THE MORNING SUN WAS just beginning to peek over the eastern horizon. It felt warm and comforting after a long, dark night full of chilling.
In the growing light, Ryan and Mildred ran to the back of the building and could see several people running into the orchard, heading for the far corner of the fence.
Most of them were out of range by now, but a few stragglers were still within their reach.
"Can you take him down without killing him?" Ryan asked Mildred.
Mildred took her shooter's stance and followed the running man's route closely. And then she fired a shot. The man stumbled, pitched forward, and then rolled up against an apple tree. He didn't get up.
Mildred and Ryan ran to catch up to him. When they arrived, the man was backed up against the stump. Mildred's shot had torn up his left calf and broke a bone or two, but the wound wasn't fatal.
"Who are you people?" Ryan asked. "Where do you come from?"
The man didn't seem interested in answering. Mildred pointed her ZKR at the man's head, but that didn't seem to make any difference.
"We're not sec men," Ryan said. "We've been fighting on the same side, against the baron." That seemed to catch the man's interest, but Ryan didn't have time to slowly win him over. He reared back and hit him square in the jaw with the back of his SIG-Sauer. "Your party captured one of our group. I want her back."
The man was slow to answer, so Ryan prepared to give him another blow.
"Wait," he said.
"I'm waiting."
"We're from Reichel ville. We needed breeders, new blood for the survival of the ville."
"Where is Reichel ville?"
"On Erie Lake. We've camped on the north shore of the lake, at Fort Erie. That's where the others are headed now."
"How long ago?"
"A few minutes, maybe more. I don't know. I got separated. They left without me."
Ryan looked up at Mildred. "I'm going after them."
"We could all go together," Mildred offered.
"No time," Ryan said. "We have to go now."
"Then I'm going with you, but we need to let the others know where we've gone."
Ryan looked at the wounded raider. "I need you to do something for me."
"A favor?" the man asked, through swollen lips.
"Yes. I need you to let the others know where we've gone."
"What if I do?"
"Then you can tell them that Ryan Cawdor said they have to take you with them, to meet up with the others from your ville."
"How do I know they'll do that?"
"If you give them my name, they'll do it."
Mildred nodded.
"All right."
Ryan and Mildred were gone without another word.
WHEN JAK and the women reached the top of the stairs and stepped through the door leading out of the dungeon, the freed women took cautious steps into the hallway, as if they didn't believe they'd actually been emancipated.
"You're free to go," Clarissa explained.
"Where's the baron?" her sister asked.
"Missing right now," Clarissa said.
"We can't be free if he's still alive."
"We're going to look for him."
"Chill when find," Jak added.
"I know where he's hiding," Clarissa's sister, Melanie, said. "There's a bunker at the end of this hallway. I heard someone go down that way a few hours ago. It has to be him."
"Take me there," Jak said.
The other women suddenly began moving in the other direction, not wanting any part of the baron, not even to see him get chilled.
"Follow me," Melanie said.
Chapter Forty-Two
Ryan and Mildred jumped the fence and were on the raiders' trail, but weren't any closer to rescuing Krysty.
Every mile or so, a straggler would fall behind the main group, fire several shots in their general direction and then disappear into the underbrush. The guerrilla tactics didn't give Ryan and Mildred the time or chance to fight, but were slowing their progress enough to let the group, and Krysty, slip farther and farther away.
Currently they were pinned down behind an outcrop between two stands of trees. The trail wound to the left slightly, and the shots were coming from somewhere to the right.
Ryan took his brass naval telescope from his coat and scanned the terrain in front of him, but he couldn't pick the shooter out of the shadows.
"We know his general area," Mildred stated. "Let me see if I can come around from behind and flush him out."
"Have to hurry," Ryan said.
Mildred started to move, but Ryan held her back.
"No, I'm going," he said. "You stay here and try to keep him pinned down."
Mildred nodded.
Ryan left without another word.
He moved quickly through the trees and waist high weeds, making sure to keep some cover between himself and the direction the shots had come from, while always on the lookout for movement in the surrounding underbrush.
Ryan raised the SIG-Sauer as he neared the spot where he judged the shots to be coming from.
Mildred had been firing, as well, throwing a well spaced sequence of rounds at the shooter to keep him from moving off.
When Mildred had fired her last shot and had to reload, Ryan focused on the forest before him, looking for any movement.
As he'd expected, the shooter used the respite to return fire in Mildred's direction, and the blast from the muzzle of his weapon allowed Ryan to spot him. It was a young man, a kid really, not much older than Jak. It was a shame to chill the teenager, but Ryan had no choice. The shooter was keeping him from rescuing Krysty and had to be eliminated.
Ryan squeezed off two shots from the SIG-Sauer, the first shot hitting the shooter in the shoulder, the second putting a tiny black spot in his left ear and blowing out a huge hole on the right side of his head.
After several minutes of blasterfire, the area was filled with an odd silence. Mildred came over the top of the outcrop and approached Ryan in a more direct route than the one he'd taken to get to the shooter.
"We've lost a few minutes," Ryan said.
"Then let's not lose any more."
They turned and ran along the trail. Ryan wasn't as good a tracker as Jak, but there seemed to be enough freshly trampled grass and weeds to indicate that the raiders had been through here recently.
He hoped he was right.
"THIS DOOR LEADS into the bunker," Melanie said.
Clarissa checked it. "Locked."
"Stand back," Jak told them.
As the women complied, the albino teenager raised the guard's pump-action blaster and leveled it on the door's locking mechanism.
The first shot mangled the door's handle.
Jak pumped another round into the blaster's chamber and fired again. This time the lock was pushed inward, twisting it inside the door and away from the frame. Jak lowered the blaster and gave the door a push with his finger.
It opened.
He shouldered the longblaster and led the two women inside, his Colt Python at the ready.
Stairs led down to a second, much heavier, door. They tried this one, and it was unlocked.
Opening the door slowly, and silently, they stepped into a dimly lit room.
The baron was in the room at the bottom of the stairs, lying on a satin-covered bed, in the company of two women. He was bound to the bed with lengths of nylon around his ankles and wrists. One of the women was sucking the baron's cock while the other one was straddling his head.
Against one of the concrete walls was a wine rack that held upward of one hundred bottles of different wines. There was a refrigerator, walk-in freezer, stove, water stores and washroom facilities. A few blasters hung from racks on the walls, but the baron wasn't going to make any of those anytime soon.
Someone turned on a light, and the two women looked up in surprise. The baron looked surprised, too, and tried for the Luger on the table next to the bed. His hand got close, but w
ith his right arm tied to one of the bedposts, it was well out of reach.
Jak raised the Python, making sure the baron's head was in his sights.
"Don't chill him!" Melanie said, walking over the table next to the bed and picking up the Luger. "I want to do it."
Jak looked at Clarissa. She nodded, and Jak lowered the Python and holstered it.
"Get away from the bed and I'll let you live," Melanie told the two women.
The two women scrambled off the bed.
The baron said nothing.
Melanie pointed the Luger at the baron's head. "Didn't expect to find yourself in this situation, did you, Baron Fox?"
The baron shook his head.
"At my mercy." Melanie paused and traced a line on Fox's body with the barrel of the Luger, starting from his right temple and moving down past his neck, over his chest and abdomen, and finally ending up between his legs.
His erection was still there.
"You find this exciting, don't you, you sick fuck!"
The baron said nothing.
"I bet you'd love for me to shove this gun up your ass and fuck you with it, wouldn't you?"
The baron only smiled.
"I knew it," Melanie said coyly. "But not yet."
The baron's eyes closed as if the anticipation was too much to bear.
"First I want you to suck on it." She raised the blaster and brought the barrel to his mouth. "Kiss it."
The baron kissed the end of the blaster.
"Now lick it."
The baron did what he'd been told, seeming to enjoy what he was doing.
"Now put your mouth over it and suck on it."
The baron opened his mouth, and Melanie pulled the trigger.
Gore and gray matter splattered on the wall behind the bed.
The two women who had been rutting with the baron minutes before screamed.
Melanie turned to Clarissa and Jak. "I'm done. Let's get out of here."
RYAN AND MILDRED came to a rise in the terrain that gave them a good overview of the land in front of them. In the distance they could see a large body of water, which had to be Erie Lake, and which was obviously where the raiders were heading.
But the lake was still several miles away, and they hadn't caught sight of the raiders for a long while.
"Where do you think they could have gone to?" Mildred asked.
"There," Ryan answered, pointing to the southwest. He drew his extended finger back and made a fist. "Fireblast!"
He could see the members of the group clearly as they crossed a weed-infested, two-lane roadway. There were at least two dozen in the party, and in the center of them all was the unmistakable red hair of Krysty Wroth.
"We're farther away from them now than when we started," Mildred stated.
Ryan nodded. "The straggler we chilled was a good man. He led us down a different trail to give them the chance to get away."
"We'll catch them," Mildred said.
"If it's the last thing we do," Ryan vowed.
THE JOB OF CLEARING sec men from the courtyard and securing it had been completed. J.B. had two shells of questionable quality left for the 37 mm cannon, and each .50 caliber had less than a dozen rounds. They still had plenty of ammo for their blasters, but it looked as if the firefights were over for now.
J.B. had pulled the wag back to the main gate so they could cover any of the approaches and make sure anyone trying to get out wouldn't be cut down by any sec men still in the complex. They had been waiting at the gate for almost a half hour, but there was no sign of Ryan and Mildred, or Jak and Clarissa.
"It might not be my place to suggest such a thing," Doc began, "but considering that none of our friendly forces have made their presence known to us, perhaps we should make a search of the grounds."
"We could do it in a wag," Dean suggested.
"I've thought of that," J.B. said, "but I just know that as soon as I move from here they'll show up."
As if on cue, Jak, Clarissa and three women stepped through the front doors of the main building.
"Ah, right on time," Doc said.
As the group approached, J.B. kept his eyes fixed on the building. "Where's Mildred and Ryan?"
"Went after Krysty," Jak said. "Not back yet?"
J.B. shook his head. "All right, hop on back, we'll search the grounds for them."
Jak helped Clarissa and Melanie onto the wag. The two women who had been in the baron's bunker wanted on, too, but Jak shook his head.
Just then a weak voice could be heard saying a familiar name.
"Ryan!" the voice said. "Ryan Cawdor!"
J.B. turned to look at Clarissa. "Do you know this man?"
"No," she stated. "Never seen him before."
Dean was the first off the wag, his blaster drawn and pointed precisely at the center of the man's forehead.
"Where is he?" Dean shouted. "Where's my father?"
"Ryan, Ryan Cawdor."
Dean looked as if he was getting angry, thrusting the blaster hard against the man's face.
J.B. got out of the wag and ran around to where the man was standing. "How do you know the name Ryan Cawdor?"
"He shot me with his blaster," the man said, "and told me to give you a message."
"What's the message?"
The man fell to one knee. "Said you would take me with you when I told you."
J.B. looked at the others on the wag, then nodded. "All right, what's the message?"
"I was a member of a raiding party from Reichel ville. We came for breeders and one of the ones we took was the redhead. Ryan Cawdor and Mildred went after them."
"Where are they headed?"
"We came here on foot, but our boats landed at Fort Erie, on the north shore of the lake."
"How long since they went?"
"Hour, mebbe more."
"We can meet them there," Clarissa said.
J.B. stood up. "What do you mean?"
"We drove through Fort Erie on our way here," she said. "We can get there in the wag and beat Ryan and the raiders to the shore. We can be waiting for them when they arrive."
J.B. considered it.
"Do you think this jumble of bolts and metal is fit to make the journey?" Doc asked.
J.B. looked at the wag. It had taken some hits, was leaking radiator fluid and the brakes were gone. The engine was running rough, too, but they had enough fuel and everything else seemed to still be in working order.
"Yeah," he announced. "We can make it."
"Hot pipe!" Dean said, leading a cheer from the rest of the friends.
"Doc and Jak, get this guy onto the wag!"
"We should take them, too," Clarissa suggested. "The women will come in handy."
J.B. was silent a moment, thinking. "Good idea."
Jak and Doc put the raider on the back of the wag, then helped the two women on, as well.
"After you, ladies," Doc said, bowing his head.
The two women smiled and looked at each other. " ' Ladies ,' he said," one of them echoed Doc's words.
Jak and Doc climbed up onto the back of the crowded wag.
"Hang on, everyone," J.B. shouted. "It's going to be a bumpy ride."
He put the wag in gear, and they were off.
Chapter Forty-Three
Ryan and Mildred had made up their lost ground. They were directly behind the group now, and could begin picking off members of the party the next time they stopped for rest.
And that would be coming soon, since the air had become filled with the smell and feel of a large body of water close by. They had to be within a mile of Erie Lake, and if Ryan and Mildred were going to make a try for Krysty, they'd have to do it soon.
If the raiders made it to their boats, who knew when Ryan might see her again?
"Maybe we should head straight for the shore and wait for them there," Mildred suggested. "I can take them out one at a time as they come out of the woods."
"That wouldn't stop them from hurting Krysty," Ry
an countered. "We'll wait for them in their boats. If they don't turn over Krysty, we'll fill them with holes."
"The boats, or the raiders?"
"Both."
"Now, that's a plan," Mildred quipped.
Just then a twig snapped somewhere to their left. It sounded like a patrol, or perhaps a straggler had doubled back again to give the rest of them a better chance to reach their boats.
Ryan moved cautiously in the direction the sound had come from.
Mildred took his right flank, the ZKR out in front of her.
There was a second movement. The leaves on the branches of a sickly looking tree just ahead trembled as if something had passed beneath them.
And then another branch flicked unnaturally, this time closer to the two of them.
They dropped to their knees and readied for a firefight.
"Dad?"
The voice was familiar.
"Millie?"
Ryan looked at Mildred.
"It sounds like Dean," she whispered.
"A trick?"
"I doubt it"
"Dean!" Ryan said.
"Over here."
They made their way over to where they thought the voice was coming from, but still kept their weapons ready.
And then they came to a slight clearing and Dean was indeed there, looking well. Doc was also there, and Jak was just returning from a recce in the other direction.
"How did you get here?" Ryan asked.
"Wag," the boy said. "Only way to travel."
"Ah, my dear Ryan, and dearest Mildred, how good to see you," Doc said.
"I hate to admit it," Mildred responded, "but I'm glad to see you, too, you old bag of wind."
"Is Krysty with you?" Ryan asked. There would be plenty of time for proper greetings later.
"No," Jak answered. "Still waiting for raiders."
"Then let's get moving."
SEC CHIEF GANLEY USHERED the raiders past, counting heads as they went. There were thirty-one now, significantly more than the number that left Reichel ville a couple of days before, but of those thirty-one, ten were new blood. Not bad considering where those ten had come from, and what they'd had to do to get them.
Axler, James - Deathlands 61 - Skydark Spawn Page 24