Dean laughed as he wheeled his mount. “It’s going to be a hot-pipe ride, J.B.” He kicked the horse in the sides and shot off.
Caught off guard, the Armorer urged his horse into a gallop. Dean was right about the junkyard being the only real path to safety, but getting to it was going to be dangerous. He changed magazines in the Uzi, loading up his last full one. The effort was going to be all-or-nothing.
And the rain was going to fall on whoever didn’t make it.
RYAN LIFTED THE SIG-SAUER and aimed it at the moving shadow that stepped inside the door.
“Don’t shoot,” Mildred said breathlessly, lowering her own pistol.
The one-eyed man continued down the steps, hustling, listening to the gunfire echoing around the rubble outside and wondering what it was going to mean for the companions. “Told you to stay back.”
“We couldn’t,” Mildred argued. “The rain was coming. We wouldn’t have gotten to safety before it would have been on us.”
“Where’s J.B. and Dean?” Ryan asked. The floor was covered with rabble from the pockmarked ceiling overhead, and a half-dozen old campfires littered the area.
“John caught a horse,” Mildred explained. “He stayed back to cover our retreat from the riders.”
Doc cut loose with the scattergun, blowing away a pair of dogs that had slunk close to the building. “Get back, you miserable Baskerville scion.” He broke open the Le Mat and reloaded the shotgun barrel.
“What riders?” Ryan asked, crossing to the doorway.
“A dozen or so were approaching the ville,” Mildred said. “We got the impression they were a baron’s men. They appear to be outfitted well, besides the horses. And they’re organized.”
“There aren’t any barons around here.” Ryan glanced out the door and saw three of the riders Mildred was talking about. The air smelled sour with the coming rain, burning the sensitive membranes of his nasal passages. “Where’s Dean?”
“My dear Ryan,” Doc said, “Young Dean was behind me but a moment earlier. It was not until we arrived here that I found he had departed my company.”
“Departed?” Ryan turned on the old man, a red mist spreading before his eye.
Doc shook his head, his craggy face showing discomfort. “Not departed as in dead, dear friend. Just not with us when we—”
“Dean with J.B.,” Jak called down. The albino was still on the second story, peering carefully through one of the empty windows. “There.” He pointed with his chin, one hand holding the .357 while the other held several of his throwing blades.
Ryan turned in the direction the albino indicated, catching sight of J.B. and Dean bursting free of the clutter and racing across the open space.
Two Slaggers rose up in front of Ryan barely forty feet away, raising their weapons to fire at the Armorer and the boy. Ryan lifted his SIG-Sauer and killed them both before they got a shot off.
“Going junkyard,” Jak said.
With the coming rain and the threat of the Slaggers and mystery riders around them, Ryan understood the thinking. The junkyard offered the companions the only real hope of getting out of the area safe from the elements and the hostiles.
“So are we,” he stated. He shifted Krysty’s weight across his shoulder and started out. The broken terrain proved treacherous, and the extra weight of his lover made it even more so. Even with his skill at staying on his feet, the one-eyed man had trouble with his footing.
Then came the sound of wag engines blasting to life, rambling from deep inside the junkyard.
Chapter Six
Dean turned in the direction of the wag engines, staring into the depths of the junkyard. The sketchy plan he and J.B. had made had just gone to hell.
Movement drew his eyes to the Jeep that burst out of hiding under a pile of smashed wags, flanked by two motorcycles. All of the vehicles looked as if they’d been cobbled together out of spare parts, stripped of any unnecessary cosmetic parts and reduced to skeletal remnants.
Gunners riding in the back of the Jeep and on back of the motorcycles cut loose at the two riders.