Gloria was still chanting, almost in a trance, but Tammy was aware enough to see the one-eyed man as he emerged at the front of the crowd. She left her queen for a moment and approached him.
“What’s happening?” Ryan asked, indicating the fire and the pile of corpses.
“You know our tradition,” Tammy replied. “We burn the chilled, as we’re always on the move. And although these people were our enemies, as they enter the next realm they are warriors stripped bare of allegiance, just like ourselves. It’s the least we can do to give them a noble departure.”
“I appreciate that, Tammy, but we can’t waste time. The wag is ready to roll, and we need to all know what we’re doing triple fast if we’re going to move and be in place before sunrise.”
Tammy nodded. “It’ll be okay, Ryan. We’re nearly through.”
Ryan cast his eye over the corpses. “Yeah, I don’t want to fuck with your ways, but what have you done with their uniforms? We’re really going to need those.”
Tammy grinned. “You don’t need to be dressed to enter the next realm, for fuck’s sake. We stripped them ’cause Gloria figured you’d need them. I’ll get them for you.”
“That would be good. Then I’ll leave you to finish in peace. But tell Gloria we can’t waste time.”
“She won’t want to,” Tammy answered before departing swiftly to collect the uniforms. Within a couple of minutes, she had returned from the other side of the circle and handed a pile of clothing to Ryan.
“Now go. We’ll be with you soon, and we’ll bring the headpieces with us. They’re too many for one to carry, and besides you need to figure who’ll fit these,” she said.
Ryan nodded, then left the Gate people to their ceremony.
“What the hell are those women doing?” Yardie asked as Ryan passed him with the uniforms.
“Something that’s none of our business,” Ryan snapped, “so leave them until they’re done. Then we go over the plan. Everything set?”
The fat sec man nodded. “We’ve handed as much of our ammo and blasters over to J.B. as we can spare—we have to keep some kind of sec for ourselves, just in case—and any wags or other transport that you need has been readied.”
“Other transport?” asked the one-eyed man, baffled.
The fat sec man nodded. “We’ve got a few horse-drawn carts, and the horses for them. I know the Gate have theirs, but I figure they may be useful. Some of us want to volunteer to go with you, as well.”
“But you said—”
Yardie held up his hands. “I know what I said, and I wasn’t wrong. You and the Gate are far better fighters than we’ll ever be. But that don’t matter. We can help, and if we don’t, well, that might be the margin between winning and losing. Between us all having a future or not. And that’s a gamble I ain’t willing to make.”
Ryan grasped the fat man by the arm. “Shit, you got more balls than I thought, and I’m sorry I doubted and misjudged you.”
Yardie gave a short laugh. “Dunno about that—I got more balls than I thought!”
Ryan grinned. “Okay, you gather everyone from Crossroads who you can, and we’ll meet at the south end of the drag as soon as the Gate have finished. I mean everyone, too. Even those who’ll be staying here. I want everyone to know what’s going on. It’s not a difficult plan, but so many people involved makes it that way.”
Yardie nodded his understanding and left the one-eyed man as he went to gather any of the Crossroads dwellers who were still standing and fit enough to take part in some way in the action ahead.
Ryan headed back to the wag, where he found Mildred had been joined by Jak, Dean, Doc and Krysty.
“Fireblast! Where the fuck has J.B. gone?”
“Armory,” Mildred answered. “They’re turning guns and ammo over to us, and John wanted to see what we had before we started.”
“There isn’t time. When everyone else is preparing—”
“—I can check the weapons and get them working then,” J.B. finished, coming up as Ryan spoke. “I just wanted to get an overall idea of what we had.”