Labyrinth

by James Axler

  But before they could rise from cover, they heard men’s voices on the far side of the wall. And footsteps running in their direction.

  Jak and Doc exchanged scowls, chagrined that they hadn’t seen the stragglers coming. Perhaps the men had taken a shortcut, traveling out of sight down one of the dry gullys? It was too late to second-guess the cause or the outcome. And too late to retreat. Even if Jak and Doc could have fallen back without being seen, the noise would have alerted the bastards. As was the case during the night, an exchange of gunshots was the last thing they wanted.

  Doc quietly unsheathed his sword.

  When in doubt, attack.

  As the tramp of footfalls closed on the wall, they leaped out from behind it and came face to face with three bearded men in robes, running single file toward the dam, apparently rushing to get there before the ceremony started. The man in the lead carried a scabbarded machete on a web belt; the other two were armed with full-stock, pump shotguns on shoulder slings.

  The suddenness of the assault and the proximity of their attackers took the three men completely off guard.

  Jak let the machete man fly past him and hurled himself at the second man in line. His snap kick caught the shotgunner in the middle of the chest, at the low point of his sternum. Their combined momentum met head-on, producing a sickening crunch as something yielded under the ball of Jak’s booted foot. He felt the jolting impact all the way to the back of his head. The shoulder-slung shotgun and its owner crashed to the dirt.

  The man following was coming too fast to stop, or even dodge.

  Jak had just enough time to plant his feet and sink his weight into his knees. The second shotgunner collided with Jak’s lowered shoulder, his legs went out from under him, and he ended up on his back, gasping for air.

  Jak grabbed the pump gun by the barrel and ripped it away from the much bigger man. Then he brought the weapon around in a tight arc, like a sledgehammer, putting all his weight behind the swing, aiming for the top of the man’s head. At the last instant, his target rolled out of reach and the wooden butt stock splintered apart on a piece of concrete rubble.

  “Help me! Help!” the man cried, scrambling to his feet.

  Jak glanced back at the other shotgunner. The man lay on his side, a widening puddle of blood under his face; his weapon had landed five feet away from his outstretched arm. He wasn’t breathing. On the broken ground of the predark backyard, the man with the machete and Doc Tanner squared off over drawn blades.

  “Help me!” the shotgunner hollered.

  Jak took a step toward him, winding up for another swing with the barreled action.

  Realizing that all help was either dead, fully occupied, or too far away to hear, the man vaulted the wall and dropped down to the dirt of the basement floor.

  Jak jumped after him.

  The man rounded the nose of the marooned SUV and disappeared on the other side.

  As Jak approached, he popped up with a three-foot piece of iron pipe in his hands, his eyes crazy wild, his nose leaking twin trails down his bushy mustache and beard.

  Jak turned the muzzle of the shotgun on him, bracing the receiver against his side, aiming through the emptied windshield. “Give up,” he said. “Give up or get chilled.”

  Moving behind the scant cover of the doorpost the man said, “You can’t shoot me. If that blaster goes off, the whole ville will be back here.”

  His bluff called, Jak gripped the shotgun by the barrel and jumped onto the hood of the SUV.

  The man took a hard sideways cut at his legs, but Jak saw it coming and hopped up onto the roof. The pipe slammed into the windshield frame, denting the corroded metal a good three inches. By the time the shotgunner wound up for another swing, Jak was already down on the ground beside him.

  The albino brought around the shotgun action and the two bludgeons clanged together, crossing at head height. The vibrating barrel made Jak’s hands go numb for a second.

  The other man staggered back, then hurled himself forward, swinging overhead, grunting from the effort.

  Jak easily stepped out of the way and the blow landed harmlessly in the dirt. But before he could trap the end of the pipe with his boot, the man jerked it away and circled left. As he did so, he shoved the pipe at him like a lance, poking it in his face.

  Pinned against the side of the half-sunken SUV, Jak ducked and dodged the man’s jabs and slashes. He didn’t have room behind him for a back swing, so he kept the barreled action at port arms, biding his time, waiting for his chance to strike.

  “Where you gonna run now, mutie?” the man taunted, keeping the pipe in his face as he shifted back and forth. “You got nowhere to go. I’m gonna pound your head in.”

  From above the pit, Jak heard steel singing on steel.

  The man with the machete hurtled past Doc before he could bring his sword to bear. Skidding to a stop, he turned and unsheathed his machete. The wide, flat blade had what looked like a razor edge. As he took the measure of his adversary’s weapon, a snaggle-toothed grin appeared under the matted tangle of beard.

  Thin blade against thick blade.

  Long blade against short.

  “En garde!” Doc said.

  The man scowled.

  “Come and get it,” Doc translated.

  Only too glad to oblige, the man charged, unleashing a flurry of backhanded and forehanded slashes at waist height, tree-felling slashes trying to drive him off his feet.

  Doc jumped out of the way, attempting to parry with his sword. The effort was futile. He couldn’t turn aside the strokes with his flexible weapon. The machete blade was too heavy, and the man wielding it too strong. What Doc had in his favor was speed. And a delicate touch.

  He used his sword point to make the point, flicking it across the whitened knuckles that gripped the machete.

  The man yelped but didn’t drop his weapon. The pain and the sight of his own blood made him attack in a frenzy of slashes.

  Clumsy, brutal, but effective.

  Unable to deflect the blade, Doc had to give ground or be hacked to death. He backed across the littered lot, keeping the man honest with an occasional flick at his face. Doc played a stalling game, waiting for his opponent to tire, to lower his guard. To that end, he backed onto a small foundation slab that had once supported a garage or guest house. The flat surface sprouted broken off lengths of plastic, copper and galvanized pipe and long hanks of sheared wiring. Obstacles that slowed down his attacker, and in the case of the pipe gave him something to hide behind.

  Not that plastic and copper pipe lasted long under the machete onslaught. But hacking it out of the way drained the man’s strength.

  When his blade arm dropped, Doc lunged, cutting him again with another flick of the sword point, this time in the right shoulder, deep into the muscle. Deep enough to make the man groan.

  Blood flew from the wound as he continued to swing. Red splattered the sleeve of the oatmeal-colored robe.

  Doc backed up, his right leg extended to the rear, body leaning forward, sword ready to strike.

  He didn’t see the old water heater laying on its side behind him. When his foot hit it, he instinctively glanced back. In that instant, the man charged, chopping for his neck. Doc managed to deflect the blow with the widest part of his blade, just above the silver lion’s-head handle, but the force of it drove him off balance. He sprawled backward over the rusting steel cylinder. And for a second was spread out over it, defenseless.

  The machete came down in a blur. This time it was aimed to split open his chest.

  As Doc rolled away, the machete clanged into the sheet steel, throwing off a shower of sparks. The blade bit deep into the metal, cleaving it. And sticking fast.

  The man tried to free the machete, jerking up on the handle so hard that he lifted the heater from the concrete.

  Doc lunged up from his knees and thrust, spearing the sword through his adversary’s torso, just above his hipbone and out the opposite armpit. As he whippe
d the blade free, the man moaned and released his weapon. Clutching the wound, he staggered forward and fell face-first over the water heater.

  Stone dead.

  JAK SENSED HIS OPPONENT was tiring of the game. It was clear that Jak was too quick for him. Even with his back to the SUV, the albino ducked and dodged every attack the man tried. After a few minutes of fruitless, all-out effort, the idea that a counterattack was coming, and one that he probably couldn’t defend against, filled the man’s mind—and face—with dread.

  A moment before he made his move, a light came on in his eyes.

  Jak read his thoughts. The triple stupe had finally realized the obvious.

  If you can’t shoot, nothing’s stopping me.

  The man hurled the pipe at Jak’s head and turned to run. Jak ducked and the pipe hit the roof and flipped away. By the time he straightened, the man was at the cinder-block wall and starting to climb. Jak stepped forward, gripping the barrel with both hands. He coiled, pivoting from his hips, and winged the shotgun at his back. The blaster flew through the air sideways, and end over end. It caught the man at the base of the neck as he reached up to grab the top of the wall and pull himself out.

  Seven pounds of steel pounded his face into the cinder block. His forehead bounced off the wall, his knees buckled, and he fell to the ground.

  Jak straddled him from behind, taking hold of his shoulder in one hand and his chin in the other. He gave the chin a sudden twist and the spinal column parted with a wet snap.

  “Nicely turned, my dear Jack,” Doc said, leaning over the wall. “I do believe we are finished here.”

  Jak let the man fall back to the dirt, brushed off his hands, then climbed out of the basement.

  They moved with much more care through the ruined neighborhood to the edge of the city center, keeping a close watch for movement in the runoff ditches. There were no more stragglers. The one-stories that ringed the park looked deserted.

  Crossing over to the square’s line of trees, they peered up at the facade of city hall.

  There was no sign of life there, either.

  “If Mildred and Krysty are inside,” Doc said, “they may well be under guard.”

  “Fix that.” Jak unholstered his Colt Python.

  “I concur, my boy,” Doc said as he pulled out his Le Mat. “In the end, subtlety will only take us so far.”

  Side by side they rushed across the street and up the city hall steps.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “I can’t see anything from here,” Randi said from beside one of the tall windows. “They’re probably almost to the dam by now.”

  “I wish you’d shut up,” Valerie Louise said. “I’m tired of listening to your whining.”

  She wasn’t the only one.

  Krysty and Mildred, bound hand and foot to their chairs, had been a captive audience to the woman’s complaining for what seemed like hours. Neither of the pilgrim wives was pleased at being assigned guard duty and thereby missing the show at the dam, but Randi was by far the most vocal. A stuck record.

  “We could see the ceremony from the window at the end of the hall,” she said.

  “It’s too far away. We wouldn’t be able to see anything.”

  “Sure we would. maybe not the offering, but the procession across the dam. That’s the second-best part.”

  “We’re not supposed to leave them alone.”

  “Who’d know? Look at them. They aren’t going anywhere. It’d only take a minute. You know you want to see. There might not be another offering for months.”

  Valerie Louise glared at the prisoners with her right hand firmly resting on the butt of her holstered Colt Army .44.

  Krysty gave her a blank, unchallenging look in return, but her stomach was churning. The women of Little Pueblo didn’t just wish others misery; they wanted to cheer while watching it come to pass.

  Perhaps these two had good sides. Perhaps the other women did, too. Perhaps they were kind to their children, to each other, to the chickens. But to Krysty all that had long since stopped mattering. Given the chance to free herself and her companions, she would have gladly chilled the lot of them.

  Twice.

  Valerie Louise clawed at her dense mat of shoulder-length hair as she considered her options. The pros and cons. And after a few moments she decided the pros had it.

  “You two better not try anything,” she said. “If you do, we’ll make you damned sorry.”

  When the two wives left the room, Mildred said, “This is our chance. You’ve got to go for it, now.”

  Krysty didn’t need prompting. Clearly, there was no other choice. If they were to free themselves, she had to call upon the Gaia, the invisible feminine power of the earth, using the techniques she had learned from Mother Sonja. She closed her eyes and began to breathe slowly and deeply in and out, focusing her mind on the great mystery that united all things, the warp and weave of existence.

  As the connection was made and the Gaia energy started to build, she felt it as a weight pressing down upon her entire body, crushing her into the chair. When the pressure became unbearable she stopped resisting and yielded utterly to it, and in so doing felt it suddenly lift from her, leaving her weightless, floating. Up through the soles of feet, up her legs, into her hips a current of energy crackled.

  Building to a towering peak.

  Her face twisted in concentration, Krysty twitched her wrists on the chair arms. The slightest of movements. They had to be precise, or the sudden application of Gaia force would have shattered both her arms. The thick ropes broke apart like they were made of silk thread.

  The exertion had a price, and Krysty paid it. The terrible backwash made her black out for a split second.

  She awoke to the sound of Mildred’s voice. “Untie your ankles!” the doctor said. “Hurry, we don’t have much time.”

  Though dizzy and light-headed, Krysty managed to free her legs. She moved shakily to Mildred’s side and started working on her bonds.

  From the hall outside they could hear the two women arguing as they returned.

  “They’re coming back already,” Mildred said, shaking the ropes loose from her ankles. “Stand over there, out of the way.”

  Krysty obeyed, still too weak to be of any real help.

  Mildred picked up her chair by its back and moved alongside the entry door. As the knob turned, she reared back with the chair.

  When the door opened and Valerie Louise stepped in, she was greeted by flying furniture, full in the face. Mildred caught her above the brow with the edge of the chair seat. Valerie Louise’s shocked expression turned into a grimace as she jolted backward, slammed into the door frame and went down. Mildred hit her again in the head, swinging the chair so hard she broke off two of its legs when they struck the jamb.

  In the doorway, Randi froze, her eyes wide. Even though she was armed with a cap and ball revolver like her sister wife, she didn’t reach for it. Instead, she did what came natural. She turned and ran.

  Mildred ran after her. As she ducked out the door, the doctor threw the chair at Randi’s pumping legs, sweeping them out from under her, sending the woman crashing to her face. In three strides, she had hold of the chair again, and was beating Randi into the hallway floor with it. When the chair came apart, leaving her with just the back, she tossed it aside and dragged the unconscious woman into the room by her heels.

  Mildred dumped Randi beside Valerie Louise, then she and Krysty stripped the bodies of their weapons.

  Mildred hefted the Colt Army .44 and said, “We need more firepower than this. We’ve got to find our blasters.” She took the torch from its wall stanchion. “Can you walk?”

  Krysty could walk, but just barely, leaning on Mildred’s shoulder.

  The two of them started searching the adjoining rooms. They didn’t have to go far. Through the next door, beside one of the platform beds, they found all their gear. Apparently intact.

  Mildred picked up her ZKR 551 and passed Krysty her Sm
ith & Wesson Model 640. They opened the cylinders and made sure the blasters were still loaded. With her favorite blaster in hand Krysty started to feel somewhat better, if not fully recovered. She sat on the edge of the bed while Mildred began sorting out the packs, collecting ammo.

  A floorboard creaked in the room they had just left. As Mildred and Krysty turned and brought up their blasters, the door burst open. and they found themselves staring into the business end of a handblaster with two barrels, one over the other; the lower one as big as a cannon.

  A Civil War relic.

  “By the Three Kennedys, we’ve found you!” Doc exclaimed as he lowered the Le Mat.

  Jak followed him into the room, his Colt Python in hand.

  “Are you two all right?” Doc asked. “Have you been harmed in any way? The two ladies next door seem rather the worse for wear.”

  “We’re both fine,” Krysty told him, “but Ryan and J.B. are in serious trouble.”

  “We saw them taken away by the ville folk,” Doc said.

  “Where go?” Jak asked.

  “They were put in the dam,” Krysty said. “Locked in.”

  “To what end were they put there?” Doc said. “Is it a prison? The people seemed to be celebrating the event.”

  “More like a death house, Doc,” Mildred said. “We don’t understand what’s involved, but it’s for sure they’re in great danger.”

  “Get them out, now,” Jak said, gesturing at the door with his handblaster.

  “Before we try to rescue them,” Mildred said, “we have to make sure we have a way to get out of here. Chances are, when our exit comes it’s going to be rushed.”

  “You foresee a retreat under fire,” Doc said.

  “I think that’s likely.”

  “We’re going back to Minotaur, then?” Krysty said.

  “That’s our first destination,” Mildred said. “We’ve got to get in there. It’s our best escape route. If the mattrans isn’t operational, we’re going to have to go to Plan B and pull together some supplies for the walk out.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem,” Doc said. “The buildings outside are deserted. We can take whatever we need.”