Staying alongside the rumbling wag so they could have a good view of what was ahead, Ryan and the companions easily kept pace with the lumbering vehicle.
“Stirling, that word Porter used before,” Ryan called, shifting his backpack to a new position. “I never heard it before. What is a ‘rist’?”
“Eh?” Stirling seemed surprised by the question. “Well, it means outlander.” Even while talking, his eyes moved on a regular sweep back and forth among the predark buildings, endlessly searching for enemies. “It is an old word, from before skydark.”
“Rist,” Doc said, mulling it over as he started to clean the LeMat. Could the root of the word possibly be tourist? When skydark hit, the people of Tucson would have banded together, family with family, the outlanders would have been the folks without kin, those just visiting the town. The tourists. Now it was a derogatory word for stranger.
“Tourist. So much for the legend of Southern hospitality,” Doc murmured, packing each chamber in the firing cylinder individually.
“This is the west, not the south,” Mildred shot back, pulling out a handkerchief to mop the sweat off her neck. “Besides, who could possibly be called a tourist anymore?”
After a few minutes Doc closed the cylinder with a solid click and holstered the blaster. “Indeed, madam, I stand corrected. We are all outlanders now, strangers in a strange land.”
“Got that right,” J.B. added, taking out a butane lighter. He applied the flame to the end of the cigar stub in his mouth, puffing it cherry-red, and exhaled a long rich stream.
“Got another of those?” a sec man asked hopefully, sniffing at the pungent fumes. “I’ll trade ya fair for it.”
“Sorry, last one,” J.B. said, pulling out the cigar. Then he caught Mildred trying to hide her usual disapproving expression. The Armorer chuckled. Aw, what the hell.
“Want this one?” J.B. asked, holding out the smoldering stub.
“Thanks!” The sec man grinned and took the stub to start puffing away contentedly. “Nuke me, it’s been a long time since I tasted tobacco. What do you want in trade? I got a good knife and some honeycomb.”
“The’ comb will do fine.”
“Deal!” And the exchange was made.
As the group proceed through the sandy city, the Metro took a slow turn around a corner and the sec men on top cut loose with a flurry of arrows at the sky. They were notching replacement arrows when a large bird fell to the ground in a feathery thump.
A young sec man darted forward to grab the chilled bird and scurry back to the wag. The older men complimented the speed of the teenager as the side door of the wag hissed open and he climbed inside with the prize. The door promptly slammed shut in his wake.
“Not very trusting,” Krysty stated, pausing to take a sip from her canteen.
Keeping his voice casual, Ryan asked, “Would you be, with outlanders armed like us around?”
Capping the water container, the redhead took a minute before smiling. “No,” she admitted honestly. “Not really.”
Angling around two more corners, Gill shifted gears until the wag reached a section of street that was relatively clear of sand. The potholes in the asphalt were poorly patched in some spots, but much better in others, which seemed to indicate a learning process. The locals were doing repairs on the ruined city. This was something the companions had never encountered before in all of their travels. Just who was the baron here?
Reaching relatively smooth pavement, the wag picked up speed, while Stirling and the sec men began to look noticeably less anxious.
“We’re close to their ville,” Ryan stated.
“But they’re not heading into the desert,” J.B. said, shifting the Uzi slung on his shoulder.
Removing a spare clip from his jacket pocket, Ryan then worked the bolt to eject the partially spent rotary clip, then inserted the fresh 5-shot cluster. Satisfied for the moment, Ryan glanced at the ruined downtown skyscraper, trying to guess their location from the sloped angle of the building. “We seem to be going deeper into Tucson,” he decided.
“Ville inside ruins,” Jak said with a frown, stepping around a fresh pothole full of prickly cactus plants.
“Never did like those,” Krysty added, gently massaging her cheek to try to soothe her sore gums. From the mad brother and sister of Nova ville to the redheaded monster in that nameless town they had nicknamed Zero City, villes inside ruins had always been trouble for the companions. When civilization fell, everybody smart fled the coming food riots. Only feebs and crazies stayed behind, many of them turning into cannies. Gaia, was this why they were being greeted so warmly? They were being led to the cooking pot?
Surreptitiously, the woman slipped a hand into her pants’ pocket and checked the gren. If worse came to worst, she’d take a lot of cannies with her before they tasted meat.
“There!” a sec man cried, pointing in the weeds.
Going into a crouch, Stirling spun and fired his blaster at a dark recess under a loose pile of broken bricks. A high-pitched squeal rang out and a tan-colored rabbit bolted from the opening and raced away. Starting to reload, an angry Stirling cursed at the miss, and several of the sec men risked a brief smile behind his back.
“Damn wind must have taken my shot,” the sec chief growled to nobody in particular.
The Metro turned at the next corner, and the companions now saw only a vast open space that stretched for a good half mile. The concrete paths of ancient sidewalks were still in place, but the buildings that had been inside those cracked borders were gone, the smooth ground evenly packed with rubble and loose sand.
This is a shatter zone, Ryan realized. An open field with no place for attackers to hide. There had to have been some rough fighting here once for the locals to do all of this work.
In the midst of the wide expanse stood a formidable wall, the imposing barrier composed of everything imaginable: concrete sidewalks slabs, marble cornerstones, bricks, cinder blocks and rusty steel beams. The debris of a dozen buildings had been compiled to erect a massive fortification around a small section of the predark city.
Rising high behind the impressive shield were three old buildings, the glass in the windows just as milkywhite as those in the ruins, but a few of them flashed mirror-bright. Ryan made a mental note on the location of those. That had to be the home of the baron.
Even from this distance, the companions could see guards walking along the top of the wall, and more of them standing on the roofs of the three buildings. The sec men on the wall appeared to be carrying crossbows, but the ones on the buildings held longblasters. Mildred noted with some satisfaction that women were also walking the wall. She was starting to like this new baron more and more.
“This is why the stores were cleaned out,” J.B. said, breaking off a small piece of the honeycomb and tucking it inside a cheek like a chaw of tobacco. “A ville this size needs a lot of different stuff to keep working. Barracks, taverns, armory, stables…”
“Prisons, torture chambers, dungeons, slave pits,” Doc added darkly in a whisper.
Sucking on the sweet honey, J.B. had no response to that because it was often true. He passed around the remaining comb to the rest of the companions. Everybody took a sticky piece until there was nothing remaining.
As Gill steered the Metro across the broken field, Ryan noticed that there was a second wall set about fifty feet outside the main barrier. It was only about three feet tall, and made of some sort of upright concrete.
“I don’t understand this,” Mildred said out of the corner of her mouth. “Those are K-rails, a kind of portable divider that repair crews used on highways during construction. But why are there two walls?”
“It’s a buffer,” Ryan answered bluntly. “Set to break the charge of coldhearts on foot or to slow down a rushing war wag.”
Mildred pointed. “But they left a couple of gaps.”
“Chill zones,” J.B. answered, licking his sticky lips. “The sec men can concentrate all of their blasters on the gaps when the outlanders rush through and cut ’em down in droves.”
“A killing field,” Doc added, using a term he had once read in the newspaper about a battlefield tactic used in the Civil War. Then he frowned. A civil war. Bah, as if such a thing were possible!
“Good design,” Jak admitted, kicking a stone out of his way. “Be bitch to get out.”
“Think we’re walking into a trap?” Krysty asked in concern, casting a sideways glance at Stirling and his sec men. The men were smiling broadly now that they were within sight of the ville, their hushed voices rising in volume.
“Not think so,” Jak stated hesitantly. “But wrong before.”
Nodding at that, Krysty surreptitiously checked the antipers gren in her pants’ pocket. There was another in her bearskin coat, and more in the backpack, but this was the only gren she could reach with any speed. She wasn’t getting any feeling of danger from the sec men or the ville. But as Jak said, they had been wrong before.
Shifting the weps in their hands, the figures of the guards on the wall watched closely as the war wag and the companions slowly approached. Clearly visible behind the barrier were a couple of angled wooden beams festooned with ropes and baskets at the end.
“Catapults,” Mildred announced. “Just like the small one on top of the wag.”
“That’d be my guess,” J.B. agreed, wrinkling his nose to move his glasses. “And damn big ones, too. Right, Doc?”
“Good Lord, how should I know?” the scholar replied curtly. “I taught literature, not history. In my day, the Army of the Potomac used cannons, not siege engines.”
“What talk?” Jak said with a scowl. “Just ropes and weights, no engine.”
“A siege engine is another term for a catapult,” Mildred explained. “Actually, it means any large device used to forcibly enter a castle.”
The teen snorted at that. What a bunch of mutie drek. Predark whitecoats were crazy, and that was all there was to it.
The front gate of Two-Son ville proved to be a double set of metal panels that rose almost to the top of the masonry wall where a steel I-beam packed with adobe bricks bridged the sections. Rusty barbed wire covered the bridge and there were a few scraps of cloth, along with what appeared to be scalps, fluttering in the breeze from amid the endless coils—the grim remnants of an obviously failed attempt to gain entry.
A small door was set into the left side of the double panel, and for some unknown reason a band of corrugated iron ran along the bottom. The two sections of the gate itself were covered with multiple sheets of steel, iron, tin and aluminum, each riveted over the other in a crazy patchwork-quilt pattern.
Slowing their advance, Ryan and J.B. shared a glance. Those were obvious repairs done to the portal over the years. Two-Son ville had seen some hard battles in the past, and there was no way of knowing if the present inhabitants had been the defenders or the invaders.
Applying the squeaking brakes, Gill eased the wag to a rocking halt and sounded the horn four times, then three, then once.
That was clearly a code of some kind, Ryan realized, tensing slightly. But what was the message?
In response, a flap made of riveted steel fell forward to expose the car tires set along the bottom of the front gate. With ponderous creaking, the right side of the gate started to swing outward, the inflated tire crunching on the loose pebbles covering the ground as they rolled along.
The gate hit the wall with a resounding crash, and the Metro rolled on through, the sec men on top of the war wag having to duck behind the sandbags because the fit was so tight.
Instantly, Ryan could see why the gate needed a row of tires to move—it was over a yard thick and composed of three layers of telephone poles arranged in a staggered pattern, the first row set vertical, the second sideways and the third vertical again. The gate was well over a yard thick and had to have weighed a couple of tons.
“Need an implo gren to get through that,” J.B. whispered, forcing himself to appear calm. “I’m not sure that even a LAW rocket launcher or an Armbrust could dent this thing.”
Merely grunting in reply, Ryan flicked a finger and clicked the safety off the loaded Steyr.
Blowing dark fumes from the tailpipe, the battered Metro angled away from the gate and turned to go around a squat brick wall set directly in front of the entrance to the ville.
Damn, it’s another a firing wall, Ryan noted. A place for the ville defenders to stand behind and shoot over the top at anything that managed to get through the colossal gate. Whoever designed this place really knew how to fight, that was for sure.
Beyond the firing wall, Krysty could see crowds of civies freely moving about, talking, laughing and shouting. There were rows of houses, huts and hovels mixed together with taverns, a horse stable and a tanner. Past those rose the slanted-glass roofs of a greenhouse, the three predark buildings towering above everything.
Greenhouses! Krysty felt a shiver run down her back. The rest of the companions clearly shared her feelings on the matter.
“All right, get moving,” Stirling said, waving the sec men onward. “Clean up the Metro, and get her ready for another run tomorrow. I’m gonna intro our guests to the baron.”
“What about the prisoner?” Porter asked with a sneer, running dirty fingers through his greasy blond hair.
The sec chief made a face as if he had just bitten into an apple and found half a mutie worm inside. “Yeah, bring him, too,” Stirling ordered.
Prisoner? Ryan glanced at Mildred, who shrugged.
“At least it’s not us,” Krysty stated softly.
“So far,” Doc whispered ominously.
Walking through the gateway, Ryan noted the solid construction of the gate and wall. From this angle he could see that the second door was a fake. It was backed by the concrete bulk of the main wall and was totally immobile. The door was merely a decoration to trick invaders into wasting time and effort to gain entry through something that couldn’t be made to open.
“Okay, I’m impressed,” Mildred admitted.
“Wonder which first,” Jak added under his breath. “Smart stickies, or good wall?”
As the companions started around the firing wall, a shadow swept across them. They turned to see the gate closing. The locking mechanism was made of wrought iron, with only a few shiny steel parts. With a metallic clang, the exterior skirt was raised back into position to hide the tires, then was also locked into place.
“I love that sound,” Stirling said, exhaling. “Always feels good to be safe at home.”
“All right, drop those blasters,” a stern feminine voice commanded.
Two sec men rose from behind the firing wall, each bearing homie scatterguns. A fat woman armed with an old Browning Automatic Rifle joined them. Mildred knew the blaster well. It had been an antique in her day, but these days the clip-fed, bolt-action weapon was a deadly marvel of mil tech.
“Not going to happen,” Ryan said, keeping his hand relaxed on the stock of the Steyr. This whole thing didn’t feel like a jack. There was the distinct reek of stupidity about the fat woman. He’d stay sharp, but let this play out before spraying lead.
“That was an order, not a request, rist,” the corpulent sec woman snarled, working the bolt on her weapon. “Don’t you worry, sir, I have the prisoners under control.”
With that pronouncement, Stirling raised both eyebrows. “Prisoners? Did you say prisoners?” the sec chief bellowed, stepping in front of the companions. “Corporal, you’re either drunk on duty, or a nukesucking feeb!”
“Sir?” the female guard asked in confusion. The two sec men behind her began to lower their weps, clearly telling which way the wind was blowing on this situation. Each of the men looked as if they would rather be swimming naked in a lake of rad water than involved in this present conversation.
Striding to the firing wall, Stirling slapped the longblaster aside. “The prisoner has been taken to the Square, as per my orders,” he shouted into her face. “These people are guests of the baron! Honored guests, I might fragging add, under my fragging personal protection!”
“Sir?” she repeated.
His burned face grim, Stirling leaned closer. “Besides, do you truly think that I would willingly let armed prisoners into the ville? Do you?”
Breaking into a sweat, the pudgy sec woman hugged the wep to her ample chest and forced a smile. “Ah, well, sir, I… That is…you…”
“Shut up, before I take that Browning and stuff it where the sun don’t shine!” the sec chief roared, towering over the quaking guard. “These people,” he said, stressing the word, “saved the life of the baron’s son and are guests.”
“Guests?” she asked, as if never hearing the word before.
“That’s right! Now salute them in greeting, or I’ll have your tits on toast for my breakfast!”
“Sir, yes, sir!” she replied, standing stiffly at attention and jerking the longblaster to her shoulder. “Hail, honored guests to Two-Son!”
The companions gave no response, but eased their fingers off the triggers of their assorted weaponry. Fools were like shitters, every ville had at least one.
“Sorry about that,” Stirling apologized, hitching up his gunbelt. “The gate gang is always a bit twitchy. The stickies sometimes get inside, and they’re the first ones to get aced.”
“No prob,” Ryan growled, feeling the fury pound inside him like the pistons of an engine. He knew it was a bad move, but he had no choice. Ryan tossed the Steyr to J.B., who made the catch and slung the rifle over a shoulder with his scattergun. He had been expecting something like this from Ryan after the fat bitch had drawn a weapon on him.
“All right, fatty, you want to try that longblaster again?” Ryan said to the guard, a hand resting on the holstered SIG-Sauer.
“Sir?” she asked hesitantly, sweat forming on her brow.
“You heard me. Want to try to aim and fire that BAR before I draw this handcannon and blow your brains out the back of your nuking skull?”
Startled, the sec woman tightened her grip on her blaster. “Are you challenging me to a duel, One-eye?” she demanded in a cool voice, working the arming bolt.
“No, he is not! There will be no dueling in my ville,” a deep voice boomed in command. “Put down those blasters!”
Pivoting, Stirling lifted the hand off his gunbelt and snapped a salute at the approaching group of people. Turning, the three guards behind the firing wall went pale.
The blood still pounding in his temples, Ryan forced himself to ease a hand off the SIG-Sauer and appraise the newcomers. Yeah, this was the baron. No doubt about that.
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 size. 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.
“My lord, no one has ever survived that many strokes,” Stirling interjected. “Perhaps, we could—”
“You heard the ruling,” the baron said in a flat voice. “The same law is for all men. There are no exceptions. None! Not even for those of my bloodline.
“Such as it is,” the baron added softly in disgust.
Saying nothing, Mildred and Doc both looked sick at the dire pronouncement, but the rest of the companions accepted it without a qualm. For sec men, discipline was a hard fact of life. When Ryan and J.B. traveled with the Trader, they had both chilled people for cowardice or some other crime—theft, drunk on duty, or rape. The weakness of one guard could get everybody else chilled in their sleep. The sec men stood strong, or the ville fell. The equation for life was as simple as that.
“Proceed with the punishment at once,” the baron commanded, turning away. Then he added over a shoulder, “If…if my nephew lives, take him to the Citadel to recover. If not, inform my sister and burn the body outside the wall.”
“Uncle!” Davies cried out, struggling against his bonds. But the sec men holding him were much larger, and both knew that if the prisoner should escape, they would take his place on the whipping post.
On the roof of the three buildings, sec men stood with longblasters in their hands. The scene occurring below was none of their concern. They watched the walls and the sky. Clouds were gathering on the horizon and rain was imminent. Whether or not it was acid rain, could only be told when the first telltale whiff of sulfur was carried on the heralding wind.
The baron started toward the central building. “This way to your rooms,” he said, his pace neither quickening nor slowing.
Watching the one-armed man walk away, Ryan knew that the baron was trying to show he had no feelings on the matter, like any good ruler. The law was the law. Period. End of discussion. But O’Connor’s posture told the world how deep was his sorrow at the craven act of cowardice. The one-eyed man tried to imagine what would have been his reaction if his nephew had run away from a fight, but found the idea impossible to conjure. Nathan was a Cawdor, and would gladly die to protect his ville.
“Uncle, please…” Davies whispered plaintively, the words dying on the desert breeze.
“Tie him to the post,” Stirling ordered, going to the wooden stake and removing a coiled length of leather from a peg.
The two guards shoved the prisoner along and lashed his bound wrists securely to the iron rings. With his hands raised, Davies barely reached the ground, his boots resting on their toes.
Crossing to the whipping post, Doc pulled an empty leather ammo pouch from his pocket. “Bite hard on this,” he suggested to the prisoner. “It will stop you from screaming.”
Panic was wild in the sec man’s eyes, but Davies opened his mouth and accepted the gift.
“Be sure to count between the strokes,” Doc added softly. “Then tense before each one hits. It will make them hurt more, but do less damage. Be brave, and you will live.”
Starting to drip sweat, Davies grunted in reply.
Darkness swept across the ville as the setting sun moved behind some dark clouds, the shadows rich in wild hues. The civies on the Square started to leave, casting fearful glances at the rumbling sky.
“Sir, is that allowed?” a sec man asked frowning. “The outlander giving Davies—”
Flicking his wrist, the sec chief made the whip crack loudly on the ground. Dust puffed up from the hit.
“What outlander?” Stirling asked, coiling the smooth length. “Private, there is nobody here, but you two, me and the prisoner. Right?”
“Absolutely, sir,” the second guard said stiffly.
“Good.” Stirling tested the whip once more on the ground. “Okay, let’s get this started.”
Pulling knives, the two guards started to cut away the bound man’s shirt, exposing a back already covered with old, badly healed scars. Obviously, this wasn’t the man’s first taste of punishment.
“Let’s go,” Ryan said, turning to leave.
But Doc stayed near the prisoner, watching the preparations. His hand began to move toward the blaster on his hip.
“Now, Doc,” Ryan ordered in a tone he rarely used on a friend.
That jarred the Vermont scholar. Almost reluctantly, Doc let go of the LeMat and rejoined the others. “Barbaric,” he muttered under his breath.
“And not necessary,” J.B. added, starting across the darkening Square. “Davies should have been quietly aced in the ruins. A public beating like this only makes the civies nervous.”
“Good God, sir, is that all torture means to you?”
“This isn’t torture, Doc, but punishment,” Ryan replied without any emotion. “Besides, I really don’t give a flying fuck what they do to a bastard coward. A sec man who runs is worse than any invading cold-heart.”
Just then the crack of a whip split the air, closely followed by the muffled grunt of pain.
“I took sixty once,” Doc said in a whisper, a hand going to touch his ribs. “Passed out at that point, and they let me be. Even Cort Strasser had a touch of mercy.”
“Or mebbe it wasn’t any fun for him without a scream,” J.B. commented pragmatically.
Solemnly, Doc said nothing, but nodded at the possibility. That was a part of his life the time traveler would rather forget entirely.
“At least we can be sure there’s no woodchipper,” Mildred said with a sigh. “If they didn’t feed the idiot into a grinder for this transgression, then we’re safe enough.”
“Guess so,” Krysty added with a scowl. “But it’s a hell of a way to find out.”
The sound of leather on flesh came again, but there was no noise this time from Davies.
As the companions entered the front doors of the middle building, lightning flashed in the distance. Thunder boomed a few seconds later. There could be no doubt that a storm was brewing in the north and that it would arrive very soon.