James Axler - Bloodfire

On the other hand, it would make tracking the outlanders a lot easier. His original idea had been to drive north into New Mex and take over some ville as their new baron. But Allison had vetoed that plan and insisted they go to the south, directly on the trail of Ryan and the others. Actually, this pleased Gaza greatly. As much as he wanted to be a baron again, revenge on the outlanders would be even better. Besides, the man knew it was always wise to follow the advice of the doomie.

Soon enough he would find the outlanders. Gaza only hoped that Allison had the machine gun operational by then. He didn’t want Ryan and the others merely dead; he wanted them torn into pieces too small for even the scorpions to eat. Mutilation, rape and bloody torture would have been better, but there was no time for that. Even as he hunted for the people on horseback, the sec men from his former ville might be hunting after him, as well. And they would want to do to Gaza exactly what he wanted to do to Ryan. However, his wives would never allow that to happen.

As if sensing these thoughts, Allison turned away from the gun port she had been watching and nodded at her husband. Gaza felt his skin crawl slightly at the idea that the mutie could be reading his thoughts, and turned to concentrate on the driving. The removal of their tongues had been done simply to protect his secrets, yet it also made each of his wives oddly loyal to him, as faithful as dogs, and he trusted their judgment implicitly.

Spewing great columns of bluish smoke, the APC angled away from the salt flats and into the rolling dunes seeking shelter from the oncoming daylight. Soon enough Gaza would find the others. Horses had to rest, but the APC could drive nonstop all night long. There was no possible escape for the outlanders from his war wag, the deadly machine gun and his doomie wife.

By tomorrow midnight, they should be dead at his feet, and then he could get back to his plan of seizing another ville to rule and continuing his war against the Trader.

AS THE REST of the companions rushed to her side, Krysty bent to sniff at her hand. There was no odor of any kind, but there could be no other logical reason for the horse’s violent death except poison.

“What in hell happened?” Mildred demanded, approaching the corpse with a drawn blaster. If the physician had learned anything living in the Deathlands, it was to approach every situation as if it was a life-or-death battle. All too often it was.

Ryan covered the animal with his 9 mm SIG-Sauer, while J.B. knelt by the animal and checked its neck. There was no pulse.

“It’s dead,” he stated, standing. “But this doesn’t look like exhaustion, and it’s not hot enough for heat stroke.”

Dean glanced upward. “Screamwing get it?”

Instantly, the other companions raised their blasters and scanned the lightening sky for any movement. Screamwings were tiny flying muties that could send a person on the last train west in a split second with their needle-sharp beaks. Small and fast, screamwings were harder than hell to shoot down and died trying to take its victim with them.

“No, it wasn’t a screamer,” Krysty stated, throwing away her canteen. “I think the water is poisoned.”

“All canteens?” Jak asked frowning deeply, his own blaster resting comfortably in his good hand. The blued steel shone like polished violence in the dim morning glow.

She shook her head. “No, I drank from that before, and so did my horse. It’s the big water bag.”

“Must be incredibly powerful toxins to cause this severe a reaction in so large an animal,” Mildred said in a clinical manner. “My guess would be a neurotoxin of some kind. Heavy metals and such would never work this fast.”

At those words, Krysty froze in the process of wiping her hand dry on her leg. Now the women knelt and scrubbed her palm with the salty sand until the skin was bright pink. Then she spit in her palm and wiped it clean again. Seeing the actions, Doc handed her a spare moist towelette from the opened MRE, and she cleaned both hands thoroughly.

“Calm down, it’s okay,” Mildred said, holstering her piece. “If the chemicals haven’t been absorbed through the pores by now, I’d say you’re safe.”

“Are you sure?” Krysty asked anxiously, her fiery hair relaxing back into gentle waves.

Kneeling by the dead animal, Mildred peeled back an eyelid to examine the pupils. They were fully dilated, but the creature could have glanced at the rising sun before dying. Drawing a knife, she pried open the mouth to inspect the tongue. There was no discoloration or marked lividity. Interesting.

“Am I sure?” she said honestly. “Not without an autopsy. Maybe the horse had heartworms.”

Jak snorted at that. “Dog get, not horse.”

“People, too,” Mildred corrected.

Tucking away his LeMat, Doc bowed his head and muttered something in the preDark language he called Latin that sounded like a poem or a prayer.

Keeping his weapon in hand, Ryan went over to the leather water bag lying in the sand beside the dead animal. “That was the bag we took from the stable,” he said, scowling, nudging the bag with the bulbous tip of the silenced blaster. The fluid inside sloshed about like water, and there were no telltale secondary motions of anything alive inside the sack. It had been a long-shot idea, but it never hurt to check.

“Can’t be the same. I drank from that bag,” Dean started hesitantly, then pointed and said. “No, wait, it was the smaller bag on Doc’s horse.”

“You triple sure?” Ryan asked sternly, squinting his good eye.

“Yeah, Dad, I’m sure.”

“Good. Then that water is clean,” J.B. said gruffly.

“Jak, what about your water?” Ryan demanded.

“Not used mine,” Jak said, patting the heavy bag hanging from the rear of his saddle. “Drank canteen before.”

Grabbing her satchel off the pommel of her mount, Mildred strode to the other horse and removed the bag as if it were a ticking bomb. Pouring some of the water onto the ground, she sniffed, then removed a small swimming-pool testing kit and ran a sample. It wasn’t much, but all that she had and it did give accurate results within a limited spectrum. Filling a plastic tube, Mildred added a few drops of chemicals and the water promptly turned a bright orange, and then went clear.

“Damn, the water neutralized the acid immediately,” she reported, holding the vial to the sunlight. “This is contaminated with a base chemical of some kind. There’s no way to tell for sure, but I would guess it’s scorpion venom.”

Doc raised an imperious eyebrow. “Ridiculous! Venom strong enough to kill a horse, madam?”

“These things like the daylight, instead of the night like a normal scorpion,” she reminded him. “And the ones caged back at Rockpoint were the largest I’ve ever seen. Who knows what other attributes may have mutated since the nukecaust?”

“Egad,” Doc rumbled, worrying the silver lion’s head of his swordstick. There was a sharp click, and the decorative head slid back to reveal several inches of shiny steel hidden inside the stick, then he slammed it back into place with a locking snap. “By the Three Kennedys, this is why those water bags were hanging near the horses!”

“A trap,” Dean said solemnly, scratching at his cheek.

“Makes sense,” Ryan grunted. “A bag of water just hanging there for anybody to take in a town where folks were killed over a thimbleful? It was just bait for horse thieves to take along. Then the locals could simply watch for buzzards in the sky and get their horses back.”

“Along with the blasters and other possessions of the thieves,” Dean added thoughtfully.

“Smart,” Jak drawled in wry acknowledgment, brushing back his snowy white hair.