by James Axler
“Colliers,” Mitchum growled, drawing his blaster. The rest of the sec men did the same, and the cocking of hammers sounded like tree branches snapping in the sudden quiet.
“You were gone for a week! Now I’m the sec chief in this ville!” Colliers stated, stabbing his chest with a thumb. “Ain’t just going to roll over like a gaudy slut and give it back to a feeb who let cannies catch him!”
“A fight to the death,” Mitchum said, his weapon neither moving nor wavering. “Not first blood, but a chilling. No quarter, no rules.”
“Fine by me,” Colliers snarled, and pulled a blade with lightning speed.
“No rules at all?” Mitchum insisted.
“Agreed!” Colliers spit, starting for the man.
Calmly, Mitchum fired the flintlock in his hand, the .75 miniball punching a round hole in the other man’s face and blowing out the back of his head, spraying bones, brains and blood over the crowd. Most of the people broke ranks and ran; only a few stayed to watch more.
“Only a triple stupe would agree to no rules,” Mitchum said, holstering the smoking weapon, “when you got a loaded blaster pointed at your guts.”
“Wondered how you two would settle this,” Baron Thayer said, waving away the cloud of gun smoke. “Was going to make it a formal match, in the pit with no weapons but bare hands. Don’t have to do that now.”
“No, sir,” Mitchum stated. “Private, drag the body to the cliff and toss him into the sea. But keep the boots and that blade. We’ll give those to the sec man we take on to fill his place.”
“I’ll do it,” a teenager said, stepping forward. “Want to be a sec man. Chill me some pirates.”
Baron Thayer arched an eyebrow, but Mitchum looked the boy over closely. He was barefoot and dressed in a piece of canvas, crudely stitched into shapeless clothing. His face was gaunt, but the teen stood a good head above the rest of the crowd, and his hands were gnarled weapons of grisly scars. Good food would fill in as solid muscle, and the ville would have a useful chilling machine in their fighting ranks.
“Name?” he snapped.
“Samms, Virgil Samms, sir. I live down by the docks, in the dolphin cove with the—”
“Shut up! Never waste an officer’s time with horseshit, boy. Now help dispose of the body, and remember,” the colonel added sternly, “Brad Colliers was a stupe, but also a sec man. He gets full honors and prayers before going to Davey. You’ll taste the lash if I hear about you missing a single word. Get me?”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Virgil said and saluted.
“Sailors say that dreck, not sec men,” the sergeant said, smacking the boy in the back of the head. “Now salute your baron, and get to work!”
The fledgling sec man shakily gave Thayer a salute and held it until the baron returned the gesture. Then a couple of the sec men joined the boy and helped drag the dead man away, leaving a gory trail in the dusty ground.
“Waste of a fisherman,” the baron said, tucking thumbs into his belt.
Pulling out a pouch, Mitchum reloaded his blaster. “Just green, that’s all, my lord. Started off that dumb myself.”
“Your call,” the baron said. “First time he fucks up bad, you get the lash for him.” The baron gave Ryan and his crew a long look as if somehow they were involved in the fight, then turned his back and started to walk up the street toward his palace.
“Sharp move,” J.B. said.
Mitchum closed the pouch by pulling on the drawstring with his teeth, then tucked blaster and ammo away. “Not really. Colliers always had a tough time controlling his temper. That made him a bad commander. Bastard had to die for the sake of the ville.”
Ryan filed that information away. There was a lot more to Mitchum than was readily apparent.
“But now that he’s gone, I’m in charge again.” The colonel grinned as he freed the reins of his mount and passed them to a private. “Put her in the stable and have them give her a good rubdown.”
“Yes, sir,” the sec man said, and started off with the animal in tow. It followed placidly, waiting to be beaten or fed, whatever was the choice of its new masters.
Then Mitchum slapped Ryan on the shoulder. “Come on, let’s get chow. Don’t know about you folks, but I’m starving.”
“Could do with a bite,” Ryan admitted. Taking his own horse by the reins, he began leading it down the street of the ocean ville.
“Hot food sounds good,” Dean said, rubbing his stomach.
Then Mitchum bumped shoulders with Ryan. “Also got a gaudy house,” he added.
“Brought his own,” Krysty said, a touch of ice in her voice.
The officer broke into a grin. “No offense meant.”
“None taken,” she replied. “This time.”
Walking their horses down the street, the companions found that between the trailers were tiny plots of farmland, set out in neat squares, edged with brick and covered with oily canvas supported by rusty poles.
“Protection from acid rain,” Mildred said, excited. Before they sailed away, she had to find out what the locals used to coat the canvas. That was info she could trade to villes across the Deathlands and help save a lot of lives.
The public latrine was far from the wells, and noisy chickens were in a bamboo coop behind a woven wicker fence. Big dogs were on rope leashes before a lot of the trailers, and there were no slaves in sight. No decomposing bodies hung from torture poles, or any of the things they normally found in a ville.
“Nice place,” Doc said, resting his ebony stick on a shoulder.
The sword cane was too long to hide easily in their bedrolls. Besides, there was no reason anybody would think it wasn’t just a support for the old man.
“Best in the world,” Mitchum stated proudly.
Since the colonel had never seen Front Royal in Virginia, Ryan held his peace and let the man enjoy the fantasy.
LEANING OUT OF a second-story window, a beautiful girl allowed her robe to gap open in front and expose a lot of cleavage. Several men passing by on the street took notice, but there was no reaction from the strangers walking with their horses. Still they were new, and that was nice. The gaudy slut smiled at the prospect of meeting outlanders, and for a moment the twin tips of her forked tongue darted into view. She could almost taste them already.
Then the boy in the group glanced her way and gasped. She smiled gently, letting her robe part to expose her perfect breasts. A knock on the bedroom door made her turn away, and in walked a grisly sec men and an old skinny woman.
“There you go, Lieutenant,” the madam of the gaudy house announced. “You pay for the best, you get the best.”
“Fantastic,” he exhaled in admiration.
The slut by the window had the figure of a nubile young girl barely in her teens, but when she turned there was the face of an adult. Long black hair reached to her knees, and her shape was something out of a predark girlie mag.
He’d been saving a long time for this. She cost a lot, and only the baron had her on a regular basis. But now that the sec man saw her, he knew she was worth it for looks alone. And if the tales were true about two tongues, one in her mouth and the other elsewhere, this was going to be one hell of a ride. Sure, she was a mutie, but he wasn’t here to breed with the slut. Just bed her.
Impatiently, he slapped the pouch of black powder into the old woman’s hand. “I’ll take her for the whole day,” the lieutenant said.
“Oh, that’ll cost more than this,” she said quickly. The madam could hear the sound of raw lust in a man’s voice. He’d pay all he possessed to have the girl just once.
The lieutenant turned on the madam and drew his blaster. “Going back on our deal?” he growled.
The madam shrugged in response and walked from the room. She had tried; that was enough.
“Come here, girl,” he said loudly, but there was already a loss in his words. He could borrow, but never possess.
“Lucinda,” she lisped, knowing the human name emphasized her forke
d tongue.
The man repeated her name in a whisper.
Chuckling to herself, she padded across the room, dropping the robe to expose her flawless body. Her breasts swayed at each step, and she mentally commanded her aureoles to tighten. The sec man began to rip off his clothes, buttons scattering across the bare wood floor.
As their eyes met, his expression softened from lust to love, and she decided to pleasure the fool all the way, in every way, then more, and make him her absolute slave. Already her brethren had taken over a ville to the south. Now she would start the process again here. One day all of the villes would be owned by the Sisters, and the humans who created the skyfire would be no more. Purged from the New Earth.
It was only a matter of time.
ON THE STREET, Krysty shivered and glanced around quickly.
“Something wrong?” Ryan asked, a hand snaking inside his coat to touch the grip of the SIG-Sauer.
The woman didn’t reply, but hugged herself tight and kept walking. There had just been the oddest sensation, almost as if the companions had walked past a deadly predator and it let them go only because there was bigger prey to feed upon. Unseen danger lurked in the ville, and Krysty would warn the others to stay alert.
A group of men was in the street rolling dice made from carved bone, knives and animal pelts passed back and forth as bets were won or lost.
“Move,” Ryan growled.
“Fuck off,” a man said, glancing up from the game. Then he saw the amount of weapons on display and tried to grin, but failed miserably.
“My friend said move,” Mitchum added in a dangerous tone.
Scrambling to their feet, the gamblers left their dice and pelts to race away, never once looking back. Continuing onward, the companions walked their horses over the spot, crushing the skins and dice to bits under the pounding horse hooves.
“Sailors,” Mitchum said in explanation. “Useless bastards.”
“Local ship?” Ryan asked as casually as he could.
“Naw, I know those men. They’re off a trader from the Rougelap Islands.”
“That’s north of here, right?” J.B. asked. “Near Forbidden Island.”
“Pretty close, yeah,” Mitchum said, then grimaced. “Wherever you’re going with your own boat, be sure to stay away from that hellzone. Bitch of a place. The currents can tear the hull off a ship, and on shore, there’s nothing but rad pits and muties.”
Ryan and the others said nothing, not even daring to exchange glances. But now they had a goal. Why row through the shark-infested waters when they could buy a ride? Finally, some good luck was coming their way.
Turning a corner, the companions dropped off their horses at a stable and walked over to the inn. A big sign hanging out front was decorated with the single word Grotto and a hand-painted picture of a fork for those who couldn’t read. The front door led to a foyer with another door and a metal turnstile. Inside, the pink walls were heavily decorated with faded pictures and torn posters of nude women. A row of small booths along the back wall was full of wire racks holding garish paperback books whose outlandish covers left nothing to the sexual imagination.
“It’s a converted porn bookstore,” Mildred said in disgust. No wonder the inn was so popular with the sec men.
“What that?” Jak asked, studying a poster. Nice.
The physician scratched her head before answering. “Sort of a gaudy house,” she said slowly. “For folks who didn’t actually want to have sex.”
Jak stared at the woman as if she were insane, and Mildred shrugged. She couldn’t think of another way to explain the establishments.
Vacant redwood picnic tables filled the room, and the only customers were a couple of sailors eating a roast of some kind at the far end of the room. As the companions took the largest table, Mitchum went into the kitchen to talk with the cook, and then departed to handle some official duties. But he swore to come back around dusk to take them to the baron for drinks.
Easing straps off shoulders, the group removed their backpacks and eagerly settled down to wait for the food. The cold horse meat had fueled their bodies, but tasted like red clay. There were no utensils of any kind in view, so each dug out a wooden spoon from their clothing, being very careful not to reveal any of the military hardware hidden under their clothes.
Ryan placed his two muzzle-loaders blatantly on the table, with both hammers cocked to forestall any trouble from the locals. The sailors at the far table noticed the weapons, and immediately stopped talking to concentrate on their own meal.
A few minutes later, the kitchen door swung open and out came two girls carrying an enormous iron pot. The servers dripped sweat as they hauled the cauldron of soup to the table, while an old man with no teeth placed cracked bowls before each person. The bowls were clean, but had seen hard use. Mildred recognized it as a nearly unbreakable brand, which was guaranteed to last a lifetime. She had to admit, for once, Madison Avenue hadn’t lied about the durability of a product.
Careful as if they were delivering liquid nitro, the girls ladled the hot soup into each bowl, filling them to capacity. Not a drop fell as the plastic ladle conveyed the steaming brew. As they hauled their cauldron back to the steamy kitchen, the old man returned with small loaves of bread. They were all of a different shape, but a smooth even brown and smelled wonderful.
Jak snatched one from the platter and took a bite. “Made breadfruit,” he announced, chewing steadily. “Good.”
“At least they didn’t serve us fish heads,” J.B. said, stirring the contents of his bowl.
“No, sir, please sir!” the oldster gasped, backing away in fear. “No sweepings for nobles! Is good stew! Please, don’t beat me, sir!”
“The stew is fine,” Ryan said, unmoved by the display of fear. He had seen similar faces all his life. In most villes the people were little more than slaves, tortured and chilled at the whim of the sec men who ruled. Apparently, the same was true here; the strong ruled the weak. At least until the weak got blasters, then everything went to hell.
“Could we have some water, please?” Krysty asked politely.
Bobbing his head nonstop, the man hurried away. “Yes, sir! At once, sir. Without delay, sir!”
“Sweepings,” Dean said thoughtfully. “Must use the stuff that falls on the floor to make soup.”
“Probably what’s left over in other folks’ bowls, too,” J.B. agreed.
“Horrid,” Doc muttered.
From somewhere outside the sound of a whip was audible again, but this time the cries were female.
“Seen dogs treated better than these people,” Krysty said softly, tasting the stew. It was very good, hot and thick, full of fish meat, crab, mussels, some odd veggies, with floating bits of herbs for flavor.
The girls returned with coconut shells cut in two, the bottoms flattened to make crude mugs. The other put a bamboo bucket full of water amid the dinner, and Mildred slipped some bread into the girl’s pocket. The child glanced once sideways, but made no other indication that she knew what had happened.
“Baron idiot,” Jak said, dipping a loaf into the soup and tearing off a chunk. “No food, folks can’t work.”
“They’ll turn on him,” Krysty agreed, “and I hope they win.”
“When we sail away,” Dean said softly, “mebbe we could leave these flintlocks behind.”
Slurping clean a spoon, J.B. nodded agreement. “Won’t need them once we’re at sea. Might even make some friends in case we come back this way.”
“An exemplary idea.” Doc smiled. “The enemy of my enemy, and all that.”
“Freeze, outlanders!” a voice cried out from the doorway.
The companions looked up to see three sec men enter the room, blasters in their hands. Two of the men were dressed as sailors, while the third was a local sec man.
“Keep your hands away from those flints,” the sec man ordered, “and mebbe you live for a while longer.”
His flintlocks on the table, Ryan pla
ced his hands in his lap and eased the safety off the SIG-Sauer hidden under his shirt. Unfortunately, the new arrivals’ weapons were already drawn. He needed a diversion to get a bead on them.
Without warning, Mildred jerked her arm while Jak flipped his hand. The plate from under the bowl skimmed through the air and smashed into the face of a sailor, and the sec man staggered backward to the wall with a knife in his throat. The attack startled the last man for only a second, but before he could react, Doc lunged forward and buried his blade into the man’s throat, slicing vocal cords and the jugular.
By then Ryan had his piece out and finished them off with a whispering round to the head. The lifeless bodies collapsed to the floor, as Mitchum appeared from the kitchen with a primed flintlock in both hands.
“Run! They know!” the man shouted, then stopped, taking in the scene. “Shitfire, they beat me here.”
Ryan swung his 9 mm pistol toward the man and the two stayed motionless until Mitchum slowly lowered his blasters.
“You have to leave immediately,” Mitchum stated urgently. “I was with the new sec man picking up his things from the dock when a fleet of peteys arrived. Some big caliber named Glassman told us that you’re all wanted by Lord Baron Kinnison, dead or alive. Baron Thayer is closing the ville like screwing the lid on a jar, and wants you trapped in here.”
Mitchum gestured at the corpses. “Those fools must have decided to try and capture you themselves and not share the reward.”
“Has he sealed off the front gate yet?” Ryan asked, his blaster still pointing at the sec chief.
“Blocked solid. You’d never get out that way now.”
“Any other exits?” Krysty demanded, pulling on her backpack.
Mitchum made a sour face and looked away before speaking. “Just one,” he growled, as if there were a bad taste in his mouth. “There’s a secret escape tunnel for the baron. Only Thayer and myself know about it.”
“And them,” J.B. said, gesturing over his shoulder at the sailors in the corner.
With a grim expression, Mitchum suddenly noted the sailors and fired his blasters. The two men slammed into the pink walls, the double booms of the muzzle-loaders rattling the bowls on the tables, and the framed pictures on the walls, making a couple fall to the floor and smash.