Desert Kings Read Online Free PDF Page B

loose from behind the ramming prow to wash away.
    Sparkling with droplets, the war wags lumbered up the opposite bank, the prows rising high to crash down onto the grassland. The big diesel engines revved in power and the machines increased in speed.
    “Smack on target.” Zane Bellany chuckled, sliding shut the steel hatch on the left blasterport and holstering his rapid-fire. It took two tries because of the cramped quarters, but the man finally got the Webley .44 wheel gun back into leather.
    As bald as a rock, Bellany sported an enormous head that seemed to merge with his incredibly hairy chest. His clothes were clean, but heavily patched, and crude tattoos were visible on every inch of his exposed skin. A machete hung at his side, tucked in a rattlesnake-skin sheath.
    “Waste of ammo.” The driver snorted, feeding the power plant more juice. The gauges on the illuminated dashboard flickered in response. As the wag surged forward, a piece of the aced stickie came loose and fell off the array of welded iron bars covering the windshield.
    Unconcerned, Bellany shrugged as he reached for the half-eaten sandwich lying on the dashboard. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, taking a mouthful and chewing. “We got plenty.”
    Concentrating on steering the huge transport, the driver merely grunted in reply. He was a newbie to the convoy and still had trouble getting his head around the idea of having enough ammo. All of his life the man had watched grim people fight to the death with fists, knives and clubs over the ownership of a single live brass. Yet the four wags of the convoy had cases of the stuff.
    Upon joining the convoy, the driver had been given, given, a leather gunbelt containing a pristine S&W .357 revolver, the double row of loops across the back holding a total of thirty live brass. Thirty! It was a fortune in brass, but that was nothing compared to the stack of boxes stored in the armory. Grens, rockets, all kinds of predark mil shit. Just fragging incredible. How the chief kept finding the tons of stuff he had no idea.
    Along with the blasters, Chief Rogan often unearthed predark meds, crystals that you could dissolve in water and drink to cure the Black Cough, the Blind Shakes, all sorts of triple-bad ills. The meds were worth a thousand times more than any blaster, yet the chief regularly gave them away. At first that seemed like an incredible waste. But whenever they returned to those villes, the convoys were greeted warmly and nobody tried to jack them in the night, sell them rad water, or any of the other feeb tricks some locals used to rip off outlanders.
    Finished with the sandwich, Bellany brushed the crumbs off his shirt and reached over a shoulder to grab a roll of paper. Carefully untying the piece of cloth holding it closed, Bellany studied the hand-drawn map, then checked the compass on the dashboard before raising his head to note the landscape outside. After the river was supposed to be a series of foothills, and than a deep valley…right. They were nearly at their goal. Rolling up the map again, he tucked it back into the honeycomb and grabbed a mike from a clip attached to the ceiling.
    “Okay, everybody get razor,” Bellany said, the words echoing throughout the long wag. “And somebody wake up the chief. We’re almost there.”
    “And sooner than expected,” a familiar voice said from behind.
    Turning, Bellany smiled in greeting at the man standing in the doorway. “We didn’t run into any trouble like last time, sir,” he said, hanging up the mike.
    “Then what were you shooting at?” Chief “John Rogan” asked, frowning slightly. The man was wearing a mil jumpsuit bleached a dull gray to match his pale combat boots. Two different blasters rode in a wide gunbelt and a short crystal wand was tucked into a shoulder holster. The others had no idea what the thing was, but naturally assumed it was a weapon of some kind.
    “Just a stickie,” Bellany said. “Nothing