It was a hard battle, but by degrees the horde of muties grew less and less, the Amazons moving outward to gain ground, treading on the corpses of their chilled foes and driving the remaining stickies back and back.
Eventually even the enhanced brains of those remaining stickies got the point, and they retreated back across the plain, fleeing into the woodland.
Surveying the carnage, Ryan gave a sigh of relief and exhaustion.
“Fireblast, I thought they’d never stop coming. For a moment, I thought there were more and more coming out of the trees.”
“Mebbe there were,” J.B. pointed out. “We need to be more than triple red now. We’re tired and strung out, and they may have fuck knows how many in there.” He indicated the area of woodland circling the plain with a sweeping gesture.
“We beat them once, we can do it again,” Gloria said, adding, “But only if we rest up now. Make camp and set up a guard. They’ll need to regroup, too, if they’re going to attack. So we should have some time.”
With which she directed her people to make camp, clear the chilled and tend to the few minor wounds they had received.
While this transpired, Ryan gathered together his people. Speaking softly, he said, “It’s not the stickies I’m worried about.”
Doc noticed the puzzled look that Jak gave the one-eyed warrior, and said, “If I’m not mistaken, my dear Ryan, you allude to the fact that our little mutie friends were genetically altered?”
Ryan nodded. “And if we’re approaching the place you’ve heard of, then—”
“Then the danger may not be from stickies,” Mildred finished.
They were prophetic words.
Chapter Eleven
Night fell on the carnage surrounding the Gate encampment. The chilled corpses of the stickies had been gathered and piled together along with kindling to start two large blazes that would cremate the remains of the muties and also act as warning beacons for any who might still be lurking in the woodland. Gloria was aware that the flaring fires would alert anyone watching as to their position and camp, but as she told Ryan, “If the stupidworks don’t know where we are by now, they’re no danger anyway!”
And so the camp was set for the night. The canvas and plastic sheets that acted to keep in the heat and reflect light were set up around the small city of tents and wags. Forming as they did a barrier of darkness against the moonlight that reflected across the plain, they were useless as camouflage, but then, that wasn’t their intent. They enclosed the camp and allowed the sentries to keep guard at all points while the rest of the tribe and the companions rested within. The guards themselves were exposed to the elements and to any threat of attack, as there was nowhere to hide or cover on the flat plain, but there was nowhere for any approaching enemy to cover and make a sneak attack.
It seemed that the Gate warriors were assured of a quiet night’s rest after battle, before continuing their journey back into the woodland and toward the seemingly deserted settlement.
But it wasn’t to be. In fact, it was on the third watch, deep into the night, when the attack came. The best time for any night maneuver, as the opposition were almost certainly assured to be in a state of unpreparedness. Even more so as the crematory fires that had lit up the dusk had now died down to little more than embers deep within the piles of ash and fat that comprised the remains of the mutie hordes.
The third watch saw Margia, J.B., Dean and Tammy covering the four points. The Gate queen had been unwilling to let her sister stand watch with the Armorer, considering that her now forgotten infatuation with him had been the original source of the feud between the blonde and Jak. J.B., however, had been unconcerned by this, reasoning that as long as he and the blonde took diametrically opposed areas to cover, then there would be no chance of friction.
In this he was correct, yet even the laconic Armorer, with his sense of the bizarre that all too rarely broke the surface, couldn’t have foreseen the irony that was about to occur—for it was both he and Margia who simultaneously raised the alarm.