by James Axler
Surrounded by a cadre of armed guards, the tall, lean man was wearing old boots that were highly polished. His clothes were spotless, without a single patch, and the blue-steel blaster at his right hip was a Glock autoloader. The left sleeve of his jacket was pinned to his shoulder, the arm missing completely. A screaming blue eagle tattoo was on the side of his neck, talons splayed as it dived to attack.
Briefly, Ryan recalled the earlier comment on how fast the baron was supposed to be with a blaster. With only one arm? Interesting. If it was true.
Her long red hair waving about as if stirred by a breeze, Krysty studied the tattoo. The same design was embroidered on Stirling’s jacket, and it was vaguely similar to the stitching on her boots. Luckily her pants were hanging on the outside, covering them at the moment. But from things Doc and Mildred once talked about, she knew that the eagle was the talisman of old America. But did it mean the same thing here, or something else entirely?
“So you’re Ryan,” the baron said, coming to a halt. “I’m Baron Petrov O’Connor, ruler of this ville. Thanks for saving my son, as well as Steven here. Good sec chiefs are hard to find as live brass these days.”
“How do you know who were are?” Ryan asked suspiciously, looking for any of the Metro sec men in the group of bodyguards. None was in sight.
“I told him,” Stirling announced unexpectedly. “If the weather is right, we got a way to talk over a distance.”
Tilting her head, Mildred considered that. Couldn’t be a radio, there hadn’t been one in the war wag. But then she hadn’t noticed a prisoner, either. And why would weather be a factor? Then she recalled the central buildings of the ville, the shiny windows brightly reflecting the weak sunlight.
“Mirrors,” Mildred said impulsively. “You use mirrors to flash a code. Just like beeping the horn at the gate.”
The sec men were clearly astonished, but the baron only raised an eyebrow.
“Well, nothing is a secret forever,” O’Connor growled. “Or did you come up with something similar on your own?”
“Great minds think alike, sir,” Doc rumbled, giving a half bow.
A crowd of civies was beginning to gather behind the bodyguards. They chuckled at the phrase, while the sec men blinked in surprise.
“Great minds think alike,” the baron muttered, slowly smiling. “By the blood of my fathers, that’s good. Triple wise. I can see why you folks travel with this wrinklie. Brains are just as important as blasters, I always say.”
Did he now? Ryan’s estimation of the baron went up a few notches. He knew that not every baron was a power-mad lunatic controlling his people by the whip and iron club. Most were, but not all. However, Ryan had also meet very intelligent barons before who still proved to be utterly ruthless coldhearts.
“My people!” the baron shouted, turning to face the crowd. “These outlanders saved the life of Daniel O’Connor and fought side by side with our brave sec men against the stickies today!”
That news generated an enthusiastic cheer.
Tucking a hand into his gunbelt, Baron O’Connor faced Ryan once more. “You are my honored guests, and will come to stay in the Citadel with me for the remainder of your visit.”
Then the baron added in a sterner tone, clearly not meant for the companions. “And the hand raised against them will be treated as if its owner had attacked a sec man. Is that crystal?”
The attending crowd nervously murmured acknowledgment. It was obvious that the locals truly respected the one-armed baron, but feared his wrath even more. That was good to know. Ryan strongly doubted that anybody in this ville would be causing them any trouble again. At least, for a while.
“And that goes double for me,” Stirling said, staring directly at a select few civies, all of whom immediately tried to radiate an air of innocence.
“All right, get back to work, the lot of you!” the sec chief added loudly, clapping his hands. “Water doesn’t haul itself, and I want to see that new greenhouse finished by the full moon. Winter is coming, and sweat buys us food. Get moving!”
Muttering among themselves, the crowd started to thin, the people returning to their tasks, heading down the side streets into the ville, the sec men standing on the nearby wall going back on patrol. The brief break in their routine was over.
“Come, it’s a short hike to the Citadel,” the baron said, starting to walk. “And if I’m any guess of faces, you six have had a rock-hard day. I know tired when it stands before me.”
“Well, we could use someplace to knock the dust off our boots,” Ryan admitted, shifting his bulky backpack.
“And boil our clothes,” Krysty added hopefully.
“That we can offer,” O’Connor said with a grin. “I’ve smelled worse, but not from anything still walking.”
“No argument there.” Mildred sighed. Between the crud from the predark sewer, her own sweat and the blood of the muties, the physician was feeling rather ripe.
“Over dinner we can discuss the stickie problem,” Stirling added, matching his gait to the stride of the rists.
“And where their nest might be,” Ryan added sagely. “I have a few ideas on that.”
“Excellent!” the baron said, casting a glance sideways. “The muties become bolder every year, and we constantly lose more troops. If we don’t stop them soon, we’ll have to burn down the ruins.”
“But wouldn’t that also destroy the ville?” Krysty asked.
“Most likely,” Stirling agreed reluctantly. “But if we’re going to eventually get nuked anyway, then we’re taking the fragging bastards to hell with us.”
“I eagerly look forward to hearing a third option,” the baron said blandly, as if such a thing couldn’t possibly exist.
Staying in formation, the bodyguards cleared a path through the crowded streets for the baron, sec chief and the weary companions. As they passed the homes and shops, people paused in their work to check out the strangers. Some of the oldsters scowled in stern disapproval, but the children watched in innocent wide-eyed wonder. Many of the younger people watched the companions with open hostility. Only a few looked on with frank curiosity.
“We’re not very popular,” Mildred commented on the sly.
“Indeed, madam,” Doc intoned. “I know how a pork chop feels in a synagogue.”
“Show ’em you like ’em, eh?”
That took a moment to unscramble, then Doc started to correct the mangled Hebrew phrase, before spotting her smile, and realized the physician was only teasing. He struggled briefly to come up with a clever quip in Latin, but failed completely.
“Quite so,” Doc said in resignation.
The sun was starting to set behind the skyscraper downtown, casting its long penumbra across the ville, adding to the band of darkness thrown by the defensive wall. The air was rich with the smell of life, frying fish, boiling soup, unwashed bodies, leather, beer and hot metal. From somewhere, there came the sound of wood being chopped, and a woman began to sing softly, her voice clear and strong, rising to fill the approaching night.
Suddenly there was a movement underfoot. J.B. almost lost his balance as a small dog ran between his feet. In a snarling pounce, the dog leaped upon a rat, sinking its jaws into the back of the rodent and shaking it vigorously until the spine audibly snapped. Happily wagging its tail, the dog lay down in the middle of the street and began eating the corpse.
Fighting back the urge to pet the animal, Mildred heartily approved of its presence. Rodents carried a lot of diseases, and while cats were good for mousers, the house pets were completely outclassed in a fight with a full-grown rat.
“Do you use dogs to hunt muties?” Krysty asked the chief.
“Why, do stickies smell like rats?” Stirling asked in amusement. Then he saw that the redhead was serious. “Dogs?”
“Hopefully bigger than that,” Ryan added, as the little canine struggled to haul away the fresh carcass from the companions’ tromping boots. The two combatants had nearly been the same siz
e. Unless the ville had a thousand such dogs, nobody sane was going to hunt stickies with these runts. The hounds at his old ville of Front Royal had stood half as tall as a man, and could bring down a full-grown bear.
“Nope, that’s all we have,” the sec chief said. “Are they too small?”
“Hell, yes.”
“Pity.”
Twirling his walking stick, Doc started to tell the others about how backwoods Mexicans used to hunt mountain lions with Chihuahuas, but held his tongue. The tale was outrageous, but true. However, few people ever believed that a huge lion could be brought down by the tiny, yapping dogs. Even when they attacked in packs of a hundred.
Passing by a tavern, a little girl sweeping trash out the door stopped to stare at Jak in growing horror. Dropping the broom, she made some sort of a gesture in the air that the teen recognized as a ward against evil. In his long travels, Jak had seen such things many times before.
“Nope, not ghost,” the teenager said with smile.
Hesitantly, the child watched him walk by, then broke into a giggle and raced inside shouting for her mother to come see the snow-white man.
Jak chuckled at that.
“I always knew you had a good heart,” Doc said, patting the teen on the shoulder.
Brushing back his snowy-white hair, Jak shrugged. “Like kids.”
Several blocks later, a drunk staggered into the group and out again, never really noticing the baron even when he bumped into the noble. The sec men bristled, but O’Connor laughed the incident away.
“Been there, done that,” the baron said with a tolerant smile. “Although I’m usually singing when I get that tanked.” Then his face turned hard. “That wasn’t a sec man, was it, Chief?”
“No, my lord, just a potter,” Stirling replied, watching the drunk stumble into the tavern.
“Fair enough, then.”
Keeping a private counsel, the respect of the companions for the baron increased once more. There were far too many rulers that would have chilled the drunk for a lot less of an offense.
As they approached the three predark buildings, the ground dipped slightly and the companions could see that the surrounding area was filled with greenhouses, easily a dozen of the structures, if not more. The transparent structures were placed to catch the southern exposure, and inside were rows upon rows of wooden tubs lush with growing plants, flowering vines climbing up a line of lattice trellises and bushes dotted with bright fruit. Off to the side stood the skeletal framework of two more greenhouses, only a few square panels installed in the roof.
Behind the sheets of glass, green plants grew in orderly profusion, the tiny dots of color among the greenery showing a wide assortment of fruit and vegetables.
“Where do you get your dirt?” Krysty asked warily, not sure if she wanted to hear the answer.
“Make it ourselves, but the crops yield less and less food every year unless we completely replace the soil,” Stirling said with a sigh. “Must be doing something wrong.”
Either that, or else they don’t know anything about crop rotation, Krysty realized privately. Back in Colorado, her mother had taught Krysty much about plants and the cycle of life. Some plants took vital chems from soil, while others put them back in. Alternate the plants correctly and a greenhouse could triple its yield in a single year. Then again, mebbe they were using something that was contaminating the soil.
The bodyguards became alert as raised voices were heard down the street. The sec men closed ranks around the baron just as the group came upon an old mule that had decided to sit in the middle of street and refused to move. A swearing man was pulling on the reins with both hands, his sandals digging into the ground to no avail. Going around the obstruction, they left the farmer and his stubborn mule locked in mortal combat.
“Excuse me, Healer,” the baron said, moving closer. “Mildred, correct?” She nodded. “Good. I have several healers, but none of them can remove a stickie’s hand without also removing the limb it’s attached to.”
Unable to stop herself, Mildred looked at the pinned sleeve of the big norm.
“Yes, you are correct,” O’Connor replied to the unspoken question. “It was my dear wife who took an ax and cut me loose. I damn near got aced anyway from the blood loss.” Touching the empty sleeve, he frowned deeply. “Unfortunately, we haven’t had similar good luck with other sec men and civies that we tried to save.”
“I’ll be happy to teach your healers what to do,” Mildred replied without hesitation. “I happen to know a lot of tricks they can use to save lives. How to stop blaster wounds from festering, set broken bones so that the person isn’t a cripple afterward, heal shine burns properly, all kinds of things.”
As they walked along, the baron looked her in the face, carefully studying what he saw there.
“Blind norad, I believe you,” he said with a faint smile. “Okay, Healer, name your price.”
This nonsense again? “You really have nothing we can use,” Mildred said politely. “We already have a week of room and board to our credit.”
“Board?” the baron repeated puzzled.
“A week of beds and food,” she translated.
Thoughtfully, O’Connor chewed over the odd phrase. Of course, beds were made of a mattress laid over a board. How obvious.
“That is true,” O’Connor muttered, scratching at his cheek. “Well, you were walking through the ruins, so how about a horse?”
“Six horses,” Mildred countered on impulse. “One for each of us.”
The baron laughed. “You’re not teaching us how to fly, Healer, or to make blasters out of sand. I’ll pay no more than two horses. Take it or leave it.”
“And I say five, and you say, three, and I say four, and then we dicker for a while, and agree on three with bridles and saddles,” Mildred explained, making an impatient gesture. “So how about we shake on that, and skip all the haggling?”
“Done,” the baron said, and held out his hand.
Shaking the man’s hand, Mildred could feel his tremendous physical strength. The fingers were like iron. He could easily crush her fingers as if they were matchsticks, but instead he was gentle. Almost…tender.
Impulsively, Mildred meet the baron’s gaze and saw something there that spoke of matters as old as time itself.
“Three horses, hey, that’s great,” J.B. said, adding his hand on top of their grip. “That’s a fair deal, Millie. Well bargained, honey!”
Reluctantly releasing his hold, the baron diplomatically said nothing as J.B. slipped an arm around Mildred’s waist. The beautiful healer was already taken. Such a shame. She was fit to be a baron’s wife.
The rows of shops and homes stopped, and the group started along a flat road that led between the greenhouses, the slated-glass roofs sparkling in the dying sunlight. A wire-netting fence protected the greenhouses from windblown debris, along with any possible jacking of the veggies by rats. Inside the glass buildings, teams of civies watched the companions go by, and nervously tightened their grips on the crude tools used for tilling the dark loam.
“Greenhouses,” Krysty said again.
“Eat nothing until we’re sure there’s no woodchipper,” Ryan warned. The previous year, they had encountered a madman who ruled a nameless ville in the deep desert. The insane baron had also used window glass from some nearby ruins to build a score of greenhouses and protect the crops from the acid rain. However, he made the all-important dirt by mixing garbage with boiled nightsoil and human flesh minced in a predark woodchipper. Thankfully, there was no sign of a woodchipper in this ville. Then again, maybe it was just out of sight at the moment.
Leaving the questionable greenhouses behind, the group started across another flat chilling field. Circles of defense. Straight ahead, Ryan could see that the three predark buildings formed a lopsided triangle around the Two-Son Square. The open area held a stone well, a gallows and another firing wall. A scattering of people were lounging about, some of the civies rolling
dice, others smoking corncob pipes, and a small group of sec men stood near a whipping post with a disheveled man, his wrists bound in heavy rope, his head lowered in submission. Close by there was a thick wooden post embedded into the ground with iron rings dangling from the rough-hewn top.
As the baron came near the group, the prisoner raised his head, and O’Connor stopped in his tracks.
“Explain this,” the baron demanded, his voice strained.
There was no other way, so the chief sec man spoke bluntly. “Baron, Sec man Davies broke ranks and ran away during our fight in the ruins.”
There was a long pause. “You mean,” the baron said slowly, “that my nephew charged the stickies by himself?” There was hope in the words, but his expression beguiled the lie.
The bound man began to weep.
“No, sir,” Stirling said, forcing out the distasteful words. “He dropped his blaster and ran away.”
“I see,” the baron said slowly, then added in a whisper, “Did you recover the blaster?”
“No, it fell down a grating.”
“My hands…the stickies,” Davies cried out, shaking all over. “My lord, they were everywhere! Uncle, they were throwing spears!”
The civies stopped rolling dice at that remark and looked about frantically.
“So the civies don’t know,” J.B. whispered. “That’s mighty interesting.” Ryan nodded in assent.
“My lord, are the stickies using spears?” a woman asked fearfully, wringing her hands.
“Yes, we aced them all!” O’Connor boomed proudly, then walked closer and took the prisoner by the collar to shake him hard. “Shut up, fool! Never speak of such things in public!”
Releasing the fellow, O’Connor stared at the bound man, his anguish and indecision plainly readable.
“It was all a mistake—” Davies started, but was promptly cut off.
“Fifty lashes for running away,” The baron barked, spittle flying from his mouth. “And fifty more for losing a blaster!”
One of the sec men holding the prisoner gasped. “A hundred?” the corporal asked, then quickly shut his mouth.