James Axler – Shadowfall

His gaze finally settled on Ryan. “You’ll be the one called Cawdor, leader of this shipwrecked band,” he said. “And you’re Trader. I used to hear my father tell me stories of a man called Trader. Rode with war wags and his own private army. Heard he got chilled fighting against some rebel Comanche, out along Death Canyon Road. You the same man?”

“Not if I got myself chilled by a band of Comanche,” Trader replied easily. “Plenty of men in Deathlands call themselves traders.”

“That’s true. And the boy with eyes bigger than his belly. Be your son, Cawdor?”

“Yeah. Dean. He’s eleven.”

“Baron Weyman has an eleven-year-old,” Ditch-down said, standing next to the war chief. “Called Jamie. Bright, they say. Being trained to take over from his father.”

Schickel laughed. “Not if we can all get there first, eh, brothers?”

“You’re aiming to try and take this baron, are you?” Ryan asked.

“Why? You have a problem with that, Mr. One-Eyed Cawdor? Mebbe you don’t see things too clearly.”

His witticisms drew bellows of laughter from the rest of the hunters.

“I heard most barons had sec men. I heard most sec men had better weapons than a couple of Kalashnikovs, a sawed-down Ithaca and a few smoothbores,” Ryan observed.

“You heard right. Yes, indeed you heard right. So, your ears work well.”

“So, I guess you know things we don’t,” Ryan concluded, sustaining a pleasant smile, suppressing the temptation to cut the throat of the grinning oaf.

“Sure. We been around Deathlands.” He slapped himself on the chest. “I seen barons whose piss would blight the land for a thousand years. Seen barons only had to look angry at you and the bullets melted in the chamber. Then again” he paused for dramatic effect “I seen barons like Weyman whose idea of giving you a hard time is to stop you having an extra smear of butter on your bread. Know what I mean?”

“You mean he’s a weak baron?” J.B. asked.

“Sure.” He stared hard at the Armorer. “You got four eyes there, friend. That to make up for Cawdor only having one?” Schickel turned around to bathe in the wave of raucous laughter.

“So I can see properly when I have to put a full-metal jacket through the hearts of bragging stupes,” J.B. said quietly.

“Whoa back, buck! Hold on to them bosses, little Dix. Don’t get your drawers in a tangle, eh? Guess it’s true what they say about small men. They all got them ferocious tempers.” He pretended to shiver with fear. “Have to step light when this pint-size fury’s around us, brothers.”

Ditchdown glanced back over his shoulder and whispered something to the bulky figure of the leader.

“How’s that, Ditchdown? Who’s on Oh, yeah. I noticed for myself. Can’t hardly miss them, can you? Like having one eye froze with snow and the other burned with fire.” He smiled broadly at Jak and Krysty.

“So merry and so fat can ne’er live long, they say,” Doc whispered to Mildred.

She whispered back. “A man can smile and smile and still be a bastard villain, Doc.”

“True, madam, true.”

Schickel saw the exchange and hesitated, as though he were working on another wisecrack, changing his mind. “Food’s getting colder than a snow bear’s dick. Let’s all sit down and eat and drink. Get to know each other better.”

Dean didn’t need a second invitation, grabbing at several slices of venison from the nearest plate, then helping himself to a pile of potatoes and carrots. He ladled himself a generous portion of gravy, so rich and thick that you could’ve sliced it with a good knife.

Ryan was about to tell the boy off for his greediness and poor table manners, then be realized how hungry he was himself and set to with a will, generally eating left-handed, as J.B., Jak, Trader and Abe all did, so that his right hand was free to sit snugly on the butt of the SIG-Sauer.

But there hadn’t seemed any direct threat.

As far as this Baron Weyman was concerned, Ryan couldn’t have cared less. Any baron in Deathlands was fair game. That was up at the head of the list of unwritten rules.