NOW THAT they were both clear of the woodland and out in the open, it was possible to see that the wags were six-tonners-as J.B. had surmised-with armor plating and caterpillar tracks behind the radials of the front wheels. The front of each wag carried a large, shaped metal grid that formed into a point and was sharpened in order to cut through and disperse the foliage of the woodlands. A clear path was visible behind each wag as it sped out of the woods and onto the flat plain.

Despite the sudden lack of obstruction, neither vehicle noticeably increased its speed, preferring to maintain a steady pace. It would seem to the observer that the intention of both drivers was to arrive simultaneously at the Gate encampment. This was to the tribe's advantage, as it enabled them to get their outriders onto the plain and toward the wags before the vehicles themselves were in a position to begin an attack.

Ryan and the companions were the next party to leave the encampment. Where there had been only the one entrance originally, two had been cut into the sheeting by the men of the tribe to enable access onto those northeasterly and southwesterly sides of the camp from which the danger threatened.

Splitting from the middle of the camp, Dean followed J.B., Mildred and Doc onto the southwesterly side, in company with an Amazon group that included both Margia and Tammy. His father, Jak and Krysty went in the group that was led by Gloria. As soon as they emerged, it was obvious why there had been a lack of firefighting from the outside of the camp. The outriders were proceeding at pace toward the approaching wag without meeting resistance.

"Stupes!" Ryan breathed. "How the f.u.c.k do they expect to attack head-on with a wag that has any possible blaster points on its front blocked by something like that?"

That was true. To Ryan's amazement-and that of the others-the grille that had cleared the woodland for the wag was also so large that it precluded any positioning for a machine blaster on the front, making a head-on attack risky at the best of times.

"Don't knock that stupidworks piece of ironmongery, sweets," Gloria breathed. "I'm all in favor of it if it evens our odds."

Would it even them enough, though? Ryan thought to himself. Certainly the wag coming toward them was heavily armored, and even if it was unable to blast at them from the front, it was well enough secured to make any access from the outside virtually impossible.

The initial party of outriders had now reached the wag, and was circling it with a zigzag movement, the riders making themselves as scattered and difficult to hit as possible.

Then the firing began.

"f.u.c.k! The swords of light," Gloria breathed, stopping momentarily in her tracks as a beam from a laser rifle cut through the night air, drawing a straight line of brilliant light in the darkness, scorching the earth around the feet of an outrider with a crackle that raised small plumes of smoke. Fortunately the aim was poor, and the woman at whom the beam had been aimed was able to dive easily out of the way.

But the sudden entry into the fray of the pulsing beams of light caused confusion in the outriders, who began to lose speed and falter in their maneuvers. Gloria saw this immediately and put her hands to her mouth, shaping her lips into a piercing whistle that changed tone three times. It was a signal and reminder to her warriors, and was possibly the spur they needed to bring them back into focus.

"If they fire out, must be way in," Jak barked at Ryan and Gloria before breaking away from them and heading at speed to join the outriders. Gloria watched him go, streaking low across the plain, cutting between the Gate warriors, his pale skin and stringy white hair showing against the darkness both of his clothing and the surrounding night. Her face betrayed the mix of emotion within her.

Ryan's concern was much more simple. He was concerned at what would happen should Jak get hit by a laser pulse before he had a chance to pitch a gren into the wag. Jak was far and away their best chance to immobilize the wag in this way. The one-eyed man couldn't see there being another option.

After all, it was unlikely that the Illuminated Ones would be stupe enough to leave the security of the wag.

ON THE SOUTHWESTERN side of the camp, the outriders had followed a similar pattern, moving out ahead of the main parties on a zigzagging course. And they, too, had been taken aback by the laser pulses.

J.B., Mildred, Dean and Doc were in the main party with Margia. In the heat of the battle, all animosity between the blond armorer and Mildred had been forgotten as they pulled together in this common cause. And as the first pulsing beam of light shot from the side of the wag, Margia hissed in a mix of admiration and fear.

"Sweet mutie f.u.c.ker, that's one h.e.l.l of a blaster, whatever the f.u.c.k it is!"

"Seen them once before," J.B. said, "in action, and found some that were inoperable. Weird old tech, but erratic."

"No accuracy?" Margia raised an eyebrow. "Why use them, then?"

"Why not when they're such an unknown quant.i.ty?" Mildred answered. "The shock value alone is worth it...and when they hit home, they're really nasty."

"Is that so?" Margia mused.

J.B. and Mildred exchanged a look. The thought of the blond armorer in charge of a laser blaster wasn't a pleasant one, and J.B. made a mental note that if they got through this in one piece, then he would try to make sure she was unable to get any of the weapons.

But first they had to fight off the attack, something that seemed to be an impossibility as the first Gate casualty was claimed by the laser blasters.

The outrider was small, even by the general standard of the Gate tribe, and she had a mane of black hair that flowed down her back as she ran. She was stocky and moved close to the ground, seemingly too fast for the erratic laser fire to hit. But there were always moments of fate, turning points, where one wrong move could change destiny. And perhaps the moment when her ankle turned on a divot of loose earth was such a turning point. As she went down, a pulsing beam of laser fire shot along the earth in a line, scorching all in its path. Reaching her as she tried to rise to her feet.

She was too late. The beam of light scored into her body, touching her outstretched foot and searing the flesh, making it burn and blacken beneath the beam. Her scream of fear and agony cut through the noise of the attack, growing in pitch and intensity as the beam reached up her leg, roasting flesh and raising smoke as the tendon and muscle crackled obscenely, like roasting meat. By the time the beam had reached as far as her torso, the cries had ceased, as she pa.s.sed out from the pain, the blissful oblivion of unconsciousness sparing her the agony of her own chilling.

"s.h.i.t," Margia whispered, "what I could do with one of those..."

Mildred and J.B. exchanged another look. The outriders had stopped dead, losing their momentum in seeing one of their own fall. If they didn't start moving again, they would be easy meat for the Illuminated Ones, and the notion of Margia gaining a laser blaster would be complete fantasy.

"Dark night, we need to act fast, Millie," J.B. snapped.

"Already there, John," Mildred replied shortly, beginning to run toward the wag as the Armorer started into motion. Dean, sensing their plan with an instinct born of his heritage as a Cawdor, followed them. Only Doc held back a little, and merely because he knew he was unable to match their pace at that moment.

It seemed a bizarre sight on the battlefield. For a second, it was as though only four people were moving, and a certainty that the Illuminated Ones would be able to wipe out the Gate from the safety of the wag.

Then, on both sides of the camp, something happened that changed the course of the firefight. Something that Ryan, reflecting afterward, could only put down to the one weakness he had hoped for in the opposition. They had no practical battle experience. It also confirmed his suspicions that their tech was in good order, as there had to have been communication between the two wags.

For both suddenly ground to a halt, and the laser blasters were withdrawn from their portholes in the sides of the wags. On the northeastern side, Jak pulled up sharply. With the portholes now closed, there was no target area for him to pitch a grenade. And something within his gut told him that the tide of the battle had, without the Gate having actually done anything to change it, shifted perceptibly.

"What...?" Ryan furrowed his brow seeing this.

Next to him, Krysty felt her sentient tresses move and loosen on her skull, flowing and moving with the agitation of change in the air.

"They're coming out," Gloria said, expressing something that was now plainly visible in a voice that spoke of her disbelief. "Why the f.u.c.k are they-?"

"Doesn't matter," Ryan snapped. "We've got them on our terms now."

The one-eyed warrior and the Gate queen had no idea why the Illuminated Ones had changed their battle plan, but they knew that the odds had now tipped their way.

On both sides of the camp, the backs of both wags opened, and seven Illuminated Ones spilled from the tailgate, each clutching a laser rifle. They were dressed much as the companions remembered them from their previous brief encounter, back near the villages of Raw and Samtvogel. The colorful one-piece battle suits of a shiny fiber, each suit a different color, were topped by opaque gla.s.s helmets that obscured their faces.

The Gate warriors were stilled in their tracks, taken aback by the sudden apparition that stepped from the war wags. The companions, however, knew exactly what to expect.

The Illuminated Ones spread out in a fan formation and raised their blasters. They moved swiftly and took advantage of the surprise their sudden appearance had caused.

On the northeastern side, Jak was already within reach of the outriders, and could see that their surprise had made them sitting targets.

"No! Move!" he yelled, raising his .357 Magnum Colt Python on the run, and letting off a shot that rang over the heads of the stunned Gate outriders.

Audible in the sudden quiet on both sides of the camp, it was a shot that broke the silence and spurred all into action.

The first laser blasts were deadly, crackling beams of light, intensely bright in the darkness, that scored the air and caught some outriders, raising shrill cries of pain and chilling. The night suddenly reeked of charred flesh and death.

But the Illuminated Ones had lost the edge of surprise. As soon as Jak's shot rang through the darkness, it snapped the Gate warriors back to a reality where they were up against a seen enemy rather than an unknown quant.i.ty. The fact that this enemy had strange weapons rather than the usual blasters or blades was unimportant. All that mattered was that there were more of the Amazons than the Illuminated Ones.

And numbers counted.

Gloria, covering the ground in long, swift strides that belied her size, soon reached Jak.

"You've fought them before," she breathed rapidly. "Tactics?"

The albino snapped a shot at one of the figures clad in bright material. In the reflected light from the wag, the material made the Illuminated Ones an easy target. The heavy slug tore at the material of the figure, ripping the brightly colored fabric at the shoulder and raising a spray of blood where it gouged a lump of flesh. The gunner screamed and dropped the laser blaster.

"Blasters not always shoot straight, can't always control," Jak snapped. "Keep moving, not let them take aim, hit hard."

"Simple enough," Gloria replied before letting loose with a string of cries and whistles that signaled tactics to her warriors. A series of instructions that could faintly be heard on the other side of the camp by Margia, who amplified her sister's orders by repeating the signals to the warriors on her side of the divide.

Whooping, the Gate Amazons used their handblasters to pick off the Illuminated Ones who were distracted by shots from Ryan's Steyr. Two were chilled immediately, while another was. .h.i.t in the left leg and arm. With so many down from their small number, the remaining fit warriors realized that there was nothing for them to do except to effect a retreat into the safety of the war wag.

One of them started to strafe the area with the laser rifle, sweeping the pulsing beam of light in a wide arc.

"Down!" Gloria yelled as she hit the earth, the beam sweeping over her head so closely that she could feel the heat of it as she fell.

It was unnecessary for her to cry-more instinct than conscious thought-as most of her warriors had already hit the ground, as had Ryan, Krysty and Jak. Krysty raised her Smith & Wesson blaster and took aim at the enemy rifleman who was laying down the covering fire. She squeezed gently on the trigger to keep recoil to a minimum and maximize her chances of an accurate shot at the distance and visibility she had. By a quirk of fate, the man was saved by the way in which he was firing, as Krysty's slug was prevented from hitting him in the chest by the arc of his own fire, cannoning into the metal of his laser rifle and wrenching it from his grasp. The blaster flew harmlessly away to his right, and he grasped at his wrist, broken by the impact and force with which the rifle had been torn from him.

The Illuminated Ones were now wide open to attack, but covering fire had given them enough time for the uninjured members of the wag's crew to gather in the injured members of their party. A force blast from a laser rifle shot from the back of the wag and into the encroaching members of the Gate tribe, stopping them from taking out the last man in-the one whose covering fire had caused them so many problems.

On the other side of the camp, things had gone even more in favor of the Gate. Doc, catching up with the main body of the attack as it was delayed by the laser fire, raised his LeMat and loosed the scattergun charge in the direction of the wag. The shot spread out over the longer than usual range, and didn't have the lethal effect that could have been hoped for. It did, however, cause enough damage to disable two of the Illuminated Ones' soldiers and cause them to drop their laser blasters.

Following suit, J.B.-who was a little closer to the wag than Doc had been- dropped to the earth and shouldered the M-4000, letting fly with a charge of the wickedly barbed metal flechettes, which tore into the group of Illuminated Ones, causing laser rifles to drop to the ground. One warrior-in a blue one-piece that became purple as blood spread across the blue material-received several hits to the chest and was thrown backward into the wag.

Margia whooped and gave a harsh, throaty cry, leading the charge on the wag. Those Illuminated Ones who still held their blasters showed the lack of battle expertise that Ryan had suspected by becoming erratic in their fire, the rifles cutting out as they managed to jam the delicate mechanisms in their panic.

"Got them on the run," Dean yelled to J.B. and Mildred, his eyes alight with the fire of battle. He raised his Browning Hi-Power and took careful aim, finishing the life of an Illuminated One who was attempting to fumble his rifle back into life.

As with the wag on the northeastern side of the camp, those of the warriors still uninjured, and those crew in the wag itself, pulled their wounded and chilled back into the vehicle while an arc of covering fire was laid down.

Both wags secured from the fire of the Gate warriors, which now bounced harmlessly off the armored sides of the wags, they effected retreat. The wag on the northeastern side of the camp reversed and skidded in a 180-degree turn, roaring off in the direction it had come, while the wag on the southwesterly side of the camp sped forward, arcing around the encampment and following the other wag toward the northeast and the seemingly deserted settlement Gloria had seen from afar. As quickly as it had begun, the battle was over.

AS DAWN BROKE over the camp, Gloria and Margia sat around the remains of the campfire with Ryan and his companions. There had been two Illuminated Ones left behind, both chilled. Mildred had examined them and found that they were seemingly healthy and unmutated specimens. Both had been chilled by bullet wounds. They were ritually cremated as fellow warriors with the eight Gate Amazons who had been chilled in the battle. Each of the Gate had been burned badly by the lasers.

There were four of these lasers left behind, and Margia now had them at her feet.

"These will be useful," she said almost to herself.

"Too erratic to be trusted," J.B. remarked.

Margia raised an eyebrow. "Depends on who uses them, honey," she said archly.

J.B. and Mildred both saw trouble ahead with the laser blasters.

Gloria and Ryan weren't listening. Instead, along with Jak, they were staring into the remains of the fire.

"So that is to be our destiny?" the Gate queen mused.

"Or who stands in the way," Ryan replied.

Jak shook his head. "Lucky this time. Mebbe not when more of them than us."

Gloria smiled at him. "Then we'll just have to be triple frosty, sweets. 'Cause there's no turning back now."

Chapter Twelve.

Ryan wasn't the only one of the party to be glad when they had finally crossed the plain. By the time it was full daylight, the camp had been disa.s.sembled and the wags packed. The Gate had carried out their farewell burial ceremonies for their own people, and also for the chilled Illuminated Ones who had fallen in battle. The remains were buried on the plain, a square of turned earth in the gra.s.sland marking the spot where their remains came to rest.

The Gate and Ryan's people set forth across the remains of the plain, Gloria in front as always. Jak and Ryan followed close behind her, along with the first guard of Gate women. In the middle of the party came the wag that carried the young of the tribe. The children were always well protected and kept from harm, and the fact that they had hardly been noticeable on the journey spoke volumes for the abilities of the tribe's menfolk to keep the young safe under pressure. But this day was different. Two of the eight Gate Amazons who had been chilled in battle had children among those on the wag, and the three children-two girls and a boy-were visibly distressed by the pa.s.sing of their mothers, even though they showed relatively little sign of this by most children's standards. Dean traveled with them on this morning, the memories of his mother, Sharona, strong with him. Krysty accompanied him, empathizing with the emotions she could feel coming from him.

Doc was traveling at the rear of the caravan, along with Jon and Petor.

"I'll be glad when we get out of the open and into some cover," Jon muttered.

"Better to see them coming, like last night," Petor mused.

Jon shook his head. "No, at least in cover we can send out outriders and take our own cover. Out here we're exposed."

"Harder to ambush, though," Petor added.

Doc smiled, his unusually strong white teeth gleaming in the sun, and a light sparkling in his eyes. "I think, my dear boys, that you have discovered one of the great dichotomies of warfare-that for every advantage there is a disadvantage. It is all a case of swings and roundabouts, mountains and valleys. What you lose on one hand you gain on the other, and so on and so forth. In other words, my dear boys, there are no winners or losers ultimately, because it all depends on which side of the fence you stand and which part of the half-empty and half-full gla.s.s you examine."

With which he sat back on the top of the wag and smiled serenely while Jon and Petor gave him bemused stares.

Mildred and J.B. were just in front, and heard Doc Tanner's discursive lecture. Looking back at the two confused teenagers, Mildred laughed.

"You crazy old buzzard, you want to confuse these poor boys so that they don't know if they're coming or going?" she called back to Doc.

The old man continued smiling serenely, and merely stated, "Life is confusion, a harsh lesson that I learned the hard way. If I can make it a little easier for someone else, then I shall be a happy man."

J.B. pushed back his fedora and scratched his head. "If that's making things easier, Doc, I'd hate to be around when you made them difficult."

Meanwhile, at the front of the caravan, Gloria had approached the beginnings of the woodland. The division between the plain and the woods was sharp, emphasizing that this was an artificial division. She slowed her pace as she reached it, her spring-heeled walk slowing and the flowing red mane of hair bouncing less and less. When she reached the edge of the plain, she turned and held up her arm.

"Okay, time to get triple red again," she called. "You know what to do, so do it."

Ryan and Jak arrived beside her, both glad that they were able to slow their pace under the burning sun.

"It'll be good to get out of this fireblasted heat," Ryan said, casting his good eye to the skies.

"Too true. I hate traveling when it's this blasting," the warrior queen said.

"Not look like it," Jak said humorously, eying the nut-brown and tanned skin of the Gate leader.

"Well, mebbe a bit, then, sweetie," she said with a lopsided grin.

While this exchange had been taking place, a group of outriders had moved into the woodland, spreading out to cover all points in front and to the side of the path the Gate queen intended to take. She unsheathed her panga and tested the edge with the ball of her thumb.

"Time to start the work," she said softly, inclining her head to catch the sound of whistled signals from within the forest ahead.