Borderlands: Unconquered (24 page)

Roland smiled and shook his head. He hoped that woman didn’t get Mordecai killed—or maybe
lose her temper and kill him herself. She’d killed enough people in her time.

But she probably wouldn’t kill Mordecai—unless
someone paid her a whole lot of money to do it.

“Mordecai!” Roland called. “You keeping your eyes peeled?”

“Yeah, yeah, we’re watching. Nothing down there but some skags crapping out somebody’s bones.”

It was a good spot for a camp—the fire was under a lean-to of scavenged metal scraps and surrounded by a tall ring of boulders. It’d be hard to see from below.

They’d driven for five hours to
get there, changing course, cutting across stony areas where they left no tracks, stopping from time to time to take turns driving, clinging to the outrunner. A hard ride. With any luck they were safe for now. But they couldn’t count on luck—especially with Gynella after them.

Think about it in the morning. And think hard if you want to live.

Roland lay down near the fire, opposite Brick. Pretty
soon their snores were wrestling for the flames.

•  •  •

Smartun knew Gynella was in a bad mood that morning, before she even looked up at him. It
was the hunch of her shoulders, the tension in her hands as she clicked her long, polished, perfectly manicured nails on the desk beside her monitor.

“They got away. That woman who murdered my husband. Brick, who killed so many of our people. Roland
and Mordecai. They got away. And they killed my Goliath! They killed my poor old Runch too! I valued him; he was so very intimidating. They killed two of my women’s cadre. That dark little witch of an assassin got past me. I almost had a chance to stick my knife right up her birthing parts, but she was too fast, and I missed.”

“It was all quite unexpected, my General Goddess. We were unprepared.
It appears Roland or his partner sniped the Goliath, then surprised us by driving in and scooping up the prisoners. Introducing surprise and chaos, with boldness—a very effective tactical combination. Especially when so many of our forces are . . . easily confused.”

“Yes.” She made herself a drink, grimly pouring the liquor into the glass as if imagining drowning someone in it. “I had guards,
of course, watching the outside approach to the gate. But what were they doing? They were looking in at the entertainment, moronically ogling the fight.”

Smartun was tempted to say,
When you recruit morons, you should expect them to act moronically
. But instead, he sighed and remarked, “Human nature, I’m afraid.”

“Or subhuman nature. They paid for it—I had them both set on fire and dragged behind
outriders. Took them quite a long time to die.”

Smartun admired her ease, her casualness, when she described the punishment.
My Goddess . . .

Still, he was reminded that even he must be careful. The General Goddess would be merciless in dealing with him if he made a serious error—and he would have it no other way.

“You will need a new bodyguard.”

He was about to suggest himself, but she cut
him off with an impatient wave and said, “I have a Badass Psycho who’ll take the job. Quite a frightening grotesque, is that one. Name of Spung.”

“Spung? The one with the especially bad smell?”

“Yes. But I had him strapped down and washed with firehoses. We’ll have to do that once a week. He has a tendency to soil himself.” She sighed. “I can’t wait till I can turn those gems into money and
hire some real professionals from off-planet.”

She looked moodily at her monitor, and he saw it bore a surveillance image of Roland, driving the outrunner. “He just kicked down the door, thrust himself into the arena. And took them away from me.” She put on an expression of rueful admiration. “Really very impressive.”

Smartun frowned. Again, Gynella demonstrated an unhealthy obsession with Roland.

“He’s done huge damage to morale, ma’am,” Smartun said. “We had our soldiers . . .
you
had the soldiers . . . convinced you were invincible, that you would always lead them to victory. We need to do something to restore confidence—can I make a suggestion?”

“Well?”

“Announce that you allowed the attack on the coliseum to happen, to test our competence. When it was found wanting, you executed
two men as an example. Now you will select a special task force to find and kill Roland and his companions. And whoever succeeds at that will be specially rewarded. Who fails at it will be punished.”

She smiled, although her eyes had a wicked glint. “I like the way you think.”

“I
’m not going to cling to that outrunner anymore,” Daphne said. “I’d rather walk.”

“Hey, you can drive, I’ll cling!” Mordecai said, grinning at her.

They had just had their meager breakfast of smoked skag meat and protein bars, Mordecai giving half of his to Bloodwing, and they were all standing between the two highest boulders, looking out over the rolling badlands to the north. Brick was yawning
and scratching his stomach, blinking around him; there were bruises from shackles around his neck, welts and contusions on his arms, and scabs on his head where he’d been scored by the bullet.

Roland was peering through the scope of the sniper rifle, scanning the horizon. “Looks like we might have a chance to get a second ride—an
outrider anyhow.” He could just see the roostertail of dust and
enough of the shape to be pretty sure it was an outrider. He lowered the rifle and pointed. “See it?

Mordecai squinted, then nodded. “Outrider. Looks like they’ll pass about a quarter-klick west of here unless they change course.”

“You see any more of ’em, Roland?” Daphne asked.

Roland raised the scope to his eye. “Yeah. A second one. They probably sent out parties of outriders, to look for
us in different places. We gotta take one of ’em down and get the other outrunner intact.”

“How do we do that and make sure the idiots driving it aren’t intact with it?” Daphne wondered.

“You lure them over here,” Brick said. “I smash one, the other you snipe. Might work.”

Everyone looked at Brick with surprise.

•  •  •

They’d been searching for Roland and Brick and the others all night and
all morning. Harmus the Bruiser was going bleary, staring at the wastelands, trying to locate smoke from a fire or a sign of that outrunner that had surprised them all in the coliseum. Sometimes, when he saw a rock shaped even vaguely like an outrunner, it seemed to turn into one for a moment.

But no sign of Roland. The tracks had led them nowhere.

He drove around a thick greenish growth and
a boulder and looked down at the picture on his dash again. They’d all been given printout photos of Roland to paste onto their dashboards. “Bring me the head of Roland the Mercenary,” Gynella had said.

Harmus had an electric saw in the back of the outrider for the head-bringing part. He was really,
really
looking forward to that.

He sure enjoyed cutting off a guy’s head. Especially if the guy
was still alive.

Why hadn’t they let him study that, back when he was a boy in school, on the homeworld? He’d have gotten an A on every test. Whipped that head right off.

He sighed. Cutting off Roland’s head might be easier said than done. Harmus thought about finding some guy who looked kind of like Roland, killing the dumb sucker, mutilating his face a bit, and bringing the head back to her.

But it wouldn’t fool her long. And then she might set him on fire and drag him behind an outrider . . .

One of the Midget Psychos chortled, and he glanced at him in irritation. On either side of him were two of the stunted Psychos, irritating little assbiters who clung to hand-holds on the sides of
the outrider, leaning out, shouting muffled curses through their white and red vault masks. Both
bore shotguns strapped across their backs; the one on the left was an Angry Little Shotgunner, as the expression went, and the other was a Fuming Stunted Shotgunner.

Driving parallel about a dozen meters to Harmus’s left was Kenzo, a vicious medium-sized Psycho with his mask pushed back on his head, his eyes in blue goggles; he wore skag-leather coveralls. Kenzo claimed to eat only the entrails
of his enemies. Seemed unlikely to Harmus. You really did need a side dish.

The outrider bumped and jittered over the gravel and sand.

There was a big outcropping of rock up ahead, about thirty meters away, piled-up blue boulders, and beyond it rose a hilltop. A man stepped into view on the outcropping. The man waved to Harmus.

“Hey, assholes!” yelled the big, dark man standing on the outcropping.
He made an obscene gesture.

Harmus stared. He looked at the picture pasted to his dash; he looked at the big man on the rock.

He could hardly believe his luck. He’d been driving for hours, looking for any signs of that guy. And there he was!

Harmus grinned and gunned the outrider
toward the outcropping—and suddenly Roland was no longer there.

He thought of those rocks that had seemed to be
outrunners. Had he hallucinated this guy? He hadn’t had any narcojuice all day. Maybe he was having a flashback. No, he’d been there!

He slowed the vehicle when they came abreast of the outcropping, looking for Roland, didn’t see him. But there—tracks! Leading from the rock toward that hill.

He angled the car toward the hill and spotted Roland, just climbing up the hill, emerging from behind
a boulder. He reached up, grabbed the machine gun, fired a long burst, hoping to weaken Roland’s shield or maybe get a lucky shot through. Then he lost sight of him again. But he was there. He had him!

He glanced over at Kenzo, who was looking at him in puzzlement from the other outrider. He pointed at the hill and yelled, “Target up there!”

Then he urged the car faster, toward the hill, yelling
at the Midgets, “Get ready to jump off and use those shotguns! Get up that hill and smoke him out! We’re gonna—”

He broke off, as a shadow fell over him. He looked up in time to see a boulder, at least a hundred kilos, flying his way. What the hell? A meteor? Then he saw the big guy standing on the hilltop—the other one, Brick, arms still raised,
having thrown that rock. Which was about to hit
him.

He veered the vehicle hard right, and the boulder struck, glancingly, smashing into the Psycho Midget on the left side, turning him into red Midget jam.

The impact on the side of the vehicle combined with the sharp turn, and the outrider flipped over. Harmus felt himself flung into the air. He turned end over end, fell onto the ground, facedown, hard, his shield going out when the unit
cracked on a rock.

The wind knocked out of him, he lay there, gasping, looking around, and saw his outrider had overturned on the other Midget, who was mangled under it.

There was still Kenzo, who was gunning toward the hill. A long burst from a combat rifle weakened Kenzo’s shield—Harmus could see the bullets sparking on the shield, the long accurate burst draining its power. Then came a distinctive
sound—
crack-zing, crack-zing
—a sniper rifle. Kenzo’s head snapped back. Shot clean through. The outrunner spun out of control and stopped in a cloud of dust.

Kenzo was slumped over the steering wheel. Even from there it was obvious he was dead.

Harmus was unarmed, unless he could find one of the Midget’s shotguns. He was bruised, and
he suspected his left arm might be—he bit back a shriek of
pain as he tried to use it—broken.

So he lay still, playing dead, watching with slitted eyes for the enemy. Maybe he would get his chance . . .

There they came, three men, looking pretty pleased with themselves, running from that hill, Roland, then Mordecai—and Brick. Harmus recognized all three. Mordecai had the sniper rifle.

A fourth one came down, sauntering after them. The woman. He’d almost
had a piece of that woman in the coliseum. If he lived, he’d . . .

He closed his eyes when they glanced toward him.

He heard them talking loudly, not more than thirty meters away, from Kenzo’s idling outrunner. He cracked his eyes open. Roland was lifting Kenzo’s body out of the way, shoving it aside. “Good shooting, Mordecai!” Roland said. “Two right in the forehead! Moving target too!”

“Good
scope on that rifle!”

“Don’t be modest,” the woman said. “That was a good shot!”

“What about me, I got three of them with one rock!” Brick rumbled.

“That was impressive!” the woman said. “Good arm!”

“Okay, we got two vehicles now.” Probably Roland’s voice. “Question is, which way we go from here?”

“Who gets this one?” another asked, likely Mordecai.

“More your size,” Roland said. “There’s
a spot just big enough for Daphne to sit comfortably, behind there . . .”

Mordecai clambered into the vehicle, the woman behind, and drove it toward the hill. Roland and Brick trudged after them.

Harmus waited, his left arm throbbing miserably. Time passed. A rakk squawked from the sky.

At last he risked looking up and saw an outrunner take off from behind a boulder at the base of the hill,
the outrider following. They cut southwest across the desert. A rakk or a trash feeder—some kind of flying creature, anyhow—flew along, right above the outrider, as if going with it.