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downward into dusty arroyos, dry washes that petered out after short
distances. The ground was still soft enough to show bootprints, and the four
people followed them.
One shallow ravine led into a deep gorge, where sheer walls rose on every
side, exposing layers of sediment stained with streaks of red and ocher. Rocks
both large and small reared in their path, as well as scatterings of dense
shrub brush. Gravel crunched be-neath their tramping feet. An island of solid
granite stood in front of them. It had once forced a river to divide itself
into a pair of channels, one right and one left. Both of them meandered out of
sight. During the nuke-triggered quakes, rivers and streams had been diverted,
sometimes running together until they made a vast, raging torrent.
Kane came to a halt, carefully examining the stony ground. He saw no sign of
bootprints, not even the faintest of scuff marks. He looked to the left and to
the right, and said in a voice full of frustration, "We've lost the trail."
Grant looked at the ground with an offended ex-pression on his face, almost as
if he blamed it for not holding tracks. "Fucking fireblast. To have come this
far "
"We've still got two choices," Brigid said.
"Yeah," Kane agreed gloomily, "and one of them is wrong. It could take us
miles away from the bas-tards."
They stood in silence for a long moment, all of them loath to choose a path
and take the responsibility if it was the wrong one. Finally, with a sigh of
res-ignation, Kane started walking toward the mouth of the right-hand channel.
Not surprisingly, Domi heard the distant sound first. All of her senses were
honed to razor keenness due to her upbringing in the Outlands of Hells Canyon,
Idaho. She hissed, gesturing sharply for everyone to halt. They obeyed her
without question, standing stock-still, listening hard, nerves tingling. They
heard nothing but the soughing of the wind.
"What?" Kane asked impatiently.
Domi opened her mouth to speak, closed it, then shook her white-haired head,
dark and damp now with sweat "Thought I heard things. Voices, foot-steps,
stuff clanking."
Kane strained his hearing, still heard nothing and started to relax. Then he
heard the faint noises a distant murmur of voices at the far limit of
audibility, coming from somewhere ahead of them. Within a mo-ment, all of them
heard faint, mixed sounds, cries of pain, curses of anger, metallic clinks and
jingles.
Kane quickly slipped out of his backpack and Grant did the same, dropping
their Copperheads atop them.
Extending a hand toward Brigid, Kane demanded curtly, "The binoculars."
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asty.html (19 of 128) [12/28/2004 4:00:03 PM]
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James Axler - Outlanders - Doom Dynasty
She gave them to him, and he slung them around his neck by the strap. He and
Grant picked a path through a jumble of upthrast rocks and reached the deeply
fissured gorge wall. They began scaling it quickly and easily. It wasn't long
before the easy as-cent gave way to a serious climb. Footholds were hard to
come by, and some of the handholds were mere cracks in the smooth stone face,
but they wedged their fingers in and pulled themselves along. Their fingers
gripped cracks in the stone, and rivulets of gravel streamed beneath their
boots, rattling and clicking.
Grant huffed and puffed and swore as he clambered up the gorge wall, wishing
Domi had volunteered to take his place. Nimble and strong, she could climb
like a scalded monkey.
Finally, they reached a shelf of rock jutting below the top of the gorge wall,
and panting heavily, the two men pulled themselves on top of it. Moving on
hands and knees, they crawled to a heap of loose stones on the far edge. Kane
raised the microbinocu-lars, blew grit from the ruby-coated lenses and peered
through the eyepieces. Except for the shimmering heat waves rising from the
baked ground and an oc-casional birdcall, the air was still.
He caught a flicker of movement and swiftly he tightened the focus to bring
distant details to crystal clarity. Two columns of obsidian-armored
Magis-trates approached the gorge from the far side. He es-timated they were
about six hundred yards away, ten Mags to a column. Two armored men bringing
up the rear haphazardly used brooms improvised from inter-twined mesquite and
sage branches to sweep their trail.
Between the black, marching lines staggered six men and three women. Raggedly
dressed, they were tethered to one another by yokes of thick leather and wood
with a length chain. They cringed from a pair of Mags who urged them along
with curses and strokes from the barrels of their Copperheads.
"I guess they got what they came for," Kane mur-mured.
Grant squinted, barely able to pick out the distant black figures. "Anybody we
know?"
Kane swept the binoculars back and forth, then fixed on a burly, stocky man in
the lead. As he watched, the man removed his helmet and palmed away a film of
sweat from his pale moon face and bulldog jowls.
His small eyes were nearly buried within fleshy, puffy bags.
"Well, well, well," Kane drawled, handing the binoculars to Grant. "Look who's
walking point."
Grant peered through the eyepieces and grunted softly in mingled surprise and
disgust. "Baron Cobalt must be slag-assed desperate to assign Pollard to lead
this detail."
Kane smiled mirthlessly. "Good old Polly. Haven't seen him in a while."
"The last time I saw him," Grant intoned, "he was flat on his fat face with a
broken nose, a mashed hand and mebbe a broken rib or two."
"Mebbe? You're not sure?"
The broad yoke of Grant's shoulders lifted in a negligent shrug. "It wasn't
for lack of trying. If you're interested, you can always ask him."
Kane nodded. "I figure to do that very thing. Just as soon as they make camp."
Chapter 4
The channels the long-gone river had cut into the gorge formed a natural maze
with ancillary branches and side passages that offered easy concealment Grant,
Kane, Domi and Brigid withdrew into a deep fissure in the canyon wall, on the
opposite side of the rock island that the Magistrates approached. They
crouched silently as, hidden by the formation, the col-umns passed them by.
file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%2...20Outlander%2015%20-%20Doom%20Dyn
asty.html (20 of 128) [12/28/2004 4:00:03 PM]
James Axler - Outlanders - Doom Dynasty
Page 21
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zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl ocenkijessi.opx.pl
downward into dusty arroyos, dry washes that petered out after short
distances. The ground was still soft enough to show bootprints, and the four
people followed them.
One shallow ravine led into a deep gorge, where sheer walls rose on every
side, exposing layers of sediment stained with streaks of red and ocher. Rocks
both large and small reared in their path, as well as scatterings of dense
shrub brush. Gravel crunched be-neath their tramping feet. An island of solid
granite stood in front of them. It had once forced a river to divide itself
into a pair of channels, one right and one left. Both of them meandered out of
sight. During the nuke-triggered quakes, rivers and streams had been diverted,
sometimes running together until they made a vast, raging torrent.
Kane came to a halt, carefully examining the stony ground. He saw no sign of
bootprints, not even the faintest of scuff marks. He looked to the left and to
the right, and said in a voice full of frustration, "We've lost the trail."
Grant looked at the ground with an offended ex-pression on his face, almost as
if he blamed it for not holding tracks. "Fucking fireblast. To have come this
far "
"We've still got two choices," Brigid said.
"Yeah," Kane agreed gloomily, "and one of them is wrong. It could take us
miles away from the bas-tards."
They stood in silence for a long moment, all of them loath to choose a path
and take the responsibility if it was the wrong one. Finally, with a sigh of
res-ignation, Kane started walking toward the mouth of the right-hand channel.
Not surprisingly, Domi heard the distant sound first. All of her senses were
honed to razor keenness due to her upbringing in the Outlands of Hells Canyon,
Idaho. She hissed, gesturing sharply for everyone to halt. They obeyed her
without question, standing stock-still, listening hard, nerves tingling. They
heard nothing but the soughing of the wind.
"What?" Kane asked impatiently.
Domi opened her mouth to speak, closed it, then shook her white-haired head,
dark and damp now with sweat "Thought I heard things. Voices, foot-steps,
stuff clanking."
Kane strained his hearing, still heard nothing and started to relax. Then he
heard the faint noises a distant murmur of voices at the far limit of
audibility, coming from somewhere ahead of them. Within a mo-ment, all of them
heard faint, mixed sounds, cries of pain, curses of anger, metallic clinks and
jingles.
Kane quickly slipped out of his backpack and Grant did the same, dropping
their Copperheads atop them.
Extending a hand toward Brigid, Kane demanded curtly, "The binoculars."
file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%2...20Outlander%2015%20-%20Doom%20Dyn
asty.html (19 of 128) [12/28/2004 4:00:03 PM]
Page 20
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
James Axler - Outlanders - Doom Dynasty
She gave them to him, and he slung them around his neck by the strap. He and
Grant picked a path through a jumble of upthrast rocks and reached the deeply
fissured gorge wall. They began scaling it quickly and easily. It wasn't long
before the easy as-cent gave way to a serious climb. Footholds were hard to
come by, and some of the handholds were mere cracks in the smooth stone face,
but they wedged their fingers in and pulled themselves along. Their fingers
gripped cracks in the stone, and rivulets of gravel streamed beneath their
boots, rattling and clicking.
Grant huffed and puffed and swore as he clambered up the gorge wall, wishing
Domi had volunteered to take his place. Nimble and strong, she could climb
like a scalded monkey.
Finally, they reached a shelf of rock jutting below the top of the gorge wall,
and panting heavily, the two men pulled themselves on top of it. Moving on
hands and knees, they crawled to a heap of loose stones on the far edge. Kane
raised the microbinocu-lars, blew grit from the ruby-coated lenses and peered
through the eyepieces. Except for the shimmering heat waves rising from the
baked ground and an oc-casional birdcall, the air was still.
He caught a flicker of movement and swiftly he tightened the focus to bring
distant details to crystal clarity. Two columns of obsidian-armored
Magis-trates approached the gorge from the far side. He es-timated they were
about six hundred yards away, ten Mags to a column. Two armored men bringing
up the rear haphazardly used brooms improvised from inter-twined mesquite and
sage branches to sweep their trail.
Between the black, marching lines staggered six men and three women. Raggedly
dressed, they were tethered to one another by yokes of thick leather and wood
with a length chain. They cringed from a pair of Mags who urged them along
with curses and strokes from the barrels of their Copperheads.
"I guess they got what they came for," Kane mur-mured.
Grant squinted, barely able to pick out the distant black figures. "Anybody we
know?"
Kane swept the binoculars back and forth, then fixed on a burly, stocky man in
the lead. As he watched, the man removed his helmet and palmed away a film of
sweat from his pale moon face and bulldog jowls.
His small eyes were nearly buried within fleshy, puffy bags.
"Well, well, well," Kane drawled, handing the binoculars to Grant. "Look who's
walking point."
Grant peered through the eyepieces and grunted softly in mingled surprise and
disgust. "Baron Cobalt must be slag-assed desperate to assign Pollard to lead
this detail."
Kane smiled mirthlessly. "Good old Polly. Haven't seen him in a while."
"The last time I saw him," Grant intoned, "he was flat on his fat face with a
broken nose, a mashed hand and mebbe a broken rib or two."
"Mebbe? You're not sure?"
The broad yoke of Grant's shoulders lifted in a negligent shrug. "It wasn't
for lack of trying. If you're interested, you can always ask him."
Kane nodded. "I figure to do that very thing. Just as soon as they make camp."
Chapter 4
The channels the long-gone river had cut into the gorge formed a natural maze
with ancillary branches and side passages that offered easy concealment Grant,
Kane, Domi and Brigid withdrew into a deep fissure in the canyon wall, on the
opposite side of the rock island that the Magistrates approached. They
crouched silently as, hidden by the formation, the col-umns passed them by.
file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%2...20Outlander%2015%20-%20Doom%20Dyn
asty.html (20 of 128) [12/28/2004 4:00:03 PM]
James Axler - Outlanders - Doom Dynasty
Page 21
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