“One mile!” the guard shouted, the words carried away by the ever present breeze. “They’re past Liar’s Point!”
In spite of himself, Thomas had to admit the disguise was well done. He never could have told it wasn’t the real Blue Devils without the assistance of the doomie. The gang always had a few new faces among them, and the smoked bodies draped across the rear fenders looked real enough to make him hungry.
Partially covered by the moon shadow of the eastern gun, a girl hanging naked from the cold gate wearily raised her head to see the headlights of the motorcycles turn off the road and head for the ville. Desperately, she mouthed words at the distant machines producing no sounds, and as the bikers charged ever closer, raw hatred filled her bruised body with strength and she finally screamed.
“Please!” she managed to shout, her voice raspy from years of torture. “Kill us!”
As if in response, the bikers braked to a halt along the edge of the cliff and started conferring among themselves, the headlights pulsing to the throb of the big Harley engines.
“They’ve seen the shields, Elder,” a guard said, twisting his hands nervously on an M-16 remake. “What should we do if the witch is wrong? Should we load the eastern cannon? Hate to lose all that food.”
Thomas started to answer the man when something caught his attention. In the glow of the brake lights behind the bikers, he could see the feet of the chained slaves. Shoes. The nuking slaves were wearing shoes! Bullshit. So the doomie was right as usual, and this is a trap of some kind. Probably poison in the bodies. There could be more to this than could be seen. The first elder often said one clever trick from an enemy usually meant two or three more were coming.
“Load the second and third cannons,” Thomas ordered, working the bolt action on his longblaster and sliding in the single round. “And load number four, too, just in case this is a diversion for an attack on the other side.”
“Yes, Elder!” the man said with a salute, and hurried while carrying his torch high, sparks flying on the wind.
Standing alone in the busy courtyard, the doomie turned her wizened head toward the dimly remembered glory of the stars, a worried expression playing across her gnarled features. She felt dizzy, almost sick, her mind a whirlwind of events, the actions of the present too chaotic for her to see what would come to be. Then dimly amid the blood and the madness, she caught a glimpse of a beautiful woman with yellow hair the color of the sun. Golden hair. It was she! A wave of cold took the mutie, and there was no doubt that she had just looked upon the face of death incarnate.
Lifting a box from inside his leather jacket, one of the bikers seemed to be talking to it. After a few minutes, he tucked it away and the Devils began revving their engines, making enough noise to drown out the crashing of the waves on the beach.
“What are they doing?” a sec man muttered, switching the selector lever on the M-16 remake from single shot to full-auto. This was his only clip of ammo for the rapidfire, but this day was why they had been hoarding the lead. All available black powder was reserved for the big guns. The sec man hadn’t personally fired his weapon in a year. There was rarely need. Only muties were insane enough to challenge the big guns.
“Dying,” Thomas growled, wrapping the sling of the huge longblaster around his arm to steady his aim. Aiming for the fuel tank of the big Harley, he then shifted the crosshairs and zeroed on the rider. As he caressed the trigger, the Remington blaster blew flame, and Thomas saw the Devil fall off the machine and roll straight over the cliff and out of sight. If there was a scream before he hit the rocks below, the winds carried it away. Pity.
In response, the rest of the bikers drew rapidfires, while the slaves threw off their chains and cut loose the dressed bodies, pulling out blasters hidden underneath. Crouching low, they started raking the top of the wall with small arms fire, flattened slugs ricocheting off the metal and concrete. The ville guards returned fire, but their weapons didn’t have the reach.