Thunder Rider possessed, what kind of ordnance had wreaked such havoc.
“He must have known that his words would make some of us fight. It was hard to understand most of what he said, but by the end it was pretty fucking well clear that he was gonna blast the shit out of us. He took a blaster out of a holster on his hip, a big long-barreled thing, and fired at the first man in his way. It was like the blood and shit that flew everywhere just shocked us more. Shoulda made us run, fight, something…Instead we stood there, triple stupe, slack-jawed like some buncha mutie inbreds. Easy meat, One-eye…” She stopped, gathering herself. Then, “Before any of us was smart and fast enough to react, he’d taken this big blaster rifle from the side of the bike.
“We were scattering. Some were firing as they ran, but we were spooked like horses. I guess most of the shots went into our own people. Nothing seemed to hit the rider. Calm, like nothing was happening—I saw him, like a stupe I couldn’t take my eyes away—he turns around to the bike and reaches into the packs. Had this strange little blaster he took out, looked like it had tin cans in it. He pulled his goggles down, then fired the little blaster over our heads. It hit one of the buildings, side-on. Exploded like a gren, bits of wall flying all over us, but it was more than that. Gas—no, like gas but not like it. It was like there was gas but with liquid in it. Orange. Stained the walls, spread like an orange mist, and as it came down it burned those it fell on. Most of those burned by it have bought the farm, but some are still living. Better off chilled, if you ask me, but you can’t just let them…”
She paused again, gathering herself. “I got lucky. The first gren of orange mist fell away from where I was standing. Shit, when I saw it burn, I ran. No way did I want that on me. I managed to get to cover, watched the rest. I shoulda done something, but I didn’t know what. And I was scared. Like some fucking madman, he just stands there, saying nothing. Real careful, like he was totally in control, he fires at all the buildings, picking those on the corners of the streets with the most people jammed in ’em to start with. People falling over each other, pissing themselves with fear. Easy meat…
“When the mist is falling, and people are burning, and there’s brick and stone and shit raining down, with all the buildings on fire, he takes the long-barreled blaster again and starts to pick off men at random. Then he stops, nods to himself like he’s just been told to stop and gets back on the bike.
“No one’s fired back, One-eye. No one. Can you believe that? All so…frightened? Froze in fear? I dunno…He just gets on the bike, revs the fucker up and rides out. Weaving past the bricks, the chilled, the orange shit on the ground, just like none of it’s there. Just like he hasn’t just taken out our entire ville.
“So he’s gone, and we have to pick up the pieces and try to fix it as new.” She laughed bitterly, hawked and spit.
“You wanted to know what happened? That’s what happened, One-eye.”
WHEN THEY RETURNED to the center of the ville, Mildred and Krysty had been able to start making some small difference. The path between the debris had also been improved by small teams under the direction of J.B. and Jak. They had only children to help them, the women being occupied in the infirmary, but the youth of the ville were wiry and strong. Doc, meanwhile, had continued his single-minded pursuit of his task, and his white hair was plastered to his scalp, his coat long since discarded in a heap, shirtsleeves rolled up.
Ryan paused for a moment, looking at the carnage with a fresh eye. The mystery rider had done this with no help, and with an armory that could comfortably be carried on a bike—a big bike, admittedly, but still one smaller than a wag. His words, which had seemed as so much stupe trash to the woman, made a kind of sense to the one-eyed man. The guy was crazy, sure. But crazy with a hell of an armory. That made him a triple-red threat.
Thing was, could they take him on? He hadn’t promised the woman that they’d go after him, but if they were offered a reward? They were in no position to turn down jack or supplies. Moreover, Ryan had felt his instinct for self-preservation tugging at him. They’d already encountered the rider once, and by the sound of it they’d got lucky. Mebbe they wouldn’t be so lucky a second time, and there was inevitably going to be a second time. Trouble followed them, there was no denying. So mebbe it would be for the best to hunt it down and face it before it came up behind and caught them unawares.
His reverie was interrupted by Jak.
“Ryan, careful orange dirt,” the albino said without preamble. “Look…”
He held out his hand. There was a smear of orange mud against the white skin of his palm, and showing around the smear was a red weal, blistering at the edges.
“Get Mildred to look at that,” Ryan said.
Jak grinned. “Gonna—not before show you, though. Some chem shit, stays burning a day after going off? Not seen before.”
“Just got the story from her,” Ryan said softly, indicating the woman who had returned to joining Doc’s quest to deliver water. “Fill you all in later. This was our rider, and he’s one mad coldheart by the sound of it.”
Jak gave the briefest of nods, turned and went across to the infirmary. Ryan took his place in clearing rubble and caught the expression on Mildred’s face as she examined Jak’s chem burn.
There would be much to discuss later.
BY THE TIME THE SUN had sunk and the cold night chilled their bones, the companions were exhausted. They went back to where they had tied up the wag and horses.
Almost everyone else had stayed in the center of the ville. A few stragglers returned to their homes; most wanted the security of staying close together. The house where the wag was tethered remained empty. Whether the occupant had been chilled, they did not know.
And it didn’t matter, except that it gave them the privacy they needed to talk about what had happened, and how it affected them. Ryan began by repeating what the woman had told him. They listened in silence. When he finished, and without comment, Mildred added her opinion of the burn she had seen on Jak’s hand. She told them about napalm, and how she had felt when they first entered the ville.
When she finished, no one wanted to be the first to speak.
“I suppose the real question here is, do we see ourselves as knights errant,” Doc said eventually. “I suspect that is what has been playing on your mind, Ryan.”
“You’re kind of right, Doc,” the one-eyed man replied. “I feel like we need to go after this coldheart before he comes after us. And I feel like if we do that, we can mebbe get what we need from here…the things we came here for in the first place.”
“There’s not much left in the way of provisions,” Krysty said quietly. “From here, the next ville is who knows where? We couldn’t get far.”
J.B. took off his spectacles and polished them. It was a habit, an indication that he was thinking. Eventually, he perched them back on his nose and started to speak.
“We got two separate problems here. First, we’ve got nothing in reserve, so we can’t move on unless we trade with these people in some way. Now, they got jackshit, too. The only way they’re going to give us what we need is if we can offer them something they want. Like revenge. Second problem is that this stupe is riding ’round at random, blasting the shit out of villes. Who knows where else he’s been? Who knows where he’ll stop? We stay in this area for any time, chances are we’re going to run into him. So, do we do it now, or later?”
The
