“With Jak leading, they’ll have been waiting for us and getting bored,” he whispered.
Harvey spared the youth a grim smile. “Hope you’re right, boy, ’cause it’s chilling time.”
The assembled party readied their blasters, checking that chambers were full, magazines loaded, without even consciously thinking.
Harvey took a flare from the small leather bag he wore attached to his belt. He cast a glance over the seven people around him, eyes dwelling for a moment on Krysty—Raw women didn’t join sec attacks, and he was still of two minds about Krysty and Mildred— before he nodded, almost to himself, and lit the flare. Standing, he threw it high into the air, describing a parabola that let it fall onto the roof of the semi-derelict ranch house, landing sputtering on the flat surface.
Harvey hollered, psyching himself up, and launched himself forward.
ON THE OTHER SIDE of the valley, J.B. was the first to react, rising as he saw the flare arc through the darkness, like a shooting star on the edges of the firelight.
“Go,” he yelled simply, barking out the word.
Mildred was close behind him, with Jak streaking down the slope at an angle, spreading the line of attack. Ant and Dee took position between Jak and the Armorer, while Doc and Blake moved off to the other side, the seven warriors fanning out to dilute and confuse any concerted attempt at defense.
While they did this, Harvey was followed by Downey down the slope, while Ryan and Krysty moved off to form the farthest point of the line, with Bodie, Rankine, Dean and Jake taking the points in between.
On both sides, the attacking parties held fire until they could be sure of making all their shots count. Harvey’s men carried only one blaster each, and of the companions, only J.B. and Ryan had more than the one blaster. J.B. had the Uzi in his hands, set to fire short, controlled bursts; Ryan grasped his SIG-Sauer, with his Steyr in reserve, while the Armorer had his M-4000 to fall back on. At the back of his mind, he considered it would be a useful weapon to scatter the crowds in front of the ceremonial fires.
Despite the raised voices and the inevitable noise of a sudden run down loose ground, neither party seemed to draw attention from the Sunchildren. There were very few of them at the edges of the ville, the majority of them now converging on the central arena, where the three poles of impaled children were now surrounded by kindling that was being doused in some kind of foul-smelling oil.
The muties were chanting louder and more intensely, with the keening edge growing higher and more desperate. On the belts of leather and material that kept their robes together, their blades glinted in the firelight.
The party led by Harvey arrived at the bottom of the hill and into the bowl of the valley. Harvey and Downey flattened themselves against the back of the ranch house; Ryan and Krysty took shelter behind a shack, while the others used some of the tents as cover, keeping low.
It was here that Ryan made the first chill.
The one-eyed man trod stealthily around the side of the shack that was sheltering himself and Krysty, measuring his footfall while the redhead kept him covered. Although his senses were on triple red, he was fairly sure that the shack was empty as all the muties seemed to have gathered in the center of the ville.
He didn’t reckon on those that were too ill to make the ceremony.
Time seemed to freeze and then move with a painful slowness as he stepped past the opening at the front of the shack, only to feel a hand snake out and grab at his ankle. It took him by surprise as he had seen nothing from the periphery of his vision. The hand came from his blind side, emerging from the corner of an eye where there existed only an empty socket.
The grip was feeble, but exuded an uncanny strength when Ryan twisted, trying to free his boot while also turning to see what had taken hold of him.