Deathlands - The Twilight Children

by James Axler

  J.B.'s words jarred Ryan, and he half turned, staring toward the forest, wondering where the rest of the gang was. Stickies had brains with all of the reasoning power of dead sheep, but even they would hesitate to attack a powerful, fortified ville in such small numbers.

  Under a hail of lead, the last mutie was down and done for, his body literally shredded to a bloody pulp by the overwhelming firepower.

  Immediately Jehu led his people in an ululating chant of victory. He waved his Remington hunting rifle above his head, his expression contorted with a savage delight. "With Moses as our captain, how can we be defeated?" he yelled, his breath hot and feral, directly into Ryan's face.

  The noise was gradually subsiding, and Ryan caught J.B.'s eye across the gap between them. The Armorer hadn't fired a single shot from the machine pistol and gestured with it, back toward the heart of the ville. He was looking worried, rather than triumphant, heightening Ryan's concern. Below them, Krysty was looking back over her shoulder.

  The crowd was thronged so thickly on the narrow platform that Ryan could hear the supporting timbers creaking. Several of the teenage girls shot at the corpses, making them twitch and jerk. Jehu watched them, laughing delightedly.

  Ryan grabbed him by the shoulder. "Get everyone off here," he shouted, "or the whole place could go down."

  At first the blank blue eyes didn't register any understanding. Then the danger of their position reached Jehu and he gradually restored a kind of order, telling everyone to get back down again, except for half a dozen men that he nominated as guards. Ryan pushed through and climbed quickly back to street level, where J.B. joined him and Krysty.

  The screaming had stopped from the two tortured victims of the sacrificial ceremony, but they could all hear Moses's voice, praising everyone for their bravery and speed of response.

  "If he'd had a lookout posted, then none of that would have been necessary," J.B. stated calmly.

  Suddenly Michael was with them, Dorothy hanging on his arm. "Moses knew what would happen," said the teenage youth. "He can see the future."

  "Yeah, "the woman agreed. "It's over and we won! Praise to Moses, we won!"

  From the far side of the ville, where it protruded farthest into the huge lake, over toward the living quarters, they all heard the boom of a powerful handblaster, echoing into the night.

  "Doc's Le Mat," J.B. said, setting off at a dead run toward the sound.

  It was followed by a piercing scream. Scream upon scream. Two shots were fired from another blaster that Ryan recognized as being Mildred's Czech ZKR 551 target revolver, and a single round that he guessed came from his son's Browning Hi-Power.

  Jehu had reacted surprisingly quickly, loping alongside Ryan. "What's happening?" he panted.

  "Attack at front was a trick," Ryan replied.

  The cries for help were shrill, high and thin, the voices of children.

  "They've come in from the water and broken in. Taken our little ones."

  Ryan sprinted through the darkness at top speed, his arms pumping, Krysty close behind him. "Taken our friends as well," he said.

  They passed the open square, where the remains of the two wicker cages were now heaps of glowing ashes, containing what might have been a collection of blackened branches. Had it not been for the smoke-darkened skulls that lay, empty-socketed, among the ruby embers.

  Quindley was small enough for them to be able to run from the entrance to their own rooms at the rear in less than fifty pounding heartbeats.

  Ryan didn't waste time looking up at the roof of Moses's own shrine, but the voice seeped down as he powered by. "All will be well, brothers and sisters. Listen to me, for I say an will be well."

  "Fuck you," Ryan breathed.

  But Jehu had skidded to a halt, nearly falling over in the dirt. "We must listen and obey!" he yelled. "Listen and obey the word of Moses."

  "Place is fired!" J.B. called. "Near where our rooms are. The back."

  Ryan could smell the tang of blazing pitch, smothering the ghastly stench of the burned corpses, and see the orange glint of light between the buildings just ahead of them.

  "Wait," Jehu called again.

  Now they could see what had happened, read the story of the successful trick that the stickles had managed to play on the ville-a trick that would never have worked on forty-nine settlements out of fifty, with sensible lookouts and sentries constantly alert against just such a sneak attack.

  They had come in from the lake, in boats or rafts, and crept in over the back wall while their suicidal companions had given their lives to distract the inhabitants with their feint at the front entrance.

  Now the whole of that segment of Quindley was well ablaze, fountains of sparks erupting fifty feet high from the dry wooden walls, floors and roofs.

  The outlanders' sleeping and eating quarters were already an inferno of scorching heat, the flames roaring as they consumed everything, chunks of burning timber falling into the waiting water below with a hissing of steam.

  "See anything?" Krysty asked, shading her eyes against the ferocious glare, trying to look past the raging fire across the lake.

  "Impossible. Guess they came by water and they're leaving the same way."

  "No corpses." J.B. looked behind, where the mood of the ville had completely changed. The bravado and delight had vanished, to be replaced by grief and mourning at the loss of all the children who'd been stolen away.

  "Could be there. Or mebbe dumped in the lake." Ryan knelt and tried to look inside the nearest burning building, but it was impossible. He straightened again. "Jehu. Get your people to work on putting out those fires, or you're going to lose the whole damned place."

  "Moses hasn't given us the order to do anything."

  "Wait for an order and you lose your home. Come on, you double stupe!" Krysty looked as though she were about to haul off and slap the young man across the face.

  "Yes, yes, I guess..." He turned and waved his hands rather helplessly. "Water. Get water and put out the fire."

  J.B. clapped his hands loudly to attract attention. "Put water on the nearest buildings first. Can't save those already burning. But you can soak the others and rescue them from the flame spread. Get to it!"

  RYAN-S FIRST IMPULSE had been to take one of the rowboats from Quindley and set off immediately in pursuit of the fleeing muties and their prisoners. It was possible that Doc, Dean and Mildred had already been butchered. But it was typical behavior for stickies to spend some time on disposing of their captives, disposal that generally involved a great deal of pain, and as much fire as possible.

  Stickies truly loved the brightness of fire.

  But Ryan realized that it would be pointless. He had no idea of the numbers of the raiding gang, or how many vessels they had with them.

  What he needed to do was set out with as many armed men and women as possible from Quindley, preferably before first light. He could remember where they'd sported the smoke among the trees, farther north along the shore of the lake. It was a fair bet that it had been the stickies* camp and that they would have returned there with their prisoners.

  Under Jehu's orders, the bucket chain had been quickly organized and was working well, water spraying onto the wood of the buildings that adjoined the heart of the fire, soaking the thatch and preserving it from the flying sparks. The timber walls, heated almost to the point where they would have spontaneously combusted, were literally steaming.

  Michael appeared again from the crowd, this time without the blond woman on his arm. "They got Dean and Doc and Mildred," he said.

  "Yeah. We heard a burst of shooting. But we don't see any bodies. They got every one of the little children from the place next along as well." Ryan looked at the teenager. "We're going to go after them before dawning. Want to come along?"

  "Sure. Course I do." He hesitated. "You asked Moses for permission?"

  "Permission?" Ryan shook his head. "We don't need his permission, Michael."

  "You do if you
want to take boats from the ville. Or use any of the brothers and sisters."

  "Think he'd be able to stop us?"

  Michael grinned, the first time since their arrival in the ville that he'd shown even a glimmer of his old self. "Guess not, Ryan."

  THE WINDOW IN THE ROOF of Moses's dwelling was closed, and audience with the invisible ruler of Quindley was in the luxurious surroundings of his receiving room on the first floor. Jehu, pressed by Ryan, had led him there, accompanied by J.B. and Krysty.

  The two-way mirror still concealed Moses from their sight, but his voice was calm and gentle, as though the disaster of the stickies' attack were the merest of flea bites.

  "You wish to consult me, Ryan Cawdor."

  "Muties took all of your littlest ones, and three of our friends."

  "This is true. Sad, but true."

  "Hour before first light I want to take as many boats as you can spare. Armed people. Land up the coast and hit the stickies in their camp. With any luck we can rescue a lot of your children as well as our companions."

  "No," said the deep, gentle voice.

  "No?"

  "No."

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Moses was utterly immovable.

  "I hear all you say, outlander," he said calmly, "but you are deeply wrong."

  "Wrong to save lives? Wrong to save the lives of children and friends?"

  "To your way of thinking, I see why you cherish such beliefs, Ryan Cawdor. But what has happened was destined to happen. Our young ones will have a rebirthing and will rejoin us here in the ville of Quindley."

  "That's total shit!" Krysty could no longer contai n her anger, and she brushed away Jehu's restraining hand, striding forward to push her face within inches of the mirror. They all heard a rustle of sudden movement, as if Moses had been taken aback by her enraged approach.

  "You are strangers here." There was an unmistakable note of tension in his voice. "Best that you leave us."

  Ryan considered putting a dozen spaced rounds through the dark glass, in the hope of taking Moses out. But to do that-to assassinate their god-would bring a mob of armed men and women running for revenge.

  J.B. rescued the moment of tension. "Sure, Moses," he said. "The fire's out now. I'd be grateful for a bed for a few hours. Then we'll quit your ville."

  Moses had recovered his cool. "I had not looked for such wisdom from an oldie. Your thinking is correct, outlander Dix. You may be fed before departing.

  Jehu?"

  "Master?"

  "Arrange it."

  "Yes, master."

  Ryan stretched and yawned. "Guess I could do with some shut-eye as well."

  "May your rest be gentle and filled only with dreams of light and hope."

  "Thanks, Moses."

  THEY PASSED THE REMAINS of the two murdered men, now just cooling ashes and tangled bones.

  The ville was settling down after the horror of the sneak attack. The fires had been controlled. The only buildings destroyed were the living accommodation for visitors and the dormitory of the youngest children.

  Fortunately none of Ryan's party had left any weapons or possessions in the rooms when they'd gone out to watch the sacrificial ceremony.

  Jehu organized straw-filled mattresses for them in a storeroom that the ville used for late-summer fruit. It was lined with high shelves of planed elm, was pleasantly dry and smelled sweet and clean.

  "Sleep well. There will be food in the morning. And we can give you something to ease your journeying. Some bread and apples, and flasks of water."

  "Thanks," Ryan said. "Appreciate it."

  Jehu paused in the doorway. He had brought them a pair of torches, sticking them into brackets in the wall. Their flickering light showed the struggle in his face. "Moses's rule runs only within the ville and its lands. If you wished to try to rescue your friends yourselves..."

  "Appreciate that," Ryan replied. "You wouldn't know where Michael is?"

  "No. He was walking with Dorothy out along the causeway after the fire was finished."

  "Risky-" Krysty looked across the small room at Ryan"-isn't it, lover?"

  "Not very, I guess." Ryan shook his head. "Stick-ies got what they wanted. Did it well. Good combat skills for them. Doubt there's any of them still around."

  "HI wish you a good sleep and a clean wakening." Jehu raised his hand in a sort of cautious wave, then left the building, pushing the door shut behind him.

  Ryan waited a few seconds, listening to the sound of the young man's feet moving away from them, "Right," he said. "Let's get to some talking and then some doing."

  RYAN WAS LOCKED into a bizarre dream. A young woman, naked and oiled, was leaning over him, scratching an intricate tattoo on his forehead with a

  bone needle, then rubbing a mixture of dark blue dye and spittle into the shallow cuts.

  The point made a thin, tearing sound as it rubbed at the flesh above his good eye. Sometimes, in his dreams, Ryan found that he had both eyes. But not this time.

  The strange rustling sound of the sharp point against his skin seemed louder.

  Ryan blinked awake.

  The small hut was almost totally dark, just tiny chinks of light between the feather-edge boarding. The albino teenager, Jak Lauren, had the best night sight of anyone Ryan had ever known. But his own vision was vastly better than average and he could make out a figure, black against the blackness, moving slowly toward him, feet making a rustling sound against the dusty wood of the floor.

  Ryan drew the SIG-Sauer from by his head and leveled it at the intruder.

  "One more step and you get to be dead," he said quietly.

  "It's me, Ryan."

  "Michael. What do you want?"

  "To come with you."

  Ryan was one of the most cautious men in all Deathlands. "When we leave the ville after first food?"

  "No." There was something like a laugh in the young man's voice. "I've been with you long enough to know better than that, Ryan. I may be a stupe, but I'm not triple stupe."

  "So?"

  He knew that J.B. was awake and would be holding the Uzi ready to fire. And that Krysty, alongside him, was also alert, holding her own blaster.

  "So, you're going to steal a boat and go after Dean and the others."

  "Who says this?"

  Michael squatted. "Don't waste time. I got the boat for you."

  Ryan was taken by surprise. "Where?"

  "Tied up by the burned-out portion of the ville. Smaller than the one we had the other day. Four oars."

  Krysty spoke. "How about Dorothy, Michael?"

  A long pause. "She doesn't know."

  "If she finds out?"

  "I don't know, Krysty. She's...real special. Like her a lot. Think she likes me. But she believes in everything that Moses says. Like they all do."

  "You don't?" J.B. asked.

  "No. Not now. When we got here, my head was fucked by what happened in the jumps and it seemed that Moses was the fountain of truth and wisdom. Sort of thing they tried to teach at Nil-Vanity. Then I saw the chillings and the way Moses treated the attack by the stickles. They got all those little children and he just doesn't..." His voice broke with his anguish. "He just doesn't seem to care at all!"

  The room was silent.

  Finally it was Ryan who spoke. "We go an hour before first light. Head north and land on this side of where we think the stickies have their camp. Mebbe be too late for... for some of the ones they took. Mutie bastards like the dark for their fires and their sporting. But they might hold them and have a real good time this coming night. Best we can hope for. Go in and hit them hard as we can."

  "How you reckon to bring the children back here to the ville? They must have fifteen or twenty of them."

  "Sure. Plan is to spring them safe. Point the kids this way and hope to chill enough of the stickies to slow them down in going after them."

  "How about..." Michael hesitated.

  "Go on." Ryan and the others waited for him t
o speak. Outside, far off, they all heard a coyote howling at the thin slice of silver moon.

  "How about the ville? How about Quindley and everyone? Stickies could come here again."

  "Trader used to say that you look after yourself and your friends. Anyone else you can help is just a bonus. But you never, never risk yourselves trying to help folk who won't get off their asses to help themselves."

  THEY ALL DOZED FITFULLY for the remainder of the long night. Ryan had always been able to set himself a waking time and then rely on some mysterious element in his body and brain to pull him from sleep at the right moment.