Leatherman looked evil. Part of this was, pure show; he cultivated his mean-looking image, but it would be a mistake to assume that underneath that nasty-looking face there was something other than pure meaness.

He always wore leather pants, soft and supple leather that was specially cured for him. These were thrust into heavy black boots that reached the knee. His broad hairy chest was covered by a leather shirt that was laced with a hide thong down the front. To ward off the cold he wore a full-length cowhide overcoat with a high collar that framed his head.

He was a tall man and ugly to boot. He had fat, fleshy lips, and there was a hard look in his left eye that admitted no pity. His right eye was covered by an eye patch. An angry red scar, as deep as a fissure in a rock face, ran from his forehead, straight down behind the eye patch, then continued down his cheek, branching out into three jagged cuts on his strong chin. Dara had done that, and you only needed to see the scar to sense the hate that had driven the blow that had so horribly disfigured him. But he had settled his scores with Dara. She had hurt him, but he made her pay him back tenfold, in blood, humiliation, and ultimately in death.

Leather had no hands. In their place he had fitted to his stumps wooden blocks that capped his tortured arms. In the wooden blocks he had had fitted Bonner's knives. Two of the blades protruded from the right stump, and the third was set in his left. If Bonner had taken Leather's hands, so Leatherman had replaced them with Bonner's blades, something that gave him great satisfaction. It was almost as if he had fitted himself with pieces of Bonner's soul. Leather prided himself on his sense of humor.

But recently, things had not been going Leather's way. Since Bonner's devastating raid on the Cap, he'd had troubles.

The Stormers were getting harder to control; they were essentially mercenaries who were prepared to go along with him when things were rosy, but they got nasty when things weren't going so well. Stormers had taken most of the hits from Bonner, though God knows, the Radleps had found their force reduced by a substantial number. But the 'leps were loyal. They loved Leather. Most people that bothered to think about it figured they loved him for his unstinting generosity with them when it came to the stuff that the rest of the world hungered for. But Leather was no fool. He knew if the Radleps wanted that stuff, they would have just taken it and there was very little anyone could have done to stop them. No, Leather gave them something, something that all the gas, girls, and guns in the world couldn't have provided. Leatherman gave them pride, and in return for that they were prepared to die for him.

Leather was on the road now, lolling in the backseat of his bright red jeep at the head of a Radlep battalion. Jojo, his chief counselor and adviser, had convinced him that going out on the road personally would be a good move: inspire the troops and frighten the slaves, that sort of thing. And of course, there was the matter of finding the gas farm they had heard about. They needed that gas bad.

Stretched behind the jeep was a Radlep force that Leather had personally chosen to accompany him. Seventy-five of the big ugly men fanned out behind him on their huge bikes. They wore goggles to protect their eyes from the snow; they rode hunched over the bars of their motorcycles, their weapons strapped across their backs.

Leather slouched back in his seat and looked at his driver Chilly. He was about the ugliest Radlep he had ever seen. The folds of skin on the young man's thin neck were calloused and brown, like the skin of a reptile. His hair had fallen out and his bald head was crisscrossed with tears and lesions. His eyes stared out from deep sick-looking sockets; he looked along tunnels of decaying flesh. His nose was collapsing, its thin bones caving in as they were eaten away. The man's mouth was the usual Radlep raw wound of cracked and torn lips and broken teeth.

Leather could tell by the awkward cast of Chilly's body under his greatcoat that another limb, probably a stunted arm, was growing out of the chest cavity. It was a common condition among the Radleps. Chilly was Leather's personal bodyguard, a ferocious, tenacious fighter, so devoted to him Leather doubted if there was a thing he wouldn't do for his master if Leather asked it. Strapped to Chilly's waist was a Browning 9mm Hi-Power, and Leather knew that he could tell Chilly to take it out, put the barrel in his mouth, and pull the trigger. Chilly would do it, simply because Leather ordered it.

Chilly leaned toward the cracked windshield and squinted. "Boss," he rasped, and lifted a gloved hand off the wheel to gesture forward on the road.

Leather looked. Far ahead he could just make out a couple of riders. "Who?"

"Charlie and Sam," said Chilly.

"Good." Leather relaxed. His scouts were returning. "Maybe they got some news for us."

The scouts and the main force met a few miles further up the road. A few fat .flakes of snow were falling and they promised a lot more snow. The exhaust from all the bikes, the supply trucks, and the jeeps mingled with the cold breath of the men. The entire column was engulfed by a damp, gray cloud.

Leatherman hoisted himself out of the seat and dropped down onto the concrete. He walked stiffly; they had been driving since dawn. "So what you got, Charlie? Any sign of the gas?"

The scarred scout pushed up his goggles. His extremely sensitive skin was raw where the goggles had pressed against his flesh. "No gas. Snowmen up ahead."

"Snowmen?" said Leather. "What the fuck are they doing here?"

Charlie shrugged. "They're here." But every man in the column knew why they were here. They had heard that Leather was weak and they had been sent to see if maybe the Slavestates weren't ripe for conquest.

"How many?"

"Thirty, maybe a few more." Charlie hocked up and spat.

"How far?"

"Five-six miles," said Sam.

"They on the road?"

"Yeah. Headed this way too."

"Good, let's'take the fucks," said Leather. If Carey sent out some squadsmen and none came back, that should let him know just how weak Leatherman was.

The Radleps gunned their engines and pounded down the road, springing forward like a pack of hounds hot for the kill. The forthcoming firefight would warm up the drab, dull, cold morning.

A couple of riders attached themselves to the side of Leather's jeep, riding escort. They knew that without hands their leader was helpless.

The Lightning squadsmen saw them coming. The Radleps roared over a rise in the road and the snowmen saw the first wave followed by several more.

"Holeeee sheeeeeet," said the lead snowman, braking suddenly.

His men stopped around him. "Boys, it looks like this just ain't our ride, you know what I mean?" It was the same group of riders who had encountered Bonner and Starling. "So what to do?" he asked. "Man," said one of them, "I wanna live a little longer."

"What's your second choice?" They were deep in slave territory with no hope of reinforcements. They could stand and fight and most likely get sliced, or they could run and probably end up sliced anyway. "It ain't that guy again, is it?"

"Nawwwww."

"Then fuck it, let's take 'em."

The two forces barreled toward them, charging like the cavalry of old. As the two bands met there seemed to be a sound of clashing steel echoing out over the valley. Brakes were applied, engines wailed, the air was filled with a heavy boom and the sharp crack of sidearms of every type and caliber. Men fell, shooting gouts of blood into the crisp air. Bikes, riderless, shot here and there a few feet then toppled over, some still in gear, driving around in crazy circular patterns.

This was war on wheels. Snowmen and Radlep; sat astride their steel steeds, one hand gripping the handlebars, the other arm outstretched, gun in hand, blasting at their enemies. The riders completed their first pass, turned in tight circles, then urged their bikes on for another encounter.

A snowman and a Radlep collided, the two bikes jamming together in a tortured confused mixture of metal and meat. They fell, the snowman cracking his head painfully on the cold concrete. He lay dazed while the mounted riders wheeled and fired around him. He was unable to rise.

The Radlep flew into the air and fell with a thick, sickening thud. Immediately a bike rolled over his chest and he felt his ribs crack, splinter, and give way under the weight of the heavy cycle and rider. His lungs shattered by the sharp shards of his own shattered bones, he still managed to unsling his Ml 6. He tasted the sweet taste of his own blood in his mouth, curling around his tongue. He lay flat on his broken chest, ignoring the pain, and took careful aim on the swirling riders. He fired methodically, the big steel-jacketed slugs thumping into snowmen. He took down seven squadsmen that way until a stray bullet— Radlep, snowman, who knows—tore off the back of his hairless head.

Chilly had pulled the jeep up onto a rise overlooking the highway and he stood up, leaning on the windshield a chattering M3, accounting for about a dozen snowmen. Leatherman sat and watched. As far as he could tell, there just weren't enough snowmen to go around. It was an uneven battle from the start, and the odds against the snowmen were lengthening with the passage of each bloody second. Leather watched the battle with the fine eye of a connoisseur. Carey, the Prince of the Snowstates, as he called himself, had trained his men well. But he had not done such a good job that his men could come wandering into the Slavestates, take on twice their number in Radleps, and live.

What the fuck were they doing here anyway? He jammed his elbow in Chilly's ribs. "I want one. Alive."

Chilly nodded and jumped down from the jeep. He tossed his weapon into the backseat and drew out an old number-one-iron golf club. "Somebody special you have in mind, boss?"

"That guy there," announced Leather, pointing out a snowman, who, still mounted on his motorcycle, was racing across the road.

"Got it," rasped Chilly. He strode into the furious storm of men and bikes, walking casually, as if he was taking a morning stroll. He took a few short practice strokes with the club. He paused as the squadsman that Leather had pointed out tore toward him. Just as he passed. Billy whipped the light club into the man's gut.

The snowman's cheeks filled with air as the fist-sized head of the club burrowed into the flesh of his abdomen. The blow seemed to stop him in midair, arresting him in a dead halt. The bike raced on for a yard or two, then fell over. The snowman followed his bike to the ground, falling in a bundle wrapped around the club at Chilly's feet. Chilly scooped the big man up, slung him over his shoulder, and carried him nonchalantly back to his master.

"Nice work," said Leather. Chilly beamed.

Like a gasoline fire, the battle burned high and hot for a moment then died down quietly. The snowmen lay strewn about the road and the shoulder; the dead or soon to be were quickly being covered with a fine blanket of snow. A Radlep walked from body to body, checking to see if any still lived. Those who still groaned or gulped for air or dazedly tried to crawl away received a bullet in the head. The Radleps were nothing if not efficient. It was a parting gift, Radlep style.

The sole remaining snowman, Chilly's captive, leaned back against the tire of Leather's jeep, holding his gut, still gasping for breath.

"Stand him up," ordered Leather.

Chilly grasped the man by the shoulder and forced him to his feet, pulling him back by the hair, stretching the painfully bruised stomach muscles. The snowman looked at Leather with hate-filled eyes. It was cold, but big beads of sweat had popped out on his forehead.

"Well," said Leather, sitting comfortably in his seat, "what's your name?"

The snowman looked over Leather's torn face. "Fuck you, freak."

Leather's right hand whipped out savagely, carving two fine gashes across the snowman's cheek.

Blood spread down his cheek and he yelped and tried to bring a hand up to his face.

"Now, what's your name?"

The squadsman stared at the claw that Leather held forward. "Jackie." "Well, Jackie, what the fuck are you doing in my country?"

"Carey," stammered Jackie, "Carey sent us. . . ."

"I know Carey. Me and Carey go way back. Now why would Carey send a nice boy like you all the way to the Slavestates? Didn't he tell you that you'd wind up dead? Didn't he tell you about my Radleps and my Stormers? And look how many guys he sent . . . look at that." He gestured toward the slain snowmen. "Why, there ain't thirty guys there." "There were more of us," said Jackie. Leather smiled broadly. "Now you're talking, sonny boy, where are they now?"

"Dead." "Dead? Who killed them? 'Leps? Stormers?"

"Dunno. Some guys ..." "You're pissing me off, Jackie," said Leather, as if he was disciplining a child. "You're making me mad."

"Sorry," said Jackie. "No, son, don't be sorry. Just tell me. Who took your other guys down?"

"Four guys. Four guys in a forest upstate from here."

"Four?" Leather leaned forward. Could it be, he wondered. "Four riders? How many did they get?"

"Dunno. Twenty maybe."

"Four guys, twenty snowmen?"

"That's right," stammered Jackie. Then, as if to apologize for such a lopsided score, he added, "Man, these guys were tight. They acted like there were more of them than us. We never seen anything like it."

"One of these guys," said Leather slowly, "did he have three blades on his hip? And a shotgun? And a haul-ass car with a big chattergun on the back?"

"Yeah," said Jackie, "who is that fuck? Your secret weapon."

"Don't talk to me that way, boy," said Leather, and his right hand whipped out again, only this time the double blades caught Jackie deep in the throat. A fine spray of blood came first, then, as pressure opened the wounds, a waterfall of gore coursed out. Jackie's young face drained of color immediately and his eyes rolled back in his head. He fell forward on the jeep.

"Chilly," said Leather calmly, evenly, "you wanna get this fuck off me. He's bleeding all over my shoes and everywhere."

But inside, Leather was trembling, and there was only one thought on his mind: Bonner was back.

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