Judas Strike

by James Axler

  “What’s your name?” the baron ordered, fighting off a stomach spasm. His need for more jolt was making itself known again.

  “Rochar Langford, my lord,” the young man answered calmly.

  Kinnison was impressed; the man wasn’t afraid. Amazing, and potentially useful. The baron grandly gestured. “Your oath is accepted. Rise, Chancellor Rochar Langford.”

  “Ch-chancellor?” Langford gasped, then collected himself and gave a salute. “Sir, yes, sir!”

  Realizing the untenable position of indecision, the rest of the people in attendance also knelt and swore to obey the baron. The pledges of fidelity were strong, and well delivered. But Kinnison coldly remembered when they had given the exact same oath many years ago, before the revolt. His grandfather used to say that promises were like pie crusts, made to be broken.

  “My lord, what about the Firebirds?” a major asked anxiously, glancing at the ceiling as if he could see the missiles streaking through the air.

  “They have been neutralized,” Kinnison stated, and waited. There was a long dramatic pause, and the baron feared he had timed the blast wrong when a powerful explosion sounded from outside.

  Surreptitiously, the sec men exchanged glances, wondering how the hell the fat man could control the Firebirds without speaking directly to them. Settling into his throne, Kinnison was pleased to see the fear of his unknown abilities fill their faces. Excellent. It would be quite a while before he was challenged again.

  “Chancellor!” Baron Kinnison snapped.

  Directing some servants to drag away the body of Griffin, Langford turned. “My lord?”

  “Send a squad of sec men to collect the escaped prisoners and chain them in the powder mill. We will need their cells. Soon enough the dungeon will be packed with traitors waiting for execution.”

  The crowd of barons and officers didn’t take that news well, and several began to quietly slip out of the throne room.

  “I’ll handle it personally, sir,” Langford replied, watching the door close behind the officers. “Sergeant, take a squad and follow those men. Don’t let them leave the island without my direct authorization.”

  “Yes, sir,” the sec man said, saluting.

  Kinnison smiled. Competent help, at last. “Good man. Then release the carrier falcons to our peteys and sailing ships. They are to stop hunting pirates and muties to concentrate on locating the outlander Ryan and his group. I want a recce of every ville within a five-day sail.”

  “Sir!”

  “And increase the reward to weapons, powder and slaves.”

  “It will be done.”

  A lieutenant cleared his throat. “My lord, Griffin ordered their immediate deaths. Should we now have the troops try to capture them alive?”

  “No! Chill them all on sight,” Baron Kinnison declared with a frown. “Except for the two women. Break their arms to keep them from escaping and bring them to Maturo Island.”

  “Yes, my lord!”

  As the guard raced away with the orders, Kinnison smiled to himself. Yes, the outlander sluts were perfect. Under torture they might tell many important things. And if they knew nothing useful, well, he needed new wives to start trying again for a son. Maybe several this time. Fresh meat should do the job nicely.

  That was, for as long as they lived.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Try it again!” Ryan shouted, putting his weight behind the tree branch and shoving the end deeper into the mud under the stuck tire. Getting ready, the rest of the companions put their shoulders to the mired bus and dug in their boots.

  “Third time is the charm,” Doc muttered.

  “Shut up, you old coot,” Mildred growled, squeezed tight between J.B. and Dean.

  “Here we go!” Krysty shouted out the side window, and started the engine, blue exhaust pouring from the tailpipes. Then pumping the gas pedal, the woman shifted gears and stomped on the clutch, rocking the long wag back and forth.

  The companions pushed as the back tires began to spin freely in the slick mud, sending out a spray of muck until smoke rose from the hot rubber. The wag started to inch forward, then Ryan cried out as the tree branch broke from his grip and sailed off into the nearby trees.

  “Kill the engine!” Ryan spit, flexing his stinging hands. “Save the juice!”

  As the engine dieseled off, the wag promptly settled into the mud once more. Fireblast! After all they had been through, to be stopped by something like this. Krysty had carefully avoided the roads and cut across barren fields, pausing only to let Ryan set fire to the savanna to hide their trail. Going miles out of the way, J.B. blew up a bridge and tried to make it seem they had crossed to the other side first. Then they drove off with tree branches tied to the bumper to erase the tire marks. Jak took a turn behind the wheel, driving the wag down the bed of a shallow river, so the water would wash away any marks, then started into the mountains and drove back out over the wag’s tracks to lay a fake trail. Reaching the grasslands, the companions were confident of not being followed. Then they encountered the mud.

  “Mebbe we should empty the bus,” Dean suggested, rubbing his shoulder where it had been pressed against the wag. “Make it lighter.”

  “Wouldn’t help,” J.B. stated, shifting his stance in the mucky soil. “Not when we’re already this deep.”

  “Acing mud.” Jak scowled in annoyance, sliding off his jacket to toss it through the open back door of the wag. His shirt was sleeveless, and the hard rippling muscles in his pale arms were clearly defined. As were countless scars.

  Using a strip of cloth to bind her beaded hair, Mildred said, “This is more like quicksand than mud.”

  “A rose by any other name,” Doc rumbled, brushing some speckles off the frills of his shirt. He was getting filthy, and thought that he’d have to ask Emily to soak it as soon as he got back to keep the material from permanently staining.

  “Hey, any block and tackle in the wag?” Dean asked, cracking his knuckles, exactly as his father often did. “Mebbe we can hitch the axle to a tree and pull the bus free.”

  “Sounds good. Go check,” Ryan said, trying to shove the branch deeper under the left tire. “Everybody else get some more branches. We need to chock every tire firmly.”

  “Can’t hurt,” Mildred agreed.

  Straightening his fedora, J.B. swung the Uzi to his front and stood guard while the others trundled out of the soggy ground and headed into the trees for fresh supplies of wood.

  Slogging around the bus, Dean climbed inside and scraped the soles of his boots clean on the metal step before going to the rear of the wag and rummaging through the stacks of boxes. He found a tremendous amount of smoked food, but little in the way of tools. Could they have missed a stash back at the lagoon?

  “Any luck?” Ryan shouted through the rear door.

  “Nothing yet!” Removing a wicker basket of blankets, the boy uncovered a long narrow crate. Unlike the other containers, this one was tied securely shut. Using his bowie knife, Dean cut the ropes holding it closed and flipped over the hinged top.

  “Hot pipe!” he cried out, lifting a fat tube into view. “Firebirds!”

  “Let me see,” J.B. said, opening the rear door.

  Stepping over some boxes, Dean passed him a tube, and the Armorer studied the weapon. Just a simple bamboo tube lacquered with tree resin until it was fireproof, with carved wooden grips so the gunner could hold the weapon steady. Jammed inside was a black-powder rocket with a crude fuse hanging from the side. That was it. Yet the crude weapons had created Kinnison an empire of villes unlike anything in the history of the Deathlands.

  “Love to take this apart and find out how a black-powder rocket can change course to hunt down a target,” J.B. muttered, testing its balance and weight. Very nice.

  “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.