“They’re in there?”
“Must be. Dogs covered both ways and they don’t come out. There’s only the Sorrow behind. Must be in there. If’n you look close, my lord, you see the patch of blue from the ville’s clothes they wore.”
Harvey giggled, rubbing his pudgy hands together, the array of gold rings jingling and clashing. “The end, brother dearest. At last, after so many years and years and years and years and… Get the men to close in.”
“Still got a few rounds left in the blaster, my lord.”
“Can’t kill you all. I’ll wait there.” He pointed behind him to where the screen of trees would protect him from astray bullet.
The sergeant still didn’t quite understand. “Just move in, all together, my lord?”
“Do it. Dogs an’ all. What’s that smell in the air?”
“Gas, my lord.”
“Leaking?”
“Store always smells.”
Harvey wrinkled his scarred nose. “Why not burn them out?”
The sec officer shook his head. “No! No, my lord. There’s enough gas in there to blow away half the Shens. We can…” A thought struck him. “Would you not rather have them taken alive, for the sporting, my lord?”
Harvey began to kick his heels into the ribs of his gi-gantic horse. “Yes. Good. Have them alive, Sergeant. Alive,”
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Nobody was in any hurry to be the first to push open the door of the store, knowing that there were four ren-egade traitors waiting inside, one of them with a loaded M-16. It was like being first man up a siege ladder.
Most men, given the choice, might prefer that some-one else got to be the dead hero.
The sergeant chivvied them on. The dogs were sub-dued, hanging back, having to be whipped on. The stench of gasoline, combined with the rich scent of blood from the dead animals, was enough to put them off their hunt-ing desire.
There had been no sign of life inside the store. As the sun came and went from behind tat tered banks of high-altitude purple chem clouds, the advancing sec men could glimpse the sleeve of a jerkin just visible in the gloom. The baron’s men closed in, ringing the front of the building, glancing nervously at one another, the noise of the Sor-row pounding in their ears like the drumming of the gods. The nearest of them was less than fifteen paces from the door.
Ten paces.
Still no shot. No sign of resistance. The sec men looked back at their sergeant, who waved them on with the bar-rel of his own carbine. He’d given them the orders to take the four alive, warning them to watch for the knives.
Five paces, and the line held, motionless, nobody ea-ger to take the next few steps.
Ryan cradled the stock of the M-16 against his shoul-der, just touching the side of his cheek. At such close range there wasn’t any point in using the adjustable rear sight. The selector on the left was pointing straight down between Safe and Auto. It was on Semi, which meant single-shot. Ryan’s finger was on the tapered trigger, hand
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cradling the pistol grip, his eye lining up the front and back sight, ready. His breathing was slow and regular.
The noise of the Sorrow seemed to fill the inside of his skull.
The sergeant looked back over his shoulder. The after-noon was oppressively warm and humid, and he could feel sweat soaking through his uniform at the armpits, across his stomach and the small of his back. Baron Harvey was barely visible, head sticking up above an earth bank, the absurd feathered hat nodding like a child’s toy.
”Why not send the dogs in, Sarge?” one of the troop-ers asked.
“Because the baron wants to see it happen right in front of his eyes. That’s bastard why, Trooper. Course, you can go and tell him you want to do it your way, if you want? No? Then let’s get to it.” He was shouting at the top of his voice in order to be heard above the river.
The inside of the store was still silent, the rich smell of refined gasoline filling the nostrils. It vaguely crossed the sergeant’s mind that the scent was stronger than usual.