Prophecy by James Axler Page A

dust raised by the steady, rhythmic marching of their feet. The sun rose inexorably, and the temperature rose sharply, unimpeded by the clear skies. J.B. had his fedora to shade him from the worst of the heat, while Mildred improvised a covering for her plaits, using a little of her precious water to dampen the cloth before tying it around her head.
    They had been walking for several hours when there was the first intimation of any life on the plain other than their own.
    Silence had been the norm, to preserve energy and avoid the need to moisten their tongues as much as the lack of anything to say. But now, J.B. broke that long silence.
    â€œWhat is that? Two o’clock,” he added, indicating an area where there was a cloud of dust raised near the horizon.
    â€œWhere’s it coming from?” Mildred asked. It was still some way off, but had seemingly sprung from nowhere. Maybe they just hadn’t noticed it before, too absorbed by the effort of moving one foot in front of the other. That was a sobering thought: losing their edge, their ability to stay frosty and triple red. It was symptomatic of what had happened the previous day. Something was beginning to make sense at the back of her mind….
    â€œMoving quick,” J.B. said sharply, breaking her reverie. She followed his arm, which was still raised. It was true. Whatever was raising the dust cloud was advancing rapidly. Immediately, her coalescing thoughts were driven from her mind by the need for action.
    Looking around, she could see that there was little cover afforded to them by the terrain.
    â€œHostile?” she asked, knowing what J.B.’s answer would be.
    â€œAssume it.”
    Even as he spoke, the Armorer was unslinging hismini-Uzi, running checks without even thinking, and scanning the area. The only thing within any kind of distance was a small patch of brown-and-green scrub, with a few patches of purple flowers. How that survived in this climate was a mystery for another time. But not as great a mystery as how they could turn this into some kind of cover.
    J.B. gestured that they should make their way toward it. Mildred, checking to make sure her ZKR was ready for combat, nodded. They traveled the five hundred yards to the scant cover. When they had made the best of the brush, JB finally spoke.
    â€œThey must have seen us moving. They’re heading right toward us.”
    â€œWell, let’s just hope that we can get a bead on them before they can on us,” Mildred countered. “Depends on what sort of weapons they’re carrying,” she added, knowing that their fate was on the line.
    They settled in and waited for the dust cloud to reach them.
    As the cloud became more defined, and they could see the center of disturbance that was stirring up the dust, neither of them was sure that they could believe their eyes.
    For approaching them, calm in the eye of the cloud, were a dozen men mounted on horses. Piebald and chestnut creatures whose manes swirled with the dust, they seemed almost to glide across the ground. Seated atop them were men whose impassive faces were matched by the stately grandeur with which they rodethe rolling plain. Like marble statues, they seemed immobile astride their steeds, man and horse as one living entity on an endless journey.
    No less impressive was the manner in which they were attired—furs and skins, woven into breeches and moccasins, with jerkins that left their scarred and pierced chests open to the air. From their bare skin hung bones decorated with different varieties and colors of feather. Their hair was long, worn either loose and flowing in the momentum of their relentless progress, or else plaited and held to the side of their head by a snakeskin headband.
    They were armed, but not in the manner that either J.B. or Mildred would have expected. Quivers filled with arrows hung from the saddlebags of their mounts and bows were secured across their backs. J.B.