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  Dean suppressed an urge to laugh at the ridiculous sight, not wanting to anger them for something that had been his fault. "Sorry, guys," he said simply. "I thought you heard me walk up."

  "No, stupidworks, of course we didn't. Think I'm going to let this bastard beat me 'cause I'm listening for someone?" Jon said, picking himself up and dusting himself off, indicating Petor with a brief inclination of his head.

  "Fuck you, asshole," Petor replied with a grin as he picked himself up.

  Then he said to Dean, "So you think you could do better, then?"

  "Mebbe," Dean said, eying Petor. Both the young men were about four or five years older than Dean, and he gave them a little in height and weight. Ranged against this was his certain knowledge that he had more vital combat experience than them, and that just from his observation he could tell he knew more about hand-to-hand techniques.

  "Wanna try?" Jon asked.

  Dean nodded.

  "Okay," Jon shrugged, shuffling his feet.

  But although it was Jon who had spoken, it was Petor who moved. Hoping that his friend's actions had deceived the young Cawdor, the lanky youth sprang forward to grab Dean by the arm and pull him into a neck lock.

  At least, that was the idea. Dean saw it differently, and with the ease of a striking cobra he swerved his torso and struck out with the flattened edge of his hand, avoiding the main thrust of Petor's body and landing a blow just above the elbow and deadening all feeling and response in Petor's arm.

  Petor gasped at the sudden jarring of the blow, and his momentum carried him forward. Unable to use his deadened arm to protect himself, he rolled uneasily onto one shoulder as he hit the ground.

  Dean had already turned his attention to Jon, knowing that the stocky youth would follow up the initial attack. When he focused his attention, Jon was already in full flight, hoping to catch Dean off guard and drive him off balance with a shoulder charge. But Dean was aware of the move too quickly, and pivoted on his heel, turning as Jon began to pass him, using the older youth's momentum to push him onward. Not encountering the obstruction of Dean's body that he was expecting to block his progress, Jon was unable to check his own forward momentum, let alone compensate for the push by Dean, and so he tumbled forward, arms and legs flailing to retain balance. Despite his best efforts, he found himself tumbling into Petor as the lanky youth attempted to regain his feet. The two young men collapsed into a heap of tangled limbs for the second time in minutes.

  Dean stood over them. "You guys are strong and keen, but no one's taught you anything, have they?"

  Jon looked up. "We're just the men. We don't get to fight like the true born warriors."

  Dean scratched his chin. "Seems pretty stupe to me. You can never have too many fighters. Would it be all right if I taught you guys how to use what you've got? I mean, I wouldn't be causing trouble, would I?"

  Petor shrugged as he climbed to his feet. "Gloria wouldn't mind, I know that. Nor would any of the others, except mebbe Margia."

  Jon looked anxiously at his friend as he, too, rose to his feet. "That's worth bearing in mind. I've got to work for her all the time, and you know what a bastard of a temper she's got when she gets going."

  Dean raised an eyebrow. "She hard to work for?"

  Petor shrugged. "Sometimes she's okay but she gets these moods where nothing's right, and then she gets really bad. She beat the fuck out of Jon once just because one of the other women got the man she wanted. She said it was because he was slacking in his work, but that's not the case. He might be a lazy bastard for some things, but he loves the armory."

  Jon nodded, wincing at the memory of the beating. "True enough. I was so glad to be selected for the armory, 'cause I love blasters and taking them to bits to clean them. That hurt more than the beating, the fact that she said I was neglecting my work. But she's a weird one sometimes. Not like the others." He shook his head, biting his lip. "When she really wants something, then you'd better not get in the way."

  "I'll remember that," Dean murmured softly. Then, in a louder voice he added, "So let's get wrestling. It really bugs me that you couldn't get out of that armlock move."

  Since that morning, Dean had spent much of his time with the two young men, and had learned much about the everyday habits of the tribe from Jon and Petor, who shared in their close comradeship the habit of watching the eccentricities of the other tribe members. They also shared an obsession with the statuesque Tammy that Dean rapidly understood as he watched her with Krysty.

  He also noted with interest that Jak was becoming more relaxed in the tribe. The albino's obsession with whatever he had seen in his mat-trans vision was receding further and further into memory as the Gate's warrior queen seemed to take a personal interest in making sure that Jak felt comfortable.

  As queen of the Gate, Gloria had less of the day-to-day activities of the tribe to fulfill, leaving that to the men and to the lesser Amazons. Much of her time was spent in personal training, sparring with the other warriors to maintain her sharpness and speed, and also in trancing herself to recall the wisdom of the ancients. Despite this, she had noted from the first the way that the albino had been looking at her—at first in open disbelief that the vision of his dream had come to him, and then surreptitiously when he realized that she was becoming aware of him.

  Jak was fascinated by Gloria. In moments where he allowed himself pause to stop and think about the mat-trans dream, the sight of his friends' chilled corpses spread across the plain came back to him, and made the blood run cold in his veins. He could see as clearly as the view in front of him the giant warrior and the Amazon queen, could hear her voice as she told him some portent of the future, the voice that matched exactly the woman who was head of the Gate tribe.

  Jak was a man of action and reaction, not of reflection and reasoning. He watched Gloria closely, hoping for some sign as to what his dream had meant. But none was forthcoming. Instead, Jak found himself being pulled into the training routines of the Amazon warriors. It began when Gloria was working out one morning with two other Amazons, practicing their swiftness with their pangas.

  It was only an hour or two past sunrise, and the sky was still tinged purple with the last remnants of the night. The morning was cool, and there were still only faint wisps of chem clouds to diffuse the light from the low sun.

  Jak had left the tent where he and his companions were billeted, emerging restless into the morning. Despite the early hour, there was already some activity in the camp. The Gate tended to move with the sun, and already the day's activities were under way. The albino had been unable to sleep well, his rest disturbed by the fevered visions of recurring dreams in which Gloria and he were besieged by the Illuminated Ones and his friends were slaughtered in a thousand different ways.

  Emerging into the cool morning air, sniffing the warm and sweet wood of the fires as they burned to cook the first meal of the day, Jak felt washed out. His ruby-colored eyes were now red rimmed by his lack of sleep, and his poise was shot. He slumped as he walked, feeling his own body weight go out of balance.

  Three days without anything to keep him alert, to hone his instincts. Three days with nothing to occupy his mind except the daily march through the empty plains and then the setting up of camp. Nothing to occupy him except the recurring dreams, and the vision of one made flesh walking easily at the head of the column, her red hair swaying down her back like tongues of liquid fire.

  As this thought crossed his mind, his attention was drawn to the clearing in front of the now extinguished fire that had warmed and lit the camp during the hours of darkness. Three women of the Gate stood at oblique angles to one another, forming a triangle. One of them was instantly recognizable as Gloria by the mane of fiery hair and by the poise with which she stood. Another, with her back toward Jak, was the younger Tammy, her mass of auburn curls and her height making her stand out. The third warrior stood almost face on to Jak. He had seen her about the camp, and knew her name was Jess, but hadn't seen
her in action or had cause to talk with her. She was from similar stock to Gloria, and had long, jet black hair tied loosely behind her. Her face was of a similar delicate bone structure, and she was only about five feet in height. But she was just a little more stocky, with the musculature of her legs being more pronounced than her queen's. There was a formidable air of power about her.

  Gloria chanted, a paean to whoever it was that the Gate worshiped, wordless but sweet on the morning air. Then all three women took their handblasters from the soft leather holsters in the small of their back and placed them on a cloth in the middle of the triangular space their stance had created. This done, they stepped back a pace to make a larger space, before drawing their sheathed blades.

  Gloria carried a panga similar to that used by Ryan, except that the hilt was a blood-rust color, the grip stained by the many combatants who had met their end. The blade, however, glinted even in the weak light of the early morning, and even at such a distance could be seen to be finely honed.

  Tammy carried a machete, the blade thicker in width, but still seemingly as finely honed. The grip was bound with strips of cloth that carried stains of battle like trophy colors. She weighed the blade in her hand, unconsciously genuflecting her wrist to tilt the blade back and forth.

  Jess carried a much smaller blade. At first, it seemed that she pulled a small black plastic grip from her sheath. But with a discreet click that was only discernible on the morning air because of the relative quiet, the blade unfolded at the flick of a powerful thumb, testament to the power in her small hands. Jak recognized the blade immediately, even at a distance. Somewhere along the way, Jess had picked up an Emerson CQC-7, the razor-sharp chisel-ground blade only the length of the small grip, but nonetheless deadly for close-in fighting.

  Fascinated, Jak drew closer. It was obvious that they were about to embark on a training routine of some kind, and the albino was interested to see how they would handle the blades in a situation that was to resemble conflict, yet by its very nature couldn't be too real.

  At a word of command from Gloria, the three warrior women began to juggle the blades between themselves. Throwing the knife, panga and machete across the gaps between them, they finely judged the amount of force needed for each weapon as it spiraled through the air. It began slowly, then speeded up gradually as the three women took rhythm and pace from one another. The simple pattern of tossing the blades around in a clockwise direction began to change, shifting into a series of seemingly random changes that became faster and faster, until the blades became a whirling blur of metal, bone, plastic and wood, spiraling through the space between them.

  Jak was impressed by the speed and assurance with which they handled the blades, judging the weight and speed of each weapon in flight as it came to them, adjusting their stances to receive the blade by its grip before sending it spinning across the space between them with a delicately controlled movement of the wrist, the muscles on their forearms as taut as cord, the seeming ease of their stance belying the concentration of will and physical power that went into each throw.

  At a whistled command from Gloria, they stopped dead, the last throw of each blade returning it to its owner.

  Jak, standing and observing with fascination, had failed to note that Jess was watching him.

  "Hey, Whitey, you seen enough yet?" she called to him.

  Gloria turned, flashing him a smile as she recognized their audience. "You want to join in, sweets?" she said to him.

  "Not my people. Not my rhythm," Jak replied simply.

  "I wouldn't say that," Gloria replied. "I saw you against those stickies, remember? You're a natural warrior, and anyone with the gift can pick up the rhythm. Join us, yeah?"

  Not allowing Jak the chance to answer, she tossed her panga through the air, spinning it wickedly with her wrist so that it seemed to curve elliptically in its flight pattern. Without even pausing, the albino altered his stance to curve with the flight and plucked the panga out of the air with his right hand, bringing it down to his side and killing the momentum. At the same time, his left hand snaked into one of the hidden openings in his patched camou jacket, producing a leaf-bladed throwing knife that he sent flying toward the warrior queen. It flew straight and true toward her head, and Jak noted with admiration the way in which she stood perfectly still, not moving a muscle until the knife was within a fraction of an inch of removing her left eye.

  Then, with a movement so quick that it was beyond even a blur, she plucked the knife from the air, her reflexes so sharp and precise that she was able to trap the blade between the middle and index fingers of her hand, sweeping her arm away from her body to diffuse the speed and forward motion of the knife. All the while, she was unblinking, her diamond blue eyes fixed on the albino who stood before her, the rest of her body rock solid.

  "One all," she whispered huskily as her arm came to rest. "You're very good, honey. Mebbe we could learn a lot from each other. So you want to join us."

  "If all as good, then yeah," Jak said, his scarred face breaking into something resembling amusement for the first time in days.

  The albino was accepted into the triangle, which became a circle, and after a short while juggling the blades—one of his own knives now joining the whirling blades as they crisscrossed the open space—they turned to combat training. Jak was surprised to see Tammy and Gloria begin to fight, circling each other, thrusting and parrying with their blades, with no concession. It was quite possible that the Amazons could injure or even kill each other.

  Which was something he kept very much to the forefront of his mind as he stepped into the circle to contest with Jess.

  "No holding back, Whitey, 'cause I won't," she said simply and without malice.

  Jak nodded agreement, and they began to fight. Circling each other in slow, light steps, both parties drew their blades. The Emerson was smaller than the leaf-bladed knife that Jak held easily in his palm, but it had a sharp cutting edge honed onto both sides, a refinement that Jess had obviously customized since taking possession of the blade.

  She feinted, and Jak moved to his left, all the while expecting her to make her next move, which was to follow the feint with a thrust to her right that should have taken the blade into the space now occupied by Jak's ribs. But the albino had already shifted direction, and allowed the blade to pass harmlessly past his camou jacket, all the while preparing his own attack, which was to her left side, now open to attack by the movement of her body, leaving her defenseless down that side.

  Or so it seemed. Jak's blade came so close to Jess's naked torso that it could almost have shaved the top layer of skin from between her second and third ribs. Instead, it passed her, his momentum carrying him just forward enough for her to move in close and grip his arm with her free hand.

  The grip closed above the muscle and tendons just below Jak's shoulder, Jess's small, bony fingers gripping like iron bands and numbing any feeling or response that he could muster. Jak felt his arm go dead and the pull of her body weight as she attempted to unbalance him and take him to the earth. She expected resistance, so Jak did the opposite. He pitched himself forward, knowing that the deadened arm would be useless, and so allowing himself to roll and bring Jess across his body as her own balance was lost, and she fell onto him.

  As she moved across him, Jak pushed off the ground with his thigh and dug the heel of his combat boot into the earth, the force of his wiry muscles digging a ridge from which he propelled his foot, thigh and, gaining in momentum all the while, his body, so that he swung over on top of Jess, pinning her knife hand with his left knee, and using his still functioning arm to hold her other hand down. His right leg was diagonally across her body, pinning her to the ground.

  "Neat move, Whitey," she said calmly. "How about we do that again, this time in slow-mo, and you show me just how it's done…"

  JAK BECAME a regular part of training after that, Gloria observing him with a growing interest as the albino's character emerged fully. Jak was a
good teacher, and was also keen to learn from the Amazons when they came up with techniques that he hadn't encountered before. The time between, Gloria kept Jak more and more to her, drawing from him stories of his youth in the Louisiana swamps and of his travels across the Deathlands with Ryan Cawdor and his people. He also told her of his wife, Christina, and daughter, Jenny, and the way in which they had been chilled on his ranch while he was absent. Gloria found the albino fighter fascinating, and it occurred to Mildred that this could cause problems.

  Particularly as Mildred could feel problems growing for the group—and herself—in other directions.

  When he wasn't in consultation with Ryan, and Gloria, J.B. had been spending a lot of time with Margia, the tribe's armorer. Being a man whose life, hobby and preoccupation was the history and maintenance of blasters and weaponry, J.B. found the Gate's armory unique.

  Always, whenever he found the opportunity presenting itself, J.B. read old predark material about blasters and explosives, particularly grens of all varieties. He was no great reader, but would struggle through any old texts that presented themselves along the way. Because of the very nature of the Deathlands, there were very few blasters now manufactured, and these mostly of the unstable, homemade variety. As a result, any blasters that could be found were prized. There had been large stockpiles of U.S. Army hardware looted from redoubts and bases soon after the restoration of some kind of life across the tattered remnants of the continent, but there were also blasters that would be considered museum pieces that had been looted from collections and restored to some kind of action. There were also those blasters that seemed to come from nowhere, like the laser blasters that they had found in the redoubt near Raw. They had been nonoperational, but some examples obviously were, as they had been used in the attack on the companions by a raiding party some short time after they had left that redoubt.