The first-floor front of the abandoned house was covered by Trader, occasionally creeping to one or another of the windows, checking on the besiegers. He snapped off a shot now and then from the Armalite to keep them at a distance.
J.B. was moving on hands and knees between the kitchen and what had probably been a dining room, keeping his eyes open across the overgrown vegetable garden and small orchard at the rear of the building.
There were upward of twenty men in the undergrowth. Or there had been at one point. They’d made the mistake of trying to rush the defenders and had paid a heavy toll for their stupidity. Six corpses lay sprawled around the house, one of them having made it onto the front porch, his hand reaching out as though he’d been stricken while trying to deliver an important message to the inhabitants.
“Be tough at night,” the Armorer called. “Not much chance of holding them off. Creepy-crawl in and fire the place. Go like a tinderbox. Chill us when we have to get out.”
“Why the fuck are they all so eager to try and chill our asses?” Trader’s angry voice floated up the broken staircase toward Ryan.
“Started because we were outlanders,” he replied. “Now they know the kind of blasters we’ve got, they’re ready to pay a high blood price for them.”
“Already paid big.”
“Plenty more in that kind of ville gang. Life gets to be triple cheap when it’s so short.” Ryan ducked as a bullet came through a window at the back, showering more broken glass on the floor, bringing down a chunk of the ceiling as it buried itself above his head.
“We going after them?” J.B. asked, moving briefly into the hall to be able to talk more quietly to the other two.
Trader answered first. “Have to. Like you said. Night’ll bring them like flies to honey.”
“We told Abe we’d be back by now.” Ryan lay flat on his stomach, looking down into the shadowed hallway. “Said he’d come looking, if we weren’t with him by the next dawn, at the latest.”
“Will he come?” Trader asked doubtfully.
“He came looking for you,” Ryan replied.
THE SHOOTING HAD virtually stopped. Ryan and the others had agreed that the gang outside had almost certainly run very low on ammo. Once it was full night, they wouldn’t need blasters to get the outlanders from the house.
Ryan had crept down to join the others on the first floor. They kept up a constant patrol around the building, catfooting from room to room, watching for the earliest warning of any sneak attack on them.
There was still the last residue of light, filtered from the western sky.
Something moved above their heads; the faintest skittering sound, making Trader swing toward the stairs, knuckles white on the Armalite.
“Rat,” J.B. said.
“I knew that.”
“Soon be time for us to make a move.” Ryan glanced out of one of the broken windows to the side. “I figure they’ll be so pissed at us that they’ll want revenge and come running for it. Want it right up front.”
“One of us could stay behind. Fire and move.” Trader turned, questioningly. “Make the shitheads think we’re still here. Other two go out and coldcock them from behind.”
“No.” Ryan shook his head. “They know the ground. Might be two or three dozen, scattered around us. We blunder around and they’ll soon hear there’s only one blaster firing. That way we all get to be dead, Trader.”
“Guess you’re right at that. So, all out together, fast and hard.”
“Yeah. Best is we cut through that side window. The bushes are closest there. We can charge them, J.B. at the front with the scattergun. Don’t stop.”
“Unless one of us goes down. We never leave a wounded man behind, Ryan, you know that.”
There was a stillness, broken by a piercing whistle from somewhere out in the darkness.
Ryan spoke quickly, urgently. “This isn’t war wag days, Trader. Just three of us. Anyone goes down he’s on his own. No argument. The way it is. We’ll meet up when we can. Passed an old water tower, good mile east of here. Near the top of a real steep hill. Remember it?”