
Krysty had also observed them.
"Somehow I don't think we'll find the Gate here, and I think I know why."
"Me, too," the one-eyed man agreed. Glancing down quickly at where Mildred lay—conscious but dazed and unmoving—he added, "She's easy meat for them right now, if they want."
It was a shrewd assessment of the situation. The birds—the like of which they had not previously seen in this seemingly peaceful area of the land—were obviously hostile, circling and forming to dive down on the companions below.
"Ryan, would I be correct in assuming we must draw their fire in order to prevent the good Dr. Wyeth becoming a target?" Doc shouted across the gap in the hillside to his leader.
"Got it in one, Doc. They're mean looking bastards, and Mildred's still out of action. We can get her after we've got rid of them. Wait till they swoop."
The companions didn't have long to wait. With one circling motion up above
, the flock turned and dived on the waiting companions as they stood on the hillside path. Ryan raised his Steyr, Jak had the .357 Magnum Colt Python ready, Dean raised his Browning Hi-Power and Krysty steadied her aim with the .38 caliber Smith & Wesson Model 640. Doc raised the LeMat percussion pistol, deciding that the shot charge would do most harm, and he would use that first, while J.B. raised his Uzi, set to Rapid Fire, with which to sweep blasterfire across the flock.
It was at that point, as they were about to begin, that Mildred began to move on the hillside below. She, too, could see the flock of birds above, and although she couldn't see her companions preparing to fire, she was well enough aware of the wildlife across the land to know that the birds were hostile—and she was vulnerable. She pulled her Czech-made ZKR target pistol from its holster, but was painfully aware of how slow her fall had made her. As she struggled to raise the pistol, all she did was make the flock aware of another—and relatively defenseless—piece of prey.
As the flock descended, some of the birds suddenly veered away from the main group and began to dive toward Mildred, who was still slowed by her injuries and was only just drawing the ZKR.
"Dark night!" the Armorer cursed, seeing them break away. He changed the angle of his Uzi, so that he could fire into the group of birds as it passed him. As the birds drew level with the path on which he stood, he squeezed gently on the trigger, pressuring until the machine blaster kicked with the white heat of rapid fire, spraying almost molten death into the middle of the birds. He moved the Uzi side to side, trying to take them all out in one blast.
He was almost successful. Most of the birds were ripped apart in midflight, their calls harsh among the chatter of the machine blaster as their chilling rattled in their throats. A rain of feather, blood and flesh fell upon the side of the hill, splattering the rocks and earth and covering Mildred in their stench.
But not all the birds were dead. Two of them had managed to avoid being chilled by the expedient of being on the far side of the group, and so protected from the majority of the Uzi fire, which embedded itself in the rest of the birds. And as the two homed in on the struggling Mildred, she had a chance to see how big they were. Looking like eagles, they had bodies the size of an average dog, and a wingspan that kept them flying far enough apart for her to have to adjust her aim rapidly if she were to take out both of them.
Axler, James - Deathlands 60 - Destiny's Truth Page 7
