Tainted Cascade (3 page)

“Short barrels mean a big spray,” Thal stated. “And watch for the kick. That scattergun is gonna rise up hard. A lot more than your crossbow.”

“Just cause there wasn't any iron on my hip doesn't mean I'm a fragging virgin,” Rose answered curtly, tucking her thumbs into the gun belt. Then she smiled up at the giant. “But thanks for the advice anyway, Bear.”

Unsuccessfully, the colossus tried to hide a grin at the use of his private name. They had been bed partners for years, and it amused the other two men to pretend that they didn't know about the raucous nightly coupling.

“Pity the outlander didn't have a horse,” Petrov said, turning away from the body to head back into the tavern. “We could have sold it for a week of hot food and clean beds here at Heaven, or just slaughtered the beast and lived off the jerky for a good month.”

“Fragging son of a bitch cost us a fortune in brass,” Charlie muttered angrily. “The shine and blaster help, but we're still coming in low on this.”

“Mebbe we could go check the traps,” Rose sug
gested, pausing at the open doorway. At her appearance, a cheer came from the patrons and staff.

“This soon?” Petrov said with a scowl, scratching the back of his head. “Only been a week or so.”

“Mebbe we'll get lucky,” Thal rumbled, patting the new cartridges for his blaster. “It feels like a lucky day.”

“More lucky for some than others.” Rose laughed.

Hitching up his gun belt, Charlie frowned. “Think Big Joe will mind us…?” He left the sentence hanging.

“What he doesn't know won't kill him,” Petrov said, smirking, and he walked into the cool darkness.

 

T
RODDING UNDER
the merciless sun, time seemed to stand still for the companions, the hot day lasting impossibly long. Or so it seemed, anyway. A dozen times over the past few miles, they passed more of the shallow saltwater ponds, the sight of the water a growing ache in their throats and bellies.

Pausing to take a tiny sip of warm water, Ryan sloshed it around in his mouth before swallowing. The urge to take a big gulp was strong, but he knew the foolishness of that. Drink too fast when you're that hot, and it could come right back up. And that was moisture he couldn't afford to waste.

“What's that sound?” Krysty asked, glancing around, a hand going to her blaster.

Immediately alert, the rest of the companions drew weapons and scanned the vicinity. But there was nothing in sight except the endless shifting dunes and the sparkling vista of dried salt.

“What did you hear?” Ryan asked, then paused as he caught a faint whisper over the desert wind. It was
gone in a heartbeat, but just for a split second, it sure as nuking hell had sounded just like a—

“Waterfall!” J.B. shouted, pointing a trembling hand straight ahead.

Hesitantly taking a step forward, Ryan scowled at the vague sight of something blue in the distance. It seemed to be coming right out of the side of a rocky escarpment that rose from the baked sand like an island in the sea. There was even some ragged green tufts of grass on top, a tiny touch of life almost lost amid the rolling sand dunes and windswept salt.

“Is…it…a mirage?” Doc asked, his normally booming voice reduced to a hoarse whisper.

“No, I smell water. Clean water!” Jak croaked, rushing forward, only to stop after a few yards.

“Good place for ambush,” the albino teenager added, drawing the Colt and thumbing back the hammer. The metal was so hot under the sun, he thought it would burn his finger, but he pushed aside that minor consideration. Better pain today, than death forever.

“Standard formation, on me,” Ryan muttered, swinging down the Steyr and working the bolt. “And watch your bastard flanks!”

Moving in a tight combat formation, Ryan and the others advanced upon the waterfall. Gushing from the side of a small hill, the clear water pooled around the turbulent base to flow off toward the east, directly away from the sizzling desert. The delicious smell of fresh water filled the air like a healing balm, easing their itchy eyes and the pain in their throats.

Doing a complete circle of the escarpment, Ryan and the companions looked hard for any signs of tracks
or spoor, but the ground was smooth and undisturbed, pristine and perfect.

“Okay, we're alone,” Ryan said, holstering his blaster. “I'll take the first watch, and—”

Whooping in delight, Jak rushed forward to dive bodily into the water. He came up a few seconds later sputtering and grinning. “Cold!” he shouted, waving an arm. “No salt!”

“I should think so,” Mildred muttered, going to the edge of the small lake. Sitting, she eased off her boots and dangled her bare feet in cool water, washing away the sweat, and then proceeded to wash the salt and sweat from her boots.

Wading into the water, Doc cupped his hands to daintily wash his face and neck. Then on impulse, the man ducked below the surface and came up laughing. “Never before have I extracted so much joy from simply not being thirsty!” he boomed, his words echoing slightly along the outcropping.

Krysty walked into the shallows, then dived under the water. She stayed submerged for a long time, then rose again like a modern-day Venus. Her soaked clothing clung enticingly to her figure, and her hair spread out in a wild corona as the living filaments tried to dry themselves.

“Thank Gaia, I needed that!” She laughed, opening the canteen at her side. Filling the container, she tossed it to Ryan. He made the catch with one hand, the other filled with the Steyr. The man used his teeth to twist off the cap again, then liberally poured the water over his head and face before taking a small sip, then a much larger swallow.

“Thanks!” He exhaled. “I needed that bad.”

“Anytime, lover!” Krysty called back, starting to remove her clothing.

“Madam, please!” Doc gasped, turning away quickly.

“You can wait until we're done,” J.B. said, easing off his munitions bag. “But we're going to be swimming here for quite a while.”

“But…b-but…”

“Go ahead, Doc, I got your six,” Ryan said, sitting on a flat-top rock and taking another long swig.

“I see.” Pursing his lips, Doc acquiesced to the logic of the matter and stripped to his underwear, which was as far as decorum would allow the man to go with ladies present.

“Crazy old coot. We've all seen each other without clothes before.” But in deference to Doc's modesty, every one left on their undergarments.

“Indeed, madam, but not in quite such intimate proximity!” Doc countered.

In short order, the companions were swimming around the pool. J.B. still wore his glasses and fedora.

“You're going to wash that, too, I hope?” Mildred asked, sidling closer to the wiry man.

Smiling wide, J.B. started to answer when a strange expression swept across his face, and he started to hack and cough.

Stumbling to the shoreline, J.B. almost didn't make it out of the lake when Ryan grabbed him under the arms and hauled the unconscious man onto the dry ground. Only steps behind, Mildred scrambled out of the water and rushed to his side. Looking inside his mouth for any obstructions, the physician quickly checked his
pulse and removed his glasses to look into his eyes. No, it couldn't be! she thought.

“Son of a bitch!” Mildred gasped in horror. “Everybody, get the fuck out of the water!”

Startled by her tone, the rest of the companions needed no further prompting to slosh out of the lake as fast as they could.

“What's wrong with him?” Ryan demanded, every instinct honed in a thousand battles suddenly alert.

But Mildred didn't answer. Instead, she turned away from everybody and rammed two stiff fingers down her throat, trying to induce vomiting. It took Ryan an instant to understand, then he threw away the canteen with a curse. Poisoned. The whole bastard lake was poisoned!

While the rest of the companions frantically tried to do the same thing, they noticed the waterfall was starting to sound muted, as if in the distance, and soon their movements took on a vague dreamlike quality.

With his own vision failing, Ryan tried to help, but having drunk so much water, the effect seemed to be hitting him the hardest. The world was already going dark, his strength dwindling fast. Dropping the Steyr, the man clumsily drew the panga and cut his arm, hoping the pain would help him stay awake. But Ryan barely felt the passage of the steel through his skin and knew that it was already too late. Enraged over the failure to recognize the trap, Ryan felt an adrenaline surge course through his body. But the brief respite vanished almost as quickly as it had come, and, still fighting to remain conscious, Ryan slumped to the ground and
went still. The rest of the companions followed suit only a few seconds later.

Soon, there was no movement at the crystal lake, aside from the steady rush of the waterfall and the bright sunlight reflecting off the gentle waves.

Lost in a dreamy world of muzzy thoughts and sensations for an unknown length of time, Ryan awoke sluggishly, feeling as if he was going to be sick. His stomach ached fiercely, and the world was rocking back and forth. Dimly, the man wondered if he was inside a redoubt suffering through a bout of jump sickness, which always hit the companions after using the mat-trans unit.

The redoubts were the greatest secret of the predark world, and even more so now. Built before skydark, they were military underground bunkers, constructed to withstand a direct hit by a thermonuclear weapon. The secret bases were safe havens of clean water and sterilized air, equipped with hot showers, washing machines, storerooms full of food, medicine, vehicles and weapons of every type imaginable. At least, they were originally. Sometime after the atomic holocaust, all of the military personnel assigned to the redoubts left, taking most of the supplies with them. Nowadays, the companions considered themselves lucky to find a single dented can of stew forgotten in the kitchen, or to scavenge a handful of live bullets that had rolled under a shelf. But sometimes they hit the jackpot.

Much more important were the mat-trans units. These fantastic machines were able to transmit the companions
from one redoubt to another in a few seconds. Unfortunately, the knowledge of how to control a jump had been lost over time, so every journey through the machines was now blind chance. Even then, the redoubts and the mat-trans unit gave the companions a chilling superiority to everybody else in the world—mobility.

It was a fact that Ryan was starting to appreciate more as he slowly began to notice the splintery wood under his cheek. The floor of a mat-trans was smoother than silk. So, where the frag am I? he wondered.

Suddenly, the events at the waterfall came rushing back, and Ryan sat up, clawing for the blaster at his hip. But the weapon was gone, along with everything else he owned, including his outer clothing. Even his eye patch was missing.

Trying to focus his good eye against the constant bouncing, Ryan glanced around to see that he was inside some sort of a wooden cage. The floor was covered with dirty hay, the bars were thicker than his wrist and the door was set into the ceiling a good ten feet high. The man had to grunt at that. Smart. It would be triple-hard for any prisoner to escape when they couldn't even reach the bastard door.

Outside the cage, a rolling grassland stretched to the horizon. A few trees were scattered around, along with the occasional stand of cacti and bushes, but the grass itself was a deep emerald-green. There was no smell of salt in the air. Wherever this was, they were a long way from the desert. Just how long have I been out, Ryan wondered, rubbing the stubble on his chin.

Scattered around the squalid cage were the rest of the companions, clad only in their undergarments and
clutching their heads as if in pain. The bouncing came from the fact that the cage was in the back of a large buckboard wag. Ryan could dimly see the two drivers sitting in the front seat, one of them holding a crossbow, and the other man working a set of reins. As he gave them a shake, several horses whinnied and the bouncing got worse.

Slavers. Ryan cursed quietly. The sons of bitches had to have dosed the water and then simply sat back to wait for parched fools to come racing out of the Great Salt and straight into their waiting chains. The man felt like a feeb, but pushed those thoughts aside to concentrate on how to escape.

There came a rustle from the largest pile of hay.

“You okay, lover?” Krysty whispered from inside the pile of loose material. Both shapely legs stuck out from the green hay, her full breasts just barely concealed. Her face was calm, but her hair flexed wildly, showing that she was furious.

“More importantly, are you?” Ryan countered, studying her for any sign that she'd been raped while they'd been unconscious.

“Nobody rode me,” Krysty answered softly, casting a glance at the fat men in the front of the wag. “Nor Mildred, either. But I don't think we're likely to stay that way for long.”

“Not likely,” Ryan agreed grimly, rubbing his unshaved jaw. There were two other wags in the convoy, the cages in the back jammed full of scrawny people. However, Krysty and Mildred were the only adult females with some flesh on their bones, and all of the
slavers were men, not a single woman among their ranks. Yeah, come nightfall, things would get ugly.

“I am glad to see you back, my dear Ryan,” Doc rumbled, wiping his mouth on the back of a hand. “I had feared that your consumption of the tainted water may have taken you across the River Styx.”

“Not aced yet,” Ryan stated, flexing his hands, feeling the strength slowly return.

“Got a plan yet, buddy?” J.B. asked, reaching up to adjust his glasses. With a start, the man frowned when his fingers only touched bare skin. Dark night! the Armorer thought. Without those I'm nearsighted to the point of being blind! About as useful as a dick on a cactus.

“Working on it,” Ryan murmured, studying the cage and wag.

“Work faster,” Jak whispered, picking up an old piece of string and using it to tie back his long hair. Although only a teenager, the albino youth was covered with a wide assortment of scars forming a rippled pattern caused by being caught in acid rain, knife cuts, laser burns and the circles showing a healed bullet wound.

Deep in thought, Ryan merely grunted in reply. If this had been an iron cage that would have been another matter. But these wooden cages were generally the providence of slavers. Cannibals used iron cages because they didn't really care if the prisoners banged their heads against the bars and took their own lives. They were going into the cooking pot either way, and beating themselves up only made the meat more tender. However, slavers used wood, sometimes with canvas
padding wrapped around the bars, because they needed the merchandise alive and relatively undamaged.

Carefully, Ryan studied the other two wags, noting their positions in the caravan, then he turned his full attention to the two men in the front of their wag. Both were fat, but with broad shoulders and wide hands, suggesting that some of their girth came from being large men. The driver had a mustache, the gunner was bald, and each was armed with a machete, a club and a bullwhip—but not any of the blasters taken from the companions. Fireblast! He had been counting on the slavers carrying the weapons on them.

Unfortunately, aside from the green hay, bits of string and some old yellow straw, there was nothing else in the cage but the companions. Slowly, a plan began to unfold in his mind, and Ryan briefly told the others. They nodded and moved to the appropriate positions. They would only get one chance, and failure meant worse than death.

Briefly, there was a tickling sound along with the smell of fresh urine.

Abruptly rising from the hay, Krysty and Mildred loudly yawned and scratched themselves, the women spreading their arms to display their figures to the fullest advantage.

“Well, well, looks like we got a couple of gaudy sluts this time.” The gunner leered, glancing over a shoulder. “Keep it up, sluts! I likes me a good show!”

“Then how about some dinner theater?” Mildred snarled, throwing forward a gob of newly moistened dung. The drek hit the wooden bars and splattered across both of the slavers.

“Stupe move, bitch,” the driver snarled, the back of his shirt speckled with the material.

“Yeah, tonight we're gonna make you eat that.” The gunner smiled, rubbing his crotch. “Along with some other stuff, too!”

“Without first having dessert?” Krysty asked, and flung a second wad. The dripping drek sailed through the bars to smack directly into the gunner's face, catching him in the middle of a chuckle.

Hacking and choking, the fat man bent over the side of the wag to loudly wretch, while the driver howled with laughter.

“She got you good, Billy!” The man guffawed, slapping a knee.

“Shut up, Henry,” the gunner panted, using a sleeve to wipe the bile and drek from his face. Pursing his lips, the man spit filth from his mouth, then stood to uncoil the bullwhip at his side. “Fuck the bounty! I'm gonna skin that bitch alive!”

“How very odd,” Doc said in a cultured tone of voice, sitting upright amid the hay. “Because that was exactly what I said to your mother before I raped her.”

“Wh-what did he say?” Henry gasped in genuine shock, almost dropping the reins.

“My, my, you should have heard how she squealed like a little piggy.” Doc grinned amiably. “It was most amusing. I bet that you can squeal like a piggy, too, if you try. Come on, squeal, my fat little piggy. Squeal for Daddy!”

Sputtering obscenities, Billy turned a bright red in the face and lashed out with his bullwhip.

Expertly, the knotted length shot between the bars to score a bloody furrow across the old man's chest.

Gushing crimson, Doc was thrown backward from the brutal strike, but Jak and Ryan dived on the whip and pulled with all of their strength. Caught off balance, Billy was hauled forward to smack his face hard against the wooden cage. Rising from the hay, J.B. thrust his hands through the bars to grab the slaver by the ears and bang the man's head repeatedly against the cage until blood poured from his slack mouth and his eyes rolled back into death.

“Son of a bitch!” Henry yelled, and clawed for a wooden whistle tucked into his belt. But before the slaver could sound the alarm, another gob of dung hit the whistle, and it tumbled out of sight.

“Mutie fuckers!” Henry snarled, reaching for his machete.

Moving fast, Ryan lashed out with his stolen whip, slicing open the slaver's forehead. Blinded by the flow of blood from the minor wound, the driver flailed about with the machete, hitting nothing. Ryan rushed to the front of the cage and shoved his arm through to lash the whip out sideways. The knotted length coiled around the slaver's throat, and Ryan yanked back with all of his strength. There was an audible snap of bone as Henry flew out of the seat to crash into the bars. Gurgling horribly, the man could only feebly twitch as Krysty held him hard by the hair, and Mildred grabbed the machete to chop down twice and end his misery.

Freeing the whip, Ryan tried to get the reins and failed, the leather straps having fallen over the side of the wag in the tussle. Knowing that time was short,
the companions dragged both of the corpses closer and looted them of anything that could be used as a weapon: both machetes, the other whip, a massive flintlock blaster with a barrel large enough to serve as a gren launcher, a canvas pouch filled with black powder, shot and cloth wadding. Plus a big iron key.

Using the long handle of a whip to snatch the reins, J.B. shook them gently and whispered soft words to the team of horses, making them maintain an even speed. If this wag fell behind, or the companions tried to make a break, they would be spotted instantly, and the other slavers would slaughter them with those longblasters. Meanwhile, hauling the dead men up against the cage, Krysty and Jak held them in place to make it look as if they were still alive. The trick wouldn't fool anybody paying close attention, but all they needed was a few minutes. Speed was their best chance at survival now. Speed, and some triple-savage chilling.

Still bleeding, Doc passed the flintlock and ammo pouch to Mildred, and she started to quickly reload. The physician longed to help the wounded man, but this wasn't the time or the place.

Going to the middle of the cage, Ryan went down on his hands and knees. As the strongest person there, he would be the foundation. Climbing barefoot on top of him, Doc reached up high and just barely managed to ease a hand around the bars to start fiddling with the key in the lock.

“John Barrymore, it will not fit!” Doc whispered, his legs trembling from the effort of standing. His face was pale and sweaty, the blood still flowing freely from the deep laceration across his torso.

“Probably just rusty!” J.B. whispered back tersely, furious over not being able to do the job himself. “Lube it up!”

“With what?”

“Piss, blood, spit—anything ya got!”

Having no other source of lubrication, Doc spit on the key and tried again, with an equal lack of success. Suddenly, raised voices came from the other wags, and a shot rang out, the wood near his fumbling hand sprouting jagged splinters. Jerking back in surprise, Doc cursed as the key went flying to clatter off the bars and land in the hay below.

“Here they come!” Krysty shouted, releasing the corpse.

“Yee-haw!” J.B. bellowed, shaking the reins hard, and the horses obediently took off to a full gallop. But even pressing himself against the bars, the man could just barely make out the grassland before the animals and had to rely upon the innate good sense of the horses.

Letting go of his own corpse, Jak dived for the key just as the racing buckboard jounced through a dried gully, and the key jumped into the pile of hay.

“Krysty, Mildred, cover fire!” Ryan shouted, rocking to the wild motions of the rattling transport.

Going to the side of the cage, Krysty grabbed a bar tight and leaned far to the left. Resting the long barrel of the flintlock handblaster on the stable platform of the other woman's arm, Mildred clicked back the hammer, gauging for wind and droppage.

Clawing the green hay aside, Jak revealed the old straw and the key sticking out of a small pile of drek.
Without hesitation, the albino teen grabbed the key and spit on it twice before wiping it clean and passing it up to Doc.

Holding her breath, Mildred braced for the recoil and gently squeezed the trigger. The hammer moved downward, scraping the flint along a worn piece of steel throwing off bright sparks that ignited the loose powder in the flashpan. There was a brief hiss, then the primitive blaster roared so loud that Mildred thought it had exploded in her hands. Then the physician saw with cold satisfaction the driver of the second wag fly off the buckboard to be trampled under the pounding hooves of the horses pulling the third wag.