Chapter Three

 

 

Catching the lower limbs of an oak tree, Ryan climbed ten feet up. The branches shook, littering the ground with snow that fell from the green leaves, but none of the brushwooders took notice. Despite the wintry feel of the night and the snow, it was only early fall. The nukecaust had screwed up Nature's rhythms a hundred years earlier, and the earthquakes and the active volcanoes in the area affected the weather, as well, seeding the air from dozens of radioactive hot spots.

 

Trader had talked about the strange atmospheric conditions hovering over the region. Ryan knew for a fact that farther north the land had turned to frozen ruin, and the volcanoes stretched in between, with some of them way to the south. With the volcanoes spouting rad-blasted waste into the air on a regular basis, anything could come falling out of the sky and he wouldn't have been surprised. He'd stopped really smelling the sulphur stink hours ago, but he remained aware of it.

 

He nestled in among the boughs, gauging the strength of the pincer movement spread out around him with a trained eye.

 

His and J.B.'s efforts hadn't gone unrewarded. The steady advance of the brushwooders had been broken, and a few milled around waiting for the rearguard to catch up. Word was evidently spreading up the line that a number of them weren't coming. Ryan could see even the pointmen were holding their position some 120 yards away at the foothills that led to the steep mountain trail where Krysty and the others had gone.

 

Clouds scudded over the bright moon, laying patches of darkness over the broken land. But against the growing white islands of drifting snow, the brushwooders stood out as good targets.

 

Ryan didn't intend to miss the opportunity to add to the confusion. He opened the case containing the bow and quiver of arrows. The three sections easily screwed into one another. Fitting the string was tricky while standing in the tree, but he managed.

 

Voices reached his ears now, letting him know the brushwooders were abandoning the stealthy approach.

 

The arrows felt heavy enough for proper chilling. He was more at home with a handblaster or the panga, which was an old friend, tried, trusted and true. But he knew his way around a bow. His father, Baron Titus Cawdor, had seen to the education of all his sons. The barony at Front Royal hadn't been easily won, nor easily held. A knowledge of weapons had been necessary.

 

He nocked an arrow, drew it back to his ear and sighted through the opening between the branches. Releasing half a breath, he let it fly. As the arrow jumped from the bow the string twanged, but not loud enough to be heard from more than a few paces.

 

Less than forty yards distant, the arrow pierced a man's inner thigh, and a primal cry of pain suddenly rent the chill air.

 

The man stumbled, bent double and hovered over the fletched end of the arrow. The other brushwooders stood frozen, wondering how one among them could have been wounded without sign or sound of an attack.

 

"Fireblast," Ryan cursed. Shooting one of the men and dropping him dead in his tracks had been the plan. Maybe he'd have been lucky enough to down another one or two before they'd have even known he was among them. Wounding the man and letting him scream spun events into the sudden rush of near death.

 

He sighted on another target, reminding himself to aim higher with the bow because the trajectory had proved wrong on the first shot. He let out half a breath, then released the three-fingered hold he had on the string.

 

This time the feathered missile flew true, biting deeply into the chest of a brushwooder taking cover behind a lightning-blasted tree at the wrong angle. The man went backward, hands wrapping around the shaft as he was driven by the impact, and stretched out across a patch of snow that quickly turned dark.

 

Blasters roared, muzzle-flashes visible among the trees in a semicircle of fire.

 

None of the bullets came close to Ryan. He drew back another arrow and released it, leading a figure sprinting across an open space. Though he'd aimed at the center of the body, the shaft went low, taking the brushwooder in the thighs from the side, fixing them together. The man fell headlong to the ground.

 

Bullets whacked into the oak tree, ripping leaves and branches free. A collective cry rose up from the brushwooders as more and more of them spotted the source of the arrows.

 

Ryan abandoned the bow, letting it drop through the branches below, and reached down to grab the barrel of the Steyr. Slipping the sling from his shoulder, he brought the rifle on target as three men broke cover and streaked for the tree.

 

His finger stroked the trigger, two shots per man. Three corpses dropped in a tangled sprawl before the last one could break away.

 

"He's in the tree!" a woman yelled.

 

"Over here!"

 

"Get him!" someone yelled. "Blow the son of a bitch out of the tree!"

 

Ryan emptied the Steyr's clip rapidly. He knew he brought down three more men scattered beneath the trees, and one of them for sure wouldn't be getting back up again.

 

A bullet cut through Ryan's sleeve as he worked his way into a clear area between the branches on the rear side of the tree. He stepped out over the ten-foot drop and let go.

 

He bent his knees to get himself loose for the hard landing. At the bottom of the fall, he let his weight go with the pull of gravity, then pushed himself back up.

 

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the shadow along the bole of the tree that didn't fit. It was man-shaped and held a blaster.

 

 

 

"FUCKERS REALLY PUT his foot up the ass of Satan this time."

 

As he gazed through his Starlight binoculars at the one-eyed man in the oak tree calmly fitting another arrow to the bowstring, Hayden LeMarck said, "I'll give you five to two that he comes out of it alive."

 

"I'll take your jack," Wallis Thoroughgood replied, "and be man enough to stand you a beer at Dripping Sal's when we get back to Jakestown." He was a blocky man, crowding sixty if he was a day. Dressed in a coat and insulated coveralls, only the man's round face showed, the features resembling those of a demented cherub.

 

The rattle of bridles and the creak of saddle leather sounded behind LeMarck. "Keep those damn horses still. You don't, and we could still end up hip deep in goddamn brushwooders."

 

"Yes, sir," someone replied.

 

As one of the head sec men for Baron Sparning Hardcoe, LeMarck got respect. He was a tall, lean man with fair hair and muttonchop whiskers that ran deep auburn. A hawk's bill of a nose jutted over a thin-lipped mouth.

 

The brushwooders had raided some of the outer farms around the little ville of Angeltears less than a week earlier. Representatives from the ville had sailed north to Jakestown ville, the biggest community in the seven villes under the control of the Five Barons, and talked with Baron Hardcoe himself. Hardcoe had made it LeMarck's job to track down the brushwooders and punish them, and assigned twenty men to go with him.

 

Angeltears was the smallest of the seven villes. As such, it was the least productive and the least developed. Any of the other four barons would have ignored it and let the people in Angeltears work out their own problems.

 

Hardcoe cherished every bit of his temporary empire, though. Even if he had to relinquish it to one of the other barons at the end of the Big Game in eight days.

 

In the day and a half he'd been tracking the brushwooders, LeMarck had found out the group had grown to nearly a hundred strong. He'd gotten his information from three brushwooders he'd tortured the previous night. The different groups had united under a man named James Ball Daugherty, who'd blown in from somewhere across the big desert if the stories were to be believed. No one had known how successful Daugherty had gotten at organizing the brushwooders until the raids on Angeltears had left so many dead farmers in burning fields. It was the biggest mob of them that had ever been seen in the history of the villes.

 

After learning how many enemy they were truly facing and knowing they'd be taking them on in their turf, LeMarck's team had wanted to pull back and call on Hardcoe for reinforcements. With all that the baron had going on in Jakestown, LeMarck had been reluctant to do that until he couldn't see any other way clear.

 

 

That was why he'd been tailing the brushwooders. If Daugherty was to get himself suddenly dead through an assassination attempt, LeMarck figured the big group of brushwooders would break back down into smaller, more-manageable units that could be exterminated at the proper time. Their threat would have been removed.

 

The sec man was in his late twenties, and his closest experience to a father figure had been Hardcoe. There wasn't anything LeMarck hadn't done or wouldn't do for the man. He knew Hardcoe was concerned about losing the seven villes to one of the other barons through the baronial charter, and LeMarck had been up late nights thinking about how to ensure Hardcoe retained control.

 

That was why he'd been playing with the idea of trying to take Daugherty alive after hearing about the man. Arriving in Angeltears the day before yesterday, though, he'd heard about the way Daugherty ran the brushwooders like barbarians. There was no finesse about the man, no real cunning. The only thing that stood out about him was that he had a genuine taste for blood.

 

Before, the brushwooders had scavenged from the outlying farms, not killing unless someone tried to stop them. They were thieves, and a menace only to people who traveled among the seven villes. Of the Five Barons, Hardcoe was the only one who organized sec parties to ride shotgun on trade caravans. Of course, to get the protection, the caravans also had to fit in their schedules with Hardcoe's, which caused problems for those people selling perishable items.

 

Now LeMarck figured it was only a matter of time before Daugherty got to thinking about taking one of the fat caravans in the next eight days. The people of the seven villes knew about the Big Game, too, and the fact that they might be changing barons again. And if Hardcoe did lose out, there would be no more caravans.

 

It would be Daugherty's last chance at a big score worth a lot of jack.

 

LeMarck had come into the forest with the intent of not letting that happen. But watching the one-eyed man work his team ahead of the brushwooders and double back on them, the sec boss got to considering his rejected plans for Daugherty.

 

The brushwooders' leader wasn't as cunning and smart as LeMarck had hoped. But the one-eyed man was a thriller on wheels, the kind of man Hardcoe could use for the Big Game. He'd like to give the baron some good news when he joined his sec men on the ride to Vegas.

 

Still, the brushwooders outnumbered the two men they were stalking. Just in case he had to tip the scales in the one-eyed man's favor, LeMarck reached for his rifle and kept a keen eye on the advancing brushwooders.

 

 

 

JAK LAUREN MOVED instinctively, rolling to his left, already wary since the blaster had erupted down the mountainside. He swiveled his head, trying to figure out what had attacked him. All he'd noticed on some subliminal level was an explosion of movement from the snowbank ahead of him.

 

Broken terrain ranged all around him. Some of it looked smoothed over by the drifting snow, but it was deceiving. A step on unsafe ground meant a twisted or broken ankle for an unwary traveler. Twice he'd found areas where the snow had covered cracks in the mountain big enough for a body to plummet through. The first one ended in a shattered death's-grin of rock thirty feet down. He never had seen the bottom to the second.

 

A sibilant hiss ripped through the air.

 

To Jak, it sounded like a man stropping a razor, working up a proper shaving edge. With the wind blowing, it was hard to tell exactly what direction it came from.

 

He wore a long coat over his regular clothes, but he shucked out of it. Even with the drop in the temperature and the howling wind, he knew he could stand the cold for a few minutesespecially if those minutes added to his life expectancy.

 

He drew the .357 Magnum Colt Python from his belt and a pair of his leaf-bladed throwing knives.

 

The hiss cut through the air again, followed by immediate movement. This time Jak got a better look at the creature.

 

It shot up from the ground as if fired from the mouth of a blaster. Diamond shaped and at least a foot and a half across from opposing comers, the beast sailed through the air straight at Jak's face.

 

The teenager ducked and spun, bringing up the .357.

 

From the brief glimpse he'd caught of the creature, Jak knew it was white and had two deep aquamarine eyes set close together. A thin, barbed tail almost four feet long trailed out behind it.

 

When it hit the snow, the beast vanished, blending in like a chameleon.

 

Jak fired three shots that ripped through the snow and hammered rocks into pieces. At first he'd figured the creature was albino, but the way it vanished into the landscape let him know it had controlat least to some degreeover its coloration.

 

Albinos he knew about. He himself was bone white and had ruby red eyes. His long hair was the color of fresh milk. At something short of five and a half feet tall and built whipcord lean, he didn't look like the deadly efficient killer that he was. He'd been born and bred in Cajun country in the south of Deathlands, but he'd ranged far and wide, going up against his share of predators.

 

With the sibilant cry, the creature rocketed at him again. The tail whipped in readiness as it took to the air, and a large, fanged mouth opened on its underside.

 

Considering the aerodynamics of the mutie beast, Jak figured that it scooted along the snow until it built up enough speed to get airborne. It didn't need much room or time in the winds. And evidently it knew how to best use those winds to its advantage.

 

The beast cut through the air, streaking for Jak's neck, flipping sideways to lose altitude and change direction suddenly so it approached from an arc.

 

Instead of dodging this time, Jak took three running steps toward the creature, which didn't break off its attack. The tail whipped forward under its flat belly.

 

At the last moment, Jak leaped high into the air, using his innate acrobatic abilities and spring-steel muscles to their fullest. He put out a hand, and his fingertips lightly grazed the slick, oily membrane of the animal's body.

 

The mutie beast shrieked in anger, flapping its sides to change direction. With the wind against it, there was no way it could turn, but it became a more challenging target.

 

Jak flipped over the creature, coming around with his feet over his head and facing in the direction of the creature's glide path. No more than five feet from his target, he pulled the trigger through the remaining three rounds in the heavy blaster. As he continued his flip, he twisted to land on his feet facing the mutie beast.

 

Two of the hollowpoints slammed into the creature, ripping it apart. It collapsed to the ground, a bloody mass of meat.

 

The teenager put his knives away, then shook the empty casings from the Python and reloaded.

 

"Jak!" Krysty called.

 

"Here." The albino walked to the dead creature and picked it up by the barbed tail. He crossed to the edge of the cliff face he'd climbed.

 

Krysty, Mildred and Doc gazed up at him, worried looks on their cold-pinched faces.

 

"Dear lad," Doc said, "we thought you'd fallen to your demise."

 

Jak shook his head. "I fall, I'd scream. Let you know not safe."

 

"Of course you would. How foolish of me to think otherwise. Forgive the awkward ruminations of a man aged by experience."

 

"Sure." Jak shrugged. More weapons were being used down the mountainside. He saw the bright sparks leaping among the trees.

 

"What was the blasterfire?" Krysty asked, her attention divided between Jak and the action behind them.

 

The albino lifted the dead mutie beast, then dropped it onto the ledge among them. "This. See one, better chill quick. Otherwise, chill you."

 

"How'd you get up there?" Mildred asked.

 

Jak knelt and pointed, wanting to go back for his coat. But it would be better to wait, in case there was another of the gliding creatures. The next person up could cover his back.

 

"Step there," Jak said. "Careful. Skin knees, if go too sudden like. Then step there." He pointed again. "Get up this far, help pull you up."

 

Krysty went first, managing the climb with difficulty. "Did you find the pass?"

 

Jak shook his head. "Not yet. Mebbe out there. Not look everywhere yet. Shooting started, I got back here."

 

Krysty stood beside him, her pistol in her fist. Her attention shifted back to the forested lands farther down.

 

"Shooting good sign," Jak said as he reached for Mildred's hand. "Ryan and J.B. dead, nobody to shoot at."