Free Warlord's Revenge by Craig Sargent

of caged animal fury. The pitbull would let no other animal challenge it—without returning the challenge.
    Stone didn’t like being pursued. It was one thing to battle it out, it was another to have some asshole—rather, a whole group
     of assholes—spending their every living day doing nothing but trying to kill you. A shiver ran down his back. Mafia? Guardians
     of Hell? The Dwarf? No,
he
was dead. Stone had killed him with his own hands. Not that it really mattered. They were all so interconnected, using one
     another for their own sick purposes. But someone, someone big, had obviously taken an extra-special interest in him. Death
     was carrying his name tag these days. The sky above looked like the lid of a coffin that was about to close forever.
    Stone was able to make good time and soon was on part of an Interstate that took him within miles of the bivouac—if his compass
     and landmark reckonings were correct. They were. For suddenly he recognized some low peaks and turned off through a series
     of fields, covered with the dead brown husks of millions of mountain flowers that felt like a cushion beneath the thick wheels
     of the Harley.
    Then he was at the camp, leaning down almost flat forward as he shot up the least angled slope of the thirty-foot-high plateau
     that sat like a little island of dirt rising up arrogantly from the bushy terrain around it. The second he reached the camp
     and the bike leveled out, Stone saw there was trouble. Big trouble.
    Leaping Elk and Meyra were facing each other in a cleared space, a dirt circle about fifteen feet wide. They were just a yard
     or so apart, and Stone saw with horror as a vagrant ray of crackling light from the fire danced along them that they were
     holding razor-sharp Cheyenne hunting knives in their hands. There wasn’t a sound in the camp, just Leaping Elk’s sickening
     smile as he stared at the much smaller Indian woman and the spreading circle of red on her buckskin jacket.
    Stone brought the Harley to a screeching halt, leaping from the big motorcycle so fast that it didn’t have time to release
     its auto kickstand and the whole machine tumbled over into the dirt, skidding sideways for about ten feet. Ex-caliber, who
     had just been waking himself from his usual traveling nap, barely had time to open his eyes before he found himself hurtling
     through the air and into the narrow branches of a nearby low tree. The dog groaned and curled itself up into a ball before
     it made contact. This was getting ridiculous, Excaliber thought angrily just before he struck. He was going to have to have
     a long, long talk with his master, who, he was now seeing, for all the food he provided—and that wasn’t a hell of a lot now
     that the pitbull thought about it—seemed to have a knack for producing painful experiences for the dog to go through. But
     it didn’t have a hell of a lot of time to dwell on the subject as the tree suddenly got real close.
    Stone ran across the plateau as fast as his legs could carry him, moving in a dark blur so that he suddenly crashed through
     the crowd of Indians and his own NAA recruits, who were all looking at the whole thing like it was some sort of late-night
     TV amusement. Stone started forward toward Leaping Elk, who still hadn’t realized Stone had returned and was locked in mortal
     combat with Meyra, who circled slowly around him now, her legs low and crouched. Arms reached out from both sides of him,
     holding Stone back from running into the circle.
    “No, you cannot,” one of the younger braves whom Stone recognized as Shining Eagle, said, holding him firmly. “They must fight
     it out. It is the Cheyenne way. We must have a leader. And there is no other method of deciding.”
    “But she—she’s just a woman,” Stone half screamed as he saw Meyra suddenly glance over and realize that he was there. She
     looked startled, first a mixture of fear, then relief, as she saw who it was. Then suddenly fear again,