J.B’s voice soared above the bedlam of shooting. “Let her go, bro!”
THE MAGUS HAD STOPPED on the porch of his long hut, staring silently back at what was happening by the gates. He saw the wag destroy them, leaving a tangled heap of sec metal, and then stop, watching as the Armorer joined Ryan. Despite the semidarkness, his metal-sheathed eyes saw perfectly, making out the patch of the spreading lake of gas, almost black against the dirt, his computer mind clicking over. He knew what was going to happen.
Wolfram was close by, in the doorway, jamming a polished, long-barreled revolver down the front of his pants. The Magus’s sensitive nostrils were filled with the acrid stench of his companion’s sweat of fear.
“Why don’t they shoot him?” the fat man moaned, fingers fumbling with a spare mag, spilling it on the wooden planking. “Stop him?”
“Can’t see him,” the Magus said softly. “By all the gods and demons, but they’re good.”
“But we’ll still win?” Wolfram asked desperately.
The Magus laughed gently. “I don’t believe we will, friend. No, I am beginning to think that, despite all, you and I are about to lose.”
“Lose! How can we fucking lose, you fool?”
The tall, skinny man turned slowly on his heel, the silvery light from the last few lamps bouncing off the dull surface of his metal lenses. “Take care, Gert,” he whispered. “Do take care with what you say.”
“I didn’t What are we going to do now?” He wiped perspiration from his cheeks and forehead. “Should we get away into the forest and run for it?”
“Waddle for it,” the Magus replied contemptuously. “No, we will not run.” He paused. “Not yet. We shall go and reacquaint ourselves with our prisoners and find some way to make them useful. And if they can’t be made useful, then they can always be made dead.”
“GATES ARE DOWN,” Mildred shouted,
Krysty was at the rear of the hut, trying to tear away at the shutters at that side of the building. She turned and rejoined her friend.
“Did J.B. get aboard?”
Mildred nodded. “Yeah. It only stopped a second and then came forward again.”
The wag had grated to a halt again, close to the tangled bodies of the slaughtered sec men, at the side of the small block-built hut that held the gasoline.
“What are they doing now?” Krysty asked.
THOUGH HIS PALE PINK EYES, part of the distinctive albino coloration, meant that his sight in the bright noonday sunlight was weak, Jak’s vision in poor light was remarkably good. He shaded his eyes and peered from the shuttered window.
“Ryan’s in the cab, and J.B.’s on back. Gasoline all over place.”
Doc sat on one of the narrow beds, holding his head in his hands. “Upon my soul, but I confess to being a deal less than well. What I believe was once called ‘feeling blah’ back in the olden times.”
The teenager turned. “Might have to move fast, Doc. Guess could try and use us as hostages. Sort of trick Magus would think about.”
Doc stood, shaking his head, his shoulders slumped. “Before God, but I am exceeding weary,” he pronounced. “Went the day well, my brothers?”
“Don’t slip away now, Doc,” Jak said, kneeling by the old man and shaking him firmly.
“Slipping and sliding away A good day is one without pain, and a bad one” He rubbed his forehead. “I disremember what a bad one was.”
“Doc,” Jak said, shaking him harder. He glanced over his shoulder, seeing that Wolfram and the Magus were standing in the doorway of their own quarters, looking toward the huts that held their prisoners.
“But we that are left will grow old,” Doc muttered, his eyes staring at the blank wall.
Wolfram and the Magus, accompanied by a half dozen of their well trained and heavily armed sec men, started to move across the open space of the main compound.
“Doc!” Jak yelled desperately.
“‘Dr. Tanner’ to you, my dear little crossing sweeper, ragamuffin, urchin.”
Jak slapped him hard across the face, leaving the print of his fingers on the pale skin. Doc nearly fell over, standing, fists clenching, a trickle of blood worming from the corner of his mouth.