by Axler, James
Thankfully, the screams of agony hadn't been heard in days. The seriously hurt were out of their misery, dead and buried, either from the wounds they received in battle, or from the meatball surgery trying to save them. The rest of the brown shirts and civilians lay on the simple cots, waiting for medical attention to their bullet wounds and stumps. The air reeked of feces, whiskey and blood, and the painful moaning never stopped, day or night.
Several of the local gaudy sluts moved among the patients emptying bedpans into a wheelbarrow they pushed along. In this time of emergency, everybody in the ville worked. On the other side of the long hall, a pair of children carried a steaming wooden bucket of freshly brewed tea from the kitchen. Carefully, they filled the cup next to each cot. If the cup was full, they dumped it on the floor and filled it with fresh. Made from old willow bark, Healer Mildred had said the brew would help some of the wounded with their pain. Amazingly, it did with some, but others not at all.
Kneeling alongside a sec man who had been crushed by falling rocks during the war, the new healer adjusted the folded blanket under his head. "There, is that better?" Sullivan asked softly.
"No," the sec man moaned. "Neck still hurts…"
Irritably, Sullivan grabbed the trooper by the throat and savagely twisted. There was a snap, and the patient went limp.
"See?" the mutie whispered in amusement. "I said that I could end your pain."
There was no reply.
Moving to the next patient, Sullivan found the man soundly asleep. Good. They should all fall asleep, then die. There were plenty of troops in the world to replace them, so why did Baron Cawdor worry about a few damaged people. It just made no sense. But then Sullivan's job wasn't to be logical or reasonable, just to murder the baron and leave. Nothing more. Of course, the baron was surrounded by a squad of trigger-happy sec men, so the chilling would take some special planning.
Awake, and carving a pipe from a corncob, the next patient merely had two broken legs that were setting nicely. Sullivan set the bones himself, and made the cast from leather belts and kindling. Pretending to be a healer was his easiest disguise. It was impossible to torture people for years and not to learn something about how to keep them alive. Being zealous in the questioning was a beginner's mistake. Cut off a man's hand, and he would bleed to death in minutes. Ah, but bind the arm with twine to retard the circulation, then cut off the hand, and your patient could live for days. Any damn fool could stab to death a man chained to the wall, but it took an artist to teasingly peel off every inch of skin and still keep the prisoner alive and sane.
The door to the kitchen eased open, and a woman rushed into the dining room. Adjusting the moist bandage on a burned face, Sullivan noted her arrival with interest. Few of the locals seemed to be in any hurry these days. It was as if the war had drained them of not only their strength, but also their very will to live.
The newcomer was plump and full breasted, highly attractive for her species. She looked over the hospital with obvious distaste, nose wrinkling at the pungent stink. Sullivan didn't like the smell, either. But it was either suffer the stink, or open the windows and have the patients freeze to death at night. Personally, he preferred the latter. Extremes of temperature meant little to his kind.
With a start, she saw him looming over a patient and hurried over, holding her skirts in a fist to keep the cloth from touching the dead and dying.
"Sullivan," she whispered, coming close. "They know! Run for the hills."
Placing aside the sharpened piece of reed he was using to drain a pus-filled wound, Sullivan slowly turned his head. Her eyes were lovely, and as cold and hard as his own.
"May I beg pardon?" he asked politely. "My name is Daniel Lissman and—"
"They know who you are, and why you are here!" she whispered urgently, coming closer. "They call me Terry and I work in the gaudy house. Last night I heard a couple of the troopers talking. They're going to claim the baron's wife, Tabitha, is feeling poorly, fell off a horse or something, and when you go into that room, you ain't coming out!"
"Indeed," Sullivan murmured, stuffing his hands into his pockets and thumbing back the hammers on the two snub-nosed revolvers. "And why do you call me, what was the name…Sylvester?"
Glancing over a shoulder, Terry spoke fast. "Cut the shit. I also fucked Overton's men when they were here, and aside from Ryan, you were the only thing they feared. Big guy, no hair, likes to do the dead."
"Really now!"
She sidled closer, the thick smell of stale perfume and sweat radiating from her body. "I saw you last night at the graveyard, so don't tell me different."
Calmly, Sullivan debated the possibilities. This could be a trap by the baron to trick him into revealing himself. Or it could be the truth, a whore looking to connect to somebody more powerful for a better life.
Slowly standing to his full height, the mutie looked down at the big woman and spread his arms in a friendly manner.
"This is an interesting tale," Sullivan said, resting a hand on her shoulder. She trembled at the contact, as he increased the pressure until she thought the bones would break.
"We should discuss it in private," he added, lifting the woman a few inches off the floor and carrying her away.
Terry tried to speak, but the pain was too great.
Moving quickly, Sullivan headed for the door to the basement. Once out of sight, he could question this Terry thoroughly and learn the truth.
"Wait, Healer!" a man shouted.
Only a yard from the door, Sullivan stopped and turned, hugging Terry close to him as if they were close friends.
Maneuvering through the maze of cots, a brown shirt was rushing toward them. He was armed, but the blaster was holstered. Sullivan relaxed a little and smiled, his mind racing with new possibilities. Unexpectedly, Terry slid her arm about his waist and shook her torso to make her ample breasts jiggle. She was playing his lover. How very interesting.
"How can I help you, Lieutenant?" the mutie asked politely.
The man gulped some air. "Lady Cawdor has fallen off her horse in the stables. She can't breathe! Come quickly!"
"Oh, no!" Sullivan cried out, releasing his prisoner. Terry stayed next to him, breathing hard. He could feel the heat of her breasts through his clothing and was repulsed. "Elevate her legs at once and loosen her clothing. I'll get some instruments and be right there!"
The sec man paused for a moment, unsure of what to do.
"Go!" Terry barked. "Every second you waste could mean her life, fool!"
With a grim expression, the sec man nodded and dashed away.
"See?" Terry stated, rubbing her bruised ribs.
"You were correct," he said. "What is the price of this assistance?"
Terry leaned forward, her face shiny with avarice. "Take me with you," she demanded, almost pleading. "I'm nothing here but a slut. Somewhere else, with your help, I could marry well, become a lady. Mebbe the wife of a baron!"
It was a fair price. He thought about the offer.
"Too much," Sullivan decided, and slapped her across the face, the bones audibly cracking. Her skull partially crushed, Terry slumped to the floor, burbling blood through the ruin of her mouth. Not caring if anybody else was watching, Sullivan then kicked the woman, caving in her chest. She tumbled across the floor, arms and legs flailing like a rag doll's.
Moving to a cabinet, he ripped open a duffel bag, the old canvas patched many times with different-colored cloth until it was almost a camou pattern. Reaching inside, he started withdrawing glass bottles filled with an oily liquid, greasy rags tied about the necks.
Lighting the rags, he threw the Molotov cocktails across the room in every direction. Flames engulfed the cots, and the patients started to scream, beating at the sticky fire covering their bodies with bandaged hands. Sec men rushed in and gasped in horror. Sullivan used the diversion to ruthlessly mow them down and steal a longblaster.
Stuffing the last two bottles into his jacket pockets, the mutie stepped outside
and hosed the street, shooting anybody in sight. The screaming from inside the castle continued as he darted across the courtyard, spraying controlled bursts from the Kalashnikov at the rooftops and windows. No horses or wags were in sight, so he ran for the barbican, hoping to cross the drawbridge and reach the safety of the woods. Once he was among the trees, it would take an army of guards to find him again.
A brick-lined tunnel went through the barbican of the outer wall, and several men stood in a cluster near a smoking oil drum, the ragged holes in the sides of the metal allowing the heat of the fire inside to radiate outward. Without pause, Sullivan gunned them down, dropping his blaster when it clicked empty and grabbing another weapon from one of the dead men.
A swarm of brown shirts charged from the shadows, and Sullivan kicked one in the throat. One fired a pistol, the round scoring a bloody furrow along Sullivan's cheek. The mutie shot the norm in the groin, and shoved the wooden stock of the longblaster backward, crushing the chest of another. Then a wounded brown shirt lurched from the pile of corpses and tackled him around the legs. Furious, Sullivan kicked the man aside, and another grabbed his arm. The mutie buried his teeth into the norm's throat and ripped out a chunk of flesh. He was released instantly.
Sprinting from the tunnel, Sullivan scanned the other side of the drawbridge for an ambush, saw nothing and charged for the distant woods. Freedom was only a hundred yards of open field away. A flurry of motion in the air caught his attention, and Sullivan spun, firing upward. Unharmed by the bullets, the heavy fishing nets dropped across the bridge, pinning him in place. Dropping the blaster, the mutie grabbed the line and ripped a hole. But before he could wriggle through, more netting fell from the palisades overlooking the bridge, and then a third net, a forth and a fifth. Trapped under the layers, Sullivan crouched, fumbling for a weapon when a stunning blow drove him to the wooden planks. Dazed, the mutie drew his pocket pistols and got off two rounds, when the blasters were pounded from his grasp by a horde of sec men wielding clubs.
Roaring in wild fury, Sullivan managed to stand under the combination of nets and men, struggling to reach the edge of the drawbridge and the moat below. Already the gills in his throat were opening for oxygen. Sullivan could breathe underwater, but the pitiful humans would drown.
The brown shirts struck him from every direction, but he forged onward and reached the cobblestones edging the bridge. Searing pain lanced through his shoulder, and he saw the barbed point of an arrow sticking out of his shirt. Mentally forcing away the pain, he lurched forward again and another arrow slammed into his boot, pinning his foot to the planks.
Reaching through the netting, Sullivan grabbed a knife from a brown shirt and tried slashing his way loose, when another wave of humans swarmed over him.
Pain filling his universe, he fell to the planks, never losing consciousness as he was trussed with ropes, then bound with chains.
Cradling a broken arm, a sec man spit in Sullivan's face, and another aimed a handcannon. A sergeant slapped the blaster away.
"He's trapped now, so don't chill the bastard," the brown shirt growled. "We're gonna haul his ass to the docks and hang him before the whole ville. Baron Cawdor himself is gonna tie the rope around its stinking neck!"
Cheering in victory, the joyous brown shirts lifted their captive off the bridge and hauled him back inside the ville. Masked by the nets, the mutie managed to hide a smile and calmly waited to meet the man he had been sent to kill.
Chapter Nine
Mindless miles of flat swampland stretched before the companions. In hard labor the slow hours passed, noon coming and going as they trod the sticky mud. The raft floated through the salty water, only occasionally catching on sandbars and submerged tree trunks. Rumbling storm clouds offered scant protection from the sun, and soon the swamp was steaming from the heat, sweat pouring off their bodies. Everybody stripped down as far as they dared, the bare necessities being boots and gun belts, although J.B. clung to his fedora and Mildred her med kit. Fat mosquitoes buzzed about them constantly, stealing sips of their blood until Ryan opened the fuel can and splashed some about as cologne. After that, they were left alone with the flies and the itching bites.
The barge poles hadn't been found, and none of the local trees were of any use, so Doc was on the point position, testing the unseen ground ahead of them with his swordstick. A rope was tied around his waist as a precaution, and twice he dropped into sink holes and had to be dragged back to the surface.
"I have had fun before," Doc muttered, stabbing the water and taking another step forward, "and this is not it."
"Could be worse," Mildred grunted, both hands holding tight to the rope over her shoulder. The physician had removed her damp pants and tied her shirttails in a knot between her breasts so she could take off her sports bra. Support wasn't an issue here; the temperature was. Winter in Virginia, summer in Carolina, how had any people survived when skydark destroyed the weather patterns of the world this much?
"Worse? Hades only has nine levels, madam," Doc reminded her, a half smile growing in spite of himself. He stabbed more water and found the ground acceptable. "And this would be five, or six?"
"No more than four, surely."
Holding tightly on to the wet rope over his shoulder, Ryan leaned into the task of hauling the raft. Privately, he appreciated the banter. It helped relive the boredom of the endless walking.
Just then, something bawled across the swampland, the noise echoing into the distance to be answered by another of the same.
"Gator," Jak stated, dropping the rope and drawing his Colt Python. "Stay sharp. They fast."
Checking the draw on the SIG-Sauer, Ryan heard the harsh breathing of some of the companions and decided he was pushing them too hard.
"Ten-minute break," he announced. "One sip of water each. If you've got to use a bush, go in pairs."
"Rather have some more gasoline," Krysty said angrily, slapping at a fly that landed on her bare arm. Her respect and love for life didn't quite extend to the creatures that feasted on her blood. She kept her pants on, as none of her underwear was dry enough to wear, and removed her thick shirt. The bra she had found in the California redoubt was thin lace and kept her cool enough, even if the underwire did itch a bit.
"I'll get it," Dean offered. Releasing the rope, he disappeared under the hot canvas to reappear with the fuel can.
"Pretty low," he stated, unscrewing the cap.
Krysty cupped her hands, and the boy poured her a small splash.
J.B. stepped out of the muck onto the raft and pulled out his telescope. Extending the tube to its maximum length, he swept the horizon ahead of them.
"Could be land to the northwest," he said, adjusting the focus. "Yeah, that's green trees, pines and oak, which means dry land. Salt water would kill those."
"Distance," Ryan asked, removing the bandanna around his forehead and wringing it dry.
J.B. tucked the scope into his munitions bag. "Five miles, mebbe less."
"Excellent." Doc exhaled, spitting on his chapped hands and rubbing them together. "Under a spreading chestnut tree, the Deathlands warrior stands…"
"Stop misquoting, Longfellow," Mildred snorted, spreading some grease on her lips from a small tin box. The bearings were still in the tires under the raft, the old grease a soothing balm for the thirsty people.
Doc arched a silvery eyebrow. "Laughter is the best medicine, madam."
"Tell that to a person with rad poisoning."
"Cynic."
"Old coot."
With a warning shout, Krysty fired her blaster, the S&W .38 booming in the eerie stillness of the Carolina swamp. The others spun about, weapons searching for danger.
"Sorry," she apologized, mopping the sweat off her brow. "Thought I saw something move in the water."
Fanning himself with the hat, J.B. squinted. "Just a log."
"No, it isn't," Ryan said, wading around the raft. Drawing his panga, he stabbed the log and lifted it out of the muck.
There were eyes and teeth. He twisted the blade, and the body dropped back into the swamp and sank from sight.
"A mutie snake," he stated, sheathing the blade. "Bastard bushmaster. Poisonous. Nice shooting."
"Thanks."
J.B. sneezed loudly.
The companions turned fast, their weapons level.
"We have company," the Armorer said, sliding the Uzi off his shoulder.
A humanoid being stood thirty feet away from them. It was dressed in tight clothing with most of its hairless body exposed. Tools hung off a net vest, and a sleek metal helmet covered its head, three red eyes staring out from the dark interior. The warrior was holding a long bamboo spear, tipped with a mirror-bright steel blade. Minutes passed in silence.
"Greetings," Ryan said in an even tone. The SIG-Sauer was in his hand, but not pointing at the mutie.
The swamp dweller tilted its head and clicked loudly.
Surprisingly, Jak tried French. "Parlez vous fran-gais?"
The being craned its head forward on a long neck and clicked some more, then pointed its spear to the south, then the north.
"No farther," Krysty translated, her hair waving nervously about. "He's claiming the rest of the swamp."
Surreptitiously, Dean moved his hand to the grip of his blaster. Instantly, the mutie leveled his spear, two hands gripping the shaft as if braced against a recoil.
"It's a distance weapon of some kind," J.B. said, working the bolt on his Uzi.
"Everybody relax and put the blasters away," Ryan ordered, stepping between the mutie and the others. "Trader always used to say that it was easier to make deals than bullets. He hasn't attacked yet, and we all know he had the element of surprise."
"We are headed for the land," Ryan said slowly, in case the creature could understand. This swamp was close to Georgia, and they once found a race of underwater muties there called Dwellers. They had trouble speaking, but easily understood human speech.
"Doesn't look anything like a Dweller," Mildred noted.
The creature clicked at Ryan and dropped its spear into the water. Finally understanding, Ryan slid the Steyr off his shoulder and hung it back on upside down, then he drew his blaster and dropped it on the deck of the raft. Empty-handed, the two stood face-to-face, then the creature clicked again and stepped aside.