Sky Raider. James Axler

on the table. So why so keen about getting inside the ville? Only usual reasons were to jack supplies or recon the defenses. That kind of info would bring a big price from the enemies of Indera.

      “Of course,” Jeffers said with a smile, feeling his shoulders tense. “But your mule has to stay out here.”

      Digger turned to glance at the old animal tugging at a tuft of dried weeds sticking out of the ground. “Sure thing.” He laughed, turning back. “No prob—” The trader stopped smiling at the sight of the baron holding both of his pistols level and pointing forward.

      “H-hey n-now,” Digger started as the baron thumbed back both hammers on the big wheelguns.

      “Shut up, feeb,” the baron snarled. “Cory, Abraham, get his blaster, and watch for tricks! There’s something wrong here.”

      As the two sec men started around the baron, Digger hawked and spit on the table.

      “So you’re going to jack me, eh?” Digger snarled hatefully. “This ain’t the rep of your ville!”

      “You’ll be paid in full,” Jeffers said, holstering his handblasters, then sliding the rifle off his back. “If these are any good.”

      “Whatcha mean?” Digger shouted as one of the sec men grabbed his arm. He tried to shake the guard off but failed. “Just look at ’em! That brass be perfect!”

      “If he moves again,” Jeffers said, opening the breech of his empty rifle, “chill him.”

      “Yes, sir,” one of the sec man answered, shoving the point of his bayonet against the trader’s neck.

      Digger went pale at the touch of steel, and made no further comment as a single drop of ruby-red blood welled with the point of contact. Slowly, the blood began to trickle down the man’s neck, going into his tattered shirt.

      “Ya gonna waste a brass just to make sure it’s okay?” Digger said hoarsely. “That’s crazy!”

      “Better here than with a howler charging at you,” Jeffers replied, sliding the round into his rifle. “We’ll pay for this brass, too, trader,” he added gruffly, working the bolt, closing the breech. “If it’s any damn good, that is.”

      “Hey!” Digger cried, reaching for the ammo.

      The two sec men nudged him hard and Digger went still, lowering his head as if braced for a blow.

      Clicking off the safety, Jeffers leveled the rifle at Digger. The outlander opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. Jeffers held the aim for a moment, then shifted the barrel toward the tree and pulled the trigger. There sounded a hard click and nothing else.

      “Son of a bitch!” a sec man snarled, and slammed the wooden stock of his rifle into Digger’s side. Ribs audibly cracked from the impact, and Digger slid to the ground, shaking all over.

      “Nuking hell…” Digger gasped, starting to tremble. “Why’d ya do th-that? There’s nothing wrong…with the brass…something busted…your rifle…”

      “Oh, yeah? Let’s see.” Placing the rifle on the table, the baron worked the bolt to eject the cartridge, then yanked an eating knife from his belt. Carefully running the edge of the blade around the bullet, the baron separated lead from brass and emptied the cartridge onto the table. The wind blew the contents around as dry white sand poured from the brass.

      “Dums!” Jeffers snarled, slapping the garbage aside. “Trying to buy his way past the gate with dums!” The baron strode around the table, pulling out one of his handblasters.

      “Who ya working for?” he barked at the crouching trader. “Outies? Pirates? Thunder ville? Talk, feeb, and make it good, or you’ll see the inside of my ville nailed to the front of the nuking gate!”

      “Please, I didn’t know!” Digger wept, trying to cover his face. “Please! I only…” A double explosion cut off his words and the two sec man screamed in pain as their knees were blown apart, bone and blood spraying onto the ground.

      Snarling a curse, Jeffers fired his wheelguns just as the trader came up with two tiny blasters in his hands, the little weps almost completely hidden by his dirty fingers.

      Derringers! The old word flashed through Jeffers’ mind as he dived to the side, firing once more at the traitorous coldheart. One of his pistols jammed, but the other roared, blowing smoke and flame. Hitting the mud, Jeffers rolled to the side and came up with only a smoking hole in his jacket. The baron went to fire the second blaster again, but there was only a soft chug and a puff of gray smoke. Misfire!

      Laughing in contempt, Digger aimed the two blasters at the snarling baron when white-hot pain lanced into his back and the barbed tip of a crossbow bolt thrust out of his chest. Dropping both of the little blasters, he clutched his chest, blood dribbling through his dirty fingers.

      “Ch-chill me, and your ville dies,” the trader rasped, pink saliva drooling down his chin.

      Pulling a knife, Jeffers started forward when another feathered bolt stabbed into Digger’s hip before a third went completely through his belly, pulling a ropy length of intestine out the other side.

      Spasming from the pain, the trader gurgled horribly and slid to the mud, still whispering a warning.

      Kneeling on the ground, Jeffers slashed his blade across the men’s throat, then stood and waved at the archers on the ville wall. One of them waved back in acknowledgment, and made a gesture of coming out. But Jeffers waved that off. There was something wrong here, and he didn’t want those ville gates open until he knew for sure that it was safe. The hairs were standing up on the back of his neck, exactly the same way they did when muties attacked in the night.

      Striding to the fallen sec men, the baron saw that they were both chilled, and he closed their eyes with his fingertips. Damn it, they had both been good men, his brothers in battle killed by a jacking coldheart. A boiling rage built inside the baron, but he forced it down. Getting angry wouldn’t bring them back. More’s the pity.

      Kneeling near the body of the trader, the baron retrieved the derringers and searched his clothing to find more ammo that fit the little palmblasters. He reloaded them both and tucked the blasters into his pockets. Now why hadn’t the damn feeb tried to sell him these? Nervously pulling out a handblaster, the baron purged the spent chambers and started the laborious reloading process while he studied the landscape. Nothing was in sight but flat ground all the way to the Ohi River, and only the soft whispering breeze of the Indera desert…

      The man went stiff. The eagles! Looking skyward, the baron gasped at the sight of the clear sky. Not a bird in sight around their nest. The eagles were gone.

      “Oh, fuck, no,” Jeffers muttered, scanning the rest of the blue sky. Not again!

      Suddenly a whistling sound cut the air and Jeffers spun just in time to see something plummet out of the thin air and hit the ground halfway between him and the ville. The blast seemed to rock the world, and Jeffers went flying backward. He hit the ground with a sickening crack and felt fire erupt inside his chest as a rib snapped. Nuking shit!

      He lost consciousness for a moment from the pain, but came abruptly awake as a second blast sounded. It was farther way, and sounded odd. Higher somehow, as if the explosion happened in the air.

      Cold adrenaline forced the man to his feet, and he weakly pulled out both derringers and fired at the sky as yet another detonation occurred directly on the overhang of rock above Indera ville. There was a moving dot in the sky, but if the weps hit anything, it was impossible to tell at this range.

      Dropping the spent palmblasters, Jeffers started hobbling for the ville as a double explosion rent air, closely followed by a crackling noise. In growing horror, the baron watched as the rocky overhang started to splinter along its base.

      “Get out!” Jeffers screamed at the top of his lungs, waving both arms. “Get out of the ville, you fools!”

      The sec men on the wall began to ring the alarm