Tainted Cascade. James Axler

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ braced himself against the pain in his chest as Ryan moved out from under his feet and started climbing the old man like a ladder.

      Finished reloading, Mildred began to aim when the wag jounced through a weedy gully and the entire supply of black powder and wadding went flying away, briefly forming a dark cloud in the air before vanishing behind the escaping prisoner.

      “Last shot,” Mildred said in forced calm, commanding herself to be cool in spite of the situation. It was like performing emergency surgery on a friend.

      Reaching the top of the cage, Ryan helped Doc over the jamb, and together they started to crawl along the cage.

      “Easy does it,” Krysty said in a soothing voice. “There’s no rush. We have loads of time.”

      Thankful for the calming lie, Mildred still had trouble aiming against the constant jerks of the wags, then a white hand grabbed the bottom of the flintlock in an iron grip.

      “Nuke ’em,” Jak muttered, panting heavily.

      With a grimace, Mildred wordlessly stroked the trigger, and the driver of the second wag threw back his head with most of his throat gone. Clutching his neck with both hands, the reins dropped and the gunner tried to make a save, when a slave poked a skinny leg through the wooden bars and kicked the man hard in the ass. Pitching forward, he landed on the yoke, struggling to hold on, but his fingers slipped and he went under the hooves of the horses and then the wheels of the wag. What was left behind in the dust could only barely be recognized as human anymore.

      “Power to the people!” Mildred shouted, raising a clenched fist. Incredibly, the other slaves repeated the cry, now pelting the remaining slavers with wads of dung.

      Reaching the front of the cage, Ryan and Doc dropped into the buckboard seat.

      “Blasters to the right!” J.B. shouted, giving the reins to Doc.

      There were two longblasters in the boot, crude flintlocks over a yard long and more suitable as clubs than firearms. Snatching up the first, Ryan was pleased to find it loaded and ready to use. Useless for dealing with prisoners in their own cage—the things were just too long—the long-range weapon was just what Ryan needed at the moment.

      Speaking soft words to the horses, Doc began easing the wag to a gentle stop. Obviously realizing where this was heading, the two remaining slavers began to arch away from each other and head in different directions.

      “If get away, back soon with friends!” Jak shouted, a pale hand tight over his wound.

      “Not gonna happen!” Ryan bellowed, clicking back the colossal hammer. Standing, the man rested the flint lock rifle on top of the cage and pressed his body against the wooden bars for additional support. Then several pairs of arms wrapped around his legs and torso.

      “Got your back, lover!” Krysty shouted.

      Ryan took careful aim at one of the remaining slavers and fired. The blaster almost tore itself loose from his grip. With a strangled cry, the first slaver doubled over, clutching the red ruin of his flopping belly.

      Switching longblasters, Ryan aimed once more, and the other slaver stupidly tried to put the cage full of slaves between himself and Ryan for protection. But the man angled the horses too sharply, and one of the animals tripped, then another. Suddenly, the entire team was entangled in the reins and yoke, flailing helplessly, their combined weight pulling the wag sideways. As the buckboard started to dangerously tilt, the driver tried to jump clear, when the dirty hands of a dozen slaves grabbed his clothing and held their former master firmly in place.

      Pulling a knife, he wildly slashed at them when the wag passed the point of no return and thunderously slammed into the ground. Dirt and leaves exploded from the shattering wreckage as horses screamed and people shrieked in unimaginable agony.

      Chapter Four

      Walking through the predark ruins, the Pig Iron Gang kept in a tight group, their new blasters held up and ready.

      The remains of the ville were mostly crumbling brick and cracked pavement, thickly covered with a lush blanket of foliage from the nearby jungle. Here and there, oak trees and birch were starting to appear among the banyan trees, the branches reaching out to mingle overhead, forming a sort of canopy over the ancient highway. Slowly, the jungle gave way to a proper forest, the creepers becoming ivy, and the Spanish moss replaced with mulberry bushes and laurel.

      “I remember when this was a swamp,” Charlie said, adjusting his new glasses. The hammerless S&W Model 640 was tucked into the pocket of his bearskin coat, the Czech ZKR held tight in a fist. The man was delighted over the find of the wire-rimmed glasses. He had just assumed that everybody saw the world in a kind of foggy blur, but with these he could see things hundreds of feet away as if they were at arm’s reach. It was nuking amazing!

      “Yeah? Well, my daddy said he was alive when it was a desert, and my granddaddy said he swam in it as a lake,” Rose retorted, hefting the compact Uzi rapid-fire. “That don’t mean drek to me or mine.”

      A camouflage jacket hung loose on her shoulders, the collar heavily festooned with feathers and bits of metal, perfect for a nightcreep in the ruins. Rose had discovered the hidden razor blades just in time to keep from losing another finger, and now the woman slept in the jacket, she liked it so much. A minisextant dangled between her pert breasts, the purpose of the thing completely unknown. But Rose liked how it shone golden in the sunlight.

      “It is good to know what has happened, so that we may prepare for what will occur,” Thal rumbled, shifting the med bag to a more comfortable position. A rad counter was clipped to a knife sheathed on the canvas gun belt of the huge man, and he was carrying a Colt Python .357 Magnum blaster in his right hand, a .44 LeMat in his left. His pockets bulged with spare brass, spare socks stuffed in there to keep the ammo from jingling when he walked.

      “Shut up and watch for jumpers,” Petrov commanded, clicking off the safety on the Steyr longblaster.

      A battered old fedora was perched on the back of his head, and fingerless gloves covered his hands. A frock coat swept out behind the man like soaring wings, the silver toes of his cowboy boots glinting in the cathedral light streaming in through the dense foliage overhead. The ebony cane was thrust into his gun belt on the side, and the S&W M-4000 shotgun was slung across his back.

      The outlanders at the waterfall had been carrying a baron’s treasure of blasters, brass and tech, a lot of it unknown to his crew, but Petrov made them take it all anyway. The poisoned waterfall was one of Big Joe’s best traps. He had them laid out all over the countryside to gather in a steady supply of prisoners to sell to the slavers. Petrov and the others had been poaching the traps for years. They hit the traps every now and then, never very often, and only took the belongings of the unconscious victims, but otherwise leaving the people unharmed. They didn’t even rape the women because that would have lowered their value to Big Joe. Slavers liked fresh meat. Petrov knew that Big Joe wanted them aced something fierce, a man could load that into a blaster for damn sure. Nothing pissed off a thief more than getting robbed himself. But so far Big Joe and his bone troopers had never been able to find out who was jacking the traps, and so the Pig Iron Gang lived a comfortable life, stealing a little, staying low and staying off the radar. Ghosts in the fog. Masters of the nightcreep.

      Reaching the outskirts of the ville, the gang found the roadway covered with leafy vines, which made them wary of a puppeteer hidden inside one of the buildings. But Charlie identified the plant as just a form of kudzu, and the gang happily СКАЧАТЬ