The sandship flees across the desert, and the cannibal cultists follow.

  It took them a little while to get going, so we'd gotten ourselves a lead. But without the cutter's full power they have the edge in speed, and so little by little that lead is eroding. Our two dust clouds plume up into the sky, slowly merging into one.

  "Anythin' more specific than 'north'?" Quarter asks Theo.

  She frowns out the front windows, lips moving as she figures something.

  "Keep going until you see a big rock with two spikes, then cut about ten degrees left of it."

  "Lovely," he mutters. "What I'd give for a proper chart."

  "Wouldn't be worth shit," Theo says. "The wind moves the sand around too much." She indicates the speaking tubes. "One of these go to the guns?"

  Quarter grunts and taps one.

  Theo flips it open. "You all ready to shoot something?"

  "Either that or blow ourselves up trying," Owain's tinny, nervous voice comes back.

  "Not much ammo," Agni puts in.

  "Hold your fire for the fucking trikes and groundcars, then. That's the real danger." She slams the tube shut without waiting for a reply and looks at me. "You a good shot?"

  "I wouldn't say that, no," I offer honestly. "Haven't had much occasion to practice."

  "You can spot for me, then. Come on."

  We pound back up the steps and edge around the hot, vibrating cowling to the stern. We're above the worst of the dust and exhaust, but the air is still tangy with burning viscid. Theo props her rifle on the rail and hands me a satchel full of shells and a battered set of binoculars.

  "Bikes will come up first," she says. "Don't want 'em getting too close. Find me a target."

  I nod and peer through the cracked eyepiece, scanning the horizon. The actual vehicle at the center of a billowing dust cloud can be surprisingly hard to spot. Compass bearings click by at the top of my vision. "Got one at one eight-two."

  "Too far," she says. "They'll close in from the sides first."

  I shift my gaze. "One twelve."

  "Got him. Give it a minute."

  I lower the binoculars. Without them, the biker is only a speck, bouncing across the rise and fall of the dunes. Theo stares intently down the rifle's notched iron sight, licking her lips.

  "Seems like you've done this before," I say into the nervous silence.

  "Told you, my family lives out here. You live out here, you'll have to shoot a few fucking Sworn from time to time."

  "Is your family going to get to us before they do?"

  "I fucking hope so. It'll be a near thing. Now shh." Her eye narrows. "Come on, fucker…"

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  She squeezes the trigger. The rifle slams into her shoulder, and in the distance the biker spins out and goes down in a spray of sand.

  "Yes!" I bark, surprised at my own bloodlust. "Nice shot!"

  "Find another."

  A second biker goes down, and a third. The rest get the message and keep their distance, much to Theo's disappointment. She grabs the binoculars and watches them petulantly as they start to pull level with us on either side, out of range.

  "Do you mind if I ask…" I begin.

  "You're gonna, so go ahead."

  "How did you end up a prisoner in the first place?"

  "How the fuck do you think? Bastards ambushed us on a forage. Killed everybody but me."

  "Why not you?"

  She shoots me a dirty look, and I realize this might be an insensitive question. Finally, though, she sighs.

  "My brother's head of the family. Slaughterborne wants him to knuckle under. He's got all the Sworn in the area calling him boss already, and now he's going after the rest." She lowers the binoculars. "Here they come. Get your rifle."

  "I told you I'm not much of a shot."

  "It's not going to fucking matter in a minute!"

  ***

  The cultists of the god of war have, as you'd expect, a decent command of tactics. While the main body of their pursuit party closes slowly from behind, two wings of bikes and trikes have pulled ahead of us on both sides. Now they curve inward to trap us like the scythed mandibles of a beetle.

  And there are a lot of them. Entirely too many for my taste.

  Theo's rifle cracks with grim regularity behind me at the other rail. I check the shell in my own, close the breech, and raise it to my shoulder in imitation of her confident stance -- I've never shot anything bigger than a game-roach. But the closing bikers seem to fill the world, all spiked bits and snarling faces and blades waving in the air. It seems impossible to miss.

  I miss, naturally. The rifle slams hard into my shoulder and nothing else happens, even the sound almost lost in the rising din. Certainly the man I'd been aiming at, with a wild mohawk and blackened teeth, doesn't appear to notice.

  I crack the breech open, the spent shell leaping out and whizzing past my ear. Slam in another, close it, aim again. The bikers are closer now, much too close. I've lost mohawk-man so I pick a burly one with a shaggy mustache and fire. To my great surprise his bike wobbles and goes down, lost instantly among the others. Dozens more remain.

  Something clatters off the side of the cutter. A moment later flame blooms along the ship's flank, scorching the metal. Another firebomb explodes against the bow, and I spare a moment to hope Quarter is keeping his head down. I load another shell and aim at a woman standing in her stirrups to throw another explosive; the shot knocks her down and the bomb goes off among the bikes, spilling several riders.

  The bigger trikes are closing the distance, ramshackle machines with a fighting platform behind the driver. I see bombs, spears, harpoons, grappling hooks. Projectiles start to clank against the hull behind me. I drop the rifle and grab the last two firebombs, crouching behind the rail until a trike veers almost close enough to touch. A raider tries to latch on with a boarding pike, and I pop up and drop a bomb right in his lap. A moment later the trike explodes in a spectacular fireball, the wreck flipping end over end before burying itself in a spray of sand.

  A deep boom echoes up from below decks, and once again I'm briefly convinced something important has exploded in the engine room. But the cutter doesn’t slow, while out in the desert sand fountains into the air. Agni and Owain are opening up with the ship's biggest guns. After a second, there's another shot on Theo's side and a trike comes apart in mid-bounce, pieces of men and machine zipping in all directions.

  "Ha!" Theo shouts, as the trikes veer away from us. "That's got the fuckers worried."

  I draw her attention forward, where two jagged spires are coming into view over a dune. "Is that your spiky rock?"

  "Yeah!" Theo cackles at the retreating raiders. "Who's in the stew-pot now, you fucking -- Ah, shit."

  "What?"

  She points. The trikes are forming up again. Coming up from behind them is a four-wheeled groundcar painted a bloody crimson, an enormous steel icon of the Fifth rising from its back seats.

  "Who --"

  "War-priest!" she shouts. "One of Slaughterborne's chosen. They won't quit while he's watching!"

  Theo fumbles something from her pocket -- a mirror. She glances up briefly and starts aiming it, her tongue sticking out the corner of her mouth as she concentrates. It makes bright flashes as it reflects the suns.

  "Signaling the family," she explains. "There'll be a lookout. Get Agni to try and hit that red fucker -- if we can kill him it might buy us some time."

  "Got it!"

  She grins at me, cocky despite the grime and bruises. "You know you're not as bad a shot as you claim!"

  I find myself smiling back, in spite of everything. "Beginner's luck!"

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