Prodigal's Return (10 page)

The wall was composed of large stone blocks, some neatly cut into precise rectangles, while others were lumpy and irregular, clearly replacements added to effect repairs. There were more punji sticks along the bottom, but also more along the top to discourage climbers. The gate proved to be a collection of sheet metal bolted together into an overlapping pattern. In spite of numerous dents and scratches, it was a formidable barrier.

“Dark night, we’d need a lot of grens to blow a hole
in that,” J.B. muttered, covering his mouth with a hand just in case of the sec men on the wall could read lips.

Braking to a halt at the end of the road, Jak turned off each engine individually both to save gas and to demonstrate how well equipped the
Hercules
was. A lot of people had never seen a working engine of any kind before.

Holding their blasters and crossbow clearly in sight, but not actually pointing then at the companions, the sec men and women on the wall did nothing, and several minutes passed before a woman appeared, wearing dark green fatigues. Her blond hair was tied back in a long ponytail, and a puckered scar crossed her face, ending at a badly broken nose. Blasters rested on each hip, and her battered leather gun belt was shiny with polish, the loops full of brass. A pinkie was missing from her left hand, and she wore a decorative bracelet on the right wrist, the wood covered with intricate scrollwork. A white scarf was tied around her throat, one end tucked into her shirt, the other blowing free in the wind.

Instantly, Ryan identified that as a wind marker to aid the other sec men in shooting. His respect for the woman increased. Obviously, this was the sec chief for the ville. He had a gut feeling that whoever gave her that scar was breathing dirt, and had been about a split second after her nose was broken.

“Welcome to Alton!” she bellowed, through cupped hands. “What are ya looking for, outlanders?”

“Trade!” Ryan replied, lifting both hands from the Steyr before stepping from the wag. Then he added, “Although I wouldn’t mind a cool summer rain if ya got one!”

Although she clearly tried not to, she grinned at the joke, as did most of the other guards.

“Sorry, used the last one yesterday to wash the dog!” she replied, hooking both thumbs into the gun belt. “Anything else you need? We got some food to barter. But no room in the barracks. We’re full up on gaudy sluts, and we don’t got no slaves!”

“Glad to hear it!” Ryan said, taking a single step forward. “The name is Ryan Cawdor. We’re looking for juice.”

“Abigail Ralhoun, sec chief for Alton ville,” she yelled back, then tilted her head to the side. “And this is Sergeant Constantine Hohner.”

Standing next to the sec boss, the big man lifted his chin in a silent greeting. Heavily muscled, Hohner had a tattoo of an American bald eagle on his face, and stars on the back of both hands. A .22 longblaster was slung across his back, and holstered at his waist was a Webley .445 handblaster in good shape, the grip covered with notches.

His boots crunching on the loose dirt, Ryan walked to the edge of the punji sticks, and Ralhoun squatted to bring them closer together. Immobile, Hohner stayed off to the side, his hands splayed, poised and ready for a fight.

“Okay, Cawdor, we got some juice. Good stuff, too. What do you have for trade?” Ralhoun asked. “Always could use more brass, and you boys have enough blasters showing to start a major war, and that’s the honest truth of the eagle god.” She squinted. “Or are they empty?”

Moving slowly, Ryan drew the borrowed .38 revolver
and fired a single round into the air. The bang echoed off the stone wall and out into the fields.

“Now, that might have been your last,” Ralhoun said, rubbing a finger along her scar. “But I don’t think so.” She turned. “Stand down, boys! We’re talking biz!”

Relaxing their stance, several of the sec men rested their longblasters on a shoulder, and the archers eased the tension on their crossbows. Only Hohner didn’t move. There was no visible sign of life except for the subtle rise and fall of his wide chest.

“So, a wag like that must have a mighty thirst. What ya got to trade for the juice?” Ralhoun asked, smiling widely.

“The wag,” Ryan said, jerking a thumb in that direction.

That seemed to catch her totally by surprise. “Ya wanna barter the wag…for juice?” she asked in confusion.

“Nope,” Ryan answered. “We’ll trade the wag for six horses, tack and saddles, food for a week.”

“Horses and tack? Then what the nuke did you ask about juice for?”

“To see if you could run a wag.”

Slowly, Ralhoun smiled. “Triple-smart, there, Blackie.” Shielding her face with a hand, she looked at the wag. “She’s battered some, but I heard all three of those engines running, and she got here, sure enough. But I don’t know…?.”

Grandly, Ryan gestured toward the fields. “Add on a plow, and with a gallon of shine you can plow more dirt in a hour than a hundred people in a day.”

“Turn a war wag…into a field plow?”

“Triple the yield, easy.”

“Mebbe yes, mebbe no,” Ralhoun said warily. “But I prefer horses. Never yet seen a wag that could make more wags.” Standing, she dusted off her pants. “Sorry, no deal.”

“You sure? Lots of uses for engines,” Ryan continued doggedly, wondering how the deal went sour so fast. “Pumping water from a deep well, moving that bastard big gate…and, of course, with this many engines, you could take the wag apart and make three smaller war wags. Or one big war wag covered with lots of armor.”

“No, not interested,” Ralhoun said, hitching up her gun belt.

“We can still barter brass for food—” Ryan started.

“Better move along, outlander,” Ralhoun said with a scowl, resting a hand on the grip of a blaster.

Instantly, the companions swung their weapons around, and the sec men did the same, with Hohner in the lead, the pitted barrel of the Webley looking as big as a tunnel entrance. A long minute passed slowly, the tension in the air almost palpable.

“Fair enough,” Ryan said carefully, taking a step backward. “We’ll leave right now. No corpse, no crime, eh?”

Nobody laughed this time.

“Wise move,” Ralhoun growled. “And don’t be hanging around here waiting for any handouts! We’ve got nothing to spare.”

That was clearly a lie, and suddenly Ryan knew why the deal had gone flat. He hoped that he was wrong, and the locals were just suspicious folks, but if he was
correct, then the next thing they would do was offer some friendly advice.

“Hey, Chief!” Hohner called out. “Aren’t there some ruins to the north of here?”

“Yeah, y’all can camp up there, Blackie,” a sec woman added. “There be fresh water, and some game about. Squirrels and such. Not much, but better than chewing grass, eh?”

Nodding his thanks, Ryan walked backward to the wag and carefully got in, while Jak got the engine working. Shifting into Reverse, Jak drove the wag into the fields, and didn’t stop until the companions were near the scarecrow and far out of longblaster range.

“That didn’t go well.” Mildred sighed, holstering her ZKR target pistol.

“It could have been worse,” Krysty agreed with a scowl. “But not by much.”

“Nightcreep?” Jak asked, twisting his hands on the steering wheel.

“So it would seem, my young friend,” Doc muttered, as he returned the blaster to its proper owner. “As I have so often said, stupidity is its own reward.”

With a shrug, Ryan passed back the S&W and checked the magazine in his own blaster. Stupid and greedy were pretty much the same thing to him.

“I just hope it’s a dark night,” J.B. growled, pulling out the thick roll of fuse.

“It will be for some,” Ryan replied grimly, holstering the blaster.

By the time the companions found the ruins, night had fallen across the land, and the ringed moon slowly rose above the horizon. The so-called ruins turned out to be only a burned-down warehouse with one of the walls missing. But most of the roof remained, which was good enough to keep out the rain. Parking the
Hercules
alongside the ancient warehouse, Ryan kept guard while the others went into the fields and woods to find as many dry sticks as possible. Then they got busy with the fuse.

Several hours later, a dying campfire was crackling softly in a shallow pit. Six bedrolls lay positioned around the small blaze, the moss-covered walls reflecting back the reddish light, making them appear to be painted in blood. Combats boots lay next to each bedroll, and there came the muted sound of snoring.

A dozen people carrying crossbows silently emerged from the darkness, their faces and hands blackened with charcoal. As soon as the lumpy bedrolls came into view, the attackers raised their crossbows and fired. The barbed arrows hissed through the night and slammed into the patched blankets with dull thuds. There was no reaction.

“Sorry about this, Blackie,” Hohner said with a laugh, walking over to the first bedroll. “Just biz, as
they say.” But yanking aside the covering, he gasped in shock at the sight of a large bundle of twigs, bound tight with fuse.

“Nuking hellfire, it’s an ambush!” Hohner shouted, tossing away the crossbow to claw for his blaster. “Grab iron, boys!”

But only one of the sec men did as he commanded, the rest horribly gurgling as dark fluids gushed from their throats. As the attackers toppled over, a companion was revealed standing behind each one, faces and hands dark with mud, sharp knives dripping with the dark rubies of life.

Snarling a curse, Hohner swung up the Webley handcannon, but Ryan fired first, the built-in baffle of the SIG-Sauer working, reducing the discharge to no more than a hard cough. Groaning, Hohner crumpled over, his blaster shooting randomly, the lead ricocheting off the brick wall and smashing the remnants of a dusty window.

“Don’t shoot! I surrender!” the last sec man yelled, dropping his weapon and raising both hands.

Disgusted at the action, Ryan withheld triggering his blaster, and looked at Jak.

Instantly, Jak jerked his hand forward and let fly a knife. It turned over once, and the handle slammed into the forehead of the sec man. With a throaty sigh, he collapsed to the ground, twitching, but still alive.

“Perimeter sweep,” Ryan commanded. “Mildred, ten yards. Doc at twenty. J.B., do fifty. Go!”

As they disappeared into the darkness, the rest of the companions starting gathering blasters and ammunition from the corpses.

“We really shouldn’t have let this man live,” Krysty said, scowling. “The local baron is going to be triple-mad over this, and he’ll need somebody to punish for his mistake.”

“Surrender, can’t ace,” Jak replied, recovering his knife.

“It would be a mercy.”

“Not my prob,” he said, sheathing the blade. “Cowards get what deserve.”

She shrugged. “Fair enough.”

Using a blanket from one of their bedrolls, the companions had assembled quite a pile of weapons when a whippoorwill sounded in the night. Quickly drawing his blaster, Ryan replied with a call of a seagull, and the other companions emerged like ghosts from the thick shadows alongside the sagging brick wall.

“All clear,” J.B. announced, slinging the Uzi over a shoulder. “We found eight horses, and there are eight of these feebs.”

“Okay, grab the bedrolls and let’s go,” Ryan said, holstering his blaster. “We want to be far away from here when the local baron figures out his nightcreep failed.”

“Indubitably, sir,” Doc said. “Hell hath no fury like a baron scorned.”

Ignoring that, Mildred knocked away the bundle of sticks to gather up an armload of blankets. “What should we do with the wag?” she asked. “Burn it, so they can’t follow?”

“No, just drain the fuel tanks, nothing more,” Ryan growled, hoisting the blanket full of blasters. The clicking bundle sounded like an army preparing for battle.

“We offered Alton ville a fair trade, the wag for
horses and tack,” J.B. added, watching the night for any suspicious movements. “Well, we got what we wanted, so the
Hercules
belongs to them now. Fair deal.”

“Better deflate the tires, too,” Krysty said, slinging a crossbow over her shoulder, then lifting another. “Remember they have juice. Or at least Chief Ralhoun said they did. But pumping up a flat tire is an entirely different matter.”

Following Jak through the gloomy forest, the companions soon reached the horses. They were tethered to some bushes on the outskirts of the ruins, near what resembled the congealed remains of a melted aircraft. The weapons were stuffed into the saddlebags, then everybody chose a mount. The spare two horses were left behind to nibble on the low grass, as the companions walked their new horses over to the
Hercules
and finished transferring their meager supplies.

While J.B. drained the fuel, Doc and Jak let the air out of every tire. Both men secretly wanted to slash the tires to make any chance of pursuit absolutely impossible, but a deal was a deal. Mildred liked to say that honor was a binary state, either yes or no. There were no gray areas.

“Okay, we rendezvous in an hour, five miles due north,” Ryan said, climbing into the saddle of his roan stallion. The horse nickered softly from the unaccustomed weight, and he reached out to gently scratch the animal behind the ear. It snorted at the unexpected pleasure, then shivered slightly, flexed its muscles and accepted the new rider.

Heading out in different directions, the companions did what they could to confuse any trackers—riding
around in overlapping circles, doubling back over their own tracks and crossing streams. Riding a young gelding, Doc even sprinkled some of his precious black powder on the ground to deter any dogs, and Mildred did the same with a small amount of black pepper. She was very pleased with her choice, an Appaloosa mare that was clearly bridle-wise, and promptly responded to her every command.

“Okay, I’m not Clayton Moore, but Silver will do for a name, eh, girl?” Mildred whispered, gently patting the muscular neck.

Catching only the last part, Girl responded with a friendly nicker, her fear of the new master starting to fade at the easy tones, and the lack of spurs.

B
ACK IN THE RUINS
, the little campfire dwindled away completely, and as darkness fell, creatures eased from the shadows to feast upon the corpses. The lone Alton ville sec man still alive came rudely awake with something sniffing at his face.

With a scream, he tried to bat it away, while also going for a blaster. Terrible pain filled his universe for a very short time, until it abruptly ended with the brutal crunching of his skull. Silence returned to the ruins, followed by the juicy gnawing of fresh meat, and low contented purring.

I
N THE DISTANCE
, Ryan could see riders coming his way, and he pulled out the Navy telescope. But the shadows were too thick for him to make a positive identification. Tucking away the device, he loosened the panga on his
belt and thumbed back the hammer on his blaster to save a half second of reaction time. Just in case of trouble.

He didn’t relax as Krysty came into focus, her animated hair endlessly moving, the red filaments seeming oddly black in the silvery moonlight.

Reining in her mount, she stopped a few yards away, one arm draped across the pommel of her saddle. “Hey, Adam,” she called out in a monotone.

At that, Ryan allowed himself a half smile. The use of a name starting with that letter was her way of asking if he was bait in an ambush.

“The name is Charlie,” Ryan replied, telling her the area was clear.

“Glad to hear it, lover.” Krysty grinned, rode closer and leaned forward.

Thumbing the hammer back down, Ryan briefly kissed the woman. Then they both turned in the saddle, their blasters out and ready as three more riders approached, the beat of the hooves masked by the nearby turbulent river.

“Hey, Arnold,” Mildred said, scratching her belly, her fingers only inches away from the deadly Czech ZKR.

“Yo, Adam,” J.B. added, the Uzi openly held in his fist.

“Salutations, Abraham!” Doc hailed with a grin, giving a crisp salute.

The proper exchanges were made, and everybody eased their stance some when Jak suddenly rode into sight from around a copse of maple trees. He was bent low in the saddle, the Colt in his fist, his horse racing at a full gallop.

“Hey, Daniel!” Jak bellowed, continuing past the others without slowing.

Muttering curses, the companions kicked their horses into fast action just as the first howl was heard, the noise eerily cutting through the rumble of the river.

“Any riders, or just dogs?” Ryan demanded, loosening his grip to let the horse have free rein.

“Just dogs!” Jak replied, his long hair streaming in the wind. “But huge. Pit bulls!”

“Any wags or bikes?” Krysty asked urgently,

Jak gave a hard laugh. “No need!”

Fireblast, the bastard dogs were that large? Weighing their limited options, Ryan made a fast decision. “Fuck it, we ace them here!” he snarled, reining in the horse and turning.

“In open country, my dear boy?” Doc demanded askance, his S&W .38 at the ready. “We should retreat to the ruins, or engage the beasts among the foothills, funnel their attack and take them out individually, one at a time!”

“But if they’re as big as Jak says,” Krysty added, drawing the Colt .38 revolver, “we’d be wise not to let them get that close!”

“And here they come,” J.B. added, working the arming bolt on the Uzi rapidfire.

Moving fast, a pack of pit bulls was streaking across the field. The dogs were enormous, easily three or four times the expected size.

Ryan grunted at the sight. Clearly, there was a little mutie blood in the dogs, which also explained their protruding fangs.

“Sabertooth pit bulls,” Mildred whispered, feeling
her heart flutter at the sight. “Why didn’t the baron simply send out those instead of risking sec men?”

“Were there any sec women in the group sent after us?” Krysty asked with a grimace, her hair coiling tightly.

“Not that I recall…oh,” Mildred said, her expression turning nasty. So it had been a ride-and-raid party, eh? Now she was sorry that they had let one of the sons of bitches live. Her father had been a Baptist minister, a truly gentle soul of the Lord, but even he believed that the only proper way to handle any sexual predator was a firmly knotted rope and a short drop off a tall tree branch.

“Dark night, I wish those sec men had carried more ammo,” J.B. said, hefting the Uzi, its weight telling him exactly how many rounds there were in the magazine. “A couple of spare nines would come in mighty useful right about now. I’ll have to start conserving ammo. Had to share with Ryan.”

Dourly, he cast a fast glance at the longblaster in the gun boot of his saddle. It was a Remington 30.08 boltaction, perfect for this type of a fight, but until it was checked, it was a last-ditch weapon only. More than once when entering an ambush he had jammed the barrel of a spare blaster into the dirt to block the barrel, just in case it was taken away and somebody tried to use it against him. The back blast destroyed the weapon, but also took off the arm of the cannie, and let him escape alive. J.B. considered that a more than equitable trade. A blaster for his life.

“Woulda, shoulda, coulda,” Mildred muttered. “Want me to find a cow?”

J.B. grinned. “No time, babe, but thanks for the offer.”

“Here, take spare,” Jak said, pulling a blaster from inside his jacket and tossing it over.

Catching the weapon, J.B. saw it was Hohner’s Webley. Excellent! Letting the Uzi hang by its strap, he cracked open the top-break revolver to check the brass in the cylinder, then snapped it closed again with a jerk of his wrist.

“Look at them move. These are trained hunters, sec dogs!” Ryan said, pressing the SIG-Sauer flat against the saddle where it couldn’t be seen. “Quick, everybody hide your blasters!”

“What for?” Jak asked through clenched teeth, stuffing the Colt into a pocket of his leather jacket.

“These dogs will be trained to avoid blasterfire,” J.B. answered, swinging the Uzi behind his back. “But they won’t do anything until we show iron. Understand?”

“Softly, softly, catchee monkey,” Doc muttered, his hand jammed inside a saddlebag.

“Translation, don’t shoot until you can see the whites of their eyes!” Mildred growled for the rest of the companions, who most likely had never read anything by Rudyard Kipling.

Moving low and fast, the monstrous dogs hurtled across the ground. Their clawed paws churned the dark earth, leaving behind a contrail of dirt, dust and dandelions. None of them barked or howled. They came on like machines.

“Horses not scared, must see a lot,” Jak said smoothly.

Fingering her blaster, Krysty snorted. “Just not from this side of the fight.”

“Easy now. Once we fire, they’ll separate, each one attacking individually,” Ryan said in a deceptively calm voice. “They’ll be triple-hard to ace then, so we gotta chill all of them in a single volley. We go on my command.”

“Aim for the mouth in case the half-breeds are armored like a hellhound,” J.B. added, “and don’t stop shooting until you’re damn sure they’re aced.”

“Then shoot again,” Jak said, his muscles tightening.

Suddenly, the panting of the pit bulls could be heard over the river, the padding of their paws sounding like impatient fingers drumming on a table.

“And…now,” Ryan whispered, whipping out the SIG-Sauer.

In ragged unison, the companions swung around their blasters and cut loose with a thundering fusillade. The hail of soft lead rounds hammered the monstrous dogs, breaking their charge and sending several of them to the ground. Gushing scarlet, the bullet-riddled animals shuddered into death. But the rest kept coming, veering sharply away from one another to converge upon the companions from different directions.

Pulling around his empty Steyr, Ryan dropped the longblaster and vehemently cursed. Instantly, the largest pit bull charged, obviously thinking he was now unarmed and vulnerable. As it got close, he brought up the SIG-Sauer again, and shot the thing twice in the open mouth. Jerking backward as if it had swallowed a wasp, the pit bull mouthed broken teeth, and Ryan put another round into its side. Whimpering in pain, the wounded dog turned to limp away, and he ruthlessly fired once
more, directly in its rear. With a yip, the pit bull froze, then fell sideways, gushing life from both ends.