“Makes life a tad easier,” he said. They were now within a mile of where they figured the fortress had to be, and it would have been hard to get closer without one of the sec men spotting them, even among the pines.
They waited until the balloon had vanished below the tops of the trees, which took an unconscionable time. Ryan sat down, his back against a slender ponderosa, closing his eye, snatching a few minutes of needed sleep.
J.B. joined him on the floor of the forest, keeping awake. He pushed back the fedora, taking off his glasses and giving them a good polish, constantly checking the woods around them to make sure there was nothing and nobody moving along the trail.
But everywhere was still.
They’d seen precious little wildlife during the entire day, which could mean that there were stickies in the area, frightening off all the game with their distinctive, raw, foul smell. There had been a family of pygmy wild boars, scuttling along and crossing the trail, the hunchbacked sow turning and staring venomously at the two intruders into their domain, eyes glowing like smoldering embers in the semidarkness. But Ryan and J.B. had stood still and waited, watching the animals finally turn away and go about their own business.
There had been a strange silver-backed snake, like nothing either of them had ever seen. The reptile had been close to twenty feet in length, with half a dozen pairs of residual stumpy legs that helped to move it at a fast-walking speed. There was also a row of silvery horns along its back, six inches or more in length, tipped with an oozing crimson ichor.
Both Ryan and J.B. were glad to see the mutie snake barely falter, turning its spade-shaped head for a quick glance, before heading westward.
There was also a chattering flock of birds, their orange wings barred with emerald stripes, with unusually long beaks. They had darted out of the trees, circling the two men, diving close enough for them to feel the fluttering of their wings against their heads.
But they, too, had swiftly lost interest and headed away, vanishing toward the fortress.
Now, with the light going fast, the surrounding forest had become quite still and silent.
“I can hear men calling,” J.B. finally said, making Ryan blink awake. “Very faint. Ahead of us. Could be sec men tethering the balloon at the fortress. Close enough.”
Ryan yawned and stretched. He stood, muscles creaking in his back and shoulders. “Could do with a couple of hours’ decent rest,” he said. “Might as well get back on the trailsee what kind of a recce we can carry out before full dark. Then snatch some sleep before we make our move.”
“They’ll be expecting us,” J.B. said, easing the scattergun on its sling.
“Course they will. We know that they know. They know that we know that they know.”
“Trader used to say that expectation is a sword that can cut both ways.”
Ryan stepped carefully back onto the track, seeing more of the marks from the wide tires of four-by-four wags. “Be good to take one of their vehicles,” he said.
J.B. grinned wolfishly. “I’d rather taken a shine to escaping in the balloon. That’d be real traveling in style, wouldn’t it? Up, up and away.”
THEY WERE LESS than a mile away, and it took them about a quarter of an hour at a brisk walk before they saw the perimeter sec lights glowing brightly ahead of them. The lights were set on tall watchtowers, and each tower held at least one pair of armed sec men, with light machine guns and gren launchers. Linking the towers was a high double fence of razor wire, dotted with white porcelain terminals every few yards, showing that it was charged.
The two men crouched under cover and took in the defenses of the fortress.
J.B. whistled under his breath. “Dark night! what wouldn’t I give for a war wag or two and a well-trained crew? Pop the place like a hammer on a ripe melon.”
“But we don’t have a wag. So that seems to leave just you and me, bro.”