James Axler – Demons of Eden

A ragged cheer erupted along the ranks of the men arrayed on both sides of the pass. Ryan didn’t join in, nor did Jak or Krysty.

“Were testing us,” Jak said. “Won’t turn them back easy next time.”

A raspy voice shouted across the plain. Hatcher was exhorting his brigands to do better next time. The defenders heard him, too, and they feverishly finished reloading their weapons. None of them had been so much as scratched, but Ryan knew such good fortune couldn’t last.

Ryan watched the activity through the binoculars. The Cadre milled around their wags, and several clambered aboard each one, Hatcher included. The low growl of the diesel engines turning over and catching wafted through the early-morning air. With a series of lurches, the fleet rolled forward. The wags were maneuvered closely together until a gap of only six or seven feet separated the hulls.

The pirates were crouched between the curving sides of the craft snug on the inside of the formation. The remainder marched behind. Almost every man was protected by mobile cover.

It was a strategy Ryan had expected and feared. The first sortie had been experimental, testing their defenses and the quality of their marksmanship. Hatcher hadn’t wanted to risk damage to his craft unless it was absolutely necessary. Apparently he now considered the risk necessary.

The engines that powered the fan blades, which in turn filled the sails, were protected by sheet-metal cowlings. The balls fired by the muzzle loaders didn’t have the velocity to penetrate the sheathing. Even shooting the sails full of holes would only slow the advance, not halt it.

The fleet picked up speed, and bullets began to pound into the hillsides. A man on the right hilltop screamed and fell backward, hands over a pulsing throat wound. A disconcerted shout went up from the defenders. They gazed in shock at the wounded, bleeding man.

“Eyes on your targets!” Ryan yelled. Across from him, Mose Autry repeated that command.

Bullets bounced from stone and hard-packed dirt, sending up sprays of soil and ricocheting away. Ryan raised the Steyr to his shoulder, fixing one of the pirates in the scope’s crosshairs. He waited until the man’s head, shoulders and torso filled the sight. Though the light was growing stronger, the Starlite scope’s laser image enhancer was still useful.

“Fire!” he shouted.

The men on both hilltops squeezed the triggers of their long blasters. A hail of bullets smote the wind wags, splintering handrails, tearing gouges in the woodwork and puncturing sails.

Ryan kept his eye glued to the sight. He squeezed the trigger. A man standing on the deck of the second wag to his left jerked as the 7.62 mm round walloped him in the belly, bending him double and slapping him overboard.

Shifting the sights of the Steyr to a center wag, he saw Hatcher appear on the deck. A ferocious grin split the man’s bearded face, and Ryan’s finger tightened on the trigger. At the same instant, Hatcher brought up the M-79, a plume of smoke spurting from its bore.

Ryan had barely enough time to shout “Down!” before the hill trembled beneath his boots. The gren had fallen short, impacting explosively against the face of the hillside. Still, the concussion shook the ground and gouted dirt, turf and gravel in all directions.

A cloud of smoke, dust and pulverized rock particles hung in the air like a veil of soiled chiffon. A couple of the defenders, unnerved by the explosion, fired blindly through the haze.

Ryan retreated across the crest, yelling, “Fall back! Everybody fall back!”

Just as the defenders began to comply, a gren landed no more than three feet away. Ryan turned, and a giant fist punched him the small of the back, a blizzard of dirt and pebbles swirled around him and a battering ram of hot, almost solid air slammed him off the top of the hill.

He cartwheeled down the slope, hearing rocks pattering all around him. He tried to maintain his grip on the Steyr, but he struck a projecting finger of earth, and the body-numbing jolt jarred the long blaster from his hands. His thrashing descent came to a breath-robbing, spine-compressing halt against the stone barricade at the foot of the hill.