There was one Wolf out in front, its sizzling fire-stick raised. It was half-turned to its mates, and now it waved its light-stick at the road. Except that’s no light-stick, Eddie thought. That’s a light -saber, just like the ones in the Star Wars movies . Only these light-sabers aren’t special effects — they really kill. What the hell’s going on here?Well, the guy out front was trying to rally his troops, that much seemed clear. Eddie decided to cut the sermon short. He thumbed the button in one of the three sneetches he had kept for himself. The thing began to hum and vibrate in his hand. It was sort of like holding a joy-buzzer.

“Hey, Sunshine!” he called.

The head Wolf didn’t look around and so Eddie simply lobbed the sneetch at it. Thrown as easily as it was, it should have struck the ground twenty or thirty yards from the cluster of remaining Wolves and rolled to a stop. It picked up speed instead, rose, and struck the head Wolf dead center in its frozen snarl of a mouth. The thing exploded from the neck up, thinking-cap and all.

“Go on,” Eddie said. “Try it. Using their own shit against em has its own special pl—”

Ignoring him, Jake dropped the sneetches Eddie had given him, stumbled over the heap of bodies, and started up the path.

“Jake? Jake, I don’t think that’s such a good idea—”

A hand gripped Eddie’s upper arm. He whirled, raising his gun, then lowering it again when he saw Roland. “He can’t hear you,” the gunslinger said. “Come on. We’ll stand with him.”

“Wait, Roland, wait.” It was Rosa. She was smeared with blood, and Eddie assumed it was poor sai Eisenhart’s. He could see no wound on Rosa herself. “I want some of this,” she said.

Sixteen

They reached Jake just as the remaining Wolves made their last charge. A few threw sneetches. These Roland and Eddie picked out of the air easily. Jake fired the Ruger in nine steady, spaced shots, right wrist clasped in left hand, and each time he fired, one of the Wolves either flipped backward out of its saddle or went sliding over the side to be trampled by the horses coming behind. When the Ruger was empty, Rosa took a tenth, screaming Lady Oriza’s name. Zalia Jaffords had also joined them, and the eleventh fell to her.