James Axler - Bloodfire

Pressing her canteen to a cheek, Krysty savored the coolness trying to ease her thirst without taking a drink. It was too soon to have another sip, and sucking a pebble wasn’t helping much today. “If it is the Trader,” Krysty countered, forcing herself to lower the water container.

“It’s him,” Ryan stated with conviction, stepping onto the hot sand and starting forward at a broad gait. “Nobody else can make so many folks so pissed off at same time.”

The brief rest break over, the companions broke ranks and spread out in a ragged line across the burning sand, the tiny salt crystals crunching underneath their boots. As the day wore on, the weary travelers stopped talking, almost ceased to think, trying to concentrate solely on placing one foot ahead of other, then break the pattern with a pause and shuffle. Sweat ran down their faces, soaking their armpits, their backs roasted dry from the blazing sun. Each tried to ignore the chafing of their backpacks and their growing thirst, savoring a delicious vision of the cool of the Grandee.

The day wore on in mindless drudgery as the companions went up and down sand dunes like driftwood riding the ocean waves. Occasionally, they would walk across black weeds to muffle their steps. Curiously, they were finding more and more local plant life, some real grass mixed in with the weeds, and a few real cacti dotting the barren landscape. While the rest kept him covered, Doc prodded the first cactus with his sword to make sure it was only a plant, and when nothing happened, the man happily cut off chunks. Badly dehydrated, the people greedily sucked the spongy pulp for every drop of sweet moisture, then very carefully placed the rinds on sloping dunes to roll far away and hide in which direction they were going. The dry wind was efficiently filling their footsteps, and even Jak wasn’t sure that he could have followed anybody into the heart of the desolate land.

Refreshed from the cactus juice, the companions kept moving. The heat of the sun seeped into their bones and made their blasters almost too hot to touch with bare hands, so socks were wrapped around the grips for protection. Then Dean had to unlock his crossbow out of fear the string would break. On they moved, like cyborgs on a programmed task, heedless of anything around them, seeing only the ground before their feet.

Less than a mile later, Ryan whistled softly as he found some more cacti. But the welcome sight turned bitter when it was discovered the plant was really a Drinker, the bones of its victims lying in plain sight.

Traveling up a gentle slope, the companions took a short break and allowed themselves a single capful of warm water.

“And take some salt,” Ryan directed, grimacing at the thought.

Opening a few MRE packs, they shared the little envelopes of iodized powder. It was unpleasant, but vitally necessary. Their clothing was becoming stiff from the salt they lost by sweating so much. If it wasn’t replaced, soon they would get weak, then sleepy and eventually die. Water was all a person wanted in the desert, but salt helped keep a person alive.

Pulling out his minisextant, J.B. took a reading on the sun.

“Nowhere,” he announced, returning the minisextant under his stiff shirt, salt residue marking a white band across the material. “We’re in the middle of nowhere and heading for abso-fragging-lutely nothing.”

“I could have told that,” Jak muttered, brushing his snowy hair forward to help shade his pale face from the painful sunlight.

As they stood on the crested ridge, ahead of them stretched an impossibly flat land utterly devoid of any features whatsoever. Not even a rock or a tumbleweed was in sight. Yet thick tufts of weeds and some sort of bracken lay thick along the very top of the break, almost as if marking the line of transition between the desert and the flatlands.

“E. A. Abbott, beware,” Doc muttered in wry humor.

“Yeah,” Mildred said, thoughtfully chewing the inside of her cheek. She recognized the reference to the 1886 fantasy novel about two-dimensional creatures discovering the 3-D world. “But this is almost too flat. Seems artificial somehow.”

“Rad counter reads clean,” Ryan said, aiming the lapel pin about in a slow arc for a full scan.

Pulling a compass out of his jacket, J.B. tapped the device with a fingertip. “No mag fields, either.”

“Salt-fall,” Jak said simply, as if that explained everything.

“Makes sense,” Krysty agreed. When the nukes were coming down everywhere during skydark, quite a few of the bombs and missiles missed their coastal targets and hit in the ocean. The thermonuclear detonations created boiling tidal waves that washed inland for miles, forming flat, featureless vistas very similar to this. Yes, that seemed reasonable. This was merely a carpet of dried salt covering the desert underneath.

Stepping down from the embankment, Mildred tested her weight on the salt, then jumped a few times. Unlike the desert sand, this material neither yielded nor cracked in any way.

“Solid as rock,” Ryan declared. “Just stay razor, and go around any domes.” Often when a salt-fall hit, there were pockets of air trapped underneath, forming low domes that would crack apart when walked upon and send a person falling for yards. Ryan never heard of anybody getting aced by a salt dome, but there was always a first time. Besides, sometimes the domes were inhabited. Mebbe that was where the Core lived, in a big dome somewhere.

“In plain sight miles,” Jak complained sullenly, flexing his hand. A blade slipped from his sleeve at the gesture, and he absentmindedly tucked it away again. “Not like that.”

“But we’ll make better time,” Krysty countered.

“Besides that,” Dean added, “if we’re in view, then anybody coming after us is, too.”

Smearing a dab of axle grease from the satchel on her chapped lips, Mildred watched as Doc winced, flexing his shoulders. Jak took his bad arm out of the sling and flexed it a few times to help the circulation and keep the limb from going stiff.

“How’s the back?” she asked, tucking away the tube of grease.

“Itches like the dickens,” Doc said, gently making a fist.

“Good. That means it’s healing.”

Furrowing his brow, Doc merely grunted in reply. Pain was part of life. When it stopped, they buried you.

Climbing down the embankment, the companions started across the flatland and found the walking much less tiring with a hard surface underfoot. As their speed increased, spirits rose. The sun was past azimuth now and the day was ebbing. Soon it would begin to get cool, and they were making good time. Even if the Core knew where they were now, it would be impossible for them to strike from below through the hard plain.

Everywhere around the companions the ground sparkled with hidden diamonds, salt crystals sometimes as large as a fist. Dean found some rusted bits of unidentifiable metal embedded in the hard ground. At a distance Mildred spotted a half-buried car tire arching up like a crochet hoop, then J.B. tripped and fell to the sound of shattering glass. Getting off the ground, the Armorer knelt again to see what he had broken.

“Nuke me, it’s plastic,” he said, running a hand across the satiny smooth material. “With neon lights lining the edge. I must have stepped on an intact bulb. I’d say it was some kind of a big electric sign.”

“Could be an entire building buried under this,” Krysty said in amazement.

“If it happened fast enough, then most of the place would be in good condition,” Mildred said excitedly. Salt was a good preservative. One of the best. “Machinery, clothing, and all we have to do is dig.”

“Yeah, for about a month, with our bare hands in sunlight hot enough to ignite ammo,” Dean said scowling, hitching the heavy crossbow on his back. “No, thanks.”