Robert Adams - Bili the Axe

Judging by its frequent forcible ejections of fumes and searing jets of gases, Braun and Corbett agreed that the Hoofprint was a large vent for the indescribable pressures beneath the hold and that were that vent to be plugged in some way, enough of an eruption might be triggered to cover any traces of their looting of the hold caverns after they had gassed most of the folk to sleep and slain the rest.

So it was decided, and, riding widely and seemingly aimlessly, Braun and Corbett emplaced their gas bombs, all set to be triggered by a single radio signal. Broomtown snipers were signaled to infiltrate closely enough to pick off the women manning the watchtowers and the single entry tunnel. When Erica felt the time was ripe, she coolly poisoned her hostesses, then she and the other two agents donned their masks, set off the gas bombs and radioed the snipers to begin their deadly task.

While the troopers and packers, all masked against the gas, bore manload after manload of the ancient artifacts and metals up from the labyrinthine caverns, across the central valley and through the tunnel to be loaded onto the pack animals waiting in the chill, clear air beyond, Dr. Braun, Major Corbett and a few selected Broomtown men fashioned an explosive device and positioned it on a ledge just below the lip of the Sacred Hoofprint, its timer set to give them all enough of a lead to be well away when its explosion sealed the vent.

Those few men and women of the hold who were not fully overcome by the gas were coldly shot, that there might be no living witnesses to the rape of the hold. When the last loads and last men were clear of the entry tunnel, it too was sealed by explosives. Then the agents, troopers and pack train began the long journey back south to Broomtown.

But, as Fate would have it, the agents and their Broomtowners had truly been hoisted by their own petard. The eruption, when at length it came, had affected far more than the area of the Hold of the Moon Maidens. The eruption had spawned and been preceded by terrific earthquakes, and one of the most intense of these had shaken down a plateau at the very time that the bulk of the pack train was passing down the section of trail that skirted it. Now, the corpses of the Broomtowners, their animals and the precious loads they had borne lay buried beneath the resultant rockslides.

None of the three agents had been killed, although Dr. Braun had suffered a badly broken leg when his big mule fell and pinned him against the rocky ground. Then, however, had come the actual eruption with rains of cinders and ash and white-hot rocks which had fired square miles of mountain forests and brush. But under the leadership of Jay Corbett and Erica, the survivors of the rockslides had survived the fiery holocaust, as well.

Because the large, long-range transceiver and almost all of their supplies lay buried with the rest of their original party under tons of rock, they had had no option but to press on southward as rapidly as possible, once Erica had used her surgical skills on Dr. Harry Braun.

During their first day’s march, another Broomtown noncom and a few troopers rejoined them after having been separated from the main column in the aftermath of the quakes and the fires. They brought with them a bound prisoner—a shaggy, unkempt and very filthy man who averred himself to be a “Ganik,” a term unfamiliar to any of the agents or the troopers.

Thorough questioning after drug injections had established that these Ganiks were a most unprepossessing race and were better avoided, being aggressive, vicious in the extreme and numerous in this part of the mountains. Among their common, everyday practices were the savage torture of prisoners, incest of every variety, bestiality and cannibalism.

Because of the danger of running into a large group of these barbarians, Corbett moved due west, into the mountains, then angled south, marching by compass bearing. In order to effect this, Braun had to be removed from his horse litter and strapped into the saddle of a riding mule. He was injected with drugs at regular intervals to prevent the pain from driving him into shock. He began to hallucinate that Erica was deliberately, sadistically torturing him, and nothing could then or later convince him of the baselessness of this charge.

Despite Corbett’s painstaking precautions, the presence of his party was detected by a large group of the Ganiks, who trailed them for days, made one abortive dawn attack against the camp, picked off several troopers along the route of the march and, finally, confronted the reduced column—several hundred strong, though very ill armed—at one of the rare open areas, where the track crossed a small valley.

Having expected just such a confrontation, Corbett had already split his command, giving Sergeant Gumpner one full squad and the responsibility for Erica, Braun and all of the other wounded.

Therefore, the full column formed a wedge and charged the strung-out mob of Ganiks, commencing a deadly fire at twenty-five yards, then continuing at full gallop up the farther slope to the high, narrow, rock-walled defile that split the mountain. Here they divided, with Gumpner’s people speeding on southward, while Corbett and the larger group prepared to hold back pursuit as long as possible.

The narrowness of the pass forced Gumpner’s group to string out in ones and twos, soon to be separated by the twists and turns and the difficult, rock-strewn footing. Erica found herself behind Braun. When she caught up to him, he begged her to check his girths, saying he feared that they were loosening. Against her better judgment, she had dismounted and done so, only to find them both tight and secure. But when she looked up to tell him so, it was to see a face twisted in hate, a wild look in his bloodshot eyes and the gaping black muzzle of his big pistol.

After raving for a few moments, he tried to shoot her but failed, so he kicked her viciously with his good leg, then slammed the heavy steel weapon down on the back of her unprotected head and rode on southward, even as she crumpled to the rocky ground.

She had been found by a brace of Ganiks, her rifle still slung diagonally across her back, and possession of it along with the fact that her female body was young and attractive had saved her from the stewpots. The leader of that small group of Ganiks had taken her for his own, raping her whenever the mood struck him and also making her available to his lieutenants, these latter called “bullies” in the Ganik “bunches.”

For many days, Erica’s mind was confused; except for her name and title, her memory was a blank. Then another, less forceful buffet by the Ganik leader brought all of her memories back in a rush at almost the same time that her principal rapist managed to kill himself through mishandling her rifle.

Securing the rifle and a supply of loaded magazines for it, she shot the cruel, slatternly Ganik woman who had been her jailer, then proceeded to shoot each of the bullies who had accepted the leader’s offer to abuse her, being aided and abetted by the only two bullies who had not raped her—a pair of incestuously homosexual brothers, Abner and Leeroy. After the executions, oddly enough, the remaining Ganiks of the bunch had freely accepted her as the new leader and the brothers had aided her in selecting new bullies to enforce her dictates.

Shortly after this, the new paramount leader of all the Ganik bunches had ridden in with his bullies and the man he had chosen to be their new leader. Erica had shot three of the newcomers dead and coldly offered the same to any others who tried to displace her from her new status. The surviving bullies of the dead paramount leader had conferred amongst themselves and elected Erica to replace him, so she and the rest of the small bunch had ridden back to the camp of the main bunch.