Homeward Bound

by James Axler

  Once a fluffy white kitten came gamboling from an open doorway, fighting a large ball of yellow wool. Several times Ryan heard the unearthly noise of the wild boars in their cellar pens.

  And all the time he drew closer to his brother.

  "Closer, brother, closer."

  Once he entered a long room, lined with dull paintings of muddy European rivers, just as Harvey was at its farther end. Ryan dodged back at the waspish snap of the small handgun, hearing the bullet whine into the wall some yards away. It wasn't likely that Harvey was carrying a spare magazine, and ammo must be running low.

  He still had only the dagger to face his brother with. And that was how he wanted it. Face-to-face. Blood spurting hot against his hand. Looking into Harvey's piggy little eyes as they blanked in death. That would settle the debt.

  He heard Krysty calling to him as he passed a third-story window, but he was sprinting toward a closing door and ignored her.

  He was within a few paces of Harvey when he was distracted by a door that was gently shutting. He knew it was a dead end where his father had gone to check the accounts of the ville. It had no other exit, and he flattened himself against the wall, glancing around him. Over the entrance to the chamber he recognized the bust of an aristocratic man with a hooked nose. The name was carved into the marble plinth. Pallas. There was no sound from inside the room.

  The door began to open, and Ryan tensed, fingers holding the blade low, ready for the classic knife fighter's upward thrust to the belly. But the door continued to open, and he felt the fresh breeze from the window. The room was dusty and empty.

  Harvey climbed toward the top floor, then took the water-operated elevator toward the kitchens, hoping to fool his pursuer. Ryan heard the familiar creaking noise of the ropes, cables and gears and darted to a spinning staircase with narrow, worn treads. He was within two turns of the bottom when he heard the grille of the elevator slamming shut.

  Now the noise of the boars was much louder.

  "The night's come and the land's dark," an eldritch voice shrieked from somewhere ahead of Ryan, beyond the storage rooms that fed the kitchens. Harvey was going ever deeper, singing to himself in a wild, cracked voice.

  There were other knives and axes in the kitchens, and Ryan considered getting a better weapon, electing in the end to stick with the hunting dagger that felt right to his hand.

  Now Ryan knew where his brother was going. The passage was damp, the walls slick with moisture. A ramp led up to the right, slippery with wet mud and animal droppings. It went in a great winding bend to come out in the courtyard and was the way that the boars were brought in and out of the ville. The sound of the ravening creatures was stifling.

  And Ryan remembered. On the occasions that his oldest brother Morgan had stood up for him against the bullying of Harvey, the middle brother had often gone cowering into the bowels of the ville, where he fled now.

  Twice more he glimpsed the scurrying shape ahead of him, and once Harvey turned and fired the pistol at him. Ryan ducked back, bullets sparking off the walls. He listened until he heard the familiar click of a hammer falling on a spent cartridge.

  "No more bullets, brother!" he shouted, feeling his whole body racing with tension and the anticipation of pleasure.

  There was one more doorway.

  It stood ajar and Ryan, ever-cautious, eased himself through it. His nostrils filled with the ammoniac stench of the pigs, his ears bombarded with their squealing.

  Harvey had made changes down there since Ryan had lived in the ville. The boars were milling together in a circular pit, a barred door at the bottom showing how they were moved. The sides were of slimy granite, fifteen feet high. A balcony, six feet wide, ran around the top of the pit, with a low wall as its parapet: Harvey and any of his guests who wished to could come and admire the creatures from a position of safety. Apart from the entrance door where Ryan waited, accustoming his eye to the dim light, there was no other way out.

  Except into the boar pit.

  "You're dead, Ryan! Been dead for twenty years! Go back to the grave, Ryan!''

  "Gonna kill you, brother," Ryan called out.

  He could make out Harvey now, on the far side of the room, wrapped in the tattered cloak, holding the empty pistol. His face was in deep shadow, only the eyes gleaming like tiny chips of molten gold.

  Ryan glanced down into the pit, seeing better than a dozen of the animals jostling one another, all of them looking up at him. They were at least five feet tall at the shoulder, weighing several hundred pounds. They all had ruby eyes, and curling ivory tusks that ended in needle points.

  Now, in a way that sent a chill down his spine, they stopped their squealing, and the basement pit fell silent, except for the shuffling of their hooves in the wet straw.

  "This is the end, brother," Ryan shouted, holding the dagger up as though it were a holy relic. "Gonna cut your throat with this."

  "No, never, no, my dear little brother." Harvey's voice was calm and gentle. Ryan recognized the style. Harvey had used it when he was attempting to fool Ryan into something, or trying to con him. Or when he had some unsuspected trick up his sleeve.

  "All these years, Harvey, and now it's you and me. Like I dreamed, hundreds o'nights. At last I can do it and get on with living."

  Harvey moved from behind a pillar, aiming the handgun at Ryan. "Got a fresh mag for the blaster, brother. Never thought of that, did you?"

  "Bluffing, Harvey."

  The obese figure clambered clumsily onto the parapet, waving down to the watching, motionless boars. "See, my pets," he called. "I shall shoot this one-eyed renegade from the shadows and then you shall have his corpse for food."

  Ryan stood where he was, watching Harvey's insane posturing. The knife was nicely balanced, and the range was short enough, but he wanted to feel his brother sweat as the blade sliced open the soft flesh and drew out his life.

  Somewhere above them they both heard the sound of feet and a voice calling out. "My sec men, brother." Harvey Cawdor beamed.

  "No. Fireblast! Can't you fucking see the truth, Harvey? It's done and finished. Your power's gone. The ville's empty. They've all gone. There's nothing left for you."

  "Nothing left?"

  "Nothing."

  "Yes, there is, Ryan. There's this!"

  The little gun flashed, and Ryan staggered back, feeling the fiery pain in his left shoulder. Even a small-caliber gun like the .22 packed enough of a punch to knock a man off-balance. Harvey laughed delightedly, seeing blood flowing on the jerkin.

  "And again, brother," he said.

  Ryan threw the hunting dagger underhand, seeing the lamplight catch the blade as it spun in the fetid air. De-spite his own wound, Ryan's aim with the knife was deadly accurate.

  It thunked home where Harvey's rippling chins melted down into the top of his chest, burying itself deep in the soft flesh. Harvey Cawdor squeaked in shock, dropping the Colt from numbed fingers, watching as it fell into the pit. He leaned forward, swaying, his vast bulk making it hard for him to keep his balance on the shallow wall.

  "May you die of nuke rot," he said in a reasonable, conversational sort of voice.

  Then, as though he'd given up on the struggle, he fell heavily into the pit, landing with the clear crack of breaking bones.

  Ryan, holding his shoulder, feeling that it was only a minor wound, looked down into the semidarkness. His hands told him that the bullet had gone clear through without hitting the scapula or the collarbone. He felt dizzy for a moment, but knew he was going to be all right.

  Below him the last rites were swift and deadly for Harvey Cawdor.

  Both ankles broken by his fall, the gross man lay there on his back like some obscene insect, his rich cloak spread around him in the straw. His mouth opened and closed, but no sounds came from it. One hand touched the taped hilt of the knife where it protruded from his chest, but Harvey made no attempt to withdraw it. The great boars had eased away from the thing that had come crashing down
into their pit, but now they were gathering courage, shuffling nearer, snouts lowered, jaws gaping.

  Ryan watched, leaning on the wall, flexing the fingers of his left hand to make sure the bullet hadn't severed any ligaments or tendons on its way through. Apart from a dull ache, it didn't feel too bad.

  One of the great brooding heads dipped, and the teeth closed on Harvey Cawdor's right leg between knee and ankle. There was the savage crunch of gnawed bone, and the man screamed, a terrified cry of gut-deep anguish.

  "Brother… help me!"

  The sudden noise disturbed the rest of the tusked monsters, and they all seemed to attack at once. The bloated body vanished under the bristled boars, and the last scream was muted and silenced, ending in a dreadful gagging, bubbling noise. Then there was only the grinding of teeth and the rending of meat.

  Ryan straightened and heard the voice from behind him, a dull, flat voice that seemed bereft of any life.

  "Now you can join your brother, Ryan. Jump in after him."

  He turned and looked into the meltwater eyes of Lady Rachel Cawdor. She was holding the lethal dart gun that had once belonged to her son, and it was aimed at Ryan's stomach.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  THE DART GUNS HAD originally been manufactured by an armament firm with government contacts operating out of a guarded sec complex east of Butte, Montana. Not many of them were still around. Ryan had only seen a dozen or so in his life, mostly out west in the deserts and lagoons of what had once been called California.

  They used a tiny explosive charge and held a half-dozen or so darts, a half inch long, barbed and made from the finest surgical steel. They tumbled on impact, for maximum impact, and were lethally difficult to locate and remove.

  Rachel had been bleeding, and there was blood crusted around her mouth. Her face also bore the clear imprint of a ringed fist. The eyes were venomous with hatred for Ryan. She wore a long black dress that dragged on the floor, hiding her dainty feet. The stiletto was sheathed at her belt. The bag that she normally carried was missing.

  Her voice was quiet and gentle, difficult to hear above the crunching of bones from the pit below them, but loud enough for Ryan to hear every word.

  "I offered you the chance, didn't I? Now see what you've done. Harvey dead. Jabez, sweet child, dead. The ville ruined and everyone gone. All by the return of a middle-aged, one-eyed double-poor hired killer. You, Ryan."

  "Aw, it weren't nothing, lady," he replied, grinning wolfishly. "Anyone would have done the same if n they'd had the chance."

  "I'm going, as well. I have my jewels packed. My favorite mare is in the stables, saddled and ready. She can outrun anything in the Shens. By sundown I'll be forty miles south of here."

  "I thought you could run from your past," he said, feeling warm blood easing itself stickily down the side of his chest. "I ran for twenty years. In the end, I find I'd run clear back to where I'd started. You can't run from what you've done."

  "Watch me, Ryan." A ghost of a smile flitted at the corners of her bloodless lips.

  "You won't even get out of the ville."

  "You won't even know, Ryan. Because you'll be dead with a gutful of steel darts. And I shall look back and enjoy watching you kicking at my feet. I shall remember that…" she concluded, leveling the gun, finger tightening on the flat, broad trigger.

  "Nevermore," Doc Tanner said, squeezing the trigger of his beloved antique Le Mat pistol.

  The blast of the .63-caliber scattergun damned near blew Rachel Cawdor's head clear off her narrow shoulders.

  Ryan ducked away from the devastating noise and power of the old handgun, but he was splashed with blood and brains. The noise stopped the boars at their feeding for a few seconds. Then they resumed dining on the ragged body of the baron of Front Royal.

  Rachel's corpse slipped untidily to the stone floor of the balcony, the dart gun still held in her right hand. Powder smoke hung in the cool air of the pit, and the stench of cordite was heavy in the nostrils.

  "Just before being trawled forward by Project Cerberus, I worked in a laboratory with an elderly English geneticist," Doc said, holstering his blaster. "At the end of each working shift he would fold away his coat and say, 'And that, gentlemen, concludes the entertainment for today.' I think, my dear Ryan, this concludes our entertainment for today."

  "Thanks, Doc."

  IT WAS RAINING HEAVILY.

  Evening had come early to the Shens, borne in on the teeth of a rising wind and the threat of a severe chem storm sweeping from the blue-ridged mountains to the north and west of Front Royal. Ryan and his friends regained their own weapons and clothes, then found ample food in the empty kitchens. None of the local villagers came near the fortress that first night of freedom from the oppression of Baron Harvey Cawdor.

  In the abandoned palace it was easy for Ryan and Krysty to find an empty bedroom for themselves for the night. There was some wine from a crusted green bottle that Doc found in one of the old cellars. Called Chateau-neuf-du-Pape, it was a delicious soft red wine that lay like a silk ribbon on the palate. There were words on the dusty cobwebbed label that Krysty said she thought were French.

  They made love with an infinitely gentle slowness, relishing each other's body, doing for each other the things they knew would give limitless delight. Afterward Ryan lay with his head cradled on Krysty's stomach, one hand stroking her breasts. The shoulder wound had been thoroughly cleansed and bandaged, and the pain had now abated to a steady throbbing. Nothing vital had been harmed by the .22, and he knew from previous experience that he would be as good as new within a week or so.

  "Decision time, lover," she said.

  "Stay or go, you mean?"

  "You've done what you came for. Revenged your brother, Morgan, and cleared out the stables. Now you can take over.''

  "I know."

  "Nobody'd say a word 'gainst it. I'd stay here. Mebbe Doc and Lori would stay on."

  "Not J.B. or the kid?"

  She shook her head. "Some men need to keep on moving. Can't stay still. Both of them."

  Ryan sat up and pulled the sheets around him against the chill of night. "What 'bout me, Krysty? Can I stay here for the rest of my life? Do I want that? Step into Harvey's shoes? Live as baron of Front Royal?"

  She reached out and laid her hand against his face. "If you want to, Ryan. That's the only reason. It's there for you. That's what we came for—to give you the peace of mind from knowing. Twenty years wondering. Now you know. Gaia, lover! Inside your head you must know what you want to do!"

  Ryan knew she was right.

  THE HEADS AND OLD MEN and women from all the hamlets within the control of Front Royal ville had been sent for and brought in. It took four days, by which time the place was back and running, with most of the servants returning to their old jobs. But there were no new sec men appointed. Ryan had made it clear he wouldn't agree to that.

  He made a long speech—the first he'd ever undertaken—and told the listeners what was going to happen.

  When he spoke of the ville existing for the good of all, there were scattered cheers.

  But his announcement that he and his friends were moving on and leaving Nathan Freeman, now called Cawdor, as the baron of Front Royal was greeted with a stunned dismay.

  "Why him, Lord Cawdor?" called out a toothless old crone in the front row, leaning on a blackthorn staff.

  "Because he is the son of my oldest brother, Morgan Cawdor, murdered by Harvey. He is baron by right and by succession. I name Nathan Freeman as my own heir to Front Royal."

  So Nathan, son of Morgan Cawdor and the mutie girl Guenema, was duly installed as the baron of Front Royal in Virginia, controlling the lands and woods for many miles around.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  THE BATTERED WAG that had brought them so many miles south was brought in and refueled from one of the other gas stores that serviced the ville. The six friends were once more dressed in their own clothes and carrying their own weapons. Nathan had a
sked Ryan if he wished for something from his old home to carry with him.

  "I've carried this place with me for twenty years, Nate. Now I'm finally free of it."

  There had been no discussion between them as to where they should go. All of them wanted to take the long road north, back to the hidden gateway up on the Mohawk.

  Jak engaged the gears, and the big wag lumbered off, its engine and exhaust fixed. It was a fine sunny day, and they had the ports and ob-slits open. Ryan hung on the main door, staring back as the ville disappeared behind them. He had one arm around Krysty, the other hugging his Heckler & Koch G-12 caseless blaster.

  "Glad you came, lover?" she asked him. It was difficult to hear above the rumbling of the powerful wag, and she had to repeat the question. "Are you glad you came back, lover?"

  "Yeah. Paid all the debts. Laid it all to rest. Now we can move on again."

  They held each other tight as the wag moved steadily away north.