Around them, stretching in a thin line around the lip of the valley, the war party readied their own weapons.
On opposite sides of the valley, the dreadlocked sec men checked their wrist chrons. As one, they turned to the Armorers seated behind the RPKs. “Now!”
The firing began in short, controlled bursts, the twin machine blasters rending the air with tracer fire and peals of noise, louder for the quiet that had preceded it. As J.B. had pointed out when questioned earlier on the blasters, they were capable of 660 rounds per minute, but to fire at such a pace would heat up the barrel to such a degree that it would ignite the ammo left in the drum and set the blaster on a rapid and uncontrollable fire.
So each Armorer kept her firing to short bursts, rattling off fifty or sixty rounds before pausing and counting to ten. Then another fifty or sixty. The barrels of the RPKs were soon red-hot, but not the white-hot that would ignite the drum. The pauses were enough to keep the barrel just beneath that crucial temperature.
The tripods were raised at an angle that would keep the fire going over the heads of the war party as it descended the steep slopes that formed three sides of the valley of Samtvogel. The majority of the ammo would land toward the center of the ville, where the majority of the men were clustered. The outlying areas were where the women and the children were sequestered in their tents and shacks. Some of the shells cannoned into the faded and peeling stucco of the ranch houses, chipping off plaster that raised choking dust in the smoky light.
As he scrambled down the side of the valley, Ryan could see that the muties gathered in the center of the ville were thrown into confusion by the sudden attack. Some of them gathered around Sunchild in an attempt to shield him, but the mutie leader roared and directed them away. Some of them disappeared into one of the ranch houses, and Ryan guessed that was where they kept their small armory. They had already proved themselves next to useless in a firefight, but nonetheless it could prove a problem in close quarters, where a stray blast could go anywhere.
As he reached the bottom of the incline, he was pulled up short by the figure of a mutie looming up at him out of the semidarkness. There were fewer fires at the edges of the ville, and longer and deeper pools of shadow. This was the danger zone, as the invaders were still descending and could be caught easily as they reached the valley floor.
The one-eyed warrior was ready for this. Although the SIG-Sauer was in his hand, he couldn’t rely on finding much time and space to reload, so was unwilling to waste ammo. As his combat boots thudded on the dirt floor, his hand snaked down his thigh and withdrew the panga.
The mutie was screaming wordlessly, a high note of fear mixed in with the savagery. As the misshapen creature approached, Ryan could see that it was a woman, the pendulous and wrinkled breasts riding free of the stained and patched dyed robes that she wore. She had only half a face, the majority of her lower jaw and one side of her cheek being a mass of scar tissue and weals. She was virtually bald, and her toothless mouth was open in the scream, strings of drool running between her lips.
Her eyes were lit by hate, fear and a light of pure insanity. She was brandishing a large, scythe-shaped blade that had a small wooden handle. The blade, even in the poor light, seemed to be stained and pitted with something that was probably blood.
Ryan had no intention of letting his own blood be added to that which had dried on the blade. He held the panga in front of him, across his body, waiting for the optimum moment.
The mutie approached him in an open stance. She was shuffling rather than running, which slowed her enough for him to relax into the move rather than hurry it, for she was holding the blade above her head, ready to bring it down in a sweep.