Suddenly there was a crash as the soda machine toppled over in place. “Get in!” Ryan shouted, but the others were already aboard.
Gunning the engines, Ryan headed for the machine, knowing it could never support the awesome weight of the Hummer for more than a few seconds. But those moments should be everything he needed. The hood of the war wag lifted as the wheels rolled on top of the soda machine, metal started to crunch. Ryan hit the gas and shifted gears. The wag started to lose some height. Greenies ran screaming into the room, and Dean threw a gren. The LeMat boomed. A dart hit the inside of the windshield, then with a lurch, the studded tires caught on the sill and the Hummer climbed up and out the window, rolling into the night.
As they sped away from the ruins, Dean saw the interior of the insurance building come alive with flames, black silhouettes of the muties dashing about screaming in pain and rage.
“Goodbye, Georgia,” Mildred growled, slumping in her seat. “We have three days to rest before reaching Shiloh.”
“Plenty of time,” Ryan said, loosening his grip on the steering wheel. “The only point on our side is that we’re not racing against the clock.”
“Thank Gaia for that,” Krysty said with a smile.
Chapter Sixteen
The awful stench was the first thing that Clem noticed. He sniffed again and tried to figure out what it was. Wood smoke, definitely, mixed with the tang of a blacksmith shop and other things he couldn’t recognize.
“Muties?” asked the young corporal riding point alongside him.
“Don’t think so,” Clem drawled, chucking the reins. “But I don’t like it. Blasters out, and watch yourselves.”
The squad of brown shirts needed no further prompting and drew their longblasters. In an effort to impress Baron Markham of BullRun ville with the seriousness of the matter, Nathan Cawdor had given the ambassadors the best AK-47s they had and plenty of ammo. Where words might fail, anybody too stupid to listen to troopers armed with rapid fires and talking peace was just too damn dumb to let live.
Cantering over one of the many low hillocks so prominent in northern Virginia, the men stopped in their tracks, the horses whinnying in fear. Lying before them was desolation like nothing they had ever seen. Stretching for perhaps a full mile were the ruins of the ville, cottages and huts crumbling even as they watched. The castle itself was mostly gone, a glowing pool of lava exactly where the predark fort should be standing. Only a few of the outer buildings still existed. Bricks fell from the side of building and hit the ground, bursting into their component ash, the powdery cement blowing away as dry dust. Only the windows seemed to be undamaged, the glass remarkably clear and sparkling clean as if brand new.
There was a depression in the ground with the remains of fish at the bottom, as if it were once a pond. Even the soil itself was blackened as if charred by a terrible fire. Yet countless trees still stood, the bark peeling off the gray trunks, brittle leaves carpeting the ville even though it was only early autumn. A field of brown crops stretched to the north, every breeze snapping the stalks and clearing whole areas. The smoking corpses of people lay everywhere, their clothing flaking into ash, their crispy skins split apart to expose cooked flesh and black bones. Exploded blasters lay near the hands, the stocks twisted and partially slagged.
Sprinkled across the horrible landscape were stingwings and birds alike, wings outstretched as if still in flight. Skinny rats scampered among the assorted destruction searching for food, but none was touching the many corpses so readily evident.
“What the hell happened here?” Clem asked softly, pushing back his bearskin hat. He might have to wear the uncomfortable uniform of Front Royal while in the ville, but on the road, the mountain man quickly returned to his more familiar garb.
“Not much left,” a sec man whispered, the overwhelming feeling of death filling the air.
“Nothing left,” Clem corrected him. At those loud words, the artesian well in the middle of the ville broke apart, the wooden beams bursting into ash and the stones plummeting out of sight into the ground. Minutes passed, but there was no sound of a splash from the blocks striking water.
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