Michael Spradlin - Blood Riders

For the first time since Pinkerton had shown up and gotten him out of prison, he started thinking that maybe, just maybe, this Malachi could be beaten.

One way or the other, they were going to find out.

There were a few Archaics wounded but still alive lying outside the train. Chee volunteered to dispatch the remaining creatures. He took Dog and a Henry with wooden bullets and returned to the train about thirty minutes later, the same impassive expression still painted on his face.

Hollister felt nearly euphoric. It was a common condition among soldiers who experienced combat. He and those under his command had survived. Not only that, but they had inflicted heavy casualties on their enemy.

And with Monkey Pete’s new device and the Ass-Kicker, he had a plan. It would take a little more of Monkey Pete’s genius and it would require a lot of luck. But it just might turn the tide.

It was early morning, and none of them had slept. They sat in the main car at the table, with the littered remains of Monkey Pete’s pancakes and coffee. Hollister was busy making sketches on sheets of paper.

The train Pinkerton had outfitted was full of machines, machine parts, and tools and loaded down with weapons. Monkey Pete had attached Gatling guns and hoses that shot holy water, and he’d extended the range and power of the train through his modifications of the engine in ways Jonas would never understand. The train gave them a huge tactical advantage. The problem was, there was no way to get the train to the Clady mine. The grade was too steep. Not to mention the lack of tracks.

Hollister had thought about it for a while and decided that the best thing to do was to send part of the train to the mine.

“Shaniah, can Demeter pull a wagon?” Hollister asked.

“Yes, why?” she answered.

“Pete, you don’t happen to have a small wagon on board the train, do you?” Hollister was crossing his fingers here.

“No, sir, I don’t reckon…” he started to say, and Hollister’s heart sank. But then he noticed Pete was getting that dreamy look in his eyes.

Pete smacked the table with his hand. “I ain’t got ‘wheels’ like wagon wheels or anything like that, but I got two extra flywheels in my supply car. Carry ’em as spares in case somethin’ goes wrong with the engine. I could rig those into a cart pretty easy.”

Hollister wanted to kiss the little guy.

“What is your plan, sir?” Chee asked. He was always so quiet, even when Hollister could tell he had strong opinions about something. When this was over. If they survived, he was going to have to work on getting Chee to loosen up a little bit.

“When the Archaics attacked us last night, and when they stormed the train in Absolution, I think it showed this train is our best tactical asset. They cut down or pushed over a few trees and they’ve got us boxed in here, but we still fought them off. Almost two hundred of them,” he said.

He held up his sketch to show the others. Chee and Shaniah couldn’t tell exactly what it was, but Pete got it right away.

“So if we can’t get them to the train…” Hollister said.

“You’re going to take the train to them!” Pete said, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice.

Malachi was stunned, though he showed no outward signs of it to his people. Only seven of his followers had staggered back into the camp. They were injured, mostly burned, but healing quickly. The rest had died. How was this possible? How had Shaniah managed to kill nearly two hundred Archaics?

Jonathan and Lucas were both dead, he was told. Before him stood an Archaic who had once been a Blackfoot Indian. He had been turned when Malachi and a few of the others had stumbled across their hunting camp the previous winter. His Blackfoot name had been Walking Cat. He looked as though he had been in a fight.

Most of his chest and face had been burned. Two small wooden stakes stuck out of his right shoulder. Malachi removed one of them to study it. It was made from a hardwood, likely oak, and sharpened to a deadly point. Walking Cat’s left arm hung loosely at his side, although it was already beginning to heal. The flesh on his burned face and chest was returning to normal, and a few seconds later the other wooden stake popped loose from his shoulder and fell to the ground.

“Tell me what happened,” Malachi said.

“We went for the train, as you instructed. It was stopped at the end of the spur, as you said it would be,” he said. Malachi’s followers had learned that he loved to be flattered by being told he was or had been right about things.

“We pushed trees onto to the track behind them, big trees, ones humans could not move or lift, so they could not escape. We were lining up, readying ourselves to attack when…”

The young Indian stopped. Though he had not been turned long, he should be fearless, Malachi thought. Archaics were afraid of nothing. Yet this man was afraid. As if he was reliving something horrible and could not bear to think of it.

“Go on, tell me,” Malachi prodded.

“They opened the doors of the train and… they…” Walking Cat stammered. Malachi was growing impatient. Wanting to snap the man’s neck if he didn’t start talking.

“They did what?” Malachi demanded, his voice taking on an angry tone and rising in pitch. The other Archaics were watching now, they were spellbound by Walking Cat’s story, but they also grew restless and nervous at the thought of Malachi’s anger.

“Fire came from inside the train. Before he died, Jonathan said two of the humans were the same ones from Absolution. They had weapons that shot flame, a great distance. I… we caught fire. Another human shot a gun,” he stopped and picked up the wooden bullet that lay in the dust at his feet. “The gun, I have seen them before, when I fought the bluecoats. It shoots many bullets, and between this gun and the fire, we… many of us died. We kept attacking, but we could not get inside the train for some reason. It was like the doors were blocked somehow. No matter how many times we tried, no matter which direction we attacked from, we could not enter the train.” Walking Cat bowed his head and his shoulders slumped when he finished his report.

“Where are the others? Those who came back with Walking Cat? Step forward,” Malachi said.

Six Archaics made their way toward him, reluctant looks on their faces. The crowd parted until the seven of them stood in line facing Malachi. Most of them bore similar injuries to Walking Cat, burns and cuts and broken bones, but they were also starting to heal. None of them faced Malachi, they were afraid and disappointed they had let him down, and stood there with their heads hanging low

“Tell me,” he said to them. “Is what Walking Cat has told us true?” He spoke loudly so all of the remaining Archaics could hear him.

All of them mumbled yes or nodded their heads, still unwilling to face their leader.

“As Archaics, you were ordered to attack Shaniah, to find her and kill her and you did not. You returned here like whipped dogs with tales of weapons and fire and human tricks, instead of stories of a great victory! Is this not true?”

The seven of them stood motionless. There was nothing to say, they had no defense. Their leader had given them a command and they had failed.

Malachi moved so quickly, the seven Archaics were dead almost before anyone could blink. From somewhere in the folds of his cloak he pulled a long gleaming knife and with the speed of an Olympian god he decapitated all of them in seconds. Where there had been standing, living beings, there were now only bodies and heads, and their screams died before their heads hit the ground, their faces still showing the death grimace of surprise.