Nemesis

by James Axler

  “The time came, many suns later, for a parting of the highways. A descendant of the great Ranger named Diabla took leave of the alliance, and led much of the Stone Nation west to seek its own destiny beyond the Rockies. The parting was a friendly one. The time had simply come, as such times do.”

  “And so we staked our own claims and rode our own range, with our goat herds and scattered plots where the sick and old and slow grow crops. Not that they’re easy marks themselves, as many cougars, coldhearts and stickies have found to their sorrow!”

  Ricky’s attention wandered. What was it between him and Dezzy? Or was it even a thing? Since wordlessly holding his hand at the Ryan-Cable showdown, she had hardly talked to him. She had gone whole days without meeting his glance or acknowledging his presence.

  Yet sometimes she did look at him. Like now. He caught her. He couldn’t help thinking that now, like before, she seemed somehow expectant.

  Of what? He had no clue. He didn’t know what to do.

  “Now we Stones range free across the Plains and mountains to trade, seek visions, or just—you know—cruise. We’re all about freedom.”

  Suddenly he seemed to draw in on himself somehow. “Which, my friends, is why we hate slavers so much. That’s why we grew to hate Bry Raker. Even more than the fact he kept getting more and more inclined to sell us the weight of his thumb on the scale along with the flour. Raker’s ancestors were a pretty good lot, built the place up.

  “Bry was a bad fruit all along. And when he started dabbling with slavery he made us his blood enemies. Stones do not cotton to slavery, and the slavers are many as well as powerful. They got a whole trade network of their own, from sea to shining sea. But we’re always ready to mix it up with them. We give those slavers a triple-hard time when we run into them, which they commonly do not survive.”

  The way he said those last words chilled Ricky’s blood, but it heated right back up in sudden excitement.

  “Yami!” he yelled.

  Faces turned. Speaker frowned at him.

  “Ricky!” Mildred whispered.

  He couldn’t contain himself.

  “Sir? Excuse me, sir? There’s something I have to ask you. Please.”

  Speaker’s brown eyes had narrowed. Now they widened slightly, though his expression didn’t soften from the stone-statue aspect it had taken on at the interruption. He glanced at Bass Croom.

  “The boy lost his sister to slavers,” the trader explained. “He often talks about it, and who can blame him? He hopes to find her someday.”

  “Luck with that,” muttered the huge and forbidding Morning Glory from her seat near Speaker. They were the first words Ricky had heard come out of her.

  Some of the other Stones laughed. Speaker frowned at them. He didn’t speak or even make one of his sweeping melodramatic gestures, but the snickering stopped as if he’d chopped it off with that big knife in the beautifully beaded scabbard at his hip.

  “There’s no disgrace in pursuing a quest,” he said, “only honor. No less if it’s hopeless. We Stones know that. Ask your question, boy. Your loss and your seeking earns you that right.”

  Ricky looked at Ryan, who nodded once. He seemed relaxed, which took Ricky off guard. Quickly the tale of the murder of his family and Yami’s abduction in front of his eyes tumbled from Ricky’s lips. Speaker listened with his head tipped slightly to the side.

  Some of the Stone muttered comments when his tale ended. None of them laughed.

  Speaker looked at Ryan. “I can see why you took this one into your tribe, One Eye,” he said. “But you still haven’t asked your question, young man.”

  “Well, we didn’t exactly get to question anybody at Raker’s Rest, sir. So I was wondering—have any of the slavers you’ve...talked to...mentioned her? A tall, beautiful girl—young woman? Long black hair, skin and eyes like mine?”

  Some of the Stones guffawed at that. Speaker raised a forefinger. They stopped.

  “The slavers traffic in many such women,” Speaker said, not unkindly. “They’ve stolen no few like that from us, over the years, although Stones make poor slaves, and look only to kill as many of their captors or purchasers as they can before they end with dirt hitting them in the eyes. But I fear your quest is hopeless.”

  “But a girl from the islands, Speaker,” said Running Shits, who despite the name got the nomad chieftain’s respectful attention. “From the Carib. They’re not common on the mainland.”

  “True words, my friend.” He looked at Ricky again. “I wish that I could help you. Your sister’s plight cries in my heart, as it does in that of any true Stone, by blood or adoption. But we have heard nothing such. If it will help, we’ll keep our eyes skinned and our ears open for sign of this Yamile Morales.

  “The odds are against you, boy. You know that. But this is your quest. So, go for it! Keep riding that road. In spirit you are one with us.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “Not a good sign,” J.B. said at Ryan’s side.

  He stood on the edge of their camp, in a little hollow among hills just big enough to park the remaining wags in a circle, about a quarter mile southeast of the vast main Stone Nation encampment. Ryan had insisted they stay in a separate area, and all return to it after the feast. The potential for friction between them and the Stones to strike sparks was just too great.

  Cable had backed him, as he did these days. Ryan was glad of that. Cable was a good man to have fighting at your side, and better once he’d gotten his insecure bullshit out of the way at last.

  Had he done so earlier—or had Ryan been willing to risk the lives of his friends to force the issue himself—they might’ve taken fewer hits on their long and grueling road. But that bullet wasn’t going back in the blaster, any more than any other. So Ryan didn’t bother himself about it.

  But something was worth bothering about. Had Ryan believed in omens, J.B.’s bad sign would have been a triple-bad one. A volcano was erupting, far away to the northwest. Though it had to be dozens of miles distant, they could clearly see its cone shape, by the hell-glow of the molten lava spilling from vents in its sides, and the fires burning in its throat that illuminated the pillar of smoke it puked up at the stars in flares and sullen glows of red and orange. They could hear it occasionally, booms and cracks like distant cannon, when the wind turned right.

  Their path led them east of it. Ryan thought. The problem was that Croom had revealed no more of their road than the Upper Snake, about a day’s drive north of them with middling surfaces to drive on. As far as Ryan knew, the volcano was their destination.

  “Reckon we’ll just have to play the cards we’re dealt, best we can,” he said. “Same as always.”

  J.B. emitted a brief laugh. “It’s not as if anybody leaves the game alive,” he said. “Take more than just a frisky smoker to slow us down, anyway.”

  Somewhere off toward the hills a night bird called. Somebody whooped wildly in the Stone Nation camp. It cut off abruptly, followed by catcalls and the sounds of applause. The wind whispered through the grass and ran playful fingers through Ryan’s shaggy hair.

  “You gentlemen should get some rest.”

  They turned. Bass Croom was walking up on them with his bulk silhouetted by the low buffalo-chip fire at his back, where most of the others sat and talked softly.

  Despite the fact his face was to the night, Ryan thought he could see the man’s eyes burning brightly by sheer starlight. He was in an upswing. For the moment.

  The trader was clearly manic-depressive, as Mildred had told them before Ryan tuned her out. Naturally enough she had gone all doctor-technical on them, but that was all Ryan needed to hear. He could see the truth of it, and none of the rest, he reckoned, would load any blasters for them.

  “We’ll roll in the morning,” Bass said, rubbing his hands togethe
r. Ryan smelled the sourness of stale Towse Lightning on his breath from six feet away. “Bright and early.”

  Ryan shook his head. “Not a good idea,” he said. “We’re riding the thin edge of exhaustion as it is. Everybody needs at least a day of rest. Better two or even more. And we still need supplies they can get from the Stones. Even fresh food like goat’s milk and eggs will help sustain us. And help morale.”

  Bass reared back with fury plain in his eyes. “What’s this bullshit?” he all but bellowed. “You work for me, Cawdor!”

  “Yes, I do, Mr. Croom,” he said levelly. “That’s why I’m telling you this, man to man. You may not get wherever you’re going faster if we rest a day or two, that’s true. But you’re triple more likely actually to make it.”

  “Why, you—”

  “Bass!” It was Sandra Watson, running up to grab at his forearm. “Settle down. Step back and take a deep breath.”

  “And he’s right, Bass,” Cable said, striding up. “If my people can’t shoot straight for their eyelids falling shut, they’re not going to be worth a bent spent shell case protecting you. And how do you think our drivers will do when they’re falling asleep at the wheel every ten minutes?”

  Bass glared around, looking like an old buffalo bull brought to bay by wolves. Then he deflated a little. His big tongue came out to moisten his lips.

  “You—you’re right,” he said. “I just, well, we’re so close. It’s been so long. And I— There’s so much I’ve had to live with—”

  “Bitch!”

  It wasn’t a shout so much as a scream of fury. They all looked back at the campfire.

  Even the hubbub of laughter and drunken singing from the Stone Nation camp seemed to dwindle for a breath or two.

  Morty stood right by the fire, his fists knotted at his sides. Even from sixty feet away Ryan could see his face was flushed, pulled all out of shape by his passion and the booze, which he’d continued to punish triple hard since they got back to their own campfire.

  Standing facing him with her head tipped slightly back was Olympia. Even in the dark and this distance, Ryan could see the posture of her wiry frame was relaxed. He could also tell it was the relaxation of a big mountain cat that could spring into slashing violence in an eyeblink.

  But Morty couldn’t.

  “You’ve held out on me too long, you bitch!” the younger Croom shrieked. “You’ve been flashing that ass of yours and teasing me all this time. Well, it stops now! You’re giving me some of what you promised me all along.”

  “I have promised you nothing, Mr. Croom,” she said. Though not raised her voice snapped like a whip. Ryan had a fleeting sense she had been trained to that somehow, along with her other fighting and scouting skills, which seemed impossibly advanced, since she had to have seen no more than twenty winters, if that many.

  “But I promise you now—you will regret it if you force me to—”

  He grabbed her and pressed his mouth to hers.

  Ryan’s jaw dropped. He would never have imagined Morty could make a move that fast. Especially not with a woman with the steel-trap reflexes that Olympia had shown. Maybe he had taken her by surprise.

  Olympia wasn’t a woman to waste time being stunned by a mere twist of events. As Ryan could’ve told Morty and saved him plenty of pain. Her head rocked back away from his, breaking the sloppy open-lipped contact. Then she snapped forward. Ryan heard Morty’s nose crack as her hard forehead smashed into his face.

  He reeled back.

  She started to turn away, but once again Morty showed surprising speed. He caught her arm midturn and spun her back to face him. He had his other fist cocked back over his shoulder to punch her.

  “No!” Bass bellowed, lumbering into a run.

  Not even Ryan Cawdor, no slouch himself where speed was concerned, could have intervened in time to stop what happened next.

  Olympia spun into the pull as if it was her own idea all along. Her right hand came up as her rapid hip turn torqued that arm out of Morty’s grasp. She caught his wrist, then continued her turn. Her momentum yanked his arm out straight with the elbow visibly locked.

  Ryan winced. But instead of shattering the locked-out elbow with her upraised left forearm she pressed it against the vulnerable joint, using that pressure along with pulling his wrist around and down to throw him facedown in the grass by the fire. Olympia then stood with one hand on the back of his elbow and a boot on the side of his head. The face turned toward Ryan was chill white, but for the dark trickle from his dented-in nose.

  “Touch me again,” she said, “and I kill you. Nod if you understand.”

  After a moment in which even Ryan didn’t breathe, he saw the downed Morty nod.

  Olympia let him go and stepped back. Without seeming to hurry at all she wound up a good six feet away, far enough that he couldn’t tackle her by surprise if he was set on self-murder.

  He wasn’t. There was murder in his blackening eyes as he jumped to his feet. For a pair of shuddering breaths he glared at her.

  Cable started walking toward him, purposefully but not briskly, so as not to provoke anything. Ryan stood his ground. This wasn’t his fight, for which he was heartily glad.

  For her part Olympia simply stood looking at Morty as if nothing had happened. She wasn’t even breathing hard and seemed utterly calm. Ryan was utterly sure that if Morty moved on her she would keep her promise, regardless of the consequences.

  Before Cable could reach him and restrain him, Morty spit blood on the grass between them. Then, whirling, he vanished into the night at a stumbling run.

  “Morty!” Bass cried after him, and started to follow.

  But Sandra held his arm from one side, and the considerably more substantial Randi, who had appeared at his other elbow, took him from that side.

  “Easy, Bass,” she said. “Let him blow off steam.”

  He sucked in a long shuddering breath and nodded.

  Ryan sensed a familiar presence at his side. He put his arm around Krysty’s shoulders as she leaned her head against his chest. Her warmth and firmness by his side comforted him.

  Rubbing his beard, Bass stared at Olympia. He didn’t seem to bear her any ill will. He wasn’t that unreasonable. No matter how crazy he was making himself he was sharp and seasoned enough to realize that Olympia had let his sheltered younger brother off not just lightly, but with astonishing mercy.

  Even Krysty, gentle soul that she was, would almost certainly have broken the boy’s elbow for treating her that way. Or just dropped him flat with a broken jaw. Olympia had hurt him just hard enough to sober him up enough to pay attention.

  “She’s scary good, isn’t she, Ryan?” Krysty said.

  “Yes,” he said, because it was true. “And I hope she’s really on our side.”

  “Me, too.”

  Olympia turned and started walking away. Ryan thought she was headed to where she’d unrolled her bedroll by itself beside the commissary wag. Instead she went around the little fire to where Dezzy sat on her backpack. Her eyes were wide at the whole spectacle. Like the rest of the party, Ryan’s people as well as Croom’s, sec men as well as drivers, she had made no move to interfere in the confrontation between Morty and Olympia.

  Ryan knew Morty had been bothering the little sec woman with the one white bang as well as every other female in the party, except Krysty and Mildred. As far as Ryan knew he’d never gotten anywhere, boss’s spoiled sib or not. But Ryan didn’t think Dezzy minded the prospect of seeing Morty get the wind knocked out of his sails. And like everybody else she’d seen Olympia in action enough to have little doubt she could do the knocking.

  Olympia knelt briefly beside the young sec woman. She had to have said something, as Dezzy frowned slightly.

  Olympia rose and walked with her usual stalking-panther grace
to her bedroll.

  Ryan stood with his arm around Krysty, feeling her heartbeat against his ribs, watching. Dezzy sat for a moment, head down, gazing at the low yellow dance of the flames. Then she got up and walked around to where Ricky was sitting. He was still obviously wired up by what had just happened. He jumped a little when he noticed her approaching.

  Without a word as far as Ryan could tell, she reached down and took Ricky by his hand. Urging him to his feet, she led him off into the darkness.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “Trouble.”

  Jak’s low, urgent voice snapped Ryan from deep sleep to total instant wakefulness, even before the single longblaster shot shattered the dawn stillness.

  Ryan jumped to his feet and grabbed his Steyr. The hills overlooking their little camp all seemed to be lined with Stones on bikes. They had to have pushed them up there to keep from rousing the convoy with engine sounds.

  The shot had come from the highest hill, by chance the one nearest the big Stone Nation camp. Atop it Speaker was just stooping to lay his longblaster in the grass. A staff that looked suspiciously like a spear haft stuck up out of the thigh-high grass beside him.

  Ryan, backed by Krysty, had convinced Jak into taking no more than a four-hour turn on patrol overnight. As a normal thing Ryan didn’t reckon it was up to him to make personal choices for his people, all of whom were adults except for Ricky, who could also shift for himself as far as Ryan was concerned, or for the most part. But Jak sometimes had a short fuse, especially if he was fatigued. Ryan wanted him alert when he was awake, so he made him go to bed.

  Now he might have cause to regret that, because the two men who’d had last watch, Doc and the slight and gentle head wrench Dan Hogue, were being held captive by angry-looking Stones on the foreslope of the hill right below Speaker. The brutal-looking Pit Bull hung on to Doc negligently by his upper arm, completely disregarding the possibility the gawky, frail-looking old man could pose any threat to a stud like him. Especially backed by two eager-looking young Stone Nation warriors. Doc’s captors hadn’t even found it necessary to deprive him of his ebony swordstick, though Ryan saw the oddly shaped butt of Doc’s LeMat sticking out of the waistband of Pit Bull’s black leather pants, pressing in against the pudge of his gut.