by James Axler
IT TOOK THE COMPANIONS some time to gather together items that they could use to defend themselves and secure the barn as a fortress. They were hampered by the fact that too much activity in the vicinity of the tallow lamps caused them to flicker dangerously close to extinction. Taking them to the rear and farthest sides of the barn, using them to illuminate the darkest corners, meant that any work had to be done slowly and carefully, close to the lamps but without knocking the flame so that it went out.
Even though the barn was cold, the temperature kept low by the thickness of the reinforced walls, they sweated as they tried to work loose the old blades that were stuck into the wooden stanchions and wallboards. They were deeply embedded, but Ryan and Mildred, who had set to this task, found that once they had managed to pry one loose, they could use the point to gouge the wood around the next, in order to hasten its exit.
While they did that, Doc and Krysty rummaged among the detritus on the floor of the barn, searching for any old bowls or receptacles they could use to gather the tar and ashes that were gathered in circles around the floor. Using the flame from the tallow lamps on a small sample of the material as they scraped it into the bowls, they could see that it was highly inflammable, burning and hissing brightly with a blue-tinged flame, sending up a cloud of noxious smoke. They extinguished it quickly, in case it start to smoke the barn out and defeat its own purpose.
Jak spent his time moving around the barn in the darkness. He was less reliant than the others on the light of the tallow lamps, as his albino eyes adjusted far better to the shadows. He moved swiftly and with a great sense of purpose. In essence, his task was simple: where Mildred and Ryan were taking time to remove blades from the walls, Jak was picking at the many nails that extruded from the wood. He gathered a selection of them that he carried into the center of the barn. He then took the branding irons that they had found and used the nails to scratch the dried crust of blood, soot and melted flesh from the ends of the irons. The nails were bent and rusty, but the ends were still sharp; with diligence and patience he worked at both the nails and the branding irons, using each to hone the point of the other until they had a degree of sharpness to them. They couldn’t replace the knives taken from him before they had been imprisoned, but they would suffice as a deadly enough weapon if used at close range.
They worked as fast as they could under the circumstances. They didn’t know how long they had. Would there be an attack from the sec force of Duma? If so, when would it be? And if not, how long before the Nagasaki people, led by an enraged Buckley, came to bring them to trial and take their revenge?
Finally, they were ready. The bowls were placed on the floor on either side of the door, with fuses made from lengths of hemp rope found around the floors and tied to stanchions. Each companion had a blade or a sharpened branding iron, with clusters of nails hidden about their person.
Now all that remained was to wait.
Half an hour passed before they heard the wooden slatted bridge being hefted into place across the moat and the bar removed from the outer side of the doors.
Ryan looked across at his people and nodded: time to be triple red, triple frosty. He was behind a stanchion on the left of the doors, with Doc just to his rear, hidden behind a hastily constructed bale of hay. Across the empty center of the barn, Krysty and Mildred were also using stanchions and hay to shelter. Doc and Mildred each had one end of a fuse and a tallow lamp with which to light it when cued. Ryan glanced up. Somewhere above them, hidden in the shadows, Jak was perched on a crosspiece where the stanchion supported the barn ceiling. He had clambered up and was waiting to jump from above on the enemy beneath.
The doors began to open, a shaft of blinding light coming through the growing gap. Ryan judged the time as best he could, before muttering “Now,” the cue for Doc and Mildred to light their fuses.
As the doors swung open, and Ryan’s ice-blue orb became accustomed to the increased brightness, he could see that Buckley and his two personal sec men were standing on the threshold, with a group of ville dwellers behind them. In fact, there seemed to be so many that it was a wonder that the bridge remained intact.
The fuses burned rapidly toward the bowls. Krysty had coated both of the hemp ropes with the mixture to expedite their burning.
Buckley and his henchmen were almost comically puzzled by the sudden smell and light of the burning fuses. Realization dawned almost too late as the fuses were burned up to the rims of the bowls. With a yell, the boss gestured his people back, turning and pushing as he did so, trying to fight through them and away from the imminent explosions.
Despite their drooling, cretinous appearance, the two sec men who were his personal guard were loyal and quicker thinking than they appeared. Risking their own safety, they each grabbed a door and pulled it toward them, hoping to reduce the angle for the explosion to catch the crowd outside.
It was the one flaw in the plan that the companions had implemented, and one about which they could do nothing. They had hoped that they could catch the Nagasaki people off guard, that the ville dwellers would be too slow to react.
Instead, it backfired, exploding almost literally in their faces. The bowls of tar and ashes ignited in a flash of brilliant light, almost blinding in the enclosed, darkened barn, soon to be replaced by plumes of thick, choking black smoke that were kept within the confines of the barn by the closing doors. The loud hissing of the tar and ashes made it difficult for any of the companions to tell for a moment what was happening as the thick, oily smoke began to clog their lungs.
The doors were almost totally shut now. If the Nagasaki dwellers managed to shut them completely, then it would mean that they could let the companions either buy the farm from the smoke, or at least be reduced to unconsciousness. There was little circulating air to drive the smoke around the cavernous barn, so if they retreated, they would have fresher air for the time it took for the smoke to drift back. But by the same token, they would be reduced to huddling at the rear of the barn, at the farthest point from the exit, at the mercy of whatever Buckley decided.
The smoke bombs had been a gamble that had failed. If they were to be faced with the option of going down fighting or waiting meekly for the end, then there was only one option.
Choking back on the acrid smoke that filled his mouths and lungs with its foul taste, Ryan yelled for the others to join him. He could feel, rather than see, Doc at his shoulder. Mildred and Krysty appeared through the clouds and Jak descended from the ceiling on the hemp rope. He was in a better condition than the others, as the heavy smoke had been slow to rise and he had been able to breathe cleaner air for longer.
Ryan gestured to the doors and the companions rushed them, pulling against the people on the other side, desperation to escape the smoke driving them on. All strategy was out the window now. To get out and fight was the only aim.
The people on the other side of the double doors were taken by surprise at the suddenness and ferocity of the attack, their grip on the doors easily lost. The companions wrenched them open, the light from outside nowhere near as fierce as it might have been if not for the flare of the smoke bombs. The movement of the doors brought a sudden rush of air into the barn, driving the clouds of smoke back and bringing in cleaner air, making it easier for them to breathe.
The Nagasaki dwellers were in confusion. Some were still on the bridge, others had retreated to the far side. Most were facing away from the attack, expecting the doors to be closed and barred. Few were ready to face the onslaught of five people fighting for their lives.
Ryan was in the vanguard, with Jak at his side. Both men were carrying sharpened branding irons, leaving the blades to those who were less practiced and needed the greater maneuverability of the blades. Ryan drove the point of his branding iron through the eye of one of Buckley’s personal guard, the man’s slack jaw falling even lower with shock and pain as the point drove through into his brain. Screwing the iron as he drove it in, Ryan reversed the screw and pulled. Th
e iron was slow in coming out, and he assisted it by raising a foot and kicking the inbred sec man backward, so that he almost fell off the iron. No sooner was it free than Ryan had to reverse it, using the blunt end as a club to drive away an onrushing fat man, who was yelling incomprehensibly and waving a rusty-looking sword made of an old blade lashed to a homemade handle. Driving the club end upward, Ryan caught him under the chin. The fat man grunted and staggered backward, falling into the moat and screaming as he hit one of the mantraps.
By the time he yelled, Ryan’s attention was already taken up in fighting off two more inbreds. To his side, Jak was a blur of arms, the branding iron whirling in a circle as the sharpened and blunt ends wreaked havoc among the ville dwellers.
Behind them as they tried to make progress across the bridge, Doc, Krysty and Mildred followed, using their blades to hack and slash at anyone who came near, hampered by the fact that they hadn’t been able to get the old metal too finely honed. The chips and nicks taken out of the blades made them stick in clothing and flesh, all the harder to disengage for the next thrust and parry.
They were moving slowly across the bridge with no idea of where they were headed. At the back of his mind, Ryan knew that the stolen wag had to be somewhere around the ville. If they could get to that, they might be able to get out of Nagasaki. But how much fuel would it have and where would they go?
Now he was aware that some of the people on the bridge weren’t directly attacking him or the others. While their attention was taken by a head-on attack, others were slipping by so that they could approach from the rear. The Nagasaki dwellers had taken several casualties who had been chilled, and more who had been cut, bludgeoned and injured, yet pain seemed to mean little to them. They were used to it as a part of their everyday lives; it was no obstacle to them in a fight.
The companions became aware of the fact that they were now surrounded on all sides and fighting became harder as they were given less room in which to wield their weapons. Blows broke through their defenses; their adversaries were hacking at them with blades, catching them painful blows with blunt ends of blasters that numbed nerve endings, making them stumble and fall.
The Nagasaki dwellers weren’t going to chill them; not yet. They were softening them up for the main event and none would care to consider what that might be.
They had one last weapon, each of them. The nails they had secreted about them. As one, they refrained from using them, hoping that they wouldn’t be searched before their final ordeal. They could do nothing with the nails now: better to wait, hope and keep them in reserve for if the chance came to use them.
One by one they went down under a hail of blows that was enough to render them senseless, but not to chill them. There was more yet to come.
THE TERRAIN AROUND THE EDGE of Nagasaki was rough, making it hard on the suspension of the wags as they got into position. J.B.’s wag was one of those with the farthest distance to go as it had to scout 180 degrees until it was directly in line with the only track leading in and out of the ville.
The journey was hot and cramped as the sun rose high in the sky, heating the crowded wag. The jolting progress of the wag threw the crew against the walls and roof of the vehicle, causing them all to curse, putting them all in a foul mood.
It wasn’t the best preparation for a firefight that J.B. had ever had, especially one in which he had to snatch his erstwhile companions from whatever fate had in store for them while protecting them from both sides. He looked around the wag at the other riders: Esquivel looked serene, shutting out everything around him in order to focus and concentrate on the fight ahead. J.B. had no doubts about Esquivel—he was a born fighter. Olly, on the other hand, had no shortage of courage—but had never been in a firefight like this before; the strain etched lines on his forehead and around the corners of his grim-set mouth. He shot J.B. a look and managed a brief nod of acknowledgment.
The young armorer might snap in the heat of battle. Much as it pained him to admit it, J.B. couldn’t rely on him like he knew he could on Esquivel.
As for the other fighters in the wag, all the sec men were dressed in their regulation uniform. They wore shades, which masked their eyes. They could be relaxed, or they could all be about to foul themselves in fear. There was no way of knowing.
The wag slowed to a halt and the driver cut the engine. He turned to J.B. “We’re here,” he said completely unnecessarily. He gestured out through the windshield. “Want to take a quick recce?” He looked at his wrist chron. “We’ve got eight minutes until the attack begins. Mebbe you could get a look at the land, see if you can work out where your people are. Mebbe we can’t stop to hunt them out, but at least you could get yourself a notion.”
J.B. nodded his thanks. It was a gesture he appreciated. The sec force had their job to do for Xander and he was part of that; but he had his own agenda that wasn’t entirely incompatible.
Keeping an eye on his wrist chron, J.B. exited the wag and made his way toward the ridge that led down into the valley where Nagasaki lay. As he neared the edge, he dropped onto his haunches, and then his belly.
Hearing noises him, he turned to find Esquivel and Olly beside him.
“Think you’re the only one wants to know where he’s going, dude?”
“You don’t have to do this,” J.B. said simply.
“Yeah, but mebbe we want to,” Olly replied.
“Anyway, you forgot these,” Esquivel continued in the same friendly tone, handing J.B. a pair of binoculars. When the Armorer gave him a puzzled glance, Esquivel continued. “I knew the driver had them, and the stupe bastard wouldn’t think of giving them to anyone unless he was told.”
“I owe you one, Es,” J.B. commented as he trained them on the ville below and ahead of them.
“’Course you do, skip—you might have to haul my golden-brown ass out of trouble down there,” the sec man replied with a slow smile.
J.B. reckoned the distance from the ridge to the center of the ville to be less than a mile or so—enough for them to get across quickly, but also enough for plenty of people to be chilled in the time it took. The outer edges of the ville seemed deserted and it looked as though there had been a fire in the barn structure, as a pall of thick, black smoke hung over it, partly obscuring what lay beyond.
As J.B. penetrated the veil of smoke, he nearly choked on the sight that met him—it seemed that the entire ville was concentrated in one sector, a clearing just beyond the barn and in front of an old predark ranch house that seemed to be the centerpoint of Nagasaki. The crowd was restless and seemed to be listening to a fat man who marched up and down in front of them. Even without hearing him, J.B. could see that he was ranting and raving about something.
That something would be the five people hanging from a crossbeam that had been hastily erected. They all hung with their arms pulled up above their heads, tied by the wrists. The beam was one height, so Jak was dangling with his feet off the ground, while Ryan could keep his toes on the earth. The others were at points between. They were being kept alive for now.
J.B. checked his chron. Two minutes to the attack. The good thing was that they were still alive and that they were all in the same place. The bad thing was that it would make it all the easier for the Nagasaki inbreeds to chill them as soon as the attack began.
He filled in details for Esquivel and Olly as they returned to the wag, which was already firing up. They were no sooner back inside that the driver released the brake, and the wag squealed forward, leaving a cloud of dust in its wake.
It was twelve-fifteen.
THE BRANDING IRON HIT Mildred in the ribs. It was almost a playful blow, designed to hurt but not to cause any great damage. It didn’t have to be hard; there was no way that she could avoid it, as her arms strung above her held her torso taut, gravity pulling her down.
She winced, tried to make no sound, but a small grunt escaped her as the air was driven from her lungs.
“Hey, y’all think I’s could play
a little tune on y’all if’n I’s hit y’all like that?” Buckley cackled as he walked up and down the line of companions, striking at random to see what kind of noise each would make. Ryan and Jak stayed firm, swallowing the involuntary noise of pain and escaping air. Doc tried to hold his tongue, but his already weakened body wouldn’t allow for his willpower and a groan was forced from him. Krysty muffled her cry, the blow for her being sharper, under the breast and specifically targeted to cause maximum pain with minimum damage. Buckley had a personal score to settle with her. On top of everything else, he hadn’t forgotten that she hadn’t screwed him when he wanted.
Buckley strutted up and down in front of the line. After overpowering the companions, the Nagasaki dwellers had hastily erected the framework to which the companions were now tied, stringing them up before they had a chance to recover consciousness. Each of the companions had been roused by the pain of their upper arms and shoulders, muscles and tendons straining to pop as they were stretched at an unnatural angle.
“Hope y’all are real comfortable,” Buckley said as he reached the end of the line again, “as we’s got a little something to talk to y’all about.”
“Just get on with it, asshole,” Ryan muttered.
Buckley glared at him, then walked up and spit in Ryan’s eye. “Y’all show some respect, and mebbe y’all won’t buy the farm too slow. But then again,” he continued, stepping back, “mebbe y’all will, just for the fun of it.”
The people gathered around the frame were yelling and screaming incomprehensibly, a sea of faces distorted by rage and lust, drooling and grinning at the thought of what they were about to do. Buckley held up his hands for silence and gradually they subsided.
“Now I’s a fair man, as y’all know, and I’s say we give these shit heaps a fair trial.” The noise rose again as the crowd either agreed or disagreed, it was impossible to know which. Buckley quieted them again before continuing. “Question is, did these fuckers sell us out by telling the Duma scum we’s was coming? Hard to know how, ’cept for one thing…who let our little prisoner go? Was it any of y’all?”
