by James Axler
“Egad, a blind man could follow this Brobdingnagian trail!” Doc snorted in disdain. There had been tree branches tied behind the war wag to wipe out their tracks, but those had rotted away shortly after approaching the putrid lake. Even the rope was gone, the tattered remains falling away as loose, pale fibers.
“Nothing we can do about it,” Mildred replied with a shrug. “We could go around, but then we’d lose too much time.”
“Think droids follow?” Jak asked.
“Nothing on the radar,” Krysty replied. “We’re fine.”
“As you say, dear lady,” Doc acquiesced, but he kept looking behind them as if expecting the droids to appear over the horizon at any moment.
A few miles later, a dull thumping could be heard in the distance, sort of like cannon fire. Then the companions spotted white plumes briefly appearing above the treetops, and smiled in relief as they came upon the hot water geysers.
Proceeding through the explosive array, the urban combat vehicle was hit several times by the spray. However, when they emerged from the steaming field, the outer chassis was sparkling clean.
“Sanitized for your protection!” Mildred chuckled in delight.
The downfall created a multitude of rainbows until even the black and orange storm clouds overhead seemed somehow beautiful.
“Magnificent! Hell and heaven side by side!” Doc exclaimed. “If the symmetry was any more perfect, I do believe I might have cried.”
“Just water,” Jak sniffed, but it was clearly bravado.
“Plus, they’re kind of small,” Mildred added.
“Small or not, there are hundreds of them,” Krysty added. “And combined, they are breathtaking. I’m surprised that Roberto didn’t mention it.”
“Hell of a landmark,” Jak agreed.
“Mebbe he didn’t know it was here,” Ryan said gruffly, rubbing his jaw. “Which means that either we’re on a wild-mutie chase to nowhere, or this is brand new.”
“I think it’s new,” J.B. said, watching one of the smaller geysers sputter and die, the ground then collapsing into the steamy hole. “Probably be gone by next week.”
“Sic transit gloria mundi,” Doc said, bowing his head respectfully. “Thus passes the beauty of the world.”
“Wish I had a camera.” Mildred sighed, her hand touching the journal in her med kit. Recently she had started making notes about anything useful or interesting the companions discovered in their travels. The rainbow garden was magnificent, but transitory, a very brief flicker of beauty in a cold, dark expanse.
Following the runoff stream from the hot water geysers, Mildred drove the UCV into a growing wilderness of bushes and trees. Soon they had to leave the forest, the trees too densely packed for the wag to drive through. Straddling the waterway, the vehicle trundled along, the six tires throwing back a misty spray that masked the steaming field of rainbows.
As the external temperature dropped, the vents opened by themselves, admitting a wealth of cool air carrying the rich smell of green plants. Bushes laden with berries covered both shores, and the trees were heavy with ripe fruit, the branches bowing down to nearly touch the ground.
“Bear!” Jak cried in delight, grabbing a recently cleaned M-16 rapidfire and working the arming bolt. “Stop and I get dinner!”
“And then we’d have to skin it, cut out steaks, make a campfire and cook the bastard,” Ryan replied gruffly, the disappointment thick in his voice. “Sorry, we can’t spare the hours.”
“But bear in apple orchard!” Jak admonished, rubbing his stomach. The backpacks they’d rescued from the redoubt had been full of MRE packs, but each Mylar envelope had been riddled with tiny corrosion holes, the dehydrated food as inedible as dung.
“And a bear in an orchard is good?” Mildred asked over a shoulder, dodging a small boulder in the stream.
The teenager scowled in disbelief. “Not have bear and apple stew?” He snorted. “Thought came from civilized time!”
“So did I, once,” Mildred said with a sigh, shifting gears.
The creek flowed to a delta, where it joined over waterways to become a shallow river, clear water slow and stately. The rad counters read clean, and fish could be seen swimming in the shallows, along with crabs and some black eels.
Moving onto a grassy bank, the companions soon saw signs of a nearby ville: a torn fishing net tangled in the branches of a submerged rock, a crude attempt at plowing a field, a bloody rope dangling from a tree limb where a deer or some other animal had been gutted. Then, following a gentle curve, there was Newton.
Low tree stumps dotted the ground for a hundred feet before reaching the outer wall, clear ground for the people inside to easily pick off invaders. There was a path to the front gate, but it curved several times before reaching the entrance. Obviously it was designed to slow an enemy charge, making it easier for the sec men to aim.
Unless you were stupe enough to go over the tree stumps, Ryan noted. He felt certain the field was filled with pits, traps and buried explosive charges.
The wall itself was the usual mixture of red bricks, cinder-blocks, sidewalk slabs, logs and concrete, with large boulders being used as sturdy cornerstones. Smart move. The top of the barrier was studded with sharp sticks, broken glass and a few rusty strands of barbed wire. The gate was more impressive, overlapping sheets of metal from whatever could be found—stop signs, billboards, car hoods, manhole covers…
The hodgepodge was dented in numerous places and streaked with the telltale gray of countless ricochets. Clearly, the imposing barrier had withstood numerous attacks. Several wooden guard towers stood tall behind the wall, in the distance fluttered a flag of murky colors and off to the side was a tall gallows, the dangling noose empty. It was a message any outlander could easily understand.
“Good wall,” J.B. said in admiration. “No sign of cannons, but I’ll bet it’d be a real bitch to get through that gate.”
“Unfortunately, there’s no sign of Roberto,” Ryan said, looking around. There were no tracks in the ground, oil stains, or any other indications that a wag had been here recently.
Krysty frowned. “Could we have gotten here first?”
“If we did, he must have been jacked somewhere along the way,” Ryan said, pulling his blaster to checked the clip. “We’ll get some food and wait until dark, but after that we’ll go hunting for them.”
“Gave word,” Jak agreed. “We part convoy. They lost, we find.”
“A noble sentiment,” Doc said. “However, I truly cannot imagine that anybody could deter those three juggernauts.”
“Anybody can be taken,” Ryan said coldly, “if you want them bad enough.”
Braking the war wag a respectful distance from the front gate, Mildred heard the clang of an alarm bell, and a dozen sec men appeared along the top of the wall, armed with axes, blasters and crossbows. Then a small door in the gate opened briefly, and some sec men slipped through. Their clothing was mismatched, predark fabrics, new leather and crude woven material, but all of it had been dyed a smooth uniform black. Plus, every one of them wore a blaster on his belt, and had a longblaster slung across his back. Ryan grunted at the sight. This was a rich ville. It had to do a lot of business with traders.
Keeping in a tight group, the sec men walked toward the war wag and stopped halfway. Understanding the procedure, Ryan and J.B. climbed out of the UCV and ambled over to meet them on neutral ground, within the range of everybody’s blasters.
“Hell of a wag you got there, outlander,” a bald sec man said as a greeting. “That be some kind of a tank?”
“No, just something we whittled out of a tree,” Ryan joked, and was rewarded with several smiles. “Any chance Roberto the Trader is here yet? We were supposed to meet with him at moonrise, but arrived early.”
“Not by much,” a sec woman said, glancing at the darkening sky.
“You part of his convoy?” the sergeant asked. “Never saw you folks before, and sure as shit never saw anything like
that wag!” He could not take his sight away from a huge metal fork resting on top of the machine. Clearly, it was for ramming other wags. And possibly a ville gate.
“We’re newbies,” Ryan replied.
“Lucky number four,” J.B. added.
That made the sergeant hesitate. It was the right number, but these could be coldhearts who had watched Roberto arrive at the ville from the bushes. “Hey, you ever met his wife?” he asked. “Black dust, that woman is fat!”
“Sorry, Roberto isn’t married,” Ryan said calmly. “His second in command is Jessica, and she’s small enough to stuff in your hip pocket.”
“But meaner than a gator with a toothache,” J.B. added. “I swear that woman was born to chew steel.”
“Yeah, you know Colt, all right.” The sergeant chuckled, somewhat easing his stance. “Come on inside, and welcome to Newton.”
As the group of sec men started back toward the ville, Ryan saw the sergeant make a complex hand gesture to the wall guards, and they lowered their weapons. Suspicious folks. He had a feeling he was going to like these people.
It was a tight fit getting the UCV through the front gate, but the wag made it without damaging the wall. Past the gate was a fieldstone wall with two large cannons ready to repel any invader.
The guns were probably set in stone, Ryan realized, and could not be turned to fire at the ville. Smart. Razor smart. The local baron was no fool.
To the right were the stables with a corral for horses, and to the left was a flat area of bare ground for the wags. War Wag One was parked there, with the Mack trucks nearby in a triangle formation to give each other maximum cover with their blasters. There were some oldies smoking pipes across the street, talking about the wags with a pregnant woman rocking in a wicker chair, her bare feet barely touching the ground.
Angling into the corner, Mildred parked the UCV and turned off the engines. To the locals, the arrival of any trader was pretty much like a space shuttle landing in a small town during her time. Everybody knew the things existed, but to see one only a few feet away was both terrifying and exhilarating.
On guard duty, J.B. stayed behind and locked the doors after the others decamped. Then he moved to the gunnery seat and turned on the Fifty, the heavy, vented barrel turning this way and that as he worked the joystick. A lot of the townsfolk moved away from the parked wags at this point, but they were soon replaced by others.
The ville was pretty standard; the companions had seen other small towns just like it countless times before. The winding streets were paved with predark bricks, the homes were mostly log cabins, squat and sturdy, the roofs a mixture of anything that could keep out the acid rain and winter snow: floor mats, plastic sheets, tar paper and patched canvas. The evening air was scented with the rich smell of horse manure, hot cooking oil, cooking soap, the stink of tanning leather and tangy wood smoke from a hundred stoves.
From a two-story building came the sound of raucous laughter, and the tinkle of a piano clearly announced it was a tavern. Lounging on the second-floor balconies were gaudy sluts smoking hand-rolled cigs and plumping their wares to anybody who seemed interested.
On the ground, cackling chickens ran underfoot, and a gang of children raced by in hot pursuit of a squealing piglet. In the gutter, a mangy dog was chewing an aced rat, while a fat cat was sleeping on a barrel. From somewhere nearby there came the steady clang of a blacksmith at work, some men sang a work song to the sound of sawing wood, and there came the crack of a whip closely followed by a scream of pain.
In the middle of the ville was a low hill, natural or artificial, it was impossible to tell from this distance. Sitting on the crest was an ornate two-story building, surrounded by squat fieldstone bunkers. Without a doubt, that was the home of the baron.
Over by an artesian well, Roberto and Jessica had set up some folding tables and were trading with the townspeople, exchanging a pair of repaired shoes for a bushel of turnips, an arrow for a live chicken, a hammer for string of smoked fish, a fistful of nails for a skinned raccoon, a single brass for a tattered paperback book. Business was brisk, there were a lot of smiling faces, but armed sec men walked through the crowds, their hands holding crossbows and longblasters.
Suddenly, Jessica tugged on Roberto’s arm, and he looked up to see the companions. He smiled briefly, then went back to work, talking, laughing and cutting deals.
“Okay, here’s the download,” the sergeant said in a bored voice. “We got a new baron, so the taverns are open again. That is the good news. But he don’t allow anything else, and that’s the bad. Wolfweed gets you thrown out of the ville, jolt gets you an air dance.” The man rattled off the list as if he repeated it a hundred times a day. “We castrate for rape and blind ya for theft. Unless it’s a horse, then we beat you to death and feed ya to the pigs. Basically, if a sec man says frog, you jump. Oh yeah, if you have any silver, talk to the baron, and he’ll issue you ville jack. Don’t trade any with the villagers. He don’t take kindly to that, and neither do we.”
“Fair enough,” Ryan said. “Any place we can get some chow?”
“Howard’s is the best,” another sec man drawled, jerking a thumb at the tavern. “Jus’ don’t order a pie. They taste great, but always make ya sick.”
As the sec men walked away, the companions waited before talking among themselves.
“What was that about silver?” Mildred muttered, shifting her med kit. Professionally, she was pleased to see the latrines placed far away from the well and the horse stable. There would be no cholera or typhoid here.
“Perhaps the baron knows how to make fulminating guncotton,” Krysty said, looking at some greenhouses farther back inside the ville. She had a strong dislike for those ever since running into a baron who fed people into a woodchipper to make his loam.
Ryan agreed. “That type of explosive takes a lot of time to make, but the more silver you have, the faster it goes.”
“Indeed, sir,” Doc added, twirling his ebony stick to finally rest it between his shoes. “One can never have enough good friends, or high explosives.”
“Frag it, mebbe he just likes shiny,” Ryan growled, heading for the tavern. “Food is at the top of our list.” He had already caught a whiff of onions frying with bacon, and he only hoped it wasn’t some kind of pie.
“HE’S HERE,” LINDA SAID, the words momentarily visible as she exhaled sweet smoke. Then she took another drag of the homemade cigarette, and filled her lungs to the point where her huge breasts nearly fell out of her loose bodice.
“What was that?” the man asked across the bedroom, looking up from putting on a boot.
“Your friend is here,” Linda repeated, puckering her painted lips to blow a smoke ring. The gaudy slut was reclining in a chair on the balcony, her skirt hitched up high, and she flashed a peek of the treasure within to any man, or woman, who showed interest. Linda was no prude like some of the sluts. Tongues and fingers did it for her just as well.
“Who…Describe him,” the man demanded hastily, tugging on the second boot, then grabbing suspenders to pull up his pants.
“Happy to.” Linda smiled around the cig. “Big fella, and I do mean big. Curly black hair, scar on his face, eye patch, fancy blasters. He’s with a redhead with tits almost as big as mine, a healer, I can see her med bag, an albino and a wrinklie in weird clothing walking with a stick.” She chuckled and scratched an armpit. “That’s gotta be him, honey. Now where’s my reward?”
Walking quickly to the entrance of the balcony, Delacort looked down upon the bustling ville and spotted Ryan instantly, heading straight for the tavern, and it wasn’t even night yet. The damn fools weren’t supposed to get here before dark. This was going to ruin everything!
“I asked about the reward,” Linda repeated, her silken tones taking on a hard edge.
Ignoring the slut, Delacort rushed over to the bed.
Sprawled naked under a damp sheet, Billy was sound asleep, his gunbelt hung over a newel only inches from out
stretched fingers. Nudging the bed with his knee, Delacort stepped back fast, and the boy came awake with a leaf-shaped throwing knife in his hand.
“They’re here,” Delacort growled. “So we gotta take ’em now. Right now. No choice.”
Rising naked from the warm bed, the boy yawned and sheathed the throwing knife to draw the stiletto. Smiling at the thin blade, he tested the needletip on a thumb, then licked off the bright red drop of blood.
“No prob,” Billy whispered, his face shiny with excitement. “I’ll take care of them, you handle the slut.”
“Fair enough.”
“What are you talking about?” Linda demanded suspiciously, a hand slipping into her bodice to touch a razor blade hidden there for emergencies. But before she could draw the blade, Billy made a jerking motion, she turned around fast and Delacort slammed the barrel of his blaster into the back of her head. Wiping the wheelgun clean on the slut’s lacy dress, Delacort holstered the weapon. “Now let’s go have some real fun.”
Chapter Thirteen
Entering the tavern, the companions were greeted by a wave of warmth reeking of new shine, old sweat and sex. Across the room, a busty woman wearing only a feathered robe was leading a young sec man up the stairs. She was giggling, he was blushing, and nobody else paid them any attention whatsoever.
Sitting on a stool at the end of the bar, a young girl of Asian ancestry was wearing a pale green dress slit up the side to show a lot of thigh, the neckline low enough to almost expose her pert breasts. Touching her ebony hair, the slut pointedly ignored Doc, but smiled warmly at Ryan. He looked back coldly, and rested an arm on Krysty’s shoulder. Accepting the rebuff, the slut turned her smiling attention to J.B., but Mildred already had a hand tucked into his rear pocket, the universal signal of sexual partnership. With a sigh, the woman glanced briefly at Jak, then shrugged and lit a cigarette.