that,” Sprue told him. “Over the few last weeks, the situation in these parts has been going downhill fast. Cannies have been hitting us almost every night. Half my crew sleeps during the day so they can fight all night. The other half tries to get some rest at night so they can go all day. We’ve kept the bastards out so far, but I gotta tell you it’s starting to wear us down.”
“Where are they coming from?”
“Hard to say for sure,” Sprue answered. “But they’re following the same trade route we are, between here and Slake City. We’ve caught them riding around in wags, just like norms—except for the goddamned sides of smoked meat packed in the trunks. These ain’t no dum-bass muties, for sure. They fight just like us, with blasters. They learn from their mistakes. That’s something a stickie can’t do. Stickie follows instinct, even if instinct says to jump off a cliff. Cannies use their brains.”
The convoy master took a deep swallow from the blue jug, gasped as the alcohol burned its way down his gullet, then shuddered and said, “I want to hear the whole story about your pet flesheater.”
The whole story was something Sprue wasn’t going to get. Ryan had no intention of mentioning their destination, the Hells Canyon redoubt. The companions kept such things to themselves. It’s what gave them a leg up on the competition.
“Have you ever heard of a queen of the cannies?” Ryan asked the bearded fat man. “Down Louisiana way?”
Sprue paused to scratch his chin. His hand disappeared up to the wrist in the tangle of coarse hair. “Can’t say that I have, but it’s been a couple years since I run wags there,” he admitted. “Louisiana norms are good folk for the most part, but they’re shitpoor. Not enough jack thereabouts to make me wanna go back. Don’t like the humidity or the gators, neither.”
“Incoming!” someone shouted from the perimeter.
Suddenly everyone took up the cry. “Incoming! Incoming!”
Ryan and Sprue vaulted from the lawn chairs as streaks of light arced in from the darkness. Streaks of light that hissed as they fell almost lazily into the convoy’s midst.
Crashing to earth, the Molotov cocktails bloomed orange, their explosions sent flaming fuel flying in all directions. It sprayed over wags and a few unlucky crewmembers. Men and women screamed and batted at themselves as they ran and burned. Their comrades immediately caught them and knocked them down. They smothered the flames with blankets and dirt, then dragged the still-smoking, still-screaming victims to cover beneath the wags.
Gunfire roared around the defensive perimeter. Every blaster was cutting loose at once. The din was tremendous; the chill zone a complete circle.
But the gasoline bombs kept falling, turning the center of the ring into a lake of fire.
“It’s all flat ground out there,” Sprue snarled into Ryan’s ear as they crouched beside a van. “There’s no cover for 150 yards in all directions. The throwers should be chopped down by now.”
He was thinking arm toss; he was thinking short range.
He was thinking wrong.
“Catapults,” Ryan told him. “The cannies are using catapults.”
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