James Axler – Deathlands

He stopped abruptly as Ryan suddenly held up a warning hand. Both of them stepped silently off the trail into the brush, crouching and waiting.

J.B. inched up behind Ryan. “Gone quiet,” he whispered. “What did you hear?”

“Didn’t hear anything.”

“Then?”

“Smelled smoke. Cooking fire. Just caught the faintest taste of it. Ahead of us. North.”

“Must be them.”

“Sure.”

“Go in closer? Take a look?”

Ryan glanced at the sky, checking where the riding moon was, looking at the gathering bank of cloud moving toward them from the north.

“Got to be slavers.”

“Guess so,” J.B. replied.

Ryan was simply thinking aloud, using his oldest and closest friend’s combat knowledge and wisdom as a sounding board for his own ideas.

“If it’s them and it probably is, then they’ve moved a lot closer to the village. Only two, three hours away. Means they might be coming as early as dawn.”

“Sooner,” J.B. corrected. “Fires might be dying. Eaten earlier. Ready to move right now. Might even be closing in now.”

“So we look.”

“Yeah, Ryan. We look.”

BIVAR WAS LYING on his back, staring at the star-sprinkled sky, listening to a young half-breed boy singing a melancholy song about a guerrilla fighter running the ridges of his homeland, eventually dying alone and friendless.

Ryan and J.B. had crawled within a dozen yards, taking advantage of thick brush. The slavers were secure in their numbers, not bothering to place any guards on watch. Altogether, Ryan counted thirty-six men around the big fire.

“Could spray a mag from the Uzi and take out eight or ten,” the Armorer whispered.

“They likely know the jungle better than us,” Ryan objected. “We two get chilled and the village’ll fall.”

“You’re right.”

“I’m always right, amigo,” the one-eyed man said with a grin. “You should know that by now.”

“Hell, I knew it all along.”

The ending of the song was marked with a ripple of applause, led by Bivar himself.

“That was real pretty, Juan. I reckon we should be turning in soon, compadres .” He waved a hand at the rumble of discontent. “Big day tomorrow. Up before dawn and hit the honey nest around first light. Just a few sluts cooking tortillas. Men all snoring like hogs in a dunghill.”

Ryan nudged J.B. They’d heard all that they wanted to hear, learning what they wanted to learn.

“Time to go.” Ryan jerked his thumb in a southerly direction through the moonlit woods, toward the village.

Chapter Thirty

Rodrigo Bivar sat a palomino mare, standing in the stirrups, staring all around him. It was a fine morning, though some high clouds gave a warning of the possibility of rain later in the afternoon. The dawn sun was low on the eastern horizon, away to the left.

The flat-topped pyramid was about a hundred yards ahead of the attacking party, the bright morning light showing the ominous black stains that streaked the topmost stones.

Bivar pushed back the brim of his panama hat, wiping sweat from his forehead, checking that all thirty-five of his men were still in a raggedy line behind him.

His head ached from the copious amounts of pulque that he’d downed the night before.

It had been a pleasant enough ride through the opalescent early dawn, enjoying all the sights and sounds of the wakening emerald jungle.

One of his men had shot off a ripple of bullets at a strutting bird of paradise that had emerged across the trail in front of them, spooking half the horses in the column. If Bivar had been able to get hold of his own Combat Magnum, he’d have blown the cretin out of his saddle.

But he was too busy fighting for control of his own horse, which had reared on its hind legs, nearly spilling him onto the trail.

They were now so close to their destination that even the biggest triple stupe among the gang would know better than to fire a blaster and risk giving the natives any warning of their arrival.

Bivar felt real fine, top of the world, ready for anything, despite the small nagging doubt about the disappearance of his scouts.

They were four good men, men he’d trusted with the mission of going on ahead to recce the village. It had bothered Bivar a little, meeting that small group of outlanders. They had the cold-eye look of mercies, hired guns. But two of them had been women, and one was only a young boy. Not the sort of group that would bother with the village or the dirt-poor natives.