The drivers were enjoying the spring weather. Their heads could be seen atop the vehicles.
"Drop on the gunner first," Valentine said. "Otherwise he'll sweep me off with the machine gun."
The first armored car looked rather festive, like a bull exhibited in a livestock parade. Young branches and flowering stems had been caught in mud guards, headlamp grilles, and the brush-cutting teeth at the front of the sloped armored nose, giving each a leafy, woody beard. The car behind had been turned a chalky pale yellow by road dust.
Duvalier dropped first. Valentine's request about dealing with the gunner quickly was solved by her hanging upside down by her linked ankles. Her blackened sword didn't flash in the sun, but descended clean and rose again from the slash bright red. A wet divot, possibly a hairy patch of neck.
The gunner's head dropped forward as though he'd fallen asleep. Blood had splattered on the bulletproof plastic that shielded the gunner.
Duvalier released her ankles, and managed to drop onto the first car. Valentine held his breath while she arrested herself with a single outflung hand, the other still around the sword hilt.
The first armored car passed under him. The gunner was watchful and alert, but looking down his machine-gun barrel at the road ahead. Valentine, concealed in the foliage ahead, timed a mental practice jump.
The second car approached. The driver had a big, creamy white cowboy hat with the high crown favored by some Texans. A pair of sunglasses and a scarf kept the dust off his face. Valentine would have to act quickly. All he had to do to remove himself from danger was duck down.
Valentine checked the wrist loop on his legworm pick, tightening it.
Five, four, three ...
He dropped.
Landed on the good leg in a three-point stance, solid hickory in his right hand.
The gunner turned his head and got a brief look at his own death before the claw end of the legworm pick did its work.
The terrible exhilaration took over.
Valentine shoved the body aside with one hard pull. He scooted forward and tried to ignore the twitches of the dying man.
The driver turned, perhaps to point to Duvalier, hanging off the side of the front armored car's spotlight by one thin hand, the other unwilling to relinquish its grip on her sword hilt.
Valentine smashed him hard with the hammer end of the legworm pick. A reflex, perhaps, but the driver stood on the brakes. Valentine would have gone off without the claw end of the pick, which latched on to the driver's hatch.
He pushed the mess aside and sat in the driver's seat.
David Valentine wasn't comfortable behind any wheel. Machines bothered him, and the bigger and faster they were the more likely it seemed they'd get out from under his control and strike something. He pressed a pedal and the armored car slowed, another one sped it up.
The armored car slalomed as Valentine oversteered, heart pounding and the scent of blood in his nostrils.
His eye caught a reflected glint from the vehicle ahead. The driver there knew his job, and had set up some kind of safety mirror to keep an eye on the following vehicle.
He cranked his vehicle to the side of the road, into the thick brush. Duvalier was torn free as though by a dozen grasping hands.
Valentine found the brake and slowed the vehicle, but he still felt a thump as he struck Duvalier.
Heart pounding high and hard, Valentine halted the armored car and raised himself out of the seat.
Duvalier, her face a road map of scratches and wounds, grinned from behind a torn lip.
"You brake for redheads?" she asked.
"Thank God," Valentine managed.
"For inventing traction," Duvalier said.
Valentine pushed the vehicle into gear. "Get in the gunner-"
"No, I'll drive. You shoot."