by James Axler
Promptly, J.B. and Krysty swung up their optical devices, but it wasn’t necessary. The companions could clearly see that the huge front gate of the ville was already in motion, swinging outward. A dozen sec men on horseback galloped out of the ville hard and fast, the riders hellbent for leather, the big mounts huffing in the chilly air.
“I only hope the diversion works,” Kristy said, pulling off her gloves and flexing tired fingers.
Cradling the loaded crossbow, Liana started to speak when a large pack of cougars charged out of the gates to disappear in the thick bushes.
“Blind Norad, the baron released the cats!” she cried out in fear. “They’ll find Ryan and Mildred long before the riders do, and maul them bad.”
“Only maul?” Krysty asked, surprised. “The cats don’t chill their prey?”
The blonde woman shook her head. “No, ma’am, they just cripple them for the sec men to take alive.”
Tucking away the telescope, Krysty frowned. That sounded like real trouble.
“Not if I can help it,” J.B. said, swinging up the Steyr and searching for the cats. But they were gone, vanished into the bushes edging the dirt road.
“All right, let’s move,” Krysty said, drawing her two revolvers and heading into the trees.
“Are we going to rondee with the others at the natural bridge?” Liana asked, staying close to the tall redhead. “That’s a good place to stage a fight. The sec men can only attack us from one direction.”
The staggering disadvantages of fighting on an open bridge were so many that the companions decided simply not to comment. She would soon see the truth of the matter for herself.
“No, my dear, we shall rendezvous with them near the cliff,” Doc rumbled, rotating the cylinder of the Ruger to check the load, and then doing the same to the LeMat. “It is never wise to surrender the high ground.”
“Then why didn’t we just stay here, and roll those boulders down on the sec men as they rode past?” Liana demanded, shifting her grip on the crossbow.
“Maybe we would have aced them, and then again, maybe not,” J.B. replied, aiming the Steyr down the hill, his finger resting alongside the trigger. “But with the valley below us blocked, now they have to go through the forest.”
Squinting in that direction, Liana looked at the wide expanse of trees. “Hoping they’ll get lost?” she asked vaguely.
“Hardly.” Krysty snorted. “See that area with no bird nests, no squirrels?”
“Yes,” Liana answered hesitantly.
“Then watch and learn, my dear,” Doc said, scowling darkly at the wide expanse of forest, the branches of the trees stirred only by a gentle breeze coming in from the Great Lake.
S TAYING IN A TIGHT FORMATION, the Anchor sec men rode fast along the old dirt road, their blasters out and primed. The baron had armed them with the unheard-of bounty of ten live brass, and an order to chill on sight. Naturally, they would have preferred to take them both alive for a little payback, but orders were orders.
Oddly, a recent avalanche blocked the way to the stone bridge, but the road through the apple orchard was wide and clear. Wary of more snipers, the sec men slowed their mounts and closely watched the shadows for any hostile intentions.
“Funny there ain’t no birds or nothing in the trees,” a sec woman noted tersely, her body rocking to the motion of her horse.
“Don’t like that,” an elderly sec man muttered.
Spotting motion in the thick canopy of branches, a corporal fired his crossbow upward. “They’re in the trees!” he yelled. As the arrow disappeared, there came an answering smack, and something large fell to the ground, pulsating and undulating.
“Flapjack!” a sec woman screamed, her horse rearing in terror.
The flapjack touched the belly of the nearest horse, and the animal immediately went motionless in incredible pain. Then the creature’s boneless limb began to pump red, siphoning blood from the animal.
Snarling in rage, a sec man fired his crossbow directly at the mutie, but the feathered shaft went straight through the gelatinous creature, only to bury itself deep underground.
“Blasters!” the corporal bellowed, hauling out a revolver.
Just then, the leaves rustled and another flapjack fell directly onto the startled man, completely covering his head. The corporal gave a muffled scream and raised both hands to paw off the amorphous creature. But his arms become instantly mired in the sticky ooze covering the flapjack. The mutie tinted crimson with the corporal’s blood as his hair and eyes disappeared, followed by his ears and lips.
Shrieking insanely, the corporal went silent as the amorphous mutie flowed into his mouth, ramming a path down his throat. Still in the saddle, the corporal violently shuddered as the thing started to dissolve him from the inside, the flapjack nearly purring as it feasted on the raw flesh and brains.
Leveling her blaster at the nightmarish mutie, a sec woman aimed and fired, the rounds blasting a deep fur row through the flapjack and blowing apart the partially consumed head of the corporal. Cursing vehemently, another sec man took aim with his shotgun and stroked the trigger. In a thunderous bellow, the flapjack was blown apart, along with the remains of the aced corporal, gobbets of the weird translucent flesh flying about the forest to smack into the trees and ground.
Almost losing control of his stallion, a large sec man burbled in terror as a piece of the mutie hit his cheek, the thick beard turning white under the furious assault of the organic acids.
“Don’t touch it!” a sec woman commanded. Pulling out a throwing ax, she expertly swung it, cutting off the bushy beard, the wad of pulsating hair falling to the leafy ground.
“Th-thanks,” the sec man panted, clutching the reins in both hands.
That single word seemed to be the clarion call to war for the flapjacks as they dropped from the shadowy boughs by the dozens, the gelatinous killers landing on the sec force and its horses.
Shooting blasters and slashing with their stone knives, the dying sec men and women fought for their lives, but it was hopeless, and soon the forest trail was strewed with dissolving bodies, humans and horses alike buried under the pulsating mounds of the gorging flapjacks.
“Retreat!” one of the few survivors commanded, reining in her dappled mare to neatly avoid a plummeting flapjack.
As it lay there on the ground, she started to shoot, but since the thing had no visible targets such as a brain, or heart, the sec woman held back and kicked her horse into a gallop. The urge was to simply ride over the thing, killing it beneath the sharp hooves of the animal, but she had seen what these monsters could do, and decided not to take the risk. There were old sec men, and there were bold sec men, but nobody ever heard of any old, bold sec men.
As the four remaining sec men wheeled their mounts around to head back to the ville, small flapjacks pelted from the trees, the infant muties smacking all over the horses. As the acid started to burn, the animals reared, kicking wildly, and the riders were thrown to the hard ground.
Hastily scrambling to their feet, the sec men fired their blasters at anything nearby, a growing panic stealing their years of training. A horse was mortally wounded and instinctively kicked back. A sec man’s knee cracked audibly and he dropped to land face-first onto a flapjack.
As he began to thrash around, the nearest man swung his ax down to sever the spine of the doomed man, then swung the ax sideways to slam into the ribs of a sec woman. Caught in the act of aiming the blaster at the man, she doubled over from the impact of the stone blade, the blaster firing into her own boot.
Burbling blood, she collapsed to the leaves and several flapjacks immediately started undulating toward the smell of fresh meat.
Glancing in every direction, the last sec man saw that he was momentarily in the clear, and tossed away the ax to increase his speed as he desperately sprinted for the edge of the forest. The horrible sounds of the feasting grew dimmer as he sprinted along, then there came a subtle movement from above. Instantl
y, he dived to the side, and a flapjack missed smacking into him by the thickness of a prayer.
Rolling under a thornbush, the sec man came out scratched, but alive, and began to zigzag through the trees, never moving in a straight line for more than three paces. More muties dropped from above, but each one missed. Suddenly the sec man exploded out of the shadows and slowed to a stumble, unable to believe his fantastic luck. He was out of the forest and in the clear. Made it. He had made it, and was going to live!
CENTERING THE CROSSHAIRS on the face of the panting sec man, J.B. stroked the trigger of the Steyr and a 7.62 mm hollowpoint round sent the coward tumbling into the eternal.
“By the lost gods,” Liana breathed, not sure if she was impressed or not. “You aced them all with a single shot!” The former slave had trouble speaking the next words. “How…how did you know this was going to happen?” Plaintively, Liana looked in their eyes hoping to see a glimmer of her father’s abilities, but the companions merely smiled, completely unaware of the silent question.
“Readiness is all,” Doc said in a singsong tone.
“Didn’t know trick would work,” Jak said, turning away from the ghastly feeding in the trees. “Just hoped. Good plans do.”
“And whenever possible, try to use any natural features of the land against your opponent,” J.B. added, clicking the safety back on the Steyr and slinging it over a shoulder. “Slow them down in mud, try to get them to take cover in a bush you know has a beehive in it, that sort of thing.”
“The earth is always a powerful ally,” Krysty added, lengthening her stride down the sloping foothill.
As the group proceeded down the hill and into a wild bramble of laurel bushes and tall weeds, Liana tested the wisdom of the new words, and found them strong, so stored the information away for later. If she was going to stay with these coldhearts—companions—then she had better start getting razor triple fast.
Shyly sneaking a look at Doc, Liana made a decision and surreptitiously reached out to grab several handfuls of the pretty flowers to stuff into a pocket. Better safe than sorry.
Crossing a wide field, the companions encountered hundreds of irregular chunks of concrete, the material weathered almost to the point where it resembled natural stone. There were even a few more pieces of the gargoyles scattered around, along with the shattered remains of a granite cross. This was the debris from a destroyed church. Doc sighed at the desecration, while the others simply kept walking, the dead past of no more interest to them than the unreachable stars.
The sound of the crashing waves on the beach was discernible long before the companions saw the Great Lake. Studying the area carefully, they decided it was safe enough to proceed, but Jak stood guard while the others began to slide down the sloping hill on the seat of their pants, boots and hands alone keeping them from tumbling head-over-heels.
When the companions reached the beach, Doc and Krysty stood guard while J.B. swung around the Uzi to keep watch over Jak as he slid to join them.
Slapping the dust from her clothes, Liana was very happy the others had given her pants to wear instead of her usual dress. They really came in handy holding off scratches from brambles and such, and pockets were a marvel all by themselves. Slaves were not allowed such things, but she had them now.
Because I am a slave no more, Liana thought in a rush of comprehension. Live or die, I am free! Timidly, she touched the crushed flowers in her pocket, and amused herself with some private thoughts about their eventual use.
Reaching the edge of the slope, Jak jumped the last few feet and landed in a crouch, the impact driving the loose dirt off his clothes. “Now where?” he drawled.
“This way to the Dragon,” Liana said, pointing her crossbow.
But before the companions could move, Ryan and Mildred stepped into view from behind a gigantic rock roughly the shape of an alligator. For a long moment nobody moved or spoke.
“Hey, Adam,” J.B. called in a friendly voice, his fist tight around the pistol-grip safety of the machine pistol.
“Sorry, the name’s Charlie,” Ryan replied, not moving an inch, a finger resting on the trigger of the SIG-Sauer.
Easing his stance, the Armorer grinned in relief that the coded greeting proved all was well. “Hey, mine, too!”
With that, everybody eased their stance and the companions rushed back together, then moved closer to the sloping hill where the chilly spray from the lake was the weakest. Along the shoreline, several blue crabs scuttled about, looking for anything edible, but only finding lake foam and some loose strands of dead kelp.
Accepting the Steyr, Ryan worked the bolt to check the magazine in the breech before slinging it over a broad shoulder. “Any trouble?”
“Nothing that a flock of feasting flapjacks did not fix,” Doc answered, holding his frock coat protectively over the LeMat. The .44 Ruger revolver was in his other hand, the gunmetal sparkling with tiny dew drops of moisture.
“Then nobody is coming after us?” Mildred asked, fighting off a shiver and stomping her sodden boots on the polished stones.
“Not this life,” Jak stated proudly. “Aced.”
“Good,” Ryan grunted, sitting on the damp rocks and pulling out a knife to slash away the leather straps holding the soaked boot blankets in place. The man desperately wanted a fire, but that wouldn’t happen until they were very far away from the seacoast ville.
Taking a position alongside the man, Mildred did the same to her boots, then they both gratefully dried their feet with handkerchiefs before slipping on dry socks and donning their combat boots.
Staying a little bit away from the others, Liana won dered why the men had called each other by the wrong names before? Perhaps it was some sort of a password like the sec men used during the changing of the guards. That was the only logical answer. They trusted nobody, not even each other. For some reason, that made her feel better.
Stiffly standing, Mildred stomped the boots into a comfortable position. “At last, my feet are complete!” She chuckled, then shrugged when nobody else laughed. Too many of her jokes were obsolete these days, the book and movie references gone with the wind, somewhere in time, lost in space….
Gathering the loose pile of rags and leather, Liana ran to the shore and lashed them all together with a large stone in the middle of the bundle, then heaved it far into the lake. It hit with a splash, and promptly sank out of sight. Instantly the crabs dived into the waves, intent upon investigating the submerged object.
“Smart,” Jak said, brushing back his damp hair. “Cats no follow smell now.”
“What cats?” Ryan asked, and the teenager explained.
“We better make tracks,” the man growled, standing. “Okay, Liana, which is the fastest way to Northpoint?”
“That way,” the blonde replied, pointing a finger.
“Okay, but this time no disguises, or cutting deals,” J.B. declared firmly. “We simply nightcreep the place, jack a boat and leave.”
Nodding in agreement, Liana started to reply when she caught sight of a lone bird circling high in the sky. A hunting falcon! Quickly swinging up the crossbow, Liana aimed and fired in one smooth motion. There was a squawk, and a moment later the impaled bird tumbled down to wetly impact on the Dragon.
“That was one of the baron’s falcons,” she said, panting for breath. “It would have kept circling above us until the sec men arrived.”
“Does he have any more of them?” Mildred asked.
“Oh, yes, many.”
“Damn, would the cats also check what the falcon was circling?” Ryan demanded brusquely, studying the cloudy sky.
“I…have no idea,” Liana replied honestly, fumbling to reload the crossbow. It was made for a sec man with much larger hands, and she had trouble just carrying the bulky weapon. Still, it was much better than a wooden knife.
“Fireblast,” Ryan growled. This trip was fast becoming an absolute mutie-shag, and neither he nor Mildred were in any shape for a prolonged battle
. “All right, we can’t take the chance they might have, so let’s get moving. Double time, people. We have to get away from here as fast as possible. J.B., take the point. Doc, muddy our trail.”
“Yes, of course,” the scholar said in resignation, and pulled out his pouch of black powder to start sprinkling it behind the companions. With the smell of fresh blood on the rocks near the shoreline, and the reek of black powder in the opposite direction, unless the animals were exceptionally intelligent, the companions should not be bothered by the big cats.
“Okay, which way should we go?” Ryan asked, studying the face of the former slave for any sign of betrayal.
“Toward the mountains,” Liana said, gesturing with the crossbow.
After a moment Ryan nodded in agreement, and the companions immediately took off in that direction, J.B. taking the point position.
Quickly leaving the beach, the companions headed inland across a field of wildflowers. Reaching a small creek, they sloshed along for a while to mask their tracks, then retreated a distance, before going onto dry land once more.
All the while, Ryan kept a close watch on the newcomer. The one-eyed man knew that sec men might change their allegiance purely for jack, or revenge, but slaves would mistrust everybody until they chose a new master. Then he saw Liana look longingly at Doc, and knew that decision had already been made. Fair enough.
“Krysty, give her a piece,” Ryan decided, stepping over a fallen log, the deadwood alive with insects.
Expecting that decision, the redhead pulled out a spare blaster recovered from the battleship. “Here, this is for you,” she said, offering the revolver. “You’re good with that crossbow, but this has a lot more chilling power.” Personally, Krysty was glad to be rid of the weight. She was carrying too many blasters.
“Besides, you have earned it,” Doc added proudly.
Slinging the big crossbow over a shoulder, Liana accepted the weapon as if it were made of dried leaves and a single breath would blow it away. It was an actual blaster. A real, live, metal blaster!