by James Axler
"Earth Mother, help me," she prayed. "Show me what we have to do. Should we go to the ville and attack it? Or is this the parting of the ways? Tell me, Earth Mother, I beg you."
The curtain at her side twitched back, and the Armorer stood there, fully dressed, even to the jaunty fedora. The wire-rimmed glasses glittered in the poor light, hiding J.B.'s eyes.
"Heard you, Krysty," he said quietly. The blaster in his hand slid noiselessly back into its holster. "You got something on Ryan?"
"Yeah. Bad. He's in pain. Can't tell more than that, J.B., but it's gone wrong."
He nodded. "Looks like Jak could have gotten trouble. Wasn't a good plan, but it was the damned best one we had."
"What do we do now?"
"We go talk to Cuchillo Oro."
JAK WAS SLEEPING in his neat room, only a few steps along the passage from the quarters of Cort Strasser. He'd finally managed to drift off, after a light meal of soup and fresh corn bread. The boy's brain had been racing, running over what he'd seen and heard during the day at Fort Security.
From what the orderly had told him, he now knew that Ryan was in the deepest shit, that he'd killed a sec man in a fight and the General was already torturing him.
The place was run tighter than a rat's ass. If he got to Ryan, he had to spring him from the sec cell, then get the main gates opened and buy enough of a start for a mounted patrol to lose them out in the desert. That was all.
A knife slash of golden light appeared on the far wall of the boy's room, sufficient to bring him fully awake. The strip widened, then disappeared as a man's shadow blocked it out. Jak kept still, all his senses alert. It was the smell that told him who it was, before his eyes picked out the long shape, black in the blackness. The scent was dried sweat, laced with fear and madness.
"You 'wake, boy?"
"Yeah. Yeah, General."
"Get yourself up and dressed. Full uniform, trooper. Quick as you can."
"What is it, General?"
The laugh chilled the fourteen-year-old. It was like a creaking gate in a midnight cemetery.
"You and I will… We'll do some things. That's what we'll do. We'll both do some things. Get dressed!"
RYAN HAD COME AROUND, his body sore all over, a dull ache pincering his groin. But he knew that what Strasser had done to him thus far was only a childish, spiteful beginning. Nothing had been done that wouldn't stop hurting in a few hours. Apart from some superficial bruising, it would be completely over in a day.
He also knew that Strasser would come back. And keep coming back until time and light and dark and day and night all ceased to have any relevance to him. Ideally, Ryan wanted one single chance at the sec boss. A moment to tear the grinning mask of flesh off the long, warped skull. If he died with Strasser that wouldn't be so bad.
With that thought, Ryan suddenly realized that he understood the Apache concept of there being a good day for a man to die.
Outside in the passage, he heard the sounds of boot heels, someone muttering orders and a guard marching briskly away.
The door opened once more. Opened for the last time.
EARLIER, JAK HAD BEEN DISGUSTED by some pix that Strasser had shown him. He had sat next to the boy on the bed, one hand on his thigh, describing what each picture showed, who the prisoner had been, whether it had been male or female. Often, the torture had reached such an advanced stage that it wasn't possible to tell, particularly when the area between the legs was simply a mess of clotted blood.
The gloating delight in suffering recalled only too vividly for the boy the way that his own father had died at the hands of the monstrous Baron Tourment, among the swampies.
One of the instant pix had stuck in the boy's memory. Strasser had told him that it was a young boy from the Mescalero rancheria, who'd strayed too far on a hunting trip and had been picked up by a roving cavalry patrol.
The General had tightened his grip on Jak's leg, inching it higher, as he'd panted out the disgusting details of the torture of the little Apache boy.
There had been a close-up of the victim's right hand, pinioned with a broad leather strap. Strasser had been particularly proud to point out where the whiteness of bone showed through in several places, boasting of his own skill in whittling away the flesh and sinew. It had taken all of Jak's self-control to avoid trying to kill the sec boss.
The General had ushered Jak along the corridor from his room, past his own quarters, to where a trooper stood guard outside the pair of cells. One had its door, with a sophisticated lock, standing partly open, the keys in place. The other door was firmly locked. Strasser ordered the sec man off duty, telling him there would be no need to return until he received further orders. The man saluted smartly and marched off.
Jak felt Strasser's hand caress him briefly through the tight material stretched over his buttocks. "Now we won't need to worry at all 'bout our being interrupted, Trooper Lauren. We got us all of the night to do… whatever we want."
The key turned in the lock and the door began to open.
THE ABSURDLY TALL SHAMAN, Man Whose Eyes See More, sat across the freshly built fire from the Anglos. He wore a vest of flowered brocade, the scarlet cravat a brilliant splash of color at his throat. The mirrored glasses reflected the leaping flames from the dried branches. Cuchillo sat next to him, his daughter at his shoulder, and a half dozen of his older warriors ranged alongside him.
"You share the power of seeing, Fire Hair Woman," the shaman said. "I have read the signs. I loosed a snake and it tried only to destroy itself in my fire. One Eye Chills is in great danger. And Eyes of Wolf has not been able to aid him."
Many Winters croaked something in the guttural Apache tongue, which Cuchillo translated for the others. "He says that your friends have chosen their own path of knowledge and they must now hunt it alone. He says to try and help them is to destroy us all."
Doc opened his mouth, but J.B. held up a hand. "He's right, Doc. No way we can take out the fort. Best we can do is mebbe ride out after dawn. Take a look at things. If they're gone, then they're gone." He turned to Krysty. "Sorry, but that's the way it has to be. Throw more corpses on Ryan's body if you try anything else."
She nodded slowly, knowing that the Armorer spoke the truth. But that knowledge didn't stop the tears from gathering. "Then we'd best get ready for dawn," was all she said.
CORT STRASSER TURNED to the boy, the skin across the high cheekbones seeming so stretched that it might tear like calico. "You and me, Trooper Lauren, are going to finish it this night. I've decided that Ryan Cawdor's race is run." He pushed open the door of the cell.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
THE CANYON WAS FLOODED with the opalescent glow of early dawn. The cliffs that rose sheer above the still pool of water were daubed with bright splashes of red and orange, reflected in the mirrored surface below.
The women, having been roused in the darkness, prepared food, while the young boys got horses ready for everyone in the recce party. The warriors who would have gone out to relieve the night's watchers joined Cuchillo Oro, some of the elders of the tribe and the Anglos.
There was an atmosphere of nervous tension in the rancheria. Everyone knew that things had rushed to a sudden moment of urgency. The fire-haired woman and their own shaman both felt that something crucial was happening.
Everyone checked his blaster, holstering it against the perpetual sand. Krysty was rubbing grease into her silvered Heckler & Koch P7A-13 when a shadow fell across her. She looked up and saw the tall figure of the war chief.
"Cuchillo?"
"I want to speak silently with you, Fire Hair Woman. I mean, Krysty."
"Silently?"
"So nobody hears us."
"You mean privately, don't you? Yeah, go ahead. Nobody can hear."
"You will not tell anyone?"
Not apart from any of the group, she thought. "No, course not. This is 'tween you and me, Cuchillo Oro."
He knelt at her side, glancing around
to make sure none of his people was within earshot of them. "If all is lost, you will go from here?"
"Yes. Nothing to keep me."
Cuchillo nodded. "I understand that. Man Whose Eyes See More thinks that Ryan and Jak are both in great danger. Perhaps already in the land of spirits."
"I know that. That's what we aim to try and find out."
"My daughter will weep if Eyes of Wolf does not return to us. It is the way of women of the people to cut off a finger if their warrior does not return. My daughter does not hold to the old ways. But her heart will weep tears of ice."
Krysty put her blaster away, standing up, the heels of her boots giving her enough height to match the Mescalero. "Where's this getting us, Cuchillo Oro? Speak plain."
"Ryan said that if…if he did not come back…then when you went you might take me with you. And Steps Lightly Moon, as well."
"Ah," the girl said, "I see."
"What is the answer?" the chief asked, unable to conceal his concern.
"Why not stay here?"
"With my people?"
"Yeah."
"Because I have talked with Ryan about where you have been. And what you see. I am a great warrior. In any fight I would help you, and there would be much honor for me."
Krysty looked at the Apache, trying to get the feel of the man, seeing pride and anger and a deal of raw courage. She wondered if that mix would be the right one for him to join her and the others in their journeys.
"You do not reply?" he said.
"I don't have the answer, Cuchillo. I'm not saying it's impossible, but we're a team. Ryan's the leader. Got to be his word."
"But he is dead and…!" There was a flaring of rage behind the bronze face and the dark eyes, swiftly controlled and driven back beneath the ground. "I should not have spoken with those words. We will talk of this later."
"Sure."
RYAN STOOD AND WATCHED as the door of the torture cell began to swing open.
Jak peered around the stooped figure of Cort Strasser, seeing Ryan, barely able to stand upright with the tight chains, his body marked with dozens of small bruises.
"Now." Strasser leered.
Jak didn't hesitate, didn't stop to think through the possible consequences of his action. He simply stiffened the fingers of his right hand and drove a savage, punching blow into the General's back to the right of the spine, over the kidneys. Strasser gasped, staggering against the frame of the door. To Jak's amazement and horror, the sec boss didn't go down, despite having absorbed an attack that would have taken most men out of the action.
"So…" Strasser grated, fingers tightening into claws as he fought to draw breath.
"Again, Jak," Ryan called, knowing the phenomenal strength and power of Strasser, knowing that the dice had been thrown and there was no going back for either of them.
The boy didn't need the advice.
He tried for the knee to the groin, but Strasser was too tall and too fast, blocking it with a turn of the thigh. The General reached out for Jak's throat, but the boy was quicker. He snatched the little finger on the right hand and jerked it back with a dry snap.
"Fucking bastard!" The sec boss grunted, pulling away in a pained reflex action.
Although the absurdly tight breeches hampered him, Jak stamped down hard on Strasser's right foot, feeling the jolt as the heel smashed home. The tall man staggered again, trying to back away from the ferocity of the albino's attack. But Jak was after him, long white hair whirling about his face.
Years of practice had hardened Jak's fingers and hands, and he chopped at the General's left thigh, deadening it, slowing Strasser down.
It was time to put him down. Jak bent the first two fingers of his right hand at the lower joint, bracing them against his palm. He struck upward with a crippling blow that landed under Strasser's ribs, driving deep into the solar plexus. Against a weaker opponent it would, quite literally, have been the killer punch. Even with someone like the General it paralyzed his breathing, sending him to his knees. Jak slapped him hard against the side of the face, which knocked the man to the dirt floor.
As a precaution he kicked him twice, the toe of the polished cavalry boot thudding home at the side of the angular head.
"You got him?" Ryan asked anxiously. He could hear the sounds of the fight, but couldn't see out into the corridor.
"Course. Wait."
Jak took Strasser by his feet and pulled him roughly into the other cell, leaving him in a tumbled heap on the earth. In the poor light it was difficult to see whether the sec boss was still breathing. Jak didn't care much either way.
He slammed the heavy sec door, turning the keys in the lock. On an afterthought the boy opened the ob-slit and threw the keys inside, knowing that a door like that could only be opened from the outside. It would slow things down a little.
Time now was life or death. One of the sec men might come through at any moment, and once the alarm was raised, living was going to be measured in a few beats of the heart.
Jak sprinted through into the cell where Ryan was chained, grabbed the keys off the wall and unlocked the manacles.
Ryan showed an uncharacteristic sign of weakness, falling for a moment to his knees. He rubbed at his wrists before straightening, patting the boy on the shoulder. "Fireblast! Good to see you. Have you chilled the evil fucker?"
"Don't think so."
Ryan took a handful of blood-crusted rags off the table and tried to wipe himself clean. "No? Where'd you put him? I'll send him to buy the farm right here and now. Give me more pleasure than… What's wrong, Jak?"
The boy slapped himself on the forehead. "Triple-stupe!"
"Why?"
"Locked him in cell next along."
"Then give me the key and—"
"Strasser's out cold. So pushed keys into cell. Make it hard get him out."
"Oh, for…!" Ryan whistled through his teeth. "Okay, it's done. But I'd have given a year off of my life to see that streak of dirt dead in my hands."
"Sorry, Ryan."
"Don't apologize, kid. It's a sign of weakness. You did good. Saved my skin. Now all we have to do is get out of here." For the first time he noticed what the albino boy was wearing. "Anyone ever tell you those pants are too tight, kid?"
"Yeah, Ryan. And don't call me kid."
It only took a few minutes for Jak and Ryan to find their own clothes. The albino took a pair of the Navy Colts, making sure they were fully loaded. Ryan recovered his own SIG-Sauer P-226 from a shelf in Strasser's office. Ryan noticed the sec boss had hung a Russian sniper's rifle on the wall, like one that he'd once seen up in the icy lands that had been called Alaska. It was a Samozaridnyia Vintovka Dragunova with a PSO-1 telescopic sight.
"Can I take blaster?" Jak asked, seeing the long gun.
"Slow us down. We hit 'em close, or we don't hit 'em at all. Let's get out of here before someone comes along."
Jak led the way out of the side door to the main block, and walked straight into a patrolling sentry, knocking the sec man off balance.
"What the…? You're the kid come in yesterday. One the General… Hey!"
He held the Springfield carbine in his right fist and grabbed at Jak's camouflage jacket, pulling his hand back with a yelp of dismay. He stared unbelievingly at the streams of blood, black in the moonlight, seeping from the deep cuts in his fingers. The fragments of razor steel in the boy's coat had done their job.
Before the man could get over the initial shock, Jak had drawn one of his slim-bladed throwing knives. Gripping it by the tapered, weighted hilt, he thrust it as hard as he could into the angle between throat and jaw. He felt the trooper's stubble on the back of his hand as the knife penetrated deeply.
There was very little blood.
"Catch blaster," Jak hissed, holding the slumped figure of the dying sentry.
Ryan snatched the Springfield as it dropped toward the planking of the narrow porch, offering it to Jak.
"Which way?" the
boy asked, lowering the corpse gently.
"Main gate there's got two guards. Could try and take them out. There's another door out back, under the mesa, near the Cavalry Museum. Either we get a good start, or we blow the whole ville here. Can't do that. Could kill all the horses."
Jak shook his head, hair dancing like a mane of fiber optics. "Make too much noise."
"There's a dune wag. Saw it near the smith's forge."
"Let's go."
Chapter Thirty
IT WAS VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE for any potential enemy to attack Fort Security from the rear, unless they came up over the mesa. But there was a narrow trail that wound out between the main doors of the museum and the back wall of the fortress. Apart from the sentry whom Jak had taken out, Ryan could only see the two patrolling troopers on either side of the front gates. Jak's eyesight in the brightness of noon was poor, but in the gloom he could see excellently.
"No others," he whispered. "Wag's there. By forge. Cover me."
Ryan followed him across, running light-footed over the sand, only the faintest sound breaking the stillness of the night. The wag was in a poor state of repair, with the faint stencil, USCM, barely visible on its battered flank. The fat tires were worn smooth and some of the gleaming solar panels had disappeared. Ryan had driven similar vehicles and knew that the nearer they'd been built to the year 2000, the better they were likely to be. Up till then the use of solar power had been limited and inefficient. The range on this dune wag was unlikely to be better than thirty miles without some sort of recharging.
The rear entrance was only secured by a pair of large bolts and Jak eased them both down, pushing the gates apart on greased hinges.
Ryan glanced at the instrument panel of the wag, checking that he knew what he was going to do before he risked starting it up. It was the usual button ignition with tiller steering and independent four-wheel drive and braking. Six forward gears and one reverse. He beckoned to the boy to climb aboard, motioning him into the wide back seat.
"If anyone sees us, start shooting. If you don't hit any of 'em, it'll keep their heads down. Slow 'em down from coming after us."
