Sunspot Read Free Page A

muties, male and female. He enforced military discipline with an iron hand. The only way a person left Malosh’s service was on the last train west. When he conquered a ville like Redbone, he took away most of the food and most of the able-bodied residents. According to the campfire tales, he always left behind a little to eat and a few breeders; and of course, the old folk and very young children useless in battle. He left sufficient living souls and resources for the ville to eventually recover, albeit with terrible hardship, this so he could prey on it again when the need arose.
    The gully widened as it emptied into a much broader channel. The dry riverbed was cut with deep rills and dotted with scrub-covered islands. Jak took them along the near bank, an undercut bluff six feet high.
    Ryan brought up the rear, running in grim silence, conserving his energy. Sweat peeled in a steady trickle down the middle of his back. He could sense the storm front rapidly overtaking them. The static charge in the air made the hair on his arms and neck stand erect, the smell of ozone grew thicker and thicker. They were about a mile from the ville when he shouted to Jak, calling a halt to the column’s advance.
    The company stopped, but Bezoar was the only one to actually sit down, and he did so hard, on top of a boulder.
    “Time for a quick recce to check for pursuit,” Ryan said. He waved for J.B. to follow, then started to climb up the side of the bluff, using exposed roots and embedded rocks as hand-and footholds.
    “Mebbe they won’t come after us?” Bezoar suggested.
    “If they saw us running away, they’re coming,” Krysty told him. “Eight live recruits are worth plenty to Malosh. Not to mention him wanting payback for the men we chilled.”
    As Ryan and J.B. topped the bluff, puffs of dust started kicking up around them. Not from incoming longblaster bullets. From a spitting, widely spaced rain. The drops falling on Ryan’s face and hands felt tepid and slightly greasy, but they didn’t burn like holy nukefire. It wasn’t the caustic, flesh-melting variety of chem rain.
    J.B. pulled out a battered pair of compact binocs and looked back toward Redbone. “Men on horseback, coming down the cliff trail,” he said. “Pack of dogs running with them.”
    “Let me have a look-see,” Ryan said, taking the binocs.
    “I counted a half-dozen horsemen,” the Armorer told the others.
    “There’s twice that many dogs,” Ryan said. “Damned big ones.”
    “By the Three Kennedys, it’s a foxhunt!” Doc exclaimed. “The dogs will pick up our scent and the horses will run us to ground in no time.”
    Ryan turned the binocs to the northwest horizon, where chain lightning flashed again and again through a curtain of black. Below the cloud bank, a torrential downpour obscured his view of the plain.
    “Bastard heavy rain is bearing down,” he said. “It’ll cover our footprints and wash away our scent.”
    “Baron’s men can see that, too,” Krysty said. “They’re going to come at a dead gallop.”
    “We’re in a flood plain here,” Mildred reminded everyone. “We need to find ourselves some higher ground.”
    As Ryan and J.B. scrambled from the bluff, Jak waved the others after him and headed down-channel.
    Bezoar was the only one who didn’t move to follow. The old swineherd sat slumped on the rock, his bad leg sticking out straight, his face still beet-red. Young Crad turned back to help him get to his feet.
    “It’s no use, boy,” Bezoar said, impatiently waving him off. “This old gimp can’t run anymore. You go on without me, boy. Save yourself.”
    Young Crad wouldn’t hear of it. “I go, you go,” he said. He bent and picked up his comrade, piggyback. Then, as if the added burden was nothing, he broke into a trot, chasing after Jak.
    “That one’s something special,” Mildred commented as she, too, started to jog.
    “Short on words and brains mebbe, but long on heart,” Krysty