By that time, Ryan had reached the entrance to the junkyard. Dean and the rest of the companions were engaged in a brief firefight with dogs and coldhearts, both of which seemed to be in short supply.
He glanced up at the stacks of crushed wags that reached thirty feet tall. They created a maze across the junkyard. In places, some of them had fallen, toppling like dominoes to bring other stacks down with them. One toppled stack lay across a small building to the right of the entranceway.
Built under the tumbled wreckage, the building had become an armored fortification. Crushed wags covered the top and all sides except the front. Pieces of other wags had been dragged into position in front of the building, creating an armored shell, as well as camouflage.
The companions were scattered, facing the small building with the junkyard entranceway behind them and to the right. Doc and Jak lay hidden behind a wag twenty feet from J.B. and Mildred’s position to Ryan’s right. Dean crouched over Krysty protectively, the dead horse only an arm’s reach away.
“Dark night,” J.B. said when Ryan joined them. “Didn’t see that bastard fortification until I was almost on top of it. Bastard shot my horse out from under me.”
Ryan glanced at Krysty, saw how pale she looked.
“She’s okay, Dad,” Dean said.
The wag engine approached at high speed, throwing out rooster tails of dust behind it. Grimly Ryan realized that Halleck had left the entrance to the junkyard open on purpose. The horsemen had come hunting him, and he’d evidently been expecting them. The plan had been to drive the attackers into the junkyard, allowing them to think they were getting refuge from the chem storm, while actually they’d be stepping into a cross fire.
It was a good plan.
J.B. finished putting 9 mm rounds in a clip, then shoved the clip into the Uzi. “We can try to slip by them,” he said, “but they’ve got a good position. Some people over there tried to get loose, but the gunners inside the building cut them down before they could get away.”
“We can’t stay pinned down here,” Ryan said. He glanced around, noticing the scattering of human bones around the front of the junkyard for the first time. Most of them were nearly covered by the drifting sand and the flowered weeds that crawled up from the earth. All of them had bite marks on them.
Maybe the dogs were the only ones that ate the victims that had been trapped in the cross fire before, but Ryan kept remembering the ghoulies.
“How many men inside the fort?” Ryan asked.
“Don’t know for sure. A dozen mebbe.” The Armorer looked up at him, then out at the wag where Halleck was calling to his men, gathering them to him. “They’re not going to wait long out there. The chem storm doesn’t give them much choice.”
“Doesn’t give us much choice, either,” Ryan replied. He worked his way to the end of the broken wag, glancing briefly at Krysty. She slept, but her face showed tight lines, as if she was having a bad dream. “What about the people you said were in here?”
“Over there.” J.B. nodded toward a recessed area on the other side of the space facing the fortified building. “Looks to be people the coldhearts captured.”
“They are,” Ryan replied. “Jak and I saw them earlier. Should be a woman among them. Name’s Phlorin. I want her found.”
“How do you know her?” Mildred asked.
“I don’t,” Ryan answered. “But she’s what’s wrong with Krysty.”
“I’ll find her, Dad,” Dean said.
Ryan started to object, wanting Jak to do the search. But he saw the earnest look on his son’s face.
“If she’s the reason Krysty’s tied up now, not being herself, then I’ll make sure she’s found quick,” Dean promised.
“Do it, then,” Ryan said. “But stay low.”
Dean nodded and seemed to disappear into the ground near the overturned wag.
Ryan glanced back at the Jeep. Halleck was having problems of his own. The Slaggers weren’t having much luck getting together without the baron’s men shooting into them. The one-eyed man turned to the Armorer. “I’m going to need you to cover me.”