Hellbenders

“Don’t you think at all, asshole. That way you may not get chilled yet,” she muttered with savage venom.

“Nice work,” Ayesha murmured approvingly. “Listen, just who are you, girl?”

“Name’s Claudette. I used to work in the kitchens for the sec, and I know what fuckpigs they are,” she said shortly, adding, “and you still ain’t said if you’ve got a plan.”

“I’ve got a plan, Claudette, don’t you worry about that,” Ayesha said. “By the way, I’m—”

“Hell, you think I don’t know who you are?” Claudette snapped. “You’re the prize package. I’ve heard this scum talking about what they’d do to you before Tad Hutter had the chance, and then about what he’d do to you. Gotta say, girl, that was a smooth move you pulled. But you’d better have a good plan, ’cause I can’t see how we’ll get out of this alive. And if I was you, knowing what I know, I’d chill myself now and save the humiliation and pain if we don’t get out and Hutter gets his hands on you.”

“No worries about that,” Ayesha replied simply. “We just need to stay on course to the rendezvous and wait.”

Claudette didn’t look around, preferring to keep her eyes firmly fixed on the sec men, but Ayesha could feel— almost see—her look of disbelief.

“Girl, tell me that you’re shitting me,” she said quietly.

“I’m telling you straight, sister,” Ayesha reassured her. “There’s going to be an ambush on the two convoys by a group that has as much reason to hate my father and the scum Hutter as much as we have. And they’re armed and ready for a firefight. We’re safe as long as we keep these assholes quiet.”

“How the fuck—?”

“It doesn’t matter now,” Ayesha interrupted. “The only thing that matters is that we keep this wag rolling, and no one gets any notion that anything is wrong until we reach the meeting point. And then it’ll be too late.”

“It’s risky,” Claudette commented.

“So’s anything,” Ayesha returned. “What else can we do? If we break ranks and try to get this wag to run for it, they outnumber us in wags and firepower. All we can do is sit tight and wait.”

“Okay, if that’s the way it’s got to be, then that’s the way it will be.” Claudette shrugged. “I just hope we can carry it off, babe.”

Chapter Sixteen

It stood impassive and still under the burning heat of the rad-blasted sun, the sky a haze that shimmered above its topmost reaches. Formed of two groupings of rock that stood upright in the middle of the desert, with no other outcrops within sight, it was noble and awesome in its apparent ability to stand alone and unbowed against the elements.

The reddish-brown rocks were jagged and uneven, rising and falling in a series of peaks and troughs that seemed to mirror one another, with a channel in the middle that was surprisingly clear of rock falls. The fact that it stood alone meant that the elements had been equally harsh to each side of the outcrop, hence the similarity between the breaks and erosions along the top of the standing stones.

For that was what the two sides of jagged rock resembled. With their equal measures of wear and erosion, they looked uncannily as though they had been formed of individual stones that had been moved slowly and arduously across the empty desert by men, and then assembled into this pattern for a reason that could only be guessed. But once the men had vanished, the stones had become rocks, the very elements causing them to spread out and web together.

At each end of the outcrop there was a narrow channel, wide enough for two wags to fit side by side. This widened to about three times that width as the center of the small valley was reached. It was enough space for the trade to take place with both sides having room to move, but not enough to try any kind of maneuver. The rock on each side seemed too sheer for anyone to hide out or be strategically placed by one side seeking to gain advantage over the other. And the outcrop, standing solitary and magnificent as it did, fell almost exactly equidistant from the villes of Summerfield and Charity, meaning that neither side had to lose face by traveling a longer distance than the other to make the trade. A small thing in many ways, it was a matter of vital importance to both barons if they were to keep their prestige both in their own minds, and in the minds of their people.

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