by Axler, James
It was a feeling so exhilarating that she was almost sorry when she touched down delicately on the other side. But almost immediately her strength felt completely sapped, her limbs heavy. She collapsed into a heap as Jak rushed to her.
He was stopped by a knife that thudded into the dry, hard ground at his feet.
"Leave her, or the next one is in your guts, red-eye."
Jak stared across at Tilly with the eye of one who was keeping the score, but he held his tongue and stayed where he was.
On the far side Dean chewed his lip. He was younger than the rest, in some ways fitter. But he was still growing, his frame sometimes outreaching the strength of his musculature. It would be a real test of his stamina and ability to get across.
"Let me go next," he said. And before Ryan could say a word, Dean ran to the edge of the chasm with measured strides, flexing his knees and getting as much spring as he could into his leap.
As he flew through the air, he could feel his lungs almost burst with the effort and the amount of oxygen he had taken into his body.
As he began to dip, he knew it wasn't quite enough.
On the other side, Jak could see the slight decline in Dean's flight and knew the youngster was hitting trouble.
Dean knew that he wouldn't quite make it. He flung out his arms to grasp at the loose dirt on the edge of the chasm as he slammed into the rock-studded wall. His fingers grappled for purchase as the showers of dirt flew into his eyes, mingling with the sweat of exertion and fear that made it hard to see what he was doing. He moved his feet, frantically searching for some kind of foothold from which to propel himself up.
The rocks under his toes moved as he put the slightest pressure on them, slipping free from the earth and thudding into the darkness, setting off mini-earth slips. The sounds echoed and receded into the distance below, a darkness Dean dared not look down on as the cold, dry earth scored his cheek. He was losing ground, slipping down farmer until…
It seemed like an eternity to the youth, but it was only a couple of seconds. A couple of seconds in which Jak would pluck him out of trouble. Ignoring Tilly's sore-throated roar to stay where he was, and taking no note of the badly thrown knife that thudded into the ground on the edge of the chasm, Jak propelled himself forward with a stride that his short stature didn't seem capable of achieving. His snow-white hair whipped out behind him as he flung himself full-length with the second step, one arm shooting out into the abyss, strong fingers grasping for Dean's wrist or fingers.
His eyes stung so much, his vision blurred so much that Dean registered Jak's hand, sinewy fingers extended, as only a lighter blur on the dark surface of the earth and rock face. Jak's fingers groped for Dean's hand and found it as the boy's fingers lost their hold and slipped on the dry, treacherous earth.
Jak's fingers closed around Dean's in a strong grip that bit into the boy's flesh. The pain jolted Dean out of the enclosed world of earth, dark and struggle. Instinctively he knew what was happening, and brought his other hand around, scrabbling all the while on the surface of the almost sheer face to grasp Jak's wrist.
But he was still a long way from safety. His feet were treading air and earth that slipped away beneath him, letting him fall a fraction of an inch with each pedal of his combat boot.
Jak and Dean were roughly about the same size, but if anything the young Cawdor was slightly taller, slightly heavier than the whip-thin albino. On the surface of the earth, while Ryan, J.B. and Mildred watched helplessly from the opposite side, Jak was dragged across the ground by the double pull of gravity and Dean's lack of purchase, dragged farther and farther until the top half of his body began to poke out over the edge of the abyss, the gradual increase in weight balance on the lip accelerating the rate at which he was pulled forward.
Jak grunted heavily with the effort of trying to pull himself back, to pull Dean up and over the edge. His right arm took Dean's weight, feeling the pull on every sinew and tendon as the boy's weight strained on the limb. His left arm was held down at his side, clawing at the earth as he tried to dig in and gain some purchase with the toes of his boots.
Krysty shot a glance at Tod and Tilly. The ragged woman seemed to have expended her anger at Jak's action, and like the giant was watching the tableau impassively.
Another second ticked past, agonizingly slow. Krysty decided to take the chance that they would let her assist. They seemed too keen on their ritual chilling to want to waste all their captives' lives. So it was worth the chance…
Krysty hurried to Jak, shrugging off her fur coat. It was too bulky for right now, and would hinder her chances of giving aid.
She hit the dirt before the coat, on her knees and grasping Jak by the waistband of his camou pants. Feeling her strength as she pulled him back from the lip, Jak redoubled his efforts, toes biting into the ground and forming small horizontal steps as he scrabbled back.
As Jak's whole torso was once again on flat earth, Krysty relinquished her grip and moved around to the edge of the chasm. Looking over the lip, she could see Dean's face, contorted with the effort of pushing against the side of the dirt chasm until his legs felt like molten lead, the muscles burning with a heavy fire. His hands clung to Jak's whipcord arm, the veins and muscles bulging as Dean's fingers bit into the white flesh. The boy had enough sense to reach under the sleeve of Jak's patched coat, which his weight would otherwise have dragged off Jak's body. The sleeve had worked its way up Jak's arm, showing the white flesh going red where Dean's fingers scored into it.
Krysty stretched herself full-length and reached down, taking hold of Dean by his shirt, pulling on it until it came out of his pants and gathered around his neck.
It was enough to help him scramble the extra few inches for Krysty to grab his belt. With that much firmer hold she was able to take more of the boy's weight and relieve the strain on Jak.
As he got closer to the top, and the lip of the chasm gained a slight diagonal incline from the continual slipping of surface dirt, Dean was able to gain more of a foothold and so propel himself onto the plateau at the top, where he collapsed into a heap, panting heavily as he drew precious air into his lungs. The fire in his aching muscles began to abate.
Jak rose gracefully to his feet, rubbing life back into his bruised and numbed limb.
After checking that Dean was recovering, Krysty collected her fur with as much nonchalance as she could muster, casting a disdainful glance at the still impassive Tod and Tilly.
"That was a damn good show," the giant said, nodding slowly. "Reckon as you could mebbe do it again?"
Once Dean was on his feet, Mac gestured to Ryan with his blaster.
"Reckon it's your turn now, One-eye. See if you can give us as much of a show as your brat."
Anger blazed within Ryan, but he kept it hidden, the only outward signs a twitch at the corner of his mouth and a whitening at the edges of the puckered scar under his eye socket.
It was the suppressed fury that gave him the explosive energy to cover the distance with ease.
J.B. was next. As with most things the Armorer did, it seemed to be a matter of little effort and an offhand glance. After polishing his glasses, the wiry weapons expert took a short run and threw himself across the divide.
It wasn't the most graceful landing, but it was perfunctory. The only thing that worried J.B. was the way his ankle twisted as he hit the ground. He felt a slight pull, and a pain that was halfway between a stab and an itch. He noticed the slight sensation of weakness as he walked over to the others. He decided to say nothing for the while, hoping that he could walk it off.
Mildred was the last to jump. Waiting until last had done her nerves little good. There was a small demon inside her that she had never confronted—her fear, not so much of heights but of drops. As a child, she remembered looking at pictures of the Grand Canyon in books her father possessed, and being struck not by the grandeur but by the sheer fall to the bottom.
And now she had to jump across a sheer drop.
"Did you ever hear about a guy called Evel Knievel?" she said to Mac and his silent sec men. She received a blank look in return. "Forget it," she said. "Just an old woman rambling about things you wouldn't know."
She took the jump with a greater ease than she would have thought possible. It was a strong temptation to close her eyes as she soared through the air, but she resisted, knowing that she had to keep them open to judge her landing.
It was close to the edge, but not over. The urge to look over her shoulder and into the abyss was almost overwhelming, and she risked a quick glance over her shoulder.
The drop into blackness zoomed in and out of focus, and she felt herself sway. A hand steadied her. Looking around, she saw J.B. in front of her, grasping her arm.
"Thanks, John," she said, smiled. "Nearly lost it there."
J.B. returned the smile. "About time I helped you out," he said simply.
Tod gestured to them to band together, waving the giant blaster. It crossed J.B.'s mind that with a blaster like that they could be spread in a hundred yard radius and still be picked off by one load of shot, but he kept his peace as they moved together under the watchful eyes of Tod and Tilly.
Mac and the other two sec men crossed the divide with ease, leaping with a surprising grace to cover the distance.
"Mutie jackrabbits, not men," Jak muttered.
"Guess they've just adapted to the conditions," Mildred offered by way of reply.
"Shut up and move," Tilly's hissing tones cut short any further discussion.
"HOW MUCH FARTHER to your ville?" Ryan asked after they'd been walking for some time. They were going through another whirl of the seemingly constant storm, the wind rising to a howl loud enough to necessitate Ryan shouting. The dirt and dust whipped at them, stinging.
J.B. was aware of the pull in his ankle getting worse. Mildred had also noticed the way in which he was shifting his weight on his left foot, and gave him a questioning glance to which she received a short shake of the head in reply.
Ryan repeated his question. "I said, how far—?"
"I heard you the first time," Mac replied in a slow drawl, cutting across Ryan. "It's as far as it takes."
"You always talk, not them," Jak said, indicating the two sec men who brought up the rear of the party. "They have no tongues?"
Mac smiled again, that lazy saurian smile that was beginning to make Ryan wish he could ram it so far down the potbellied man's throat that it would come out of his ass.
"How did you guess that, boy?" Mac drawled. "Show the whitey, boys," he ordered the other two.
They complied, opening their mouths as they walked. Both men had their tongues torn out by the root, a gaping red gap in the maw of their mouths, obscene and wet.
Mildred winced. It looked like a primitive and painful extraction, even from a distance. "Don't tell me, let me guess," she directed toward Tilly. "The sec men from the redoubt again?"
The ragged, bundled head shook, the voice emanating from within almost quavering with repressed hate.
"Not sec men. Whitecoats who wanted the body parts."
"Nice," Mildred murmured. "And you think we're part of that?"
"You came from there, so it stands to reason," Tod butted in before Tilly could summon the venom to answer.
"You stupe or something?" Dean exploded, fatigued and sick of their seeming stupidity. "Why were they after us?"
"Like I said, to make us think you weren't with them. Make us easy to fool." Mac shrugged. "It figures out."
Dean was about to hotly respond when a gesture from his father stopped him. He trusted Ryan's judgment. Although young, he knew enough about himself to be aware that he had to control his impulsive temper.
"Seems to me that you live on the far side of the valley," Ryan remarked. "We've covered a lot of distance."
"I'd say that was smart, if I didn't reckon you knew that anyway," Mac answered. "After all, seems to me that you should know where we are when you raid us often enough."
Ryan ignored that and continued on his line of thought. "Yeah, I'd reckon you live on the rim of the valley. Can't grow jackshit down here. Never get anyone passing by. Mebbe you can scratch a living on the edge of the valley. And you'd have to live as far away from the redoubt as possible."
"And why's that, One-eye?" Tilly asked, her paranoia scenting an insult.
Ryan didn't want to disappoint her. "Because you're good in these conditions, but you've got no real armory to speak of—not if that shit is the best you can do." He gestured at the homemade blasters before changing tack. "That's okay against foot soldiers, but they've got wags at the redoubt. Good ones. Ones that many a trader would chill for. Mebbe ones that we could help you get."
Tod furrowed his brow, resting the giant blaster on his massive shoulder so that the pipelike barrels stuck into the air.
"You sure are a strange one, Mr. One-eye. Start by cussing us out, then offering to help. Just what do you want?"
"Same thing as you…to survive," Ryan said simply. "Besides, they've got one of our people still in there."
"You'd want to go back?" Mac asked.
Tilly cut across him. "Of course they would," she spit. "Motherfuckers would just be going home."
"Have it your way." Krysty sighed, tired of the way the ragged woman always dented any attempt to build bridges or find common ground, let alone work a means of escape.
Looking around, she could see that escape wasn't a viable possibility. There was nowhere to run to. Perhaps when they reached the ville, on the rim of the valley, they might find a way out, a way they could double back and try to get Doc.
If Doc was still alive.
They sank into silence, trudging across the storm-swept plains, moving slowly from a heavily dust-filled zephyr into a calmer drift and then into the swirl, and subsequently into the calmer eye of another whirlwind. The valley dwellers seemed hardly to notice the changes in the weather. The force of the storm didn't impede the pace they set, and their vision seemed to be unimpaired by the conditions.
It wasn't so easy for the others. At times the strength of the gale-force winds drove them back, seeming to pluck them off the ground and make every step forward seem like two steps back. The sudden flurries of dust, dirt and stones scoured their exposed faces, made their eyes run with irritated tears until they were dry and sore.
It was draining, and Ryan looked around to see how his people were doing. It wasn't encouraging. Jak and Dean were particularly hard hit, both weakened by the effort of saving Dean from plunging into the chasm. They straggled behind, the dumb sec men prodding them into desultory attempts to keep up. Krysty was in front of them, her coat pulled around her to try to ward off the worst of the wind-blasted dirt and dust. The most worrying was J.B. The Armorer was keeping pace with Mildred, his arm around her shoulders as she helped him support his weakened ankle. But Ryan could see that the pace was beginning to tell on him, and his limp had become more pronounced. The dust was sticking to his sweat-stained forehead, and he grimaced at every other stride.
"J.B., how's it going?" Ryan asked as casually as he could.
"Been better," the Armorer replied laconically. "Been much better."
"We should really stop," Mildred interjected. "Get John's ankle bound before we have to cut that boot off."
Ryan took a look at their captors, who were seemingly paying them no attention.
"I'm not sure they'd let us," he commented.
J.B. smiled at the wry humor. "Not the most hospitable of folks," he added.
"Can't figure them out," Ryan continued. "They're slack, like they don't care if we're watched or not."
"Mebbe they're not," J.B. said, glad of something to take his mind off the pain of every other stride, which had grown from an itch to a stab like a rusty nail in the ankle joint."Where can we go to out here? No weapons to fight with, and not as used to the conditions. Mebbe they've got more to fear from other sides."
"A raiding party in wags from the r
edoubt?" Ryan mused.
"Could be. Could be something else."
"What the hell could there be out here?" Mildred asked, bemused as she tried to imagine any kind of indigenous life.
"You'd be surprised," Mac drawled slowly, still keeping a watch all around him.
"Yeah, and…?" Mildred asked after she tired of waiting for him to enlarge.
"Weird shit, missy…weird shit. Just pray we don't get sniffed out while we're out here," he answered cryptically.
Mildred raised a questioning eyebrow at J.B., who shrugged. The man with the blaster didn't have to tell if he didn't want to. And there was no way of making him.
They continued in silence for a while, J.B. relying on his good ankle as the pain grew harder and blunter in the damaged joint, each impact on the uneven earth making it increase. He tried to disguise it. There were a number of reasons, not least of which being that he didn't want to be left behind as a liability by their captors, forcing Ryan into a decision about action.
But he knew that if it came to the crunch, he would be found wanting for speed and maneuverability.
WHEN THE MOMENT CAME, it was unexpected.
As they began to march through a slough in the valley floor where a trapped zephyr made the dust storm whip up, scouring and scratching at their bodies, their pace was slowed to a crawl. The wind howled and moaned, and the air was full of earth, small pebbles and even larger chunks of rock that they had to dodge. The surface of the ground became a writhing, shifting mass of loose earth, churned up continuously by the trapped zephyr.
"Couldn't you find an easier route?" Ryan yelled through the encroaching confusion.
"This is the easiest," Tod shouted, somehow imparting this information blandly, despite having to raise his voice.
Although the zephyr could have covered no more than half a mile, visibility in the swirling fog of earth was reduced to a few feet.
Krysty felt her senses tingle, and was at once acutely aware of danger, but not of the source.
