by James Axler
“Mister, I could eat the ass off a swampie if it held still long enough,” a tiny wrinkled woman said, her flowing hair silvery-white with age.
Snorting in amusement, Jak tossed her the knife. She made the catch and started for the animal.
“Before that, which one of you is the skinny guy that kicked the slaver off the wag?” Ryan asked, looking over the assemblage.
“That was me,” a burly man stated, stepping out of the crowd.
Only a split second behind the man was a skinny woman, her breasts flaps of loose flesh on her bony chest.
“Nuking liar, I did it!” she shot back defiantly. “Me!”
“Shut up, bitch,” he growled, raising a clenched fist.
Moving fast, Krysty pressed the muzzle of her longblaster against the side of his throat. Instantly, he froze in position.
“Best to let her speak,” Krysty stated, thumbing back the hammer with a loud click.
Casting a glance at the muscular legs of the naked man, Ryan then looked at the skeletal woman and rammed the wooden stock of his longblaster into the stomach of the man. Air exploded from him in a wheezing gasp, and he collapsed to the grass softly moaning.
“He eats last for lying,” Ryan stated, resting the stock of the weapon on a hip. “But you get a blaster, water and food from the stores of the slavers, plus a pair of boots for helping. But we keep any of the live horses. Savvy?”
Her eyes wide in astonishment, the woman nodded her understanding, her pale tongue licking her chapped lips.
After a moment, Ryan jerked a thumb. “Take whatever you want, then start walking.”
Hesitantly, she started forward, then scurried to claim her prizes from the dead and took off for the trees with amazing speed.
“Anybody that goes after her will get an arrow in the back,” Ryan declared, staring hard at the assembled people.
They nodded, looking at the fleeing woman with a mixture of avarice and raw envy.
Minutes passed before the running woman reached the trees and vanished into the thick foliage.
“Okay, everybody else go eat,” Ryan directed with a curt wave.
Drooling with hunger, the starving people descended upon the dead animals, clawing at the hide and ripping off chunks of raw meat with their bare hands, stuffing the gobbets into their faces like wild animals.
Staying in a group, the companions headed for the second wag. Ryan took the lead, with Jak in the rear. The teenager’s longblaster was primed and cradled in his arms in case of trouble. Unchained slaves were always grateful to the folks who freed them for a while, but often a few of them would turn on the very people who set them loose. Mildred had once said it was a form of transference. The former slaves felt guilty about not setting themselves free, and so they wanted to chill the folks who had as a kind of punishment. Of course, who they were punishing for what, Jak had no idea, and so simply chalked up the betrayal to stupidity and greed, the primary motivations in most human events.
Glancing skyward, J.B. shielded his face from the sun and frowned. “Damn, I miss my hat,” he said. “I can replace the Uzi and explosives, but I’ll never find another hat as fine as that.” The man chuckled to show it was a joke, and everybody joined in, even though none of them believed the feeble lie. They understood how the loss of the glasses and the backup pair affected the man, and each of them swore to do whatever was necessary to help their friend.
Privately, the man burned with frustration over the loss of his sight. A chain was only as strong as the weakest link. Without the glasses, J.B. considered himself a liability to the group, reduced from a bull to an ox, and seriously thought about leaving them during the night. He wouldn’t last long without them, but they would have a much better chance at survival without his deadweight slowing them down.
“Don’t worry, old friend, we’ll get our stuff back,” Ryan said in a calm voice that sounded as if it came from beyond the grave. “We’ll get every bastard thing back.” Reaching up, he stroked the puckered flesh around the exposed hole of where his left eye had once been located. Jacking his blaster and boots only made sense, but stealing the eyepatch made the matter personal, a private debt to be paid in blood.
“And when we do, my friend, we shall deal most harshly with the fools who sold us to the slavers and send them into hell!” Doc growled, his face twisted into a furious mask.
It was an unusual speech for the normally peaceful man, but the other companions fully understood. They had lost items before, but had always managed to get them back within a couple of hours. However, this time was different. Their possessions hadn’t fallen off a cliff or been washed away in a flood, but jacked, taken from them while unconscious. Each of them felt violated and angry at themselves for falling into such an obvious trap.
Walking along, Mildred was lost in thought. The journal contained all of the secrets of the Deathlands—her story of being frozen in a cryogenic tube, how to fight a droid, villes to avoid, friendly barons. But most importantly, it told about the redoubts and the code to get inside, past the nukeproof doors! There was some small solace that she had written vital information in code, purely as a safety precaution. But it wasn’t that tough of a code to break, and in the right hands, the secret of the redoubts could become common knowledge, and the companions would lose their greatest asset. Why in hell had she ever started the journal anyway? Once, it had seemed like a good idea, her legacy for the future to help others rebuild civilization. Now, it seemed like the most stupid idea in the history of the world, short of the invention of the nuclear bomb.
“Don’t worry, Millie, we’ll get your med bag back,” J.B. said, misinterpreting her worried expression. The man patted her arm and grinned. “I’ll bet that I’m just as nuking hot over them taking my fedora as you are about those medical supplies.”
“Of course we will, John.” She smiled back, her stomach a knot of fear.
Reaching the second wag, the companions checked over the team of horses first and were delighted to find the animals in good condition. Checking over the horses, Ryan found several with scarring along the outside of their mouths, showing that they had once been saddled and reined.
“If we recover the tack from the horses of those outriders we aced, we’re back in business,” Krysty said, patting the muscular neck of a chestnut gelding. The horse nickered in reply to the gentle touch and nuzzled her cheek with its hot, wet nose.
“Indeed, dear lady, if only we knew which direction to take,” Doc rumbled, looking over the sylvan landscape to the forest on the horizon.
“Just follow trail of wags,” Jak stated confidently, pointing at the ruts in the grass from the wooden wheels. “Somewhere along way, find where slavers meet other, then track them, and get stuff back.”
“Doc and Jak, get those saddles,” Ryan directed. “Krysty, search for our boots, Mildred stand guard, J.B. with me.”
Leaving the others to their work, Ryan and J.B. walked over to the wooden cage in the back of the wag to scowl at the huddled people inside. Most of them had bloody noses, and one fellow was lying on the dirty straw knocked unconscious. Silently, the naked prisoners dully watched the armed men with a mixture of hope and fear.
“We’re going to set you all free,” Ryan announced coldly, looking them over. “But first, does anybody know who sold us to the slavers or where it happened?”
“Big Joe did the deal,” an old man stated, grabbing the bars with both hands. “Don’t know where he captured ya. Probably that damn waterfall.” His eyes got dreamy. “After all that salt to see cool, blue water…”
“Where does Big Joe make camp?” Ryan said in a controlled voice. “What ville?”
But the old man merely shrugged in reply.
Resting the stock of his weapon on a hip, Ryan snorted in annoyance. At least they now had a name. That wasn’t much, just barely a start. They would just have to go back to the waterfall and try to follow the tracks of Big Joe to pay him a surprise visit in the middle of the night.<
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“They find a lot of folks at the waterfall?” J.B. asked, lifting the iron key from the grass.
Most of the prisoners couldn’t take their eyes off the object in his hand. Only the old man looked at him directly. “I hear the masters get folks there once or twice a moon. Stop by there regular.”
Now, Ryan and J.B. exchanged glances. That raised some interesting possibilities. Find the waterfall, and eventually they would find the thieves.
“Set them loose,” Ryan growled, cocking back the hammer of the flintlock.
Getting some rope from the front of the wag, J.B. knotted the length every couple of feet, then tied it firmly to the rear axle. Climbing on top of the cage, he undid the lock and flipped the hatch aside. “Come on out,” J.B. commanded, throwing down the coil.
Grinning fiendishly, a skinny man knocked aside some of the other prisoners to grab the rope and scamper quickly to the top only to find J.B. still standing there, the pepperbox pointing directly at his face. “The old man goes first,” he said in a dangerous tone.
Glowering, the man went back down the rope, and the old man slowly climbed to the roof, then down to the ground.
“Here’s a knife and a bag of water,” Ryan said, tossing the objects onto the ground. “Take anything else you want from the corpses, and help yourselves to the meat.” He indicated the horses.
Nodding in understanding, the old man stumbled to a fat body to remove the shirt, shoes and a flintlock handblaster. The weight almost brought down his oversize pants, so the man tightened the rope belt, then headed directly for the other man who was tearing into the meaty flank of a palomino horse.
“Okay, you’re next,” J.B. ordered, pointing at a girl.
Sulking in the corner, the skinny man watched hatefully as the child did as commanded to join the wrinklie outside. In ragged order, the rest of the prisoners shuffled forward to take their turn, several of them obviously too weak to ever have made it without the addition of the knots.
Soon there was only the skinny man remaining, and a short woman with wild gray hair. Rocking back and forth on her heels, she crouched in the dirty hay, endlessly shaking her head.
“Come on, it’s an easy climb,” J.B. said, jiggling the rope.
“No,” she muttered, looking away. “This is forbidden. We cannot leave without the permission of our masters.”
“They’re aced,” Ryan said through the bars. “You’re free.”
“We must wait for the masters!” she screamed insanely, and then began to weep.
“The bastards broke her,” J.B. muttered softly, tightening his grip on the pepperbox. Then he sighed, and looked at the skinny man standing in the corner. “Okay, your turn.”
Rushing forward, he climbed the rope and crawled out the top to climb down to the ground. He jumped the last few feet and landed in the grass, with a wide grin. Then he turned and sprinted away, moving with surprising speed.
“What about her?” J.B. asked, shouldering the blaster.
“Forget her, and leave the hatch open,” Ryan said gruffly. “Mebbe she’ll come out when hungry enough. If not, it’s as good a place to buy the farm as any.”
Turning away to rejoin the companions, Ryan and J.B. paused as a short man with greasy hair warily approached.
“Excuse me, Baron?” a young man asked, bowing his head respectfully. “May I speak?”
“The name’s Ryan,” the Deathlands warrior muttered. “Say whatever you want.”
“If you want a blaster,” J.B. added, “then you better hurry and go get one. There’s plenty about, but they’re going fast.”
“Oh, no, sir, I have no use for a weapon.” The man smiled, displaying stained teeth. “But I was just wondering—” he lowered his voice to a whisper “—I was just wondering why you’re letting everybody leave. I know a baron to the north who’ll pay a lot of good brass for these animals, even in as poor a condition as they are, and—”
In a snarl, Ryan swung up his longblaster, but with the pepperbox already in his arms, J.B. fired first. The body went airborne for several yards and smacked into the wag with a juicy crunch. Sliding down the bars, the tattered corpse left behind a slimy contrail of life fluids until dropping limply into the grass.
“Anybody else think that is a good idea?” Ryan snarled, sweeping the crowd of people with his flintlock. But from their startled expressions, it was clear to the man that nobody here would ever make such a suggestion again.
In a clatter of hooves, Krysty and the other companions rode over to the men and reined their new mounts to a stop.
“Ready to go,” the redhead said, tousling the mane of her mare. “We took everything useful.” She smiled. “But never more than half.”
“Fair enough,” Ryan grunted, and climbed into the saddle on a black stallion.
“Wait! Leave us horses, too!” a man cried out, a half-eaten piece of smoked fish in his hand. He was wearing the pants of a slaver, the rope belt tied around his upper chest.
“Sorry, not enough to go around,” Ryan replied gruffly, sliding his flintlock into a worn leather gun boot. It fit perfectly, snug and secure.
“But we’re in the middle of nowhere!” a woman wailed with tears in her eyes.
“Fireblast! We aced the slavers and set you free, then shared the jack and even left you some weapons,” Ryan stated scornfully, adjusting the reins. “What else do you want us to do, wipe your ass?” In spite of his demeanor, the man felt sorry for the former slaves. They didn’t have a chance in hell of reaching a ville alive. But this was a life-or-death situation, and before anything else, Ryan took care of his friends. These others would have to survive on their own.
Several of the former prisoners seemed to have something more to say on the matter, but the ready blasters of the companions kept them at bay until they rode off to a safe distance.
Starting the horses at an easy pace, Ryan led the companions around in a large circle until finding the original path of the three wags across the grasslands. Thankfully, the cages were very heavy, and the wooden wheels had pressed hard tracks into the grass and soft black loam.
Slowing in their scavenging of the contents of the wags, the half-dressed former prisoners watched the companions
“Stay alert for any glass ribbons,” J.B. warned, his piebald gelding trotting along close to Mildred’s roan mare. “Without our rad counters, it’ll be mighty easy for us to ride into a rad pit, and then we’re all wearing grass for a hat.”
“Bad way buy farm,” Jak drawled. The albino was holding the reins of a chestnut stallion with his good hand. His wide leather belt was stuffed with an assortment of knives, every one of them needing a proper sharpening.
“There is no good way, my young friend,” Doc rumbled with a scowl, moving to the easy motions of his gelding. In spite of his bandaged chest, the old man rode a horse as if he had been born in a saddle. It hadn’t always been so.
“How about…in bed, having sex, while watching your worst enemy have a heart attack and fall out the window?” Krysty asked, her animated hair flexing and moving around the woman like living flame.
“Into a rad pit, full of stickies,” a squinting J.B. added, forcing a weary grin.
“Cannies,” Jak corrected.
“With a tapeworm,” Mildred finished with a flourish.
“Nice touch, madam,” Doc said, managing a soft chuckle. “Well-done!”
Although bone-tired, Ryan almost smiled at that him self. Humor was sometimes the only thing that kept you going when times were tough. That, and raw hatred. Kicking his stallion into a full gallop, the one-eyed man started briskly along the dirt tracks toward the grassy horizon. He had no real idea where they were at the moment, or where they were going, but he knew their ultimate goal—find Big Joe, and that was more than enough for the moment.
Still inside the cage of the second wag, the old woman painfully climbed up the rope to the ceiling, only to close the hatch. Then she went back to her dirty pile of hay to wait for t
he return of the slavers or death. Whichever came first.
Chapter Six
With a low groan of tortured metal, the jet fighter began to sway on the top of the museum. Leaves sprinkled off the wings, and several bird’s nests tumbled off the cowling.
Down on the ground, several of the coldhearts who liked to call themselves bonemen walked away from the front door of the predark museum and curiously glanced up, their expressions quickly changing into looks of horror.
“Nuking hell, it’s…trying to take off!” a boneman gasped, touching his heart, lips and forehead in an ancient sign of protection from evil. “The skykiller is coming to life on its own!”
“Moron! It’s breaking loose!” another boneman snarled, and ran inside the building to yank a cord. Instantly, a bell began to ring. “Everybody to the roof!” he bellowed into a speaking tube, the words echoing throughout the four-story building. “Bring ropes and nails! Everybody to the roof! The nuking plane is breaking free!”
Instantly, there came a snapping noise, almost sounding like distant blasterfire, and the jet fighter slid off the roof, sending out a flurry of sparks and loose debris as it scraped along the casement and plummeted straight down.
The bonemen at the front door had only enough time to scream before the multimillion-dollar aircraft slammed onto the pavement between them. The nose crumpled into a wad, and the cowling popped free, then the wings buckled, swatting both of the men into bloody pulp. Incredibly, the plane thunderously detonated, sending out a roiling fireball of flame and smoke, hot shrapnel zinging off the brickwork of the Boneyard and exploding in through the open front door like a shotgun blast. Four bonemen were torn to pieces, their bloody remains splattering against the marble stairwell of the predark museum.
“We’re under attack!” a boneman screamed, firing a blaster blindly into the jungle around the building.
“Fire!” another man yelled from inside the smoky building. “The Boneyard is on fire!”
