by James Axler
Brigid nodded. "Makes sense. The air will be cooler. Less risk of any Mags suffering from heat prostration. No cover in the off chance any of the prisoners break away."
Domi spoke up, her high-pitched voice carrying a note of incredulity. "So we do what—the four of us go up against twenty 'forcers?"
"Nineteen if you don't count Pollard," Kane corrected.
"Just to free some rag-assed outlanders? Why?"
"There's more to it than that," Grant rumbled. "We need to find out why Baron Cobalt is invading a brother baron's territory."
Domi's lips twisted as if she tasted something sour. "Why do we need to? Why do we care? Let 'em fight it out themselves."
No one responded immediately to the girl's suggestion, although the notion wasn't a new one, at least not to Kane. During a recent op to the British Isles, after reacquainting himself with the Celtic warrior-priestess Fand, she had mentioned much the same tactic. He easily recalled her words: "Perhaps you could turn those ego-structures against one another, exploit that self-aggrandizement, destroy them from within, rather than without."
The concept appealed to him on a number of counts, primarily because the tyranny of the barons would be ended by none other than themselves.
Fixing his eyes on Domi, Grant said in a low, intense tone, "Mebbe going up against twenty Mags for nine outlanders isn't worth it. Mebbe it is stupe. But remember what happened to your own people in Hells Canyon. I imagine they would've been grateful if just one of us interfered."
Domi's face remained as expressionless as if it were chiseled out of porcelain, but Kane could guess the kind of thoughts wheeling through her head.
The memory of the Mag-orchestrated slaughter and mutilation of her people was still fresh. The girl did not have much of a past, but what little there was of it had been ruthlessly expunged by the forces of the villes.
Kane tested the sensitive spring-and-cable mechanism of his Sin Eater's holster, making sure it wasn't fouled by grit. Brigid looked over her own blaster, an Iver Johnson TP-9 autopistol, carefully cycling a round into the chamber. She frowned in dismay at the gritty, grating sound made by the slide mechanism.
Grant extended a hand toward her. "That needs to be stripped and cleaned before it's reliable again."
He turned toward Domi. "What about yours?"
Wordlessly, she drew her Combat Master and tested the action. It moved smoothly. Grant nodded in satisfaction and from his backpack removed a gun-cleaning kit. Spreading out a square of cloth, he field-stripped Brigid's autoblaster, meticulously oiling all of its moving parts.
Firearms had been a minor point of contention between Kane and Brigid for the past several months. For a while she had carried an H&K VP-70, then a Beretta, but she found the weight and recoil of both guns a little uncomfortable. She had opted for a .32-caliber Mauser at one point, but its range and accuracy depended on too many variables. She'd carried an Uzi for a bit, but never had to fire it. Kane had chosen the 9 mm Iver Johnson autoblaster for her, and he suspected she carried it just to keep him from carping about her lack of interest in guns.
As Grant cleaned her pistol, he said contemplatively, "Seems kind of strange that Pollard would be leading this mission—or involved in it at all. He's got a couple of major fuckups on his record, and without Salvo around to protect him, by all rights he should've been executed."
"By all rights," Kane said, "Salvo should've chilled him after he saw the gateway in Mesa Verde."
"With all of the baron's setbacks recently," Brigid ventured, "it's possible he's been forced to make allowances, to relax the rules."
Grant grunted thoughtfully, snapping the pieces of her weapon back together. "Cobaltville took heavy losses in ordnance and manpower when they attacked Ambika's raiders. The baron probably hasn't replaced either. After that disaster, he probably doesn't trust too many of his advisers."
"We don't know what happened to Abrams," Kane replied.
A few months before Abrams, the Mag Division administrator had led a force of hard-contact Mags from Cobaltville into Montana to investigate the Cerberus redoubt and ascertain if it was playing host to three wanted seditionists—namely Kane, Grant and Brigid.
Lakesh had taken great pains over the years to establish the belief that that particular Totality Concept-related installation was hopelessly unsalvageable. However, when the search for them among all of the redoubts began in earnest, it was inevitable Cerberus would be investigated simply by a process of elimination.
The Magistrates were stopped and soundly defeated by Sky Dog's band of Amerindians in the flatlands bordering the foothills. Grant and Kane were instrumental in the victory, although they managed to keep their involvement concealed from the invading Mags. The survivors of the engagement were disarmed and allowed to go on their way, believing the Indians alone were responsible for their humiliation.
A mental image of a boxy jawline beneath a helmet's visor suddenly popped into the forefront of Kane's mind. He recalled how the general outline had struck him as familiar, but because of the fierce fire-fight raging around him, he hadn't devoted much thought to it.
Absently, with a harsh chuckle lurking in the back of his throat, he said, "I'll be dipped in swampie shit."
Brigid glanced at him in distaste, and Grant angled questioning eyebrows in his direction. "What?"
"Remember the assault force of Mags under Abrams's command? Pollard was the driver of his Sandcat."
Sandcats were armored, overland fast-attack vehicles used by the villes. One had been appropriated by Lakesh and stored in Cerberus.
"How do you know that?" Grant demanded.
"I saw the son of a bitch—only for a couple of seconds, but because I was so busy trying to keep that damn war wag under control I didn't make the connection until just now."
Grant made a "hmm" sound of contemplation as he fitted the grip back into the frame of the Iver Johnson. "At best, by all the old protocols, the choicest assignment Pollard could hope for would be walking pedestrian patrol in Tartarus, not leading a squad into another baron's sphere of influence."
Since ville society was strictly class-and caste-based, the residential towers reflected those divisions. At the bottom level of the villes was the servant class, who lived in abject squalor in consciously designed ghettos known as the Tartarus Pits, named after the abyss below Hell where Zeus confined the Titans. They swarmed with a heterogeneous population of serfs and cheap labor.
Sounding a little mystified, Brigid inquired, "What are the old protocols?"
The corners of Kane's mouth quirked in a mirthless smile. "If a Mag squad fucked up, even though the commander was held accountable, every man in it was disciplined to some extent or another."
"Yeah," Grant put in. "Depending on the decision of the disciplinary tribunal, sometimes you just lost your rank, sometimes you were assigned scut work for six months or so. Worst case, you were cashiered out, your citizenship stripped away. You'd be reclas-sified as an outlander and exiled from the ville. In really extreme instances, you were executed. Most of the time, execution is considered too mercifuL"
Brigid knew that a citizen's reclassification to that of an outlander was in some ways worse than death. It was a form of nonexistence. For people who had been born outside the direct influence of the villes, who worked the farms, toiled in the fields or simply roamed from place to place, being an outlander wasn't a punishment—it was simply the way things were. They knew they were reviled by the ville bred.
To be recognized as a person with a right to exist, one had to belong to ville society, even if only in the lowest caste.
Those who chose not to, or were not chosen to belong, were the outlanders. They were the expendables, the free labor force, the cannon fodder, the convenient enemies of order, the useless eaters. She, Grant, Kane and all of the exiles in Cerberus were outlanders. Only Domi was one by birth, so in the kingdom of the disenfranchised, she was the pretender to the throne.
"So," Brigid said, "regardless of the fact Abrams would shoulder die lion's share of the blame, you're saying Pollard shouldn't be in charge of a latrine-scrubbing detail, much less a force of hard-contact Magistrates. At least by the protocols in place when you two were Mags."
Kane nodded. "Exactly."
Brigid opened her mouth to say something else, but Domi suddenly half rose, tilting her head to one side, expression one of concentration. "Hush," she commanded.
Her companions fell silent, watching her expectantly. After a few seconds, she said tensely, "Heard something."
' 'Mebbe a couple of Mag stragglers," Grant opined quietly.
Domi shook her head. "No, this sound was different. Sort of like metal scraping against metal."
Kane and Grant exchanged weary glances. Neither man cared to make the strenuous climb back up the gorge wall to the ledge a second time. Unslinging the binoculars, Kane handed them to the albino girl. "Why don't you take a look-see this time?"
Her pale lips pursed, then curved in an impudent smile. "Not up to it anymore? You're acting as old as Grant."
Gruffly, Grant shot back, "And you're young enough to pull your own weight on this op just like the rest of us."
Crimson anger glittered in Domi's eyes, but it faded as quickly as it flared. She took the binoculars and glided as gracefully as a wraith out of the fissure.
After a minute, when it seemed likely she was out of earshot, Brigid asked in a half whisper, "What's going on with her?"
Grant lifted a shoulder in a dismissive shrug. "You know how moody she is. Sometimes everything gets on her nerves."
"True," Brigid agreed. "But her problem doesn't seem to be with everybody, just you."
Grant, concentrating on reassembling her Iver Johnson, didn't respond.
"Did you have a fight with her?" Brigid pressed. "Over what?"
A distinctly uncomfortable expression crossed Grant's dark face, but he quickly molded it into a threatening scowl. Staring directly into her face, he growled, "Drop it."
"But if she's—"
"I said drop it."
Brigid blinked at him in surprise. She had grown accustomed to Grant's grumbling manner, as if he were somebody's curmudgeonly but essentially good-hearted uncle. Now she detected a genuine edge of anger in the way he bit out the words, a warning she was overstepping her bounds.
She glanced toward Kane, hoping he would contribute something to her line of questioning. Instead, he gazed steadily out into the gorge, as if a nearby outcropping was a source of total fascination for him.
Brigid felt a surge of annoyance, but she tamped it down before it became anger. She knew full well how the two men observed an unspoken pact not to interfere in each other's private life. If and when they disagreed, they settled the issue between themselves, usually in private.
Domi returned in less than ten minutes, her white hair tinted beige with the fine powdery sand. Sounding only a little out of breath, she said, "Saw something at the far end of the ravine, 'bout a mile away."
"Saw what?" Kane demanded, straightening. "More Mags?"
"Don't think so. The light is bad, so all I saw was a little flash of metal."
"A wag?" Grant inquired.
Domi frowned. "Didn't hear anything. All I saw was a flash, only for a second."
"Could be people from the settlement," Brigid suggested. "Trailing the Magistrates."
"Could be," Kane conceded hesitantly.
"Or," Grant said, "it could be nothing at all, or at least nothing to do with this."
"Could be," Kane repeated. He stood, reaching for his helmet. "Let's leave most of our stuff here. Just bring the essentials. By the time we catch up to Pollard, he'll have called a halt. We'll come back and get it after."
"After what?" Domi asked, an undercurrent of challenge in her voice.
"After whatever happens," Kane replied coldly, sliding the helmet over his head.
Grant handed Brigid her blaster and rose, taking his own helmet from his backpack and putting it on. The snapping shut of the underjaw lock guards seemed preternaturally loud,
Looking at the two men with their features all but concealed behind the red-tinted visors, Brigid repressed a shiver of fear. The gaze she gave them was the same wary look she might cast toward a pair of tigers, if she came across them in her living room.
Although she owed Kane and Grant her Me and had shared many dangers with them, when they were outfitted in full armor they ceased to be the men she knew. She could sense the change that came over them.
They weren't exiles now, nor were they soldiers or even her comrades. Grant and Kane had slipped back into their Magistrate personas as easily as other men slipped into dressing gowns. Once again Brigid had to forcibly remind herself that the two men had spent their entire adult lives as killers—superbly trained and conditioned enforcers, not only carrying the legal license to deal death but the spiritual sanction, as well.
"Everybody got their comm channels set?" Kane asked, shouldering the war bag and his Copperhead. Even his voice sounded frosty and remote.
Brigid and Domi flipped open the covers of their transcomm units, little palm-sized radiophones, and made sure the frequencies were in tune with the helmet comm-links.
"Set," Brigid declared crisply, shouldering the flat case containing basic survival stores.
"We'll move out slow and easy," Grant said. "There's no need to hurry. If you hurry, you're likely to get careless, and if you get careless you're likely to make noise."
"It's not probable," Kane stated, "but Pollard may've posted a couple of sentries to watch their backtrail if he thinks they're being followed."
Domi and Brigid nodded in understanding.
Kane turned toward the shadowed, stony maze, walking heel-to-toe as he always did in a potential killzone. "Let's get it done."
There was no need for him to say more. The four people walked in a single file, with about six feet separating each of them. No one spoke.
They had worked their way less than a hundred yards into the gathering gloom when faintly came the sputter of autofire. The reports were overlaid by a scream of pure terror. It was long, drawn out and undeniably masculine.
Chapter 5
Kane saw little reason to increase his pace. Whatever caused the commotion was far ahead of them. He doubted they would have heard it at all except the sound was carried by the wind and echoed off the labyrinthine rock walls.
"What the hell was that?" Grant demanded in a husky whisper.
Kane shook his head, indicating the matter was of little importance and continued to stride forward. Full darkness came swiftly to the canyon, seeming to flow like streams of ink down the walls and ooze out of the mouths of the side channels.
Stars began to gleam, cold and white against the vast indigo tapestry of the sky. Grant's and Kane's image enhancers brought into sharp relief everything around diem. They saw small rocks that had been overturned by the passage of many feet and dim scuff marks in the dust. They were faint, but they were sufficient to mark a trail. Kane and Grant followed them, instinctively placing their feet so as to raise a minimum of dust and not dislodge loose stones.
The trail led across the rock-strewed gorge floor, winding and bending in a succession of narrow kinks.
Grant, for all of his size, moved through the darkened defile as surefooted as a cat. Surprisingly, it was the wilderness-born Domi who stumbled a couple of times. She swore under her breath each time until Brigid told her to shush.
At every bend Kane's sixth sense, his point man's sense, went on high alert for an ambush, but the path twisted on with no one and nothing to bar their way. Even though the Mags had a long start, their prisoners would slow them, and Kane saw no reason to take chances with hurrying.
Although he hadn't discounted Domi's report of seeing a flash of metal, he didn't devote much thought to it. His prey lay ahead, not behind. Still, the notion of being trapped in a squeeze play in the c
onfines of the gorge didn't exactly help him enjoy the evening's walk. He told himself Pollard wasn't intelligent or foolhardy enough to divide his forces.
However, he felt a grudging admiration for Pollard's choice of routes. The average Magistrate, assuming any were dispatched by Baron Snakefish, would be completely bewildered by what little trail was left by Pollard and his men. If the Mags didn't know exactly who or what they were tracking, they would have given up the hunt at sunset
The canyon pitched to the left and widened, then narrowed, descended and finally opened into a field of upthrust stones. Nerves tingling, eyes narrowed, he came to a complete stop. He gestured behind him, signaling his three companions to halt
The dark boulders stood like lonely sentinels, guarding only desolation. The dozen rocks were all of similar sizes and shapes, approximately eight feet tall with the facing sides quarried flat. They were arranged in two rows with an aisle of about ten feet between them. Other than trying to scale the steep, downsloping walls of the gorge, a traveler would have no choice but to traverse the aisle, as if walking a mineral gauntlet.
Kane knew it wasn't a natural rock formation. Someone had gone to a lot of time and effort to place the megaliths in such a fashion. The setup was so obvious, he wondered why there wasn't a sign posted that read Watch Out for Trap.
As he scrutinized the stones, he saw the flat faces were covered by crude carvings, serpentine whorls arid squiggles. In a whisper, he called Brigid up to stand beside him. "What do you make of those?"
As she squinted toward them, a cloud whipped past the moon, and its lambent glow shone on the standing stones and their inscriptions. "They're obviously artificially arranged."
"I figured that out for myself," he said dryly. "What I want to know is why they're there at all."
She shot him a sideways glare, an irritation born of exertion and tension glittering in her sea-green eyes. "All I can sell is speculation."
"I'll buy some if that's all you've got."
Running her fingers through her tousled red-gold mane, she said lowly, "We know a snake cult prac-ticed in this region. This could be a holy place, where ceremonies or meetings were held."