“I’ll talk to you any way I please,” Blade countered. “I’m not one of your lackeys, your cowardly studs.”
Cardew made a growling noise.
Blade glanced at Cardew’s pulverized face. “What’s the matter with you? Does the truth hurt? When was the last time the men around here had the balls to stand up to the women? Why do you let them push you around, to control your lives the way they do? Men and women should be equal partners in adjusting to life’s responsibilities. Neither gender has the right to subjugate the other.” He raised his voice so the others in the chamber could hear. “When are the Leather Knight men going to reclaim their proper place as equals with the women? When are the men going to stand on their own two feet and refuse to be little better than slaves? When will the men—”
Terza abruptly lunged upward, slapping Blade across the mouth. “Shut up! That’s enough out of you! Who the hell do you think you are, coming in here and telling us how to live our lives? We’ve lived this way for a hundred years—”
“Does that make it right?” Blade interrupted.
“Yes!” Terza replied. “It’s no worse than the way it was before the war.”
“Before the war?”
“I’m not all that stupid,” Terza declared angrily. “I can read some, and I know how it was before the war. The men ran everything. The government they had, all the businesses, the military, everything. Oh, there were a few women at the top, but they were far out numbered by the men. The men controlled things, but they pretended the women had an equal say. The damn hypocrites! At least we’re honest about it!”
“Does that make it right?” Blade reiterated.
Terza was obviously flustered. She’d been taken off guard by Blade’s unexpected behavior. She’d expected him to either beg for his life or else clam up and take what was coming as stoically as possible. She considered him to be the “macho” type, the “strong, silent type,” the kind who habitually lorded it over women. She’d encountered outsiders before, and the men were all pretty much the same. The last reaction she’d anticipated was a verbal assault on her morals.
Blade sensed her emotional upheaval and determined to press his advantage. “Terza, we don’t need to be enemies. We can be friends instead. My people would welcome a treaty with yours. We could work together, helping you to rebuild your city and oppose the Reds. I came here on a peaceful mission. I’d like to leave in peace.”
“Peace!” Terza snorted. “Where is there peace in this world? You tell me that, Mister High-and-Mighty! If you want to survive in this rotten world, you’ve got to be tough. It’s survival of the fittest.” She shook her head. “Do you think we’d be dumb enough to trust you? For all we know, your people are waiting for the chance to jump us, to attack St. Louis the moment we let down our guard. But I’ve got news for you! The Leather Knights will never be beaten. Not even the Reds have beaten us! Look around you. Why do you think we’ve gone to all the trouble to build all these new tunnels and rooms under the library? And we’ve also done it under some of the other buildings. Because we know the Reds are gonna come after us someday, and we’re gonna be ready for ’em! These tunnels will be the last retreat for those who can’t make it out of the city. We have food stockpiled and plenty of guns and ammo. We’ve thought of everything!” she boasted.
“Except how the women and men can live in harmony,” Blade responded.
“Who the hell cares about that?” Terza gruffly demanded.
“The men do,” Blade said. “And I bet some of the women as well. I understand Lex was leaving the Leather Knights because she doesn’t agree with the way you run things. Do you think she’s the only one?”
“No one leaves the Leather Knights,” Terza said. “And as for the men—they’ll do what the hell we tell them, when we tell them, or they’ll get what you’re gonna get.”
Blade scanned the chamber, noting the pensive, troubled faces of the men. He knew he’d touched a raw nerve. “With an attitude like yours,” he told Terza, “it’s only a question of time before the women have a full-scale rebellion on their hands. It’s inevitable. Sooner or later, the men will have had enough, they’ll have taken all they will take. And what will happen? You’ll have a bloody civil war on your hands, the studs against the sisters. After it’s over, one side or the other will assume control. What if the men win?”
“They never will!” Terza vowed.
“What if neither side wins?” Blade continued. “What if both sides are so depleted there aren’t enough remaining to rule St. Louis? And all because the women believe they’re better than the men. What a waste!”
“We are better than the men!” Terza stated irritably. She saw the expressions on the six men in the room and realized the giant stranger was right: the studs did resent the sisters’ domination.
“Women aren’t better than men,” Blade was saying. “And men aren’t better than women. They’re just different from one another. The secret is to recognize the differences and complement each other, whether in a marriage or in society as a whole.”
“This bozo is so full of bullshit it’s coming out of his ears,” Erika interrupted.
Cardew took a tentative step toward Blade. He tried to speak, but couldn’t form the worlds. At last, after licking his busted lips, he managed to croak a question. “Do you… believe… all that stuff?”
“Of course,” Blade confirmed.
“Enough of this!” Terza barked. “You’re just stallin’! We aren’t here to shoot the shit!”
“Let’s get down to cases!” Erika said eagerly.
“Do you have any idea where you are?” Terza asked.
“How should I?” Blade replied.
“This is a special room,” Terza mentioned. “We built it for just one reason.”
Blade stared at the gaping pit. The sight of it stirred memories of the last pit he’d seen, the one he’d been tossed into by a madman on the run to Denver, Colorado. He repressed an impulse to shudder.
“This hole is real unique,” Terza explained. “It connects to the city’s sewers. Ever seen a sewer?”
Blade shook his head.
“The sewers don’t get used much anymore,” Terza said. “Before the war, they pumped all the shit and the piss and the garbage through ’em. There’s a lot of passages under the city, in all different shapes and sizes. Some of the sewer tunnels are real big, so big a person can walk in ’em. Others are so small even the rats can’t use ’em. Do you know what else is down there, besides the rats?”
Blade simply stared at her.
Terza averted his gaze, facing the pit. “We don’t know what caused them, but there are a lot of… things… in the sewers. Maybe it was the radiation in the water, or something was pumped into the sewer system. We found some old barrels once in one of the tunnels, and some chemical gook had seeped out of ’em. Whatever the reason, there are a lot of creepy, crawly things down there.”
“So?” Blade finally said.
“So this hole leads to the sewers where the things live. One of the things…” she grinned, “is called Grotto. You have to see it to believe it.”
“Grotto craves flesh,” Erika commented, grinning wickedly.
“And Grotto hasn’t eaten for a while,” Terza declared. “Three guesses who its next meal is gonna be.”
Blade frowned, calculating the odds of escaping from the chamber.
There weren’t any. The Leather Knights would gun him down before he traveled three feet.
Terza glanced at the Warrior. “Any last words?”
“I feel sorry for you,” Blade said.
“Sorry for me?” Terza retorted in disbelief. “You’re the one who’s gonna be mutant bait, dimwit!”
“You may succeed in killing me,” Blade said, “but in doing so you’ll destroy yourselves.”
“What are you babbling about?” Terza demanded.
“I have friends,” Blade told her. “They’ll come after me. One of them, in particular, won’t rest
until he finds out what happened to me. And when he does find out, one way or another he’ll guarantee the Leather Knights are wiped out.”
“Should we tremble now or later?” Erika joked.
Blade shrugged. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me.”
“What is this joker?” Terza queried. “Some kind of superman?”
“No,” Blade said. “He’s not a superman. But he’s the most lethal person I know. You might say he’s sort of a living lethal weapon.”
“Oh! I’m scared!” Erika said in mock panic, and laughed.
“Suit yourself,” Blade said.
Terza walked to the edge of the pit. “Let’s get this over with! Summon Grotto.”
One of the Knights on the other side of the pit, a tall, bearded stud, sank to his knees. He grasped a board lying near the edge and raised it over his head.
“I can hardly wait!” Erika said, elated.
The stud proceeded to slam the flat board against the side of the pit, again and again, filling the chamber with a regular cadence of thuds.
Blade inched nearer to the hole, examining it. The sides were 20 feet deep and solid earth. The floor was littered with white bones: thigh bones, ribs, skulls, and more, all distinctly human.
Cardew was staring thoughtfully at Blade. “Say,” he was able to croak, “I never did get your name.”
“It’s Blade,” the Warrior said.
“Too bad we couldn’t have met under different circumstances,” Cardew stated wistfully.
Blade looked at the Knight, surprised. Cardew seemed to be sincere.
Maybe he wasn’t a total degenerate after all.
The bearded stud maintained his constant pounding.
“It won’t be long!” Erika cried.
Terza glanced at Blade. “What a waste.”
“I’m not dead yet,” Blade reminded her.
“You will be,” Terza said.
“Don’t I receive a fighting chance?” Blade asked her.
“A fighting chance?”
“Yeah. Like my Bowies.”
Terza laughed. “Are you wacko? Do you really expect me to hand your knives back to you? No way, turkey. They’re upstairs. I may take one of them for myself after this is over.”
“No weapons then?” Blade inquired, knowing how she would respond.
“No weapons,” Terza affirmed. “Just you and Grotto. You two should become real cozy down there.”
The bearded stud was beginning to tire. His pounding was losing some of its force.
“Where the hell is it?” Erika snapped.
“It takes a while sometimes,” Terza said. “You know that.”
A loud hissing suddenly emanated from the pit.
“Grotto!” Erika cried happily.
They all craned their necks for a good view of the bottom of the pit.
For the first time, Blade noticed a subterranean entrance to the pit.
Located on the north side, it was a black hole about ten feet in height and eight feet wide.
The Leather Knights were collectively watching that hole.
The hissing had ceased.
“We’ve been doing this for near thirty years,” Terza said to Blade. “Not in this room, because it wasn’t built at the time, but in the sewers. Some of the Knights had seen Grotto prowling the sewers, and someone once had the bright idea of feedin’ outsiders to it. Grotto loves fresh meat,” Terza said, grinning.
“What do you have against outsiders?” Blade asked.
“We don’t need any more people in St. Louis,” Terza answered. “We already have about as many as the Knights can handle. Besides, outsiders always want to change things. They’re just like you. Know-it-all bastards who stick their noses in where they don’t belong! So when we were constructing our underground retreat, we built this hidden room next to one of the sewer tunnels. Now we can call Grotto directly from here.”
“How convenient,” Blade said. “A walk-in restaurant for a mutant.”
“What’s a restaurant?” Terza inquired.
“A place where you can eat fine food,” Blade replied. “They had a lot of them before the war.”
“Then that’s what this is,” Terza said. “Grotto’s restaurant.”
Another stud had taken over the pounding chores, but there was still no sign of the mysterious monster.
“Maybe it doesn’t like your service,” Blade quipped. “Do you supply napkins and tableware?”
“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” Terza said. “Grotto will show up. Sometimes it takes a while, but it always shows up.”
“Once it took most of the day,” Erika commented. “Damn! I hope it doesn’t take that long this time!”
“I can wait,” Blade informed them.
Terza laughed lightly. “I bet you can.”
Chapter Fifteen
“What do you think happened to him?” Lex asked.
“I don’t know,” Rikki-Tikki-Tavi responded.
The Warrior was concerned for the safety of his friend. He’d heard the hubbub caused by the Leather Knights in the adjacent hallway, and it was easy to figure out Blade’s selfless sacrifice in diverting the Knights away from the passage leading to the alley.
“What are we going to do?” Lex questioned him.
“Wait,” Rikki told her.
“For what?”
“Until Blade returns,” Rikki said.
“What if he doesn’t?”
“Then we go looking for him,” Rikki stated.
They were crouched along the hallway wall not ten feet from the exit to the alley. The Knights hadn’t bothered to install a door at the end of the hallway. The opening permitted brilliant sunlight to flood the hall for over 20 yards.
Lex glanced at the exit: so inviting, so tempting, so close! One quick dash and she would gain her freedom. She looked at the lean man beside her, his face in profile as he gazed down the hallway hoping to see the big one called Blade. She remembered the pained look on his face when Terza had been using her for target practice. Her feminine intuition sensed he cared, and she found herself delighted at the prospect. “You’re really worried about him, aren’t you?” she asked.
Rikki nodded.
“How long have you know him?”
“All of my life,” Rikki stated. “He’s only a year older than I am. We were childhood friends and we grew to manhood together. We even selected the same path.”
“The same path?” Lex repeated.
“Yes. The path of the Warrior,” Rikki said. “Blade is the head of the Warriors. I will not depart St. Louis without him.”
Lex could detect the undisguised affection in Rikki’s tone. “Are there many of you Warriors?” she asked, keeping her voice low.
“Fifteen,” Rikki disclosed.
“Why are you called Warriors?”
Rikki glanced at her. “My people are known as the Family. We live in a walled compound far away. The man responsible for constructing the compound and gathering the subsequent survivors of the war together knew they would require protection. He knew civilization would crumble after World War III. He predicted society would revert to primitive levels, and he was right. To safeguard the Family from the scavengers, the marauding bands of killers, and mutates, and others, he formed a special corps of fighters and designated them as the Warriors. For over one hundred years the Warriors have defended the Family from all attackers.
We take a solemn oath, and any one of us would give our life in the performance of our duty.”
“Why did you want to be a Warrior?” Lex asked.
“It is my nature,” Rikki responded simply.
“I don’t understand.”
“No two individuals are alike,” Rikki elaborated. “No two of us have the same personality, the same characteristics, or the same abilities. Our natures are essentially different. My Family is an excellent example. Some of us prefer to be Tillers of the soil. Others choose to be Weavers, or Healers, or Empaths, or Blacksmiths. E
ach according to his or her nature. I wanted to become a Warrior because it was inherent in my personality. The Family Elders don’t force anyone into a vocation against his or her will. They encourage each of us to find our particular calling and devote our talents to it.” He paused. “It wasn’t always this way. I’ve read some history books detailing life before the Big Blast—”
“The Big Blast?”
“That’s what the Family calls World War III,” Rikki explained. “Before the war, society tried to mold every individual into a set pattern. Every aspect of their lives was strictly regulated by countless laws. Amazingly, the people back then considered themselves to be free. The irony is, it took a nuclear war to actually liberate them.”
“You don’t sound like you would have been too happy back then,” Lex remarked.
“I wouldn’t have been,” Rikki admitted. “I would have resented every intrusion on my freedom. Why, they even passed laws making it illegal to carry a weapon in public! Can you imagine that?”
“Why would they do such a thing?”
“Because they wanted the populace as docile as cattle,” Rikki said bitterly. “Their society was overrun by criminals and degenerates, but the so-called leaders wouldn’t allow the people to carry weapons to defend themselves. The leaders claimed it would promote vigilantism.”
“What’s that?”
“That’s where the average person stands up to someone who is threatening them in some way.”
“And the leaders didn’t want that?” Lex asked, perplexed.
“Not according to my teacher, Plato,” Rikki said. “You see, such an attitude promotes independence. If people can supply their own needs and defend themselves from the violent defectives, then they don’t have any need for anyone else to tell them how to live, what they should wear and eat and think. No, the leaders were afraid of vigilantism. They were frightened by self-reliant individualism. So they stifled initiative and suppressed creativity.” He frowned. “No, I would never have fit in back then. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not anti-social by any standard. I believe in peaceful relations with all men and women. But a lot of degenerates don’t feel the same way. They’d slit your throat as soon as look at you.” He smiled at her. “And I would never permit that.”
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