shoulders. He flinched, half lifting his left arm, protecting his throat, paying the price for his slowness.

The razored edge bit deep into his arm, a couple of inches above the wrist. It cut open skin and flesh, splintering through both the ulna and the radius, coming within a quarter inch of severing the hand, which

dangled loose by a length of torn muscle. Blood gouted bright crimson, pattering on the path, into the boiling mud, staining the yellow dirt a deep orange.

The scabbie staggered back, looking in disbelief at the flapping, useless hand.

Ryan readied himself for the final, mortal blow, swinging the panga back to his shoulder.

His enemy saw death coming and tried to avoid it, whimpering in agony. But the lethal wound had made

him clumsy, and he tripped over his own feet.

He started to fall, the ax tossed high in the misty air, spinning over and over as he toppled backward. His scream of mortal terror was loud and shrill enough to shatter crystal at fifty paces.

"Enjoy the bath," Trader called.

The mutie landed on the left of the narrow trail, breaking through the thin layer of scale across the lake.

He went clean through, hurling up a wave of spray that obscured him for a few moments.

Unbelievably he surfaced, still alive, kicking in the boiling water, head strained back, the cords in his throat standing out like drawn wire.

"God help him," Mildred whispered. "Take him, Lord, take him."

The scabbie fought in silence, mouth wide open, pulling at the water with his right arm, legs thrashing, reaching out for the edge of the path.

But he was being cooked alive.

The searing heat of the lake was broiling him. The disfigured skin across his face and neck was blistered

away, hanging in empty, ballooning sacks. His fingers had vanished as the flesh became grotesquely swollen. The eyes were gone, sealed behind a bloody pink puffiness.

It was impossible to imagine the unthinkable horror of the mutie's suffering.

The nine companions watched him, silent, until Krysty broke the spell that held them motionless.

Drawing her Smith amp; Wesson double-action pistol, she put a .38 round into the middle of the suffering

man's skull, blowing him into eternity.

As his body floated, the only sound was Doc kneeling down and being sick. "My apologies," he

mumbled, wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his stained frock coat. "But it was the smell of boiled meat that" He promptly threw up again.

"Best we go," Ryan said. "Sound of shooting could have been heard. Might be others."

The three scabbie corpses lying on the winding path were quickly manhandled over the edge into the

seething yellow mud.

"DEFINITELY BETTER AIR," Krysty stated, sharing the lead with Ryan on a wider, straighter path.

The battle with the muties was close on an hour behind them, lost in the lower ground of hot springs, geysers and poisonously yellow mists.

Now they could see the mountains more clearly, with a stretch of wooded valleys lying directly ahead.

A high, thin waterfall glittered over a shelf of rock; Ryan's guestimate put it at around twenty miles east.

The sun was just past the halfway mark, starting its long, slow descent toward the west, over the distant

ocean.

Ryan whistled between his teeth. "More like it, lover."

She nodded. "It is. Look at the height of some of those trees ahead."

They were giant redwoods, towering well over two hundred feet. Ryan stopped at the top of some rising ground, shading his eye. "Looks to me like some sort of camp down there among the trees," he said.

Krysty probably had the best day sight of anyone in the party. "Think you're right. Tents. Might be Native Americans."

"Don't reckon there's many of them in these parts," Trader said. "Never were."

"Well, best way to find out is to go take a look." Ryan eased the strap of the Steyr on his shoulder. "Slow and careful."

Chapter Fourteen.

"Something odd."

They were lying in a straggling line along a ridge that hid them from the encampment, a quarter mile below them. There were groves of pinon pines scattered among the redwoods, filling the afternoon air with their scent. "What, Trader?" Ryan asked. "Counted the tents. Not too good with numbering, as you know. I make it up to forty."

"Thirty-eight," Dean said quickly.

"Remember that nobody in Deathlands admires a smart-ass, sonny," Trader growled. "Specially them that tries to dump their olders and betters into the shadows with how bright they think they are."

There was real venom in the words, and Dean wriggled a little farther from the older man, closer to the protection of his father.

But Ryan did nothing. "So what, Trader? What's your point about this?"

"I sort of counted at the women and children and men running around down there. But Mr. Button Bright

here probably done that, too."

Dean glanced at his father, who nodded. "I made it eleven what I'd call children. Younger than me.

Twenty-six women. And only about eight or nine men. Can't be sure as they moved around a lot, going in and out the tents."

"Close enough, Dean," J.B. confirmed. "See your point, Trader. Too many women."

"And not enough men. More to the issue, J.B., there's not enough fighting men." Trader shuffled to a more comfortable position. "Where the fuck are all their men? They ain't muties, by what I can see."

Ryan had already realized that. But it gave Trader some self-respect if he announced that kind of news.

Like he was still real sharp, despite his age.

Which he undeniably was, despite a slight blurring around the fighting edge.

"Don't look in-laws," Jak said. "Wolf's-heads in brushwood. Step careful if go in. Don't trust far as

spitting."

Ryan nodded at that, too. "No argument with that. How about weapons?"

Predictably it was the Armorer who'd been paying particular attention to that.

"Children nothing, unless you count three or four little short-bladed hunting knives. Most of the women

down there are wearing knives." He took off his hat and scratched his head. "Kind of strange that, when you think about it. Virtually everyone's got a blade of some kind. Three or four of them are also wearing tomahawks at their belts."

"Men all got knives," Jak interrupted. "Some got two. Working blades and fighting blades."

"Not many blasters. One's wearing an AK-47. He's" J.B. paused. "No. Sorry. Couldn't see it properly. It's the AK-74 not the 47. Folding stock."

"Never could work out what the difference was," Trader said.

"One of the main differences is in the ammo," the Armorer replied, locked into his favorite topic of

conversation. "The newer 5.45 mm has a flatter trajectory than the 7.62 mm. Means you got better aim around the four-hundred-paces mark. Very tight rifling, so it spins quicker."

"Makes it more stable?" Ryan asked. "Right. But it has a relatively low muzzle velocity. Below three thousand fps. The M-16 goes around three two-fifty. But here's where the Ruskies got clever. Cunning Old Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov. Basic cartridge has a mild steel jacket. That covers a lead sheath. Then a core of mild steel about fifteen millimeters long. The base of that's at the base of the jacket. Then comes a three millimeter plug of lead. Right in the nose is simply five millimeters of air. So, it's a bottom heavy round, with the center of gravity tilled much closer to the rear of the bullet than usual."

"Because it's unbalanced, it starts to tumble immediately after it hits anything more solid than air. Dumps all of its kinetic energy and rips apart flesh. Big high-velocity round goes in and straight out the other side and doesn't do much damage. I saw some pix in an old mag of test-firing into jelly blocks. Tore them apart, the 74 did."

"Anything else interesting?" Abe asked. "I haven't see one of them Russkie blasters in a 'coon's age. Seen lots of the old 47s."

J.B. nodded. "Yeah. The muzzle brake's a lot better. Cuts down on noise and flash. And it also counters some of the recoil with a movement that's slightly down and forward. Brilliant piece of blaster design."

"I saw three muzzle-loading muskets, just inside one of the tents," Dean said. "And three of the men have got handblasters holstered."

"Still doesn't explain where all of the men from the camp have gone." Krysty looked around, almost as though she were tasting the air.

Trader leaned toward Ryan. "Men are out hunting or raiding," he guessed.

"Unless they work for a local baron." Another thought occurred to him. "Could they have been chilled in some way?"

Trader considered the two possibilities, slowly nodding. "Could be either of them."

"We going down, lover?" Krysty asked. "I can smell baking bread."

Ryan had also noticed, a fresh, delicious odor that was already doing something to scrape away at the harsh layers of sulfur from his taste buds.