James Axler – Starfall

Then the old woman smiled. “Ryan Cawdor.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I do now,” the woman replied. “Because Krysty does.”

“Get her inside,” Ryan growled.

The prisoners appeared hesitant to enter the fort. There were only nine of them left—four men, a little girl, a small boy and three women. Phlorin made four women.

“If you people want to stay out here,” Ryan said, “that’s fine by me. Take your chances with the chem storm and the coldhearts. But if you want to live, throw in with us.”

“We get inside that building,” one of the men said, “we’ll be trapped like rats.”

“Your decision,” Ryan said coldly. “But when this door shuts, it’s not opening again later if you decide you’ve changed your mind.” He stepped over to join J.B., looking at Halleck and his group milling in the distance.

“The man’s got a hard decision to make all of a sud­den,” J.B. said. A smile touched his lean face. “If he comes after us, he knows we aren’t going to go down easy. And he’s going to leave his flank open to the baron’s men.”

“Mebbe he’ll make the right decision,” Ryan said. He watched the coldhearts. “When he does, the baron’s men will follow him.”

NONE OF THE PRISONERS decided they wanted to take their chances on their own in the junkyard. They filed into the fort and helped secure the building against the coming at­tack, using the meager furniture to block the door and par­tially cover the windows to leave makeshift blasterports.

Ryan started a fire in the fireplace, making sure the flue was open. Jak’s preliminary exploration of the fireplace re­vealed that it was built under a shelf of flattened metal and couldn’t be blocked up to smoke them out. They’d recov­ered two bows and quivers of arrows from the dead cold-hearts. Dean had come up with the idea of wrapping pieces of shirts around the arrow shafts and soaking them with fuel they found in a cabinet at the back of the building. The rain might soak most things, but Ryan had noticed that some of the wags had interiors that looked easily flamma­ble. It gave them another weapon in their arsenal.

“Still have two grens,” J.B. said.

“That gives us an edge,” Ryan agreed, “but that edge will come in the timing, as well.” He kept the companions manning the windows and armed his makeshift troops from the dead coldhearts.

Then he put the men in the group to work with Jak and Dean, throwing out the stripped corpses. The bodies lay in front of the building, providing extra protection. The smell of fresh meat drew some of the dogs out of hiding. Two bolder animals approached the dead bodies and started to feast.

“Don’t bite the hand that feeds you,” Doc said in a soft voice. “But, by the Three Kennedys, what if it is the hand that feeds you? And the arm after that?”

After he was satisfied that they were as ready as they were going to be, Ryan crossed over to Mildred and Krysty.

The black woman had confiscated one of the pallets and had Doc place Krysty on it. Before she’d been cryogenically frozen and nuclear winter from the skydark had blown the candle out on the world for a time, she’d been a medical doctor. The problem was, they didn’t have much in the way of med supplies.

“How is she?” Ryan asked.

“Still with us,” Mildred replied.

Krysty twisted restlessly on the pallet, her mouth work­ing. Doc approached and held one of her hands in his own, patting it gently. “Poor child. Whatever did happen to her, friend Ryan?”

“I’m not sure.” Ryan quickly explained how Krysty had attacked him on the rooftop and told him about the woman trying to take over her mind.

“Some kind of psychic attack?” Mildred asked.

“She said that woman got into her mind,” Ryan said. “Now I’ve got the woman.”

Phlorin lay on a pallet across the room, bound hand and foot, a gag in her mouth. The woman had been shot in the chest, and Mildred had told Ryan the old woman was going to die. It was only a matter of time until she caught the last train to the coast.