Around the chamber, all slumped over like untidy bundles of clothing, were Ryan’s six comrades. Four of them had been with him since they had traveled on the armored War Wag One, with the Trader, roaming across the Deathlands of Central United States, buying cheap and selling dear. They’d been fighting for life in a country that was still ninety-five percent devastated from the great nuclear war of January, 2001, nearly a hundred years ago.
The first of them to be showing signs of recovery was J. B. Dix, the Armorer. Around forty years of age, lean and compact, J.B. knew more about weapons than anyone alive. His battered fedora sat at a rakish angle on his forehead; his wire-rimmed glasses had slid down his thin, sallow face.
He blinked awake, his right hand going in a conditioned reflex to the Mini-Uzi that rested across his lap. The big Steyr AUG 5.6 mm pistol was bolstered on his right hip.
“Hot, Ryan,” he said.
J.B. was a man of very few words. And all of them were relevant.
“Yeah,” replied Ryan. He thought about standing up and decided he didn’t quite feel ready for that, not just yet. The patch over the empty right eye socket had moved a little, and he edged it back into place. The butt of his pistola SIG-Sauer P-226 9 mm handgun with fifteen rounds in the magbanged against the glass, and he reached to his hip to adjust it. On the opposite hip Ryan carried a panga with an eighteen-inch blade. His immediate and obvious armaments were completed by the Heckler amp; Koch G-12 automatic rifle and fifty caseless rounds of 4.7 mm.
Nobody in Deathlands ever worried about having too many weapons.
“Doc looks ill,” commented J.B.
Ryan glanced across the gateway chamber at the oldest and most mysterious member of their party.
Doctor Theophilus Tanner. “Doc.” Tall and skinny, aged around sixty, with peculiarly excellent teeth. Doc had a deep, resonant voice, and often spoke in a strangely old-fashioned way. He was sprawled on his side, breathing noisily through his gaping mouth. His battered stovepipe hat had rolled across the gateway chamber. The ebony sword stick with the silver lion’s-head top was in his lap, and the bizarre Le Mat percussion pistol was holstered at his belt.
Doc had been rescued from the ugly township of Mocsin, his mind better than half gone. But he seemed to have a lot of arcane knowledge, touching on the technology of the past. The far past, even before the bombs and missiles ruined the land.
Next to him, Finnegan and Hennings propped each other up. The former, stout and short, carried a gray Heckler amp; Koch submachine gun with a drum mag of fifty rounds of 9 mm and a built-in silencer, Hennings was a tall black man with an identical HK54A gun by his right hand.
Old friends from the days with Ryan Cawdor and J. B. Dix on the war wag, they were tough-fighting men, fiercely independent, each with a dark and macabre sense of humor.
Both men wore identical clothes, more like uniforms dark blue high-necked jumpers, with matching pants. Both in black midcalf combat boots, with steel toe caps.
Lori Quint lay next to Doc. Ryan had noticed over the past few days that the old man and the six-foot blond teenager had been becoming increasingly friendly. It wasn’t that surprising. In Deathlands the first thing you needed was a reliable weapon. A friend came a close second.
Lori had been the second wife of mad, ragged Quint, the Keeper of the redoubt in Alaska that concealed the gateway. The long fur coat that she wore in the chilly north was by her side, but now she wore a short maroon suede skirt, hiked up around her long tanned limbs. The red satin blouse was torn and stained. She stirred as consciousness came creeping back, the tiny silver spurs on her thighboots of crimson leather tinkling with a thin clear sound. Her only gun was a small pearl-handled PPK .22 pistol.
Ryan, feeling the familiar dizziness and pressure behind the eyes from previous jumps, eventually decided to make an effort to stand. At his side, Krysty Wroth was coming around. He looked down at her, filling with a great wave of affection. That was the best word he could believe about it. “Love” was a word that was not much used by Ryan Cawdor.