Moonfeast (23 page)

Guiding the cumbersome barge into the calm water of the little inlet proved to be surprisingly easy for Ryan, and the man briefly wondered if he was a natural at steering a boat or if sailors had been trying to make themselves sound important for centuries by pretending that a relatively simple task was incredibly difficult. Then an unexpected wave hit the barge and Ryan suddenly knew the hard truth as he temporarily lost control of the craft and Jak went tumbling over the gunwale.

“Thanks,” the teen sputtered, standing waist deep in the shallows.

“Sorry,” Ryan shouted, lashing the wheel into place and running over to the side of the vessel to toss down a rope.

Climbing out of the water, Jak scowled at the man, then flinched as the salt water finally reached the open sores on his back from the ricocheted scattergun buckshot.

Understanding the source of the pained expression, Ryan grabbed a bucket of rain water from a peg and sloshed it over the teen.

“Thanks,” Jak said, this time giving the word an entirely different tone. Shrugging off his jacket, the teenager hung it on the peg to dry.

“You two done fucking around?” J.B. shouted from the shore through cupped hands.

“Almost!” Ryan yelled back, giving a half smile.

On the shore, the rest of the companions stood patiently waiting near a spitting campfire. There was no sign of the two horses, and the air smelled of freshly broiled steak. In the distance, a large patch of the pine-tree forest was burning out of control, thick plumes of smoke rising high.

Wearily, everybody climbed on board, setting down their backpacks with grateful sighs.

“Trouble?” Jak asked, looking over the tired people.

“Nothing we couldn’t handle,” J.B. replied, easing the bulky nuke battery to the deck with a dull thump. The laser was strapped across his back, the cable still connected to the battery for instant use.

“I’ll bet,” Ryan said, noticing that Doc was carrying the munitions bag, Mildred the shotgun and Krysty the Uzi.

“Well, a swarm of stingwings aced both horses, and we’ve been on the run ever since,” J.B. admitted, massaging an arm. “Dark night, this thing gets heavy after a while. It’s like hauling a LAV on your back.”

“Someone sent people to harass us with sniper fire,” Mildred added, brushing some sand and nettles off her pants. “We couldn’t find them in the treetops, so…” She glanced at the raging inferno on the nearby hills.

“Set fire ace snipers?” Jak scowled in disbelief.

“Well, it seemed like the thing to do at the time,” Doc demurred, sounding slightly embarrassed.

“How about you two?” Krysty asked, removing her bearskin coat to drape it over a sandbag.

“Pretty much the same,” Ryan stated with a grimace. “The captain sent some of his gunners in canoes after us. When they started shooting, Jak riddled them with the Fifties, and from then on we’ve been left alone.”

Just then, an echoing roar sounded from the direction of the hills, and everybody spun with a hand on his or her blaster to see a mountain of mottle-colored flesh begin to rise above the forest fire. Soon, a single great eye was revealed to stare hatefully at the tiny people standing on the barge.

“Bastard!” Jak cursed, spinning to race for the closest .50-caliber machine gun.

Bellowing in unbridled fury, the colossal kraken began to slowly haul itself sideways along the hill, its thick tentacles grabbing onto the trunks of pine trees just outside the rampaging conflagration.

“Quick, John, use the laser!” Mildred shouted, pumping the scattergun. “On land we stand a chance, but we’re doomed if it reaches the water!”

“Tell me something I don’t know!” J.B. replied with a snarl, shrugging off the laser and dialing the controls to maximum power.

As the kraken started crashing through the greenery, J.B. sent a deep blue beam into the trees, the juicy nettles exploding like thousands of firecrackers at the touch of the power ray. Startled, the kraken recoiled, then the tree trunks whooshed into flames.

Roaring in frustration, the giant mutie began dragging itself in the other direction. But J.B. quickly set every tree in sight on fire, the flames forming an al
most solid wall of fire between the behemoth and the shore line.

“At this rate, the fire will die soon,” Doc said in a deceptively calm voice. “And without any horses or wags…” There was no need for him to finish the sentence.

Aiming for the eye, J.B. tried to blind the mutie, but the billowing smoke threw off his aim and the laser merely scored a gash across the creature’s forehead. Yellow blood gushed out, but not very much.

Changing tactics, J.B. narrowed the beam to its tightest focus, then swept the laser across the top of the mutie. The crown of the beast came off, pulsating gray brains swelling into view, and a torrent of piss-yellow blood gushed from the ghastly wound.

Howling louder than thunder, the kraken surged into the flames, uncaring of the pain, intent upon reaching the norms at any price. Holding down the button, J.B. swung the laser back and forth across the beast, cutting off tentacles and hacking off huge chunks of flesh.

Bursting out of the flames, what remained of the kraken slumped onto the sandy ground, the tentacles lashing to find any purchase to drag it into the life-giving ocean. But the laser removed the ropy limbs, then burned into the snapping beak, slowly traveling upward, boiling the eye a solid white, until coming out the top of the oozing brain.

A split second later the laser sputtered and died, the housing gushing smoke and sparks as melted circuits dribbled out of a vent like silver blood.

Still fighting to move forward, the kraken convulsed, then fell apart, the two sections spurting golden gore,
the few remaining tentacles whipping around mindlessly before the dying mutie shuddered and went still.

I
MPATIENTLY WAITING
for the fleet to arrive, Captain Carlton suddenly went pale and stopped pacing the dock. A wave of incalculable pain flooded his entire being from the psychic backlash of having a creature under his mental control perish, and the man doubled over to noisily retch into the lagoon. Gurgling as if about to die, Carlton fell over sideways, gasping for breath, his limbs thrashing wildly.

W
ITH THEIR BARON
and his lady safely in the middle of the group, the sec men of Sealton ville moved warily through the long dark tunnel, the only illumination coming from their butane lighters and one tallow candle that spit and popped constantly.

They had been afraid that the tunnel might lead to a lava tube and end in a sulfur pit, dooming them all to a slow chill. But the air was remarkably fresh, although reeking with the smell of old corpses. Clearly, there had been a major fight in the tunnel, and not that long ago.

Coming upon a crude barricade, the sec men checked the bodies on the ground, first to make sure they were aced and then for anything useful.

“Baron, these…these are cannies,” a sec man growled, lifting a skinning knife into view. The handle was wrapped in human skin, a tattoo clearly visible.

“Any weapons?” the baron asked, holding his Ruger ready in case one of the bodies was actually alive. Cannies often played corpse to lure in their victims.

“Plenty, Baron,” a sec man replied, not quite sure if he was happy about that or not. “Nothing that takes brass, but flintlocks by the pile.”

“Any flints?” Lady Veronica asked suspiciously, a finger resting on the trigger of her MP-5 rapidfire.

“Pounds of them!” a sec woman exclaimed. “And more black powder and shot than we can possibly carry.”

“Then arm yourselves, but watch for traps!” the bar on commanded, keeping his back to the wooden wall.

“What do you think happened here, my love?” Lady Veronica asked, scowling at the murky figures on the floor. In the candlelight, they almost seemed to move, and the effect was unnerving.

“Something came down this tunnel, and they died trying to hold it off,” the baron said slowly, then bent to pick up a shiny golden object. It was a brass cartridge with a tiny dent in the side, marking it as having come from a rapidfire.

“The outlanders,” Lady Veronica stated, glancing at the darkness behind them. “They nuked the cannies to jack their boat, but tangled with Carlton instead.”

“Doesn’t sound like they work for him, after all,” the baron said, shifting his grip on the Ruger. “I’m starting to believe the fight at the volcano was a mistake on our part, and they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

The woman merely grunted at the possibility, not quite ready to relinquish her hatred for the witch with the red hair.

When the sec men were fully armed, the group con
tinued deeper into the tunnel and soon entered a spacious dining hall full of decomposing bodies. The reek was horrible, and they moved past the room and into another tunnel as fast as possible. Some of the bodies appeared to have been gnawed on, which meant that either there was no avenue to the surface or the cannies had tangled with their worst enemy, their own kind—screamers. At the realization, a dozen sec men cocked the stone-tipped hammers on their blasters into firing position.

“Anything moves, shoot on sight,” the baron commanded, feeling the tension among the troops increase.

A breeze was blowing along the subterranean passageway into their faces, forcing the wretched stink behind, and they gratefully savored the flow. The air carried a faint aroma of growing plants, as if they were near the grasslands once more.

Abruptly calling a halt, a sec man crawled forward with a knife and soon stood holding a pipe bomb. “Whoever planted this knew his trade,” the man stated, tucking the explosive charge into his belt.

More bodies were found along the way, but already carrying a full load of shot and powder, the sec men ignored the corpses, aside from thrusting a knife into them to make sure the decomposing piles of flesh weren’t a threat.

“Any spears or axes?” the baron asked.

His broken arm in a sling, a corporal nodded. “Yes, sir. Plenty.”

“Then strip the dead,” Lady Veronica ordered brusquely, “and make some torches from their clothing.”

The grisly task was done. The group continued onward through the subterranean labyrinth, but the mood improved, as did their speed.

Passing by several prison cells, the sec men sighed at the sight of sunlight streaming in through ragged holes in the ceiling.

“We’re almost out,” Baron Jones said confidently. “Let’s find the front entrance and go back home.”

“The first round of shine is on me,” Lady Veronica added. “And no wall duty for a month!”

Both of them tried not to smile when they saw the grim faces of the sec men ease at the thought of anything other than fighting and chilling. Tired men made mistakes, and they weren’t out of this stinking rad pit yet.

Taking a corner, the group paused as the lead sec man knelt to disarm another trap. Then they became aware of a soft glow at the far end of the corridor. The smell of greenery was much stronger, but it was oddly tainted with the smell of fresh animal droppings.

Advancing carefully, the group went stock-still at the startling sight of a large patch of sunlight streaming down from a colossal hole in the ceiling. Lying in the pool of light was a sleeping thunder king, surrounded by the partially consumed bodies of some cannies. Behind the giant mutie was a flight of wooden stairs leading up to a set of wooden doors, sunlight streaming through every tiny crack.

Nobody spoke, but a sec man panted at the tantalizing sight, and the eyes of the king snapped open at the tiny sound.

“Fire!” Baron Jones bellowed, triggering the Ruger.

The terrified sec men opened fire with their stolen blasters, and the king lurched forward, its horn goring the first man. With a shake of the head, the creature tossed aside the body and lumbered forward, trampling the next man and crushing another between the wall and its own armored body.

“Die!” Lady Veronica screamed, emptying her weapon into the face of the thing. The barrage of 9 mm rounds took out both eyes, but the king merely grunt ed in annoyance and bent to start eating the still living sec men, their hideous screams going completely unnoticed.

“Nuking hell, this is a trap!” the baron snarled, firing the Ruger. “Carlton wanted us in the tunnel to escape this way and get fed to his bastard pet!”

As the creature began to regenerate, a sec man threw a pipe bomb. The blast shook the beast hard, but it went on eating and repairing itself. A sec man darted into a prison cell and barred the door from the inside while another sec man tried to get past the king to reach the stairs. Never pausing in the grotesque feasting, the king merely shifted its bulk sideways for a moment, smashing the man against the wooden wall, pulping his legs and splintering the planks. He dropped to the ground with a weeping sob, and the beast chomped off his head, chewing the skull like a cow did soft cud.

“Retreat!” the baron commanded, grabbing the hand of his wife and taking off at a full run.

Frantically reloading their black-powder blasters, the sec men were right behind their baron.

“Where?” Lady Veronica asked, squeezing his hand, knowing it was probably for the last time.

“Here!” the baron said, unexpectedly stopping at an intersection to point at the wooden support beam. “Arnsman, seal the tunnel!”

Quickly the sec man planted the explosive charge as everybody else moved to a safe distance farther down the tunnel.

“That won’t hold it off for very long,” Lady Veronica said pointedly, looking at her empty rapidfire.

“Every minute of life is worth it,” the baron replied curtly, dropping his revolver to pull out his bullwhip. “If this is our day to buy the farm, then we’ll take that big bastard with us to hell. Right, boys?”

Knowing that was pure crap, the sec men cheered in response anyway. Their job was to protect the ville and the baron’s family, with their lives if necessary. They had no fear of getting chilled, only of getting chilled uselessly.

“Ready!” the sec man shouted, holding a butane lighter and a stubby fuse.

Just then, the king walked around the corner and rammed its curbed horn into the side of the man. Dropping the fuse, he screamed wildly and beat the creature with a fist. Jerking its head, the king tossed him aside and started slowly toward the others, as if knowing full well that they had no place to ride or hide.