James Axler - Shadow Fortress

A great and terrible calm flowed over the officer as he realized this failure meant the death of his wife and child. Then his temples pounded with the knowledge that if they had to die, then so would the accursed Ryan and his crew!

“Prepare every Firebird we have,” Glassman stated, feeling oddly detached from the world, as if he were watching this happen to somebody else. “We’ll blow them out of the bastard sky and feed the fish their bones. Now move these wags!”

“Aye, aye, sir,” the navvy replied hesitantly, and commenced readying the entire pod of deadly missiles.

“Time to die, traitor,” Mitchum said, baring his teeth in a feral snarl as he began racing down the cracked length of predark asphalt.

A cool breeze wafted from the wine-dark sea over the aerial craft, the ropes creaking as its speed remained constant.

The balloon, now called Pegasus, as Mildred finally decided to name the craft, had leveled off at four hundred feet and sailed effortlessly along with the thick jungle spread over the landscape below like a lush green carpet. Here and there a craggy rise of bare rocks broke the cover, and to the west was the shiny flat expanse of the nameless lake, edged by the quagmire full of muties.

The churning ribbon of blue cut a path through the trees, and as the Pegasus sailed above the river, it abruptly descended to merely two hundred feet, and angled away from the winds to unexpectedly begin to follow the rushing waters. Disturbed by this, Ryan started to cut away another weighted bag, but Mildred stopped him.

“Not necessary,” she explained. “The cool air above the river forms a low-pressure zone that makes us drop a little. Nothing to be concerned about. Once we reach the sea, the Pegasus will go right back up and catch the high winds again.”

“Hope so,” Ryan replied curtly, holding on to the support ropes. “Because Cascade is built on a waterfall, this river could feed that.”

“Heading in the right direction,” J.B. added, checking his compass.

“Better do a recce,” Krysty suggested, trying to listen for any hints of men or machines. But the endless rustle of the leaves masked sounds coming from the ground.

“No prob,” the Armorer said, reaching into his shoulder bag to extract a short, fat, brass can.

Sliding the antique telescope to its full length, he swept the landscape. The storm clouds were thin in the sky, admitting a wealth of silvery moonlight, the jungle turning black in the reflected illumination. No birds were in flight, no campfires visible. Other than the burning wreckage they had left behind, the entire valley was peaceful.

Then tiny jots of yellow flickered into existence to the south. Following the river, J.B. adjusted the length of the telescope and brought into focus the outline of a predark bridge with a small ville built on top. The shore at one end was sealed off with some form of bamboo wall, tiny figures moving along the top. Beyond the bridge was more forest, partly masked by great clouds of mist.

“There’s a ville dead ahead,” he reported, struggling to hold the telescope steady against the rhythmic rocking of the rope basket. “Seems to be a waterfall just beyond. Must be Cascade.”

“How picturesque,” Doc rumbled in amusement. “A city on a waterfall.”

Mildred added, “Pretty slick if they know anything about building waterwheels.”

“Fireblast,” Ryan cursed, throwing his weight to the left to try to stop the rope basket from turning. The trick worked and the craft settled. “No wonder there are so many bastard wags in the area. Cascade was only a few miles away from the crashed plane. We were right on top of the baron’s troops.”

“Yeah, but do they know we’re coming?” Dean asked urgently, drawing his bowie knife and holding the blade to a plastic rope.

“Don’t think so,” J.B. answered slowly. As the Pegasus moved steadily toward the ville, more details were coming into focus, but the balloon was making him queasy with its crazy motions. His guts felt watery and cold.

“There are—” he swallowed hard and tried again “—there are some sec men moving along a defensive wall. But they’re smoking cigs, and one guy is taking a leak in the river.”

He lowered the brass scope and compacted it down in size. “The ville is way too quiet. I’d say they have no idea we’re coming.”

“Good,” Ryan said, drawing the SIG-Sauer. “Mebbe we can sail by and they never know it.”

“We’re going to be dangerously low as we pass,” Krysty reminded him, easing out the clip of the H&K blaster and counting the rounds she had remaining before sliding it back into the grip. “Mebbe we should drop another bag.”

“Only six left,” Mildred warned. “Best we save them for emergencies.”

As the ville swelled closer, J.B. tucked away the telescope. Now they could see the lit windows of brick houses, cooking fires scattered about on the ground and sputtering torches moving along the concrete streets. They heard the sounds of drunken singing and the crack of a whip followed by yowls of pain.

“Backpacks on the flooring,” Ryan ordered, sliding his off and stepping onto the canvas bag. The companions copied his action, but withheld shooting at the small figures of the sec men, knowing they were out of range.

In graceful majesty, the Pegasus silently floated over the wall of the ville, and a sec man screamed loud enough to be heard by the companions.

Calmly, they watched as the guards frantically dashed about waving their arms, and several dived into the river to escape from the horrifying sky machine. Then a cannon roared, throwing a smoke ring across the ville square, and a bonfire grew bright and strong to cast harsh light across the ville as a bell began to ring in strident urgency.

“Get ready,” Ryan said, tucking away the SIG-Sauer and drawing his H&K blaster. If silence was no longer important, he’d rather use the autofire. The sound suppressor on the SIG-Sauer cut down muzzle-blast, and he might need those few extra foot-pounds of pressure to accurately hit a target two hundred feet away.

Suddenly, a flight of arrows shot up from the ville to arc across the dark sky and impotently fell away, completely unable to reach the balloon.

“Thank God. These people have never heard of the longbow,” Doc muttered, one hand holding his H&K, the other resting on the checkered grip of the LeMat snug in its holster.

Directly above the settlement, they could see gardens planted on every rooftop, and a row of corpses hanging from nooses thrown over the side of the wall. Then a gasoline engine sputtered softly into action, and an electric light stabbed onto the shoreline, then angled upward to sweep across the sky.

Before the beam reached them, Ryan worked the bolt on the Steyr SSG-70 and fired a shot. The searchlight shattered into darkness, and a wild barrage of assorted blasters banged away from every roof in the bridgetop ville, the miniballs humming past the Pegasus by the dozens.

The companions returned the fire, and sec men fell from the walls. But more took their place, and tiny puffs of smoke from the ville announced further incoming rounds. Then a backpack on the floor jerked from an impossible hit.

“Fuck that,” Ryan growled, and pumped half a dozen rounds at the guards. Two dropped their blasters, clutching red bellies, another grabbed a limp arm and a fourth toppled over the bamboo wall falling onto the hard city streets.

Without warning, the Pegasus was past the wall and over the river once more, the dim lights of the ville fading into the distance. As the companions checked the vessel for damage, the balloon built speed, heading down the waterway straight toward the thundering falls only a hundred feet distant. A huge cloud of mist rose from the torrent flowing over the jagged cliff, effectively hiding whatever was beyond.