James Axler – Keepers of the Sun

One of the fleeing ronin cried out that it was a punishment for using the dishonorable tactic of poison gas. It had turned the gods against them.

Krysty and the others, separated from the gun pit by only a thin screen of pines and some berried bushes, heard the harsh shouting. A commanding voice seemed to be trying to restore order and overcome the panic.

They could hear men running all around them, horses neighing and whips cracking in the panic of terror.

One of the ronin suddenly appeared through the brush, arms pumping, eyes wide and staring. He hardly seemed to notice the foreigners, carrying on as though he intended running straight past them.

J.B. shot him through the head with a single round from the Uzi, tumbling him over in the loose earth among the trees, his body rolling limply against the trunk of a slender, blighted, leprous conifer.

Another Japanese appeared, struggling to skid to a halt as he heard the vicious crack of the 9 mm machine pistol. He reached for the Nambu blaster holstered at his waist, but he was way too slow and way too late.

A second round from the Uzi took him between chest and throat, knocking him over in a welter of blood, his hands clasping the neat entrance wound, crimson gushing between them.

He tried to speak but failed.

And died.

“Let’s go get the Oerlikon,” J.B. said. “Shoot anything that moves.”

But the clearing was empty. The only thing living was a fat little man, who was trying to push back loops of blood-slick yellow intestines that had slithered out of a gaping exit wound in his stomach.

He had stopped screaming and was muttering to himself in a quiet, preoccupied undertone, oblivious to the appearance of five of the hated round-eyes.

“Nearly done,” Jak said, pausing to stoop and slit the dying man’s throat with one of his throwing knives.

J.B. had moved, quick and catlike, to the far side of the clearing, where a narrow trail wound down the far side of a hogback ridge. “Off and running,” he said.

“All of them?” Mildred asked.

The Armorer shook his head. “Can’t be sure. Likely a few have taken off in other directions. Panic’s real good way of losing your sense of direction.” He grinned at Mildred. “Fact is, love, it’s a good way of losing all your senses.”

“How we wreck gun?” Jak had wiped his knife clean and sheathed it. He stared with his bloodred eyes at the immensely long barrel of the revolver cannon. “Never seen nothing like it. Not never.”

“Easy,” J.B. said. “Get plenty of mud. Enough around. Good and thick and rich in stones. And fill the damn blaster with it. Much as you can. Pack it in hard.”

“Allow me to help,” Doc said. “I can’t wait to see the effect of John Barrymore’s plan. Unless I miss my guess, it will be brutish and spectacular.”

THOUGH HE WAS AS FIT as most men in Deathlands, probably fitter, Ryan was hard put to keep up with the slight figure of the barefoot Mashashige, as the elusive shogun darted toward the scene of the fighting.

The two men quickly outdistanced the other samurai, leaving the foot soldiers straggling in their wake as they leapt the polluted stream and started to climb the far side of the shallow valley toward the Oerlikon.

“The gun has stopped for good,” the shogun said over his shoulder, seeming not the least out of breath. “You and your friends have done us well and proudly.”

“Let’s hope so,” Ryan panted.

WHILE THE OTHERS WORKED quickly, jamming mud into the barrel of the revolver cannon, J.B. rigged up a long lanyard to the firing mechanism, uncoiling it to a safe distance behind the huge blaster.

None of the ronin remained in the area to bother them, though they’d heard a few of them slipping and sliding through the pines toward the stream that bisected the valley, sounding as if they were heading toward Ryan and the surviving Japanese.

“Sure that the shogun won’t want to keep the Oerlikon for himself?” Mildred asked.

J.B. shook his head. He pushed back the fedora, wiped sweat from his forehead, then took off his glasses to give them an extra polish. “Thing this big takes some moving. The ronin have taken most of their transport. Mashashige doesn’t have the manpower to shift this baby.”