by James Axler
Gingerly he fingered the bandages wrapped around his head with his free hand. To Doc’s horror he had insisted on rubbing dirt onto them to darken them up some. He was damned if he was going to try to sneak up on a campful of cannies with a pristine-white bandage shining on his head.
“Their behavior suggests you were specifically targeted. Which suggests knowledge on the raiders’ part. Which in turn suggests we’ve been betrayed. And why then does the name ‘Don Hector’ spring so readily to mind?”
“Not proved,” Ryan said. “Although, truth to tell, if the crazy son of a bitch was to cross my sights right now, I’d hammer down on him, just on principle. But who and why don’t matter right now. Getting our friends back does.”
“And what of Krysty and Dr. Wyeth, back in the City in the Lake?”
His guts gave a jerk. He ignored it. “I don’t reckon Hector will make his play for the city just yet. He might’ve seen an opportunity to get us in particular out of the picture and jumped on it. But a move on the city means war. And while we laid some savage hurt on the Chichimecs this afternoon, we got no reason to believe they’re out of the picture.”
He shook his head. “He’s nuts. But he’s not so nuts I can see him picking a fight with the city before the invaders’ asses are kicked out of the valley for good and all.”
“I certainly hope that you are right.”
“If not,” Ryan said, “we’re going to want J.B. and Jak with us when we go to spring Krysty and Mildred, anyway.”
An hour and several miles later, Doc sat with his head lolled back and his mouth open, snoring gently. “Doc,” Ryan said.
No response. “Doc,” he said again. When the old man failed to respond, he reached out to shake him gently by the shoulder.
“Not the sows,” Doc moaned. “Please don’t put me in with the sows again.”
“I don’t know about the sows, but the people who used to put you in with them are all worm food, long since. Time to wake up and join us in the present.”
Doc raised his head and stared wildly around at the night. “Where are we?”
Ryan nodded at a yellow glow in the sky above the rise ahead. “We’re there. That’s the Chichimec camp. Grab your swordstick, Doc, ’cause we shag it from here.”
HAVING OVERSEEN the wounded being unloaded and carried into the makeshift infirmary, Don Tenorio had retired to his office. He sat writing by the light of a kerosene lamp when the door opened. He looked up mildly.
“Ah, María,” he said. “What is it?”
“Someone to see you, alcade,” the diminutive woman said.
The baron stiffened as a tall, cloaked figure strolled through the door.
“Good evening,” Don Hector said.
Tenorio tensed to spring up. Then he relaxed, accepting the inevitable, as four Eagle Knights strode in, each wearing a laser armlet, and fanned out to either side of their baron. He rose deliberately, stood straight.
“Whatever your plan, it won’t work,” he said calmly. “My people will never submit to your rule. Kill me if you will, but they still won’t yield.”
Hector nodded, smiling. “Kill you I shall, Tenorio, my old friend. But for now you shall serve as a hostage against the behavior of your subjects. And so shall your wounded and medical personnel, whom we have secured.”
“You seem to be overlooking my allies from el norte.”
Hector shook his head. “Not at all. I have captured the witch-woman with the red hair and the black woman. The Chichimecs have taken your allies, I fear, and will sacrifice them to their own barbaric gods. A sad waste, I agree. They are heroes, to be sure, worthy of the flowery death as sacrifices to my own lord, Huitzilopochtli. Still, the Hummingbird on the Left should be well pleased with the hearts I give him at the apex of his pyramid tomorrow.”
“My people will resist you,” Tenorio said. But he spoke without complete confidence.
Hector picked up the polished stone globe of the Earth from Tenorio’s mahogany desk, turned it over in his big scarred hand, then tossed it up in the air and caught it.
“They will die like rats if they do,” he said. “The survivors will eventually learn to be grateful for the discipline I teach them. And they shall know glory. For once I have become immortal, I shall lead the peoples of this valley on a campaign of conquest the likes of which the world has never seen, combining the technology of the predark days with the spiritual powers of our ancestors.”
Tenorio cocked an eyebrow. “Immortality? You really believe so?”
“I know so. And you will know the folly of having turned your face from our gods, the true gods, when you behold your own heart, smoking, cut from your chest and held up in offering to Huitzilopochtli.”
THE WAG ROLLED west along the causeway from the city. From the south came a low mutter, angry and growing. In the sky above the volcanoes, a red glow had begun to spread like a bloodstain.
A crew of three occupied the strongpoint guarding the landward entry to the causeway. Two of them emerged from the small tower as the wag slowed to a stop in front of the mobile barrier.
“What a glorious evening, no?” one called cheerfully to the driver.
“The only thing wrong is we have to wait for our relief at midnight before we can celebrate properly,” the other said. “Unless of course you boys are truly friends, and thought to bring us a bottle or two?”
“I fear not,” the driver said. He put his left arm out the window. It was encased in a bulky plastic molding.
An almost-white lance of brilliance flashed from the armlet to the sentry’s chest. Ruby glare underlit an expression of uncomprehending astonishment as the laser flash-boiled the fluid in his lungs, causing his chest to explode.
As the crack of air rushing back into the vacuum created by the laser beam’s intolerable heat echoed out across the black uneasy waters of the lake, the other sentry turned to run back into the tower. A second Eagle Knight stepped out of the cab, raising his own arm. A second ruby spear struck the sentry in the back, split him open, sent his corpse skidding along the gravel with his clothing in flames.
The man still in the tower was of sterner stuff. The machine-gun mount was never made to bear back along the causeway toward the city. But he was trying to wrestle the wep around when the second Eagle Knight took aim. The sentry’s head exploded at the touch of a laser finger.
As the dismounted Eagle Knight removed the barrier from the roadway, the driver flashed the wag’s headlights: once, twice, three times.
A dozen sets of headlights sprang to life in the darkness of the shore. With a rumbling of engines, the force of sec men and Eagle Knights rolled down to the nowundefended causeway.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The dirt bike’s engine revved to a frenzied scream. Then the human Chichimec mounted on it let go the brake and let in the clutch. The bike shot away across the hard-packed earth of the little ville’s plaza. The captured scavvie tied to the pole behind it screamed louder than the engine as his intestines were unreeled from his slit-open belly behind it.
Glistening greasily in the light of a great central bonfire and numerous torches, the gut stretched out until the tie that fastened one end to the license holder snapped. Then it dropped into the dust, recoiling slightly with natural elasticity. Several figures with matted hair that trailed red stains of fresh blood down their faces, shoulders and torsos came forward to inspect it as the disemboweled man howled and writhed. Next to the drawn-out viscera lay three similar strands, whose erstwhile owners had mercifully bled out and expired.
“Nope, Doc,” Ryan said, watching the proceeding through his Simmons monocular. “This one didn’t win. Damn, but I can’t get over how much gut a person’s got inside him.”
“Forgive me if I fail to share a sporting interest in this particular diversion.”
“Just taking stock of the situation.”
The ville was small, no more than twenty or thirty small square adobe huts scattered in a low spot where a stre
am that had been running underground emerged for a quarter mile or so before going subterranean again. There were at least a hundred Chichimecs, human and mutie, ranged around the plaza on the settlement’s south side, squatting on their haunches, drinking from clay pots and eating. Apparently the rumors Doc had heard about the intruders eating their dead weren’t lies: at least as many dead Chichimecs were stacked off on the east side of the plaza, to Ryan and Doc’s right.
The smell of death and rotting bodies was as thick as cheese.
“What about our friends?”
“Still where we first spotted them, Doc. Tied to some poles over to the right and back away from the main action.”
“How do they look?”
“Hard to tell in this light, with a bitty little glass like this. They been beat, mebbe medium tenderized. Don’t reckon anything’s broke.”
“You do not feel perhaps a certain amount of expedition—haste, even—might be in order?”
“Relax. Still got a dozen or so prisoners to play with. Obviously, J.B. and Jak are being saved for something special. From the looks of things, the Chichimecs’ll be hours before they get to them.”
“You have worked out a way to slip up to them in the excitement and cut them loose, of course?”
Ryan shook his head. “They’re too much out in the open, and there’s too much coming and going. I think the raiders may have some captured local women stashed in that hut mebbe twenty yards back of them. Traffic seems pretty regular between there and the plaza.”
He lowered the monocular. “We’re going to need a diversion.”
“May one hope that it might entail standing off at a goodly distance doing something to attract the dacoits’ attention? Honking the horn, perhaps?”
“One might.” Ryan grinned tigerishly at the older man. “Won’t do no good hoping, though. We need something better, and for that, we’re going to have to creepy-crawl the ville and get a closer look at things.”
WHILE DOC FRETTED at the delay, Ryan drove the Hummer in a wide arc to the east of the ville, then around to come in from the north. They found a rare stand of trees by a little stream that ran along the far side of a rise a couple hundred yards from the farthest outlying house and stashed the big wag there.
The crickets sang. The rumble from the smokies, almost subliminal, was constant and seemed, if you concentrated on it for a spell, to be growing. Out among the lava flows and grown-over ash drifts a litter of coyote pups yammered and their mother yipped them sternly into silence.
As with most of the valley they’d passed through, what looked at first glance like easy-rolling land hid lots of pockets and dead ground. The two men were able to slip into the ville without exposing themselves to possible view for more than a few steps at a time. Not that anybody seemed to be looking.
They reached the rear of the northernmost hut, hugged it briefly as they looked around. It had been trashed for no visible reason except mean spirits: doors and windows smashed, and a glance inside showed even by the light of the stars and falling moon that filtered in that what simple furnishings it boasted had been wrecked.
“Deserted,” Ryan said in a low voice that carried much less distance than a whisper. “If it wasn’t for all the sounds of partying from the other end of the ville, the whole place would seem dead.”
“I cannot understand why we have seen no signs of vigilance. Normal prudence would dictate patrols around the settlement, at the very least.”
“May’ve escaped your attention, Doc, but these Chichimecs don’t much play by the rules other people do, even coldhearts.” Ryan paused, listening, watching, tasting the wind. The latter task was made more pleasant by the fact that the prevailing breezes blew the stench of the corpse mound, and whatever grotesque defilements and putrefactions might remain to be found in the rest of the ville, away from them. Even with the wind blowing away they could plainly hear the shrieks of the victims and the uproarious approval of their tormentors.
“Besides, they probably left scouts to keep an eye on the defending forces. We know they sent somebody back that way, obviously. So they know the scavvies and Hector’s mob were a lot more interested in hunkering down and getting blind and getting their ends wet than pursuing them. And they don’t reckon on any danger coming down from the north, ’cause basically, between here and the impassable rad bands and chem storms, they’re it.”
He eyed the hut. It wasn’t a very tall structure, and it had a flat roof, as did almost all the buildings they’d seen in valley villes outside the city. “Give me a hand up,” he said.
Looking doubtful, Doc carefully propped his swordstick against the wall. Then he squatted and made a stirrup of his interlaced fingers. Ryan put a boot into it and boosted himself up to seize the projecting end of a roof beam, then clambered up and over the low parapet.
“Mind you do not silhouette yourself, lad,” Doc said softly.
Not bothering to respond, Ryan slithered forward on his belly. The roof consisted of earth spread across the planks of the ceiling. Grass, weeds and wildflowers grew on it, providing just a touch of additional concealment. Ryan was grateful for anything he could get. But with the moon well past the zenith and no lights in the immediate vicinity, he was near invisible.
He reached the far side of the roof, peered cautiously over. Nobody was outside anywhere near him. He took out his monocular and studied the scene.
Off across the ville, set back not too far from the plaza where the prisoners were being tortured, a hut was surrounded by Chichimecs. Some seemed to be praying, others simply to be squatting or kneeling. Safe guess that was where the injured Holy Child was being cared for.
Closer to the roof where Ryan lay, a multiroom hut, the largest he could see in the ville, had a pair of sentries squatting on the roof with longblasters across their bare thighs. Even more intriguing was the motorcycle parked out front. Ryan had spotted it first from his vantage point on the hill. A single Chichimec, whose body seemed to be covered in fur, squatted disconsolately at the rear of the house holding what was either an M-1 carbine or a Ruger Mini-14; he was in darkness and Ryan couldn’t be sure if it had a squared-off forend like the Mini or a rounded one like the M-1.
Still nearer, off to Ryan’s right maybe fifty yards, a couple more bored Chichimecs stood guard over the door of an unlit hut. Might be worth checking, he thought. But he felt strongly drawn to the hut with the bike. He eased back, then crawled to the rear, flowed over the edge, let himself lightly down next to Doc.
“We proceed?” the older man asked.
Ryan nodded.
Doc drew his swordstick with a quiet song of sliding steel. “Mind the shine on that,” Ryan said.
“Indeed.” Doc stooped, rummaged up a handful of dust from the yard, rubbed it along the slim blade to dull it out. Then he stood straight. “Shall we?”
THEY SLIPPED between the dark blocky huts like splinters of the night itself. Their stealth seemed almost wasted. All of the Chichimecs in evidence were at the plaza, gathered in the vigil around the Holy Child’s hut, or standing sentry duty. Without incident Doc and Ryan reached the back of the hut just before the house where the motorcycle was parked.
Ryan led off along the side wall, holding the SIG-Sauer ready in both hands. Where he got to the point he was about to come into view of the guard at the back of the house he took a step sideways, extended his arms and squeezed off a round. The mutie’s head snapped back. He seemed to melt sideways to a pile on the ground.
Ryan sidestepped back to the corner of the house, continued to hold his weapon online while he watched with eye soft-focused for any sign of reaction. None came. The sentries on the roof seemed to be paying all their attention to the festivities around the bonfire. They had to have been reaching another climax, because there came a fresh crescendo of screams and roar of approval from the crowd.
The rear door was unguarded but closed and locked. The window in back had been boarded shut. Doc grabbed up the dead mutie’s Mini-14, e
ased back the charging handle to confirm a round was chambered, let the spring carry it slowly forward again to seal the breech. Holding the carbine in his left hand, swordstick in the right, Doc nodded to Ryan.
The one-eyed man crept to the side of the house, peered around. No one was in sight between the house and the plaza. He slipped silently around the corner, followed by Doc.
A yellow blade of light fell from a boarded window of what should be the front room. Signaling Doc to keep lookout, Ryan stole up to it, peered inside.
The room was simply furnished: a couple of scavenged tubular-steel-and-plastic chairs, a folding card table with a lantern on it. There was a picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe on the wall in an ornate frame that looked like gold and was no doubt painted plastic.
A tall figure wearing a foul loincloth and the head and cape of a wolf stalked back and forth across the floor, which had been formed by pouring blood into the dirt; constant foot traffic had compacted and then polished it so that it looked almost like seamless maroon tile. Howling Wolf was gaunt, almost emaciated. The hollows of his face and between his ribs were accentuated by the streaks of blood, now dried and black in the lantern light, that he had apparently poured over himself. Ryan could smell the stench of the rotting blood, and hear the buzz of flies around him. As startling as it was, the bizarre apparition of the Chichimec prophet wasn’t what caught his attention. Nor were the two bodyguards in his field of vision, a giant mutie with no hair, small pointed ears and slits in a muzzlelike face in lieu of a nose who held a Browning autoloading shotgun, and a human armed with some kind of machine pistol with an extended tubular-steel folding stock and front and rear pistol grips.
What grabbed his eye instead was Felicidad Mendoza, trim and cool in camou blouse, shorts and hiking boots, her copper hair drawn back in a severe bun and glinting like wire. She sat behind the table watching Nezahualcoyótl with a bland expression, as if he neither looked nor smelled the least bit out of the ordinary.
