James Axler – Road Wars

KRYSTY HEARD the muffled boom of a blaster and immediately recognized Doc’s Le Mat.

“Gaia!”

She had learned enough from Ryan to know that you didn’t go rushing heedless toward the scene of danger. Her mind raced over the combat possibilities.

It had to be the Slaves of Sin attacking. She’d felt that sense of overwhelming danger, but hadn’t been able to focus sharply enough on it to know for certain where it might be coming from. Now she knew that. From the rear, through the outbuildings.

But there was no way of telling what sort of drama had been played out in the barn where most of the animals were kept. No way of knowing if it had been the first shot heard around the farm, with the whole band of murderous fladgies making an all-out assault, or just a single killer creeping in to try his luck.

There was only one way to find out.

She started to move out of the orchard, circling around to her left, aiming to come in behind the house.

DEAN HAD BEEN in the attic when he heard the soft crump of Doc’s Le Mat, sounding like it came from out back, near the largest of the barns.

He ran down the stairs, pausing for a moment just inside the door that opened from the kitchen into the yard. He inched it open and peered into the darkness. For a moment Dean had a glimpse of someone moving quickly around to his left, looking as though they were aiming to circle around toward the orchard.

Dean stepped silently out into the soft dust and started to move toward the barn.

DOC FELT an unaccustomed swell of pride at his achievement. “Well, Apostle Simon, you may well have counted three of your miserable mongrels out, but you won’t be counting any of them back in.”

With only the most minimal interference of the mule he’d been able to take on and kill three armed men.

Single-handed. His mind filled with what a tale he’d tell Ryan when the one-eyed man returned from his quest for the graila certain fetching modesty, a shrug of the shoulders, underplay the achievement.

Doc opened the creaking door of the barn, quite locked away in his victory.

“At least three rogues in green buckram came at me . No, I think that there were six. Three I slew and wounded five others so that they ran scampering for”

“What’s up, Doc?”

The appearance of Dean, combined with the clinical shock that was starting to set its teeth into his mind, brought a fit of giggles from the old man.

“Whaf’s up, Doc? That what you said?” He slipped into a strange Bronx-Brooklyn accent. “I knewed I should have made that left turn at Albuquerque!”

“What happened? You hurt in the head, Doc?”

The old man leaned an arm across the skinny shoulders of the boy, feeling a certain comfort in the support. “Not a scratch on me, dear child. But three of the ungodly are currently negotiating their price for a ticket over the Styx with the dark ferryman.”

“What?”

Doc fought successfully for a measure of self-control. “Three of the fladgies came in the barn. Helped by Judas, I managed to chill them all.”

“Three?” The note of surprise and admiration in the boy’s voice made Doc grin with pride.

“All three.”

“Reckon I saw a fourth man, heading around toward that shallow draw that runs close by the orchard.”

“Where is Krysty?”

“Somewhere out there.” He pointed vaguely with the barrel of his 9 mm Browning.

KRYSTY HEARD the panicked breathing of the last of the fladgie intruders as he blundered through the sagebrush toward her, stumbling along the bottom of the narrow twisting arroyo.

The noise of Doc’s blaster, muffled by the barn, had probably not reached out across the desert to the camp of the Slaves of Sin. It sounded like there was just the single survivor of the attack, so she figured it would be good tactics to try to take him out silently.

Though Krysty carried a knife, blade-fighting had never been her strong point.

She bolstered her own blaster and waited, crouched in the shadow of the steep-sided draw, gathering her breath, clearing her mind of everything except what she was about to do.