Ryan ducked low, wincing as a shot from the darkness hacked up a burst of mud and water barely inches from his left foot. Already there was the deafening racket of death from the war wag as everyone poured lead into the forest, giving covering fire for Ryan and the four guards to scramble back inside.

Three made it.

The fourth, a skinny, balding man called Jed, was hit in the back of the right leg as he reached the doorway. His fall blocked the door. Ryan cursed, diving sideways into the mud, sliding on his stomach into the comforting shadow of the war wag. Jed was down and screaming, thrashing in his pain, rolling away from helping hands in the doorway. A second round smashed into his chest and he hurled away his laser rifle as he coughed out a spray of arterial blood.

"Ryan!" screamed a voice from his left, on the blind side of the vehicle.

It was Samantha the Panther, crouched by the front wheels, beckoning to him. He waved a hand, getting a flashing grin in return. Jed was down and done, struggling to get to his hands and knees, blood trickling steadily from his open mouth. Ryan saw someone appear near the edge of the trees, much closer to the war wag, and throw a metallic ball toward them.

"Grenade!" he bellowed, burying his face in his arms, cushioning himself against the shock. But the slope of the land took most of the force of the blast. The man who'd thrown it, visible in the black security uniform, made the mistake of hesitating to watch the success of the small bomb. A stream of fire from the starboard MG blister hurled him against the bole of a towering cottonwood, rolling him into the undergrowth like a bundle of sodden, bloodied rags.

Ryan took his chance to scuttle under the combat wagon, grabbing Sam's lean, muscular arm, hoisting himself into the comforting security port, kicking the door shut behind him. Inside it was the usual organized bedlam, orders shouted and a constant stream of data yelled at the man at the control center.

"You cut that a little fine, friend," said the Trader, glancing over his shoulder.

Ryan could not hide his surprise at seeing the Trader up and running the war wag from his accustomed place. But this was no time to make polite inquiries about his leader's health.

Maybe later.

"I just made out Strasser," called Finnegan from the starboard observation slit.

"Waste him," said J.B., from his side.

"Can't get a clear shot. There's about twenty of 'em here."

"More this side, too!" came a voice form the far flank of the war wag.

The slamming of bullets against the armor was deafening, but Ryan could tell that the attackers had nothing heavier than hand weapons. Problems would come if they got in closer and started using limpets or impact mines under the wheels.

"Movin' out," said Trader, calm as ever.

"Movin' out," responded Ches, engaging the gears, bringing the throbbing motor to full-powered, roaring life. Ryan hung on to a bracket as they lurched away from the ambush.

His eye caught Krysty, farther forward, managing a thin smile as she winked at him. Realizing, in the heat of the combat, how glad he had been to have her with him, safe and unharmed.

"Got an ace down the line at six of 'em settin' up a launcher," said Hovak from her mortar position high up.

"Do it," ordered the Trader. He turned to the slit at his shoulder and watched.

There was the whoomph of the heavy mortar being fired, and the war wag rolled to counter the blast. For a second or so everyone fell silent, waiting. Ryan had once read an old book about submarines, and he guessed it had been like this waiting after a torpedo had been released and was running.

"Right in the cross hairs," yelped Hovak triumphantly, banging her gloved fist on the side of the seat. Ryan joined in the general chorus of cheers at her success.

Ryan picked his way to the stern of the war wag, moving Rint out of the rear observation port. Setting his eye into the soft rubber socket of the backward-facing periscope, he used the self-centering gyro system to focus on what was happening back at their camp.

The sec men were coming out of the forest, seeing their prey escaping, their ambush failed. At a word of command from the Trader the shooting had ceased, and the war wag rolled on northwest, then westward on the crumbled remains of a two-lane blacktop.

Ryan adjusted the focusing screw, turning the milled edge until the faces of their attackers swam into sharp detail. He saw the usual brutish, vulpine expressions that he knew from Baronies and communes all over the Deathlands. Small men with a taste for cruelty.

He ranged along the line, stopping at one of the sec men who pushed through to the front.

"Strasser," he breathed.

The high-definition, directional mikes at the back of the war wag were out of action, but he did not need them to know what Strasser was shouting after them. The whole set of the man's body told it all.

The gaunt body, taller than any of his men, agitated with anger. As Ryan watched him, Strasser pulled off the visored cap and threw it in the mud, kicking it with his boots. Rain glistened on the bald skull, trickling over the thin cheeks, into the host of a mustache. Ryan grinned with wolfish satisfaction as he saw there was still blood clotted around the police chief's mouth where the thrown pistol had struck him.

Strasser was shaking his fist at them. Far behind him, in the fast-brightening dawn, Ryan could make out a monstrous column of greasy smoke rising from the tomb of Jordon Teague.

The ruined tomb of Mocsin.

As they drove steadily toward a kind of safety, the Trader took to his bunk once more, the rush from the action leaving him drained and sallow. Ryan organized the crew into their usual rotas, as far as was possible with their shrunken force. Only then did he find a quiet spot and sit down to relax. After a while Hunaker came to join him.

"Have a word, Ryan?"

"Yeah. What?"

The woman seemed oddly ill at ease, rubbing her cropped green hair, adjusting the slim-bladed knife on her hip.

"Come on, Hun. What's got you? Still feelin' for Ange?"

"No. Well, some I guess. She was a sweet kid and I figured we might... Oh, burn all that, Ryan, it's over and out. That's not what..."

"What?"

"When we was back in Mocsin, me and Sam an' Koll an' J.B. was talkin' and we..."

"Hun. You want me to pull your helldamned liver up through your neck?"

"No. Why d'you..."

"I'm tired. Just say it."

"Sure." With a rush, like a swimmer entering cold water. "We was talkin' 'bout you and we thought nobody knows what your name is. Ryan. Just Ryan. Got to be another name. Not even J.B. knew it."

Ryan grinned at her. "That all?"

"Yeah. You don't mind me askin' like this?"

"No. Why should I? It's Cawdor. Ryan Cawdor. Not a secret, Hun."

"Ryan Cawdor. That's not too special, is it? So how come you never told nobody before?"

"I guess because nobody ever asked me before."

They smiled at each other, a look passing between them that held a certain kind of gentleness as War Wag One, now the only war wag, ground deeper into the Darks.