by James Axler
Impatiently, he slapped the pouch of black powder into the old woman's hand. "I'll take her for the whole day," the lieutenant said.
"Oh, that'll cost more than this," she said quickly. The madam could hear the sound of raw lust in a man's voice. He'd pay all he possessed to have the girl just once.
The lieutenant turned on the madam and drew his blaster. "Going back on our deal?" he growled.
The madam shrugged in response and walked from the room. She had tried; that was enough.
"Come here, girl," he said loudly, but there was already a loss in his words. He could borrow, but never possess.
"Lucinda," she lisped, knowing the human name emphasized her forked tongue.
The man repeated her name in a whisper.
Chuckling to herself, she padded across the room, dropping the robe to expose her flawless body. Her breasts swayed at each step, and she mentally commanded her aureoles to tighten. The sec man began to rip off his clothes, buttons scattering across the bare wood floor.
As their eyes met, his expression softened from lust to love, and she decided to pleasure the fool all the way, in every way, then more, and make him her absolute slave. Already her brethren had taken over a ville to the south. Now she would start the process again here. One day all of the villes would be owned by the Sisters, and the humans who created the skyfire would be no more. Purged from the New Earth.
It was only a matter of time.
ON THE STREET, Krysty shivered and glanced around quickly.
"Something wrong?" Ryan asked, a hand snaking inside his coat to touch the grip of the SIG-Sauer.
The woman didn't reply, but hugged herself tight and kept walking. There had just been the oddest sensation, almost as if the companions had walked past a deadly predator and it let them go only because there was bigger prey to feed upon. Unseen danger lurked in the ville, and Krysty would warn the others to stay alert.
A group of men was in the street rolling dice made from carved bone, knives and animal pelts passed back and forth as bets were won or lost.
"Move," Ryan growled.
"Fuck off," a man said, glancing up from the game. Then he saw the amount of weapons on display and tried to grin, but failed miserably.
"My friend said move," Mitchum added in a dangerous tone.
Scrambling to their feet, the gamblers left their dice and pelts to race away, never once looking back. Continuing onward, the companions walked their horses over the spot, crushing the skins and dice to bits under the pounding horse hooves.
"Sailors," Mitchum said in explanation. "Useless bastards."
"Local ship?" Ryan asked as casually as he could.
"Naw, I know those men. They're off a trader from the Rougelap Islands."
"That's north of here, right?" J.B. asked. "Near Forbidden Island."
"Pretty close, yeah," Mitchum said, then grimaced. "Wherever you're going with your own boat, be sure to stay away from that hellzone. Bitch of a place. The currents can tear the hull off a ship, and on shore, there's nothing but rad pits and muties."
Ryan and the others said nothing, not even daring to exchange glances. But now they had a goal. Why row through the shark-infested waters when they could buy a ride? Finally, some good luck was coming their way.
Turning a corner, the companions dropped off their horses at a stable and walked over to the inn. A big sign hanging out front was decorated with the single word Grotto and a hand-painted picture of a fork for those who couldn't read. The front door led to a foyer with another door and a metal turnstile. Inside, the pink walls were heavily decorated with faded pictures and torn posters of nude women. A row of small booths along the back wall was full of wire racks holding garish paperback books whose outlandish covers left nothing to the sexual imagination.
"It's a converted porn bookstore," Mildred said in disgust. No wonder the inn was so popular with the sec men.
"What that?" Jak asked, studying a poster. Nice.
The physician scratched her head before answering. "Sort of a gaudy house," she said slowly. "For folks who didn't actually want to have sex."
Jak stared at the woman as if she were insane, and Mildred shrugged. She couldn't think of another way to explain the establishments.
Vacant redwood picnic tables filled the room, and the only customers were a couple of sailors eating a roast of some kind at the far end of the room. As the companions took the largest table, Mitchum went into the kitchen to talk with the cook, and then departed to handle some official duties. But he swore to come back around dusk to take them to the baron for drinks.
Easing straps off shoulders, the group removed their backpacks and eagerly settled down to wait for the food. The cold horse meat had fueled their bodies, but tasted like red clay. There were no utensils of any kind in view, so each dug out a wooden spoon from their clothing, being very careful not to reveal any of the military hardware hidden under their clothes.
Ryan placed his two muzzle-loaders blatantly on the table, with both hammers cocked to forestall any trouble from the locals. The sailors at the far table noticed the weapons, and immediately stopped talking to concentrate on their own meal.
A few minutes later, the kitchen door swung open and out came two girls carrying an enormous iron pot. The servers dripped sweat as they hauled the cauldron of soup to the table, while an old man with no teeth placed cracked bowls before each person. The bowls were clean, but had seen hard use. Mildred recognized it as a nearly unbreakable brand, which was guaranteed to last a lifetime. She had to admit, for once, Madison Avenue hadn't lied about the durability of a product.
Careful as if they were delivering liquid nitro, the girls ladled the hot soup into each bowl, filling them to capacity. Not a drop fell as the plastic ladle conveyed the steaming brew. As they hauled their cauldron back to the steamy kitchen, the old man returned with small loaves of bread. They were all of a different shape, but a smooth even brown and smelled wonderful.
Jak snatched one from the platter and took a bite.
"Made breadfruit," he announced, chewing steadily. "Good."
"At least they didn't serve us fish heads," J.B. said, stirring the contents of his bowl.
"No, sir, please sir!" the oldster gasped, backing away in fear. "No sweepings for nobles! Is good stew! Please, don't beat me, sir!"
"The stew is fine," Ryan said, unmoved by the display of fear. He had seen similar faces all his life. In most villes the people were little more than slaves, tortured and chilled at the whim of the sec men who ruled. Apparently, the same was true here; the strong ruled the weak. At least until the weak got blasters, then everything went to hell.
"Could we have some water, please?" Krysty asked politely.
Bobbing his head nonstop, the man hurried away. "Yes, sir! At once, sir. Without delay, sir!"
"Sweepings," Dean said thoughtfully. "Must use the stuff that falls on the floor to make soup."
"Probably what's left over in other folks' bowls, too," J.B. agreed.
"Horrid," Doc muttered.
From somewhere outside the sound of a whip was audible again, but this time the cries were female.
"Seen dogs treated better than these people," Krysty said softly, tasting the stew. It was very good, hot and thick, full of fish meat, crab, mussels, some odd veggies, with floating bits of herbs for flavor.
The girls returned with coconut shells cut in two, the bottoms flattened to make crude mugs. The other put a bamboo bucket full of water amid the dinner, and Mildred slipped some bread into the girl's pocket. The child glanced once sideways, but made no other indication that she knew what had happened.
"Baron idiot," Jak said, dipping a loaf into the soup and tearing off a chunk. "No food, folks can't work."
"They'll turn on him," Krysty agreed, "and I hope they win."
"When we sail away," Dean said softly, "mebbe we could leave these flintlocks behind."
Slurping clean a spoon, J.B. nodded agreement. "Won't need them once we're at
sea. Might even make some friends in case we come back this way."
"An exemplary idea." Doc smiled. "The enemy of my enemy, and all that."
"Freeze, outlanders!" a voice cried out from the doorway.
The companions looked up to see three sec men enter the room, blasters in their hands. Two of the men were dressed as sailors, while the third was a local sec man.
"Keep your hands away from those flints," the sec man ordered, "and mebbe you live for a while longer."
His flintlocks on the table, Ryan placed his hands in his lap and eased the safety off the SIG-Sauer hidden under his shirt. Unfortunately, the new arrivals' weapons were already drawn. He needed a diversion to get a bead on them.
Without warning, Mildred jerked her arm while Jak flipped his hand. The plate from under the bowl skimmed through the air and smashed into the face of a sailor, and the sec man staggered backward to the wall with a knife in his throat. The attack startled the last man for only a second, but before he could react, Doc lunged forward and buried his blade into the man's throat, slicing vocal cords and the jugular.
By then Ryan had his piece out and finished them off with a whispering round to the head. The lifeless bodies collapsed to the floor, as Mitchum appeared from the kitchen with a primed flintlock in both hands.
"Run! They know!" the man shouted, then stopped, taking in the scene. "Shitfire, they beat me here."
Ryan swung his 9 mm pistol toward the man and the two stayed motionless until Mitchum slowly lowered his blasters.
"You have to leave immediately," Mitchum stated urgently. "I was with the new sec man picking up his things from the dock when a fleet of peteys arrived. Some big caliber named Glassman told us that you're all wanted by Lord Baron Kinnison, dead or alive. Baron Thayer is closing the ville like screwing the lid on a jar, and wants you trapped in here."
Mitchum gestured at the corpses. "Those fools must have decided to try and capture you themselves and not share the reward."
"Has he sealed off the front gate yet?" Ryan asked, his blaster still pointing at the sec chief.
"Blocked solid. You'd never get out that way now."
"Any other exits?" Krysty demanded, pulling on her backpack.
Mitchum made a sour face and looked away before speaking. "Just one," he growled, as if there were a bad taste in his mouth. "There's a secret escape tunnel for the baron. Only Thayer and myself know about it."
"And them," J.B. said, gesturing over his shoulder at the sailors in the corner.
With a grim expression, Mitchum suddenly noted the sailors and fired his blasters. The two men slammed into the pink walls, the double booms of the muzzle-loaders rattling the bowls on the tables, and the framed pictures on the walls, making a couple fall to the floor and smash.
"Hated to do that," the colonel said sadly. "I knew them, good men both. But there was no other way."
"Is the kitchen staff alive?" Krysty asked.
"They ran away when I walked in with my blaster out."
"Good."
"Come with us," Mildred said, putting the bulky flintlock and ammo pouch on the table, then drawing her .38 ZKR target pistol.
Mitchum sadly shook his head. "Can't. Thayer will chill my brother and his wife if I'm caught helping you."
LeMat and sword at the ready, Doc went to the front door and checked outside. The ville was still, no reaction yet to the sounds of battle. Strange, it was almost as if the bookstore was soundproof.
"So, where is the exit?" Ryan demanded, getting rid of his own excess weapons. Then he holstered the SIG-Sauer and unwrapped the Steyr from his bedroll.
"Go to the baron's home. There's a locked latrine on the south side. That's a fake. Ladder inside leads down to a tunnel. That's the only way out, aside from the front gate."
"Any traps?" J.B. demanded, working the bolt on the Uzi.
"None that I know of."
"Thank you," Krysty said in earnest.
"Just paying his debt," Ryan said, working the bolt on the longblaster to chamber a round, then sliding it over a shoulder. Drawing the SIG-Sauer, he pointed it at Mitchum. "Where do you want it?" he asked brusquely.
"Leg," the colonel replied tightening his jaw, then added, "And this makes us even! The slate is clean. We meet again, I'll ace your ass like any other invader threatening my ville."
"Fair enough," Ryan said, then shot the sec men in the outermost part of the thigh, well away from the bone or major arteries.
As Mitchum fell, slapping a hand on the wound to staunch the flow of blood, Ryan shot him again in the upper arm.
"You bastard," Mitchum groaned, raw hatred contorting his handsome features, both hands busy putting pressure on his wounds.
"Now nobody will doubt any story you tell them," the one-eyed man replied, and moved out the door into the night. The ville was quiet, the darkness lying over the trailers like a thick blanket.
Few people were moving about on the streets, and the companions stayed in the shadows as much as possible. They backtracked out of the moonlight when a squad of armed troopers ran by, heading for the front gate. The men were armed with flintlock pistols, crossbows and nets. An unnerving sight those. It meant they wanted to capture the companions alive.
"Looks like he was telling the truth," Dean muttered.
"Could be," his father replied tersely. "But he betrayed his own baron to repay us, so who's to say he didn't do the same thing to us for some other reason? Trust nobody."
"Not even the dead," Dean said, finishing the old saying. "I remember."
"Gaia, watch over us this night," Krysty said to the sky, and distant thunder seemed to rumble in reply. But whether that was an agreement or denial, there was no way to know.
There were bright lights and drunken singing coming from the gaudy house, and as they passed by a window opened, somebody relieving himself into the street.
"Ah, civilization," Doc mumbled under his breath.
Easily avoiding some people hurrying to their trailers, Ryan led them on a circular path to finally reach the baron's home from the other side. Crouching, they hid in some bushes while a contingent of guards and sailors marched past, long-blasters cradled in their arms. Baron Thayer was in the squad, as was a stranger in the livery of the lord baron. Ryan frowned. So that was Glassman, their new hunter. The Deathlands warrior didn't know what happened to Brandon, but he hoped it was painful and lasting. They would have been long gone if not for the sec man's interference.
"I do not see the latrine," Doc rumbled, squinting into the darkness.
"Me neither," Krysty said, her eyes held open wide, taking in the night around them.
Ryan was forced to agree. Even with the pale moonlight coming through the clouds, he still couldn't see much of anything. However, the ville was becoming well lighted, torches burning on every corner. Oddly, the palace was still masked by the night. To lure them there? Could be.
Just then a couple of sec men walked slowly by, speaking softly, longblasters resting on their shoulders.
"Let's ask for directions," Ryan whispered, drawing the panga.
Jak pulled out a leaf-bladed knife, and the men moved, sliding up behind the sec men. Ryan placed the curved blade of the panga around the throat of one, the touch of the cold steel making the man freeze motionless. Jak thrust his blade into the head of the second man, just to the right of the spine where it joined the skull. The man stopped moving instantly, then the teenager twisted the blade and the sec man exhaled once, sliding to the dirt as if his bones had turned into water.
"Cry out, and you're chilled," Ryan whispered in the sec man's ear. "Now drop it."
The blaster fell to the grass.
"Okay, where is the baron's private latrine?"
"The what?" the guards whispered, acting confused.
Jak stabbed the man in the upper arm, then grabbed the fresh wound and squeezed. The sec man inhaled sharply, tears coming to his eyes before the teen finally let go.
"You bastards," the guard p
anted, his face ashen white.
"Not what I want to know," Ryan said in a dangerous voice, and Jak tightened his grip again, blood welling between his strong fingers.
The sec men broke into a sweat. "Okay, okay! No more! It's past the horse corral, behind the woodpile."
Ryan maintained his position while Jak disappeared into the darkness to return a few minutes later and showed a thumb.
"You get to live," Ryan said, when the guard unexpectedly broke free and spun with a blade in his palm. He slashed for Ryan's belly, but the man swayed out of the way and Jak buried his blade into the guard's left kidney. Caught in the middle of a shout, the sec man could only gasp from the pain, and Ryan kicked the doubled-over man directly in the face. Bones audibly crunching from the strike, the guard fell sprawling, a hand clawing madly for his dropped blaster.
Silver flashed in the moonlight as Doc lunged forward, spearing the man through the heart with his sword. The sec men jerked at the strike, then went still. Placing a boot on his chest, Doc yanked the blade out and wiped it clean on the dead man's shirt.
Following Jak across the grounds, the friends easily found the latrine just past the horse corral. The small wooden hut was surrounded by weeds, and placed strategically behind the tall pile of cut wood so that nobody could see who was entering or leaving.
Footsteps on the gravel made everybody pause, and they waited for discovery as the horses were released from the stable, and a dozen troopers rode off.
"Looking for us," Krysty guessed. "Better hurry."
Going to opposite ends of the woodpile, Ryan and Jak kept silent watch for more sec men while Mildred used her flashlight to illuminate the padlock on the door. Removing some tools from his munitions bag, J.B. got busy with picks and probes, the lock yielding in under a minute.
"Piece of junk," he commented, sliding the chain through the loops and placing it gently in the weeds. "Could have kicked it open except for the noise."
Easing open the old splintery door, Ryan found there was no floor, only a knotted rope hanging into the darkness. Fireblast, it was the cannie ville all over again. Hopefully, this time there wouldn't be an ambush waiting for them.
