As they made their way down the mountain, the roar of the crowd in the camp, plainly audible over the noise of the engines, and the bright pool of light in the middle of the slave farm told Bonner that there was something big happening in Farkas' little horror haven. They were almost on top of the slave farm before anyone in the guard towers heard them, and even then the Devils did not open fire. They had swung their few heavy weapons around to face within the camp and had trouble muscling them back to face forward in time to catch the onrushing riders. By the time they were ready to open up, the savage vengeance seekers were already inside the compound.

"HOLD ON!" shouted Bonner to the Mean Brother and the two kids that rode with him. The points of the old iron gate smashed into the wire that blocked the entrance to the slave farm. A second later the weight of Bonner's war wagon crashed into the tough wire and wood frame and, with a hard stamp on the accelerator, the behemoth machine smashed a gaping hole in the gate. A tangled skein of wire broke over the car and the engine screamed its annoyance at being so terribly mistreated.

Bonner urged the car on a few yards, feeling, with his instinctive sense for machinery, that while he had banged his iron maiden around once again it had served him in grand style. The engine fired as if he was shooting down the open road, the chassis remained firm and untwisted, despite the jarring blow it had received.

Bonner had time to glance over his shoulder to see a hoard of Lashmen swarming like maddened bees through the gap he had gouged open.

Then he hit his spotlight. The night opened up.

Before him all was confusion. The crowd bucked and parted like a spooked herd of wild horses on the stampede. Bonner heard the sporadic chatter of automatic fire. A thought flashed through his mind: 'Leps, they always keep their head, because they are not afraid to die.

It seemed like the Lashmen were everywhere. The fearless little fighters scythed into the maddened crowd. It was impossible to tell how many Devils they brought down on that bloody first strike.

To an outside observer it might seem that the Lashmen were an undisciplined force—and, to be honest, sometimes they were. But this time they moved with precision. Once through the gates, they all knew the job that each had to perform.

The first few Lashmen, Floyd and Rufus in the fore, charged the bucking, crazed mass of people. The idea was to cause maximum confusion: maximum confusion equaled maximum damage. They swept through the crowd, hands off their handlebars, a firing weapon in each hand. That way, no one in the defending camp could tell exactly how many men had attacked them. The way the first Lashmen were going about it, cutting down a Devil with virtually every shot, it seemed like the farm had been attacked by a hundred well-armed, well-trained men.

The next batch of midgets through the gates, stopped dead in their tracks, jumped off their powerful little machines, and started pumping fire at the surprised guards in the gate towers. Theirs was a threat that had to be neutralized immediately. Heavy automatic weapons, recoilless rifles, and the like were rare in the new world. The damage they could inflict could be substantial. Once the battlelines were firmly drawn Bonner and Floyd wanted to make sure that if any firepower was pouring out of those towers, it had to be aimed at Devils. The guns had to be knocked out, or, even better, captured.

The last bunch through the gate was, to the Lashmen's way of looking at things, probably the most important. They were to ignore the fighting altogether and make straight for the house. They had to find what portable booty Fakas had lying around, steal it, and blast their way out. The Lashmen trusted each other. They had to. The men detailed to stealing anything Farkas had to offer would not wait for the battle to end, they had to grab and run. They would all meet up later and divide the spoils.

Bonner knew where he was headed. And the Lashmen knew it was his own special role to play. He was going to make straight for the slave sheds and start letting them out. The slaves would break for freedom, even if it meant walking into the firestorm that the Lash and Bonner had created outside. Hot steel was better than a lifetime of torment at Farkas'.

The 'leps too knew they had a job to do. They nestled on the parapet of the balcony and started returning the fire of the Lashmen. They pumped bullets into the killing ground in front of them, but found it hard to hit the tiny targets that kept moving. Bullets hit Devils, they hit slaves, but they had a hard time finding the Lashmen.

A midget popped up from behind a pile of Devil corpses and blew a 'lep head clean off. Like one man, six Radleps aimed for the spot where the little guy had been and let fly.

But he wasn't there.

Roaring in frustration, a 'lep jumped up onto the wide banister that fronted the balcony and blasted away a fast series of rips from his M-16. The slugs chewed up an acre of recently dead flesh, but hit no Lashmen. But a dozen hidden rifles had taken careful bead on the 'lep. His body seemed to explode as round after round tore into his exposed flesh.

The 'leps, seeing yet another of their number fall, cried out in shame and anguish. The battle at Farkas' slave farm was shaping up as a major 'lep defeat. If the remaining 'leps didn't kill each and every member of the attacking force . . . well, there was no telling what Leatherman would do.

The group of Lashmen detailed to knocking out the towers had the situation well in hand. The chatter of automatic weapons fire continually splintered the wood around the tower tops, causing the Devils within to keep their heads down or risk losing them.

Suddenly a tiny figure broke from the group that was clustered around the gate posts making life miserable for the guards in the towers. With a knife clenched in his teeth and a huge side arm in one tiny hand, the midget began to climb, one handed, up the spindly legs of the tower. Here, at last, was a target for the assembled 'leps.

A sickening wave of lead-woven fire washed over the little figure who clambered up the side of the tower. Wood splintered and flew and the midget was hit in every quarter of his body. He hung for a moment, his bloody fingers scrabbling on the smashed wood for a handhold. But the weight of his injuries sapped his strength and he fell to the ground, dead.

But the tower had to be taken—every Lashmen knew it. As soon as the first attacker had fallen to the ground another had jumped up to take his place. His fellows on the ground provided covering fire. Bonner saw the drama unfold and saw a 'lep stand and carefully line up the climbing Lashman in the sights of his shooter. Bonner's beautiful shotgun sprung into his hands and he launched a twin barrelled load of double 0 buck magnum, cutting the evil sonofabitch in half. Then the Outrider went about his business.

The midget on the tower had reached the top. He leaped over the low guard rail and ended the lives of the four Devils crouched there. The little man pushed two of the bodies together and then, using the corpses as a firing step put the big recoilless rifle that was mounted there to good use. The leps suddenly felt a large caliber hot rain falling on them.

The big shells tore gouts out of the masonry that provided protection and the bodies it protected. The 'leps did something the 'leps aren't supposed to do. They took cover, flat on their stomachs.

With his primary target out of sight, the midget in the tower turned the gun on the twin of the tower he was in. A few yards away, across the narrow entrance way stood the other tower, its crew still alive, but hiding. The huge gun barked and ripped a few strips off the wooden wall that provided the guards with their only cover. The next clip cut them to pieces.

A squad of Devils had run into the house and had taken up positions in the upper windows. From here they had a commanding view of the parade ground. They had managed to pin down the Lashmen who were supposed to penetrate the house and begin looting. That squad, ten in all, commanded by Bunny, were taking serious casualties. They had lost five and another two or three were wounded.

"We ain't gonna make it," screamed one of the Lashmen. Bunny's experienced eyes swept the parade-ground. Not a lick of cover. His comrade just might be right. Bullets ripped up the ground around him. "Shit," he said quietly.

The formerly captive Mean Brother had darted around behind the house, smashed a window, and climbed into what was obviously a kitchen. A few house slaves cowered there trying to force themselves behind a huge old coal stove. They stared at the Mean, still dripping with blood, sure that their tortured lives were about to end. Suddenly, their worthless lives seemed very valuable.

But the Mean Brother had no interest in them. He swept by them, pausing only to pick up a large kitchen knife, which he stuck in the belt of his pants, and a heavy frying pan. In his other hand he held the chain he had taken from one of his attackers. He stole into the house.

He heard the firing from upstairs and slowly began climbing the wide staircase.

The rest was easy. There was a series of bedrooms leading off a wide corridor. In each there were a couple of Devils, all staring intently out the window, blasting away at the parade ground. The first two did not hear the Mean Brother enter. One took a superhuman blow from the chain around the neck. The other got cracked with the frying pan. He died with the sound of the dull "bong" of cast iron whacking his skull.

The Mean went into the next room. Three Devils at the window. One throat cut with the kitchen knife, two others sent on their way to hell with the frying pan. The next room yielded two more Devils. As the Mean entered, something made one of the shooters turn. He collected the full weight of the pan in the face. The heavy smack from the pan caved in his nose and split the skin over both eyes. His companion had tried to bring his weapon to bear, but the long barrel had gotten caught up in the fussy drapes that Mrs. Farkas had hung all over the place.

The knife was buried handle deep into his chest. He stared unseeing at the black handle, the look on his face suggesting that he couldn't quite believe that all this was happening to him.

The firing from the windows gradually died down and Bunny didn't wait to see who or what had been his savior.

"Let's move it, Lashmen!" he yelled and jumped forward, leading the way towards the open door of the house.

Mrs. Farkas was not a fool and she wasn't afraid of a fight either. She pulled a dainty Beretta pistol from an even smaller holster on her thin ankle and darted behind the upturned dinner table and began firing like a pro. She hit one of Floyd's attack squad, chuckling to herself as his little cycle careened out of control and smashed into one of the huts. The driver, a quiet little Lashman called Winston, died from a broken neck, although the slug that Mrs. Farkas put into him would have killed him eventually.

As the battle progressed, though, it became clear to the mistress of the slave farm that, even if she and her husband came out of this encounter alive, life was not going to be the same. Someone had fought his way to the slave sheds and their captives, their livestock, were free, running for their lives.

She also smelled smoke. Some of the outbuildings were burning. It was only a matter of time before the house caught. There was a brisk wind blowing. Undoubtedly, probably inevitably, the wind would carry sparks into the fields. By night's end, she was willing to bet, Farkas' little empire would be a raging inferno.

Mrs. Farkas was a tough broad and she was dry-eyed about the sudden death of her and her husband's business. Unemotional perhaps, but far from unconcerned. Right then, with the battle swirling and raging around her, she swore vengeance on the men— the man—who had brought her so low. But that was for later—right now she had to see about getting out of there in one piece. Not an easy task.

Bonner had made straight for the slave sheds. He burst through the first door he came to and stopped.

The huge room was full of bunk beds with scores of pregnant women sprawled on them.

One of them saw this driven man, his face stained with the smoke and dirt of battle and screamed:

"Don't shoot! Please! My baby!"

"Don't worry." said Bonner. "Look, you can all escape, you can all get out of here ..."

The swollen women stared at him, uncomprehending. "You're all free ..." "Free?" inquired one.

Bonner didn't have time for this. "Head out the back. Don't go towards the house."

A few figures stirred listlessly. Bonner headed for the door. Then something stopped him.

"I said you're free, you can go now."

It was the woman whom Farkas had singled out as his best breeder who answered him. "Mister," she croaked, "we can't go nowhere."

"What do you mean?"

"It don't matter. It just don't matter. Now you get out of here. Go. You done your best. You're just too late. You tried and we appreciate it."

Dozens of sad eyes regarded him. The old woman was right. Where could they go from here, these weary, exhausted, pregnant woman. He realized in a flash: he hadn't set them free, he had condemned them to death. Slavery had become their lives, they could never adapt to freedom. The eyes of those women would haunt him for the rest of his life. He crashed through the door hoping that he wasn't too late to save someone in that hell hole.

In the next room he found a small measure of salvation. There, flat on the floor to avoid the bullets that whistled through the flimsy planking of their hut, were the men and women of Almost Normal.

As soon as he burst through the door, every person in the room thought the same thing: This is the end, Farkas has sent someone to kill them all. It was Charlie who looked up, curious to see the men who would kill him.

Instead, his heart leaped as he recognized his friend Bonner as the man with the smoking cut-down shotgun in one hand and a murderous little chattergun in the other. In the instant he laid eyes on the Outrider, Charlie, a simple soul, realized that the man who had come to save them was action, discipline, controlled violence personified. Charlie was itching to get at the men who enslaved him and his wife and destroyed his town, his world, but he knew he would never be able to inflict the damage that The Outrider could.

"Bonner!"

"Charlie," barked Bonner. "You're taking your people out. Get out the door and head for the gate."

"Guns," said a man, "give us guns."

"You can pick up what you can find outside. But don't hang around. Don't look for guns. Look for a vehicle. And put as much distance as you can between you and this place as you can. We can't hold them forever."

"We can't leave you to fight our battle."

"It's not yours. It's mine. I started it." Bonner called over his shoulder. "Now let's go."

Bonner kicked open the door and took in the scene in front of him. The battle had stabilized. The Lashmen were still engaging pockets of Devils and—bad news— the 'leps had worked themselves out of their jam and were fighting with their trademark ferocity.

Bonner dived into the dirt and crawled a few yards away from the door. All he could do was set up some diversionary fire and allow the newly freed slaves to make a break for the vehicle park that stood off to one side of the compound. There were a couple of the convoy trucks parked there. He prayed silently that one of the Almost Normals knew the rudiments of driving.

"Let's move it!" Bonner yelled.

Running almost bent double the first of the men came out. Bonner sighted his Steyr AUG on a cluster of Devils who crouched at the base of the house and let fly. Four or five gun barrels turned in his direction and opened up. Bonner answered with hot fire, slicing into the group. He saw a couple of Devils fall in a tangle of arms and legs. Just behind behind him, Bonner hear the curious "phut" of bullet striking flesh. A man crumpled to the ground. It was one of the men from Almost Normal, one of the ones who would lose the gamble for freedom that night.

Bonner stood and, keeping himself between the escapees and the battle front, he escorted them across the paradeground. The needle nose of the Steyr seemed to point in every direction at once. Up at the roof line, into the trees that made up a portion of Parkas' garden, down to the ground where the Devils lay huddled behind anything that would give them cover. The Steyr spat bullets, carrying a swift, painful message of vengeance to every quarter of their battlefield. Bonner had become swept up in the conflict, his brain having given way completely to instinct. He had become the vengeance machine that ordinary men feared. He was now the unerring death dealer—to challenge him was to come to a sudden end. To run was to realize that there was no place to run to. His weapon had become an extension of himself, his mind grabbed hold of the minds of other men, anticipating their moves, sensing their fear, destroying them without effort. He had become a man of seamless action, forged in violence, tempered in revenge. Unstoppable. . .

The Almost Normals got to the trucks. The women huddled in the lee of an old pickup, clutching their children tight while the men raced through the lines of the vehicles searching for a machine that would start. Stray bullets whistled around them. A few were cut down.

Bonner was crouched next to an old rain barrel, singlehandedly engaging a group of Devils who had taken up positions on the roof of one of the slave sheds. He would dart out from his position for a second, whip a couple of Devils off the roof with a spray of automatic fire, then step back into the cover of his rusting barrel. Charlie appeared at his side. "What are you doing here?" Bonner demanded. "You didn't think I'd leave, did you." "What the hell good do you think you're going to do. You've never been in a firefight."

"I can shoot. And I'm mad." As if to illustrate his words he blasted a Devil who had appeared at a window above them. The man had looked out as if to check on the weather. The bullet, followed by a hundred sharp shards of glass, lacerated his face.

"I gotta tell you," said Bonner, between bursts from the Steyr, "Bobby and Emily ..."

"They're dead," said Charlie, as if long since resigned to the fact.

"No," said Bonner, "they're here. ..." As soon as Bonner had ground his car to a halt—it seemed as if it had been hours before, but was in fact about thirty minutes past—the Mean Brother had jumped out carrying his trademark axe. He was intent on finding his brother and wreaking his own brand of havoc on the men who had captured him. Bobby and Emily had been left behind. The two kids had climbed out of the machine and found cover by a pile of neatly cut cordwood. From there they had watched and fought. Bobby handled the Hi Standard well. His sister had been armed with a small Charter Pathfinder that didn't jump out of her small hands every time it went off. Together they brought down their fair share of bandits. They were both scared. Emily's hands trembled as she reloaded the small gun, but reload it she did and kept on blasting. They were well hidden and they laid down fire well—too well. They were looking directly onto a squad of Devils. One by one they dropped from the kids accurate fire. The leader of the squad, a big killer called Denny, couldn't figure out where the shots were coming from. The kids were making every shot count. With their light-caliber handguns they couldn't keep up a steady rate of fire. All they could do was take careful aim and fire. The constant chatter of larger weapons masked their deadly shooting.

Denny looked around, as much as he dared, and couldn't find the source of the marksmen. But he thought the woodpile looked awfully suspicious. The next time one of his guys dropped, Denny whipped around with his semiauto and peppered the neatly stacked wood. The firing stopped.

"That's where the fuckers are," he thought and set off on a belly crawl to kill whoever lurked behind there. A yard or two from the pile, he jumped to his feet and sprinted the last few feet, jumping up onto the stack, ready to kill. He looked down the barrel of his gun and saw two kids.

Somewhere at the back of his mean brain, a tiny spark of decency burned. It kept his finger off the trigger long enough for him to say: "Kids?"

And long enough for Bobby to raise the Hi Standard and blow his face off.

Then they were out of bullets. "We gotta get more," said Bobby.

"Where?" said Emily. Tears clogged her throat. Bobby peered over the woodpile. The battle ground was littered with the weapons of the fallen. 

"Out there."

"Okay," said his sister, "let's go."

Farkas had grabbed a weapon from a nearby Devil when they were attacked but he was too upset to use it. He had retreated to the big drawing room just behind the verandah, kicked over a couch, and had taken up a position behind it. Big hot tears streamed down his face.

"They're ruining everything!" he cried. Jojo had crawled over the broken glass and torn up carpeting to where the slave owner hunched down. "I'm telling you, Farkas," he said, "there is going to be trouble about this."

"Shut up, you fat asshole," said Farkas. He went on crying.

Bonner and Charlie burst into the room, looking for the kids.

"Hey," said Jojo, who had been cowering with Farkas for what seemed like days, "that's Bonner."

"Bonner?" said Farkas, like a man awakened from a dream. "Bonner? I hate him."

He raised his gun. "BONNER!" he screamed.

Bonner whirled, the Steyr telegraphing its deadly message. A neat row of bullets tore across Farkas' chest. He staggered back a foot or two, clawed at a curtain, and pulled it down on top of him. Bonner jumped onto the upturned sofa and found Jojo crouching there.

"Bonner man," whispered Jojo, "I mean, what can I say? I got money. I can make you rich ..."

Very calmly, Bonner slipped the shotgun from the holster on his back. He lowered it until the two smooth, glinting barrels were level with Jojo's blubbering mouth.

"Anything, man, I can give you anything."

"Can you give me Leather?" asked Bonner quietly.

"Shit yeah!" said Jojo. He couldn't believe The Man, The Outrider would deal. "Yeah. 1 can give you Leather."

Bonner's strong right forearm absorbed all the kick of the heavy bore shotgun. The two shell splattered Jojo's head all over the wall. Bonner knew that Jojo couldn't give him Leather, he just wanted to see how far the fat rat would go to save his skin.

Charlie and Bonner sprinted up the steps and found Bunny and his men at the top of them. "It's un-fuckin'-believable, man, just unbelievable," babbled Bunny.

"What is?" demanded Bonner.

"Look."

Bonner and Charlie looked into the open door of a bedroom that stood off to their left. It was stacked, floor to ceiling with gold objects of every kind. Everything from finely worked pieces of pre-bomb jewelry to crudely pressed gold slates. It lay spread around, ankle-deep on the floor. It was Farkas' treasure, tons of precious metals taken from every slave he had ever captured, looted from riders long dead, stolen from the ruins of the old cities. It was a treasure that no one, not even Leather or Berger, could equal.

"Money," thought Bonner, "big deal." Bunny's squad was loading as much loot as they could into sacks, pillowcases, bundles of sheets as they could. The Lashmen were going to set rich out of this raid.

"Look," said Bunny, "we gotta split. See ya in Chi-town."

"Been a pleasure. Bunny." "All ours." The little men made for the stairs. "Hey," called Bonner, "seen the kids?" "Nope," said Bunny. "They're around here someplace."

"Great," said Charlie.

Emily grabbed a gun from the bloody ground and tried to sprint back to safety. A Devil saw her and brought her down with a flying tackle.

"You're my ticket outta here, honeypie," he hissed in her ear.

Emily shrieked and squirmed in the tight grasp of the Devil. She twisted, scratched and bit and when her teeth sunk into the fleshy part of the Devil's dirty hand, he yelped and dropped her. Emily raised her gun and fired. Unfortunately, she had picked up an omery old bull of a handgun, twenty pounds too heavy, it seemed, for her spaghetti-thin wrists. She had to put her entire weight behind the stiff hard trigger. The pistol had a kick on it like a punch from a Mean Brother. It flew out of her hand as it went off, the big slug just barely grazing the Devil's shoulder. But it hurt. He lost his temper.

"BITCH!" he screamed and raised his own weapon. He took careful aim and fired. Emily screwed up her eyes waiting for the fatal slug. The gun failed to go off.

Caught by his own fury, the Devil raised his metal-shod boot. If he wasn't going to shoot her, he was going to stomp the little bitch.

Rufus had just finished cutting the throat of a hapless overseer who had just squealed and squirmed like a sliced pig. As he stood over his squirming, bleeding, expiring victim, he noticed the Devil preparing to kick Emily to death.

"Hey, motherfucker," he shouted, his voice hot with anger and indignation, "pick on someone your own fuckin' size!" Without pausing to consider that the Devil was at least two feet taller and two hundred pounds heavier, Rufus launched himself at Emily's attacker.

He put every pound of his weight behind his tackle and brought the Devil down. His knife was out and he was trying with all his might to drive the ugly blade deep into the Devil's chest.

"Take off, pussy, take off," he screamed over his shoulder at Emily.

Bruised and dazed, Emily struggled to her feet. She heard Rufus' order, but ignored it.

Rufus fought like a man possessed; he spat and kicked, but the weight of the Devil's strength was simply greater. He was facing the point of his own knife. The Devil slashed at Rufus' arm and the muscle and sinew of his biceps cracked and split under the blade. Emily retrieved her gun and thrust it between the locked bodies of the Devil and the midget. She jammed it between the Devil's lips and, two-handed, pulled the trigger.

Her adolescent voice screamed: "EAT THIS!" The Devil's head showered her and Rufus in a torrent of blood, brain, and bone.

Rufus staggered back, wiping gook from his face. "Tough chick," he said admiringly.

From the second story of the house, Charlie saw his daughter saved. He tore down the stairs and ran across the porch.

"Emily!" he called.

Emily swung around with her gun ready, a wild look in her once innocent eyes. She stared at her father for a moment, as if not able to recognize him. Then, the terror-filled days and nights caught up with her. For a second, as she ran into his arms, she was a little girl again. Bobby came running from the woodpile and the three of them hugged, rocking back and forth, while the battle raged around them.

Bonner watched from the window. His mouth set in grim line. He had done what he had set out to do. Palls of smoke were washing across the farm, some of the outbuildings were burning brightly, the house and the fields were beginning to catch.

Time to go.

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