Where the mutie pigs were waiting.

"Run it!" Ryan called. "Follow me, like this."

The only safe way to get over the wide bed of scree was to run, taking great bounding strides, using the shingled movement of the stones to actually help you on your way, never waiting to let your feet sink deep into the sucking morass of pebbles, always keeping on the move.

It took great physical strength and agility, and Ryan was immediately aware of how much his wound was going to hinder him and slow him.

Every leaping step tugged the bandages away, opening the puckered holes wider, bringing a trickle of blood down over his buttocks and thighs.

"It's great, Dad!" Dean whooped close behind him, overtaking him. He moved ahead of his father with an easy grace, toward the end of the scree and the beginning of the dense forest of dark spiky pines.

"Slow up, Dean!" Ryan yelled. "Get down and slide on your ass to slow."

The boy heard him, waving a casual hand to acknowledge the instruction. But he found his own more effective way of slowing, zigzagging back and forth in short, tight turns, like an eager sailboat tacking up a narrow, winding channel against a strong head wind.

Ryan tried to emulate him, gasping out loud at the extra pressure it put on his back, nearly losing control and rolling helplessly.

But he fought the slide, gradually checking the frightening and exhilarating speed, reaching out and finally stopping himself by embracing the trunk of an elderly larch.

He was breathing hard, aware of his disgust at how his knees were trembling, his palms sweating, his fingers shaking.

Dean was forty or so yards to his right, punching his fist in the air in triumph.

"That was a real triple-hot pipe, Dad!" he called. "Best fun in ages."

Ryan swallowed hard, controlling his breathing before answering the boy. "Pretty good, huh?"

"How's that arrow wound, Dad?"

"Been better, thanks," he replied, trying to ignore the steady warmth of fresh blood leaking through his

clothes.

"Now what?"

"Now we keep our voices down. Pigs'll have heard all that whooping. But they can't see us this high up.

We move through the trees, slow and careful. I want to try and get up to the head of the canyon."

Under the spread branches, there were piles of dust-dry needles and cones,, enough to start a lethally ferocious fire if you weren't really careful.

Or, if you were careful.

"WHAT'S THE SIGNAL, Dad?"

"I'll fire a single shot into the air. Noise should carry easily enough, even out of the box canyon."

"Might bring the brushwooders in after us if they're in the area."

"If they were going to come, they'd have been on our heels by now. Haven't seen or heard a sign of them.

Could be that they're chasing after Krysty and the others. So, when you get your fire lit, watch out. You're

in more danger out on the trail than me snug in the canyon here."

Dean's face was bright with an unholy delight. "Love to see their fucking faces when they first see what's coming rumbling their way."

"Don't say 'fucking,' Dean."

"Trader says it all the time."

"Trader's his own man. Always was and always will be. That's the problem between him and me since

Abe brought him back to us. I'm the leader now. Trader can't settle to that. It's like him having a sand burr under his saddle. I've turned from being his trusted right-hand man for all those years to an itch that he somehow can't get to scratch."

"Will you have to fight him, Dad?"

It was a question that had been on Ryan's mind ever since the grizzled old man with the battered Armalite had reappeared in his life.

"Hope not."

"You could beat him, Dad," Dean said enthusiastically. "No worries."

"Think so?" Ryan ruffled the mat of curly hair.

"Sure. You're old, but he's even older."

THEY REACHED THE VILLE, exhausted, drained of fire and hope, a little after the middle of the day, to be greeted by a burst of weeping and anger, once their dire news had been passed on.

They held a council of war within the hour, prompted by J.B. and Krysty. Baron Weyman attended, along with his son and Bill Rainey.

Trader sat at the end of the big refectory table, blaster across his lap, staring up at the ceiling.

"We have to go back and find Ryan and Dean," J.B. insisted.

Rainey shook his head. "Don't have enough men left for that. I'll tell you straight, outlander, that I doubt we even have enough to defend the ville against an out-and-out attack. They can get up and over the walls, and we don't have the sec men to cover the defensive perimeter."

Baron Weyman was rubbing a finger along the angle of his jaw, as if he were trying to decide whether he needed to have a shave.

"In that case, I can see little point in waiting to have our throats cut by these lice-ridden mongrels. We will stand against them."

Jamie clapped his hands, leaping to his feet to declaim, "Then, Father, I will stand at your right hand and keep the bridge with you."

Despite the tenseness of the situation, Doc smiled. "You're familiar with the holding of the bridge over the Tiber, against the forces of Lars Porsena of Clusium. 'By the nine gods he swore, that the proud house of Tarquin should suffer wrong no more.' If my memory has it properly remembered. I am delighted to see that learning is not yet quite gone from Deathlands and all judgment is not yet fled to brutish beasts."

He looked around to see everyone staring at him. "My apologies, friends. But it is those same brutish beasts that confront us now. I would say only that Ryan's instructions were to wait here for him. I think that we should do that."

"What do we do if those brushwood bastards come, Doc?" Trader said, sneering. "Ask them to just wait awhile until Ryan gets back here?"

J.B. answered him. "They won't attack until dusk. But Doc's right. We should do what Ryan said. We can still cover our asses. My plan is to set out a watch on the trails from the west and north. Only way they can come at us. Soon as we get a warning, we go out and ambush them. We passed some good places for that within the last quarter mile. They won't expect that and we can use our firepower to cut them apart."

Trader patted the table approvingly. "I'll be hung, quartered and dried for the crows! You did learn something all those years, John Dix. Good plan."

RYAN HOPED THAT HIS PLAN was a good one.

Like a lot of plans, it seemed fine when you sat down and thought about it. When you came to try it out on the ground, you started to worry about all of the imponderables. One small slip, and the scheme was in tatters.

He adjusted the white silk scarf, with its weighted ends, around his neck. Ryan sat by the great heap of brushwood that he and Dean had dragged together. The boy would be doing the same, out in the narrow neck of the trail east, toward the ville, ready to light the wood on the signal and block off that way of escape.

Ryan's fire should panic the mutie pigs and send them stampeding out of the box canyon with only one way to go, west toward the vulnerable camp of the brushwooders.

This was one of the key moments of the plan.

If it worked, the men, women and children would totally freak when they saw what was charging at them. They had only one way to escapeback west, along the treacherous trail toward the land of the scabbies, then out into the bubbling death trap of the sulfur swamps.

Ryan's profound hope was that the terror of finding themselves in the path of the killer stampede would lead to the brushwooders fleeing, hopefully to their deaths.

The possibility that women and children might also die wasn't a factor in Ryan's plan. The quality of mercy wasn't something that you could believe in when dealing with a Murderous tribe like the brushwooders.

The ending from a snippet of an old vid came to Ryan as he got ready to set his own fire. "That's Deathlands, Jake," he whispered to himself, just as General, giant among the mutie pigs, surged in to attack him.

Chapter Thirty-Three.

For such a vast creature, General moved with an uncanny lightness and speed.

Ryan had been cautious, only too aware that the pigs were roaming all over the sheer-walled box canyon. The pile of dry brush and chaparral had been rustling and crackling in the northerly breeze that swirled around under the granite cliffs, helping to conceal the noise of the boar's approach.

Now Ryan was caught cold, on hands and knees, the SIG-Sauer snugly and uselessly bolstered, the eighteen inch steel panga sheathed on his other hip.

His right hand held a self-light, ready to ignite his fire. His left hand was supporting him, in the dirt.

Only at the last moment did his fighting sense save him from being slaughtered from behind.

Ryan glanced over his shoulder, seeing the imposing figure of the monstrous pig rushing at him, its head lowered, the unbroken tusk aimed at his chest. The tiny eyes, almost buried in rolls of fat and muscle, were boring into the human in front of it.

The pig was less than fifteen feet away when Ryan became aware of its presence.

He dropped the self-light and picked up a handful of dust in his left hand, throwing it into the boar's face and simultaneously hurling himself to one side.

The ground shook as the mutie beast, temporarily blinded, swerved away, hooking in his direction, the tusk brushing against the hem of Ryan's coat. It had been charging so fast that it couldn't stop immediately and blundered helplessly into the pile of dry wood and brush. It was wheezing and grunting as it turned, tossing the carefully prepared bonfire all around, stamping its hooves in rage.

The slight delay gave Ryan a moment to recover his balance, and he rolled up onto hands and knees, poised to move. His first reflex was to draw the SIG-Sauer, but he checked himself. If he opened fire at General, Dean would hear the shots and take them for his signal to light his fire.

It would be totally disastrous if the lower blaze began before Ryan had his own bonfire burning well. The pigs had to be driven down the canyon, where they'd find their path east was blocked by Dean's burning brush.

Timing was vital. If the boy lighted his fire too soon, then it would have burned well through before the herded beasts even reached him.

Ryan drew the panga instead, biting his lip as the gigantic pig finally readied itself for a second charge. It shook its head twice, trying to rid its eyes of the dust, pawing at the ground. Its jaws gaped, showing rows of savage teeth. A thread of green slime dribbled from the blunt mouth. "Come on," Ryan whispered.

DEAN HADN'T ENJOYED his trip down the canyon. It was crawling with mutie pigs, mostly browsing among the trees, and the boy had made slow progress, dodging and waiting, his eyes constantly darting in all directions. Though he saw lifted heads and questing muzzles, none of the animals scented him and he made it safely.

Fortunately the box canyon had suffered a flash flood in the past weeks, and there was a towering pile of snagged branches of all dimension, now sun-dried, ideal for him to drag into the ravine and block the trail east. He felt in his pocket for the self-lights that his father had given him.

Dean crouched out of sight, in case the brushwooders appeared, ready to set the fire.

BARON WEYMAN RETREATED to his own private set of rooms, where he had taken out the velvet-lined trays that held his precious collection of English predark coins.

His head was lowered as he sat at a table by one of the shuttered windows, running his fingers slowly over the gold and silver lines. There were frail coins from Saxon times, from the reigns of Alcred, Osbert and Berhtwulf. A golden double leopard came from Edward III's reign; from Henry V, a half groat.

The ailing man had his eyes closed, shutting away the doubtful horrors of the last day or so, letting his beloved coins ease his uncertainties.

A dark blue silk bag held two dozen extra fine double florins from the time of Queen Victoria, and another held superb examples of soft-gleaming sovereigns.

Letting the cold metal caress his fingers, Baron Weyman was happy and contented, all of his worries forgotten for the time being.

RYAN HAD THE STEEP SLOPE of the hillside behind him and a maze of stark pine trees. There was a strong urge to turn and run, hoping to outdodge the lumbering brute, but he was only too aware that time was not on his side. By now his son would be waiting for the signal of the gunshot.

The panga was ready, perfectly balanced, an extension of Ryan's right arm.

Still General waited, working himself into a terrifying rage, his grunting growing louder. Blood flecked the twisted cord of frothing drool.

"Come on, you bastard," Ryan growled, beckoning to the monster animal, waiting for the inevitable charge, perfectly balanced on the balls of his feet, shuffling in the loose soil to make sure of his footing.