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RYAN FIRED TWO MORE SHOTS, but the gun emplacement was almost deserted
now.
As far as he could see through the laser enhancer, four dead men lay sprawled around the
silent Oerlikon, and one wounded man, who looked to be gut shot, rolled back and forth,
his mouth open in a scream of agony.
"Time to move," Ryan said, starting to climb down from the tree.
The screaming was endless, a long, thin, high, hopeless note that rasped at the nerves.
"Bullet in the belly," J.B. said, taking the lead from Jak as they climbed within a few
yards of the concealed gun emplacement.
"Ryan's stopped shooting." Mildred glanced over her shoulder, across the valley. "That
mean he's chilled them all?" She angrily answered her own question. " 'Course not, stupid
bitch! He took out as many as he could. Rest are hiding."
"Or coming this way at a run," Krysty said. "Best all get ready. Expect the unexpected.
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James Axler - Death Lands - Keeper of the Sun
Isn't that what Trader used to say, John?"
The Armorer frowned. "No. Can't say I ever heard him say that."
"Someone coming," Jak hissed.
RYAN FOUND Mashashige waiting for him, framed between Hideyoshi and Yashimoto.
The shogun called out as soon as he saw him. "The long gun has fallen into silence. This
is your doing, Cawdor-san?"
"Yeah. Tried to get the samurai leading them."
"My brother, Ryuku?"
"Mebbe. Horned helmet. But I missed him. Got about four or five of the men with the
Oerlikon."
Mashashige nodded. "Now we can follow your companions and hope to harm the ronin."
Ryan grinned. "Hell, why not?"
THE ACCURACY OF RYAN'S sniping had freaked out the ronin who'd been grouped
around the gun. They had known that Mashashige and the outlanders with him were the
better part of a half mile away from them, giving them the good sport of safely using the
Oerlikon they'd found in a hidden military base a few weeks earlier. They'd saved it for
just such an opportunity.
And then the gods turned their backs on them. Bullets struck from nowhere.
Five men were dead.
It seemed that every time the marksman fired his rifle from the distant trees, one of them
fell dead or dying. There was no way that any ordinary human could shoot with such
accuracy. It had to mean that Mashashige had enlisted some sort of supernatural help in
his fight against them.
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James Axler - Death Lands - Keeper of the Sun
One of the fleeing ronin cried out that it was a punishment for using the dishonorable
tactic of poison gas. It had turned the gods against them.
Krysty and the others, separated from the gun pit by only a thin screen of pines and some
berried bushes, heard the harsh shouting. A commanding voice seemed to be trying to
restore order and overcome the panic.
They could hear men running all around them, horses neighing and whips cracking in the
panic of terror.
One of the ronin suddenly appeared through the brush, arms pumping, eyes wide and
staring. He hardly seemed to notice the foreigners, carrying on as though he intended
running straight past them.
J.B. shot him through the head with a single round from the Uzi, tumbling him over in the
loose earth among the trees, his body rolling limply against the trunk of a slender,
blighted, leprous conifer.
Another Japanese appeared, struggling to skid to a halt as he heard the vicious crack of
the 9 mm machine pistol. He reached for the Nambu blaster holstered at his waist, but he
was way too slow and way too late.
A second round from the Uzi took him between chest and throat, knocking him over in a
welter of blood, his hands clasping the neat entrance wound, crimson gushing between
them.
He tried to speak but failed.
And died.
"Let's go get the Oerlikon," J.B. said. "Shoot anything that moves."
But the clearing was empty. The only thing living was a fat little man, who was trying to
push back loops of blood-slick yellow intestines that had slithered out of a gaping exit
wound in his stomach.
He had stopped screaming and was muttering to himself in a quiet, preoccupied
undertone, oblivious to the appearance of five of the hated round-eyes.
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James Axler - Death Lands - Keeper of the Sun
"Nearly done," Jak said, pausing to stoop and slit the dying man's throat with one of his
throwing knives.
J.B. had moved, quick and catlike, to the far side of the clearing, where a narrow trail
wound down the far side of a hogback ridge. "Off and running," he said.
"All of them?" Mildred asked.
The Armorer shook his head. "Can't be sure. Likely a few have taken off in other
directions. Panic's real good way of losing your sense of direction." He grinned at
Mildred. "Fact is, love, it's a good way of losing all your senses."
"How we wreck gun?" Jak had wiped his knife clean and sheathed it. He stared with his
bloodred eyes at the immensely long barrel of the revolver cannon. "Never seen nothing
like it. Not never."
"Easy," J.B. said. "Get plenty of mud. Enough around. Good and thick and rich in stones.
And fill the damn blaster with it. Much as you can. Pack it in hard."
"Allow me to help," Doc said. "I can't wait to see the effect of John Barrymore's plan.
Unless I miss my guess, it will be brutish and spectacular."
THOUGH HE WAS AS FIT as most men in Deathlands, probably fitter, Ryan was hard
put to keep up with the slight figure of the barefoot Mashashige, as the elusive shogun
darted toward the scene of the fighting.
The two men quickly outdistanced the other samurai, leaving the foot soldiers straggling
in their wake as they leapt the polluted stream and started to climb the far side of the
shallow valley toward the Oerlikon.
"The gun has stopped for good," the shogun said over his shoulder, seeming not the least
out of breath. "You and your friends have done us well and proudly."
"Let's hope so," Ryan panted.
WHILE THE OTHERS WORKED quickly, jamming mud into the barrel of the revolver
cannon, J.B. rigged up a long lanyard to the firing mechanism, uncoiling it to a safe
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James Axler - Death Lands - Keeper of the Sun
distance behind the huge blaster.
None of the ronin remained in the area to bother them, though they'd heard a few of them
slipping and sliding through the pines toward the stream that bisected the valley,
sounding as if they were heading toward Ryan and the surviving Japanese.
"Sure that the shogun won't want to keep the Oerlikon for himself?" Mildred asked.
J.B. shook his head. He pushed back the fedora, wiped sweat from his forehead, then took
off his glasses to give them an extra polish. "Thing this big takes some moving. The ronin
have taken most of their transport. Mashashige doesn't have the manpower to shift this
baby."
"You ready?" Jak was grinning, wiping mud off his hands onto his pants.
"Pretty well. Everyone get out of the way, around the back, far as you all can, and keep
alert. Or better, move on down the hill, among the trees. I don't know exactly what'll
happen when I fire it, with the blocked barrel, but it should be good and triple big.
Spectacular!"
THE STEYR ACROSS RYAN'S shoulder was bruising his back as he jogged up the hill,
now several yards behind the shogun, his heavy combat boots slithering in the damp dirt.
One of the ordinary fighting men who was part of the ronin's gang had appeared,
sprinting for his life, down the narrow path toward them. He saw Mashashige standing
foursquare in front of him and gave a small cry of dismay, hands coming together in
prayer, starring to gabble for mercy or for forgiveness. Ryan wasn't sure which.
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