A GRIM FEAST

The town had been torched. Systematically each of the wooden houses had been burnt to the ground. There were few signposts that pointed to the basic definition of the old houses—an arch here, a charred piece of porch there—but mostly the houses were piles of cold, dead, black cinder.

From the corner of his eye Bonner saw movement. The automatic whipped from his pocket and blasted. A vulture exploded in a puff of feathers and blood. The body with a stomach full of rotting flesh thudded to the ground. The sound of the shot raised the clouds of birds that had resettled on the lofty banquet. He raised his gun and was about to blast the birds, fat and lethargic as they were with their picnic. But he stopped himself. The bullets were for men.

A single thought pulsed through the Outrider's brain:

Who? Who did this?