Axler, James - Deathlands 63 - Devil Riders Read online

  "Better yet, go make firebrands," Ryan said. "All you can, fast as you can. We leave here in five minutes."

  "At once, my dear Ryan! I shall serve where Icarus failed."

  "Shut up, ya old coot," Mildred chided, "and get cracking."

  "What about you, Dad?" Dean asked, pausing in the open doorway of the pump room, one foot in the armory. "Going back up on the roof to do some sniping at the guards on the front gate?"

  "Not yet," the one-eyed man answered, going to the master valve assembly on the feeder pipe and cracking the knuckles on both hands. "I'm going to set the Scorpion God free."

  Chapter Fourteen

  Going to a wall niche, Ryan removed an oil lantern, blew out the wick and very carefully poured a few drops of the mineral oil onto the base of the valve. Setting the lantern aside, he took the wheel in both hands, braced himself and started applying pressure. The wheel turned only a smallest distance then seemed to become stuck. The man knew that he had to do this gently, too much force too soon and the spindle could snap.

  Dean started forward to help, but J.B. held the boy back. There was no room for another set of hands on the wheel; it was a one-person job.

  Ryan's hands turned white, sweat appearing on his brow as he continued to exert himself more and more. One of his feet slipped and he almost lost his grip, but dug in even harder.

  There was a terrible crack, and for an instant Ryan knew for certain that he had broken the spindle, then with a squeal of metal the wheel came free and began to spin easily. The meters swung high at the rush of water throbbing through the slim bleeder pipe, the length going into the wall shaking from the water coursing through it. Softly from the room beyond came a splashing sound as a torrent of water flooded the stone basin to overflow in only moments and then started to spread across the temple floor.

  "It'll take awhile," Mildred said in the pump room, gingerly touching the bleeder pipe. It was already coated with condensation from the sheer volume of water going through. "But soon the temple will flood, and the excess will start seeping out the front door. The ville people will go insane."

  "Good," Ryan panted. "The more confusion the better. Mebbe it'll start a revolt."

  "Lots of folks would die in that."

  "Lots of folks dying now," Ryan answered, massaging his wrists. "You better get moving before the water gets too deep in there to work."

  Everybody but Ryan left the room, while J.B. knelt alongside the main pipe and pulled a block of C-4 from his munitions bag. Gently, he molded it under the arc of the pipe were it would be difficult for anybody to find. Then he disassembled one of the concussion grens and inserted the detonator and ring assembly into the soft claylike material of the plastique. J.B. had a few timing pencils in his bag, but those had a maximum limit of five minutes, which was much too short for the companions to get away from the temple.

  "Along with the boobie, rig a secondary charge," Ryan directed. "I know how we can set this off from a distance."

  "Got a radio detonator in your pocket?" the Armorer asked, packing the C-4 firmly around the core of the grenade.

  "Better," Ryan said, and went back into the armory to return with a coil of the dirty rope.

  "The water will be reaching here soon," J.B. scoffed, attaching a length of copper wire to the pull ring of the gren. "We can't trust that shit to burn when it's wet."

  "Not a problem," Ryan said, looking at the ceiling.

  REACHING THE FRONT DOOR of the temple, Krysty and Dean paused to listen as sec men shouted outside. Then somebody knocked hard on the door and demanded admittance.

  The woman and boy drew their weapons as the person tried the lock several times, but after a while the guard went away. However, both of the companions knew the guards would return soon with tools and a lot more men.

  Unraveling the tangle of shackles and chains from the torture tables, the pair wrapped three of the lengths around the wooden bar, locking the shackles onto each other to hold the knot tightly.

  "Nobody is getting through that without ex-plos," Krysty stated in satisfaction when it was done.

  "Looks like we finished just in time, too," Dean said, looking down at the arrival of the first trickle of the water.

  Expanding along the floor, the water puddled in front of the massive door, then began to seep outside. Almost immediately there were more shouts and somebody threw themselves against the door, rattling the chains. Then another joined the effort, their curses audible through the slim cracks along the jamb.

  "What the hell is that noise?" a man cried out. "Sounds like chains."

  "Why would the baron chain the temple shut?"

  "He wouldn't, ya feeb. Get Hawk, we need a battering ram!"

  Moving fast, the woman and boy retreated into the tunnel, and Krysty locked the iron grille while Dean keep guard with his crossbow. Then they both raced back to the temple, closed the set of double doors and looped the last chain through the handles.

  Now Krysty held the first and last link of the chain on top of each other and placed a dagger from the armory through the loops. Lowering the crossbow, Dean drew his Browning Hi-Power and hammered the dagger into the wooden door in lieu of a stake. It wasn't much, but the knife would at least keep the chains from simply slipping off the handles when folks started banging to get inside.

  They knew that none of these things would hold off a truly determined force, but all of this would buy them time and make the baron waste a lot of troops trying to get inside and capture them. Hopefully, that would be enough.

  Returning to the armory through the iron maiden, Krysty closed the hinged hatch while Dean dragged over an empty wooden barrel. Together, they started to toss in any loose items available, tools, blasters, ammo, grinding stones, until the barrel was heaped high.

  "Got to be a good half ton of junk there," Krysty said, dusting off her hands. "That'll slow them down some."

  Busy at a worktable, Doc merely grunted in reply. The old man was busy making firebrands, using bits of stiff wire to attach short pieces of the rope fuse to crossbow arrows. Mildred was stuffing the completed products into a patched duffle bag and Jak was nearby stringing a crossbow, a stack of four more nearby.

  "How did it go?" Mildred asked, cinching the duffel closed.

  "The door is solid," Krysty replied bluntly, "but the sec men are already trying to get inside."

  "So soon? Damn."

  "Need any help?" Dean asked the people at the workbench.

  "Thank you, but this is the final batch," Doc replied, handing Mildred the last arrow. "Especially since Ryan took the rest of the fuse."

  Dean looked around to see the huge coils of ropy fuses were missing from the wall pegs. "He took all of it?" The boy frowned. "What for?"

  "See yourself," Jak said, loading his arms with crossbows. "But watch step!"

  Heading for the pump room, the friends paused as they spied J.B. on his knees playing a candle along a piece of the copper wire stretched knee high across the open doorway. The flickering flame was slowly turning the red metal a dark brown almost invisible in the dim recesses of the temple.

  "Hold it," he directed, then turned off the nukelamp and the trip wire was gone, invisible in the darkness.

  "Okay," J.B. said, turning the lamp back on. "But watch your step."

  "First person through that door is going to discover a world of pain," Dean commented, once on the other side of the trap.

  Shifting her duffel bag of firebrands, Mildred snorted. "Yeah, for about half a second."

  Glancing at the feeder pipe, Jak saw the wheel was wired to blow, as was the gren at the door. Whatever else happened, the water shortage in the ville was going to end this night, that was for damn sure.

  "Where is Ryan?" Doc asked, stepping over the trip wire with exaggerated caution.

  Tucking the candle into a pocket, J.B. jerked a thumb at the open hatch in the roof at the top of the ladder. "Making sure we can leave," he said. But interrupting those words was a fast series
of soft chugs from the hatch. Drawing weapons, the companions scrambled up the ladder and onto the top of the temple. The last in line, Krysty caught the stock of the H&H Nitro on the hatch for a moment, and had to wiggle about to get through. The damn blaster was over five feet in length, much too long for such cramped quarters.

  Standing in the shadows, Ryan was sweeping the edge of the building with the SIG-Sauer. He froze as a hand slithered into view near the corner, but did nothing until the head of the sec man rose into view. Instantly he fired, and the man fell backward with a bloody crater in place of a nose. Going to the edge, Ryan fired twice more and another man cried out briefly.

  "Fireblast! Too bastard many people know about the roof hatch," Ryan growled. "And somebody with a brain is going to figure out why there's a pile of bodies in the street, at which point we're shit out of luck."

  "Let's get to it," Jak said, passing out the crossbows.

  Overburdened with weapons, the companions dropped their backpacks to take the weapons and got busy nocking the firebrands.

  "Think we can reach the motel from here?" Mildred asked, licking a finger to test the direction of the desert wind. Simple logic dictated what the plan was. She only hoped they could pull it off. They had been in tight scrapes before, but this was the first time they were doing a night creep on an entire ville. One wrong move would expose them, and then it was all over.

  "The bows have the range," Ryan said, looking across the ville. "It's just a matter of can we hit the target."

  Stepping on the crossbar of his crossbow to grab the string in both hands, J.B. pulled it upward until the cord caught on the tongue. Lifting the weapon, he slipped in a firebrand.

  "Ranging shot," J.B. directed, touching the rope with his butane lighter. As the fuse sputtered into life, he raised the crossbow and pressed the trigger.

  The flaming arrows arced over the ville to drop beyond the motel a dozen blocks away.

  "Try ten o'clock, instead of eleven," he said, reloading and lowering the angle. "All together. Ready, shoot!"

  The companions launched in unison, the flurry of arrows soaring high to plummet down into the open courtyard around the motel. Bursting from the building, Jed and Sparrow came running out with blasters drawn, both of their dogs baying wildly.

  "Again," Ryan ordered brusquely, as tiny dots of light began moving along the top of the adobe wall. The sentries had spotted the firebrands. "Shift more into the wind!"

  The crossbows were armed once more, and the next flight went over the motel, one arrow spiraling away randomly to disappear into the distance.

  "The fuse came free and threw off the balance," Doc rumbled angrily.

  Suddenly a chorus of voices rose from the opposite side of the temple, closely followed by a tremendous crash of splintering wood. Then it came again and again.

  "Sounds as if the sec men are busting through," Dean said.

  "Check the wires," J.B. commanded, running his fingers along the shaft of an arrow. "This volley has got to be on target!"

  Locking his crossbow and reloading, Jak saw a man carrying a longblaster appear on a roof a few buildings away. Only a sec man would have a weapon like that, so he fired from the hip. The unlit arrow flew straight and hit the man in the stomach partially going through. Dropping the blaster, the man clutched the shaft sticking out of his belly and shrieked in pain.

  Squinting in that direction, Ryan chanced two shots with the SIG-Sauer, but the wounded man was masked by the darkness and kept on screaming. Having no choice, he slid the Steyr off his shoulder, placed the crosshairs on the sec man's chest and put a 7.62 mm round through his heart, ending the cries.

  But the crack of the sniper rifle rolled over the ville, and most of the voices on the streets stopped shouting.

  "If they come to this side and find the bodies, we're screwed. There's no canopy over here to hide the arrows," Ryan growled. "Load and fire at will, but hit that triple-damn wag right now!"

  Fast and furious, the companions loaded and fired as quickly as possible, flaming arrows raining all over the area, setting fire to the roof of the motel and smashing to pieces on the streets. When the wind slowed for moment, they sent off the last flurry of arrows. Climbing high toward the stars, the firebrands curved sharply earthward and slammed all over the wag, penetrating the cab, the hood, and several going through the tattered canvas awning over the rear.

  Only seconds later, a fire woofed out the back of the wag from the punctured fuel cans, tongues of flame licking from every hole in the canvas. Some sec man hidden behind the wag started running, but it was already too late.

  The deafening explosion illuminated the entire ville in a blinding flash of light and rattled shutters for blocks in every direction. Caught near the blast, the sec men were slapped off the ground and sent tumbling through the air like burning rag dolls to hit the side of other buildings with lethal results.

  Then from the boiling inferno of the barn came a series of sharp bangs and a new fireball boiled upward, spraying out debris as the cans of condensed fuel rocketed into the air and detonated above the ville.

  By now every window was open and a dozen bells were ringing. Illuminated by the reddish glare of the rising fireball, the companions ducked low on the roof of the temple to try to stay in the shadows.

  Blaster in hand, Ryan gave a short whistle and jerked a finger at the front of the temple. Dropping to his belly, Jak crawled to the edge of the roof, listened and then chanced a peek. Turning to face the others, he nodded and gave a thumbs-up.

  "Okay, they're off to check the explosion," Ryan said aloud, rising to his knees. "That bought us time but not a hell of a nuking lot."

  He paused as another detonation shook the ville, as the main forty-gallon fuel tanks of the U.S. Army GMC 6X6 added their destructive fury to the growing conflagration.

  Still wary, Krysty was maintaining a close watch on the keep. When a guard appeared on the parapet with what seemed to be binoculars, she swung around the heavy longblaster, set the crosshairs on his chest and fired. The recoil kicked her hard in the shoulder, making the woman think she had missed completely, but the slug from the Nitro Express crossed the distance in a split second and the man flew backward minus a head, a splash of blood hitting the flagpole. Hopefully, Gaza would think it was shrapnel from the blast.

  But as she worked the bolt, a woman dressed in white appeared briefly at a window in the keep, and Krysty got a fluttery feeling inside her head. Hastily, she raised the monster rifle, but the woman was already gone. Her heart pounding, Krysty suddenly knew she had aced the wrong target. The strange female was the source of danger, but whether she was a doomie or a telepath, Krysty had no idea.

  "The baron might have a doomie," Krysty said aloud. "Hawk could be waiting for us at the horse corral."

  Or the front gate. Breathing heavily in the darkness, Ryan said nothing at the news for a few moments. "Okay, too bad for him," he stated.

  "J.B., check out the corral. Everybody else, clear the streets of any sec men!"

  Standing in plain view, the companions went to the side of the temple and cut loose at a group of guards inspecting the bodies sprawled in the street. Side by side, they chilled every man, the continuing explosions from the wag drowning out the crack of their rifles.

  "Corral looks clear!" J.B. announced, collapsing his Navy scope.

  Holstering his piece, Ryan gathered up a thick coil of fuse from the roof and tied the end to the top rung of the iron ladder. Tugging hard, he decided it would hold and tossed the rest of the coil over the edge of the temple. With the others keeping watch, the one-eyed man slid down the rope in one fast motion, landing with his knees slightly bent to absorb the impact.

  Instantly, he turned with the SIG-Sauer drawn and checked the street, but there were only the dead and the dying on the cobblestones.

  Ryan whistled twice, and the rest of the companions descended one at a time, the process seeming to take forever, even though it was only a few minutes accordi
ng to his wrist chron.

  Once Doc was on the ground, Ryan lit the fuse with his butane lighter and watched it slowly start to burn upward.

  "Let's get those horses," he growled, and started running through the maze of the ville with the others close behind.

  Chapter Fifteen

  As they raced through Rockpoint, a crackling noise steadily grew as flames began to spread across the ville following the canopy covering the streets. Soon the flames started to spread to the adobe houses, the compressed mud and straw bricks burning as easily as wood.

  People were rushing into the street, clutching their belongings and staring about helplessly. A child got in the way of a running sec man, and he clubbed the little girl aside. With a cry of rage, her father smashed a water jug over the guard's head shattering his skull. As the body dropped, the rest of the family began kicking and beating the fallen man while cursing wildly.

  "Looks like we've got that revolution," J.B. remarked as they ran past the scene. His last view was of the father yanking the blaster from the limp hands of the bleeding corpse and fumbling to work the hammer and trigger.

  But as the companions took a corner, a group of sec men were shouting orders to a crowd of people stomping out the burning embers on the ground.

  "It's them!" a sergeant cried out, swiveling his longblaster and pulling the trigger. But the weapon misfired and only a feeble flame came from the muzzle.

  As the sergeant feverishly worked the arming bolt, Ryan put a round into his chest, while J.B. fired the Uzi, the hail of 9 mm rounds tearing the other sec men apart.

  "Head for the temple!" Dean shouted at the terrified people running about. "Water's everywhere!" But if anybody believed the boy, there was no indication.

  Watchful of the side streets, the companions ran through the ville, shooting down any sec men who came their way. At a hitching post, a corporal stared in shock at their approach and raised his hands in surrender. Without remorse, Ryan blew him away and kept going, knowing full well the man would have started to shoot once their backs were turned.