by James Axler
"How's this, madman?" The captain stood up slowly.
"No. This must stop. Thou dost bring this on thyself by thy…" His voice trembled into stillness, but the pistol in his hand remained steady.
Ryan recognized it as a Polish blaster from the middle of the twentieth century. Called a Duo, it was a pocket-sized 6.35mm handgun. Not of much use above twenty paces, but sufficient in a small, cribbed room.
"Thought I heard a rat sneaking around the ship's gun chest an hour or so back," the woman said gently. "And it was little Johnny, all along."
"Let him be," Flynn said. "Come, outlander. Move cautious, and we'll go over the side. The boats are in the water, ready. Two men can manage 'em. Pull for the shore, eh? Never find us in the fog out yonder. Come on."
Something was wrong. Ryan's fighting sense told him that. Brandt and Walsh were both scared of the blaster. Jehu didn't seem as if he'd even noticed it. But Pyra Quadde acted as though it weren't even there. She was either mad or…
The woman picked up her own blaster from the bureau under the stern window, keeping it pointed at the deck.
"I'll chill thee…" Flynn shrilled, leveling the Duo at her face.
"Not with an empty blaster, cully." She smiled. "Try it." She walked toward him, lifting her own, much larger pistol.
Ryan hissed between his teeth. That was it! She'd known all along there was no danger. The trigger snapped, the action of the blaster clicking, the noise thin and feeble. Flynn tried again. And again.
"Open thy mouth, cully," Quadde ordered, standing right against the quivering man. "Open it now."
The cut-down twin muzzle of the scattergun pressed hard into Ryan's back, keeping him very still.
Flynn turned his eyes to Ryan, tears gathering in the swollen corners, trickling down his stubbled cheeks. The useless, empty blaster was still in his hand.
"I'm sorry, Johnny. Real sorry. Thanks for trying."
"Yeah," the captain said, ramming the short barrel of the handgun between Flynn's toothless gums, making him gag. "Yeah, thanks from me, too. Been meaning to rid the ship of thee for some time, cully. And this'll give me a special taste for the main course of my meal, will it not?"
"SHE'S THERE," came the word, carried in whispers along the deck of the Phoenix.
J.B. had relayed his orders to Deacon and his red-sweatered crew.
"Our fight, not yours. Lay alongside and hold there. That's all. We'll go in. We want the woman and to free our friends. But I guess it'll mean breaking a few heads. If all goes well, she'll be ours within fifteen minutes." He turned to Deacon. "Got your word not to cut free and run?"
"Thou hast my word."
"Then let's do it. Jak. You and Krysty with me to the stern. The back. Find the woman. Watch out for Donfil and Ryan. Lori and Doc, take the front. Chill anyone who even looks like resisting. Let's get to it now."
Deacon had persuaded him not to try to hole the Salvation, pointing out there was little point in scuttling such a valuable vessel.
Now, the five champions stole out onto the damp deck, blasters cocked and ready, seeing for the first time the spectral masts of their prey, only feet away from them.
In the enveloping stillness they all heard the sudden, unmistakable noise of a blaster, the explosion oddly muffled.
Chapter Thirty
A LARGE CHUNK OF BONE was raised from the crown of Johnny Flynn's skull, as a gentleman would lift his hat to a lady.
A brief eruption of blood and brains came puffing out through the crack, leaking down across the forehead and the pale skin of the seaman's face. The force of the .44 slug punched Flynn's head against the paneling with a solid thumping noise. The actual sound of the Astra firing was muffled by the barrel's being jammed inside the wretch's open mouth. But it was still sufficiently loud to be heard throughout the length of the ship.
Pyra Quadde held Johnny upright, gripped by the throat, as his heels drummed against the cabin door. The Duo dropped from the dead man's fingers, rattling on the floor. Smiling broadly, she removed the pistol from Flynn's mouth, tugging it from where he'd clamped his jaws on it in a dying spasm of pain and shock.
As she released him, the corpse clattered to the deck, twitching. She pushed at it with her foot, her smile now directed at Ryan.
"We'll have this removed and tossed over the side, I think. Unless we leave it here to spice our pleasure. What thinkest thou, Outlander Cawdor?"
Ryan thought that the pressure of the shotgun had eased a little. But still not enough for him to make the play that his life would totally depend on.
The Salvation shuddered gently, as if some great undersea creature had scraped itself beneath her keel. The captain turned immediately, sensitive to every shift and movement of her beloved vessel.
"What was… ?" she began.
Now they couid hear feet pattering on the deck—the heels of combat boots—shouts and the unmistakable chattering sound of an Uzi submachine gun.
The captain swung around to face Ryan, her ornate finery rustling. Her heavy features were convulsed with an almost insensate anger, and a worm of spittle inched down her chin. "By all the gods!" she spit. "Thou bastard… bastard! We are done!"
Walsh was heading for the door, but his boots slipped in the spreading puddle of Johnny Flynn's blood, sending him careening sideways. He clutched at the arm of Brandt, who held the scattergun, finger on the slim trigger.
The jolting shock was all that it took. The sawed-off blaster boomed, both barrels firing in a single convulsive explosion.
Brandt had been half turning, eager to get out of the confines of the cabin and onto the deck. Walsh had been less than a foot away from him. At that range, the double shock of the 10-gauge lifted him clear off his feet and threw him across the cabin, where he knocked into Quadde, sending her tumbling backward. Her pistol rattled into the corner beneath the long stern window. The second mate thrashed on the floor, his blood and guts adding to Flynn's. The entrance hole in Walsh's stomach was smaller than the fist of a woman, but the buckshot had ripped him apart, the exit wound large enough to hold an iron bucket. Fragments of splintered bone were embedded in the far wall, along with the clotted pellets of distorted lead.
Brandt staggered, holding the empty, smoking blaster, his face slack with shock. Jehu had fallen to his knees in the slippery scarlet lake, still gripping the belaying pin. Ryan could see no sign of Walsh's battered Glock. The floor was so deep in blood and intestines that the blaster could have fallen anywhere.
Above his head, he could hear yelling and more blasters going off. He hadn't the least doubt that a rescue party had emerged from out of the fog.
Pyra Quadde was struggling to rise, reaching for her gun. Brandt was between Ryan and the door, and Jehu was weeping loudly, seemingly out of it.
Ryan tried for the razor with his left hand, missing at first grab. Brandt punched him across the top of the leg, numbing the muscle, then grappled with him. Ryan's right hand, flat on the cluttered tabletop, brushed against the hypodermic syringe. He grabbed it in desperation, driving it without a moment's hesitation into the man's right eye.
Brandt screamed and let go of him, putting a hand to his own blinded eye. It gave Ryan the chance to pick up the open razor and slash it against the sailor's exposed throat.
A crimson mouth gaped open, revealing the whiteness of bone in its maw. Brandt tried to scream, choking in his own frothing blood. He fell away from Ryan, onto the bed, patterning the pale sheets with gouts of arterial red.
"Basssstard!" the woman hissed, still unable to get up, her dress now sodden with blood. For a moment her fingertips had the butt of the Astra, then it slithered away from her.
Without a way of getting his hands on another weapon, Ryan decided to join his friends on deck.
Jehu had other ideas.
"Outlanders must all perish!" he screeched, shuffling on his knees to block off Ryan's exit.
"Fireblast!" Ryan swore, still holding the blood-slick razor in his right hand,
aware that the captain might snatch up her fallen blaster at any moment.
"Repent, repent," the madman moaned, his little round mouth working and twitching, his hands clawing toward the outlander.
"Get out of the bastard way!" Ryan snarled, raising the honed steel.
"Nay, for I know the world, and the world…"
In midsentence Jehu grabbed suddenly at the razor, nearly catching Ryan off guard. The crazie's fingers actually grasped the single-edged steel. Ryan, holding the handle, jerked it back with even greater violence.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Pyra Quadde finally grasp her blaster, fumbling with hands made slippery by blood.
Jehu screamed like a scalded baby, as the singing edge of the razor was drawn through his palm, across the inside of the knuckles. Ryan felt the steel grate against bone and yet more blood flowed from the horrendous cuts.
Now Ryan was at the door, pulling at the handle, his own fingers slick with hot crimson, knowing that he could expect a .44 round between the shoulders at any second.
Jehu was dancing, boots slopping on the deck, trying to hold his cut hand to his chest, yet wanting to attack Ryan at the same time.
"Get out the poxing way!" Captain Quadde shouted from behind the iron bed.
"Hurt me, he has, he's hurt me!" Jehu moaned.
At last, after an eternity of sluggish seconds, the handle turned and Ryan faced the corridor and the companionway that led to the deck. He caught the sound of Doc Tanner's voice, bellowing a warning to someone, which was followed by the echoing boom of the big Le Mat pistol.
He felt someone clawing at him from behind, and heard the plaintive shrilling voice of Jehu in his ear. Nails tore at his jacket, holding him helpless in the doorway. Ryan tried to reach around with the razor and cut at the sailor's face, but the constricting space trapped him.
"Let me go!" he raged.
The flat bang of the short-muzzle .44 interrupted him, and he felt Jehu thrust hard against him, propel him into the corridor. The door slammed shut behind them.
"Done me," the seaman gasped in a small, frail voice, slipping to his knees like a lad at his first communion, hands clasped in front of him. Blood dripped steadily from his hands and mouth. As he toppled at Ryan's feet, the dark hole in the back of Jehu's sweater showed where Pyra Quadde's bullet had hit.
There was an eerie screech of frustrated rage from behind the cabin door. Ryan heard three more shots as he dodged toward the steps, and three chunks of white, splintered oak flew across the passage.
He glanced to the rear, saw the absurdly tiny head of Jehu roll. "Done me, she has. Oh, dear, dear."
It wasn't a time to hesitate. Ryan leaped up to the top of the steps, seeing from the open hatch that the mist wasn't quite as thick. Alongside the Salvation— coming up on her port quarter—was another tall-masted sailing vessel, with cables already hooked to the rigging of the Salvation. Several men, faces only blurs in the dim light, lined the bulwarks of the stranger, though none of them seemed to be taking any part in the fight. A tall, grizzled man stood on the other ship's quarterdeck, watching the scenes on board the Salvation.
Ryan cautiously stuck his head above the coaming, scanning the deck, seeing that the battle—such as it was—seemed nearly over. The evidence of a short and bitter firefight was all around him.
He counted nine bodies—two still moving—crumpled in the coiling mist. As he looked on, he saw a slim boy with a mane of stark-white hair, bound from left to right, holding a gun that looked too big for him.
"Jak!"
"Ryan?"
"Here."
The teenager appeared alongside the hatch, kneeling on the deck. There was a bruise on the boy's left cheek, and his camouflage jacket was torn across the shoulders. But he was grinning like a hunting wolf, eyes glowing like lasered rubies.
"You well?"
Ryan nodded. "You all here? Krysty? Nobody been hurt?"
"Far's I know. Donfil's up front. J.B. an' Lori chilled his sec guards."
"Got my blasters with you?"
"On Phoenix."
"What?"
Jak gestured with his thumb to the whaling ship that was moored alongside them. "That's Phoenix there. Stole it. Captain's okay. Said he'd help if we chilled bitch-woman."
J.B. spotted them and darted along the deck. His mini-Uzi was in his right hand, and the fedora was pushed to the back of his head. His glasses were rimmed with tiny beads of condensation.
He nodded to Ryan. There wasn't any need for anything more. They'd known each other too long for wasted words.
"Ship's taken," he said. "None of us hurt. Some chilled. Rest gone into the room up the bow there. Like living quarters."
"Fo'c'sle," said Ryan.
"How's that?"
"It's called the fo'c'sle."
"Sure. That's where they are. Can't get out under our feet, can they?"
Ryan shook his head. "No. There's no way out. Once we get everything safe we can offer them terms. I'm sure they'll accept once they know we got the queen bee of the bastard hive."
"Where is she?" Jak asked.
Ryan jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Down there with an Astra .44 and a lot of real bad temper."
"Best we move some," J.B. suggested.
They crept quickly through the fog, just a few yards, to take shelter behind the bulk of the mizzenmast, close to the stern.
Krysty's figure loomed out of the mist, holding Ryan's SIG-Sauer P-226, her long red hair cascading behind her like a torrent of purest fire.
"Hi, lover," she said, showing no surprise at finding Ryan crouched behind the mast. "Want your own blaster?"
"Yeah. Be good to have something. I feel kind of undressed."
"We got everything on the Phoenix. Donfil's stuff, too."
He leaned across and kissed her quickly and gently on the cheek, feeling how cold her skin was. "Good to see you, lover," he whispered.
"You, too," she replied with a hint of a catch in her voice.
"Who's minding the store up front?"
"Lori. She's got your Heckler & Koch. Blown away four of the crew with it already. Don't think they'll try and rush her."
"Seen a short guy? Fluffy white hair and a charming smile? Quiet-spoken. Looks like everyone's favorite uncle?"
"Yeah," Jak said. "I seen him, Ryan. Was going blast him. Patted me on head and wished luck. Went down hatch."
"That's Cyrus Ogg. First mate. After the woman, he's the one we want. Watch for him."
The Salvation was quiet now, only the gentle lapping of the sea under her stem breaking the fog-muffled stillness. Still snug behind the mizzen, the reunited friends heard boots on the deck and the creaking of knee joints.
"Upon my soul, Ryan, my dear chum. I am so delighted once again to renew our acquaintance."
They shook hands. Doc had his Le Mat strapped to his belt, and he carried his sword stick in his right fist.
"These rogues have taken to their lair. Dear Lori guards them and will vent her spleen upon any that attempts escape." Adding, a little ruefully, "And it must be said, my dear fellow, that the child has been exhibiting a touch more spleen toward my good self than is tolerable. But let that pass."
"Need a hand?" shouted the white-haired man from the quarterdeck of the other ship. "We can make out little through this murk."
"We have the Salvation, Captain!" Krysty answered. "A few minutes more and we can take the rest of the crew prisoner. But they aren't a threat anymore."
"What of Captain Pyra Quadde? Where be she?"
"In her cabin," Ryan replied, "awash with blood and corpses."
"Is she injured? Or chilled? Or held close as a prisoner?"
The note of caution was unmistakable. It reminded Ryan of the time the Trader had wiped out a small ville of cutthroats in a wooded valley near the wide Mississippi. Their leader had been a giant, more than eight feet tall, and blind in one eye. He'd so terrified the locals that they wouldn't even come and look at his dead body. In the e
nd they'd used some of their valuable gas from the store wag and burned the baron's massive corpse.
It was the same with Pyra Quadde.
The same terror that would only end when she, too, was safely chilled.
Chapter Thirty-One
WHEN THEY SEARCHED the Salvation they discovered that one of the whaleboats was missing. Cyrus Ogg was no longer on board the ship. Nor was Pyra Quadde.
"Slipped the cable and away in the fog," Deacon concluded. "Be damned to it! There's scant hope of picking her up by the dawn. The mist clears but slowly."
"Which way will she have gone?" Ryan asked. "To shore?"
"Aye."
"Can the two of them handle the boat on their own?" Donfil asked.
"On such a sea!" Deacon laughed bitterly. "My eight-year-old nephew and his pet rabbit could scull to the shore in such a calm."
"Can we man the other boats and go after her? We've got enough men, surely?" Krysty suggested.
"No, mistress," Deacon said. "Pyra Quadde's cunning as a butter keg of polecats. She'll wriggle, twist and hide and, save us all, come grinning back to Claggartville."
"Are we near the… old redoubt?" J.B. asked cautiously.
"The fortress? Aye. By true reckoning we lie off that lee shore, no more than a couple of miles. If that."
"To row in that far? She could land safely, could she?"
"Neither she nor Cyrus were wounded? No? Then by now they are probably safe and snug. Beached the boat and beginning to strike inland for the old coast blacktop. She could be home before us and have her reception waiting. We can have little hope of the wind rising 'ere noon on the morrow."
Ryan sucked at a back tooth. "I guess your helping us won't make the slut love you. Mebbe we should come back to the ville with you and face her down?"
Deacon sighed. "Bad business. I dearly wish that ye had not chosen the Phoenix as the agent of your relief."
"Price you pay for being the Good Samaritan, Captain," Doc observed.
"I recall nothing in the Good Book, Doctor, about the Good Samaritan finding his help enforced with a large-bore blaster pressed to his temples."
"Ah, yes. Point taken, Captain," the old man muttered.