James Axler - Devil's Vortex

After another look toward the campfires, Hammerhand gave the corpse a quick toss, relieving him of a crumpled-up, greasy wad of local jack and a nice Cold Steel lock-back folding knife. Then he stooped, grabbed and, with a muffled grunt of effort, deadlifted the considerable weight high enough to roll over the wag bed’s wall on the dark side. Then he hunkered down again.

The Buffalo Mob, as they called themselves, had certainly been exercising diligence in securing their wags and their scarcely more valuable own personal asses. Every other wag had a guard in it, constantly casting watching eyes across the surrounding grassland for just this kind of sneak attack. At least theoretically. The chill’s slackness—going so far as to actually smoke on sentry duty, spotlighting him to any sharp-eyed watcher within hundreds of yards and any decent nose downwind—showed how little the Buffalo Mob’s sentries regarded the possibility that any prairie pirates would be bold and skillful enough to try creeping on them and seizing the precious vehicles by stealth.

But bold and skillful were the criteria Hammerhand used to pick his Bloods, even in those rough first days when he, an outcast without a clan and without a reputation, had been struggling to get by with whatever he could scrape together. He had always been picky about who he chose to ride with him—at least as picky as he could afford to be.

Of course, crazy was another trait he selected for. But that kind of fell into the general territory of bold , to his way of thinking.

And of course, those without the proper mix of boldness and skill tended to get winnowed out of the band fast. With mebbe a bit of a push from Hammerhand’s own hands. He hadn’t had to chill any of his own for stepping out of line, past the occasional feeb who turned up thinking he might challenge the big man for the role of boss cock. But before he’d got his size and strength in the middle of his teens, he’d had to rely on his wits to get his ass out of the cracks his rough, rebellious nature and smart mouth got it stuck in. Early on he’d figured out how to talk the overly bold into throwing their own stupe lives away and even how to goad the overly cautious into taking fatal risks.

And when it came to fatal risks, apparently the invading coldheart mob never reckoned on a local gang with the patience to spend ten days shadowing them and scoping out their ways and numbers before making a move.

From his left he heard a strange, soft, gobbling cry. He grinned. Joe Takes-Blasters did a piss-poor impression of a prairie grouse. Not that these tenderfeet would know the difference. Or even notice over their own noise.

The Buffalo Mob ran somewhere north of a hundred strong. Well armed, well mounted and surprisingly well fed, they had in recent weeks made a move into the North Plains west of the Misery River, seeking richer pickings than what was offered by the deeper Deathlands to the east and south, where the land was parched and pocked with deposits of still-lethal rad-dust.

But they weren’t looking to live by hunting the herds of bison that roved the prairie. Life wasn’t easy for those who lived out here—settlers, traders or nomads alike. But by the standards of the day they did pretty well.

Nor did it matter a bent shell casing to Hammerhand what their business was. They were outlanders—interlopers. Meaning they had no family or other allies in the area to concern him. More to the point: they had something he wanted.

Needed.

He slipped over the side of the wag bed, carefully holding the plundered longblaster so that neither it nor the plastic buckles on the sling would clack against the wag. Then, quietly, he opened the cab door and slipped in.

At least the Buffaloes had the sense to park their wags in a counterclockwise nose-to-circle tail, meaning the driver’s-side doors faced inward toward their fires.

A quick check by feel revealed the dangling wire bundle of the ignition. Like most wags left over from skydark these hadn’t come with keys. So the owners had set them up for quick, efficient hot-wiring.

He rolled down the left-hand window and leaned the M16 against the driver’s door with its muzzle brake pointed up. Then he settled in to wait.

He didn’t have to wait long. From the far side of the coldheart camp he heard a sudden shout of alarm cut short by a blaster shot. One or more of his raiding party had been detected. Bad luck, sure, but it was nothing that he, and his plan, hadn’t counted on. They had hoped to get away with every last wheel of the Buffalo Mob’s rolling stock in one stroke. But they were prepared to take what they could.

He quickly fired up the engine, which started right away. At least the Buffalo Mob had competent wrenches and kept their fleet ready to go.

As soon as the engine caught, he picked up the longblaster by the pistol grip, shoved it out the open window with its nylon forestock resting on the sill and triggered a burst.

He aimed deliberately low, so as not to endanger his own people on the other side of the circle. The point wasn’t to hit anybody anyway. It was to panic the coldhearts, to encourage them to keep their heads down while he and his band made their getaway with whatever wags they’d managed to snag.

Firing another short burst into the grass, he gave the pickup some gas, or at least the alcohol fuel the vehicle had been modified to run on. The wag’s deep-cleated tires dug into the grass and the vehicle started to roll. Muzzle flashes flared orange from the camp itself and points along the perimeter of parked wags. One bullet cracked through the planking fixed crudely over the busted-out rear window on Hammerhand’s side, to add a second star to the glass on the passenger side.

“That best not have been one of mine,” he said aloud.

He triggered another burst. “Eat that, you mutie fuckers!” he screamed joyously.

Behind him he was pleased to see several other wags pulling out of the circle behind him. Like him, the Blood drivers were leaving their lights off. They knew the surrounding land well enough not to need them. Or he’d know the reason why.

Laughing aloud in sheer exhilaration, he drove toward the rendezvous spot at reckless speed. Mere unseen obstacles meant nothing.

He had Destiny on his side. And more, he had a Vision.

* * *

A TERRIBLE, RINGING scream ripped Ryan Cawdor awake.

He snapped at once into full consciousness and was already in the act of rolling from his bedroll and reaching for his longblaster, which lay on a drop cloth beside it. Whatever had made that sound wasn’t human.

But it was at least as big. A 9 mm handblaster wasn’t going to be enough to deal with it.

It was their last night on the road to Duganville. Baron Hamar was paying a good amount of jack and supplies in exchange for them delivering a wax-sealed pack of documents to the baron. Both J.B. and his hero-worshipping apprentice, Ricky Morales, had begged to be allowed to winkle the papers out, claiming they could do so without breaking the seal or leaving any sign Baron Dugan or his wiliest sec men could detect. Ryan had told them no. It wouldn’t load any blasters for them that he could see. Whereas if they screwed up—unlikely as he had to admit that was, as skillful, meticulous and sneaky as the two of them were—they could get stiffed of their pay. Or worse. He had no fear they’d use those traits to try it anyway. When his word was freely given, the Armorer kept it. And the kid was too in awe of his mentor—not to mention stone terrified of Ryan—to try to pull anything on his own.

Aware and alert, Ryan rose to one knee. By habit he wrapped the loop of the sling around his left forearm to give added stability to any shooting stance he may need to assume, however rapid and ad hoc. The night was dark and clear, the sky infested with stars. The low, brushy hills they’d chosen to camp among for security, rather than the mostly flat surrounding lands, brooded dark and silent.