by James Axler
“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, longblasters 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 panted, 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.
Reaching into a pocket, Ryan pulled out a gren and made sure the pin was firmly in place, the tape tight around the priming handle. Going to the hole, he dropped the gren down the hole and listened. Three seconds later there was a thump of it landing, and then silence, no reaction to its arrival.
“It’s clear,” he announced, starting down the rope.
After a couple of yards, Ryan dropped the last few feet
and landed with his blaster out, sweeping for targets. He was in a brick tunnel that extended into the distance in both directions. There was a diffuse light coming from bulbs inside wire cages along the ceiling. The electricity was probably coming from nuke batteries buried in the walls, and even those predark powerhouses were slowly dying over the long centuries.
The gren had rolled a few feet down the tunnel, and he reclaimed the explosive charge, double-checking to make sure the pin and handle were in place. Just then, the rope jiggled and Dean dropped to the concrete floor, blaster in one hand, bowie knife in the other.
“We’re alone,” Ryan said, tugging the rope three times to signal it was okay for the others to come down.
Soon, the companions were gathered together, and Jak put his lighter to the rope, the old hemp slowly igniting and starting to burn upward out of sight.
“Wet rope top with canteen,” he said, pocketing the lighter. “So no burn latrine.”
“Well, it’ll certainly slow down any pursuit,” Mildred said, watching the fire crackling up the access way. It was concrete pipe with rusty holes along the side where iron rungs had been set for easy access. Only rust stains marked where they had once been inserted into the resilient material.
“Indeed, madam, that is, until they find another rope,” Doc rumbled anxiously. “My dear Ryan, I really cannot voice my sincere wish to vacate this untoward locale quite strenuously enough.”
“Yeah, we’ve got to blow this pesthole,” Ryan agreed, stabbing his knife through the wire cage to break the bulb and plunge that section of the tunnel into darkness. Give the baron something else to worry about if he made it down here.
“Which way leads to the sea?” he asked, sheathing the blade.
Tilting back his fedora, J.B. checked his pocket compass. “That way goes inland, toward the jungle,” he said, pointing. “The other heads to the ocean.”
Could be a wag hidden in the trees, or a boat on the beach. A boat was what they needed, so they might as well head for the water.
“I’m on point,” Ryan said, switching to the Steyr. “J.B. covers the rear. Three-foot spread.”
Walking on the toes of their boots to try to hold down the echoes, the companions soon saw a flickering silvery light from ahead and rushed forward to find the end of the brick tunnel blocked by a wall of falling water. Doc tested the depths with his sword and pronounced it safe. Shielding his blaster with his body, Ryan dashed through and found himself on the sandy shore of a small lagoon. A waterfall rushing from overhead completely masked the entrance of the tunnel, where the freshwater fed into a small pool filled with tropical fish. The shore was edged with tall mango trees festooned with fishing nets laced with green leaves. In the background he could hear the gentle sounds of waves cresting on the sand. But it was impossible to see anything on the other side of the disguising barrier. Thayer had done a good job here. Then Ryan noticed something large and covered with canvas moored on the nearby beach. There was their boat.
Going to the waterfall, he stuck a hand through and gestured for the others to join him. In short order the rest of the companions exited the tunnel and marveled at the beautiful hidden grotto and its pristine golden beach.
“That our boat?” Mildred asked, squeezing some of the excess water from her beaded locks.
“Hope so,” Ryan said, and, grabbing a fistful of canvas he yanked hard. The material easily slid off, exposing a wag underneath, not an oceangoing vessel of any kind.
It was a predark school bus, covered in splotches of green and brown, jungle camou. The glass windows along both sides had been replaced with thick sheet-metal tack welded into place, and the front windshield was protected by a heavy iron grid, the bar studded with knife blades gleaming with oil. The rear window in the exit door had the same. Triangular spikes with barbed tips jutted from the rims of the wheels, and double tires were bolted to each axle, giving the wag tremendous traction. Blasters were everywhere, but there were no attached weapons that they could spot. With all the weight of the armor, Ryan doubted the wag made much speed, but it looked ready to travel.
Jimmying open the door, J.B. climbed inside and saw that the back of the wag was stacked high with crates and barrels of supplies, poorly lettered wording showing what each contained: led, blakpoder, dri fesh, watr, chyen and such. Crates of longblasters filled the rear seats, and a crossbow hung from the ceiling along with quivers of bolts.
“Enough supplies to start a new ville,” Mildred said over his shoulder.
“I think that was the idea,” Doc noted wryly. “How fortunate for us.”
“Well, this clunker isn’t War Wag One or the Leviathan,” J.B. said, taking a seat by the front door. “But it’ll do for today.”
Jak went straight to the rear door and checked its status, while Dean took a spot in the middle. Closing the double doors, Ryan dropped his backpack and sat just behind the driver’s seat. Krysty slid behind the wheel and turned the ignition switch one click to check the gauges and controls. Ryan knew that she had the best night vision, so it made sense for her to drive the wag. Headlights would only have made them a moving target for the flintlocks of the ville sec men. Or worse, any cannon the ville might have mounted for wall defenses.
Dim lights brightened on the dashboard, and Krysty tapped the fuel gauge with a finger to make sure it was a true reading.
“Okay, we have plenty of battery power and full tanks of juice,” she reported, strapping herself into the seat.
“Head for the docks,” Ryan directed. “Glassman has PT boats there. If we strike fast, we might be able steal one and use its Firebirds to blow the others apart.”
“Sounds good. Buckle in. Here we go!” Krysty clicked the ignition switch all the way, and the engine turned over but didn’t start. Then she saw the choke on the dashboard, set that to the middle position, pumped the gas and tried again. This time the engines caught with a sputtering cough, rattling and backfiring before roaring into life, black smoke blowing out the tailpipes. Startled birds flew out of the trees screaming, as the bus backfired again, sounding louder than a shotgun.
“Unless they’re deaf, the sec men will know where we are now,” Ryan grumped. “Hit the gas, and let’s move!”
Shifting gears, Krysty hit the clutch and rocked the bus back and forth a few times to escape the sand, then rolled forward, building speed, and plowed through the camou netting to emerge on a rocky beach. The log wall of Ratak ville stood on a gentle swell to their right, the docks straight ahead. A four-masted schooner was moored in the deep water, six of the deadly PT boats tied at the wooden pier. An oil lantern draped with cloth hung from a post, giving off a peculiar green glow. A seasoned traveler on ships, Doc had no idea what that could possibly mean.
Keeping the headlights off, using only the muted moonlight, Krysty rumbled along the sandy beach, the ocean spray misting the windows on the left side. Quickly, the companions got ready to board and storm the first petey. But the bus got only halfway there, when brilliant electric lights crashed on to sweep the beach and captured them in a deadly wash of clear illumination.
Ryan fired the Steyr out a blasterport at the searchlights, and one winked out. Instantly, the .50-caliber blasters from the PT boats began to hammer away, the heavy-duty combat rounds chewing a path of destruction along the sand toward the war wag. Then another petey added its firepower to the assault, and another.
“Gaia!” Krysty shouted, hitting the gas and twisting the steering wheel to get away from the withering crossfire.
But she was too slow, and a brief flurry of lead rattled the wag, punching a neat line of holes through the sheet metal covering the windows. Then there was a flash from the schooner, and a cannon roared, the beach exploding exactly where they had just been.
“It’s a trap!” J.B. shouted, firing the Uzi out a blasterport at the crews of the PT boats. Several of the men toppled over, but more took their places, and the incoming barrage of lead didn’t even pause.
“Hold on
!” Krysty called, and slammed into a higher gear, the engine revving with power.
Sand kicked up from impacting bullets, and several more hit the bus to musically ricochet into the darkness.
“Head for the ville!” Ryan shouted, firing steadily.
“What?” she demanded, glancing at him in the rearview mirror.
Ryan dropped a fresh mag into the breech of the Steyr. “Got to make a firewall!” he replied.
“Gotcha!”
A group of sec men carrying Firebirds crashed through a stand of trees directly in front of them. Pushing for more speed, Krysty felt the steering wheel jar as the wag rolled over the screaming men.
Now heading for the ville, Krysty saw flintlocks fire along the top of the wall as she steered right for the small front door. As she got near, the door swung wide and a sec man on horseback rode into view. She plowed directly into them, the man and animal mashed into bloody pulp as the bus hurtled their mangled bodies into the doorway. Hitting the brakes, she swung the rear of the vehicle around until it was pointing at the entrance. Jak kicked open the aft door and pushed out a barrel of fuel, then slammed the door shut.
Krysty hit the gas again and roared off as the companions poured blasterfire onto the fifty-five-gallon drum.
They were near the edge of the clearing when a spark from the bullets hitting the barrel finally ignited the fuel and a tremendous fireball blossomed in front of the only exit, the splashed juice dribbling fire along the wooden walls of the ville.
Working the clutch, Krysty shifted gears and broached the side road, really building speed now that the wag was on smooth ground. The trees flashed by in a blur until the friends reached a field and turned off the road to cut across the grassland heading for the savanna on the horizon.
Behind them, alarms bells rang as blasterfire shook the trees searching for the escaping outlanders.
Chapter Twelve
His food supply exhausted days earlier, Baron Kinnison was nestled in the corner of the cell, standing on the bunk, slowly chewing a warm piece of rat when there came the sounds of boots in the outside corridor.
