A metal-runged ladder dangled from it, and a mooring line with a large grapnel dug deep into the soft ground.
“Will that fragile basket carry us all in safety?” Doc asked doubtfully.
“Sure. And the wind’s from the west. Take us roughly in the right direction to get back to the redoubt.” Ryan tugged at the line. “Let’s all get aboard, friends. I’ll get ready to let her free. J.B., set light to the burner.”
There was a flicker of flame and then a deep roar as the large gas jet caught fire. Ryan guessed that the balloon probably operated on a dual system. It was something he’d come across a couple of times before in other parts of Deathlands. There would be two layered skins, one of which would contain a quantity of some light gas, like helium. Rare and expensive. The second would be a more conventional backup of heated gas, and this was what would give the main lifting power to the balloon.
Everyone except Ryan and Jak climbed quickly up the swaying ladder, with Doc needing help from both above and below. Jak pushed at his skinny thighs and ass while Mildred and Krysty heaved at his wrists to topple him up and over, safe and snug into the large wicker basket.
“Up you go,” Ryan urged, patting Jak on the shoulder. “Be right there.”
The teenager scampered up with the agility of the true acrobat, his shock of white hair appearing over the rim of the basket, grinning down. “Ready to set sail,” he called.
The wind was rising, whipping up clouds of stinking smoke from the burning buildings, wrapping it around Ryan in a coughing shroud as he stood by the taut tethering line, blinding him for a crucial moment.
Krysty’s warning scream cut through the darkness like a straight razor.
He spun, blinking, reaching for the blaster, realizing in that instant he was too late.
Wolfram was on top of him, flailing at him with an enormous bowie knife, the blade cutting a narrow gash across the material of the right sleeve of Ryan’s coat.
“Fuck bastard,” the fat man panted, trying to close with him, using the sixteen inches of steel with strength and skill, creating a weaving arc of hissing steel that drove Ryan back beneath the balloon.
“Back off the bastard and I’ll chill him,” J.B. yelled from above.
But Wolfram kept in close, making Ryan dodge and weave, unable to snatch a moment to draw his own blaster. The fat man was licking his lips, sweat frosting his forehead, grinning crazily at his one-eyed enemy.
“Have you, bastard, have you,” he gasped.
Krysty warned him again, her voice amazingly calm and gentle, carrying a whole new layer of fear. “Stickies, lover. The stickies are here.”
Ryan risked a glance from the corner of his eye, his mind almost losing concentration at what he saw. There they were, the muties from the woods, dozens of them in a long, straggling line, emerging from the forest.
They made their way along the damaged fence, toward where the broken gates beckoned them into the fire-dappled fortress, shuffling onward, unstoppable.
Their rheum-rimmed eyes turning toward the two fighting men, drilling directly into the unmistakable capering figure of Gert Wolfram. The movement stopped, and they began to mutter and murmur, a name, two syllables.
“Wolfram Wolfram Wolfram” It became louder and louder, faster and faster.
Ryan took a half step away, his eye locked to the streaming face of the fat man, seeing the doubt and fear creeping across the swaying jowls, the sudden hesitation in the movements.
“Come for you, Wolfram,” Ryan whispered. “And they’re going to get you.”
“No, they”
“Wolfram Wolfram Wolfram.”
Now they were moving again, toward the open gates, fingers opening and closing, the suckered teeth visible in the dawn’s early light.
“Come up, lover,” Krysty whispered.
There was a fraction of frozen time when Ryan could have drawn the SIG-Sauer and put a 9 mm bullet through Wolfram’s face. But he let it pass, choosing not to chill the fat, evil man himself.
Instead, he leaped for the ladder and swarmed up it effortlessly, climbing over into the swinging basket. “Cut it,” he said to Jak, who slashed through the ropes with his drawn knife, allowing it to tumble to the earth below.