Blood Harvest (v5)

by James Axler

  They slogged up a muddy path through the fields. Occasional lightning flashes lit the pounding darkness. Several times they wandered off the path and had to correct as they trod down millet grain. Father Joao mostly knew the way by heart. A pair of lamps hung high above the highest hill. Lightning showed Jak the church in stark relief. “Why lit?”

  “It is always lit at night. It can be seen from most of the villages. It is a symbol. The light in the darkness.” They trudged through the muck and Joao opened the door. “Sacrilege!” Father Joao shook with rage as he took in the chopped-up pews. Portuguese profanity spewed from his lips in a torrent. “Nini!” He stamped his foot. “Nini!”

  A frightened girl came out of one of the cells in the back. She was hardly any older than Jak and had a bruised look about her. Joao grabbed the girl, shaking her while screaming questions. Jak ended the interrogation by slashing the barrel of his blaster across Father Joao’s kidney. He gasped and buckled to one knee. The girl stared wide-eyed at Jak and ran across the church. Jak let her run. “Who she?”

  “Nini, a servant,” Joao gasped. “She lights the lamps at night. When I am here she…” Joao trailed off uncomfortably.

  “Bed warmer,” Jak finished. “You—”

  The clang of the steeple bell rang off the walls deafeningly. Jak gave Father Joao another clip across the kidneys to keep him honest. He turned and pointed the weapon down the church at Nini, who paled and dropped the bell rope. Jak twitched the muzzle of his blaster and Nini very reluctantly approached. Jak gave the priest his attention. “You order that?”

  Father Joao pressed a hand to his back. “You attacked her priest, did you not?”

  The priest had a point, but Jak still wasn’t buying. “Who coming?”

  “Probably most of the population.”

  Jak stuck his head out the door. He squinted into the wind and rain and saw torches by the dozens moving in the little valleys. They were all winding up toward the church like fiery snakes in the darkness. Jak knew he didn’t have much time. He also knew he couldn’t fight the entire island. He would have to talk his way out.

  “Nini.” Jak pointed at the lamps and candles within the church. She looked at Father Joao. He nodded and the girl began lighting up the church.

  The islanders began arriving and several stuck their heads in warily. They looked like hedgehogs in the bushy grass capes and crude straw hats they wore against the rain. They had arrived at the sound of the late-night alarm bearing clubs and stones. Jak motioned them inside. The islanders saw Father Joao and another pale main islander they didn’t recognize. They began filing inside out of the rains in ones and twos. Jak spoke quietly to Joao. “Tell I not like you.”

  Joao sighed resignedly. “Take off your hat.”

  Jak took off his hat. Several islanders gasped. Joao pointed at Jak and spoke a few words. A ripple of fear went through the throng and out the door. Clubs and stones were raised. Jak wasn’t getting the reaction he wanted. They had been friendly with Ryan and Doc. Jak suspected the color of his skin had something to do with it, and Father Joao wasn’t helping matters. The priest gasped as Jak snaked his arm under his chin into a choke and screwed the muzzle of his blaster into his temple. “You said?”

  Father Joao’s voice came out in a hiss. “I told them to look at your white hair and demonic eyes, and know that the change was upon you.”

  Jak pressed the blaster harder against Joao’s head. “Change?”

  “You haven’t yet made the acquaintance of our night-dwelling brethren. There has been an unpleasant strain of mutation on the main island. It manifests itself in young adulthood, and encourages some very aggressive behaviors and habits. You are a bit old, but they do not know that. All they know is that several times one of the nightwalkers managed to make it onto their island and reeked great devastation before they were brought down.”

  Jak kept the muzzle of his blaster screwed to Father Joao’s temple. “Big island’s supposed to be heaven.”

  “It was easy enough to incorporate some devils into the mythology. Heaven must have its hell. It helps them to see us as protectors, and dissuades them from attempting to visit the main isle without sanction. They see you, a young man with red eyes and white hair, threatening their savior.”

  “Tell I not.”

  Father Joao winced at the pressure of the blaster against his head. “They might suspect my change of story was…coerced.”

  The islanders eyed Jak’s blaster fearfully but they slowly kept filing in. Jak wished he had his back against a wall, but he wasn’t about to back up, and if it came to a brawl he wanted room to move. Father Joao got some sneer back in his voice. “Go ahead, start shooting, see how well it serves you.”

  “Shoot you first,” Jak promised.

  “And you will be torn apart. They are a docile people, but they think you are a nightwalker, and must be stopped at any cost. Come now, let me go and we will negotiate your surrender.”

  The congregation was thirty and growing, and Jak could see a forest of torches outside. Jak raised his voice. “Ryan! Doc!” The islanders inside froze. Jak took a chance. “Ago!”

  A big man with a big piece of wood jumped at the sound of his name.

  Joao started to hiss something, but Jak choked it off. Jak kept his eyes on Ago. “Vava, Galina, Feydor.” Ago nodded with each name. “Boo,” Jak said.

  Ago’s jaw dropped.

  Jak shoved Father Joao to the ground and flung off his cloak with a flourish. The assembled islanders gasped at his field jacket, canvas pants and combat boots. He was wearing the clothes of a stranger. Jak thumped his chest with his fist. “Ryan, Doc.” He flexed his limited Mex. “Amigos.”

  The effect was galvanizing.

  “Amigos?” Ago asked.

  Jak nodded. He took a huge chance and uncocked his blaster, spun it like a gunfighter and thrust it through his belt. He stuck out his hand. “Amigos?”

  Jak had to restrain every fighting instinct he had as the big man stepped forward grinning like an idiot and heaved Jak up in the air in a rib-crushing bear hug. “Amigo!”

  Jak allowed himself a small smile as Father Joao muttered imprecations from the floor. The priest was a bargaining chip, but he bore watching.

  MILDRED WANDERED blindly through the womb of the earth. It was cold, hard, wet, inhospitable and as black as ink. Rage fought with terror in her breast as she slammed her head into the ceiling for the tenth time and a sob almost escaped her. Raul had abandoned her. She had awoken alone with a splitting headache and her throat a bruised pipe that had difficulty drawing air. She hated the cream-colored son of a bitch for leaving her alone in the cold, but she feared his return even more. He was probably hoping she would cringe whimpering in the darkness and stay put like a good girl while he went off and hunted Ryan. Part of Mildred hoped Raul found Ryan. If anyone was going to chill Captain Blubberknife, Ryan was the man.

  Mildred clutched her throbbing head. She still had her clothes on and, other than her morale, she was un-violated. That was about the only good news. Her pack was gone, everything had been taken from her and she couldn’t see jack shit. Mildred abandoned dignity and began crawling and crab-walking like a blind, four-legged and very fearful spider over the wet expanses of rock. Her fingers fluttered ahead of her like antennae. The going was interminable. She was pretty sure she had been moving for about half an hour, but—Mildred snarled as her foot slid down through a crack in the rocks and punched through, snapping driftwood that tore at her leg. She shuddered as she reached down and her hand brushed over the smooth dome of a human skull and a sprung rib cage. Claustrophobia began pulling at her. She could feel the cave walls closing in like the cold earth of the grave. She realized she was hyperventilating. Mildred fought the urge to curl up and start sobbing hysterically. The past twenty-four hours had been pretty rough even by Deathlands standards.

  She took a shuddering breath and centered herself.

  The rock she was sitting on was wet and cold. Sh
e ran her hand across it and licked her fingers. Cave water usually had a bitter mineral or acrid alkali tang. Mildred allowed her herself a small congratulatory smile in the dark. She wasn’t a veteran rock-licker but this one definitely tasted like sea salt. Mildred gave the rock a little more love. In her experience caves were some of the sharpest, lumpiest, jagged places on Earth. The rock here was worn smooth. The only thing that was likely to have done that was tidal action. Mildred spider-walked on and nodded to herself as she clicked past panic and into survival mode. She was definitely going downhill.

  Mildred stopped again and took a breather. She was sweating with exertion, but the moment she stopped and wasn’t panicked she could feel the cold draft blowing in her face. She crawled on, grinning savagely as the hoped-for sound of the surf stopped being an ambient hallucination and became clearly audible over the sound of her breathing. Mildred moved forward into the breeze that got stronger and stronger and the pounding surf and the moaning of the wind blocked out all other noise. She knew she’d hit pay dirt when her hand suddenly clawed into wet sand. She was close. Mildred stood cautiously. She rose on tiptoe and stretched up her hand but still couldn’t touch the cave ceiling. Mildred moved sideways until she found the cave wall. It was smooth and rounded and carved by millennia of tides coming in and out. She marched out toward freedom.

  The physician yipped as she stepped into a hole and plunged waist-deep into seawater. “Bastard!” she snarled. She slogged forward through the sizable puddle and a dozen yards farther was on relatively dry sand again. The rainstorm was still in full force outside. Mildred gasped as a lightning stroke flash-framed the entrance to the cave in front of her. It disappeared in the split-second strobe but salvation lay one hundred feet ahead.

  Mildred whirled, her fists blindly cocked at the sound behind her.

  She tried not to breathe. She couldn’t be quite sure what it had been. A splash? A crunch of sand? It didn’t matter. Mildred knew with absolute certainty that there was someone or something behind her. Her heart hammered in her chest as she stood frozen, listening. The wind howled on and the waves crashed in a world just a short distance away from this brutal burial chamber.

  Mildred whirled and ran for it.

  Sand flew beneath Mildred’s feet in the darkness. A lucky second lightning flash showed her the cave mouth again, and she corrected her headlong flight for it. Mildred plunged out into the rain and wind. It was raining and overcast, but it was a definite improvement over the stygian darkness of the caves. Mildred didn’t stop running until the surf splashed around her boots. She turned to face her pursuer. The wind blew her plaits and she was soaked again in moments, but no pale hands reached for her. There was no flensing knife in the dark. The next bolt of lightning revealed a narrow strip of beach and the stark cliffs and the mouth of the cavern she had left. Mildred noted a pile of driftwood in the flash and fumbled up the beach toward it. She selected a slimy hunk of wood by feel and heft.

  Mildred stood shivering and waiting with her bludgeon.

  Nothing happened.

  She looked left and made out the glow of the ville and its harbor lights to the south. Mildred did some math and she shivered as she realized she had just been a guest in the cave of the chiller that Ryan had talked about. Mildred gazed north into the dark. If she followed the beach about four miles, she would hit the rendezvous point, and if Jak had gotten his milk-white ass in gear and stolen a boat, he should already be there patrolling off shore. Failing that, she might try the raft and take a chance on paddling to the island of dumb healthy people who by reputation lived in a land of barbecued goat and warm huts. Mildred leaned into the wind and splashed north along the tidal line. When she was well past the cave she moved inland until her fingers found the cliff face and she hugged rock wall for what little protection from the elements it offered.

  Mildred lost track of time as she trudged miserably. The rain slowly ebbed and died. The moaning wind kept up but at least it tattered the emptied clouds to reveal patches of cold starlight. She marched on, hugging herself and her length of wood. She looked upward and sighed. Since waking up in the Deathlands, she had learned to read the sun but navigating and telling time by the stars were still out of her skill set. She thought maybe the sky was a little more purple than black.

  Mildred stopped and adopted a batter’s stance as she perceived a strange lump in front of her. It was strangely square and—Mildred ran forward. She plunged her hand through the curtain of seaweed and felt spars and wooden barrels. Mildred pumped her fist skyward. “Yes!”

  She had found the raft. She was at the rendezvous point. Score one for Mrs. Wyeth’s child prodigy. Through caverns and storms she had tracked…

  Mildred spun around with her club on high again.

  Her tracks. Mildred’s stomach clenched in dread. She had left a mile of tracks from the cave mouth in the wet sand. Mildred fell to her knees in exhaustion and shame. The party had split up. The enemy knew they were split up and the paper-faced bastards had known in their chilly little hearts there had to be a rendezvous point. Raul had let her escape. Mildred’s cheekbones burned in shame despite the cold. Raul had listened in amusement to her whimpering, crying, worm-blind trek through the caverns he knew by heart and laughed at her triumph at finding the raft. Jak would be bringing the boat at dawn, and they would be waiting. Ryan would be coming island-side and they would be waiting. She had nowhere to go where there would not be a welcoming committee.

  Mrs. Wyeth’s child prodigy had been played like an amateur.

  Mildred screamed in rage into the wind and night. “Fuck you!”

  “In good time, Dr. Wyeth!” Basso profundo amusement boomed off the cliffs from out of sight in the dark. “In good time!”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Cafu, Leto and Luis could hardly contain themselves. If Ryan hadn’t commanded their awe before, the fact that they were driving around in Baron Barat’s wag, beat-up as it was, had cemented his godlike status. Ryan hadn’t quite gotten around to telling them yet that they were headed back to Baron Barat’s manse, and he was frankly worried what that might do to morale, much less the entire revolution. He really didn’t see much other choice. He had a few hours to chill before making his dawn rendezvous with Jak on the beach. Mildred had gone missing on the manse grounds, and Doc was still a prisoner inside. Doubling back was just about the only plan that made any sense. Ryan was betting the baron and his son were out in the night hunting him, and only a skeleton crew would be guarding the grounds.

  Cafu suddenly got wise. His hands slammed on the dash and he stared at Ryan in shock. He started babbling in rapid-fire Portuguese, and Leto and Luis went all excitable, as well. Ryan rolled his eye. Cafu started gesticulating wildly. Ryan grabbed him by the hair and yanked the wheel savagely. “Down!”

  Twin blasts of lead ripped across the roof. Another tore at the fender as someone got smart and went for the tires. Ryan floored it and dark figures flung themselves out of the feeble headlight’s glare and out of the way. They swung around a curve and left the hunters shouting and blowing whistles behind them. Cafu rose and looked at Ryan sheepishly. They drove for a few more miles in silence. Twice they heard nightwalker hunting screams in the distance and the island men clutched their weapons tightly. Ryan cut his headlight as he caught the glow of the manse up on the hill. He stopped a few hundred yards from the gate where the woods and curve of the hill concealed them. Ryan chinked open his lighter. It was a risk but he had no common language with these men and he had to get the strategy into their heads. The three island men sighed at the wonder of the light in Ryan’s hand. He handed it to Cafu and started talking and making pantomime with his hands. “You’re going up the hill. Luis? You tell them you’ve seen me, comprende? You, tell them, you’ve seen me. Ryan.”

  Luis watched Ryan point at the hill, point at his eyes and then himself. He nodded slowly. He pointed at Ryan, Leto and Cafu as he replied and made a circling gesture with his hand.

  “Tha
t’s right.” Ryan nodded. “You tell them you’ve seen me. Then me, Cafu and Leto—” Ryan punched his fist into his palm “—we sneak up on them from the side. Bom?”

  The men nodded. “Bom.”

  Ryan took back his lighter and stepped out into the rain. They slogged up the hill, staying by the side of the road. Another scream tore out of the darkness, but it was far away. They stopped as they neared the edge of the grounds. Two men with auto-blasters stood sentinel in front of the shattered gate. Ryan put a hand on Luis’s shoulder. “Bom.”

  Luis handed his club to Leto and ran out into the road. His sandals slapped on the wet cobbles, and he began waving his arms and calling out. The sec men snapped up the muzzles of their blasters. Luis raised his hands and did a good job of cringing fearfully. He bowed and scraped and would not meet the sec men’s eyes. One rammed the muzzle of his blaster into Luis’s gut and dropped him gasping to his knees for his trouble. Ryan had Cafu and Leto shuck off their sandals, then they broke from the trees. They were out in the open but circling wide in the darkness. The wind and rain covered their approach. The wet grass beneath their feet made no noise as they charged forward in a hobble. Luis had the sec men’s full attention. He yelped and flinched as the sec men gave him a few kicks to help the questioning along.

  The sec men never saw what hit them.

  Ryan rammed his sword through the kidney of one. The man went as stiff as a board and dropped his blaster. Ryan tore his blade free and chopped it into the side of the sec man’s neck. Cafu’s war club nearly took the other sec man’s head off his shoulders. They dragged the dead sec men back into the darkness beneath the trees and Ryan went over their find. The two auto-blasters were rebuilt from a make he wasn’t familiar with but they were heavy, .30-caliber, and each sec man had a spare mag. Both carried a short double-blaster in their belt and had another of the short stabbing swords on a baldric. Beneath their coats the sec men bore leather purses holding powder, lead shot and rock salt. One man had a set of heavy iron keys. Ryan held out a sword to Cafu. The old man hefted his tooth-studded club and shook his head. The old man had been swinging axes, mattocks and mauls all his life. He was old but as strong and gnarled as an oak. The gunstock club with its pointed ivory pegs was right up his alley. Leto and Luis both took a sword eagerly and Ryan handed out the doubles to Cafu and Luis.