Shadow Fortress. James Axler

a sec man croaked, barely able to speak.

      Another trembling man slipped from the wag and ran away.

      “Ryan.” Mitchum cursed. So the big bastard had some sort of a predark flying machine, eh? That explained a lot. Marooned on the island chain, just trying to find a boat so they could leave. What a crock of shit. The outlanders had to be invaders from the mainland, spying out the local villes. Lies, everything Ryan had told him were now obviously lies!

      Even as he raged at the sight, Mitchum fought back a shiver at the thought of a fleet of dozens of air wags filling the sky and dropping bombs onto villes. Even the lord baron would be defenseless against such an attack. It would be no more of a fight than clubbing a chained slave to death.

      “Sergeant Campbell, shoot that thing down!” Glassman roared, stepping from the wag and firing his revolver at the flying object. The cracks of the .38 seemed lost in the immense jungle.

      There was no reply.

      “Sergeant, shoot the fifty!”

      “Y-yes, s-sir,” Campbell managed to say, fumbling with the arming bolt with sweat-slick hands. Twice he lost his grip, then dried his hands on his pants, worked the bolt and started pounding lead at the bobbing aircraft.

      “Stop wasting ammo! They’re too far,” Mitchum stated furiously, leaning forward to press his face against the windshield. “Launch a Firebird!”

      “S-sir?” someone asked, turning to the captain.

      “Belay that! Too many trees in the way,” Glassman countered, holstering his useless piece. “We need a clear shot. Back to Cascade! We’ll strike from the beach.”

      “We’re heading north,” Mitchum snapped, starting the engine. “Only a few miles from here there’s a cliff that juts over the breakers. They’re following the wind, so we can outmaneuver them on land.”

      “Get moving!” Glassman ordered. “And prepare a Bird. One warning shot and they’ll surrender quick enough.”

      “Ryan will never surrender,” Mitchum stated in a growl, throwing the wag into gear. “We ace the bastard, or he escapes. There is no other choice.”

      Visions of his family before a firing squad, Glassman opened his mouth to speak, then shot a glance at the thing in the sky. Desperately, he tried to cook up any kind of a plan to capture the flying machine, and nothing came to mind. He was down two men already. How could you trap a bird in flight? The only way he knew was with another flying machine. Lacking that, all he could do was chill the outlanders.

      A great and terrible calm flowed over the officer as he realized this failure meant the death of his wife and child. Then his temples pounded with the knowledge that if they had to die, then so would the accursed Ryan and his crew!

      “Prepare every Firebird we have,” Glassman stated, feeling oddly detached from the world, as if he were watching this happen to somebody else. “We’ll blow them out of the bastard sky and feed the fish their bones. Now move these wags!”

      “Aye, aye, sir,” the navvy replied hesitantly, and commenced readying the entire pod of deadly missiles.

      “Time to die, traitor,” Mitchum said, baring his teeth in a feral snarl as he began racing down the cracked length of predark asphalt.

      Chapter Four

      A cool breeze wafted from the wine-dark sea over the aerial craft, the ropes creaking as its speed remained constant.

      The balloon, now called Pegasus, as Mildred finally decided to name the craft, had leveled off at four hundred feet and sailed effortlessly along with the thick jungle spread over the landscape below like a lush green carpet. Here and there a craggy rise of bare rocks broke the cover, and to the west was the shiny flat expanse of the nameless lake, edged by the quagmire full of muties.

      The churning ribbon of blue cut a path through the trees, and as the Pegasus sailed above the river, it abruptly descended to merely two hundred feet, and angled away from the winds to unexpectedly begin to follow the rushing waters. Disturbed by this, Ryan started to cut away another weighted bag, but Mildred stopped him.

      “Not necessary,” she explained. “The cool air above the river forms a low-pressure zone that makes us drop a little. Nothing to be concerned about. Once we reach the sea, the Pegasus will go right back up and catch the high winds again.”

      “Hope so,” Ryan replied curtly, holding on to the support ropes. “Because Cascade is built on a waterfall, this river could feed that.”

      “Heading in the right direction,” J.B. added, checking his compass.

      “Better do a recce,” Krysty suggested, trying to listen for any hints of men or machines. But the endless rustle of the leaves masked sounds coming from the ground.

      “No prob,” the Armorer said, reaching into his shoulder bag to extract a short, fat, brass can.

      Sliding the antique telescope to its full length, he swept the landscape. The storm clouds were thin in the sky, admitting a wealth of silvery moonlight, the jungle turning black in the reflected illumination. No birds were in flight, no campfires visible. Other than the burning wreckage they had left behind, the entire valley was peaceful.

      Then tiny jots of yellow flickered into existence to the south. Following the river, J.B. adjusted the length of the telescope and brought into focus the outline of a predark bridge with a small ville built on top. The shore at one end was sealed off with some form of bamboo wall, tiny figures moving along the top. Beyond the bridge was more forest, partly masked by great clouds of mist.

      “There’s a ville dead ahead,” he reported, struggling to hold the telescope steady against the rhythmic rocking of the rope basket. “Seems to be a waterfall just beyond. Must be Cascade.”

      “How picturesque,” Doc rumbled in amusement. “A city on a waterfall.”

      Mildred added, “Pretty slick if they know anything about building waterwheels.”

      “Fireblast,” Ryan cursed, throwing his weight to the left to try to stop the rope basket from turning. The trick worked and the craft settled. “No wonder there are so many bastard wags in the area. Cascade was only a few miles away from the crashed plane. We were right on top of the baron’s troops.”

      “Yeah, but do they know we’re coming?” Dean asked urgently, drawing his bowie knife and holding the blade to a plastic rope.

      “Don’t think so,” J.B. answered slowly. As the Pegasus moved steadily toward the ville, more details were coming into focus, but the balloon was making him queasy with its crazy motions. His guts felt watery and cold.

      “There are—” he swallowed hard and tried again “—there are some sec men moving along a defensive wall. But they’re smoking cigs, and one guy is taking a leak in the river.”

      He lowered the brass scope and compacted it down in size. “The ville is way too quiet. I’d say they have no idea we’re coming.”

      “Good,” Ryan said, drawing the SIG-Sauer. “Mebbe we can sail by and they never know it.”

      “We’re going to be dangerously low as we pass,” Krysty reminded him, easing out the clip of the H&K blaster and counting the rounds she had remaining before sliding it back into the grip. “Mebbe we should drop another bag.”

      “Only six left,” Mildred warned. “Best we save them for emergencies.”

      As the ville swelled closer, J.B. tucked away the telescope. Now they could see the lit windows of brick houses, cooking fires scattered about on the ground and sputtering torches moving along the concrete streets. They heard the sounds of drunken singing and the crack of a whip followed by yowls of pain.

      “Backpacks on the flooring,” Ryan ordered, sliding his off and stepping onto the canvas bag. The