“Please allow me to give you a small gift.”

The baron’s wife smiled and slid a worn plastic bracelet off her wrist.

“Thank you, my lady,” Mildred replied with a forced grin, trying to appease the woman. In her time, the garish trinket had been the kind of thing you could buy from a vending machine for a quarter. Nowadays, it was the jewelry of the high and mighty.

However, as the physician reached out to accept the bracelet, the woman roughly grabbed her hand and pulled Mildred closer, staring intently at her face. Then she nodded in grim satisfaction.

“Yes, I thought so!” she shouted in triumph. “Look there—metal! The outlander bitch has steel in her mouth!”

Jerking free from the grip, Mildred stared at the woman as if she was insane. Then the truth of the matter hit her like an express train. Her fillings! Mildred had completely forgotten about the silver fillings in her back molars!

“Close the gate! Protect the baron!” Donovan roared.

But as fast as the sec chief was, Ryan matched his speed, whipping out the SIG-Sauer in a blur of motion, and the two men fired simultaneously at point-blank range.

Time Castaways

Death Lands®

James Axler

www.mirabooks.co.uk

I come to do the deed that must be done—Nor thou, nor sheltering angels, could prevent me.

—C. R. Maturin, 1780–1824

THE DEATHLANDS SAGA

This world is their legacy, a world born in the violent nuclear spasm of 2001 that was the bitter outcome of a struggle for global dominance.

There is no real escape from this shockscape where life always hangs in the balance, vulnerable to newly demonic nature, barbarism, lawlessness.

But they are the warrior survivalists, and they endure—in the way of the lion, the hawk and the tiger, true to nature’s heart despite its ruination.

Ryan Cawdor: The privileged son of an East Coast baron. Acquainted with betrayal from a tender age, he is a master of the hard realities.

Krysty Wroth: Harmony ville’s own Titian-haired beauty, a woman with the strength of tempered steel. Her premonitions and Gaia powers have been fostered by her Mother Sonja.

J. B. Dix, the Armorer: Weapons master and Ryan’s close ally, he, too, honed his skills traversing the Deathlands with the legendary Trader.

Doctor Theophilus Tanner: Torn from his family and a gentler life in 1896, Doc has been thrown into a future he couldn’t have imagined.

Dr. Mildred Wyeth: Her father was killed by the Ku Klux Klan, but her fate is not much lighter. Restored from predark cryogenic suspension, she brings twentieth-century healing skills to a nightmare.

Jak Lauren: A true child of the wastelands, reared on adversity, loss and danger, the albino teenager is a fierce fighter and loyal friend.

Dean Cawdor: Ryan’s young son by Sharona accepts the only world he knows, and yet he is the seedling bearing the promise of tomorrow.

In a world where all was lost, they are humanity’s last hope….

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Epilogue

Prologue

The creature exploded out of the laurel bushes and charged across the dirt road, its four arms raised for a fast chill, the black talons dripping green venom.

“Ambush!” sec chief Charles Donovan cried, flicking off the safety on his massive crossbow. “Gene and Rosemary, stay with the cart! Everybody else, form a firing line!”

As the team of horses whinnied in fear, the sec man in the buckboard wagon holding the reins tried to control the animals while his partner lifted a balanced pair of throwing axes into view. Meanwhile the rest of the platoon brandished their crossbows and formed a defensive line between the charging monster and the imperial treasure cart. Assuming a marksman stance, Donovan aimed his heavy crossbow and fired. A split second later the other sec men did the same with their smaller version, unleashing a maelstrom of wooden shafts.

Bristling with arrows, the creature recoiled from the staggering impacts, but the heavy wooden slats covering the giant man were not penetrated. Bellowing loudly, the armored coldheart shook his two arms in rage, the fake arms suspended underneath them duplicating the motion precisely. Then a second armored man came out of the bushes, closely followed by two more.

“Keep firing!” Donovan bellowed, reaching over a shoulder to pull a stone quarrel from the quiver on his back.

At the sight of the additional coldhearts, the Anchor ville sec men needed no prompting to work the levers on their complex crossbows, the wooden machinery automatically drawing back the bow string and feeding another half-size arrow into the firing notch from the box magazine mounted on top. They fired in unison, and one of the attackers dropped to a knee, blood pouring from a small gap between his leg and belly.

Stepping protectively in front of their wounded brother, the other coldhearts coughed inside their misshapen headmasks, and something flashed across the dirt road too fast to see clearly.

Dropping their weapons, two of the sec men staggered backward. Gurgling horribly, they raked fingernails along their throats, desperately clawing at the tiny feathered darts buried in their skin. Already their flesh was turning a bilious green, and flecks of foam began to appear on their deathly pale lips.

Pausing for only a moment, Donovan mercifully shot an arrow through the head of the nearest sec man, while the rest of the platoon did the same for the second man. There was no antidote for kraken poison.

Reloading quickly, the sec men fired again, wounding another of what they called Hillies. Retreating slightly, the coldhearts coughed again, but ready this time, the sec men managed to dodge the incoming darts successfully. However, that was when Donovan suddenly noticed a dozen figures moving among the trees edging the road. Shitfire, he thought, the rad-suckers had to have brought along the whole tribe for this attack! The grim man had no idea how the bastards knew about the cargo in the treasure wag, but there was no way he was going to let his baron’s prize fall into the dirty hands of these stinking inbreed throwbacks.

Tossing aside his loaded crossbow, Donovan clawed open the sealed holster at his side and hauled a predark blaster into view. Lovingly polished every day, the revolver shone rainbow bright with the reflected lights of the aurora borealis filling the sky.

“Akhmed, Hannigan, watch the trees,” Donovan shouted, sliding a single brass round into the blaster and closing the cylinder with a jerk of his wrist. “Everybody else, flanking positions.”

Launching another volley, the sec men hastily reloaded and quickly formed a wing formation behind their chief. Coughing out more darts, the Hillies bellowed angrily, then charged, concentrating on a young sec man struggling to clear an arrow jammed in the loading mechanism of his crossbow.

Hastily taking aim, Donovan fired, and a Hilly stopped running, blood pouring from the mouth of his carved wooden mask. But even as the dying coldheart sank to his knees, the rest of the Hillies converged on the teenager just as the jam came free. The sec man raised his weapon and fired, but the half-arrow only dully thudded into the thick chest armor of the lead coldheart. Then the others struck, the bear talons on their four arms raking the youth, slicing him open and ripping out bloody gobbets of flesh.

Horribly shrieking, the sec man went backward, his uniform slashed apart and soaked with blood. Feebly, the youth clutched the ruin of his face, an eyeball dangling between his bloody fingers on the end of some white ganglia, then his belly opened wide and ropy intestines slithered out, steaming from the cold air as they fell onto the cold ground.

Without hesitation, the sec men aced their friend, then savagely hammered the hated mountain men with flight after flight of half-arrows, focusing on the narrow opening of the mouth in their grotesque masks. Waving their double set of arms as a distraction did nothing this time, and two of the Hillies slowed, red fluids trickling out of their wooden collars.

Unexpectedly, a boomerang flashed over the sec men to brutally hit the mask of an undamaged Hilly. The deadly ’rang did no damage to the stout oak armor, but the attack distracted the coldhearts for a moment, just enough time for Donovan to finish unearthing a second bullet.

Hastily firing, the sec chief carefully took out the knee of a Hilly, gore and splinters spraying into the trees. In a strangled cry, the coldheart feebly grabbed the wounded leg with his gigantic wooden gloves, trying to staunch the flow of life. However, designed to be frightening, the gloves were useless for the simple task and the blood continued to flow unchecked.

At the sight, the lead Hilly paused for a long moment, arrows hitting his armor in a steady patter. But he yanked something from around his waist and threw it down hard. Instantly there was an explosion of dark smoke, the roiling cloud rapidly swelling to fill the road for yards.

Quickly backing away from the mysterious fumes, the Anchor sec men shot half-arrows blindly into the smoke, but there were no answering thunks of a hit. Only the sound of heavy footsteps heading away, down the roadway toward the nearby shore.

With a start, Donovan realized that the mountain men had to be trying to reach a boat, which could only mean reinforcements, more weapons or, worse, escape. Nuke that drek! the sec chief mentally snarled. Nobody aced one of his sec men and lived to tell the fragging tale.

Donovan pulled in a deep breath and charged into the fumes, braced for a wave of searing pain. But nothing occurred, and when he finally had to breathe, there was only a sweet smell of flowers and kelp. Shitfire, it was only smoke, not poison.

“Stay with the wag,” the chief sec man bellowed, redoubling his speed into the murky cloud. “These gleebs are mine!”

“But, sir…” a sec woman began, taking a step forward.

“This could be a diversion,” Donovan shouted, pulling out an obsidian ax. “Stay with the wag.”

Just then something flew through the smoke, leaving spiraling contrails behind. So they had more darts, eh? Donovan grimaced, and tightened his grip on the ax and blaster.

Shouting a rally cry, the sec chief dodged to the side, and, as expected, more darts flashed by, missing him by only a few inches. Pausing to listen for their footsteps, Donovan heard only the rustle of the leaves in the trees, then there came the soft sound of waves cresting on the beach. Zigzagging through the smoke, the sec chief ran as fast as he could and as the fumes began to thin, there were the Hillies, both brandishing axes and coming his way. Another damn trap.

Diving forward, the man rolled under the swing of the double blades and came up standing behind the coldhearts. Shoving his blaster against the neck of the closest one, he fired, and the wooden helmet was blown off the man’s head, his face exploding outward in a horrible geyser of teeth and eyes.

As the last Hilly spun around, Donovan saw that it was their leader, the elaborate designs on the armor proclaiming his exalted rank. The two men locked gazes for a full heartbeat, each testing for any sign of fear, then they swung their war axes in unison. The heavy obsidian blades met in a strident crash and each ax shattered, razor-sharp shards of green volcanic glass flying everywhere.

Cursing vehemently, Donovan backed away, wiping at his stinging eyes, while the Hilly chuckled and pulled out a granite knife, the feathered edge gleaming bright as steel.

Swinging up his blaster, Donovan expertly met the thrust and stone clanged off metal, the sound loud in the thinning smoke.

“Shoulda stayed with your ville boys,” the coldheart said, a narrow slit displaying rows of rotten teeth.

Caught by surprise, Donovan almost flinched from the wave of fetid breath. It was worse than a burning dung pit. But the sec chief forced himself to stay close, and slam the wooden shaft of the broken ax against the side of the Hilly’s head. The wooden helmet thumped and shifted slightly, covering the coldheart’s eyes.

Snarling curses, the Hilly pulled back, one gloved hand fumbling with his helmet while the other waved the granite blade around wildly.

Accidentally the blade scored a blood slash across Donovan’s chest, and he cried out in pain. Then he changed targets and with his ax handle started battering at the arm holding the blade. Spitting in rage, the Hilly clawed for a lumpy globe hanging from around his waist, but Donovan smacked the hand aside and went on hammering the wooden glove. Splinters came free and the coldheart tried to shift the blade to his other glove, but Donovan managed to smack it away and the blade went spinning into the forest and disappeared among the bushes. The Hilly dropped his gloves and grabbed the sec chief by the throat.

Fighting to draw a breath, Donovan slammed his fists into the belly of the coldheart, but only managed to skin his knuckles against the battered armor. Thrusting upward, he then attempted to jam his fingers into an eye, but the slits were too narrow.

Chuckling, the Hilly tightened his hold, his thumbs crushing deep into the neck of the struggling man. “Time to die, ville boy,” the coldheart whispered.

Refusing to surrender, Donovan kept punching away even as his lungs began to ache then burn with their need for air. His heart was pounding in his chest and there was a growing ringing in his ears. Suddenly the world began to blur then spin out of control, black spots swimming in his sight, when the Hilly jerked and bizarrely released his grip.

Gasping for air, Donovan backed away and saw that an arrow was embedded in the Hilly’s helmet, blood trickling along the shaft.

Massaging his sore throat, Donovan looked up just as the treasure wag rolled into view out of the smoke, every sec man steadily firing flight after flight of half-arrows at the Hilly, the sec woman, Rosemary, triggering Donovan’s big crossbow.

Snarling in rage, the Hilly reached for a smoke bomb on his belt, and Rosemary fired, the heavy shaft pinning his bare hand to the wooden armor. The coldheart shrieked at the pain, then half-arrows slammed into his other hand, slicing off fingers.

Gibbering from the agony, the coldheart attempted to flee, clearly planning to simply throw himself off the cliff to escape his tormentors. But as he turned, a bald sec man threw a bolo. The stones tied to lengths of stout rawhide neatly spun across the intervening space and wrapped themselves tightly around the Hilly’s armored legs, trapping him in place.

Stopping the treasure wag, the sec men poured onto the road and swarmed the helpless coldheart, concentrating their half-arrows for the narrow eye slits in the wooden mask. The terrified mountain man raised his wounded arm as protection, and a flurry of half-arrows nailed it permanently in place.

“Pax! Pax!” the Hilly cried. “I surrender!”

“Tough,” Donovan croaked in a barely recognizable voice. He held out an empty hand, and somebody slapped an ax into his palm.

Tightening a fist around the fish-hide grip, the sec chief swung the weapon with all of his might and buried the polished granite blade deep into the back of the weeping coldheart. Then shouting curses, Donovan began hacking at the Hilly as if chopping down a tree. Chips flew off under the brutal impacts of the granite blade, then leather padding came into view and finally human skin….

When he was finished, Donovan wiped the cracked blade clean on his pants and returned the borrowed weapon to the bald sec man.

“Thanks,” Donovan whispered.

“Always got your back,” Hannigan said proudly, slinging the weapon over a shoulder. “Now we go after those others in the forest?”

In a rush of anger Donovan tried to speak, but could only cough for a few minutes. Akhmed passed over a gourd, and the sec chief pulled out the cork to pour the contents down his aching throat. The shine burned like fire, then the tenderness eased and he took his first deep breath for what seemed like an eternity.

“No,” the sec chief said, speaking almost normally. “There could be more tricks, more traps. We’re heading for home, and not stopping for anything until we have a wall around our asses again. Savvy?”

“No need to rush, Chief,” Gene said, both hands on the reins controlling the horses. “Whatever those things were in the forest, they skedaddled the minute that Hilly started eating dirt.”

“Hillies,” Rosemary snorted in contempt, resting a throwing ax on a shoulder. In spite of wearing the largest size of body armor available, her ample breasts were simply much too big, and deliciously muffined over the top. Every man privately enjoyed the delightful sight, but the sec woman’s dire expertise with a throwing ax kept them all respectful and courteous even when far away from the ville on patrol. “Think they knew what we’re carrying?” The woman glanced into the cart. Set among their piles of supplies, barrels of water and such was a wooden strongbox bolted to the floorboards. Without explosives, it would take a day to chop into the box, and the only way to steal it was to take the whole cart. This was the best the ville had, but what it contained was more valuable than black powder.

Making a face, Hannigan grunted. “Shitfire, if they knew what was in that box, the bastards would have sent a dozen coldhearts after us.”

“Can the chatter, and go collect your arrows,” Donovan ordered, passing the gourd back to Akhmed. “The damn things don’t grow on trees, ya know.”

Chuckling at the very old joke, the sec men dutifully retrieved the spent arrows, carefully pocketing the fletching and stone heads found with broken shafts. Sadly, quite a few of the half-arrows were gone, lost in the forest.

Reclaiming his crossbow, Donovan slung it over a shoulder, then hunted for the blaster. He found it in the bushes, undamaged, just smeared with blood and dirt.

“Here, I got the lead back for you, Chief,” MacDouglas said, proffering a small disfigured blob of gray metal.

“Thanks, Mack,” Donavan said, tucking the slug in a shirt pocket along with the spent brass.

“Excuse me, sir?” a bald sec man asked respectfully.

“What is it, Carson?”

“What should we do about the others?” the man asked, looking forlornly up the roadway. The herbal smoke was almost completely gone now, and the bodies of the fallen sec men could be clearly seen.

“We’re short on time,” the sec chief began, but then relented. “But we’ll wait. Take a shovel and bury your kin. Save their crossbows for the baron, but you can have everything else for their kin.”

“You want a hand?” Akhmed asked, tucking some loose fletching into a pocket.

Shaking his head, Carson got a shovel from the cart, then trundled off to drag a tattered corpse into the bushes and perform the odious task in private.

Shrugging his crossbow into a more comfortable position, Hannigan scowled at the aced Hilly lying mutilated in the churned dirt. “That was a hell of a scary mask,” he said, speaking as if the words had a bad taste. “Ya think the bastard based it upon a real mutie? Something from one of the outer islands? Those got hit a lot worse than us in the endwar.”

“Makes sense,” Akhmed replied, clearly unconvinced. “Unless the ocean currents have changed again. Remember when that mutie that looked like a man but was covered with suckers washed ashore from the mainland?”

“Oh, don’t be a feeb,” Gene snapped impatiently. “There ain’t no mainland anymore. The whole damn world got nuked during the Big Heat. There’s only this chain of islands, nothing more. Baron Griffin says so.”

The unflappable sec man shrugged in dismissal. “If you say so, cousin.” Thunder rumbled above and Donavan climbed into the back of the cart to drape a tarpaulin over the strongbox. It didn’t really need the additional protection, even if it was acid rain coming, but he felt it wise to be cautious with this cargo. A slave had found the treasure on the shore, of all places, and immediately turned it over to Baron Griffin for the promised reward of freedom. It was granted, the baron always kept his word. However, once the former slave was outside the ville where none of the civies could see, the sec men on the walls had shot him down in cold blood. Slaves were not allowed on the beach under any circumstances, and the punishment was death. The ancient laws ruled supreme on Royal Island, even when their transgression yielded the greatest treasure in the world.

Metal. A big jagged chunk of rusty, corroded, glorious metal. Almost a full ten pounds. None of the sec men had any idea what the irregular lump had once been, but soon the ville blacksmith would convert it into a new hinge for the front gate, edging for a dozen knives and deadly tips for a hundred war arrows, vital protection needed by the ville against the hairy-ass barbs in the west, and that tricky bitch Wainwright to the far east. Anchor ville sat smack between the two, cursed with a baron more interested in dance and song than chilling. They were thankful for his wife. Lady Griffin was more of a warrior than any ten sec men in the ville.

Including me, Donovan grudgingly admitted in private. Plus, the busty woman was also a lusty sex partner. The woman fought like a sec man and fucked like a gaudy slut. Now, that was a real woman! A proper ruler for any ville. It was just bad luck that the Book of Blood had decreed she had to marry that smiling feeb from Northpoint ville. But then, the Book had to be obeyed. End of discussion. Only the throwbacks, barbs and Hillies screwed whomever they wished, which was why so many of them were born…different.

Dragging the dirty shovel behind, Carson returned from the bushes, looking years older. Shoving the wooden tool into a leather boot set alongside the cart, the sec man wordlessly assumed his position alongside Gene on the front seat. His shoulders were slumped, but his rapidfire crossbow was primed, and Carson looked hard at the foggy bushes and trees, as if eager for an attack on the group so that he would have an excuse to chill something, anything at all.

“All right, mount up,” Donovan commanded, sitting on the treasure box and placing the loaded crossbow across his lap. “Let’s go home.”

High over, the cloudy sky was alive with the multicolored radiance of the daily aurora borealis. Softly in the distance, thunder rumbled, warning of an approaching storm.

Chapter One

The thud of a heavy bolt disengaging echoed in the Stygian gloom. Then with squealing hinges, the oval portal in the rusty wall ponderously swung aside, resisting every inch of the way.

Holding road flares and blasters, two men stepped through the opening and warily looked around the darkness, ready for any possible danger. The sputtering flares gave off a wellspring of light, but there was nothing in sight but some old-fashioned gym lockers attached to the riveted steel walls and a couple of plastic benches thick with dust.

“Fireblast, where the fuck are we?” Ryan Cawdor muttered uneasily, tightening his grip on a SIG-Sauer 9 mm blaster. A Steyr longblaster was hung across the broad back of the one-eyed man, and a panga was sheathed at his side.

“Beats the hell out of me,” J. B. Dix muttered uneasily, the harsh light of the road flare reflecting off his wire-rimmed glasses. “But it doesn’t resemble any redoubt I’ve ever seen before.”

Dressed in a worn jacket and battered fedora, the wiry man was cradling a Smith&Wesson M-4000 shotgun in both hands, and an Uzi machine blaster hung across his back. At his side was a lumpy munitions bag packed with high-explosive ordnance, a homemade pipe bomb jutting out slightly for easy access.

“Agreed,” Ryan growled, straining to hear any movement in the murky shadows. But the silence seemed absolute, as if they were the last two people in the world.

This room should have been the control room for the redoubt, jammed full of humming machinery, winking lights and scrolling monitors. Instead, it seemed to be inside some kind of abandoned gymnasium. Even stranger, there was a strong smell of living green plants in the dusty atmosphere, which should have been flat-out impossible.

Built by the U.S. government before the last nuke war, the redoubts, massive military fortifications controlled by banks of advanced computers, were hidden underground, safely sealed away from the outside world. Powered by the limitless energy of nuclear reactors, the subterranean forts were safe havens of clean air and purified water, a tiny oasis of life secretly buried deep within the radioactive hellzone of North America.

When the companions had arrived at this location, the mat-trans unit promptly blew and everything had gone dark. Patiently, they’d waited for the system to automatically reboot. But when that didn’t happen, they were left with no other option than to proceed deeper into the strange redoubt and hope that they could find an exit to the surface. The possibility that the redoubt was located at the bottom of a glowing nuke crater or covered by the wreckage of a fallen skyscraper was something they tried very hard not to think about. If this was the end of the trail, so be it. Everybody died, that was just the price you paid for the gift of life.

Reaching the middle of the metal room, Ryan and J.B. exhaled in relief as they spotted a way out of the gymnasium, a circular metal door closed with an old-fashioned wheel lock, as if it were a bank vault. However, this door was heavily encrusted with corrosion, big flakes of rust fallen to the floor like autumn leaves. It was an unnerving sight.

After whistling sharply, Ryan waited expectantly. A few moments later four more people stepped from the gateway in combat formation, each of them carrying heavy backpacks, a softly hissing butane cigarette lighter and a loaded blaster.

“How peculiar, do…do I smell ivy?” Doc Tanner rumbled in a deep bass voice, brandishing a weapon in each fist.

Tall and slim, Theophilus Algernon Tanner seemed to have stepped out of another age with his frilly shirt and long frock coat. But the silver-haired scholar also sported a strictly utilitarian LeMat handcannon, along with a slim sword of Spanish steel, the edge gleaming razor-bright in the fiery light of the road flares.

“Ivy? Sure as hell hope not,” Krysty Wroth muttered.

The woman breathed in deeply, then let it out slow. Okay, she could smell plants nearby, but there was no trace of the hated ivy. Relaxing slightly, the woman eased her grip on the S&W Model 640 revolver.

A natural beauty, the redhead’s ample curves were barely contained by her Air Force duty fatigues. A bearskin coat was draped over her shapely shoulders. A lumpy backpack hung off a shoulder, and a gunbelt was strapped low around her hips.

“Weird place, what is?” Jak Lauren drawled, arching a snow-colored eyebrow. A big-bore .357 Magnum Colt Python was balanced in the pale hand of the albino teenager, the hammer already cocked into the firing position in case of trouble. A large Bowie knife was sheathed on his gunbelt, and the handle of another blade could be seen tucked into his combat boot.

“My guess would be some kind of a ready room,” Dr. Mildred Weyth countered, easing her grip on a Czech ZKR .38 target revolver. The stocky woman was dressed entirely in Army fatigues, and a small canvas medical bag hung at her side.

Before the maelstrom that ended civilization, Mildred had been a physician, but a medical accident had landed her in an experimental cryogenic freezing unit. A hundred years later, Mildred awoke to the living nightmare of the Deathlands, and soon joined the companions, both her vaunted medical skills and sharp-shooting ability earning her a place among their ranks.

“A ready room, yeah, that makes sense,” J.B. said hesitantly, tilting back his fedora. “Someplace where the predark soldiers arriving via the mat-trans unit could change into their uniforms.”

“Or out of them,” Ryan said, warily using the barrel of the SIG-Sauer to tease open the latch on a locker. As he gently pushed aside the thin metal door, the hinges squealed in protest and a small rain of reddish flecks sprinkled to the riveted floor.

Inside the locker Ryan found the moldy remains of what looked like civilian clothing hung neatly on hangers: sneakers on the floor, a Mets baseball cap on a small shelf, along with a small mirror and a few personal items covered with a thick layer of dust. Checking the door, the man found the expected picture of a smiling young woman cradling a newborn in her arms, the faint residue of a lipstick kiss still on the faded photograph. She was very pretty and wearing an incredibly skimpy bikini. Moving the flare closer for a better look, the Deathlands warrior then blinked at the sight of a gray plastic box on the shelf.

Balancing the flare on the edge of a bench, Ryan took down the box and slid the plastic lock to the side. The lid came free with a faint crack to expose a spotlessly clean .44 Ruger revolver, along with a cardboard box of ammunition. There was a brass brush for cleaning the cylinders, and even a small plastic bottle of homogenized gun oil.

Opening the box, Ryan half expected it to only contain some wad-cutters, cheap bullets used for target practice. They were virtually useless in a fight these days, except at point-blank range.

However, to his surprise, the box was nearly full of regulation U.S. Army combat cartridges, semijacketed hollowpoints, as deadly as brass came, and the ammo was in perfect condition. The man could not believe his luck. Thirty-four live rounds.

“Ready room, my ass. This is a ward room,” J.B. exclaimed, eagerly going to the next locker and pushing open the corroded door. Hanging inside was more decaying clothing, a three-piece suit this time covered with tiny mushrooms, and on the shelf was an open gun case. The 9 mm Beretta pistol had been reduced to an irregular lump from the pervasive damp, the deadly weapon now as harmless as a roll of toilet paper.

Checking a locker in another row, Mildred discovered the sad remains of a flower-print dress, along with a matching half-jacket, and scarf. On the shelf were a few containers that the physician recognized as pricey cosmetics: organic foundation, dusting powder, mascara, a small tube of lipstick and a fancy glass perfume bottle. At the sight, the woman felt a rush of bittersweet memories from ancient high-school proms and dating medical students at college.

Reaching out to tenderly stroke the dress, Mildred frowned as the flimsy material crumbled away at her touch, the past returning to the past. However, hanging behind the rotting strips of cloth was a small shoulder holster containing a slim Beretta Belle. The 9 mm weapon was exactly what a woman would carry to not disturb the flowing lines of a formal ballgown or lightweight summer jacket. Interesting.

Gingerly extracting the blaster, Mildred saw that it was only streaked with surface corrosion. The Beretta could probably be salvaged with a thorough cleaning. Dropping the clip, Mildred found it fully loaded with oily cartridges that looked in fairly decent condition. Then she blinked. Those weren’t standard lead bullets, but Black Talons, armor-piercing rounds, extremely illegal for anybody to carry except special government agents.

Returning the blaster to the holster, Mildred rummaged about to locate a tiny decorative purse. As expected, she found only a plastic-coated driver’s license, some folded bills now thick with gray fuzz, an expired credit card, a lump of crud that might have once been some candy breath mints and a folded leather wallet. Opening it carefully, Mildred saw a faded picture of the owner, a slim blonde with a lot of freckles, and a laminated government-issue identification card bearing the Great Seal of the United States, and the embossed seal of the United States Navy, Special Operations.

“Well, I’ll be damned, this woman was Navy Intelligence,” Mildred said.

“A sec man?” Jak asked.

“An extremely good sec person,” Mildred corrected, with an odd sense of pride.

“Indeed, madam,” Doc said thoughtfully, easing down the hammer on his LeMat. “But more important, if she was a member of the United States Navy, then mayhap we are currently on a ship of some kind.” While the rest of the companions used modern-day weaponry, the Vermont scholar preferred his antique Civil War handcannon, primarily because it came from his own century. The black powder revolver was a deadly piece of home that the time traveler carried in his gunbelt as a constant reminder of better times, and better days, in a much more civilized world.

“A ship? That would explain the riveted walls and floors,” Krysty muttered, quickly checking the ceiling for vid cams or traps.

“Don’t feel waves,” Jak said carefully, trying to get any subtle sense of motion. “Not drifting at sea. Maybe in dock?”

“Not necessarily. If this is a ship, it would have to be enormous to hold a mat-trans unit,” J.B. theorized, adjusting his glasses. “Anything that huge and we’d never feel the waves unless trapped in the middle of a hurricane, and maybe not even then.”

“An aircraft carrier was certainly large enough to carry a mat-trans unit,” Mildred said, folding shut the Navy commission booklet. “The vessels were often called oceangoing cities, they were so huge. A carrier held a hundred jetfighters and a crew of over a thousand. More important, they were powered by nuclear reactors.”

“Tumbledown,” Jak said, as if that explained the matter.

Everybody present understood the cryptic reference. When skydark scorched the world, radioactive debris from the nuked cities rained down across the world. Houses had been found on mountaintops, toilet seats in the middle of a desert. Anything close to an atomic blast was vaporized, and after that objects melted and burned, but then they simply went airborne, including office buildings, suspension bridges and sometimes even warships.

“Buried alive,” J.B. whispered, his throat going tight.

“I consider that highly unlikely, my friend,” Doc rumbled pleasantly, recalling the brief smell of fresh greenery. “Plants need sunshine to live, even that accursed mutant ivy. So, whatever type of vessel this is, there must be a breach in the hull, and thus direct egress to the outside world.”

“Sounds reasonable,” J.B. said uneasily. “But the sooner we see daylight, the better.”

“Agreed,” Ryan stated roughly. “But we’re not leaving all of this live brass behind. Everybody grab a partner and do a fast recce of the lockers. Take only the brass, leave the blasters behind for a scav later.”

Nodding their agreement, the companions got busy. Moving steadily through the array of lockers, they soon amassed a staggering collection of clips, magazines, speed loaders and loose brass in a wide assortment of calibers, along with a couple of blasters in reasonably good condition. If there were any villes nearby, a functioning weapon could buy them a week of hot meals and clean beds, as well as other items in trade. There had even been a few grens, but the military spheres were so thick with layers of corrosion, any attempt to use the deadly explosive charges would be tantamount to suicide.

Naturally, there had not been anything usable for Doc’s black powder LeMat amid the civilian arsenal, but the scholar had discovered a .44 Ruger revolver, a sturdy weapon of devastating power, along with a full box of fifty hollowpoint Magnum cartridges.

Sheathing his sword into an ebony walking stick, Doc twisted the lion’s-head newel on top to lock it tight, then tucked the stick into his gunbelt. Testing the balance of the two monstrous handcannons, the old man decided that the combination was too much for him to easily handle, and wisely slipped the Ruger into one of his deep empty pockets.

Finished with their scavenging, the companions tucked away their various finds, then, assuming a combat formation, approached the circular door. The formidable barrier was veined with heavy bolt, the locking wheel situated in the middle. Ryan illuminated the door with a road flare and saw that it was firmly locked. But rust had eaten away the metal along the edge of the jamb, and there was a definite breeze blowing into the ready room, carrying a faint trace of plantlife and something else.

Pointing at the others, Ryan directed them to flanking positions on either side of the door while J.B. knelt on the floor and checked for traps. Angling his flare to give his friend some light, Ryan watched the man run fingertips along the rough surface of the door. Then he pressed an ear to the metal to try to detect any mechanical movements, and finally passed a compass along the material to check for any magnetic sensors or proximity triggers. After a few moments the Armorer tucked the compass away and smiled, proclaiming it was clean. At least, as far as he could tell.

Holstering his blaster, Ryan passed the flare to J.B. and exchanged positions with the man. Taking hold of the locking wheel, Ryan tried to turn the handle, but it stubbornly refused to move. Reaching into a pocket, he pulled out a small bottle of gun oil and squirted a few drops on the spindle and hinges, then tried again. Still nothing.

Brushing off some loose flakes of rust from the wheel, Ryan spit on his hands and got a firm grip. Bracing his boots for a better stance, the big man tried once more, this time putting his whole body into the effort, but very carefully increasing the pressure slowly to make sure the corroded metal didn’t shatter, sealing them inside the room forever. They had explosives, but sealed into a steel box, those would only be used as the very last resort.

Long moments passed with nothing happening. Then there came an audible crack and Ryan nearly fell over as the wheel came free and began to turn easily. As the bolts disengaged, he started to walk backward, slowly hauling the door open against the loudly protesting hinges.

Sharing glances, the companions said nothing, but it was painfully obvious that any hope they had of staying covert was now completely gone. If there was anybody else in the vicinity, they knew that somebody was coming out of the ready room.

As the thick door cleared the jamb, J.B. squinted into the darkness on the other side. “Okay, looks clear…son of a bitch!” he shouted, and the shotgun boomed.

In the bright muzzle-flash, something large was briefly seen in the outside corridor. Then a metal arm extended through the doorway and mechanical pinchers brushed aside the shotgun to close around the man’s throat with a hard clang.

THICK FOG MOVED OVER the walls of Northpoint ville like a misty river flowing steady across the high stone walls. Somewhere in the distance, low thunder rumbled, and from the nearby ocean came the sound of rough waves crashing upon a rocky shore.

Crackling torches were set at regular intervals along the wall, giving the sec men walking patrol on the top plenty of light, and every structure inside the ville was brightly illuminated by the yellowish glow of fish-oil lanterns or the cheery blaze of a fireplace. A hundred stoves blazed bright and hot inside the ramshackle huts of the ville like imprisoned stars, the delicious waves of fragrant heat banishing the eternal fog and affording the inhabitants a small zone of clear air within the confines of the ville. Winter had never been a problem in Northpoint. A nearly limitless forest of pine trees grew on the outer islands, so wood was always in abundant supply, and the freshwater bay teemed with fish, most of them not muties, so there was more than sufficient food for all. Only salt, precious, life-giving salt, was in desperately short supply.

But with any luck that problem would soon be solved forever, Baron Wainwright thought privately, taking another sip of the mulled wine.

Set in the center of the log cabins, smokehouses, barracks, patched leather tents and stone fishing shacks was a pristine field of neatly tended grass, as smooth as a piece of predark glass. Standing tightly packed on the field was a large crowd of civies gathered around an old whipping post where a naked man stood, his wrists bound with rope to the crossbar of the infamous learning tree. Tiny rivulets of blood trickled down his skinny shanks, oozing steadily from the crisscross of open wounds covering his back. The tattered remains of a uniform lay on the grass around his trembling feet, and both arms were marred with glassy patches of freshly burned skin.

“Twenty-seven!” the executioner announced, and lashed out once more with a coiled whip. The smooth length of green leather cracked across the raw flesh of the prisoner, but he only shook and groaned in response.

“Burn the bastard!” a young woman yelled, spittle flying from her mouth. “Slit open his belly and feed his guts to the river snakes!”

“No, make it last! Whip him harder!” an old woman snarled from the crowd, the face of the wrinklie contorted into a feral mask of raw hatred.

“Blind him!”

“Cut off his balls!”

The furious civilians roared their approval at that idea, and after a moment the executioner nodded in agreement. Tossing aside the lightweight horsewhip, he extracted a much heavier, knotted bullwhip from the canvas bag hanging at his side. The muscular man uncoiled the full length onto the dewy grass, creating a brief rainbow effect from the reflected light of the nearby torches. A touch of beauty amid the field of pain. Then he expertly flicked the bullwhip a few times, making the stout leather strips crack louder than a blaster to test the action. Hearing the noise, the prisoner bowed his head and wept openly, knowing the hell that was to come.

Sitting on a rosewood throne on a fieldstone dais, Baron Brenda Wainwright refilled her bone chalice with a wooden flask, waiting for the torture to continue. She disliked watching punishment details, but her presence here was necessary as the absolute ruler of the ville. She had blasters in her private arsenal, lots of them, but the sec men obeyed her commands primarily because the baron was smart. She constantly outwitted their enemies and always found some clever new way to put food on the table and, more important, salt. Without that precious commodity, everybody in the ville would have been aced decades ago. No matter what herbs or potions the healers tried, people needed salt the way a candle needed a wick, without it, they simply got weaker and weaker then just stopped working entirely. Even the dead were boiled down in the smokehouse, reduced to their very essence to reclaim every single grain. Salt was life.

Which was why we’re having a public execution, the baron reminded herself. That old doomie had better have been right about this. The ville was down to less than a hundredweight of salt in the armory, barely enough to last them until spring. If this plan didn’t work, then there would be no choice but to declare war on Anchor ville. Brother fighting brother, a civil war. The thought was intolerable. Not new, just intolerable.

Dressed for combat on this special day, the woman was wearing a heavy blue gown cut high in the front to show off her new snakeskin boots. A gift from a secret lover. An ebony cascade of long hair hung loose around her stern face, artfully disguising the fact that she was missing an ear from a mutie attack when she was a small child. A necklace of the creature’s polished teeth was draped around her badly scarred throat as a grim remembrance of that dark day, and a black leather bodice supported her full breasts. A wide gunbelt circled her trim waist, embroidered gloves tucked into the front, a sheathed knife and holstered blaster riding at her hips. Ancient plastic rings of outlandish design adorned both thumbs, and an intricately carved wooden bracelet studded with tiny bits of sparkling car window glass flashed from her left wrist.

Finished testing his deadly tool, the executioner adjusted his fish-leather mask and looked at the baron. Everybody knew it was the blacksmith, but the social custom of pretending that the executioner was from another ville still held.

The baron waved a hand in authorization. Grinning fiercely, the executioner lashed out with the bullwhip, and the prisoner violently shook all over from the brutal strike, a wellspring of fresh blood gushing from the deep cut across his shoulders. Laughing and cheering, the crowd voiced its hearty approval.

Trying not to scowl, the baron refilled her mug from the flask and took a small sip of the dark brew. Death was part of life, as unstoppable as the morning fog. However, the old doomie known as Mad Pete had deemed that this particular demise was absolutely necessary to the welfare of the ville. Even then, she disliked casual chilling so much that the baron had waited patiently, and then impatiently, until some triple-stupe fool broke a major law and could honestly and fairly be executed. If he had been drunk on duty, or stolen a lick of salt, the bastard would have simply been beaten to death and sent to the boiling pot in the smokehouse. But he had done much worse by forcing himself upon the wife of another sec man. No matter who you were, rape was a capital offense in every ville along Royal Island. End of discussion. Her hands were clean.

At that, Wainwright almost smiled. Well, at least on this particular death, she internally chuckled. Nobody ruled a ville without knowing how to chill. She had been planning to remove her fat brother from the Oak Throne when he’d greedily eaten an unknown type of fish and died of food poisoning. As father had always said, stupidity was its own reward. True words.

“It’s almost time, Baron,” sec chief Emile LeFontaine muttered, flexing his monstrous hands. Standing at the Maple Throne, the hulking giant held a perfectly balanced obsidian throwing ax in a gloved hand, and there was a longblaster strapped across his wide back, protected from the harsh elements by a thick wolfskin sheath, the snarling head of the beast peeking over his shoulder in a most disturbing manner.

Nodding in understanding, the baron checked the blaster at her hip, making sure the weapon was fully loaded with six live rounds. Mad Pete had predicted this day would come, and she had immediately started preparations.

Suddenly the weakening prisoner cried out for the first time, and the townsfolk joyously voiced their full approval. Their desire to see him punished was almost palpable, like waves of heat radiating from the stove.

Tossing aside the blood-soaked bullwhip, the executioner pulled a fresh one from the green leather bag at his side. But just then the prisoner howled again, louder this time, even though he was standing limply at the learning tree.

“Silence!” the baron commanded, rising from her throne.

In ragged stages, the mob stopped making noise, and this time everybody heard the low ghostly moan, echoing over the ville as if coming down from the cloudy sky.

“Sweet nuking hell, that came from the sea,” the sec chief whispered, his scarred face going pale. “The screams of the prisoner must have caught the attention of…of….”

Slowly a dark mountain of flesh rose from the other side of the ville wall, six huge, inhuman eyes glaring down at the scene of torture even as a hundred tentacles began to crawl over the granite block wall.

“Kraken!” a sec man on the wall shouted, firing his crossbow.

Then a tentacle wrapped around his waist and the cursing man was hauled out of view.

As the alarm bell began to sound, the civies started screaming and racing around in a blind panic. Trying to control her breathing, Baron Wainwright could only stare in wonder at the mountain of flesh looming over the wall. So the old doomie had been right! The death screams of the condemned man had summoned a kraken. Now, the colossal mutie would level the ville, unless the defenses held. However, the sec men had been preparing for this battle for a year. Hopefully it would be enough.

“Defend the ville,” the baron yelled, pulling a Navy flare gun from her gunbelt and firing the charge straight up into the fog. The explosion of colored lights distracted the mutie, several long tentacles reaching upward for the sizzling charge slowly drifting downward on a tiny parachute.

As the kraken rose behind the ville wall, ropy tentacles extended into the streets searching among the stone houses for anything edible. A stray dog sniffing at the barrels of fish offal was caught and hauled bodily into the gaping maw of the horrendous creature.

By now, the sec men were launching swarms of arrows into the goliath. But if they did any damage it was not readily apparent, and the mutie continued feeding upon the population.

Scampering out of an alley, a gaudy slut tried to get back into the tavern when ropy death came wiggling out of the sky and grabbed her around the neck. Shrieking in terror, the slut pulled a bone knife from her bodice and started wildly stabbing at the tentacle. But the resilient hide was too tough for the blade, and she was hauled upward, going over the wall, cursing and fighting until the very end.

Meanwhile teams of sec men in the guard towers feverishly operated the hand cranks to pull back the mighty arbalests. The giant crossbows were thirty feet long, and used three bows working in conjunction. Each arrow was twice the size of a man, and the barbed head was edged with thin strips of genuine predark steel.

“Pull, you lazy bastards!” a sergeant bellowed. “Pull or die!”

Attracted by the shout, the kraken headed toward the guard tower, and Baron Wainwright quickly fired another flare. Once more, the beast turned to try to catch the descending flare, giving the team of sec men just enough time to load the arrow into the arbalest, the catch engaging with a hard thunk.

Grabbing the aiming yoke, the burly sergeant swung the colossal weapon around toward the mutie, aimed and yanked hard on the release lever. There came a groan of wooden gears, then the triple bows let fly and the giant arrow went straight into the kraken’s throat.

Bellowing in rage and pain, the mutie turned toward the source of the agony, its tentacles lashing out wildly.

But more giant arrows were launched from the other guard towers, and the kraken twisted madly in the deadly cross fire, roaring defiantly.

A catapult snapped upward from the roof of the barracks, and a wooden barrel arched gracefully upward. It sailed over the guard towers and ignited a split second before crashing on top of the kraken. Covered with burning shine, the mutie went insane, lashing its tentacles around and knocking a dozen sec men off the walls. A flurry of crossbow arrows slammed into the beast, as additional firebombs hammered the creature. However, the attacks were only enraging the beast, and it sent several long tentacles snaking into the ville to snatch away the bloody corpse of the prisoner, leaving behind the ragged stumps of his arms still tied to the learning tree.

Inside their ramshackle homes, the civies were quaking with fear, muttering prayers to forgotten deities.

In a crash of splinters, the gate leading to the dockyard slammed open and a host of writhing tentacles entered the ville. But forewarned of the attack by the baron, the fishermen had a double line of crackling bonfires already burning between the gate and the rows of homes. Hesitating in front of the wall of flames, the kraken tried to find a way around the painful barrier, then it attempted to go underneath, and finally withdrew. It reappeared a few moments later, the tentacles shoving several fishing boats taken from the docks to crash a path through the fiery obstruction.

“Baron…” sec chief LeFontaine said as a question, his face tense, a throwing ax in his hand.

“Not yet, my friend,” the baron muttered, loading the last flare.

More firebombs and arbalest arrows slammed into the monster, along with a score of spears, boomerangs and a fishing harpoon that just missed going into one of the huge, inhuman eyes.

Dodging a tentacle, a sec woman fell off the wall and crashed onto the roof of a shed. The distance was not very great, but she did not rise again, and after a few seconds something red began to trickle down the side of the building.

“Milady, please…” the sec chief begged, taking a half step toward the tumultuous combat. His face was flushed and he was breathing heavily from the strain of not joining his troops in combat.

“Just a few ticks more, Sergeant,” Wainwright said gently, cradling the flare gun protectively in both hands.

Unexpectedly, the body rolled off the little shed as the roof slid aside, exposing a honeycomb of bamboo tubes. A nest of fuses dangled from the rear of each and as the baron watched in growing horror, a torch was touched to the group fuse, setting them aflame.

“No! Too soon!” Wainwright cried.

“Too late,” LeFontaine replied curtly.

With no other choice, the baron jumped off the dais and raced into the middle of the ville square. Raising both hands, she carefully aimed the flare gun and fired. The charge thumped from the wide barrel and streaked away to hit the kraken in the face. Snapping around with surprising speed, the colossus stared down at the tiny norm in open hatred and moved along the wall, its tentacles reaching out for the fresh meat.

In a stuttering series of smoky explosions, the top row of bamboo tubes unleashed a dozen homie rockets, closely followed by the second row, then the rest.

The rockets flashed upward and slammed into the kraken, disappearing into the mottled hide. Howling in anger, the mutie probed the tiny wounds with some tentacles just as the next wave of rockets struck, and then the first salvo detonated.

Gobbets of raw flesh exploded like a geyser from the monster, sending out a ghastly spray of piss-yellow blood. That was when the next shed lost its roof and more black-powder rockets launched, peppering the monstrosity with high-explosive death.

Bawing in agony, the kraken lashed out mindlessly as the new rockets detonated inside the beast. Literally torn apart from within, a tentacle went limp, an eye turned dead-white and torrents of yellow blood gushed from the hideous wounds.

Enthusiastically cheering, the sec men redoubled their assault on the mutie, the arbalests now targeting the open wounds.

Turning to flee, the weakening mutie discovered there were iron chains attached to the arrows, the barbed heads caught deep within the belly of the beast in exactly the same way its own tentacles dragged a victim to their death in its cavernous maw.

Its inhuman brain sluggishly comprehending that death was coming, the kraken threw itself at the ville wall, hammering the stone ramparts with its full weight. The entire shoreside wall trembled from the impacts, and several sec men lost their grips and fell screaming onto the cobblestone streets below with grisly results. But even as the baron watched, the struggles of the creature became noticeably weaker, the rush of blood increasing.

“More rockets!” Wainwright yelled, running toward the thrashing kraken. “Fire them all!”

A grip of iron grabbed her arm, stopping the woman in her tracks.

“No closer, Baron,” sec chief LeFontaine commanded. “I won’t allow it.”

Contorting her face into a sneer, the baron started to reach for her blaster, then grudgingly relented, realizing the wisdom of the caution. Any animal was at its most dangerous when it was wounded and dying.

Chewing on the chains to try to get free, the kraken was hit with a third wave of rockets and then a fourth, the last few of them going completely through the mutie and coming out the other side to arch away over the bay. Yellow blood was everywhere, flowing down the sides of the stone wall and forming deep puddles in the street.

In a final rush of hatred, the dying kraken reached out with every working tentacle and wrapped each around the nearest guard tower and squeezed hard. Astonishingly, the support timbers audibly creaked from the titanic strain, and a wealth of crossbeams fell away like dry autumn leaves. As the tower began to tilt, the sec men inside cursed at the unexpected tactic and tried to hold on to the railing for dear life.

That was when there came a high-pitched keen of a steam whistle from the other side of the wall, and more rockets slammed into the back of the beast, widening the exit holes of the arrows.

Shuddering all over, the kraken released the guard tower and sluggishly tried for the bay once more, but again it was stopped by the iron chains. Mewling weakly, the creature reached out with a gory tentacle, the tip just managing to reach the cold, clear water of the bay. Then it sagged and went still, the flood of blood quickly slowing to a trickle, and then stopping entirely.

Instantly a new bell began to clang. Minutes later every man, woman and child in the ville stormed out of the dockyard gates, each equipped with a wicker basket and a sharp obsidian knife. Resembling an army of ants, the people crawled over the chilled mutie and started to slice off pieces. Meanwhile, sec men armed with torches and axes began to hack apart the corpse, chopping a tunnel into the thing, and soon disappeared inside.

“It worked! We aced a kraken!” The baron chortled, slapping her sec chief on the back. “What a glorious day!”

“You can load that into a damn crossbow and fire it,” LeFontaine agreed wholeheartedly, rubbing his hands together. “We’ll get enough salt from the gizzard to last the ville for months, for years.”

“Plus, there’s enough good leather for everybody to get new boots, belts and winter jackets,” she agreed with a smile, watching the harvest progress. “Sinew for a thousand crossbows, enough bones to…well, for any damn thing we need until further notice.” Plus, that bitch at Anchor ville would pay a baron’s ransom in metal for a single pint of kraken blood. But Wainwright kept that observation to herself. In the right circumstances, the blood of a kraken was the most valuable thing in the world.

“Sadly, we lost the dockyard gate, a horse and at least a dozen sec men,” LeFontaine muttered unhappily. The dogs and the gaudy slut were of no real importance.

“Yes, a pity,” Wainwright agreed. “But still, a price that I would be willing to pay anytime for the death of a kraken. The bay belongs to us now. No more will our fishing boats be pulled underwater, the crew drowned, the catch destroyed.”

“Aye, that’s good news. Too bad we can’t eat the meat,” LeFontaine said. “I hear it tastes fine, but soon afterward…” He gave a shiver. Any further embellishment was unnecessary.

“Leave some outside the wall for the Hillies to steal,” the baron ordered. “Maybe we can ace two birds with one stone, eh?”

“By your command, Baron,” the sec chief agreed, giving a small bow. “I live to serve.”

Trying not to smile, the baron acknowledged the formal action with a prim nod of her head, mentally deciding to reward the man for his action later in her private bedchamber.

As for the ville, both the civies and sec men would spend the rest of the day and most of the night dissecting the mountainous mutie, scavenging everything of value. Even the fat of the monster could be boiled down into a crude form of tallow for candles. When that odious task was accomplished, the crew of the Wendigo would haul what remained of the bedraggled corpse out into the deep water near Liar’s Gate, so that the smell of the decaying corpse would scare away any other kraken for years.

The baron ruefully smiled. Then she would open the royal wine cellar and authorize a shore party the likes of which had never been seen before! It would be a day of rest for the slaves and roasted meat for the civies, while the sec men would revel in enough shine, sluts and song to satisfy even their warrior appetites.

Feeling exhausted, and exhilarated, the baron started back for the stone dais to watch over the rest of the harvesting. In the back of her mind, the woman tried desperately to ignore the rest of the doomie’s prophesy, that soon after this day-of-days the ville would be destroyed, and she would be forced into the ultimate act of depravity—marriage to a blood kin.

Chapter Two

As the robotic arm started dragging the struggling J.B. out of the ready room, the companions saw a hulking machine of some kind filling the outside corridor.

There was a domed head and a cylindrical body with treads on the bottom like an army tank. More important, the machine possessed six arms, each of them brandishing spinning buzzsaws, pinchers or pneumatic hammers. The terrible sight fueled them with cold adrenaline. This wasn’t a sec hunter droid, but it was clearly built for the same purpose—to ruthlessly chill invaders.

As Ryan scrambled from behind the heavy door, Doc assumed a firing stance and grimly triggered the LeMat. The weapon boomed and the huge .44 miniball of the Civil War handcannon slammed into the joint of the pinchers, cracking the seal, and amber hydraulic fluid gushed out like opening a vein. As the pressure dropped, J.B. forced the pinchers apart and wiggled free to drop flat and get out of the way of the others. Quickly withdrawing the damaged limb, the robot extended two more arms, each tipped with a spinning buzzsaw.

Now unencumbered by the presence of their friend, the rest of the companions cut loose with a fusillade of destruction, the volley of rounds hammering the big machine. Scrambling to his feet, J.B. swung around the Uzi and raked the droid with a long spray of 9 mm Parabellum rounds.

Stabbing out with a ferruled arm, the droid sent a buzzsaw straight toward the closest companion. Jerking aside, Jak felt a tug on his hair and saw some loose strands float away.

Raking the big droid with their combined weaponry, the companions pulled back to gain valuable combat room. However, the machine was too large to get through the hatchway, and all it could do was reach out with ferruled limbs, the buzzsaw jabbing for their faces and hands. Unlike a sec hunter, there were no visible eyes on this droid. Aiming for the silvery dome on top, Ryan pumped several 9 mm rounds into the shiny head of the machine. The hollowpoint rounds ricocheted off the shiny material, but the dome bent and the droid began to wildly jerk, the metal arms flailing uncontrollably.

Focusing all of their blasters on the head, the companions mercilessly hammered the droid until it began to turn randomly, the armored treads going in different directions. Suddenly smoke began to rise from the joints, fat electrical sparks crawled over the machine, and then it went stock-still, a low hum rapidly building in volume and in power.

Biting back a curse, Ryan and Krysty both rushed for the door and together slammed it shut. They only turned the locking wheel an inch before there came a deafening explosion from the other side. The entire ready room shook, the locker doors flopping open, miscellaneous items tumbling to the riveted floor as a crimson snowstorm of rust sprinkled down from the ceiling.

Waiting a few minutes for the reverberations to die away, Ryan gingerly probed the wheel to find it extremely warm, but not too hot to touch. Pausing to reload his blaster, he boldly cracked open the circular door once more and looked outside.

There was a smoky dent in the steel corridor, the walls bulging outward slightly. However there was no sign of the droid, only a scattering of partially melted machine parts littering the floor.

“Wh-what a piece of drek,” J.B. panted, swinging the Uzi behind his back to reclaim the scattergun. “A sec droid would have been much tougher to chill.” Taking spare cartridges from the shoulder strap, he worked the pump and fed them into the weapon.

“True enough,” Ryan countered, squinting his good eye to try to see into the shadows beyond the nimbus of the road flare. “But we better stay on triple red. If this thing had caught us in the open, we’d have bought the farm for sure.”

Just then, the road flare sputtered and died.

Cursing under his breath, Ryan pulled out his last flare and scraped it across the rough wall until the tip sparked. The flare gushed into smoky flame.

“I just hope this is some sort of a redoubt and not a predark warship,” Krysty stated, thumbing fresh rounds into her blaster. “Those were actually designed to be a maze of corridors, ladders and passageways to confuse any potential invaders.”

“Quite so, dear lady,” Doc muttered. “There is little chance of us successfully finding the egress in an unfamiliar locale through pitch darkness.”

“Finding what?” Jak asked, arching an eyebrow.

Doc smiled tolerantly as if addressing a student. “The exit.”

The teen nodded. “Gotcha.”

“Well, we wouldn’t be in absolute darkness,” Mildred retorted, releasing her butane lighter and tucking it into a pocket. “Not quite, anyway.”

Rummaging in her med kit, the woman unearthed a battered flashlight and pumped the handle of the survivalist tool until the batteries were recharged, then she pressed the switch. A weak beam issued from the ancient device, and she played it around the war-torn corridor, making sure there were no still functioning pieces of the war machine.

With his blaster at the ready, Ryan eased into the corridor, listening closely for any creaks or groans from the floor. The dented metal seemed stable, but he had been fooled before. And even a short fall onto steel could ace him just as sure as lead in the head from a blaster.

Past the blast zone, the metal corridor was covered with pale filaments that he soon recognized as roots. They covered the ceiling, and hung thick on the walls, extending out of sight in either direction. Scowling, the man glanced at the wall opposite the ready room. In every redoubt, that was always the location of a wall map showing new personnel where everything was to be found. The lack of a map, or any sign that a map had once been there, was proof positive to him that this was not a redoubt.

“Okay, anybody got an idea which way we should try?” Ryan asked, looking in one direction, then the other. Both went on for a hundred paces to end at an intersection with a ladder.

“Left,” Jak stated confidently, jerking his Colt in that direction.

“Now, how do you know that?” Mildred asked curiously, warily hefting her ZKR.

Stoically, the albino teen shrugged. “Roots thinner to the right, thicker to the left. So that way out.”

“Elementary, my dear Watson,” Doc said appreciatively.

Having heard the quote many times before, Jak merely smiled in reply.

“You do know that Holmes never actually said that, don’t you?” Mildred asked. “Not in the books, anyway. Only the movies.”

“I am literate, madam,” Doc replied with a sniff.

Ignoring the banter, the companions sidled carefully around the blaster crater, and Ryan took the lead. Heading to the left, the companions found a lot of closed hatches along the walls. If there had been time, they would have eagerly done a fast recon for anything useful. But right now, getting outside was the goal.

Spying some lumps on the floor up ahead, Ryan slowed his advance, but soon he saw they were only a couple of crumbling skeletons covered with roots, the tendrils entwined among the loose bones and moldy strips of clothing. A gold ring glistened on the finger bones of a hand no longer attached to anything, and silver dots shone from the loose teeth inside a lopsided skull.

“This might tell us something,” Mildred said, kneeling to inspect the plastic ID badge still pinned to a piece of uniform lying on a skeleton. Reverently, she lifted the rectangle from the morass of plant roots and human remains. “It seems that we are inside a U.S. Navy ship after all, the—” she bent and angled the badge to try to catch the light better “—the…USS Grover Harrington.”

“Indeed, and who was that, madam?” Doc asked, craning his neck for a better look. “Some politician, perhaps?”

Placing the badge down, the physician stood. “Never heard of the guy. He must have been an admiral.”

“Don’t care who, what is?” Jak asked pragmatically.

“Sorry, again I have no idea,” the woman replied honestly, wiping off her hands. “This could be anything from an aircraft carrier to a missile frigate.”

“Well, at least we know it’s a boat,” Ryan said, easing his stance slightly. “Which means up is the way out.”

Reaching the intersection, Ryan paused at the sight of a wide breach on the metal floor. The hole didn’t appear to have been caused by an explosion as the edges were feathered with corrosion, not bent and twisted from the force of a detonation. That was when he heard the slow drip of water from above. A split second later, a drop plummeted past the man, directly through the hole and into the darkness below.

Kneeling slightly, Ryan lowered the flare into the darkness and froze at the sight of another robotic droid, apparently the same model as the one they had just aced. However, this one was in even worse shape, the dome already cracked, several of the rusty arms lying on the deck nearby, and a broken tread was hanging limply off the gears.

“Not much of a danger there,” J.B. said with a touch of satisfaction in his voice.

“Not unless we trip over it,” Krysty agreed.

“What are those boxes behind it?” Mildred asked curiously, angling the beam of her flashlight.

The weak beam did little to alleviate the murky interior, but slowly their sight grew accustomed to the darkness. Lining the rust-streaked walls in orderly rows were stacks of plastic storage boxes, faded numbers stenciled along the sides to identify the contents.

“Those are full of MRE food packs!” Ryan exclaimed. “And those others contain ballistic vests!”

“I see some Hummers and an LAV in the back!” J.B. called, grinning widely. “And the boxes over here are full of boots, field surgery kits, radios…there’s even one marked for freaking LAW rocket launchers.”

“Excelsior!” Doc whooped in triumph. “We have hit the motherload of supplies.”

“This much ordnance must have been en route to a military outpost when the world ended,” Mildred guessed, chewing a lip. “Perhaps even a redoubt.”

“Quite true, madam.”

“Maybe,” Ryan muttered, in taciturn agreement. This was turning into one of the richest jumps they had ever made. But the man automatically distrusted anything this easy. If something looked too good to be true, it almost invariably was.

“Looks good, but how reach?” Jak said with a frown, estimating the distance to the floor below. “That fifty-foot drop. How reach?”

“We can’t,” Krysty stated flatly, shifting her attention to the flare. It was already half consumed. “But once we get outside, we can come back with torches and rope. Even if there are no villes in the area, we can easily make those ourselves.”

Starting to agree, Ryan paused as there came a soft thumping. Fireblast, that sounded like a hydraulic pump. It seemed that some small part of the warship was still in working condition.

Something moved in the shadows. Ryan scowled as another droid rolled into the light.

This new machine was perfect, not a speck of rust or a scratch on the chassis. Even worse, instead of buzzsaws and hammers, this model sported a tribarrel Gatling gun in lieu of a left arm, the enclosed Niagara-style ammunition belt going into a wide hopper attached to the back of the droid.

Grunting at the sight, Ryan froze as the domed head instantly swiveled upward at the small noise to look directly at him, the Gatling swiveling, giving off a hydraulic sigh as it copied the gesture.

Lurching into action, Ryan threw his arms wide to push the other companions out of the way. They cleared the hole and a split second later, a chattering maelstrom erupted out of the opening. The noisy column of hot lead hammered along the riveted ceiling, blowing off the layers of corrosion, a barrage of ricochets musically zinging away in every direction. Mildred cried out and Jak grunted loudly as they both were hit by the misshapen slugs.

Yanking a pipe bomb from his bag, J.B. started to light the fuse, but then paused. They were sitting over a cargo hold packed with military ordnance. One bomb could easily start a chain reaction of detonations that would remove this ship, and the companions, from the face of the Earth. They couldn’t even shoot back without risking a damn explosion!

Suddenly the blasterfire ceased, and there was a series of hard clicks, then silence, almost as if the machine had run out of ammo.

Scowling in disbelief, Ryan took a spent brass from his pocket and flipped it toward the hole. As it hit the rusty edge, there immediately came a fiery response. He nodded in grim satisfaction. Yeah, thought so. Pretending to be out of brass was an old trick to try to lure an enemy into sneaking a peek so that you could blow off his or her head. The droid was well-programmed in military tactics. He would remember that when they returned.

Silently motioning the others to follow, Ryan crawled away from the jagged opening until they were at the base of the ladder.

“That damn machine was playing possum!” Krysty said angrily. At the soft words there came a short burst from the hole, but it soon stopped.

“Which probably means it can’t come after us,” J.B. stated, removing his fedora to smooth down his hair before jamming it back into position. “This droid didn’t activate until there was an explosion. This is the reserve force. It’s not going to leave that cargo bay under any circumstances.”

“Then we should be safe until trying to enter,” Doc rumbled, using a thumb to ease down the hammer on the LeMat.

“Unless there are others,” Ryan countered, grabbing the lowest rung of the old ladder. He shook it hard, and when nothing fell off, the man stood and holstered the SIG-Sauer. “But that’s tomorrow’s problem. We’ll find some way to take out that droid later.”

“If ship still here,” Jak added dourly, pressing a handkerchief to the bloody score along his neck. The teen couldn’t see the damage, but knew that it was only a flesh wound.

“And if those boxes aren’t empty,” Mildred rejoined, tying off a field dressing on her forearm. An inch higher and the ricochet would have taken off her elbow.

“Paranoid,” Doc sniffed in disdain.

“Cynic,” the physician corrected, finishing the bandage.

Seeing the others were ready, Ryan started to climb up the ladder, holding the flare so that it stuck out to the side. It was pretty low by now, and he had no intention of stopping for anything until they reached daylight.

After twenty feet or so, they reached the next deck. Rising from the access hole, they checked for any more droids, then proceeded directly to the next ladder. Having done some exploring in other predark warships, the companions found this familiar territory.

As they ascended, the roots became thicker. Soon, more of the predark crew was discovered, the tendrils deeply embedded into the moldy remains. Mildred fought off the urge to rip out the plants, while Krysty found the sight comforting. People ate plants to live, and when they died, the plants consumed them in return. It was the circle of life.

Five decks later the first of the leaves appeared, diamond-shaped and dark green with a thin blue stripe. Obviously a mutie, but the smell was that of ordinary kudzu. Both Ryan and J.B. checked the rad counters clipped to their lapels, but there was no discernible background radiation.

Reaching a remarkably clean level, the companions quickly passed by the security office, the pile of spent brass and skeletons on the deck proclaiming a major firefight. There was even some wreckage from a couple of the droids. However, there was no way of telling if the fight had been the crew repelling hostile invaders, or staging a mutiny. Or even worse, a rebellion by the machines. J.B. fought back a sigh as they climbed higher. There was probably a wealth of weaponry inside the office, but time was short and—

With a wild sputter, the last flare died.

Pumping the handle of her flashlight, Mildred passed the device up to Ryan, and he tucked it into his shirt pocket. The beam was very weak, but a lot better than trying to climb while holding a candle. Now, their speed increased, and as the reek of the flare dissipated, they began to detect the smell of freshwater, along with the dulcet aroma of flowers.

At the next level, Ryan saw there were no more ladders, and allowed himself a smile as a cool breeze came from the darkness to the right. However as he advanced, the flashlight revealed that the passageway was blocked solid with plant life, the walls festooned with orchids of every color imaginable. The place resembled a rainforest more than the inside of a battleship.

Drawing the panga, he hacked and slashed a crude path through the foliage until finding an open hatchway. Sheathing the blade, Ryan drew the SIG-Sauer and stepped over the jamb to emerge into bright sunlight. Blinking against the harsh glare, he braced for an attack.

Nothing happened. The deck was covered with a thick carpet of moss, and flowery vines hung from above.

Ryan could only vaguely detect a railing, marking this as an observation balcony. Then he changed that to a battle station at the sight of a large lump of rusty machine parts that could have been a machine-gun nest, or perhaps even a Vulcan minicannon, but there was no way of telling anymore. There was a bird nest perched on top of the debris, and a small pine tree grew out sideways, the trunk molded into a twisted spiral by the gentle ocean wind.

Stretching in front of the man was a large body of blue water, low waves cresting onto a wide pebble beach. Hills rose to a rocky plateau, and then abruptly jutted upward into snowcapped mountains. A thick fog moved stealthily along the lowlands, masking any signs of civilization.

Stepping into view, Krysty blinked at the sunlight, keeping a tight grip on her blaster. “That looks like the ocean,” she said hesitantly. “But there’s no smell of salt. Could this be some sort of an inland sea?”

“Makes sense,” Ryan replied tersely. “Or at least a bastard big lake.”

“Some of them are as big as an ocean,” Krysty commented, walking over to the railing and looking down. It was an easy hundred feet from the balcony to the choppy surface of the water. She scanned the shoreline for the remains of a dockyard, but there was nothing in sight. Now she understood why the vessel had never been looted. From stem to stern, keel to radar mast, the dense foliage completely covered the ship. She could not tell the size, or shape, of the vessel, much less where it stopped and the land began. To anybody passing, the ship would simply seem another irregular foothill, just one lost among a dozen others.

With the scattergun leading the way, J.B. came next, followed closely by Mildred, then Jak and Doc. The companions moved with practiced ease, each keeping a safe distance from the others to not offer an enemy a group target. There were a lot of ways to get aced, and stupidity was the most common.

“Looks like Oregon,” Mildred said, closing her jacket. The damp air was cold, almost enough to make her breath fog. That was when she noticed the play of colors from above and looked skyward. “Good Lord, that’s an aurora borealis!” she cried in delight. “John, are we near the North Pole?”

“Could be Canada,” Jak stated coolly. “Been before.”

“Or Iceland, or even Siberia,” J.B. said with a frown, remembering the time they had jumped to Russia.

“Nonsense, dear lady, it is much too warm for either of those icy locales,” Doc replied, turning up his collar. But then he paused. “However, since we have found deserts in Japan, and swamps in Nevada, we could be anywhere.”

“Well, I can’t take a reading through these clouds,” J.B. said. “But we’ll find out where this is, sooner or later.”

“This is a magnificent view, though,” Doc commented, looking over the oceanic vista. There seemed to be some small islands far ahead, but he could not be sure at this range.

“Hell of fall, too,” Jak retorted, glancing over the railing into the waves so very far below. It had to be an easy fifty feet, maybe more.

“We’re not going to jump, that’s for damn sure,” J.B. stated. “Any sign of stairs or another ladder?”

But before any of the companions could start a search, a strident roar of blasterfire annihilated the curtain of vegetation hanging over the exit. Lightning-fast, the companions took cover behind the pile of corroded machinery and leveled their blasters at the smoking hatchway.

“By the Three Kennedys, the dastardly machine did come after us!” Doc bellowed, thumbing back the hammer of the LeMat.

“No room to maneuver here,” Ryan snarled. “Gotta shut that door. Cover me!”

As the companions sent a hail of lead into the hatchway, Ryan charged around the debris and crossed the balcony in under a heartbeat, to throw himself flat against the vine-covered wall. From inside the corridor, he clearly heard the rumble of armored treads over the constant ricochets of the incoming barrage. Holstering his blaster, Ryan grabbed the old portal and shoved hard. Nothing happened. He tried again with the same result, then saw that the hinges were hopelessly choked with rust and tiny vines.

Shoving two fingers into his mouth, Ryan sharply whistled and made a motion at the open hatchway. Nodding in understanding, J.B. pulled a pipe bomb out of his munitions bag and tossed it over. Making the catch, Ryan pulled out a butane lighter, bit the bomb fuse in two, and started the nubbin burning.

Knowing what to do next, the rest of the companions pulled out their spare blasters and sent a double fusillade of hot lead into the open doorway. Raising a splayed hand, Ryan silently counted down from five, and as he dropped the last finger, the others instantly stopped firing. He tossed the pipe bomb into the corridor, getting only a very brief glance inside as the explosive charge clattered along the floor to stop in the middle of the four hulking guardians jammed into the narrow corridor. Nuking hell, he thought, the cargo droid had to have called in reinforcements!

Jerking out of the hatchway, Ryan barely got behind steel when the pipe bomb violently detonated, the concussion shaking the vessel for yards.

“There’s four of them!” Ryan bellowed at the top of his lungs.

Startled at the news, J.B. grimaced as he pulled out a gren, flipped off the arming lever, pulled the pin and whipped the bomb forward in a sideways pitch. The military sphere hit the door and bounced inside to erupt into a searing light, and writhing tongues of chemical fire bellowed out from the hatchway, the volcanic heat wave withering the vines for yards as hundreds of leaves turned brown and fell away to expose the bare hull underneath.

“Okay, the thermite will hold them for a few minutes,” J.B. stated. “But that was my only gren.”

“Move with a purpose, people,” Ryan commanded, heading for the bow. The foothills were only a short distance from the ship, and once on land, the companions could easily disappear among the boulders and trees. Even if the machines followed, their treads would become hopelessly mired in the soft ground, making them easy pickings.

However, there was no clear way off the balcony, the stairs or access ladder, which were hidden under multiple layers of moss, flowering vines and bird droppings. Risking a step off the balcony, Ryan saw his boot punch straight through a leafy canopy to reveal only open space. He tried again with the same results.

Holstering their spare blasters, the companions pulled out blades and wildly slashed at the plants. But there only seemed to be more vines underneath, layer after layer, in an endless procession. Going to the railing, Ryan looked down at the choppy water of the lake and tried to guess the distance. Roughly fifty feet.

Unexpectedly, a sizzling beam of light stabbed through the wall alongside the roaring conflagration. Steadily the power beam drew a line in the ancient metal, rising up from the deck about twelve feet, and then slowly starting to move sideways.

Caught reloading the ZKR, Mildred almost dropped a handful of brass at the horrible sight. Sweet Jesus, the robotic sons of bitches were cutting themselves a new exit around the thermite! A hundred possibilities flashed through her mind like riffling playing cards, and she chose the most logical. The prime rule with every machine in existence was that electrical circuits did not like water. Therefore, her decision was made.

“Follow me,” Mildred shouted, jumping over the railing to hurtle toward the choppy water of the lake. Without pause, the other companions were right behind the bold physician.

Plummeting through the chilly air, the fall seemed to take the companions forever, as if the universe had slowed to aid the escape. But they knew better and hugged their belongings tightly, trying to brace for the coming impact, which was going to be bad.

A cataclysm of pain engulfed the companions as they plunged into the turgid lake, the biting cold almost stealing the breath from their lungs. The agony was unbelievable. It was as if every inch of their bodies was being stabbed with tiny knives.

As expected, their clothing resisted for only a few seconds, then quickly soaked through, a fresh wave of cold reaching their vulnerable skin as their weight increased tenfold.

Half expecting to hit the bottom and shatter their legs, the companions rode the wave of torment, preparing for even worse.

An unknown length of time passed and incredibly their descent began to slow, and the companions started to sluggishly rise. Fueled by a fierce determination to live, the companions forced their limbs to move, desperately swimming for the surface, the ancient scuba mantra of “always follow the bubbles” keeping them going in the right direction.

Erupting through the waves, the gasping companions greedily drank in the bitterly cold air, then shivered in renewed torment as a chill invaded their aching lungs, sapping away even more of their failing strength. But that was of no real concern. They had survived. Now it was only a dozen yards or so until they were safe on shore.

Swimming in steady strokes, Ryan quickly glanced around to see if everybody was present and accounted for when a large metallic object violently smacked into the choppy water, the armed guardian promptly disappearing below the lolling waves.

Chapter Three

Standing on the lee of the rocky shore, a blonde woman lifted a wooden flute to her lips and began to softly play.

Made of whalebone, the delicately carved musical instrument had been a parting gift from her father, just before Mad Pete threw her off a cliff.

The music slowed as she almost smiled at the memory. Oh, it was true that the old man had been triple crazy. Yet he was also oddly wise, and always gentle. It took years before the child could understand that her loving father had acted more insane than he really was to keep the baron from taking her to his bed. Not a marriage bed, just the one he kept hidden from his wife in a stone shed behind the Citadel, where nobody else could witness what happened to other young girls in the dark of a foggy night. Named Victoria by the baron, but called Summer Liana by her father, her first lesson in life had been that deception could be more useful as a knife. Mad Pete had taught the young girl many secret things in the privacy of their hut, patiently waiting until she became an adult of eighteen winters before casting her into the world to live free or die. It was cruel, but necessary.

May the moon goddess bless you for that brutal act of kindness, dear father, Liana prayed silently in her mind. As a well of raw emotion made her throat tighten, she accidentally blew a sour note on the flute. Instantly the subtle motions in the lake stopped.

Frowning, the teenager redoubled her concentration, blocking out the bittersweet memories of her lost childhood and the fierce stabs of hunger in her belly. Thrown into the sea wearing only the rawhide dress and soft slippers of a slave, Liana now wore a warm robe made of moose hide and waterproof beaver-skin boots. A grass rope was tied at her waist, and a large wooden knife was sheathed at her hip, with another tucked into her left boot. A spear rested in the dirt nearby. There was even a flat stone with a razor-sharp edge hidden under her rawhide dress in case of emergency. Such as, if somebody got a look at her eyes. A woven bag of river reeds hung across her back, bulging with everything she possessed, which sadly wasn’t very much.

There had been no berries to be found on the mountain bushes, potatoes in the fields, frogs in the swamp, snails, or even eggs in the bird nests hidden along the north cliffs. Liana was accustomed to feeling hungry, as food was always in short supply for a runaway slave, but this winter was particularly lean and the teenager knew that she had to learn how to forage for herself or else join her beloved father on the last train west.

As her stomach grumbled loudly once more, Liana forced her mind to relax, and the music flowed clear and sweet across the misty bay. The wind ruffled the long blond hair hanging across her face, almost pushing it aside, but the lard carefully rubbed into the strands kept them in place. Since her birth, nobody had ever gotten a good look at her face, which was why she was still alive. Her eyes revealed the awful truth, and throwbacks were slain on sight.

Soon there was an answering tug in the back of her mind and she almost smiled at the sight of a black snake rising to the surface and coming straight toward her. Excellent!

Stepping back slightly, Liana continued to play the flute. The snake blindly charged her, going over the edge of the small pit and tumbling to the bottom. Startled, the snake lashed about, trying to get out, but the sides of the hole were much too steep. Hissing in unbridled fury, the snake eventually calmed, moving to the rhythm of the music, and then bizarrely fell asleep.

Overjoyed, Liana could not believe the sight. The song was working! Her father had been right once again. While he could see the future, she was able to command the lower animals. Never again would she be hungry. What a glorious day!

As a young girl, Liana dimly remembered her grandy scoffing at the notion that she could summon snakes with a musical instrument. “Snakes ain’t got no ears!” she raged, waving her walking stick. “I’ve eaten enough of them to know that! How can you summon a thing with music if it can’t hear?” And it was true, the snakes had no discernible ears. Yet her father had insisted that someday they would come to her call. Nothing else, just snakes. But that was enough to fill her belly, even in the bad times after the acid rains came to burn the land clean.

Wishing to test the range of her new ability, Liana played on, using her mind to probe into the murky depths of the cold sea. She found more snakes, and several eels, a rare delicacy reserved purely for those of royal blood. What a feast she would have back in her little cave!

Deciding that she could not wait that long, Liana tucked away the flute and yanked the spear from the ground. Stabbing a particularly fat snake in the pit, she hauled it out impaled. The dying creature thrashed for only a few seconds, then slumped and went still.

Using her belt knife, the young woman carefully peeled off the valuable skin and placed it aside, then scooped out the guts and tossed them into the weeds for the creatures of the field. Nothing bloody was ever allowed to fall into the lake, as that could summon a kraken, the most horrible creature in the world.

Using a piece of flint and some dry grass, Liana soon started a fire and fed the tiny blaze sticks, then branches, until it was a roaring campfire. Savoring the warmth, she stuck the snake on a greenstick and put it over the flames, the delicious aroma of roasting meat a tantalizing torment. Her empty stomach rumbled in anticipation, and she stole a tiny piece of the raw flesh to hold it in abeyance for just a few more minutes.

Humming happily to herself, Liana only vaguely heard a whooshing noise from behind when there was a terrible pain at the back of her head, and blackness filled the universe.

She never quite fully lost consciousness, but she fell helpless to the ground, the snake falling into the flames to disappear in an explosion of embers and smoke.

Dimly through the hammering in her ears, Liana could hear the sound of boots crunching on loose pebbles, and rough hands flipped her over. Dark shapes stood nearby, and she tried to speak, but could only manage a sort of wet burble. Her tongue felt thick and the world kept spinning around.

“Hot damn, look, boys, it’s a slut!” A man chortled. “Guess we got a meal, and a ride!”

Cold horror exploded in her guts at the casual pronouncement of rape, and Liana blinked to try to clear her vision. The savage pounding at the back of her head made it difficult, but she ordered the pain away and suddenly could see once more.

There were ten of them, large men with beards, wearing dirty robes of mismatched furs. Their hair was matted with sticks and mud, with grisly necklaces of dried human ears hanging around their throats. Each was heavily armed with stone weapons, knives and axes, plus each carried a crossbow slung over a shoulder. Goddess protect me, she prayed. These were Hillies.

Kneeling alongside her, a redheaded man was binding her wrists with lengths of rawhide, while another cleaned the blood and hair off a boomerang on his sleeve. Dimly, she recognized it as her own blond hair, and cursed herself for a fool. Struck from behind! Hunger had distracted her for a few minutes, and now she would have to pay the ultimate price.

Feebly, she tried to resist and the cold edge of a stone knife was pressed against her throat.

“Stop wiggling or I’ll gut you like a fish,” a Hilly snarled, displaying rotten teeth, his breath fetid with shine and wolfweed. “That won’t ace ya, but you’ll sure wish it had. Savvy?”

Liana nodded her understanding, her mind racing to find some way to get loose, get free, escape. But if she struggled too hard, it might show them the truth, and death would swiftly follow.

Finished binding her wrists, the Hilly began running his hands over her clothing, taking away everything in her pockets, and then cutting away the rope belt to spread open her coat. Shivering from the rush of cold air, Liana felt sick at the leering faces of the mountain savages looking down at her.

“Hey, lookit there. Bitch has got a whole pit full of snakes,” a blond man muttered, kicking some loose dirt into the hole. The snakes awoke and hissed angrily. “How the frag did she do that without a net?”

“Don’t know, don’t care,” a bald man said. “Ask her after we’re done, but I wanna start pumping right now.”

“Wait your turn, gleeb,” the redhead barked, sheathing his blade. “Now strip the bitch, and make sure she ain’t hiding a blade.”

“We already know what she’s hiding!” the fat Hilly said, rubbing a hand across his mouth.

Trying not to burst into tears, Liana winced at their raucous laughter, and the stone knives slashed away her clothing, soon leaving her exposed on the cold, hard ground. Filthy hands fondled her as the last of her clothing was removed, then the Hillies jerked away as if she had suddenly become red-hot.

“Well, nuke me,” a tall man whispered, tossing away a shredded piece of her rawhide dress. “Looks like we got us a runaway slave!”

“That’s the mark for Anchor ville,” another said in wonder, rubbing a finger along the chained eagle burned into her shoulder. “The baron there will pay a fortune in steel for this little bitch.”

“I…am a singer,” Liana croaked, knowing there was nothing to try but the truth. “I can summon snakes. All you want, at any time. I’ll…I’ll be a good slave. Y-your ville will never go hungry again!” She swallowed hard. “But don’t send me back. Please!”

The faces of the Hillies underwent a variety of expressions as they considered the matter from every angle.

“We got enough food,” the leader said, loosening the belt around his waist. His pants fell away, revealing that he was more than ready. “Grab her legs, boys, I’m going in!”

With those dire words, fear filled her mind and Liana knew that her only escape would be on the last train west. So be it. She could at least rob the bastards of their fun. Shaking her head as hard as she could, the woman felt her long bangs shift and the Hillies recoil in horror.

SLOSHING OUT OF THE OCEAN, the cresting waves knocking them forward, the bedraggled companions staggered onto the shore, panting for breath and drawing their blasters.

Weakly shuffling behind some boulders for cover, the friends caught their breath as yet another droid rolled off the balcony of the warship and plummeted into the water, only to vanish beneath the surface and then violently explode. A few moments later, a boiling geyser erupted upward, only to come back down to spread outward as a warm and gentle rain.

“Triple stupe feebs.” J.B. sneered in disdain, lowering the Uzi. “If that keeps up, there’ll soon be no more droids on the bastard ship.” The man was drenched, his hair and clothing steadily dripping water.

“Lake bigger than ship,” Jak agreed, his white hair plastered to his head, giving him a vaguely corpselike appearance.

“The bastard comps must have gone haywire over the decades,” Ryan said, fighting a shiver.

“Personally, I was thankful for the wash,” Doc stated, visibly trembling. “I was starting to name my flies.”

It was an exaggeration, but everybody understood the feeling. The past couple of redoubts had not possessed working showers, only hot water in the kitchen, and the companions had washed using the kitchen sink. But in spite of that, they had started to become noticeably ripe. A dunk into frigid water was no shower, but it would do for the moment.

“We need a fire quick, or we’re going to get sick,” Krysty stated, her soggy hair flexing as if trying to dislodge the water droplets. “There’s enough driftwood about, but this wind is going to ace us eventually.”

Just then, another droid rolled off the ship, the machines still in hot pursuit of the invaders. There was the usual underwater detonation and rain.

“Okay, these things aren’t going to be troubling us any,” Ryan decided, shouldering his Steyr longblaster. “Let’s get into the forest and find some bastard shelter before we freeze solid.” Flexing his hands, the man gently rubbed a finger under his eyepatch. The cold was making the old wound ache something fierce.

“Shelter and coffee,” Doc countered, holstering the useless LeMat. The Civil War handcannon had many positive attributes, but it was not waterproof like a modern-day blaster. After their immersion, the black powder in the cylinder was dribbling out of the barrel like dark blood. The weapon would be useless until thoroughly dried, cleaned and reloaded. The Ruger was still in his frock coat pocket, but he was saving that until needed. There had been no chance to thoroughly clean the blaster yet, and it was possible that pulling the trigger would be the very last thing his right hand ever did in this world.

Taking hold of his walking stick, Doc twisted the lion’s-head newel to unlock the mechanism and draw his sword.

Starting to offer a suggestion of digging a pit, Jak caught a movement in the air and smiled. A bat! Spinning, he strode toward the nearby cliff and there it was, a large opening in the side of the rock formation.

Whistling sharply for the others, the teenager drew his blaster and butane lighter, then carefully proceeded inside. Caves were natural shelters, and also one of the most dangerous places in existence. Aside from the possibility of a cave-in sealing a person inside, or tumbling into a cavern, or getting lost, bears liked to hibernate in caves, as well as rats, bats, lions, wolverines and a host of muties who delighted in eating human flesh.

However, Jak soon saw that the precautions had not been necessary. The cave ended after a hundred feet or so, narrowing into a crevice too small for anything larger than a mouse to traverse. Obviously the bat had not come from this particular cave. Fair enough. With all of those boulders outside, the cliffs were probably honeycombed with caves and tunnels.

Off to the side of the cave was a small pool, only a few inches deep, the crystal-clear water full of albino crayfish. Since the companions had plenty of food, Jak ignored the tiny creatures, leaving them in peace. A real hunter never aced for pleasure, but only to put food on the table.

Suddenly there came a whistle from behind, and the teenager answered without even turning. Soon, there came the sound of boots on stone.

“Dear God, it feels good to get out of the wind,” Mildred said, playing about her flashlight. “Any occupants in here, Jak?”

“We alone,” the albino teen replied, then gestured with his blaster. “Right now, anyway.” There was the remnants of a campfire and a few gnawed bones tossed into a corner. Clearly, somebody had used the cave as a campsite once.

“Looks fine,” Ryan said, studying the smooth ceiling. “Good job, Jak.”

The teenager shrugged. “Easy find cave, know how.”

Softly in the distance, there came another watery explosion.

“Well, I’ll cook dinner if somebody else gets the firewood,” J.B. offered, easing his sodden munitions bag to the rocky floor. The spare blasters clattered as they came to a rest.

“We better find something to block the mouth first,” Mildred corrected. “Let’s try to roll one of the smaller boulders in first to help block the wind.”

“And keep in the heat.” Krysty laughed weakly, then she frowned unexpectedly.

“Something wrong, lover?” Ryan asked, pausing in the act of removing his fur-lined coat. Soaked with water, the garment felt like it weighed a hundred pounds.

Her hair flexing in a wild corona, Krysty said nothing as she looked around the cave, then suddenly lurched back outside with a drawn blaster in her hand.

“Krysty?” Ryan repeated in growing concern, joining her outside the cave.

The woman gave no reply, lost in a private world. Just for a second, there had been a flutter in her mind. Screwing her eyelids shut, the woman blocked out the distractions of the world—the sound of the ocean, the cold wind, even the voices of her friends, concentrating solely on the ghostly sensation.

However, strain as she might, nothing more could be felt. Then she heard a faint cry from the direction of a low dune. Surging into action, the woman pelted in that direction. Whatever was happening, that had not been a cry of surprise or gladness.

A steep embankment formed a dune that sloped upward to a grassy plateau. Krysty took it at a run, her breath visibly puffing as she reached the top. The rocks were slippery under her muddy cowboy boots and she nearly fell several times before reaching the top of the steppe. A split second later Ryan and the others arrived, staying quiet and letting her take the lead.

Hesitantly, Krysty moved forward, a blaster in each hand.

The area was thick with scraggy grass, along with tall reeds. To the left was the forest of pine trees, the air sweet with their scent. That seemed a logical place for somebody to make camp, but the cry had come from the right, so she raced back toward the lake.

Bushes and reeds blocked her view, but the woman cried out in pain once more, and then there came the curse of a man.

Redoubling their speed, the companions crested a low rise to come upon a small clearing filled with hairy men surrounding a blond woman waving around a fishing spear. She was completely naked, her body covered with bruises, but the men were slashed in a dozen places, blood trickling from shallow cuts in their fur coats. Her wrists were lashed together, but the men seemed to be getting the worst of the fight. One big man had missing teeth, his jaw still dripping blood, another had a broken nose, and a third was missing a large patch of hair, his scalp oozing a clear fluid. Every time they tried to get close she would jab for their hands, and the men retreated, sucking the wounds. However, they did not go very far.

Forcibly holding Krysty back, Ryan went low in the reeds to stay out of sight for a moment to gauge the situation. Rushing into the unknown was a good way to get aced. This looked like a gangbang, but things were not always as they seemed. The blonde could have been a gaudy slut bought for the night and the men had caught her stealing. Acing her would only be justice. On the other hand, this could be a trap to lure in passing travelers.

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