Deathlands 118: Blood Red Tide

by James Axler

  By her estimate it was ninety percent incomplete.

  She had never sailed farther south than the night-glowing ruins of Recife; however, her initial jealousy toward her brother’s southern run around the Horn was tempered by the idea of taking the Northwest Passage in convoy with her father and sailing the Cific. “What course?”

  Sabbath turned his eye to the operations on shore. The surviving ville people howled in mourning and loss. Pigs squealed as they were slaughtered. Meat roasted in huge pits for the ships’ dinner while pork side, belly and fat back were cut into bricks and salted away. Crewmen loaded the small boats with plundered lumber and cordage and fresh fruits and vegetables and topped off water casks. The choicer of the ville’s young men and women were argued over and divided up for entertainment purposes.

  “Set me a straight course, north for the Rock. It will be hard sail, across open ocean, but I don’t want anything to do with any Deathlanders. We’ll be running short on supplies by then so when we get there we’ll relieve a few Newfie villes of their women and salt cod before we round into the Labrador Sea and take the Passage.”

  Blue was already flipping through her charts. “Aye, Father.”

  Sabbath opened his own chart book. “Dorian, you’re going to do just about opposite. Head south until you hit the southern continent and follow the coast down. I’ve never heard of anything big enough down there to match you, but that doesn’t mean they won’t try. Don’t get night creeped by a horde of war canoes or let a bunch of motorboats take a run at you. Stay out of sight of the coast as much as possible. Stop only for water and supplies.” Sabbath gave his son a stern look. “And no prizes. Stick to the mission. You don’t fight anyone unless they attack you first.”

  Dorian quirked his lips in disappointment but nodded. “Aye, Father.”

  “And you don’t attack Oracle, not unless he turns to fight you, or you come on him at anchor in a bay and he can’t maneuver. If it all goes glowing night shit and Oracle sinks or somehow escapes us, we’ll meet up here in August.” Sabbath tapped a point on South America’s west coast. “There’s a ville called Coquimbo, about two hundred miles north of the Valparaiso Crater. The baron there’s name is Zarro. When I first traveled the western coast I stopped there for supplies. Zarro and I came to an agreement and I helped him and his sons take a rival ville by loaning them some cannons and men to man them. You sail in to port and say your name is Sabbath, you’ll be feasted well until we arrive.”

  “Aye, Father.”

  “If you take Oracle before rounding the horn, head back for home with Glory in tow and we’ll see you next year.”

  “Aye, Father.”

  “Very good.” Sabbath snapped his book shut and turned back to the rail. He watched as a short, chubby teenaged girl was torn from her family and her homespun shift ripped from her onshore. “Mr. Kang!”

  Sabbath’s seven-foot Korean second mate stepped forward. He had come with the junk as well, and after an initial period of disgruntlement, he found piracy in the Caribbean suited him quite well. He carried a cat of nine tails in a shoulder bag at all times, and every man in Sabbath’s fleet lived in horror at the prospect of feeling the lash propelled by the giant’s right arm. “Aye, Captain.”

  Sabbath pointed his book at the weeping girl. “That one. Bathe her and bring her to my cabin as a belly warmer, now.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Sabbath licked his thin lips. “Ae Sook, you will assist me.”

  “In all things, my captain.”

  Black Sabbath strode to his cabin with his loins stirring. “We sail with the morning tide.”

  * * *

  RICKY CLEANED THE CAPTAIN’S blasters. Compared to the barons and warlords the youth had encountered since leaving Puerto Rico, Oracle’s personal arsenal was sparse in the extreme. Then again, Oracle’s preferred combat method seemed to be disemboweling his opponents with a mutant orangutan paw prosthesis. He had a beauty of a single-shot Thompson/Center Contender that, according to rumor, he was quite proficient with and could reload with his paw. It was chambered for .45-70. Ricky was a confirmed blaster lover, and he knew the round was ancient, pre-Deathlands American and usually used to take bison. He couldn’t imagine firing it from a fourteen-inch blaster. He aimed the oiled, tuned and gleaming blaster and yearned to shoot it. Ricky lowered the weapon as the lurking fear closed in.

  He might as well stick the weapon in his mouth. The question was whether to try and shoot Manrape first.

  Ricky’s weapons, and those of his companion’s, were locked away. They had been allowed to bear arms during the octopod attack, but they had been relieved of their weapons afterward. The companions would not be allowed to touch them again until they were signed to the book. Ricky had heard rumors that there were some other special weapons in the captain’s cabin that were off limits to him and to J.B. The young man jerked up as a tall shadow fell across the door. He had no bullets for any of the weapons he was cleaning, and he clawed for his ship’s knife.

  Ricky sighed with relief as Doc’s rangy frame filled the doorway. The old man held a wooden case. “Doc! Don’t sneak up on someone like that!”

  “Young Ricky,” Doc said gravely,. “you have a conundrum.”

  Ricky stared at the weapons on his workbench and saw nothing that made sense. Doc often didn’t. “What’s a conundrum?”

  “You have a problem.”

  “Yeah, Doc. If getting butt-chilled by a bronze statue is a problem, I’ve got a problem.”

  The subject matter was clearly to Doc’s distaste. Yet Doc seemed to be in a rare clear, cold mood. “Fight him.”

  “Fight him?” Ricky began gesticulating. “Fight him how?”

  “Challenge him.”

  “Challenge him?” Ricky repeated. “Challenge him how? No one’s going to give me my blaster! With blades? I can’t beat him! Madre de dios, Doc! Bare hands? I haven’t been rated ordinary seamen yet, much less able. What do I challenge him for? The right to be bosun?”

  “For the personal rights to your rectum.”

  Ricky was shocked speechless to hear such a thing come out of Doc’s mouth.

  Doc struggled to keep his voice steady. “When I was hurled into your time, I was captured by unethical men.”

  Ricky had heard the stories. “Doc—”

  “I was made sport of and abused. Cruelly.”

  Ricky couldn’t meet Doc’s eyes. “Doc, you don’t have to—”

  “Look at me!” Doc demanded. Ricky looked. He stared at the time-trawled man, ripped from his family and torn from his time. Ricky gazed on Doc’s chron-damaged visage and knew that in reality he was almost as old as Ryan. He had seen Doc’s skill with blaster and blade and knew that in his time Doc had been a learned scholar who had married a beautiful woman. Now he was old, broken in body and sometimes in his mind. Doc regained his composure.

  “Ricky, my young friend. Fight. Rage.”

  The youth did not know what to say. “Doc?”

  Doc’s eyes grew clear. His voice filled with the terrible gravitas of his message. “You must fight.”

  Tears stung Ricky’s eyes for Doc and himself and the future that awaited him in the darkness belowdecks. “But how, Doc?”

  Doc set the case he carried on the workbench. “With these.”

  Ricky opened the ornate box. It contained two of the most beautiful handblasters he had ever seen. Their grips were lustrously polished fruitwood. Clouds of golds, blues and purples swept through the steel of the barrel and lock work in gorgeous swirls of case hardening. The triggers and bead front sights were gold plated. The weapons were perfectly identical. Separate slots held individual bullet molds and intricately tooled silver powder horns for each blaster. Ricky took out one of the weapons. It was heavy and well over .50 caliber. He turned the weapon about for several moments and found writing along the bottom of the barrel.

  “Fabbricato in Italia?” Ricky shrugged. “What’s Italia?”

  “Italy.”r />
  “What’s Italy?”

  “It is where they once made Berettas. Perhaps they still do.”

  Ricky perked up. “Oh!”

  “Those are working replicas of weapons before my time but made in Mildred’s. Do you know what they are for?”

  Ricky nodded at the weapons soberly. “For dueling.”

  “Yes, for dueling. J.B. sought me out, and we discussed your situation at length. I have spent the day pouring through the creed and code and then the logs of this ship. It has been a long time, but within living memory of some of the crew, the pistols before you have been used to settle affairs of honor aboard this ship. The precedent is there. You are not signed, but you are well liked, your cause one of great sympathy, and none aboard, not even Mr. Manrape, I dare say, would gainsay you the right to defend yourself.”

  Ricky lowered the most beautiful thing he had ever held. “But, Doc. If I’m challenging, doesn’t Manrape choose the weapons?”

  “I am no lawyer, my young friend, and the times have changed, but I have gone out, as we said in my time. Our Mr. Manrape has made very clear, and publicly, his intention to violate you. I believe the gauntlet has already been thrown and the next move is yours.”

  Ricky considered this new and horrible option. “If I challenge Manrape, I think he’ll throw me down and take me right there.”

  “Possibly, but this is not exactly a challenge, it is a response and exactly why you send one of your seconds. A duty I would be honored to accept.”

  “Seconds?”

  “Trusted friends, willing to assist in all manners of protocol and engage by your side should the rules of the duel be broken.”

  Ricky was a young man from postapocalyptic Puerto Rico. Duels there were mostly informal and consisted of two men going into the forest with machetes and only one coming back. However, some were occasionally public spectacles and friends got involved. “Then I’d have no other second than you, Doc.”

  Doc bowed low. “Then I shall be honored to deliver your response to the bosun publicly. Should he refuse, or accept and then attack you before the appointed time, his loss of prestige on this ship would be incalculable, and your seconds would be well within their rights to seek his life. By the by, from what I have read in the ships logs, two seconds are customary.”

  “Then I choose J.B.”

  “An excellent choice.”

  Ricky once again considered his immediate mortal or moral destruction. “What happens?”

  “Assuming I am correct in my assumptions, the captain shall order the ship to make the first immediate landfall. You, Mr. Manrape, and your seconds, as well as a handful of neutral witnesses, shall row ashore. There, in the sight of all, I shall load and prime both pistols, and Mr. Manrape shall have first choice. You and he shall stand back to back, take the agreed number of paces, turn and fire.”

  “And?”

  “And lead shall fly, my young friend.”

  Ricky gulped. “And?”

  “And one or both of you may fall. Of course, those pistols are smooth bore and it is quite possible one or both may miss. However, should both of you survive the first volley, then the judge, whom shall most likely be Commander Miles or First Mate Loral, shall ask if honor is satisfied. It is very likely that Mr. Manrape shall say no, and, given that you had first choice of weapons, he can ask for a second round of fire or else to continue with weapons of his choosing including bare hands. I fear a second round in any form will go very badly for you. I suggest in the strongest terms possible that you make your first shot count.”

  Ricky felt the walls of the room closing in on him.

  “Ricardo,” Doc asked, “shall I present myself to the bosun on your behalf?”

  Ricky hefted the huge, primitive, beautifully crafted blaster. He took up the other in his left hand. There was something comforting and final in their cold, heavy weight. Ricky nodded. “Do it.”

  “I shall, and pray allow me to give you one more piece of counsel before I do...”

  Chapter Eight

  “C’mon lover!” Krysty encouraged. “Stick it deep!” Ryan thrust his half pike. The brass ring jangled against his pike head but bounced off and spun flashing away. Atlast cackled above him in the shrouds. The Englishman dangled the ring tauntingly on a length of ship’s twine. “By the 99 bloody red balloons that went up, Ryan! If you handle your cock like you handle a pike, Red’s not going to be yours on this ship for long! And what she sees in a half-blind Deathlander like you is beyond me!”

  Sweet Marie leaned on her half pike and laughed. She had skewered the ring with sewing machine precision, but Atlast hadn’t been dancing it. “Mebbe he can lick his eyebrows. It’s all I can think of!” Idling observers laughed. Sweet Marie rolled her eyes. “Course she’s a mutie. Who knows what they prefer.”

  Krysty bristled. Mr. Movies hung effortlessly by one hand from the yardarm like a six-foot pink simian and answered with utmost seriousness. “I prefer blondes.”

  Sweet Marie laughed. “Who doesn’t?”

  Ryan stood stripped to the waist and sweating on the deck. He had fought with spears, lances, javelins, harpoons and more than a few crudely pointed sticks and prevailed, but none had ever been his weapon of choice. The half pike he held was eight feet long with a thick shaft. The spearhead was a foot long and far narrower than the wood. It made the weapon look odd. Usually a spearhead flared out with sharp, leaf-shaped or diamond edges and sometimes lugs for blocking or hooks for snaring. The half pike’s blade was a simple quadrangle spike. The weapon was made for battle aboard ship. It might have to be thrust through rigging, siege netting or open portholes and was designed to slide along, around or through any obstruction as ships clashed. As Atlast had pontificated at the start of the lesson, “Boarding pikes is made to tickle a man.”

  Accuracy was everything.

  As Atlast had explained it, modern ship fighting was mostly “a broadside, a blaster volley, and then in through the smoke!” Sometimes an opponent had predark auto cannons, rocket launchers or mortars and then the battle was a lopsided horror, but on the seas of the broken world more often than not weight of shot and weight of crew with sharp steel told the tale.

  And when it turned into an open brawl between anything from scores to hundreds of men on heaving decks, a disciplined cadre of men with half pikes, in formation, could plug a gap or drive an ill-disciplined mob before them into the sea. On the Glory the pike team was called the Phalanx. They were chosen men and women. Two eight-man teams, one from each watch, that could come together to form a solid wall of steel or break into flying half or quarter teams and run to trouble spots. Ryan had heard it muttered the Phalanx had saved the Glory in her last terrible battle, and he’d heard they had taken losses. Atlast was pike captain.

  Ryan had applied for the Phalanx.

  He had excelled at the morning drill, but Sweet Marie, Onetongue and the other five members of the pike squad, including Wipe, wore a brass ring on a bit of cord around their necks. Ryan had to earn his. He let out a slow breath. Atlast cajoled him. “C’mon, Ryan!” The Englishman danced the glittering ring in the air. “You can—”

  Ryan struck like a snake. The ring rasped around his spear point and stuck. Atlast yanked the cord and pulled the ring free. “You think you can do that again and—”

  Ryan lunged and lanced the ring again. “Again!” Atlast shouted. “Again!” Ryan lunged and lunged and lunged at the glittering target as he went into his battle zone. On his sixtieth thrust the twine holding the ring parted. Ryan stepped back, chest heaving with the brass ring halfway down his spearhead. Atlast stared at the string in his hand and shook his head. “Sixty thrusts, fifty-five scores.”

  Ryan wiped sweat from his brow. “Fifty-six.”

  Onetongue was giddy. “That really thine’th, Ryan!”

  Wipe was happy beyond words. “Eee!” Strangely enough, pike technique was one of the few things that Wipe actually excelled at.

  Ryan shrugged at the praise.
He lowered his pike and removed the severely battered ring. Onetongue happily handed Ryan a bit of leather cord to hang it on. “You’re a Phalanx’th man now!”

  Ryan tied the bit of leather around the ring, walked over to Krysty and put it around her neck. She gave a rare blush and her hair stirred around Ryan’s fingers.

  Oracle called out from the quarterdeck. “Mr. Forgiven!”

  “Aye, Captain?” the purser replied.

  “A tot of something for the Phalanx.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  “Let Miss Red have a taste with her man.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  “You heard the captain!” Atlast bawled. “Phalanx! Rack pikes! Then report to the rum barrel at your ease!”

  The Phalanx racks were around the main mast. Most of them stopped just short of running to get in line at the barrel. Crewmen watched Ryan in envy of his drink and his drinking companion. Skillet appeared and assisted the purser. A tot of something appeared to be a stoop of a small beer, a shot of cane liquor, the squeezings of half a lime and a dusting of spices Ryan couldn’t name. He took his stoop and Krysty’s hand. They walked to the forecastle to take the breeze off the prow and enjoy the rare bit of rest. Ryan sipped the concoction. “Not bad.”

  Krysty drank. “I like it!”

  Ryan knew his woman well. “You’re sad.”

  Krysty reached under her bulky jersey and pulled her battered boots from under her belt. The long-serving blue leather cowboy boots with the falcon design were in poor condition. The soles, which had been repaired countless times, were holed in two places each.

  She heaved a sigh. “Ryan?”

  The one-eyed man stared at the sad, faded blue leather. “They served you long and hard.”

  “I asked Gypsyfair to fix them.”