James Axler – Trader Redux

“Now.”

The whip cracked, ringing out into the bright morning like a dueling pistol. The horses whinnied and began to move, hooves slipping. Abe bellowed at them, lashing them unmercifully to get the hearse on the road.

Ryan faced the rear, blaster in his hand, ready to open fire on any of their pursuers who were stupid enough to appear. Through the gleaming glass he could see that Trader had settled himself comfortably into a prone shooting position, Armalite at his shoulder.

From somewhere, J.B. had found a handful of pebbles and he was flinging them at the team, driving the animals to greater efforts.

The rifle barked, the noise muffled by the walls of the hearse and the sound of the horses working their way up to a full gallop.

Ryan was hanging on by his left hand, the toes of his boots only a scant inch or two from the rolling wheel. The first hesitant members of the pursuing mob appeared, and he put a couple of rounds in among them.

“They’re giving up!” J.B. called, able to see better from the extra height of the seat.

“Don’t flog them to death, Abe,” Ryan yelled. “Don’t want them blown in half a mile.”

Trader fired once more, but the bucking of the wag over the uneven ribbon of highway made further shooting pointless. The first of the raggle-taggle posse had gathered by the old water tower, their jeering and cursing made feeble by the rising breeze. Then a turn in the blacktop took them out of sight.

Abe eased back, rugging on the reins to slow the team from a full gallop.

Trader whooped triumphantly from inside the hearse. “Done good, Abe, my man!”

“Want to come up on the box, Ryan?” J.B. asked. “Tight squeeze.”

“No. I’m fine here. Thanks, Abe. Razor of the man in the black cloak was coming a tad close to our throats back there. You done good.”

“Sure thing,” the little gunner replied, grinning with pleased embarrassment. “Took me a long while to hitch up the horses, or I’d have been here quicker.”

They were approaching an avenue of ancient yews, the dark green foliage thick and lush, some of the main branches spreading out over the road.

The attack came without warning.

Three men, all slim and wiry, dropped from the overhanging trees, two of them landing on the backs of the lead horses, the third aiming for Abe on the box. All held long-bladed knives.

Facing backward, muffled inside the body of the wag, Trader had no idea at all that they were suddenly under threat.

The first Ryan knew was when he heard the deep roar of J.B.’s Smith amp; Wesson 12-gauge and saw the flicker of movement out of the corner of his right eye.

The combat reflexes of the Armorer were so unbelievably fast that he actually shot the assailant while the man was still in midair, the twenty miniature darts hitting home in the lower belly, tearing the attacker’s stomach and groin apart. The impact was so violent that the mortally wounded man was thrown back and to the side. He bounced off the neck of the near-side horse and rolled into the muddy ditch at the side of the highway, loops of greasy intestine spilling from the gaping gash.

Abe had both hands filled with the reins and could do nothing to dislodge the pair of attackers who were trying to saw through the harness and free the leaders from the traces.

Ryan managed to turn himself, fighting for balance against the pitching and swaying of the wag, seeing immediately that they faced a serious problem.

J.B. had been able to chill the first attacker without any trouble. But the other two were over twenty feet away from him, leaning close against the horses they were trying to steal. The scattergun’s choke meant that the flechettes would star out very quickly. At short range they were terminally lethal. If J.B. tried to shoot the two young men with the M-4000, he would inevitably cause terrible wounds to the animals.

“Take them, Ryan,” he called.

It was a crucial moment.

If they lost the leaders, then it would no longer be possible to use the hearse for shelter and transport. They had no spare wag-trained horses, and the others wouldn’t work in the team. The two remaining matched blacks couldn’t pull the heavy rig any distance on their own.