“Wrong, Rabbit-face,” Ryan said to him.
Gill switched his aim to the one-eyed man. “What you call me?” he snarled.
“Lester,” Ryan said to the sec leader, “we don’t have time for this droolie shit We’ve got important business with the baron.”
“You damn right you got business,” Lester agreed. “The way I hear it, you forgot to tell Elijah goodbye when you went over the wall all those years ago. And he was set to give you a parade and medals for the rebel muties you chilled. Willie Elijah don’t ever forgive a scornful hurt like that” Holding his weapon steady, Lester approached the one-eyed man. “Dump your blasters and knives down on the road,” he ordered.
“We keep our weapons,” Ryan told him. “There’s an army of stickles coming up the road behind us. Don’t know how far back they are.”
The three sec men looked down the highway south.
There was nothing to see, except the sunset burnishing the long, straight stretch of concrete in shades of purple and orange.
“We got to tell the baron,” Hylander said.
“Willie Elijah will be eatin* about now,” Lester replied. “You know he doesn’t like to be bothered at his meal.”
“If you don’t get us up to see him pretty damn quick,” Ryan said, “more stickles than you ever saw arc going to be joining him for dessert”
“One-eye is chock full of shit,” Gill scoffed. “Stick-ies don’t have no army.”
“They do now, my arrogant young friend,” Doc assured him.
“How about I kick your scrawny ass up and down the road?” Gill asked, crossing into the painted ring. **I could use the exercise.”
There was something about the old man that tester didn’t like. Sure, he looked crusty and slow, but for an instant his eyes seemed to be measuring the distance between himself and Gill. It occurred to Lester that the crusty bit might be an act, that he might be playing possum in order to sucker the sec man in close. “Step back, Gill!” he snapped. “Step back now!”
tester’s combat instinct was correct, even if it was a bit hazy as to the details. GUI was within seconds of having his heart parted by the swordstick’s double-edged blade. Through long practice Doc had refined his subtle kill-stroke. With a blindingly quick downward flick of me wrist. Doc could drop the ebony scabbard; a precise upward flick would sink the steel in to the hilt
The sec leader waved his men back. “Dump the blasters now,” he told Ryan, “or get blown to hell.”
The one-eyed warrior glanced over tester’s shoulder, searching the front of the berm. tester could see him take in the permanent gun emplacements, one by one. No way could he miss the sec men standing with blasters braced and ready to send a withering rain of fire into the painted circle.
Ryan Cawdor was never a stupe when it came to fighting, tester thought One-eye could see that even if he and his friends darted off in different directions all at once, no one would make it more than a dozen feet outside the ring before being chopped down.
With a pained expression that pleased Johnson tester no end, Ryan faced his companions and nodded. On
his silent order they carefully lowered their packs and collection of weapons to the ground.
HANDS IN THE AIR, Ryan let himself be shoved through the trailer tunnel in the berm. He felt naked and vulnerable without his blasters. As much as he hated being disarmed, he hated putting his friends in that position even more. Yet giving up their guns was a necessary evil, a calculated risk they had to take. It was the only way for them to get through the gates of Willie ville quickly and alive. Their sole task was to convince Wil-lie Elijah that the stickies were coming. If they succeeded in making the baron believe he was in jeopardy, they would get their weapons back and have their chance to fight and perhaps to survive. If they didn’t manage to convince him, whether they got their blasters back or not, it wouldn’t make any difference in the long run.
A stickie army of the size they had seen on the road was unstoppable, unless all of the East Coast barons joined forces against it. If that didn’t happen, if the baronies were defeated one by one, sooner or later Ryan and company would have to face the stickie legion and certain destruction.