James Axler – Keepers of the Sun

“We staying together for this hunt?” Ryan asked. “Or do we get to split up?”

“Together,” Hideyoshi replied. “Or there could be much danger from beasts.”

“You mean beasts like Yashimoto over there?” Ryan grinned at the samurai. “Just joking. Of course.”

Again the scarred smile. “I understand, Cawdor-san. Understand joke. Of course.”

THE BRIGHT SUN was glinting off something running across the far hillside, dipping down into the valley ahead of them. “Looks like rail lines,” J.B. said.

A quarter-hour later, having still seen no sign of any kind of wildlife, they reached the remains of a set of double rails, finding them buckled and twisted by one of the frequent quakes that had ravaged old Japan.

“Look there,” Jak said, pointing with a long white finger. “Locomotive, halfway in tunnel.”

“Handsome.” Ryan leaned on the butt of the rifle and admired the train. It was covered in patches of rust, its silver flanks marked by a hundred years of rain and bad weather. The front was round and tapered, like a missile.

“If I remember, they were called bullet trains,” Doc said. “They were the fastest locomotives in the world. Around two hundred miles an hour, I believe.”

“Two hundred!” Ryan exclaimed. “Come off it, Doc. Nothing but planes could go that fast.”

“Not so. Racing motorcars went faster than that.”

Ryan laughed. “Times that your brain gets more addled than month-old milk, Doc.”

“No, I do assure you, my dear fellow. Bullet trains. Two hundred miles an hour.”

Ryan glanced at the Armorer, who pushed back his fedora and tapped his forehead. Mildred saw the gesture and snapped at the two old friends. “Because you got areas of ignorance bigger than a rutting hog, it doesn’t mean that you can disbelieve things you know nothing about. And because Doc can be a doddering old fart some of the time, that doesn’t mean he’s not also right some of the time. Japanese bullet trains, like that one rotting away there, went two hundred miles an hour. All right?”

Ryan shuffled his feet. “Sure, sure, if you say so, Mildred. Sure.”

“Not because I say so. Or because Doc says so. Just because it was so, Ryan!”

Doc saluted her with his swordstick. “We thank you for your kindness and courtesy, my dear Dr. Wyeth. Uncommon, but none the less welcome.”

A MUTIE HERON, with enormous pink wings eighteen or twenty feet across, flapped toward them over a grove of thorn bushes. Ryan cocked the rifle and brought it up to his shoulder, but Mashashige called out a warning to him.

“This is not to be hunted, gaijin .”

Ryan eased down the hammer and slung the Steyr over his shoulder. “Then what do we shoot?”

Yashimoto waved a finger at Ryan. “Patience is a virtue linked with honor. I am not surprised that you lack the one as you also lack the other.”

Hideyoshi gestured ahead of them with his sword. “Beyond temple you see. There hunting will begin.”

“You guarantee that?”

“Of course, Cawdor-san.”

THEY PASSED the tumbled stones of the ruined temple, containing a small bronze statue of a cloven-footed faun clutching a set of pipes. Like the relic of the train, a century of extremes of weather had taken its toll, and it was stained green, one arm split open by the frosts.

“Now we see animals to hunt,” Hideyoshi said, reaching out for one of the 7.62 mm NATO blasters, a 20-round mag and a bipod for prone shooting.

“How can he be so sure?” Krysty whispered.

“You feel anything?” Ryan asked.

She sniffed, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “Air quality’s a bit better up here. A bit. Feel anything? Not really. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“There!” Hideyoshi called. “They come.”

Ryan had heard a strange clicking noise, like bolts being opened or locks clicking back, and he saw a couple of the sec men scurrying away to the right, a hundred yards ahead of them, trying to keep low under the cover of the bushes.

And he saw their prey.

In Deathlands you always watched out for creatures that had been mutated by generations of radiation sickness. That meant changes in appearance, sometimes subtle and sometimes totally gross. Also, it often meant changes in size, which generally seemed to mean muties were bigger and more dangerous.