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  “Aw, no,” Abner said. “We don’t want to go through that in small boats. No way.”

  “Saw stickie,” Jak said. “Chilled stickie.”

  “We saw more than one,” Nataly stated. “It looked as if we disturbed a whole nest of the monsters.” She shuddered.

  Ryan cocked his head at J.B. “Didn’t hear blasterfire.”

  “Jak used his knives.”

  Ryan jutted his jaw and nodded. It was tough to chill a stickie with a knife. The blade would have to be thrown hard enough to penetrate the mutie’s brain. Body strikes were useless.

  “And Abner used the motor.”

  “You bet I did!” The normally quiet mate was animated. Apparently his brush with the dreaded muties had pumped him high on adrenaline. “Why fight those monsters when we can run?”

  “Too true,” J.B. said, then shrugged. “I didn’t see the need to waste cartridges.”

  “Good move,” Ryan said. “Still game to try escaping upstream, Mildred?”

  “Let’s go just right on through that big old fleet,” Mildred said. “I love this plan.”

  As if to try to persuade her otherwise, the booming of cannon fire, dulled by distance but audible and unmistakable, drifted to them against the slow breeze. It was only a few shots, sounding to Ryan as if they mebbe came from both sides.

  “Big boomers,” J.B. said. “Not any of the kitty-cat crap blasters the patrol boats carry in their bows.”

  “Still love the plan to try creeping past all those big old cannons in the dead of night, Mildred?”

  “Compared to sitting on a bundle of sticks tied together, floating at zero-point-five miles an hour through a maze filled with lethal radioactive sludge, waiting for a tribe of stickies to wade out and eat us? Well, yes.”

  “Right. Is there time to hit up some of the places where you found suitable timber, cut it and make it back here before dark?”

  Nataly thought, then nodded. “We’d have to move fast.”

  “You and Abner up to going out again?”

  The two said yes.

  “Jak?”

  Jak only grinned. Ryan didn’t think it was necessary to point out to the Queen’s crew that meant he reckoned they were likely going to have trouble, probably of the stickie kind, and he was eager to get stuck in some.

  “You both ready to chop wood?” he asked the pair.

  “Yes,” Nataly said. The coxswain just nodded again.

  “Two boats should be fine carrying four people each, right?”

  “Sure enough,” Abner agreed.

  “Pick five more people you reckon can use an ax or that two-man saw we got. Avery, are you up to coming?”

  He drew in a deep breath. “I can’t say I’m eager to move toward a nest of riled-up stickies,” he said, “and speaking of them, I still don’t double like the looks of that old bridge. But yes, and I can swing an ax with the best of them. Or use a saw of any description.”

  “Ace. We’ll need to pick out trees that are the best compromise we can find between too small to work and too big to cut down fast. Can we do that?”

  The boatswain’s teeth were bright in his dark face when he grinned. “We can. And I can pick out just the ones.”

  “Pick four more, then, Nataly. J.B., will you swap longblasters with me? I think that riot gun of yours will be more useful in the kind of scrape we’re likely to get into than my Steyr.”

  “Sure, Ryan. And I’ll swap your Scout out with Ricky. He’s better with a longblaster than I am, any day. And that little homebrew carbine of his is better for hitting stickies with, if it comes to that.”

  “How likely is it that the stickies around here have learned we’re here from their kinfolk upstream?” Kenn asked.

  Jak laughed softly. “Know here,” he said.

  The crew frowned at him. They hadn’t begun to have a chance to learn to decipher his oddly clipped speech. His companions had a hard enough time figuring it out.

  “He means, the stickies around here already know we’re here, Suzan,” Krysty said. “Whether or not they live under the railway bridge.”

  “How likely are they to rile up the whole country and come down on our necks, is what she’s trying to ask,” Arliss said. “Right, Suzan?”

  She nodded, looking even more wild-eyed than usual.

  “Can’t rightly say,” J.B. replied. “There’s no telling with stickies.”

  “Like humans,” Doc said, “different bands of stickies vary widely in intelligence and social organization. At the very least they display a form of cunning. In general they do have some means of communication in the way they hoot and shriek, and if they can communicate, the mood of the band can shift with astonishing speed.”

  “You folks know fighting better than me,” Arliss said, “but isn’t it supposed to be a bad idea to divide your forces in the face of the enemy?”

  “Yeah,” Ryan agreed, “but I don’t see that we’ve got a choice. We can’t leave the supplies unguarded. Mutie bastards’ll trash the whole lot, mebbe even burn everything if they have the means start a fire.”

  “They do love them fire,” J.B. agreed.

  “That is so strange,” Jake said. “I associate them more with the element of water. Not its opposite.”

  Ryan looked at the navigator in surprise. He was pretty sure that was the least gloomy thing he had heard the man say in the past few days. It also was exactly not the sort of thing Ryan would ever expect him to say.

  There’s just no reading people, he thought with grim amusement. I can see why J.B. and Ricky would rather work with machines. You always know where you stand with them.

  “The more people we take with us the slower we go,” Nataly said. “We couldn’t safely carry the whole party in the two boats, anyway, Arliss.”

  “Aye,” the rigger said. “You’re right.”

  “How will you get enough wood for the rafts back here?” Mildred asked.

  “They float,” Ryan said. “We tie them up in big bundles, lash them together, toss them in the creek and tow them downstream with us. Easy as taking jack from a dead man.”

  * * *

  OH, WELL, RICKY thought as the water slogged around the raft being slowly towed behind the motor launch. It’s not as if it’s hard keeping noise discipline with Jak for a raft mate. Overhead, what looked like a million stars had no trouble staying silent at all.

  Five of the rafts were strung out behind the lead boat, followed by the unpowered dinghy from the Mississippi Queen. Ryan and Krysty rode in the tow boat, with a morose Myron.

  At least he’s piped down, Ricky thought, less charitably than he would have liked. When they’d started out, about one in the morning by J.B.’s chron, the acting captain had wailed like a lonely puppy as they pulled away from the abandoned tug.

  Piloting the boat, and by extension the whole waterborne caravan, was Abner. Ryan, Krysty and Myron were his passengers. Ricky and Jak were on the second raft with their packs, behind the one carrying Arliss and Sean. They lay on their bellies, because Avery had warned them in bloodcurdling terms not to try sitting, much less standing, on the lumpy bundles of tied-together logs. Ricky didn’t trust theirs anyway, so he had little trouble obeying. Jak would go ahead and get up and dance on the horrible thing if he took a mind to. But he was so coordinated he could probably get away with it without making the raft come apart or tipping it over. Ricky was not that coordinated, and was painfully aware of the fact.

  Doc rode on the raft immediately following theirs with Jake. Avery and Suzan rode the fourth. The fifth raft was loaded with supplies, mostly food and extra ammo. In the trail boat were J.B., Mildred, Nataly and Santee, primarily because none of the rafts would safely carry him.

  Ricky moaned, but softly, as the turbulence of the Wolf Creek waters blending with those of the mighty Sippi rocked the raft. He saw Jak laughing silently at him.

  A killdeer flew overhead, low but invisible, its passage marked by its shrill staccato tweets. It was one of the
few mainland birds Ricky had learned to recognize by sound, simply because they were so common and distinctive. The smell of water was thick in his nostrils, emphasized by actual water slopping over the cut-up saplings of the raft to hit him in the face or soak his clothes. He could also smell the tang of burned black powder, and the more appealing smells of food cooking.

  The lead boat was turning south. Its engine purred on low RPM, barely audible even this close by. The sloshing water was louder. Ricky had been told it was a tricky maneuver, towing a series of rafts around a turn like that. He looked back nervously, but the other craft seemed to follow in an effortless arc.

  They rode toward the New Vickville fleet. Lights burned among the ships, enough to show there were about a dozen sizable ships there, two or three of them scary big. He couldn’t tell for sure because it looked as if their silhouettes overlapped. From somewhere ahead he heard a fiddle being played.

  Ricky wondered what time it was—how long until dawn, mostly. Nataly and Abner had calculated they needed about three hours to reach the New Vick fleet. Maybe less, probably not much more. They planned to slide in close to the western shore and hug it as close as possible to reduce their chances of being seen.

  Arliss had expressed surprise that they’d set out so early. “I thought half an hour before sunrise was the best time to make a move,” he’d said, “because the human mind and body are at their lowest ebb then.”

  “They are,” Ryan had told him. “The light gets trickiest then, too, and it’s hard to see right. But we’re not trying a sneak attack. We’re trying to sneak by. We want to be a mile or more south of the fleet when the sun comes up.”

  He turned his face to the side so he could roll one eye up to the sky. It was still black, although he could see some shadowy streaks where a few high lines of clouds were blotting the stars. Dawn looked as if it was still far away, even if it felt as if they’d been crawling along the water for roughly ever.

  From somewhere ahead and to his left, a harsh voice barked, “Hey! Who goes there!”

  * * *

  “FIREBLAST,” KRYSTY HEARD Ryan say under his breath.

  Ahead to port a light suddenly glowed alive, not twenty yards away from them. It showed hints of firelight-yellowed faces and a peculiar-looking superstructure.

  Her heart sank. It could only be a New Vickville patrol boat. Somehow they’d almost run into it without even seeing it. It wasn’t just the darkness, she realized. The craft’s shadowed shape blended seamlessly against the larger shadow-masses of the fleet behind it.

  “Speak the password,” the angry-sounding male voice called out. “Or we’ll open fire, you P’ville cocksuckers!”

  From the right and almost abeam, a second light appeared, reaching out at them across the rolling Sippi waters. It was only a lantern, and its beam was feeble, but it was strong enough to shine upon them faintly. Mostly, it signified the presence of a second patrol boat.

  “We’re lost,” Myron groaned, burying his face in his hands.

  Krysty turned and put her arm around him to comfort him, but mostly in hopes of shutting him up. They didn’t need to go out of their way to attract more attention. Although it was hard to see any way in which they weren’t caught.

  “Ryan,” Abner said, “it’s your call.”

  “Take her as fast as you can for the near boat,” Ryan clipped out. “Pass close as you dare to port of her. On my word, cut power. Then when I tell you, accelerate, keep turning to port until you’re near the bank and head back up Wolf Creek to the Queen.”

  Krysty saw the man’s eyes widen, but he bobbed his head. The noise of the motor increased and the caravan slowly began to pick up speed.

  Despite their initial threats, the crew of the first patrol craft didn’t seem to know what to do. Krysty heard them shouting at each other about “raising a head of steam” and “orders.” The chug of a much larger engine than the launch’s came from the other boat, though.

  A new voice bellowed from the near vessel. “Open fire, you stupes! Blow the P’ville taints out of the damn water!”

  The deck cannon went off. It seemed to Krysty as if the muzzle-flare would envelop them. But although the noise of the cannon firing struck her in the face as if she’d been flung into a board fence, and seemed to deafen her, the shot flew high over their heads. High enough that she dared hope it missed their rafts and dinghy, as well.

  Then she was choking on dense sulfurous smoke.

  The bow of the patrol boat loomed like a peak over them. “Cut the throttle!” Ryan commanded. With the powerful drag of the heavy-laden craft in tow, the launch rapidly lost way.

  Ryan laid his longblaster on the plank seat between them. “Ryan, what are you doing?” she asked as he stood up into a pantherish crouch, steadying himself with hands on the gunwales.

  “I’ll be back, Krysty,” he said. “Full power now, Abner!”

  Then Ryan launched himself toward the enemy patrol boat.

  Chapter Nine

  I’m going to feel like the biggest stupe on Earth if I miss my handhold. The words flashed through Ryan’s mind as he flew through the air above the darkened waters of the Sippi.

  He barely had time to finish the thought before he struck the New Vick patrol boat’s hull. His hands by sheer dumb luck found the scuppers. Behind him he heard the growl of a small motor rising as Abner, following Ryan’s last commands, turned the launch and her tow-train and ran hard for the bank.

  He hauled himself up, boot soles scrabbling against the wooden hull. He got enough of a purchase to push up and grab the rail. Then he got the toes of his boots into the drain holes at the base of the gunwale.

  Holding on to the rail with his left hand, he drew the SIG from its holster with his right. A man with a billed cap and a beard stood to his right, not three feet away. He was already starting to turn.

  Ryan shot him twice through the back. The shots were loud even over the ringing in his ears left by the deck cannon going off almost in his face. The sailor fell.

  The one-eyed man vaulted the rail and landed in a crouch on the deck. Somebody emerged from the cabin, to his left, and he sensed the man grabbing for him.

  Ryan dealt him a sharp elbow strike. It struck hard against the man’s chin, momentarily numbing Ryan’s left hand. The sailor reeled back with a cry. The initial blow was followed by a side kick that slammed the man onto his butt on the deck. Ryan pivoted slightly and fired a single shot. Just as the sailor was starting to bound forward to his feet, he collapsed to the deck with a hole in his forehead.

  Drawing the panga with his left hand, Ryan rushed forward and was among the still-confused crew like a tiger among sheep.

  The man attending the surprisingly little deck cannon looked up in amazement as Ryan appeared around the corner of the mostly open cabin that lay in front of the vessel’s exposed topside boiler. Ryan delivered two shots that drilled though the blasterman’s throat. He emitted a sort of croaking sound and toppled backward over the rail, leaving his wet mop stuck down the fat smoothbore barrel.

  A second man in a peaked cap stood behind the cannon in a spill of yellow shine from the lanterns mounted at the front of the wheelhouse, in front of Ryan and to his left. The Deathlands warrior chopped him at the base of the neck from behind with a backhand swipe. The officer went down.

  That left two crewmen in sight, one to the right of the cannon, turning to face Ryan with a bag of what had to have been premeasured black powder in his hands, and the other on the cannon’s far side, bending over a low crate that contained several softball-size iron balls. Ryan shot the nearer man, the one with the powder bag, twice through the chest. He collapsed in a heap beside the cannon.

  Abruptly Ryan felt himself caught up from behind by a pair of arms snaking beneath his own. Then hands interlocked behind his head, pulling both his arms up while his neck was forced inexorably forward. His attacker, who had to have been bigger than he was, hoisted his boots off the deck.

  Sparks began
to pop like tiny muzzles-flashes behind Ryan’s eye. He was in a beyond Code Red emergency. That full nelson neck lock could crank his spine far enough to put him out, cause permanent injury up to paralyzing him, or leave him staring up at the stars through the fleeting wisps of clouds above. All of which would mean he’d failed in his mission to cover his friends’ slow-motion escape from the armored battle fleet.

  The other gunner came at him, his bearded face a twist of rage. He held one of the cannonballs overhead in both hands, preparing to smash it down on Ryan’s exposed and helpless head.

  But while his skull was definitely exposed and vulnerable, Ryan was far from helpless. He’d been here before.

  As the cannon-loader lunged at him, Ryan whipped up his lower body and pistoned both his boot heels into the man’s gut—neither a solar plexus nor a nut shot, but between the hip bones, midway from navel to nut-sack. It was a blow meant to unbalance, not stun.

  It did. The gunner was already leaning forward. As Ryan intended, the man’s legs whipped out from under him. Though the motion almost made him black out, Ryan torqued his own hips rapidly counterclockwise, twisting his own legs out of the way.

  By sheer luck the falling cannonball hit Ryan’s captor somewhere between the same spot Ryan had kicked his pal and a thigh. Ryan had never counted on that—he had other means of getting his attacker to loosen his death grip—but he was certainly taking the gift that chance had given him. He got his right hand turned down and in far enough for his blaster muzzle to clear his own torso. And bear on his enemy’s.

  He fired a shot. He didn’t care where it hit, only that it did. The burly crewman howled. The dreadful pressure on the back of Ryan’s neck stopped as the sailor’s interlaced fingers started to loosen their grip. Ryan managed to pull both arms far enough to get a boot down and turn his hips farther, enough to jab his left elbow into the man’s ribs and gain even more slack.

  He pressed the blaster under his left armpit, pressed it into flesh and triggered three more shots, fast as he could.