Free Doomsday Warrior 08 - American Glory by Ryder Stacy Page A

its mouth wide, its feet pounding like exploding shells going off every time its weight came down on them. The wolves formed a wall, realizing that they had to stop it fast or they’d go hungry tonight. But the ’brid just came on at the pack, whose long incisors glistened in the spears of moonlight streaking down through the sky. The steed came right up to them and with a final thrust, using all of its power, leaped into the air with its hind legs. Like a jumper clearing the tallest hedge at Heathrow, the mutant horse went clear over the wolves’ backs, coming down yards past them on the other side. The predators whipped around in confusion, trying to gather themselves, and took off with a half-hearted charge after the galloping animal. But it was already gone, leaving only a cloud of slowly settling dust.
    Eisenhower didn’t slacken the pace for a good three miles, looking back every few hundred yards to see if there was anything following. But there wasn’t. Just eyes which continued to track him from the endless tangles of brush and tree. He was going on pure adrenaline now, but knew that he had to pace himself. He couldn’t make it if he maintained this momentum. The steed slowed to about half its speed and settled into that as if shifting to a lower gear. It could feel weariness creeping over it like a spider web of dull warmth through its body, its dirt-coated legs. But the Master was still not moving. Now it was the Master.
    By the time the sun once again pulled itself up on thin yellow arms over the ledge of dawn, the hybrid had come out of the thick forest and back onto open land, lush with flowers and ponds and small animals already creeping out into the mist-covered morning to search for food. Close—it was close to the station. It could feel it ahead and the desire for food, for rest, pulled it inexorably forward like iron filings toward a magnet. It crossed several miles of low fields and then skirted a wide oval lake where large dark shapes swam just below the surface—waiting.
    At last the Express station was in sight. Even from a mile off the ’brid could see the people moving about, the smoke rising from several of the small log shacks that sat in a defensive circle. The animal tore down a cleared road, avoiding the deep ruts of wagon wheels on each side, and came barreling in toward the depot like a cannonball looking for a place to land.
    “Whoa, easy, big fella,” a voice yelled out as hands flew up to grab the reins. The ’brid let them take control. They were not enemies, the were the Masters, the feeders.
    “Lookee here,” the man shouted out as the rider, still unconscious, fell into his arms. “It’s Jeb Haverston—and he’s hurt bad, real bad. Check his message-bag!”
    Even as they tended to the unconscious—but not mortally wounded—man, four other riders threw saddles on their own mounts and grabbed gourds of water. The Express had to go on. Within minutes the four were off to the north, east, south, and west to spread the word that K-Day had arrived.

Six
    T hey came from out of nowhere. From wretched thatched-roof hovel-towns, from mini-cities as advanced and technologically proficient as Century City itself. They came by hybrid and mule, by ancient rusted cars and bicycles, a few even in stolen Soviet choppers. They carried high-caliber machine guns or just bows and arrows—but they came, ready to give whatever they and their Free Cities had to offer, to answer the call of the president of the Re-United States.
    Ted Rockson, standing off to one side of the main square of the subterranean city, couldn’t help but chuckle as he watched the groups of America’s finest move among the crowd like little schools of differently colored fish. Each town and city had its own version of the proper combat gear, and the men strutted among one another like peacocks, showing off their stuff. The Texas fighters with their wide ten-gallon hats and six-guns strapped to each leg hooted and