Ash: Rise of the Republic (25 page)

The grey line continued forward at a walking
pace, calmly firing when targets presented themselves, jeering at
the enemy, taunting them. They kept moving and firing, moving and
firing, driving the outlaws along the ridge like a herd of deer.
The infantry's inexorable advance kept them moving forward, and the
vicious firepower rolling on either side of the hill kept them
funneled along the ridgeline.

Occasionally one or two desperate bandits
would brave the fire of the crawling gunships and make it down the
hill, hoping to melt into the countryside and escape. Their relief
was short-lived however: the rangers patrolled the flanks in their
swift UTVs, hunting the fugitives down mercilessly. Those who threw
their hands up in surrender were hogtied and left to wait in the
ash. Those who turned to fight were gunned down.

Most of the outlaws, penned in by the armor
and driven by the grey line of men and rifles, scrambled along the
spine of the ridge, shredding their clothes on thorns in their
haste. Their knees grew bloody, their hands torn. When they ran out
of bushes, those at the head of the pack paused, fearing some new
terror below. The way was clear, however. There was nothing before
them but the interchange. The soaring curve of the roadway
stretched out before them. Their comrades knelt behind mounds of
thick sandbags halfway up, clutching at their big machine guns.
Behind the apparent safety of their defensive line the highway
stretched straight and empty into the distance; a tantalizingly
open route back to the safety and comfort of their lair, back to
the crates of liquor and piles of looted food and their warm and
willing whores.

They saw a way out and they sprinted for it,
forgetting that they had planned to trap their enemy on the same
curving stretch of narrow highway. They streamed from the top of
the ridge and the terrifying thunder from the Bradleys stopped and
the line of grim men let them run. They pounded up the smooth
incline, forced to press together by the concrete walls which lined
the road. They swarmed over the sandbags and shrugged off the
grasping hands of their comrades, ignored their reassuring
shouts.

"Stand and fight!"

"We can hold them here!"

The men at the head of the rout thundered up
the curve of the interchange. As they neared the crest, they began
to whoop in relief: they had escaped! They began to slow now, the
panic bleeding away. The aching in their legs and the burning in
their lungs and the steepening slope brought their headlong flight
from a sprint to a run, a run to a jog, a jog to a walk and then
they were at the top! They looked back down at the battlefield,
panting and wheezing, chattering excitedly, adrenaline still
boiling in their veins. Their pursuers stood watching, still in
their grey line straddling the ridge, the Bradleys at their flanks
blessedly silent.

Perhaps they had run out of ammunition for
the big guns? They shuddered, remembering the horrifying blasts
from the explosive rounds, the men who had turned to gory mist
before their eyes. And where was the Chief? No one had seen him.
Probably dead. Serve the bastard right. They slapped each other on
the backs and laughed as if a spell was broken. They would head
back to collect their women and wine and go their separate ways.
They turned, good spirits returned, and started walking down the
gently sloping road. They took a few steps and stopped. The road
was no longer free and clear, no longer a straight shot to their
loot and their freedom. The despair returned, the panic began to
rise again. Waiting for them at the base of the interchange, where
the single soaring lane settled back to earth to join the highway
going east, were the hard men of the Refinery.

The Captain’s scouts had reached them before
noon. They had made a two day march in just over eighteen hours.
They were exhausted. If the outlaws had thought to rush them, they
would be hard pressed to resist, but the outlaws turned back. They
fled back over the crest, seeking safety amongst the sandbags. The
Refinery men made their weary way up the last hundred yards to the
crest. The view was magnificent.

The broken army was packed between the
concrete walls of the narrow roadway. They had been lured into
their own trap. They were milling in confusion now, no leadership
to speak of, frantically looking for an escape. Those who tried to
go up were thrown back by well-aimed shots from the tough men above
them. Those who tried to go down drew fire from the grey clad
troops from Campus. One man racked the bolt on his fifty caliber
machine gun and put a burst downrange at his tormentors. He was
rewarded with a flurry of explosive 25mm shells. No one else tried
the machine guns. Some of the more desperate men tried their luck
over the concrete walls. They lay on the concrete below, screaming
in pain, their legs shattered from the fall. The screams kept any
more from trying their luck over the walls. Soon the defeated men
began to sit down in the road in abject surrender. They had been
beaten.

When the men of the Refinery had crested the
peak of the interchange, the Captain had Deb gun their UTV up the
hill to join their line of triumphant troops. His rangers joined
them in their own vehicles. He found Collier waiting for him and
stood for a moment, trading pleasantries with his comrade. The men
in the line behind them, all veterans now, broke out in cheers as
they saw the bandits begin to sit in surrender.

The Captain was pleased with the victory,
but doubt nagged at him. There had been no sign of Werner. It was
possible the big man was lying dead somewhere behind him in the
thick brush, felled early in the battle by a lucky shot, but
somehow he doubted it.

Movement caught his eye in the distance: A
small group of men running through the ash, men who had somehow
escaped the cordon. His snipers were still in the UTV with his
wife, a dozen yards behind him. He called them over, motioned for
them to bring the tools of their trade. They could at last practice
shooting at something other than birds. They sank to the ground at
his feet, one pressing her eye to the big spotting scope, the other
wrapping herself around the huge gun. He turned to joke with Deb
about the girls, a smile on his face.

The smile faded quickly. Werner was there,
come from the bushes like a demon. The thorns had shredded him as
he had crawled through the brush; blood was welling from dozens of
thin scratches on his bare chest and arms. There was a crazed grin
on his face, triumphant in his moment of escape.

The huge, jagged knife went in deep under
his wife's ribcage. The Captain watched her tense with the shock of
it and a sickening rattle came from her throat. Roaring with hatred
and grief, the old man charged at the blood covered maniac, drawing
his revolver. Werner let slip a booming cackle and ripped his knife
free, slinging dark, glistening blood in a wide arc. As the Captain
charged toward him and grey-clad soldiers leveled rifles, he flung
Deb's limp body from the driver's seat and smoothly took her place.
As he stomped on the accelerator, three of his men jumped from the
bushes. He slowed enough for them to clamber aboard and then he was
racing down the hill in a spray of ash, bullets flying all
around.

Forced to let his tormentor escape yet
again, the Captain checked his mad rush and ran to his wife's still
body. She was unconscious, blood seeped slowly from the ragged
wound. His rangers were climbing into their UTVs to give chase but
he bellowed at them to stop. Legs, suddenly by his side, helped him
gently lift his dying wife into the nearest vehicle. He barked at
Stone and Blue as they climbed in.

"Go! Keep that pedal on the floor! Get her
back to town. You tell that doctor that if she dies I’ll cut his
balls off!” Tears were streaming down his face now.

The UTV was gone, already to the highway. He
watched as it crested the low hill and disappeared. He sat down,
his strength draining, despair began to overtake him. He stared at
the blood on his hands, covering his uniform. Deb's blood.

The men on the ridge watched his moment of
grief, the mass of prisoners below forgotten. They watched as his
head came up, saw the terrifying hatred in his eyes. Those who knew
him well could see the storm coming, they knew the swirling fury
would soon boil up and consume whatever was in its path.

His gaze stopped on the single remaining
UTV. He slowly rose up and walked toward it as if he were in a
trance. No one moved to stop him as he started the motor, no one
was willing to risk getting caught in the storm. Without a word, he
pressed his right foot down and was gone.

****

Within minutes, he knew he was gaining on them. The
four big men were weighing the small vehicle down. Mile after mile
he chased them, the suspension shuddering from the torturous
terrain. He was in a cloud of ash thrown up in their wake, his
world reduced to a white fog. His quarry was a dark smear at the
edge of visibility. He focused intensely on the fleeing vehicle,
ignoring everything else in his path.

Twenty miles into the pursuit, he was close
enough to see the fear in their eyes as they looked over their
shoulders at him. All but Werner. The big man never looked back.
Just as he was close enough to try a shot with his pistol, his UTV
lurched, the engine sputtering. The fuel gauge was resting on the
stop, the tank dry. He cursed and pressed harder on the pedal,
trying to coax a few more miles from the machine through sheer
force of will. He howled in rage as the motor gave up, shuddering.
He let it roll to a stop, unwilling to use the brakes. He could see
them smiling and waving as they began to pull away. Just as he was
about to give up hope, he saw their vehicle lurch and sputter as
well. Vengeful laughter erupted from deep within. He leapt from the
driver's seat and ran, his pistol light in his hand.

The foot pursuit was much the same. He
slowly gained on them, his hatred driving him forward. He and
Werner seemed driven by the same demons. They were tireless.

It was dark when they reached the old oil
rig. It had clearly been abandoned in the first days after the
pillar. The crew had simply picked up off bottom, shut the well in,
and jumped in their trucks to weather the disaster with their
families. Now, other than thirty years’ worth of rust and a thick
blanket of ash, the rig looked much as it had when the last
roughneck had driven off location.

He leaped the low dike at the edge of the
pad and burst past the row of collapsed crew houses. His quarry
scrambled for the stairs to the rig floor, breathless and
terrified. He hoped the ‘Chief’ was beginning to worry.

Two of Werner's companions were lagging
behind, exhausted from the long run through the ash. Their legs
were jelly, unresponsive. They tried to crawl up the steep rusty
stairs to escape the tireless mad man who had chased them for
hours. They died too easily to quench the Captain’s bloodlust. They
just let him walk up and shoot them like wounded animals. He
ignored their pleas for mercy. He took the stairs two at a
time.

The third stood in the middle of the rig
floor as the Captain rounded the doghouse. There was genuine terror
in his eyes. All day he had run from this lunatic and now he could
run no more. His pathetic pleading earned him a bullet in the gut,
the pain white hot, and his subsequent screams earned him another
in the head.

McLelland suddenly realized it had begun to
rain at some point during the frenzied pursuit. Great fat drops of
fresh water smacked into the rusting steel at his feet. He was
soaking wet. He also realized with a shock that he had lost track
of Werner in his haste to kill the last crony.

He whirled around at a deep rumbling
chuckle. The big man stepped from the shadows of the doghouse. The
rain began to wash the blood from his chest in dark rivulets. He
had no weapons but the big knife in his belt. Deb’s blood still
crusted the blade. The Captain holstered his pistol.

“I come here sometimes to think.” The
sadistic crackle of his voice raised hairs on the Captain’s neck.
“My men keep the floor swept for me. My father once worked on a rig
just like this. I sometimes…”

The Captain raised a hand and cut him off
“You can lay off the theatrics. I didn’t follow you all the way
down here to listen to your bullshit, Robert. I followed you here
to do something I should have done thirty years ago. I followed you
put you down like a rabid dog.”

The Chief smiled, his mouth a rictus of
black and rotting teeth. He drew the blade slowly and raised it to
his mouth. He licked a crust of brown blood from the edge and
smacked his lips at the taste.

“I wish I had had time to cook your wife up
proper, this is a rare vintage. Maybe when I’m done here I’ll go
back for her.”

The Captain drew his own wide blade. The
rain beaded on the bright steel.

“Whatever happened to all that archangel
nonsense, Robert? What was it, ‘Zadkiel’?”

The two men began circling each other
warily, knives held ready. The two blades were swaying in the
darkness, searching for an opening.

“Hah! That skinny fool! It was so easy. He
wanted to believe. I’ve always wondered: why didn’t you shoot us
that day in the road? It would have been so easy!” His last word
was shouted as he lunged. The blade sliced air.

The Captain covered his surprise well. He
had leaned away from the cut, but only just. The boy was fast!

“I’ve always wondered the same thing. It
almost felt like something stopped me. Maybe you are an angel,
Robert. Maybe you can’t be harmed by mortal weapons. Let’s see.”
The Captain tossed his knife to his off-hand, yanked his pistol
out, and put a bullet through the big man’s boot. Blood welled from
the hole. “Nope.”

The Chief yowled ferociously. He charged,
blind with sudden rage, as the Captain knew he would. He sliced the
big man’s side as he passed, the knife still in his off-hand.