by James Axler
“This isn’t Cascade,” J.B. stated, fumbling in the shadows to check his boots. The laces were still tied. He glanced at Ryan and they nodded. A moment of privacy was all they needed.
“Indeed not, John Barrymore,” Doc agreed, tucking his legs together in a yoga position. “And if we had been taken by Mitchum and Glassman, they would surely be standing alongside to gloat. This must be some unknown ville on the island.”
“A secret ville on Forbidden Island,” Ryan muttered thoughtfully. Then loudly said, “Could be throwbacks, or even pirates.”
“We’re pirates!” boomed a voice from the front of the cage. “The true rulers of the world! Now shut up.”
Going to the front of the cage, Ryan reached through as far as he could with his tied hands and tugged on the dangling coat of the unseen man driving the horse and cart.
“Hey!” a voice called out. “Do that again, and I’ll use the whip! The baron wants you alive, but he never said undamaged. So be still!”
Alive, eh? “Fuck that crap,” Ryan snarled, attempting to check the man’s reactions. “Tell me where you’re taking us, or I’ll rip out your guts with my bare hands!”
“Ain’t telling you shit,” the driver snapped, and lashed down with a whip.
Ryan yanked his hands away from the bars just in time to miss losing flesh. The man was fast, and serious. A dangerous opponent.
“We can pay,” J.B. said from the other side. “I know the formula for—”
“Nukeshit,” the driver interrupted. “You know shit, and you got shit, so don’t give me no shit. You belong to his nibs, and that means you’re dead. What can a dead man give me?”
Then he roared in laughter and pulled out a 9 mm Heckler & Koch blaster. “Besides, I already got your blaster!”
Retreating to the center of the cage, the companions rode through the bumps as the cart rolled up a short flight of stone steps and onto an older street made of cobblestones, the granite pegs worn smooth by the passage of the years.
Suddenly a mob of children shrieked in delight at the arrival of the cage and started pelting the prisoners with stones. The men moved quickly into a huddle to protect their faces, and grunted with the impact of every hard-thrown rock. The driver allowed it for a while, then whipped the brats away.
As the men released one another, they could now observe that this was a much nicer section of the ville. The houses were bigger, and many had glass in their window frames. There were no more farmers selling in the street, and the men and women slowly walking by were dressed in fine clothes with no patches, boots polished, faces well fed. Only the men wore the wide leather belts of a sailor, but both sexes carried blasters on their hips. Often they had liveried servants carrying parcels, or holding umbrellas to keep the sun off their fancy masters.
“Officers’ quarters,” Ryan said.
The horses whinnied as the driver took them up an inclined road, to crest onto a higher level. Here the road was made of redbrick, and the cart wheeled past a yard-tall stone wall lined with heavy cannons, mounds of cannonballs and bags of powder placed close nearby. The gunners stared at the passing prisoners, laughing and making crude comments. Each man wore a wide leather belt with a short sword thrust through. Many were barefoot, with rags tied about their heads to keep the wind from blowing hair into eyes. No lacy dandies here—these were fighting men, the defenders of the ville.
Rubbing a rock bruise on his shoulder, Ryan guessed it was these guards who fired cannons at the Pegasus when it arrived. He looked them over carefully, but saw no signs of recent scratches on their faces. Maybe Krysty, Jak and Mildred slipped free and were safe in the jungle. But there was no way of telling without giving away their presence on the island fortress. He would have to play this very carefully, or they’d all go under the yoke.
More buildings moved past the companions, sturdy structures of brick and concrete, most with sandbags lining the roofs as protection from incoming cannonballs. No children were in sight here, no peddlers, or dogs, and Ryan knew they had reached the heart of the ville. The baron’s fortress.
As the cart rattled to a halt in a small courtyard, a dozen men surrounded the iron cage with blasters in their hands. Most were muzzleloading flintlocks, but a few were predark revolvers, and one tall bald man with small ears carried a Thompson machine gun. Ryan marked him as the sec chief.
Burly men walked forward with wrenches and released the chains only after a lot of grunting and a few bleeding knuckles. J.B. reasoned this wasn’t standard procedure for prisoners, and wondered what made them special, and how the info could be used to their advantage.
As the door swung aside on squealing hinges, the companions exited one at a time, the pirates keeping them covered with several blasters. Each had the ropes on his feet cut away, but they were lashed together again by chains around their necks. In single file, the companions marched along the brick street, unable to do more than study their surroundings.
The fortress rising before them sported iron grilles on the windows and a massive double door thick enough to stop any blaster round. Inside, the floor was smooth marble, predark lighting fixtures adorning the high ceilings, the walls decorated with faded pictures and recently added gun racks. Doc reasoned this abode was formerly a museum for the tourists visiting the paradise of the Marshall Islands.
“Stop searching for a way out,” a bearded man snarled, and lashed Ryan across the back with a strap. “If the baron didn’t want you alive, I’d flay you till your bones dropped out for such insolence!”
So the pirate baron really did want them alive, eh? Good. Spinning, Ryan slammed the toe of his boot into the man’s gut with all of his strength, the tip hitting just below the lip of the rib cage. Going livid, the pirate staggered backward and dropped his whip, then toppled over.
“Stop your gaffing,” a sailor snorted, nudging the big man with a longblaster.
There was no response.
“Pete?” the sailor asked faintly, kneeling by the fallen man to check for a wound. “Nuke me, he…got no breath. Lieutenant Pawter, the fucking outlander aced him!”
“Aced him with a kick,” the tall man with the machine gun said, working the bolt on the ancient blaster. “Most impressive.”
“Pete was me mate, you modderfucker!” another snarled, cocking back the hammer on a flintlock and pointing the blaster.
“Belay that!” Pawter ordered, and the rest stopped advancing toward the prisoners.
The lieutenant then shifted the aim of his rapidfire toward the chained men. “Nobody goes near Blackie anymore. That bastard is dangerous. Keep your blasters on him at all times. Next move he makes, wound the boy and castrate him on the spot.”
Saying nothing, Ryan locked eyes with the lieutenant, and they exchanged a private conversation. Then Ryan eased his stance and started walking along the corridor.
“Yes, very dangerous I see,” Pawter said, keeping a clear field of fire between himself and the outlanders. “Mebbe you are exactly what we need.”
“Try that move again, One-eye,” the first sailor snarled, drawing a second blaster, this one with a dozen tiny barrels like a honeycomb, “and this pepperbox will show your guts the ground.”
Ryan ignored the guard, keeping his attention on the lieutenant. It wasn’t only that rapidfire that made him the most deadly enemy in sight.
Marching along some branching corridor and up a grand flight of stairs, the guards stopped the prisoners before an ornate door covered with delicate carvings and intact human hides, the skin perfectly tanned and complete in every detail from the scalp to the genitalia. Doc muttered something in Latin and received a slap to the head that made the man reel.
“No talking,” the sailor grunted, raising a hand to deal another blow.
Doc raised himself to his full height and glared defiantly at the other man when Pawter spoke.
“Boss said alive,” the lieutenant reminded, the barrel of the Thompson shifting away from the prisoners to point at the angry
sailor.
The man noticed the action and lowered his hand, stepping away. “You’re mine, prick,” he muttered threateningly.
Uncaring, the big guards at the door watched the events, but did nothing. Both were armed with big-bore revolvers, the ammo loops in their police gun belts full of fat rounds. The men were scraped clean and smelled faintly of perfume, their clothing sharply pressed and meticulously clean.
Almost as if they were women, Ryan noted mentally, suppressing an expression of disgust.
Stepping close so nobody else could see, Pawter gave the guards some kind of a complicated hand signal. They responded, then drew their blasters and pushed back the heavy doors, admitting the prisoners into the next room. The barrels of their blasters never wavered from the passing outlanders.
A short antechamber led past what resembled a ticket booth and then opened into an auditorium filled with rows of chairs. At the far end was a stage with a single huge chair on a raised dais. An older man was sitting in the simple throne while a group of frowning men studied the wreckage of the Pegasus. A long table nearby held their backpacks and weapons laid out on display.
Shuffling his boots along the ratty carpet, Ryan almost smiled at the sight, but again withheld comment.
“Yes, I can have my girls patch these bags,” a young man said, fingering the cloth of the weather balloons. “But what do we fill them with?”
“We’ll ask them,” Baron Withers said, rising from his throne.
The man stood big and broad, at first looking fat to the newcomers, but under closer inspection there was only hard muscle showing. Long curly hair was braided into a ponytail and tucked inside his pants, and every inch of exposed skin was a dark brown, but whether naturally or from decades under the tropical sun, there was no way of knowing. The baron wore military fatigues, clean but rumpled as if put on in a hurry. Matching revolvers were tucked into his wide leather belt, the hands turned inward for a cross draw, and an Uzi submachine gun hung over one shoulder. J.B. didn’t recognize it as his blaster. Same make and model, but then Millie had told him that the Uzi was one of the most popular rapidfires before skydark. Only made sense he’d encounter another someday.
As the guards moved away from the prisoners, Pawter kept them covered with the rapidfire.
“This them?” the baron demanded, walking to the edge of the stage.
“Bruised, but alive,” the lieutenant replied.
“Thought we’d lose at least one,” Withers said, almost sounding disappointed. “Okay, who are you and what are you doing on my island?”
“You the baron here?” Ryan asked.
Frowning, Baron Withers pointed at Dean. “Him,” he ordered.
With a roundhouse swing, a guard punched Dean in the side of the head and the boy dropped. He held his face in both hands, blood dribbling onto the floor. Barely controlling his rage, Ryan wasn’t surprised at the results, although Dean was strong for his age, he was still a boy, not a man yet.
“You were talking to me,” Ryan said gruffly, taking a step forward.
“Then answer my bastard questions,” Withers replied, glowering at him. “And the next time you answer a question with a question, Andrew will remove an ear.”
A guard drew a wicked knife, the curved blade deeply serrated, made for sawing through bone. “Aye, sir.” He grinned, displaying broken teeth.
“I know the formula for black powder,” J.B. stated loud and clear.
The guards chuckled at the announcement, and Withers broke into a laugh. Their reactions startled the companions, the formula had been an ace in the hole. Black powder was the backbone of the lord baron’s wealth and power. Nobody alive knew what it was made of.
“Do you now?” the baron stated. “How nice. Well, so do I. Forced it from one of the lord baron’s barrel boys four seasons ago. That won’t buy you anything here, outlander.”
“Name’s Ryan,” he stated. “That’s Doc, J.B. and Dean.”
“Better,” Withers muttered. “Now tell me about your flying machine.”
“I think it’s broken,” Dean drawled through bleeding lips as he climbed back to his feet.
A snarling guard rushed forward, but Ryan blocked the man’s way with his body.
“Harm another one of us and you’re dead in the water,” he stated. “This isn’t something simple like black powder. You’ll never get the air wag to fly again without our help.”
Ryan turned to face the baron. “Our willing help,” he added gruffly. “Or else the blast will level this bastard island.”
It was obviously a lie, but how much was bullshit, how much the truth? Buying time, Withers filled a brass mug from a crystal decanter. He slurped the homemade beer, trickles running down his cheeks, then slammed down the brass shell and beamed a smile.
“Fair enough. We’ll cut a deal. Pawter, remove their chains.”
“My lord?” the lieutenant asked askance.
“Do it!” Withers commanded. Then softly added, “After all, we have their three friends, and at the first lie…” He drew a thumb along his neck while making a guttural noise.
Ryan felt hope flare deep inside and tried his best not to show any emotion. They were alive!
The chains around their necks were removed, but the ropes around their hands stayed in place. Ryan didn’t mind. It was the metal that had been holding them back. Now they could make a move.
“So tell us,” a fat, bearded man on stage demanded gruffly. “What are these bags filled with?”
Rubbing his chafed neck, Ryan scowled. “You want that here?” he said to the baron. “With all these ears present?”
“Stop stalling,” Withers growled. “These are my private council. What I know, so do they. Now start talking.”
“Doc invented it,” Ryan said.
A sailor scowled. “The old man did?”
“Indeed I did, sir. And I will elucidate, if I may,” Doc rumbled in his best schoolroom manner, and started up the stairs leading to the stage.
“Talk English,” Withers demanded, swinging the Uzi around to lay it on his lap. “Last chance, old man.”
“But of course, your noble highness.”
The baron roared with laughter. “Highness, that’s a good one. I may keep you around, old-timer.”
Which meant the rest would be killed as soon as the secret of the balloon was revealed. Doc had a terrible flashback to being captured by Cort Strasser, who tortured him horribly every day. The old man shook his head. Never again would that happen. Doc would rather die than suffer such ignoble torment once more.
“Do you have any chalk?” he asked. “I need to draw a picture.”
“Chalk?” the baron said as a question. The other men on stage shrugged in ignorance.
“It is a soft white stone used to make pictures,” Doc explained to their blank faces. “No chalk, eh? Never mind, I can use a knife and scratch a picture on the floor.”
The old man went to his knees and ran hands along the veneer of the old wood. “Yes, this will do nicely.”
“No knives,” Pawter said.
“But I need something,” Doc complained, looking helplessly at the baron, then at the table full of their equipment.
“My cane,” he said gesturing at the table laden with their belongings. “That has a steel tip. I can use my cane. Surely that is not a danger, and I need something.”
“I can go outside and get a sharp piece of coral,” Pawter suggested.
Doc felt his bowels run cold. That damn man would ruin everything.
“Give him the stick,” the baron directed impatiently. “Let’s get this going.”
A sailor took the stick and, holding it by the shaft, offered it to the scholar. “Here, now get writing!”
Casually, Doc seized the lion’s head of the stick, gave it a twist and stepped away with bare steel in his hand. Before anybody could react to the sight, Doc lunged forward and slipped the point through the neck of the guard before him. The man tried to yell, but only g
argled from the red blood pouring out of his destroyed throat.
Doc swung around and Ryan was already on the stage, his hands as far apart as the ropes would allow. The razor-sharp steel sword sliced easily through the plastic, and Ryan slammed both of his fists into the faces of onrushing sec men, teeth and bones breaking from the powerful blows. As they crumbled, Ryan grabbed a blaster from the fallen man and fired a round at the baron, who was fumbling with the Uzi. The miniball impacted into the wood of his throne, missing his head by the thickness of a hair. But the startled pirate dropped the rapidfire to the stage floor.
“Chill them!” Baron Withers roared, drawing both revolvers from his belt, when the spent blaster arrived, hitting him hard in the throat. Withers dropped his weapons and clawed at his neck, fighting for air from his crushed windpipe.
“Save the baron!” Pawter shouted, leading a rush of guards.
Knowing this was their only chance, J.B. threw himself to the floor and rolled into their path. Two dodged out of the way, but two more tripped over the Armorer and went sprawling. Punching one in the groin, J.B. buried his teeth into the other guard’s throat, ripping free a ragged gobbet of flesh, veins and ligaments stretching horribly from the ghastly wound.
A sec man was drawing a bead on his father, so Dean spun and kicked the guard directly in the stomach. The man doubled over coughing, but didn’t drop his blaster, so the boy slammed a knee into his face, crushing the nose in a bloody spray. Then Dean wrapped his tied hands around the man’s throat and tried to throw him over a shoulder. The sec man jerked from the attempt, his neck making a loud snapping sound, and then he crumpled to the floor with a broken neck.
Grabbing his blaster, Dean fired at Pawter just as he reached the throne, blowing off the back of the lieutenant’s head. As the corpse toppled, the boy rushed forward for the Thompson still held in the twitching fingers. But another guard got there first and started fiddling with the rapidfire, trying to make it work.
