by James Axler
"Comps," Jak said as if that settled the matter.
Turning in her seat, Krysty snorted. "The lord baron is barely able to make black powder. No way he can build chips to guide rockets."
"Then how make go left right?" Jak demanded.
Krysty shrugged in reply, and J.B. gave a start as the tube in his hands trembled slightly at the words. Had the rocket responded to the spoken directions? Dark night, what the hell were these things?
"Here's six more," Dean added, shoving aside the loose collection of wood chips in the crate. "Nope, there's eight!"
"Put this away and leave them be." J.B. handed back the weapon and watched the boy repack the Firebird and close the crate. There was something unnerving about the rockets that made him want nothing to do with them.
Continuing his search, Dean soon had checked every box without success.
"No tackle," he reported out the rear door. "Not even a wrench."
"Okay, we try something else," Ryan said resolutely.
Leading the way, Mildred and the others returned with more branches from the nearby woods. Ryan began snapping off the smaller branches, then used the panga to sharpen their tips.
"Find a rock and drive these stakes into the mud behind the larger branches under the tires," he directed, using his bare hands to do the job. Standing, he inspected the work. "Mebbe that'll hold them in place long enough to give us some traction. Only need a minute or two."
"Consider it done," Doc rumbled, and got busy with the other side.
Ryan turned to the doorway. "Krysty! This time rev the engine high as she'll go before slipping it into gear."
"Could bust the tranny, lover," Krysty said.
"No other way. We've got to chance it. If Glassman arrives and finds us trapped, it's going to be bad."
"Do my best."
Resuming their positions, the companions braced their heels against additional branches stomped into the mud. It was Jak's idea to give them more stability. Every little bit helped. Ryan joined them, putting his back to the bumper, his knees slightly bent. Mildred was at the other side of the wag in the same position, but he knew it was for different reasons. The healer had to protect her hands.
"Get ready!" Krysty answered and started the engine, bluish-gray fumes spewing from the tailpipes. Slowly, she gunned the predark engine, building its rpm higher and higher, until the wag was shaking from the barely restrained power of the roaring diesel. On the rusty dashboard, the woman noticed the fuel gauge dropping steadily.
"Now!" Ryan shouted, shoving against the wag with all of his strength, tendons rising into view on his hands and neck.
Spraying out mud, the rear wheels spun freely in the slick material until touching the buried branches. Those shot backward to hit the restraining stakes, which immediately began to lean over. But the trembling branches held in place for a moment, and briefly the tires spun on the anchored green wood, the bus creeping forward a scant inch. Muscles surged as the engine roared. Then the wag lurched ahead another inch and triumphantly rolled out of the depressions to keep going.
"Gaia, we did it!" Krysty shouted, and started to slow down.
"Keep moving!" Ryan shouted, waving both arms. "Don't stop or you'll get stuck again!"
A hand waved from the driver's window in acknowledgment, and Krysty swung the bus in an easy circle, going back for the companions. Wary of the edged spikes sticking out of the wheels, Mildred jumped on board at the side door, and Jak used the rear. It took a few more circles before everybody was on board and the wag moved sluggishly through the sticky field for the distant horizon once more.
Dropping into their seats, the companions sparingly used some of the water from their canteens to wash hands and faces clean. Boots and clothes would wait until the mud dried and could be simply scraped off.
"Too bad we can't use the road," Krysty said, turning on the windshield wipers. The spray of muddy droplets from the front wheels was speckling the glass and making it difficult to see clearly.
Unfortunately, the old blades merely smeared the stuff, making it worse. Locating a puddle of water, Krysty drove straight through, and the resulting splash washed the windshield clean for a moment.
"Roads are too dangerous," Ryan said, belting on his blaster again. The semi and automatic weapons had stayed in the bus to keep them out of the mud; only the people with revolvers had kept on their blasters while working outside. "Mud like this will smooth out after a while and erase our path."
"Also faster," J.B. said, cleaning his glasses. He held them to the light, then rubbed some more. "The road follows the shoreline. This cuts through the middle of the island and saves us miles."
"If we don't get stuck again," Krysty muttered, fighting the wheel. Driving across the field was becoming progressively difficult. If she slowed too much, the bus would get trapped again, but too fast and the wheels started to hydroplane on the slick layer of water that hid the tacky mud below. Almost like quicksand and dirt combined. That was an ugly thought. Better watch for smooth areas with no plants growing and avoid those.
Concentrating on the driving, Krysty didn't hear the warning until the second time Ryan spoke.
"Watch for the stickie!" he repeated, pointing with his blaster.
Krysty glanced to the right and there it was, charging at the wag. Trying to avoid a collision, she twisted the steering wheel, but the distance was too short. The wag slammed into the humanoid creature, the spiked fender tearing open its belly, guts and blood gushing out. Dropping from sight, the bus thumped over the body and kept moving.
"Damn thing just stood there," Krysty said, glancing at the rearview mirror. There was a pool of blood in their wake, nothing more. The body was driven underground by the weight of the bus. "I didn't have a chance to swerve."
"Probably never saw a wag before," J.B. commented, pulling his hat over his eyes and slumping in his seat. With Ryan standing guard with the Steyr, it was safe to catch a quick nap.
"Never will again," Doc added in wry humor, starting to run a whetstone along the edge of his sword. The blade had gotten a few nicks in the last fight, and this was his first opportunity to sharpen the steel.
"Most likely it was attracted to the sound of the engine," Mildred said, releasing her hair and shaking it back into shape. Almost mindless, stickies always rushed at loud noises and bright lights such as explosions and campfires. The muties weren't all that easy to chill with blasters. Ugly bastards, too, with their octopus-like suckers on their hands and feet, weird eyes and almost nonexistent mouths.
Mildred had no idea how the creatures ate enough to stay alive.
WISPY CURLS of smoke rose from the blackened ashes at the front of Ratak ville. The fire had raged out of control for more than a day, and the log wall now sported a charred hole large enough to sail a petey through. A mutie Hunter had already tried to get inside, the thing driven off only by the combined blasters of the ville sec men and those from the petey fleet. One against a hundred, and the Hunter still managed to chill four guards and escape alive. Damn the jungle muties to Davey; they were harder to ace than the Lord Bastard himself.
Standing in the cold morning air, Captain Glassman watched the work crews and sipped at a hot mug of coconut milk laced with shine, feeling the warmth seep into his bones. Out at sea, his crew had spotted dirty clouds on the horizon and the mornings were getting chilly. Which meant that the rains would be coming soon. More bad news.
Now ville sec men stood guard over the gap in the wall, while his own troopers walked the parapets, armed with Firebirds. Using only their bare hands, heavily shackled slaves sifted through the embers trying to locate the irreplaceable metal hinges for the heavy door. From the nearby jungle came the sound of axes, a work crew already felling trees to replace those destroyed by the flames.
Raising his mug, Glassman used the last sip to toast the slaves' good luck in finding the hinges. If those were lost, or severely damaged, then the ville was in real trouble.
Marching
boots and the clatter of weaponry heralded the arrival of Baron Thayer and his personal cadre of guards. They looked well rested and freshly scrubbed, clothes clean and boots polished, unlike the grimy sec men who stood guard during the night and fought off the Hunter as it came roaring through the wall of fire. Glassman narrowed his eyes at the sight. Sleeping while the ville was attacked.
"Good morning, Captain," Baron Thayer hailed, walking over to join the man. "How goes the work?"
Smiling, Glassman pulled his blaster and slapped the man across the face with the iron barrel. Twisting, Thayer stumbled and fell to the ground. His bodyguards reached for their weapons, then stopped as a Firebird streaked over the ville to detonate in the sky. With hands only inches from their weapons, the ville sec men glared at the petey sailors on top of the wall, pointing a dozen of the long black tubes in their direction. Slowly, the sec men moved their hands and backed away from the baron. Never wavering, the sailors tracked their movements with the Firebirds.
"Idiot! Feeb! Incompetent ass!" Glassman shouted, cocking back the hammer and pointing the blaster at the prone baron. "Ryan and his people were here. In your ville. Eating their dinner. Right here! You had them in the palm of your mutie-loving hand and let them escape? How is that possible?"
"You dare to strike me," Thayer growled, touching his aching cheek. There was the coppery taste of blood in his mouth, and a tooth felt loose. "I'm the baron of this ville! Within these walls, I rule supreme!"
In response, Glassman tightened his finger on the trigger. The hammer fell, flint scraped steel, throwing off a spray of sparks that ignited the black powder in the primer pan, which set off the main charge in the barrel. The actions took a second to happen, and Thayer could only cringe before the flintlock thundered in the morning air. The baron's face exploded from the crushing arrival of the .75 mini-ball, his teeth and eyes flying in different directions as his skull burst apart, brains and hair blowing across the ground.
"The baron," Glassman muttered, handing the smoking blaster to a waiting sailor. "Not anymore, dolt."
The sailor immediately passed the captain a fresh blaster and began to reload the spent weapon.
Staring at the still body, Glassman was surprised to discover that he didn't feel any shame or remorse. There was no shock or revulsion at the sight of chilling like before. In fact, deep inside, the former healer had to admit that he liked it, the taking of a life by force. He had used his healing skills to avoid fighting, to make himself far too valuable to ever risk in combat. And whichever side won would always need the services of a healer. He had tried to be beyond violence, not from the love of life, but from the fear of losing his own. Since childhood, Glassman had been terrified of being hurt. Just a sniveling coward, yellow to his bones. But on this mission for Kinnison, he found that new doors were opening inside his mind, and the rush of a chill was becoming a delight, only equaled by the release of sex. Something deep inside the man rose to fight off the growing madness, tried and failed. Glassman felt its departure and stood very alone in the middle of the ville, knowing that with this death he had crossed a line and would never be the same again.
"Colonel Mitchum!" he bellowed, still staring at the ground.
Hobbling through the crowd of busy slaves, the sec chief stopped a few yards away from the captain. He glanced once at his aced baron, then didn't give the headless corpse another thought.
"Yes, sir," Mitchum said, resting awkwardly on his crutch. The colonel was unshaved, having stood watch with his men through the long night. His clothes were filthy, a leg and an arm stiffly wrapped in bloody bandages. The gun belt from around his waist was slung across his chest in the manner of a bandolier, the holstered flintlock in easy reach of his good arm.
"Ryan gave you those wounds," Glassman stated.
"Yes, sir, he did," Mitchum growled, and felt the rush of hatred warm his face.
A slave cried out in triumph, lifting a hinge from the hot ashes and waving it about. An overseer snatched away the object and whipped the woman back to work.
"Find Ryan before he leaves this island and he is yours to punish for a day," Glassman stated. "Execute the others on the spot. Understand me? No rape, no games, just put lead in their head."
The words "or else" weren't said aloud, but Mitchum clearly heard them spoken anyway.
"Then I'm baron here," Mitchum said bluntly, standing a little taller.
There was a momentary pause. "If you find Ryan, yes. Until then, I'm in charge."
"Deal. Give me his revolver," Mitchum said eagerly, jerking his chin at the dead man.
Glassman gestured and one of the local sec men removed the gun belt from the body and gave it to Mitchum. The cracked leather was speckled with gray and red, but the colonel didn't care. He was going to be the baron here! Mitchum draped the gun belt over his other shoulder, the two different blasters crisscrossing his chest.
"They have the Juggernaut, and if they drove over the grasslands, they could be anywhere on the island by now," Mitchum said, checking the draw on the S&W .22 revolver. "Ryan had mentioned wanting a boat, and there's only three villes on the island to steal one. Cargo ville burned their boats because of the plague—Ryan and his people told us about it. Ours are too well guarded, which leaves Cascade."
Teams of men began to drag the first of the felled trees into the ville.
"Never heard of the place," Glassman said suspiciously.
Mitchum grinned. "Little ville to the south, mostly predark ruins built on top of a waterfall. Bitch to see from the ocean. The mist from the fall sort of hides it from sight."
Glassman wasn't overly disturbed by the news. Kinnison knew about the dozens of villes scattered throughout the Thousand Islands that remained hidden to avoid paying tribute to him. None was very big, or of any military importance. Aside from the armed dockyard of the pirate fleet.
"How far away is it?" he asked.
"Five days on horseback. Two by sea. You have to arc far around our island if going south to avoid the reefs. Can't take the northern route at all, unless you're willing to pay the toll."
"Pirates?" Glassman asked, feeling a rush of excitement over the prospect of battle.
Scratching at his stubble, Mitchum frowned. "Wish it was. Those we could handle. An old deeper lives off the north shore. It might be safe. He sleeps a lot, but when he wakes up hungry…"
"Fair enough. Get your men ready. We leave in an hour."
The taste of ashes filling his mouth from the smoke, Mitchum hawked and spit. "South it is."
"For us," Captain Glassman stated. "But where that wag can roll, horses can run. You're to take troops straight across the island, while we steam around. Then we'll crush them between us in a two-sided attack at Cascade."
"Should work," Mitchum said thoughtfully, then added, "if you give us some Firebirds."
The captain turned his head sideways, as if looking away from the sec man, but his eyes never left Mitchum. "You want more," he said stiffly. "And yet the records I was given by the lord baron say this ville owns eight already."
"Not anymore," Mitchum said hatefully, both hands clenched into hard fists. "They've sort of been stolen."
Chapter Fourteen
As the miles rolled by, the companions ate a cold meal from MRE packs, their blasters close at hand. On a couple of occasions, they saw more of the muties staggering about in the soggy fields, then a pack of them ripping apart a drowned opossum. At the first hint of the noisy wag's badly tuned engine, the stickies swarmed after the vehicle, but were easily outdistanced. Keeping a careful watch on the dashboard, Krysty balanced the rising engine temperature against getting away from the stickies. She took a life only when necessary, and would rather bypass the muties than brutally run them over.
After a few hours, Jak took Krysty's place behind the wheel, and later on in the day, Ryan replaced him. Each shift was kept short, as steering through the thick mud was exhausting work. Half-blind from the dirty windshield, each driver had to stay alert
for buried logs and rocks, holding on to the steering wheel with both hands to keep from losing control.
"How are we doing?" Mildred asked, grabbing the luggage rack bolted to the ceiling and walking to the front of the school bus. An experienced car driver before being frozen, she was worried about the old engine. It had probably been quite a while since the wag had been driven anywhere, and a trip like this would be hard on a well-maintained vehicle.
"Engine is running hot, and the oil pressure is low, but we already knew there was a leak somewhere. You can see blue in the exhaust," Ryan said, darting a glance at the dashboard. "Aside from that, the wag is okay. But we better start looking for a place to stop and refuel. The tank is almost dry."
"Need bushes, too," Dean admitted in a husky voice, his legs tightly crossed. "Some things can't be done out the window of a moving wag."
"Yes, they can," J.B. said, from under his hat. "It just ain't very comfortable."
Suddenly, the bus dipped slightly and the sound of the engine rose in pitch as it revved higher, struggling to compensate. Grinding gears, Ryan pumped the gas pedal and fought to keep the engine operating. But their speed dropped to a mere crawl, and the engine temperature gauge rose alarmingly.
"What's wrong, damage from that stickie we hit?" J.B. asked, coming fully awake in an instant.
"Fucking mud again," he cursed, revving the engine and shifting to a higher gear. The bus sluggishly waddled along, then backfired from the rush of fuel. "It's different, thicker or something. Can't seem to get any speed."
Appearing from a clump of bushes, a stickie holding the bedraggled body of a rat watched the long wag roll by and started after it hooting in delight.
"Sinking?" Jak demanded, grabbing his backpack and jacket.
"Not mud this time," Mildred said. "It's quicksand."
Ryan muttered a curse. A tree branch wasn't going to work on that crap. If they halted to refuel, the wag would get jammed like a misfire in the ejector port. They couldn't stop for any reason.
