Hell Road Warriors. James Axler

touched the flame of his butane lighter to one end, then tossed the rag onto the bike. Pale blue flame played across the engine block.

       “Six!” Ryan shouted. The big man leaped onto his bike and rode back to the top of the hill and spun to a stop next to Ryan. From their vantage the one-eyed man saw a mob of motorcycles cresting the next row of hills to the east. He took out his Navy longeye and extended it, counting about a dozen. The two forces stood and regarded each other over the half mile between them. A thin plume of black smoke rose from the burning bike beside Ryan. Six slowly held aloft his grizzly trophy. The scalped man was a bloody rag lying between the contenders. Ryan waited for the cavalry charge and hoped for it. If the coldhearts were hot for revenge, they would roar down in a swarm, and Ryan and Six would drop prone and shoot the riders out of their saddles as they came on.

       The coldhearts didn’t take the bait.

       Ryan was pretty sure they had taken note. Six had made his bloody mark, and the one-eyed man had made his point. Stalking the convoy had turned into a much rougher game. Unfortunately the enemy had made a point, as well.

       For roving coldhearts they had a sense of discipline that Ryan didn’t care for at all.

      BARON MACE HENNING wasn’t pleased. He sat on his camp tool with his cluboss his knees like a samurai warlord. “What’s that you say, Shorty?”

       Shorty scuffed the toe of his boot into the ground nervously. “Said Jimmy Pickering’s been chilled.”

       “Oh yeah?” Jimmy had been one of Mace’s better scouts. “How’d that happen?”

       “Old Vinny scalped him.” Shorty cleared his throat. “Burned his bike.”

       “You saw it?”

       “Saw after. Old Vinny was up on the next rise. Wavin’ Jimmy’s scalp at us.”

       Mace’s eyes went to slits. “So what’d you do about it, Shorty?”

       Shorty started paying intense attention to his boots again. “Nothin’…”

       “Nothing?”

       “Vinny was up on that hill, like I said, ’bout a klick away with that big shiny blaster of his and nothin’ ’tween us and it but a lot of real open ground. And there was another guy with him. I saw him real good. Through my ’noculars. Guy was one-eyed and had some kind of funky-lookin’ carbine. I don’t think he’s from around here, or Val-d’Or neither. Real coldheart-lookin’ prick. Lookin’ like he might even give old Vinny a hard time. ’Cept they was standin’ side-by-side and Vinny was smiling. We had ’em numbered, Baron, but I didn’t like it. I didn’t like that stranger or his blaster, and I sure didn’t like the smile on Vinny’s face.”

       Mace stared at Shorty. It was undoubtedly the most intelligent thing the sec man had ever said. Mace looked to Red, who was one of his sons. He was nowhere near as big as his father; indeed he took after his mother in being short and thin. Mace neither denied Red nor acknowledged him, but the red hair, green eyes and ugly features were absolutely unmistakable. When Red had first come to his father and asked for a job as a sec man, he didn’t bring up his blood. Mace had told him to go to a rival ville and bring him three ears. Red had come back with ten. He was unlikely to ever win a stand-up club or tomahawk fight, but Red was a nightcreeper extraordinaire, a decent shot with a blaster and could think on his feet. The chunk of change he wore around his neck was proof. “Red?”

       “Like he said, Baron. Those two just stood there waitin’, and Jimmy all laid out on the killing ground between us with the bedsheet pulled off his skull. No one sneaks up on Jimmy. That means they picked him off at range, and that says somethin’ right there. Some of the boys wanted to go straight in. Shorty said no.” Red met his father’s eyes. “I backed him.”

       Mace had been working very hard the last few years to instill some sense of tactics into his men. It had taken some head cracking, but it was starting to pay off. Baron Henning still wasn’t ready to start handing out compliments. “Don’t suppose anyone retrieved Jimmy’s change?”

       “No.” Red flinched. “Vinny’s got it. Added it to his collection.”

       Mace slowly rose. His club hung loose from his wrist by its thong. Tag rose behind him. His gaudy-house fancy autoblaster wasn’t quite pointing at anyone in particular, yet. The baron looked at the arc of men arrayed in front of him on the other side of the campfire; his eyebrow permanently cocked in judgment. The men stared back, mentally laying bets on whether Shorty, Red or both would get their skulls crushed and lose their change. Would Mace really put his club through his best friend’s brain? Or his own redheaded bastard son?

       Baron Mace Henning bellowed like a bull and shoved his club skyward. “Who wants to winter in Val-d’Or?”

       Shorty shouted first. He’d seen Mace rally the troops before, and he was ecstatic his skull was still intact. “Fuckin’-ay, Mace!”

       The baron let the lack of protocol go. “Who wants to winter down in that underground gaudy palace they got? Heard they got central heating!”

       More men took up the chant. “Fuckin’-ay, Mace!”

       “Who wants to winter sleeping on bearskins, smoking hemp and eating poutine? Heard they’re growing taters in excess!”

       The chant grew. “Fuckin’-ay, Mace!”

       “Who wants his own blond French slut to chew his boots this winter, and slobber on anything else a man has a mind for?”

       The chant grew to a roar.

       Baron Mace Henning’s riding skins creaked as he slowly sat and once more laid his club across his knees. “The way I figure it, Vinny owes me about fifty dollars now. Who’s going to bring me back all that jack?” Mace leaned forward. “Who’s going to bring me a black ear?”

       Every man shoved a club, tomahawk or blaster toward the shimmering Northern Lights and shook it. They whooped and shoved one another, each man shouting out how he was the one who would take down Vincent Six.

       “Boys?” A silver coin appeared in Mace’s hand. He held it up to gleam in the firelight. “Who’s going to earn himself a silver Voyager?”