James Axler – Gemini Rising

“Oh no, Lord Ryan,” Daffer answered, confused. “Baron Nathan is alive and well. Both of them.”

“Both?”

“Got a son, does he?” Clem asked, scratching under his furs. “Good. A baron needs them like a rifle needs powder. Ain’t no use without them.”

“A son?” the sec man said, his unease clearly growing. “A son? Yes, but it’s not his son. It’s yours.”

“Mine?” Ryan asked, startled.

“What are you talking about?” Mildred demanded.

“Front Royal is still ruled by Nathan,” Daffer explained, glancing toward the east. “And by your son, Overton Cawdor, come home from the Deathlands.”

Chapter Nine

A layer of mist lay over the ground, with the low hills breaking the cover like islands in a sea of smoke.

Not far from Front Royal, the companions stood amid some trees and watched the abbreviated version of the convoy roll down the cracked asphalt of the road winding toward the east. The truck in front was packed solid with tents, blasters, horse tackle, crossbows, clothes, boots and other assorted supplies looted from the cannies. Even the blaster racks on the walls had been taken. Not a single item of value remained at the ambush pass.

Chained behind the truck was the cargo van, and in the rear van Sara was at the wheel and Hector cradled the baby, as she was the one who knew how to drive.

On the horizon was a collection of predark houses and buildings. Mixed among the old homes were new log cabins and battered concrete structures resembling pillboxes.

“Is that Front Royal?” Dean asked, lowering the Navy telescope.

“No, just one of the hamlets that surround the ville,” Ryan replied, compacting the scope and tucking it into a pocket. “There’s a ring of small towns surrounding the fortressRiver, Benton, Brown, Linden, Sherril They act as a buffer zone against invaders.”

“The fortress at Front Royal is farther down the road,” Doc said, sitting on a log beside their small campfire. He was holding tongs and melting lead in a tiny crucible. “Quite a sight it is, too. The stone blocks are weathered a brownish-yellow, so it appears to be made of solid gold, like some mythological abode of King Arthur and the knights of the round table.”

“Wow,” the boy said, impressed.

A patched canvas tent stood behind Doc, the flap wide open so the heat from the fire could gather inside and help them stay warm at night. Before burning down the log cabin, the companions had looted the place of everything useful, including the tents, although the decorations on the tent poles were the first things to go. The armory had been a treasure trove of blasters and ammo, with enough different calibers to fit the weapons of each companion. Everybody was fully armed again. Naturally, there had been nothing for Doc’s oddball .44 LeMat, but he had convinced Clem to upgrade to a bolt-action Enfield rifle, and took the hunter’s supplies of black powder, cloth and lead for himself. The miniballs wouldn’t fit his small .44 wheelgun, but lead was lead, and he could make ammunition from anything that melted.

In a nearby clearing, Jak was cutting branches and using them to cover the second truck, which was now their property in exchange for the loot from the cannies, now riding in the first truck. With the companions staying behind, Stephen was short on drivers, and more importantly, they would need a wag to rendezvous with Mildred at midnight.

“The fortress is very impressive,” Krysty agreed from under her blankets inside the tent “The turrets rise so very high in the sky that” She stopped talking and broke into a ragged cough.

“Go to sleep,” Doc ordered, carefully pouring the molten lead into the aluminum bullet molds he always carried, and topping off the batch. “Mildred placed me in charge of you, and sleep is the prescription for the flu. Do you want to get pneumonia, my dear Krysty?”

The redhead buried herself under the covers again.

“Still,” the boy said, unrelenting, “I sure wish we could have gone with Mildred.”

Ryan walked him to the campfire. “Too dangerous, son. They know the five of us there.”

“Even after so many years,” J.B. added, brushing off his beloved fedora, “somebody recognized your dad immediately.”