Sunspot (27 page)

“Why would Haldane fire poison gas on his own troops?” J.B. asked as the companions walked away from the smoking ridgetop, heading toward the ruined highway.

“The price of final victory is steep,” Ryan replied. “He managed to chill his arch rival and his whole army.”

“Not only that,” Mildred said. “The bastard slaughtered every living soul in Sunspot. Chem gas is heavy. It seeps underground. The ville folk are all dead, too. You can bet on that.”

“If she had only listened to me…” Doc muttered, leaning heavily on his swordstick.

“You couldn’t have forced her to come with us,” Krysty said. “She made her choice. It was the wrong one.”

“That absolves me of nothing,” Doc said miserably. “I failed her by not making a better case. And I failed myself.”

“You’re not responsible for what happened to her,” Krysty said. “Baron Haldane is responsible.”

“Why does that not make me feel better?”

“Because you really cared, that’s why.”

“Haldane didn’t have to use gas to win the war,” Mildred said. “The invading scagworms would have finished off Malosh and his army. If the worms take root here, this strip of land isn’t going to be habitable for a long, long time. Maybe not ever again.”

“So he bloodied his hands for nothing,” Ryan said.

“Looks like,” Mildred said.

“Wags,” Jak announced over his shoulder. He pointed at the horizon. “There…”

The morning sun illuminated beige clouds of dust. Big wags, daisy-chaining. The multivehicle convoy was moving slowly south, away from Sunspot.

“Haldane is making his getaway,” Krysty said.

“Nuevaville is the other direction,” Ryan said.

“Another wag,” Jak said, pointing west and slightly south.

“I don’t see anything,” Mildred said.

“If he says there’s a wag, there’s a wag,” Ryan said. “Let’s go check it out.”

“Follow,” the albino said.

The companions smelled the wreck long before they saw it. Spilled antifreeze, cloyingly sweet, rode on the eastward breeze. After they had crossed the interstate and climbed over hump of shoulder, the Humvee’s uptilted rear end came into view.

Spreading out, they advanced on the wag.

The Humvee had taken a header into the bottom of the gully. The front windshield was broken out, the hood popped and buckled. Steam billowed up from the engine compartment. There were no signs of life. But plenty of signs of death. The hood was streaked and smeared with fresh blood.

“Dad?” a child’s voice said desperately.

The companions quickly circled the wag.

When Ryan looked in the back seat, he saw the plastic box. It was just big enough to hold a small child. He wrenched open the side door and turned the carrier on the seat. “Damn,” he said when the little face looked back at him from behind the bars.

He swung the carrier out of the Humvee and put it on the ground. “Cover your ears and turn your head away from the bars,” he told the boy. Then he put the muzzle of the SIG against the lock and fired a single shot. The hasp snapped open. Ryan tossed the broken lock aside.

Mildred bent and helped the child out of the cage. He was shaking all over, wringing wet, and there was blood on his bruised chin.

“Where’s my dad?” the boy said.

“Who’s your dad?” Mildred asked.

“Baron Haldane. I’m Thorne Haldane.”

“He was with you?” Ryan said.

“He was in the front seat, with Cuzo. We crashed and I got knocked out.”

Mildred tried to give him a sip of water from her canteen. He shook his head and waved her off. “Where’s my dad?” he said. “Is he chilled?” Then he started to cry.

Ryan looked at the gore smeared on the hood and all the churned-up dirt in the gully bottom. Lots of feet had been moving around the wreck. Heavy ones. Cawdor knew what had made the tracks. He and the companions had seen the beast from the battlements of Sunspot, fleeing from a pack of scagworms. It had to be the grave digger.

“Don’t worry, Thorne,” Ryan said. “We’ll see you get home safe.”

“It took my dad, didn’t it?” the boy said, gulping air between sobs. “Didn’t it? The mutie thing. I saw it right before we crashed. I heard it outside when I woke up.”

“I’m sorry, there’s no sign of your father, Thorne,” Ryan said. “No sign of the other man, either.”

J.B. stepped forward, “All that’s left is this…”

“That’s my dad’s!” the boy cried.

Ryan took the sawed-off Remington 1100 from J.B. He jacked out the live rounds and handed the weapon to the boy.

Thorne cradled the blaster hard against his chest, tears streaming down his cheeks.

“We’ve got some heavy walking ahead of us,” Ryan told him. “If you get tired, you let me know. I’ll carry your blaster for you until you get home.”