“Let us hope it leaves us enough space to negotiate this obstacle course and get out of here,” Doc muttered.
Lonnie swung the wheel to try to dodge the obstacles, ignoring the loud bangs and crashes on the roof, hoping that they wouldn’t hit the windshield and shatter it.
“Great, we’ll be fucked before we even get out of here,” Catherine murmured with disdain.
“Have some faith in our pilot,” Doc returned.
“Thanks,” Lonnie gritted, “but I’m not that sure that I have that much faith in the bastard storm.”
IN THE LEAD WAG, Correll was also cursing the sudden rockfalls.
“Fate could not do this to us—not when we have come so far, my love,” he yelled, addressing the box that still sat on his lap as he drove.
He swerved his wag in and out of the falling rocks— those that he could see through the sudden dust storm that whipped against the windshield, obscuring his view of the track ahead.
Ryan looked over at Krysty, whose hair was clinging to her scalp and neck as if it were trying to envelop her, the tendrils of Titian red curled around her pale flesh.
“Hang on,” the one-eyed man muttered through clenched teeth. “We get through this, the rest of it is going to be easy.”
She spared him a smile. “Or easier, at any rate,” she murmured.
“Nuking hell, but the fates are on our side after all!” Correll exclaimed with a triumphant shout. “We’re out.”
Looking through the windshield, Ryan could see that the violence of the storm appeared to have abated a little, as there was now sky and light visible through the particles of dust, dirt and rock that swirled in the air. They were clear of the tunnel, and Ryan braced himself as Correll put his foot down and took the wag out into the empty desert with a sudden burst of speed before swinging the wheel with an incredible force, turning the wag at a tight angle so that it almost lifted onto two wheels. He felt the force of the turn fling them all across the wag, heard the screech of the wag’s brakes as it complained in its very structure about the gravity-defying feats that were demanded of it.
“Fireblast! I hope the other drivers are as good as you— otherwise we’ll lose wags like this,” he shouted at Correll.
The gaunt man turned his head for a second and gave a ghoulish grin: “They can do it—I just hope J.B. is up to it.”
THE ARMORER WAS ASKING himself the same thing at almost the same moment. There hadn’t been the rockfalls to contend with in their channel, the upper level of the rock being a little more secure, But the storm had clouds of the dust and dirt whipped up and flung them against the windshield, blinding J.B. He kept his speed up and steady, but knew that the exit to this channel was narrow—much more so than the exit that Correll and the drivers on the other side of the outcrop would have to contend with. He squinted and cursed to himself as he tried to see where the channel narrowed and the exit gap occurred.
“Dark night, I can think of better ways to start an assault,” he gritted.
“If you get us through this in one piece, I wouldn’t give a shit if you sat back and let the rest of us get on with it,” Jenny said, ‘”cause you sure as hell would have done more than enough.”
“I might hold you to that—-if I get us through,” J.B. muttered, swinging the wheel as a looming dark shape, coming up suddenly out of the rain of dust, proclaimed that he had sighted one wall of the channel.
He stomped on the brake to skid the vehicle to the left, catching sight of the other wall, and the slightly lighter gap between that proclaimed he had found the exit gap. Cursing softly, unwilling even to waste energy or concentration on talking aloud, J.B. headed straight for the light, and put his foot down, ignoring the dust that rattled against the windshield.
“Sweet mother, you’ve done it!” Mildred exclaimed as the wag came out of the channel and into the lighter air of the desert. It was suddenly easier to see, and J.B. was able to get his bearings.