IT TOOK THEM AN HOUR to reach full light and fresh air. Ryan stood in the entrance to the tunnel, drawing in deep breaths. “That is so good, lover. I wasn’t meant to be a fucking mole. If we ever find another redoubt like that, I’m going to get right on back into the gateway and move along to the next stop.”
“Me, too.”
The sky was an unusual colorclear pale blue, with only a few wispy white clouds streaking across it. From the cold thin air, Ryan figured they had to be up a considerable altitude. From experience, it felt like around a mile high.
At first he saw no sign of another living being. There was the edge of what looked like a big lake, not too far away, and a lot of mountains all around, many snowcapped. The wind was from the north, clean and light.
“It’s beautiful,” Krysty said, putting her arm around his shoulders. “What Uncle Tyas McCann would have called ‘God’s Country,’ I guess.”
Ryan moved to the sharp-cut brink of a drop and looked down. He turned to Krysty, a smile on his face, and said, “They’re here.”
“Where?”
“Down,” he told her, pointing with the muzzle of the mud-streaked blaster. “All of ’em.”
Several hundred feet lower on the sharp, scree-covered slope of the mountain, five minute figures were visible. One with white hair, stark against the gray rock. One with yellow hair and one with a clumsy black hat. One round figure and one with glasses that glittered as he looked up toward Ryan and Krysty.
Ryan held his G-12 above his head, waving it slowly to and fro, signaling they were all right.
“They’re safe,” he said. “We all made it.”
Chapter Seven
“HE KILLED HOW MANY?”
Finnegan grinned. “Six.”
Ryan looked at Jak Lauren, who was shuffling his feet like a kid caught with his hand in the candy jar. “How did you take six muties all on your own, son?”
“With spear,” he replied, flicking the sections in his fingers so that they blurred into the full-length weapon. Ryan saw that the cane shaft was streaked with dried blood.
“All six?” It was hard to believe. “What the chill were you doing, Finn?”
“Stopping me from sinking in the water and being drowned. Thank you, Ryan,” Lori said, with affronted dignity. There was a little congealed blood around the corner of her mouth, and a deep purple bruise on the left side of her jaw, making speech difficult.
“No other way,” Ryan said, looking across at Doc to see if the old man understood.
” Oh tempora! Oh mores !” Doc replied. “Means when you’re up to your neck in shit, you can’t get along by smelling roses.”
Lori nodded. “I suppose I know why you hit me, Ryan. Sorry I made trouble. But I still didn’t like it very much.”
Finnegan was eager to tell Ryan and Krysty about Jak’s prowess in the underground battle. “I never seen nothing like the bleached-out little fucker. Like fucking poetry in motion, Ryan. One after another, like skewering fish in a pisspot.”
“Was easy. They came one at time, so killed ’em one at time.” Jak’s red eyes sparkled at the memory.
“You gut-rip ’em?” Krysty asked.
“No. Barbs on spears catch clothes. Snag on furs. No time rip clear. Had to stab at necks and faces.”
“I swear he hit three out of the fucking six right splat in the middle of the fucking eye. They was down and thrashing in a row.”
“Got no more brains than ‘gator shit,” Jak muttered. “Came together and I’d been chilled.”
“I couldn’t get my blaster to waste any of ’em for him. An’ Doc and J.B. was bursting out the water, all pop-eyed. Real stiff in that river. Trying to tug you down and under.”
“Sure,” Ryan said. “We know it, Finn.”
“It got fucking weird, you know. The light was real dark. Most times I could see his hair, like a whirlwind of fucking snow. Hear them screaming. The blade ripping them open. And the blood spurting every which way round the tunnel. I tell you” His voice faded away into mute admiration.