by James Axler
The physician frowned. “Hell of a way to die. Drowning in a pit of shit. Stay here with Dean, and I’ll go check.”
“Nobody is going anywhere alone,” J.B. stated forcibly. “We wait for the others to come back, then we check.”
“He could die by then!”
“And it could be a trap. We go with what we know. I’d sure as hell hate to lose Doc, but I’m damn sure that I would rather keep you, Millie.”
Just then, Jak appeared at the open doorway of the barn holding Doc’s sword. The ebony sheath was missing, and the blade was darkly stained with blood.
“Night creep,” the teenager stated. “Got him.”
“Can you track them?” Mildred asked, pulling her piece. Suddenly the silence of the ville seemed to be the stillness of a waiting trap, with enemies watching from every shadow.
Jak shook his head. “Not on bare stone.”
“Now we recce the outhouses,” J.B. said, working the bolt on the Uzi. “Millie, stay with Dean. Let’s go.”
Jak and the Armorer charged into the night, their faces grim masks.
Pulling a metallic envelope from a pocket, Dean ripped it open and used the U.S. Army moist towelette to clean his hands of the grease from dinner, then checked over his Browning Hi-Power. His gut was starting to tell the boy death was on the move and coming their way.
“We didn’t find him,” J.B. reported ten minutes later, stepping into view. “And we did a once around the block in case it was just a mugging. Just some ville hardcases out to steal his blaster.”
“He gone.” Jak brandished the sword, the ebony stick now poking through his gun belt. “But we found sheath.”
“Where?”
“Near shitters. Must have ambushed there.”
“Well, don’t sheath the blade!” Mildred advised. “We might need that blood.”
“My very idea,” Ryan said from the street, holding a dog on a leash.
Standing close by, Krysty had her blaster hard against the back of Sparrow. The man was shivering in the cold.
“Saw what was happening from the window,” Ryan said with a scowl. “No sign of Doc from up there, so we brought some help.”
“Your turn,” Krysty said, nudging Sparrow forward with the muzzle of her blaster.
Ryan passed the man the rope leash. “Find our friend, and you keep breathing,” he growled. “Run off, and we’ll torch that pesthole with your brother still inside. Get me?” It was a lie, but Sparrow didn’t know that.
“Sure, sure, no prob. Houston is a good tracker. We found lots of folks for the baron,” the fat man sputtered, tightening his grip on the rope and scratching the animal behind an ear. “Just show him the blade.”
Jak held out the steel and the dog approached it warily, then started to sniff, his tail wagging in excitement.
“Got the scent, boy? Good. Now go find the runaway. Find the runaway, boy!” Sparrow released the rope and the dog sprung forward, his nose checking the ground here and there, spreading across the street, then starting back again.
Mildred curled a lip at the wording. Runaway, eh? Sounded like the ville did keep slaves. Maybe they simply hadn’t encountered them yet.
“What if this doesn’t work?” Dean asked grimly, muted thunder rumbling on the horizon.
His father glanced at the keep rising above the ville just as lightning flashed, silhouetting the structure for a split second. “Then we grab the baron and trade his ass for Doc.”
“If he’s been aced?”
“Then Rockpoint gets a new baron,” Ryan stated.
Over by the outhouses, the dog suddenly went stiff and lurched down a side street at a lope.
“He’s got the scent!” Sparrow gushed, starting after the hound.
Moving fast, the companions raced along the cobblestones, following the dog through the maze of streets.
“Stay close. This could be an ambush.”
“Good,” Ryan snarled, working the bolt action on the Steyr.
Houston paused at an intersection, checking the ground several times before finally choosing an alleyway. People watched through closed shutters as the companions ran by, the adobe buildings going dark as candles were hastily extinguished. Obviously this was sec-man work and none of their concern.
Reaching a courtyard, the dog froze and growled at the darkness to the left, weird piles of things creaking in the wind, the jumble reaching higher than the wall surrounding the ville.
“What’s over there?” Ryan demanded.
Sparrow shrugged. “Junkyard. Baron collects predark machines.”
“I thought this place didn’t have any wags?”
J.B. said.
“None of them work,” Sparrow replied. “Houston just don’t like it there ’cause the baron guards the stuff with a couple of big cats he caught in the salt lands.”
Gaza protected wags that didn’t work with a couple of cougars? Sure. Ryan was starting to understand why the baron was on bad terms with Trader. It was starting to sound like Gaza was stockpiling weapons and wags for a major assault somewhere. A war was brewing in these sand dunes, which meant there had to be another ville nearby. Unless Trader was the target.
“Really hates those folks to the north of here, eh?” Ryan tried on a hunch.
“Ain’t nothing to the north that I know about,” Sparrow said, sounding puzzled. “Hey, there he goes again!”
In a burst of speed, Houston scampered down a broad street, then disappeared into a cross street. Turning the corner, Ryan spied the dog running past a group of sec men coming down the street with crackling torches and crossbows in their hands.
“It’s the outlanders!” a sec man cried, starting to level the crossbow. “Chill them!”
Releasing his grip on the Steyr, Ryan pulled the SIG-Sauer and fired, the silenced blaster coughing twice, the whispering 9 mm slugs tearing through the soft tissue of the men’s throats and the guards fell, drowning in their own blood.
One of them got off an arrow that whizzed past Jak, and he jerked an arm forward. The blade hit the sec man in the chest dead center in the heart. Still holding the crossbow, the man went completely still, then slowly toppled.
Another raised his longblaster and Dean flipped his Bowie knife into the man’s stomach, making him drop the blaster. Then Ryan stroked the trigger on the SIG-Sauer and the guard flipped backward minus a face.
“Take the bows,” Krysty directed, tugging a quiver of bolts from the trembling arm of a corpse. “Once we start shooting, all hell is going to break loose.”
“Has already,” Ryan muttered, slitting the throat of a guard who was somehow still alive.
“A silenced blaster,” Sparrow whispered. “You folks work for the Trader!”
“Close enough,” J.B. stated, watching the windows along the street while Mildred took the other crossbow and a second quiver. The stock seemed to be whittled from a house beam, the cross hammered from a steel leaf-spring out of a car. She had seen similar homemade weapons before. They were crude, cumbersome and extremely powerful.
“Is he coming?” the man asked eagerly. “Going to do Gaza and Hawk? Be glad to help there.”
“Go find your dog,” Ryan ordered.
Moving around the sprawled bodies, Sparrow took off after the animal, with the companions close behind. Raised voices were heard in the distance, but they moved away from the group heading for the keep. Oddly, the area was starting to look familiar when Ryan saw the dog start for a redbrick building without doors or windows.
“Dark night, this is the rear of the temple!” J.B. said.
“Call him back now!” Ryan ordered brusquely.
Sparrow whistled and the dog stopped, looking back at his master, then turned and trotted back.
“So that’s where he is,” Sparrow said hoarsely. “They got him in the temple. Might as well leave. Most likely he’s aced already. Or worse.”
“What do you mean ‘worse’?” J.B. demanded.
“Blood for water,” S
parrow said, quoting the ville mantra. “But I also hear the Scorpion God likes it spiced with screams.”
Doc was in a torture chamber? Shitfire. Ryan swung around his blaster until it pointed at Sparrow. In spite of the evening chill, the fat man started to sweat.
“You kept your part of the deal,” Ryan said gruffly. “So we keep ours. Now leave before I change my mind.”
Sparrow nodded energetically and took off at a run down the street, Houston tagging along behind his corpulent master.
“If he talks, we’re dead,” J.B. said, tracking their departure with the Uzi machine gun.
Ryan turned from the man and the dog. “He wouldn’t do anything until he’s set his brother free, and then they’ll have to discuss whether they should side with Trader or Gaza.”
“Say, fifteen minutes.”
“Mebbe ten.”
Staying in the shadows as much as possible, the companions moved around to the front of the building and studied the two guards at the door. Both were large men holding bolt-action longblasters, with a muzzle-loading pistol tucked into their belts. They were smoking cigs and appeared bored.
“No other doors,” Krysty said, her hair a wild tempest of motion as her hands tightened on the crossbow. “We have to go in this way.”
“No problem,” Ryan said, removing the half-spent clip from the SIG-Sauer and gently inserting a fresh one.
Suddenly a bell began to ring from the keep and the guards jumped at the sound, casting away their smokes to slide their blasters off their shoulders and work the bolts.
“Shitfire, that must be the ville alarm,” J.B. cursed, ducking lower into the shadows.
“A single shot from them, and we’ll have the whole ville coming down our throats,” Dean added, glancing around. Lights were appearing from behind closed windows. “Whatever we’re going to do better be soon.”
“We move on my mark,” Ryan growled, steadying the SIG-Sauer in both hands. “Ready…go.”
Stepping into plain view, Mildred clicked on the nukelamp, bathing the two guards in its blinding light. Covering their faces, the men cursed as Krysty and Jak used the crossbows. The bolts took the men in the throats, neutralizing any chance of them crying out in pain. Gagging on their own blood, the guards staggered drunkenly about as the companions rushed across the open courtyard and finished the job with knifes. It was brutal and messy, but there was no other choice.
Jak and Dean pushed the bodies against the wall, while Ryan tried the door. It was locked tight. The one-eyed man got out of the way as J.B. rummaged in his munitions bag for some tools and got to work. The rest of the companions nervously stood around the man, watching the windows and side streets for any movements. The alarm bell continued to sound from the keep.
“Barred from the inside,” the Armorer said in frustration. “No way to open this without using a gren.”
For a long moment, Ryan stared hostilely at the door as if it were a living enemy. “Give me the sword,” he demanded.
Jak passed over the ebony stick. Unsheathing the blood smeared blade, Ryan wiggled the point between the door and the frame. It took some muscle, but he finally got the slim steel to slide all the way through, then he pulled it upward in a hard jerk. There was a crash inside and the door swung open a crack.
“Bring them,” Ryan directed, slipping into the building with the SIG-Sauer leading the way.
The companions dragged in the bodies of the chilled sec men, leaving behind a wide crimson trail. But there was nothing they could do about that. Inside the temple oil lanterns burned in wall niches, illuminating a large empty room decorated with a wall tapestry of a blue scorpion. There was nothing else but a gate made of slim iron bars sealing off an arched doorway.
Reaching high, Mildred pulled down the tapestry and stepped outside to mop up the excess blood on the stoop, while J.B. went to work on the gate. As the physician came back in and tossed aside the gory cloth, there was a solid click and J.B. pushed open the gate.
“Hey, what was that?” a man called out from a dark corridor. “Who are you folks?”
Stepping through the archway, Ryan fired the silenced weapon directly into the unseen face. The blaster coughed, its muzzle-flash lighting the corridor for a heartbeat, and the man jerked backward as an explosion of blood and brains slapped against the brick wall. As the dead guard crumpled to the floor, the rest of the companions rushed past the gate, and J.B. locked it in their wake. That should buy them a few minutes, but not much more.
“From here on, it’s chillin’ time,” Ryan said low and fast. “Ace anybody you see. All we’re interested in is finding Doc.”
Jak passed the crossbow to Dean. “Ready,” the albino teen said, drawing a knife with each hand.
The brick corridor was lined with more tapestries that were barely discernible in the yellowish light of the hissing lanterns. A set of double doors closed off the end, and Ryan placed his ear to the wood. There were some muffled voices, a laugh and then the telltale crack of a whip followed by a cry of pain.
“That’s Doc,” Krysty stated, bringing up the crossbow.
Slamming open the door, Ryan withheld firing as Mildred clicked on the nukelamp, filling the next room with harsh white light. As the three sec men lowered their whips, the companions opened fire in unison with every weapon. The men reeled at the incoming lead and arrows, died on the spot torn to pieces.
Walking into the vast room, Ryan felt a shiver go through his bones. This was something new. It was a church from hell. The pews had been removed, leaving the center open for people to gather. A wooden railing stood before an altar at the back of the church, and a giant scorpion stood on a velvet-covered altar, a steady stream of water trickling from its open mouth into a stone basin on the floor. Surrounding the basin was a low stone wall filled with dozens of live black scorpions.
Set on either side of the altar were slanted tables, the left covered with a canvas sheet, the right supporting Doc. The old man had been stripped to the waist, his hands and feet shackled with chains and pulled tight, holding him motionless. His back was covered with welts and countless old scars, a few of them bleeding slightly from the cut of the whip, but his chest still rose and fell.
Keeping their every weapon on the motionless scorpion towering over them, the companions crossed the room, and J.B. got to work on the shackles.
“You okay?” Mildred asked, setting down the nukelamp and turning Doc’s head to look into his eyes. The pupils dilated to the light. No drugs used this time, but her fingers found a hard lump on the back of his head that told the story. Hit from behind.
“I live,” Doc whispered hoarsely. “Th-that is enough.”
“Any more sec men around?” Ryan demanded, taking the nukelamp and playing the white beam around the church. There were no other doors in sight, but that didn’t mean a whole lot. Could be dozens of secret entrances.
Doc weakly shook his head while Mildred started to clean the cuts on his back with some of the precious med supplies from her satchel. The scholar winced at the application of shine, but said nothing. He had endured much worse.
“There were three,” he croaked, “and three when we arrived. One is very big with a—”
“Got them,” Ryan interrupted, taking the man by the shoulder and giving a hard squeeze. “We aced six.”
“S-splendid.”
“There,” J.B. said with satisfaction and the mechanism disengaged, the chains dropping noisily away.
Krysty slid a shoulder under Doc’s arm to help him stand, while Mildred helped the man slip on his shirt and coat.
“Think you can walk out of here?” J.B. asked, offering the ebony stick.
Fumbling to button his shirt, Doc stopped and took the stick. Extracting the blade, he inspected it in the white light, then held it out to wipe the steel clean on a sec man sprawled on the floor. The corpse had an arrow through its chest, and a slash along its neck that went from ear to Adam’s apple, but not quite deep enough to open the big a
rtery under the skin.
“If need be to leave here,” Doc stated resolutely, closing the weapon with a solid click, “I can sprout wings and fly.”
“What happened?” Dean asked.
Tucking the stick into his belt, Doc finished dressing. “I went to visit the outhouse, and they were waiting, not inside, but on top. I never even considered the possibility, but shall in the future. They knocked the LeMat away, but I got that man with my sword. Then I was struck from behind and awoke in this charming abattoir.”
“Come again?” Jak asked, scowling in confusion.
“Slaughterhouse,” Doc translated.
Doing a fast recce of the temple, Ryan walked closer to the giant on the altar. In the yellowish light of the oil lanterns the thing seemed to move slightly as if alive and watching. But starkly illuminated by the nukelamp, it was plain to see the thing was merely a statue covered with oil to distort the light. It was just a trick.
“So this is the Scorpion God,” Ryan said in a monotone. “A whole ville terrified of a statue from some predark museum or an amusement park.”
“And this explains the blood for water we’ve been hearing about,” Krysty said, studying the basin and enclosure. The scorpions reacted to her presence by running about and arching their deadly barbed tails, ready to attack. “Gaza must feed scraps of flesh to the scorpions so that the people can reach the basin and fill their water jugs.”
“Literally, blood for water,” Mildred muttered, tossing away a bloody cloth.
“Look at them go,” Dean said in disgust. “Little bastards are expecting food.”
“Getting oil, instead,” Jak snarled. Going to a nearby niche, he removed the lantern and blew out the flame. Returning to the cage, he used the gun butt of his blaster to smash open the reservoir of the lantern and poured the flammable oil over the darting scorpions, then lit the wick of the lantern and dropped it. The fire whoofed alive, and the creatures started high-pitched squealing as they burned, scampering madly about and stinging one another in their utter lack of comprehension of exactly what was destroying them.
Checking the bodies, Dean took their blasters, ammo pouches and a folding knife. Not bad, but he had better. Then the boy paused. “I know this man,” Dean said slowly. “He was the sec man who met us outside the ville gate.”