muties were engulfed by the chem flames, but still chased after the escaping food, until they simply toppled over dead, their brains literally cooked through.
“Black dust, those are hard to chill,” Denver Joe said, returning a Molotov into his saddlebag. “Is it much farther to this cannie ville?”
“Another day’s ride,” Cranston growled, glancing sideways at the newbie. “You’ll know it when we get there.”
That sounded rather ominous to Denver Joe, but he made no reply as the miles steadily rolled underneath the purring bikes, and the frantically running slaves.
High above, the purple and orange clouds crackled with sheet lightning, warning of a coming storm, mebbe even a twister. But there was no smell of acid rain, so the bikers kept their leisurely pace along the forest trail. Dead slaves were of no use to anybody, so every couple of hours the bikers would slow and let the people walk a few miles to catch their breath. For the hungry slaves, food would come at the end of the day, but the Devils ate while they drove, tearing off greasy chunks of dried dog wrapped in oily cloth, and drinking warm water cut with juniper-berry juice from battered aluminum canteens.
The trees were becoming thick in the heart of the forest, and soon the gang was rolling along a narrow trail through the tall evergreens and oaks, the ground covered with a thick carpet of pine needles that sweetly scented the air. Without warning, there was a loud crunching noise to one side and a thick tree snapped off at the base to come crashing down across the path, blocking it completely.
“Razor up,” Cranston ordered, drawing his longblaster and thumbing off the safety.
The bikes eased to a halt and the point men instantly slipped longblasters off their shoulders, while the women pulled levers to draw their crossbows and nocked iron arrows into place.
Resting both legs on the uneven dirt road, Cranston throttled down his bike’s big engine and listened to the silence of the forest.
“Whatcha think?” Ballard asked, his good eye sweeping across the trees.
Paying no attention to the man, Cranston leaned over the handlebars to inspect the soil. The ground here was moist, but not swampy, and there was no sign of rot on any of the other trees in the area. There was no reason for a tree to just fall over like that.
Krury scowled into the shadows under the dense canopy of evergreens. “Could have been from the rumble of our bikes,” the bald biker said slowly, almost as if he were trying to convince himself of the idea.
“Tatters, check the base of the tree,” Cranston commanded, pulling a pump-action shotgun from a leather holster strapped to his back.
Holding tight on to the pump, he racked the weapon with one hand by simply jerking it up and down. The solid mechanical sound of the receiver taking a fat 12-gauge cartridge was reassuring to the biker. The first cartridge was predark, in prime condition. The rest were handloads of questionable power. Oh, they would fire all right; he just wasn’t sure how far they could throw the combo of lead and razor blades.
Turning off his bike, the skinny Devil kicked out the stand and rested the machine carefully, watching the trees as much as he did the Harley. As the youngest member of the Blue Devils, Tatters always got the shit jobs.
Engines purring softly, the members of the biker gang stayed on their vehicles, the patched exhaust pipes steadily puffing blue-gray clouds of exhaust, as they closely watched the teen go over the base of the big tree and check the exposed roots. Nobody spoke. There was a palatable tension in the air, as thick as a rad fog above a glass lake.
“Looks rotten to me,” Tatters called out, prying back a rubbery root with the tip of his long knife. The weapon was actually a cavalry saber taken from a predark museum, but the blacksmith sharpening the blade had been careless and ground a good foot off the steel before being stopped. The short saber worked fine, and the sheath bore the same tattoo that had once been on the arm of the clumsy blacksmith.
“No greasy smells, or acid smell of plas?” Cranston demanded, the blue-steel of the pump-action shining oily smooth in the dim of the hidden sun.
Craning his neck, Tatters breathed in deep, then smiled. “Nah, it’s just a dead tree. Krury must be right. It fell over from the vibes of the bikes.”
“Mebbe, mebbe not,” Cranston stated, easing his grip on the shotgun. “Everybody stay sharp. Shoot anything that moves. David, Shelly, Denver—stay here and cover us. This looks clean but I got a tingle in my bones like when those swampies tried to jump us outside Alamo.”
A chorus of grunts signaled agreement, and the group split into two unequal parts. Revving the big engines, the coldhearts eased in their clutches and rolled off the road onto the wild grass and weeds lining the trail. Twigs snapped under the studded tires, as the motorcycles drove past the leafy crown of the dead tree and safely reached the other side of the road.
Easing his stance, Cranston sheathed the shotgun and sharply whistled at the other bikers. A lot of crap about nothing. If this had been some sort of trap, nobody in their right mind would have let half of the group just leave.
Revving their engines, the guards rolled around the tree and joined the pack again.
“Wasn’t nothing but a tree,” Dee said, her greasy shirt tied under her massive breasts to give them some support. The woman jiggled outrageously with every bounce, but no male in the gang ever complained about the sight.
“Seems so,” Cranston muttered nervously, working the throttle as the bike started to stall from overheating. The damn carb was sticking again, he thought. Have to clean that tonight.
Then the chief Devil added, “But I still got me a tingle. Let’s waste a few gallons and rocket this road. There’s something wrong here, I can fucking well feel it.”
Krury nodded assent. Denver Joe just grunted and shrugged. Whatever they decided was fine by him.
But before the bikers could travel another yard, a loon called from the deep shadows under the evergreen. Instantly, Denver Joe dived off his bike and rolled into the bushes as if he were on fire. The unattended machine toppled over, and the engine died with a sputtering cough.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Cranston stormed, then stopped as there was a sudden movement among the trees, and he had only a split second to react before a massive log suspended from thick ropes slammed into his chest with the force of a cannonball. Blowing guts out his mouth, the dead man was thrown off the bike and arched through the air to land sprawling in the pine needles as boneless as a bag of shit. Then rusty bear traps snapped shut with bone crushing force, the zigzag blades slicing off his hands and removing most of his thigh.
“We’ve been suckered!” Krury cried, firing his blaster blindly into the trees.
That was the cue for all of the bikers to cut loose with their weapons. In response, six more logs came swinging from the leafy tops, two missing the bikers completely, but the others smashing men and women from their saddles, the lifeless corpses hitting tree trunks with the sound of wet clothing.
Rising from behind a bush, Denver Joe sprayed the Devils with his blaster, blowing hot lead and flame at the coldheart holding the chain of the slaves. As the man stumbled backward pumping blood, the lead slave grabbed the keys off his belt and started fiddling with the locking mechanism.
“Son of a bitch!” Ballard cursed, firing at Denver Joe and then at the slaves. The first prisoner caught a round in the belly and doubled over, but the second snatched the keys before they touched the dirt and started on the lock again.
“Retreat!” Krury shouted, walking his bike around in a circle, but then another tree fell over, blocking the way again, and then a third, sealing them tightly into a killing box.
With the gang cut into two groups, panic took the Devils and they wildly wasted more lead as incoming rounds started slapping into the bikers, the sniper fire cutting them down like helpless old wrinklies. Both groups pulled their bikes into circles and took refuge behind the machines, trying to get a glimpse of the attackers. But the