Judas Strike

by James Axler

  Unexpectedly, there was a sharp crack and a riderless horse dropped lifeless to the frozen earth.

  “Dinner is served,” Mildred announced, holstering her smoking ZKR and drawing a sharp knife.

  WITH RAW HORSE filling their bellies, the mood of the group improved noticeably and tempers cooled. Riding through the day and into night, the travelers kept the torches burning with strips of diesel-soaked clothing and took turns sleeping in the saddles. Along the way, the nervous sec men fired a dozen times into the snow, chilling a couple of rabbits and wounding something that bled green, but it ran off so fast nobody was able to get a second shot. Might have been a snow cat, or it might not. It was impossible to say.

  By dawn, the group was past the frost line and descending into the warmth once more. As the sun crested the horizon, the torches were tossed away and everybody relaxed. Now that they were past the snow, the snow cats wouldn’t dare to attack. Here in the green grass and trees, their weird color would only make them incredibly visible. Easy targets for anybody.

  “Better.” Jak sighed and unzipped his jacket.

  “This is my fav time of day,” Mitchum said, smiling, luxuriating in the golden dawn. “It’s what Ratak means in some old speak, sunrise.”

  “Any more meat?” Dean asked, riding over to Krysty.

  “Sure,” she answered, passing over a strip. The dead animal had been skinned, and its hide made into a sack stuffed with snow and the best cuts of meat. Now that they were warming up, the snow wouldn’t last long, but with any luck it was only a few hours to the ville.

  “You know, I once read that the ancient Mongols used to place raw meat under the saddles first thing in the morning, and when they stopped at night would eat the meat cooked by the heat of their horses.”

  “That’s just an old wive’s tale,” Mildred retorted. “The Mongols put raw steaks on their horses to help heal saddle sores. Nothing more.”

  “Work?” Jak asked, stroking the neck of his mount. The horse whinnied in response and bent closer to the teenager’s touch.

  “Works fine, or so I’ve been told,” Mildred replied.

  “Raw meat as a bandage,” Colonel Mitchum muttered. “Pretty smart. Must remember that.”

  Reaching level ground, the group found grass for their horses and let them eat their fill, before kicking their mounts into an easy gallop. The riders had no wish to tire the beasts after the long walk over the mountain.

  The sun rose toward its azimuth as the miles flew by without incident. Birds exploded from the trees as they rode by, and monkeys of various sizes chattered furiously at the invasion of their territory and threw handfuls of fresh feces at the riders to seriously discourage them from returning. A near hit made a sec man fire his flintlock, and the chimps disappeared into the thick canopy of flowers of vines, screaming and chattering in fear.

  “There!” a corporal called out, gesturing ahead of the group. “Tide bridge, sir! We’re nearly home.”

  Brushing the hair out of his eye, Ryan could see they were approaching another shallow bay like the one on Crab Island. But here rocks had been piled in the water until forming a wide bridge over the ocean. Old rusty pipes stuck out of the rocks below the surface to allow the tide to flow freely.

  “Will that support a horse and rider?” J.B. asked in concern. The bridge had no mortar or concrete. It was just a pile of rocks, nothing more.

  “Always has before,” Mitchum said, guiding his mount down the bank and onto the rocks. They moved at every step, but the sec men rode their animals along the crude construct with no real difficulties, so the companions soon followed. There was no sign of crabs anywhere.

  Reaching the far side, Ryan noticed a wide area where there was no grass, and in the center was a deep hole. Checking his rad counter, he saw no dangerous readings, and there wasn’t any glassy slag at the bottom from a tac nuke.

  “See that? Our fathers killed a tin can there,” a sergeant said with pride, slowing so the others could take a look. “Fifty sec men died, but they aced the mofu.”

  “Tin can,” Krysty repeated. “Some sort of machine?”

  “They say it was a crazy thing,” Mitchum answered grimly. “Didn’t resemble a wag, or a boat. It was built like a cartridge, round and flat on the bottom. Had rotating red eyes and floated off the ground like a soap bubble, but it was made of steel. They say miniballs only dented it at close range.”

  The companions knew the description well. It was a sec hunter droid, and it had to have already been damaged for a bunch of sec men with blasters to bring it down. Ryan had one chase him and J.B. for miles a while back, and it had been a triple bitch to stop. Damn near aced both men.

  “I assume it detonated once damaged sufficiently,” Doc inquired politely. This was clearly a site of great importance to the local sec force, and it was only wise to pay it proper respect. In his own time period, Doc would expect no less of a visitor from another country upon viewing Gettysburg or Bunker Hill.

  “Detonated?” the sergeant snorted a laugh. “Naw, that’s what everybody thinks, but it’s the other way ’round.”

  “Our fathers dug a hole, filled it with kegs of black powder and lured the tin can there, then lit the fuse,” Mitchum said, his vision unfocused as he imagined the past event. “The blast blew it to dreck.”

  “The shrapnel aced most of the sec men,” Mitchum said. “Lost my father and two uncles in that fight. But they saved the ville.”

  “Good men,” Ryan said.

  “Damn straight they were.”

  Riding onward, they found a path leading through the jungle, the dirt road speckled with a layer of loose gravel pounded into the soil under countless hooves. Protection against erosion from the rain.

  “Bad storms here?” Jak asked.

  Mitchum snorted in reply. “Like nothing you’ve ever seen,” he stated bitterly.

  The roadway was fairly level, although filled with potholes, and in a short while, they exited the jungle and rode onto a grassy plain with countless tree stumps dotting the land. A lot of the stumps were deeply charred. Krysty knew that was how you removed a stump, burn it deep and the roots died, then after a year it could be easily chopped from the ground. Lacking machines and explosives, there was no other way to do the job.

  A ville rose in the distance, its wall made of tree trunks notched and laid on top one another in layers to form a zigzag pattern for maximum strength. Bits of broken glass and shards of clam shells jutted from every crack, making climbing the wall a risky proposition. Thorny vines were draped over the top in the manner of barbed wire, and armed sec men walked the parapets with muzzle-loading flintlock rifles in their arms.

  The front gate was very small, only slightly larger than a regular door, just barely big enough to walk a horse through. Riding into the ville would have been out of the question. There was no way coldhearts or pirates could force enough troops through the door to forcibly hold the passage open. A handful of sec men could defend the door with nothing more than axes. With blasters it would be a slaughter.

  “Impressive,” Krysty said.

  “Best ville in the Thousand Islands,” Mitchum boasted.

  Looking around, J.B. noticed a break in the trees to the far right, indicating another road. “That lead to the docks?”

  “Where we keep the ships,” the colonel corrected. “Wouldn’t call them docks, exactly.”

  Ryan reined in his horse. “Before we go any farther, you and I need to talk.”

  “Yeah? What about?” Mitchum asked suspiciously, a hand moving dangerously near his blaster.

  “Our deal. A ship for your freedom.”

  “I’ll pay your price,” the officer said. “Don’t worry about that. Just one of these flintlocks will buy you a rowboat large enough for everything but the horses.”

  “And you can keep the horses once we’re gone. All we want is a boat.”

  “Fair enough, but you better hide those fancy blasters. I know you got them from the cannies, bu
t if Thayer spots those, he’ll take them away. Road tax, defense budget, whatever he feels like calling it this month.”

  “He can try,” Dean said stoically.

  “Won’t just try, lad. Baron Thayer would get them any way necessary,” Mitchum stated. “That’s a fact. And we’ll help him do it, too. We owe you big, but the baron has our oath.”

  Yeah, Ryan thought as much. But they had walked this razor’s edge before and survived. Briefly, he considered having J.B. stay outside and keep watch, but decided it would be wiser to keep everybody together. Otherwise, they might have come back for the Armorer through an army of sec men. Besides, they had a few special items that Mitchum knew nothing about in case of trouble.

  “Hide the weapons,” Ryan commanded.

  Reluctantly, the companions removed their gun belts and holsters, hiding the blasters and ammo inside their bedrolls and backpacks. Flintlocks were tucked into their belts now, ammo bags of black powder and lead shot slung across shoulders to distribute the weight.

  Shaking the reins, Ryan made a clucking sound with his tongue and started the horse at a canter through the field heading toward Ratak ville. Mitchum galloped to catch up and stayed alongside, while the rest of the group followed close behind.

  Chapter Eleven

  As the companions and the sec men rode toward the jungle ville, Mitchum started to wave at the guards on the wall.

  “Gotta show we’re friendly,” he said, “or we don’t even get close. Standing orders are to shoot on sight.”

  “Shoot who?” Mildred asked, rocking to the movement of her mount.

  “Everybody,” the colonel answered. Then he pointed at a sec man on the wall, who was sitting with his legs dangling over the top and sipping from a gourd. “Pierce! Put down that shine!”

  The startled sec man dropped the gourd and quickly stood, wiping his mouth on a sleeve. Squinting down at the riders, he broke into a smile. “Fuck a mutie, it’s the colonel. Hey, Sarge! Colonel Mitchum’s back!”

  “I saw him five minutes ago,” the sergeant stated calmly.

  Raising a hand, Mitchum brought the riders to a halt a short distance from the front door.

  “Open the gate, Sergeant Whyte.”

  “Sure thing, sir!” the man said, lowering his blaster to point at them. “Be glad to, just as soon as your new friends back away.”

  “Better do as he asks,” Mitchum told the others. “And don’t draw a blaster or he’ll shoot without warning.”

  “Tight security,” Ryan said, noting the placement of the guards. “Must have a lot of enemies.”

  “Not anymore.”

  Shaking the reins, the companions walked their mounts away from the sec men and watched the group enter the ville through the door. It closed behind them. But after a few moments, the door swung open again, and Mitchum waved them inside.

  Ryan took the lead, and single file the companions guided their mounts through the narrow doorway. Doc was the last, and as it thudded closed the sound reminded him of a coffin lid slamming shut. An unnerving comparison.

  After the gate closed, armed sec men struggled to slide a wooden beam as thick as a horse across the portal.

  Mitchum and his troopers had stopped in the middle of a street and slid off their mounts to look around the ville and clap each other on the back. It was obvious they were glad to be back home.

  Sidling closer to the sec men, Ryan studied the place. Logs with steps cut into them served as a ladder to reach the walkway set along the inside of the wall. Boxes and barrels placed at regular intervals probably held ammo, arrows and such for the sec men to use in case of attack. That was smart. Ryan had seen many a ville fall because the baron kept every round of ammo in his home, and didn’t arm his guards fast enough to stop an attack.

  The streets were dirt with gravel walked into the ground as protection from the rain. The ramshackle buildings were mostly trailer homes, with a few log cabins and one big structure made of brick and stone. The baron’s home, obviously. A well stood in the middle of a stone plaza, a bamboo-and-thatch roof standing guard over the precious clean water. A door stood wide on a blacksmith shop, tan men pounding iron on an anvil made of stone, and a thick waxy smell came from a tiny van whose chassis was sunk into the ground, smoke rising from a vent in the roof and rows of candles hanging from a clothesline to cool and harden in the sea breeze. And looming darkly over the ville was a row of gallows, the light-color palm-tree wood stained with blood.

  From somewhere there came the steady crack of a whip, followed by an anguished cry. The noise continued, with the cries becoming weaker.

  Straggling in, a crowd of people was forming in the street to greet Mitchum and his troops. The locals were dressed in the usual assortment of homemade hides and bits of predark junk. Many wore sandals cut from tires, and there were lots of vests and skirts made from shag carpeting. An old man was smoking a wooden pipe, and a young girl was suckling a newborn in her arms.

  Suddenly, the crowd parted for a big man in shiny boots and tight denim pants worn light blue at the knees. The big man was shirtless, revealing his hairy chest and massive muscles with long arms that nearly reached his knees. Mildred thought he looked like an ape, the man was so simian in nature. As the only person carrying a blaster, he had to be the baron. The weapon was a .22 revolver, small cartridges filling half the loops lining his rainbow-colored belt. Some sort of lizard skin, the physician assumed.

  Covertly, J.B. and Ryan exchanged looks. If that was what the baron carried, then the man would happily chill them to get his hands on the .357 Colt Magnum or the Uzi machine pistol.

  As the ape man came closer, Mitchum and his troops quickly stood in a rough line.

  “Sir!” they chorused and snapped salutes.

  He tried not to show it, but Ryan was impressed. He hadn’t seen disciplined troops since the Shiloh slave camp of that crazy whitecoat.

  “At ease, you bastards,” the baron grunted in greeting, returning the gesture. “Mitchum, glad as hell to see you and the troops alive. After a week I figured you were aced.”

  The colonel frowned. “Damn near, my lord, but we’re still sucking air thanks to these folks,” Mitchum said, looking at the companions.

  “That so,” Baron Thayer said, glancing at them for only a second. “So what happened, pirates attack?”

  “It was those cannies that been hunting us since last winter,” Mitchum explained. “Aced half my squad, and was working their way through the rest when Ryan and his people busted in and blew the place apart.”

  “What do you mean?” the baron asked, confused.

  “They set fire to the armory, Baron,” the colonel said. “You should have seen it!”

  “Those cannies won’t ever be bothering us again,” a private added.

  “That true?” Thayer demanded, scowling in disbelief.

  “Close enough,” Ryan said, sliding out of the saddle to talk with the man on an even keel. The Trader always said that talking face-to-face put a man more at ease, and they needed the baron’s goodwill to acquire that boat.

  Rubbing his chin, Thayer studied the companions closely, a thumb in his pocket, resting his hand inches from the little blaster. “I’m Harlan Thayer,” he said at last, “the baron of Ratak ville. Who the hell are you folks?”

  “Just some explorers,” Ryan said, crossing his arms, so that his own hands hung near the loaded flintlocks tucked into his Army belt. “A forest fire burned down our ville of Moscow, and we set out to find a better place.”

  “Lord Baron Kinnison doesn’t like wanderers,” Thayer growled. “Says they’re often spies working for pirates.”

  The statement sounded like a trap of some kind, so Ryan took the offensive. “Don’t give a hot shit what the Lord Bastard likes,” he stated firmly. “And if somebody stuffed a Firebird up his ass, I’d gladly light the fuse.”

  The crowd froze in terror, but the sec man laughed and Thayer shifted his frown into a momentary grin. “Well, you got balls,
One-eye, that’s for sure. Everybody hates the fat rotbag, but few dare to say it aloud. What are your names?”

  Introductions were made all around.

  “Mighty good horse,” Thayer said, going to a mare and stroking its neck. The animal stayed in place and shuffled its hooves in pleasure under the petting. “What’ll you take for them?”

  “The ones ridden by Mitchum and his men are yours,” Ryan said. “As are the blasters they carry. They bought them with blood.”

  Thayer continued to stroke the beast, but seemed confused that the offer of payment had been declined, the animals and weapons turned into a gift. If he didn’t know better, the baron would have sworn the stranger was trying to buy his goodwill.

  “Sell you these others,” Krysty countered, draping the reins over the pommel of her saddle. “Food and good beds for a week.”

  Amused, Thayer looked over the red-haired beauty. He had thought she was only Ryan’s bed warmer, but now he saw she carried a blaster. Odd folks these outlanders. A memory tickled the back of his brain, something about strangers with fancy blasters. But these folks had only flintlocks, so it couldn’t have been about them.

  “Keep the horses. I’m offering food and good beds for a month,” Baron Thayer stated loudly. “That’s what I pay as reward to anybody who aces a hundred cannies and saves my men from the pot. Food and beds, or three full pounds of black powder. Your choice.”

  The old man dropped his pipe, and the crowd gasped at the incredible offer, unable to believe what they were hearing.

  “Take the food and beds,” Ryan said, easing his stance and offering a hand.

  “Agreed, Blackie,” the baron replied.

  They shook on the deal, and Thayer added, “Mitchum, take these folks to the Grotto and tell Sal they’re my guests. And after they’re fed, bring them to the palace for drinks. Got some coconut wine that’ll melt a cannonball, and I’d like a talk with folks who have seen other islands.”

  “Yes, Baron,” Colonel Mitchum answered, snapping a salute.

  “Just a second there, dead man,” a gruff voice said from the crowd, and the people parted to admit a burly officer.