Without a word—after all, speech would be almost impossible from behind the dark visors of the helmets—the advance war party got into the wag, the door closing behind them and sealing them off from the outside world. The engine of the wag was fired up, and the vehicle began to move slowly forward, turning so that it could head in the right direction. Directed by J.B., the wags and horses of the following war party parted to enable the wag to pass through unimpeded, and lead the way. As soon as it has passed through, the convoy closed behind it.
As the war party began to move, J.B. suddenly became aware of someone calling his name. Looking around, he could see that Baron Robertson was coming from his dwelling. He looked pale and drawn, and was coughing, hawking onto the ground as he walked across.
“We’re moving off,” J.B. shouted, stating the obvious so that the baron could see that he could not wait.
“Good,” the baron said simply. “You’ve got the best we can give you, and I just wanted to wish you luck.”
“Certainly need that—always helps,” the Armorer replied,
“Look, it’s too late for my daughter, and I reckon mebbe for me, as well,” Robertson said, walking beside the slow moving wag and gasping for breath as he tried to talk and keep up. “Look…” He pulled open his shirt and showed the Armorer a network of pox and scabs that hadn’t yet reached his face.
“That’s tough,” J.B. said. “Mebbe we can get back in time.”
“Not for me,” Robertson cut in. “Weird thing is I don’t give a shit about me. Never given a shit for anything, really. Tell you what, though—I look at the way this ville has been ripped up, at the amount of people that have bought the farm, and are sick and suffering, and suddenly I find that I do care somehow. I want those coldheart bastards to suffer, and I want my people to get better. So give the fuckers hell—you got our best, ’cause we won’t need it if you don’t come back.”
“We’ll just see,” he said dryly. “Now we’ve really got to move.”
Aware that the wag was starting to pick up speed, J.B. twitched the reins on the horses drawing the wag, and it began to pick up speed to match, leaving the baron gasping for breath as it pulled away from him.
Leaving the main drag behind, the motorized wag and the convoy behind began to pick up the pace, heading down the blacktop until it could turn for cover and head toward the redoubt. As the speed increased, the outriders let rip with shrieks that ripped across the quiet of the night sky, spurring their horses to a gallop as they headed off to recce the territory ahead.
The chase was on.
Chapter Ten
It was as the Illuminated wag turned off the blacktop road and started to roll across the fields toward the beginnings of the wooded areas that inspiration struck Dean. The younger Cawdor had been keyed up, like the others in the wag, and while the others had made little attempt to alleviate their boredom, he had been moved to tinker with the section of burned out comp that was near his seat.
At first, they had tried to keep the Illuminated helmets in place, to acclimatize themselves to the constriction so that it wouldn’t prove a handicap when they had to assume their disguise entering the redoubt, and wouldn’t slow them unnecessarily when it came to a firefight. But the heavy metal shells and the Plexiglas visors were too irritating to the wag’s inhabitants to be endured for long.
Gloria removed hers first, shaking loose her long, flowing red hair, and scratching her itching scalp.
“Gaia, I don’t know how they put up with that,” she spit.
“I’ll go for that,” Ryan agreed, taking his hands off the wheel long enough to remove the encumbrance before correcting the wag’s course once more. “If I kept that on for the entire journey, I’d be too triple crazed to think straight in a firefight anyway.”
They continued, the tension of imminent battle putting paid to all conversation. All would be glad when the journey was over, and the battle about to begin. Each fighter was wrapped in his or her own private world: Mildred concerned with the virus; Gloria and Tammy thinking about the Gate, following close behind; Krysty concerned with the health of her friends; Jon, the first Gate male to really take part in such an action, wondering if he was up to the challenge ahead—Ryan concerned with whether his plan would work; and Dean…