Time Castaways (12 page)

Waiting for the concussion to dissipate, Ryan and Mildred once again ran toward the explosion, the SIG-Sauer and ZKR removing any potential opposition. Halfway there, they changed direction and headed toward the gallows. There were few sec men in this area of the ville, but that was only to be expected. Nobody considered the execution yard a weakness in their defense. What prisoner would ever rush pell-mell toward his or her own demise? But that mistake would serve the companions well this day.

Holding a throwing ax, a young sec woman valiantly tried to block their way with a wooden shield. Shooting her in the boot, Ryan and Mildred ran past the yelling teenager and proceeded up the long flight of stairs.

Behind them, thick smoke was extending across the ville, the descending umbrella of burning shine setting the roofs of a dozen buildings on fire. Horses, elk and herds of terrified goats were running rampant in the
streets, trampling civies and sec men alike, and seriously hindering the clumsy efforts to battle the spreading conflagration with buckets of water drawn from the artesian well.

Halfway up the stairs, the two companions saw a group of sec men climb on top of the only brick building in the ville, obviously the baron’s home. Three of the men attacked with their crossbows, but the half-arrows were unable to reach the staircase, and arched down into the chaos of the streets. However, the third sec man lit the fuse on a thick bamboo tube, then began to swing the homemade gren overhead at the end of a rope.

Both Ryan and Mildred cursed and quickly took aim. Before they could shoot, the man crumpled and the sizzling bamboo tube sailed away to land near the empty dais, violently exploding and throwing out chunks of wood and other debris.

Resuming their hectic sprint up the stairs, the two companions could only assume that had been the work of the Steyr, but the report of the longblaster could not be heard over the growing riot in the streets of the beleaguered ville. The destruction of the still had inadvertently set the slaves loose, and they were extracting a swift and terrible revenge upon the brutal overseers before running toward the gate, their hands dripping blood. Some of the sec men were trying to stop the mass escape, but without orders from their baron or sec chief, their efforts were proving futile, and often disastrous.

Reaching the top level of the gallows, the companions paused to catch their breath. “Good luck, guys,”
Mildred panted, watching the slaves battle it out with the sec men near the shatter zone.

“They should have stolen some weapons first,” Ryan countered, untying a rope from a cleat. Handing it to the physician, he took another for himself. Checking the distance, the companions jumped off the gallows to swing out over the stone wall and simply let go.

Their journey forward seemed impossibly brief compared to the fall from the Harrington, and knowing what to expect, Ryan and Mildred braced themselves just before splashing into the freezing water of the Great Lake.

The icy shock banished the exhaustion from their bodies and galvanized their efforts to start swimming toward the surface even before slowing to a stop. However, it was a good thing that the companions had left most of their heavier items behind as the cloth boots soon became soaked, the cold numbing their feet and slowing their efforts considerably.

Fighting to the surface, Ryan and Mildred gasped for air and instantly started for the shore. Irregularly shaped boulders dotted the expanse of the wide bay, waves crashing against them and throwing out an icy mist that nearly formed snow. There was also the gentle tug of a tide below the surface, both Ryan and Mildred surprised that such a thing could exist in a lake, no matter how large.

Suddenly there was a flurry of motion above and a hail of arrows stabbed into the surface around the companions, the wooden shafts oddly hissing as they disappeared into the water. Firebrands! Then from under
water, there came a muffled whomp, and a small geyser bubbled upward.

More firebrands arrived as the companions struggled onto the pebble beach and finally out of range. Shaking the water off their bodies, Ryan and Mildred saw that the beach was covered with hundreds of blue-shell crabs, most of them sitting directly under the dangling corpse, patiently waiting for the ripe meat to fall. Remembering the advice from Liana, they moved carefully through the colony, trying not to step on any of the creatures. Just then a large rock plummeted from above, smashing onto the beach and chilling a dozen crabs. That seemed to wake the rest of them, and the army of crabs scuttled forward to examine the new arrivals.

Brushing back her wet plaits, Mildred cursed at the realization that the sec men were now dropping rocks on them from the wall. Clever bastards.

Trying to kick a crab aside with his wet boot, Ryan saw the thing attach itself to the cloth and start crawling up his leg. Quickly drawing the SIG-Sauer, he shook the blaster to make sure there was no water in the barrel, then blew the crab off his boot with a well-placed shot.

Every crab on the beach went motionless at the sound of the weapon, then the smell of fresh blood reached them, and they wildly converged upon Ryan, their pinchers clattering and snipping. After all, everything that fell from the sky was dead, and easy pickings.

Low on ammo, Ryan had to place his shots, the hollowpoint rounds making the body of each crab explode.
Pulling out the Czech ZKR, Mildred shot the largest crab in the face, hoping to intimidate the rest. The soft-lead punched a neat hole in the mouth, then came out the back end in a grisly spray of pale flesh and slimy organs. Still horribly alive, the squealing creature began to crawl in a circle, going nowhere fast. In a rush, some of the other crabs attacked it, savagely removing legs and eyestalks, consuming it alive.

Now shooting only to wound, the companions soon cleared a path to the base of the cliff, the scuttling horde turning upon itself in a cannibal frenzy. Soon the battle became pandemic, quickly spreading across the beach like some horrible new disease.

Ryan and Mildred quickly reloaded, then stomped their sodden blanket boots, trying to squeeze out the excess moisture.

Incredibly, there was a splash from the lake as a sec man dived into the water.

Quickly aiming their blasters, the companions relaxed as they saw a crimson red pool rise to the surface, the wellspring of life spreading outward in every direction.

Almost instantly, the army of crabs abandoned their internecine combat and rushed into the bloody lake, disappearing below the choppy waves.

Taking advantage of the distraction, Ryan and Mildred raced along the base of the cliff until reaching a low rill. Clambering over the lava ridge, they dropped down the other side only a moment before a hail of half-arrows peppered the barrier. Suddenly a massive arrow from an arbalest slammed into the rill, smashing
through and plowing deep into the pebble beach on the other side.

Keeping to the lee side of the larger boulders on the beach, Ryan and Mildred dodged from one to the other, staying constantly on the move, until the natural curve of the island finally took them out of the range of the ville crossbows.

Chapter Nine

A thick carpeting of lush green grass covered the wide hill, a copse of tall oak trees standing on the crest like an arboreal crown. A feathery rainbow of songbirds twittered in the leafy branches, and a cottontail coney darted among the laurel bushes in search of food. Off to the side, a hulking stone gargoyle sat amid a plethora of clover. The decorative statue was cracked across its weathered visage, giving the fantastic creature a lopsided grin.

Oddly, there were no other remnants of a predark city in sight, and so it was impossible to tell if the gargoyle was all that remained of a once-mighty metropolis, or if the statue was merely windblown trash, just a chunk of debris that tumbled down from the sky into the sylvan field from a thermonuclear explosion a thousand miles away.

Suddenly, a long black tube extended from behind the gargoyle to sweep along the rocky coast.

“Okay, they made it to dry land,” Krysty announced, her relief painfully obvious. Lowering the yard-long Navy telescope, she compacted it back to the size of a soup can.

Crouched on the other side of the protective statue,
J.B. lowered the longblaster. “That’s good to know,” the wiry man said, working the arming bolt on the Steyr to open the breech and insert a fresh magazine. “Because the damn smoke is so thick in the ville, I can’t find anybody else to ace.”

“Nobody worth live brass,” Jak corrected, squinting into the distance. There were still a lot of sec men running around on the wall, but shoot too many of them, and the fall of the bodies would reveal the direction of the attack. The prime rule for sniping an opponent was to never let them know where you were hidden.

Opening a canteen, the albino teen smiled. Liana had been right. The hilltop was perfect to recce the ville. The wild bushes gave good cover, and the statue of the predark mutie would confuse anybody looking for snipers.

“Unfortunately, I fear that a choice of targets will not be a problem, John Barrymore,” Doc rumbled, wiping the loose dirt from his hands. “Because here come the Visigoths!”

Promptly, J.B. and Krysty swung up their optical devices, but it wasn’t necessary. The companions could clearly see that the huge front gate of the ville was already in motion, swinging outward. A dozen sec men on horseback galloped out of the ville hard and fast, the riders hellbent for leather, the big mounts huffing in the chilly air.

“I only hope the diversion works,” Kristy said, pulling off her gloves and flexing tired fingers.

Cradling the loaded crossbow, Liana started to speak when a large pack of cougars charged out of the gates to disappear in the thick bushes.

“Blind Norad, the baron released the cats!” she cried out in fear. “They’ll find Ryan and Mildred long before the riders do, and maul them bad.”

“Only maul?” Krysty asked, surprised. “The cats don’t chill their prey?”

The blonde woman shook her head. “No, ma’am, they just cripple them for the sec men to take alive.”

Tucking away the telescope, Krysty frowned. That sounded like real trouble.

“Not if I can help it,” J.B. said, swinging up the Steyr and searching for the cats. But they were gone, vanished into the bushes edging the dirt road.

“All right, let’s move,” Krysty said, drawing her two revolvers and heading into the trees.

“Are we going to rondee with the others at the natural bridge?” Liana asked, staying close to the tall redhead. “That’s a good place to stage a fight. The sec men can only attack us from one direction.”

The staggering disadvantages of fighting on an open bridge were so many that the companions decided simply not to comment. She would soon see the truth of the matter for herself.

“No, my dear, we shall rendezvous with them near the cliff,” Doc rumbled, rotating the cylinder of the Ruger to check the load, and then doing the same to the LeMat. “It is never wise to surrender the high ground.”

“Then why didn’t we just stay here, and roll those boulders down on the sec men as they rode past?” Liana demanded, shifting her grip on the crossbow.

“Maybe we would have aced them, and then again, maybe not,” J.B. replied, aiming the Steyr down the hill,
his finger resting alongside the trigger. “But with the valley below us blocked, now they have to go through the forest.”

Squinting in that direction, Liana looked at the wide expanse of trees. “Hoping they’ll get lost?” she asked vaguely.

“Hardly.” Krysty snorted. “See that area with no bird nests, no squirrels?”

“Yes,” Liana answered hesitantly.

“Then watch and learn, my dear,” Doc said, scowling darkly at the wide expanse of forest, the branches of the trees stirred only by a gentle breeze coming in from the Great Lake.

S TAYING IN A TIGHT FORMATION, the Anchor sec men rode fast along the old dirt road, their blasters out and primed. The baron had armed them with the unheard-of bounty of ten live brass, and an order to chill on sight. Naturally, they would have preferred to take them both alive for a little payback, but orders were orders.

Oddly, a recent avalanche blocked the way to the stone bridge, but the road through the apple orchard was wide and clear. Wary of more snipers, the sec men slowed their mounts and closely watched the shadows for any hostile intentions.

“Funny there ain’t no birds or nothing in the trees,” a sec woman noted tersely, her body rocking to the motion of her horse.

“Don’t like that,” an elderly sec man muttered.

Spotting motion in the thick canopy of branches, a corporal fired his crossbow upward. “They’re in the
trees!” he yelled. As the arrow disappeared, there came an answering smack, and something large fell to the ground, pulsating and undulating.

“Flapjack!” a sec woman screamed, her horse rearing in terror.

The flapjack touched the belly of the nearest horse, and the animal immediately went motionless in incredible pain. Then the creature’s boneless limb began to pump red, siphoning blood from the animal.

Snarling in rage, a sec man fired his crossbow directly at the mutie, but the feathered shaft went straight through the gelatinous creature, only to bury itself deep underground.

“Blasters!” the corporal bellowed, hauling out a revolver.

Just then, the leaves rustled and another flapjack fell directly onto the startled man, completely covering his head. The corporal gave a muffled scream and raised both hands to paw off the amorphous creature. But his arms become instantly mired in the sticky ooze covering the flapjack. The mutie tinted crimson with the corporal’s blood as his hair and eyes disappeared, followed by his ears and lips.

Shrieking insanely, the corporal went silent as the amorphous mutie flowed into his mouth, ramming a path down his throat. Still in the saddle, the corporal violently shuddered as the thing started to dissolve him from the inside, the flapjack nearly purring as it feasted on the raw flesh and brains.

Leveling her blaster at the nightmarish mutie, a sec woman aimed and fired, the rounds blasting a deep fur
row through the flapjack and blowing apart the partially consumed head of the corporal. Cursing vehemently, another sec man took aim with his shotgun and stroked the trigger. In a thunderous bellow, the flapjack was blown apart, along with the remains of the aced corporal, gobbets of the weird translucent flesh flying about the forest to smack into the trees and ground.

Almost losing control of his stallion, a large sec man burbled in terror as a piece of the mutie hit his cheek, the thick beard turning white under the furious assault of the organic acids.

“Don’t touch it!” a sec woman commanded. Pulling out a throwing ax, she expertly swung it, cutting off the bushy beard, the wad of pulsating hair falling to the leafy ground.

“Th-thanks,” the sec man panted, clutching the reins in both hands.

That single word seemed to be the clarion call to war for the flapjacks as they dropped from the shadowy boughs by the dozens, the gelatinous killers landing on the sec force and its horses.

Shooting blasters and slashing with their stone knives, the dying sec men and women fought for their lives, but it was hopeless, and soon the forest trail was strewed with dissolving bodies, humans and horses alike buried under the pulsating mounds of the gorging flapjacks.

“Retreat!” one of the few survivors commanded, reining in her dappled mare to neatly avoid a plummeting flapjack.

As it lay there on the ground, she started to shoot,
but since the thing had no visible targets such as a brain, or heart, the sec woman held back and kicked her horse into a gallop. The urge was to simply ride over the thing, killing it beneath the sharp hooves of the animal, but she had seen what these monsters could do, and decided not to take the risk. There were old sec men, and there were bold sec men, but nobody ever heard of any old, bold sec men.

As the four remaining sec men wheeled their mounts around to head back to the ville, small flapjacks pelted from the trees, the infant muties smacking all over the horses. As the acid started to burn, the animals reared, kicking wildly, and the riders were thrown to the hard ground.

Hastily scrambling to their feet, the sec men fired their blasters at anything nearby, a growing panic stealing their years of training. A horse was mortally wounded and instinctively kicked back. A sec man’s knee cracked audibly and he dropped to land face-first onto a flapjack.

As he began to thrash around, the nearest man swung his ax down to sever the spine of the doomed man, then swung the ax sideways to slam into the ribs of a sec woman. Caught in the act of aiming the blaster at the man, she doubled over from the impact of the stone blade, the blaster firing into her own boot.

Burbling blood, she collapsed to the leaves and several flapjacks immediately started undulating toward the smell of fresh meat.

Glancing in every direction, the last sec man saw that he was momentarily in the clear, and tossed away the
ax to increase his speed as he desperately sprinted for the edge of the forest. The horrible sounds of the feasting grew dimmer as he sprinted along, then there came a subtle movement from above. Instantly, he dived to the side, and a flapjack missed smacking into him by the thickness of a prayer.

Rolling under a thornbush, the sec man came out scratched, but alive, and began to zigzag through the trees, never moving in a straight line for more than three paces. More muties dropped from above, but each one missed. Suddenly the sec man exploded out of the shadows and slowed to a stumble, unable to believe his fantastic luck. He was out of the forest and in the clear. Made it. He had made it, and was going to live!

CENTERING THE CROSSHAIRS on the face of the panting sec man, J.B. stroked the trigger of the Steyr and a 7.62 mm hollowpoint round sent the coward tumbling into the eternal.

“By the lost gods,” Liana breathed, not sure if she was impressed or not. “You aced them all with a single shot!” The former slave had trouble speaking the next words. “How…how did you know this was going to happen?” Plaintively, Liana looked in their eyes hoping to see a glimmer of her father’s abilities, but the companions merely smiled, completely unaware of the silent question.

“Readiness is all,” Doc said in a singsong tone.

“Didn’t know trick would work,” Jak said, turning away from the ghastly feeding in the trees. “Just hoped. Good plans do.”

“And whenever possible, try to use any natural features of the land against your opponent,” J.B. added, clicking the safety back on the Steyr and slinging it over a shoulder. “Slow them down in mud, try to get them to take cover in a bush you know has a beehive in it, that sort of thing.”

“The earth is always a powerful ally,” Krysty added, lengthening her stride down the sloping foothill.

As the group proceeded down the hill and into a wild bramble of laurel bushes and tall weeds, Liana tested the wisdom of the new words, and found them strong, so stored the information away for later. If she was going to stay with these coldhearts—companions—then she had better start getting razor triple fast.

Shyly sneaking a look at Doc, Liana made a decision and surreptitiously reached out to grab several handfuls of the pretty flowers to stuff into a pocket. Better safe than sorry.

Crossing a wide field, the companions encountered hundreds of irregular chunks of concrete, the material weathered almost to the point where it resembled natural stone. There were even a few more pieces of the gargoyles scattered around, along with the shattered remains of a granite cross. This was the debris from a destroyed church. Doc sighed at the desecration, while the others simply kept walking, the dead past of no more interest to them than the unreachable stars.

The sound of the crashing waves on the beach was discernible long before the companions saw the Great Lake. Studying the area carefully, they decided it was safe enough to proceed, but Jak stood guard while the
others began to slide down the sloping hill on the seat of their pants, boots and hands alone keeping them from tumbling head-over-heels.

When the companions reached the beach, Doc and Krysty stood guard while J.B. swung around the Uzi to keep watch over Jak as he slid to join them.

Slapping the dust from her clothes, Liana was very happy the others had given her pants to wear instead of her usual dress. They really came in handy holding off scratches from brambles and such, and pockets were a marvel all by themselves. Slaves were not allowed such things, but she had them now.