Chapter Three

With the attacker silhouetted in front of him, Ryan stepped to the right and brought up the panga. If possible, he wanted to keep quiet and not draw the attention of the Slagger coldhearts down the incline.

The man landed short of Ryan, coming down hard. His clothes were reduced to rags, strips of material that fluttered around him, caked with filth. If the man hadn't been standing downwind before the attack, Ryan felt certain he would have smelled him before he was able to get close enough.

Rad burns scarred the ghoulie's face and arms, marring the bald scalp with purple blisters of proud flesh. Long black hairs jutted from pustular pockets on his head, and pus wept freely from the affected pores. Broken black teeth filled the rictus of his grin. Still, he was strong enough to swing the homemade club in his hands. A half moon of sharpened metal gleamed at the end of it, turning the weapon into an ax.

Dodging back, Ryan barely avoided the vicious swipe that streaked for his head. Instinctively he raised the 9 mm blaster. He didn't want to fire it unless he had to. The detonation would draw the coldhearts from down in the basin. He hoped the intimidation of the blaster would be enough to turn the ghoulie back.

The ghoulie made gibbering noises and tugged on the club. The half moon of metal had gotten stuck in a mound of earth to the side. Yellow, phlegmy spittle ran from the corner of his warped mouth. With another frantic tug, the club ripped free of the earth. The ghoulie didn't hesitate about carrying on the attack.

"Fireblast!" Ryan swore. He gave ground again, avoiding another hasty swing. While his attacker drew the club back again, he switched hands with his weapons, gripping the panga in his right fist.

The ghoulie growled menacingly and swung again, advancing a step as he did so.

Ryan held his position and stepped inside the club's arc with practiced movements. A man handling a long weapon had to be prepared for his target to attempt to move inside. The ghoulie wasn't.

Blocking the club with his right arm, cursing the fact that he wasn't in a position to use the panga without risking his own safety, Ryan slapped the barrel of the blaster across the ghoulie's temple.

The creature yowled in pained protest as a bloody tear opened up along his temple. Crimson ran freely down the side of his face.

Expecting the ghoulie to be dazed from the blow, Ryan released his hold on the club and lifted the panga for a straight thrust at the creature's throat. Instead, the ghoulie swung the bottom of the club into the one-eyed man's face.

Staggered, Ryan dropped and rolled back, slipping beneath the ghoulie's follow-up stroke. He came up on his knees, ready to dig his boots into the ground and drive himself back to his feet.

Two other ghoulies landed to the right of the first. One of them carried a pitchfork with a broken center tine, and the other held a scythe sporting a ragged edge. The first ghoulie gestured toward them. They fanned out, moving in tandem to quickly circle Ryan.

The movements showed discipline and practice. Ryan had no doubts that they'd used the strategy successfully against past victims. It was possible that the activity of the Slagger coldhearts drew a crowd, or at least bottled up the trade routes for a time. Then the ghoulies could choose their quarry and escape. Ryan thought they probably lived in the area, existing off whatever they could steal or take from the ville's usual inhabitants. And a ghoulie's favorite meal was meat from a decaying corpse, one they had killed themselves and put away until it reached the proper degree of ripeness.

The fact that the first one hadn't feared the blaster convinced Ryan that they'd had little encounter with them. He chose to rectify that.

Ryan lifted the SIG-Sauer and squeezed the trigger. He put two bullets into the head of the ghoulie who'd attacked him, then turned the blaster on the second mutie, the hollowpoints coring through the creature's chest. The third ghoulie turned to run, screaming in incoherent panic. Without pause, Ryan shot him in the back.

Grimly Ryan rose to his feet and sheathed the panga. He put the SIG-Sauer away, as well, and hefted the Steyr. He strode toward the crest of the hill with the rifle cradled in his arms.

"Jak," he called.

"Here."

Turning his head slightly, Ryan saw the albino teen move into view on the right.

Jak had blood on his face, deep crimson against the pale flesh, but none of it looked like his. His left fist was spiked with a half dozen of the leaf-bladed throwing knives.

"Company?" Ryan asked.

"Some. No more."

Ryan nodded and scanned the broken buildings along their back trail. Now that they knew ghoulies lived among them, the hiding places he'd spotted along the way for a strategic retreat no longer seemed so safe.

"They know," Jak said, nodding toward the basin.

"Hard to miss," Ryan answered.

"Yeah."

"Keep an eye on our backs."

"Sure."

Ryan peered into the basin. The Slaggers had to have bolted at the sound of the first shot. The only ones Ryan saw were taking up positions behind the crumbled structures and the stacks of junked wags. The captives, the remaining man, two women and the child, hid behind a leaning section of splintered fence. Two of the Slaggers closed on them, shouting at them to stay put.

A bullet spanged off a section of brick and mortar to the one-eyed man's right. Ryan drew back, wondering whether to chance going back to face more ghoulies or to attempt to hold the position. J.B. and the others could get clear and retreat to the dry camp they'd made that morning and wait until Jak and Ryan could get free at nightfall.

Then a harsh whistle cut through the air.

Shifting his position atop the crest, Ryan gazed into the basin again, spotting Halleck, the Slagger leader, behind one of the overturned wags. The man put his fingers into his mouth and whistled again, changing pitch this time.

A line of dogs formed along the breaks under the stacks of junked wags. Pink-and-black tongues lolled out of their white-flecked mouths. Their fur was matted and scar-torn, reflecting the harsh existence they were accustomed to.

Another whistle and the dogs rushed out of their hiding places, racing up the incline of the basin toward Ryan and Jak's position.

"Can't stay," Ryan said to the albino.

Jak nodded in agreement.

Ryan pushed up from the ground and stayed low. He ran hard, driving his feet against the earth, choosing a different path back to the building where he'd left Krysty. Getting trapped up on the structure so the ghoulies and the Slaggers could surround them wasn't the choice he would have made, but he was certain they wouldn't be able to outrun the dogs.

Bloodcurdling baying overtook Ryan, summoning awful visions of what the beasts would do to him and Jak if they were caught. His breathing turned ragged, and each gasp was dry and burned the back of his throat.

He stayed close to the buildings, trying to keep himself as small a target as he could in case any of the Slaggers had followed the dogs up the side of the basin. An arm reached unexpectedly from one of the broken windows, and the fist at the end of it knotted up in Ryan's shirt, yanking him off balance.

Surprisingly strong, the arm's owner pulled Ryan up against the window as if he were a rag doll. No glass remained in the windowframe, but the big ghoulie on the other side filled it. Maybe weighing as much as 350 pounds, the ghoulie stood over six feet tall, and would have been even taller if he hadn't been a hunchback. The eyes weren't set properly; the one on the right was almost centered in his cheek and listed inward, looking gray and dead. He crowed in triumph, reaching out with his other hand toward Ryan's head.

The one-eyed man didn't try to fight the ghoulie's incredible strength. He raised the Steyr and rested the barrel against the ghoulie's throat. When he pulled the trigger, the creature's head exploded in a volcano of flesh, blood and gleaming shards of bone.

Covered in gore, Ryan shoved himself back. The baying dogs sounded closer, but he gave the windows a wider berth as he ran.

J.B. SPOTTED JAK AND RYAN through his binoculars for only a moment before they barreled around the corner of a building and disappeared. He saw the dogs next, baying and leaping over rubble close to the ground.

"Dark night!"

"They have set loose the hounds," Doc said, "or these old ears deceive me."

"Your hearing's fine, Doc." J.B. shifted, checking his weapons to make sure they were all in place. The moves were as natural as breathing.

Doc peered over the side of the building, his face filled with worry. "We cannot leave them to be run down by those foul beasts, John Barrymore."

"Won't do them any good by dying with them." J.B. reseated his fedora on his head and glanced back at Dean. If the boy showed any signs of disobeying his order, and Ryan's orders by proxy, the Armorer fully intended to cold-cock the youngster and pack him out on his back if he had to.

But Dean held his position, his only expression a tight grimace. "Dad and Jak have been up against a lot longer odds than this."

"That's right," J.B. answered, but he knew he'd have been hard pressed to figure out exactly when at the moment.

"Ryan's going back for Krysty," Mildred said.

J.B. considered that. "Top of the building, they might be able to hold on for a while. Mebbe get lucky and find a way down inside it."

"Could be whatever's inside is every bit as bad as what's outside it," Mildred pointed out.

"Let's not be so bastard hopeful," J.B. said.

"I'm stating facts, John." Mildred turned her accusing gaze on him. "Those are your friends down there. Our friends. We can't just give them up."

"We aren't," J.B. protested. "But we stick to Ryan's plan."

Mildred turned away from him.

J.B. felt himself grow cold inside. Not many had gotten past the hardened exterior he'd manufactured for himself. Traveling Deathlands as he had, he knew acquaintances came and went on a regular basis.

But he cared about Mildred. Their relationship wasn't as open as Ryan and Krysty's because he was a very private person, but it was more open, more true, than anything the Armorer had ever had before. He also cared what Mildred thought about him.

Still, he didn't defend himself. Talking about things wasn't in his nature. He held the Uzi in his hands, letting its familiar hard lines comfort him. He turned his attention to the riders Dean had spotted earlier. Pride touched him when he noticed Dean was still watching the riders instead of peering through the tumbledown buildings trying to spot his father. The boy had learned well that his attention had to be centered on things he could do something about.

The riders had halted some fifty yards away, creating a ragged semicircle of horses and men. Dust kicked up around the animals' hooves, drifting toward the ville on the brewing storm winds.

J.B. studied the riders, reading them as a baron's raiding force. They dressed well and carried armament enough to guarantee few would dare to cross them.

"Anybody know who's a baron in these parts?" the Armorer asked.

Dean shook his head, not looking in J.B.'s direction, either.

Mildred didn't bother to answer.

"The talkative fellow we chanced to have a discourse with yesterday," Doc replied in a quiet voice that barely carried above the baying of the hounds, "mentioned that there were no barons around Idaho Falls that he knew of. This territory was reputed to be free, except for the gangs of coldhearts and clutches of civilians who claimed parcels of it for themselves. But he did also state that he'd seen men reputing themselves to be in the employ of Baron Shaker."

"Shaker?" The name meant nothing to J.B. But then barons rose and fell virtually overnight in the rougher areas out west. The region wasn't anything like the East Coast baronies.

"That is the name," Doc answered. "Unless I do disremember."

"That man say anything about what Baron Shaker might want here?"

"No, just that the baron's men possess the appearance of knowing exactly what it is that they're searching for. And that they don't intend to leave without it."

A baron's business, J.B. knew from firsthand experience, was usually deadly. As he watched, the leader of the group evidently made the decision about what they were going to do.

The riders split into two equal groups and spurred their mounts. The ones who had longblasters brandished them. They rode along the outer edges of the ville, but left no doubt that they were converging on the basin where Ryan and Jak had gone. They numbered nearer thirty than twenty, but J.B. hadn't been able to get an accurate count, either.

Both halves of the group left swirling dust trails in their wake.

"By all appearances," Doc stated, "those riders seem to be in a hurry. They lack even a veneer of quietude."

The Armorer turned his attention back to the building Ryan had chosen as his advance point for the scouting mission. "Yeah, but mebbe they're going to be enough of a diversion to allow us to get the others out of there."

"Chem storm's not going to give us many alternatives," Mildred said. "We stay out here, that storm will strip us down to our bones in minutes. The forest won't give us any protection. Unless we find a place to hole up."

"Only good places to hole up nearby," Dean told her, "are those buildings ahead of us."

J.B. nodded. All things considered, there really was no choice. "Let's go." He was the first one through the broken window, letting the Uzi dangle from the shoulder strap as he climbed down the uneven brick wall using his boot toes and fingers.

Before he reached the ground, a forked tongue of purple lightning slashed across the sky, followed immediately by a rolling cannonade of thunder.