Time Castaways (6 page)

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 situa
tion. 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.

Grunting savagely, one of the men rushed forward, and the blonde thrust the spear toward him, then slashed it sideways. Caught by surprise, the man cursed as the blade opened his cheek. Blood gushed out, and he quickly retreated.

Spotting the companions, the blonde smiled in obvious relief, then her expression darkened. “Run,” she screamed, raw terror in her husky voice. “Run for your lives!”

As those exact words repeated inside her mind, all doubt was gone, and Krysty knew for a fact this was the source of the previous cry for help. We’re coming, sister, Krysty mentally shouted back, but if the blonde heard, she gave no indication.

Hesitantly glancing backward, unsure if this was a trick of some kind, the hairy men recoiled at the sight of the companions, then cursed vehemently and dived for their dropped weapons.

“Sec men,” a tall coldheart shouted, grabbing a boomerang and whipping it forward. “Ace ’em, boys!”

Spinning across the campsite, the edge of the wooden boomerang glinted with sharp pieces of glass, and it parted the reeds at throat level, leaving a clear path behind.

But the companions were already gone, ducking among the weeds and bushes. Instinctively they expected to hear the crackle of blasters, but there only came another boomerang, closely followed by a spear, and then a flurry of crossbow arrows. However, the barrage did nothing, not even coming close to the crouching companions.

Encouraged by that, Mildred stood and fired both the Beretta and the ZKR.

Hit in the arm, a coldheart cursed and dropped his crossbow. But the next man spun fast, and something small flashed across the clearing, getting wider every second.

Before she could dodge, Mildred was hit by a bolo, the stones and rawhide strips wrapping tightly around her throat. Unable to breathe, the physician clawed at strands on her neck. Snarling in rage, Jak lunged for the woman with a knife in his hands.

Hauling up his longblaster, Ryan shot two of the men dead before he had to take cover again as another boomerang cut through the reeds. Rolling to the side, the one-eyed man took cover behind a fallen log, and felt it shake from the arrival of several arrows, the stone tip of one going all the way through and missing him by inches.

Appearing from behind a tree, J.B. fired the shotgun. Catching the blast full in the chest, a coldheart went sailing off the cliff to disappear below.

“Did ya see? Did ya?” a man shouted excitedly.

“By the sky gods…” a coldheart whispered. “They have blasters! Working blasters!”

“Get that steel!” their leader bellowed, surging forward.

Yanking a gren from her pocket, Krysty primed the bomb and tossed it at the charging group of men. Incredibly, one of them reached up to catch the explosive charge.

“Hey, this ain’t no sleepy bomb,” he said in growing astonishment. “It’s…it’s made out of metal. They be throwing metal at us!”

“Don’t be a feeb,” the leader snarled, reloading his crossbow.

But the coldheart started walking. “No, looky here.” Then the grenade detonated, and the man was violently reduced into a gory cloud, steaming gobbets of flesh wetly smacking into the rocks and trees.

“Boomers!” a coldheart gasped. “They got boomers!”

“Frag ’em!” the leader shouted, firing blindly into the reeds. “Just get that steel.”

Standing, Doc leveled the Ruger and triggered a fast six shots, the .357 Magnum blaster bellowing smoke and flame. Three of the coldhearts fell with gaping wounds in their chests, but the other two were only nicked by the Magnum’s rounds, the sixth shot going wild. Cursing the inaccuracy of the unfamiliar weapon, Doc crouched and started thumbing in more rounds. Then from out of nowhere, a boomerang sliced through the reeds at knee level, smacking the wheelgun from his grip and sending him tumbling into the grass, his hands torn and bloody.

The cry caught the blonde woman’s attention, and
she saw the handsome face of the silver-haired man for only a moment before he vanished into the reeds. Her heart leaped at the sight, then Liana jerked her attention back to the fight. Biting a lip, she shoved her hands toward the rocks forming a circle around the campfire, and began to saw her bonds back and forth along the rough edge of a jagged stone. The heat from the fire was almost intolerable, but she kept doggedly at the action until the rawhide strips parted and fell away. She was free!

“Hey,” Liana shouted.

Cursing, a coldheart turned fast, furious that he had forgotten about the slut for this long. But as he looked her way, she threw the fishing spear and it thudded directly into his groin.

Shrieking insanely, the coldheart dropped his weapons to grab the wooden shaft obscenely jutting from the ruin of his manhood.

“You fragging bitch!” another coldheart roared, throwing a boomerang. Oddly, it came apart in mid-flight to reveal that it was actually two pieces.

Desperately trying to get out of the way, Liana managed to avoid one of the sections, but the other caught her in the forehead with a hard crack. Sighing, she slumped to the dirt, feebly twitching.

As if infuriated over the act, the snakes in the pit started hissing louder than ever, sounding as if they were being boiled alive.

Rising from the reeds along the edge of the cliff, a grinning coldheart stood with Mildred’s dropped blaster in his grip. Fumbling with the Beretta, he sent
several booming rounds at the companions, then J.B. cut him in two with the shotgun.

Spinning a sling to nearly invisible speed, another coldheart let fly a stone. It missed Doc, but hit a nearby rock and shattered into a thousand pieces, the shrapnel peppering the time traveler. Spitting a curse, Doc fired back and missed. As the coldheart began to spin another rock to chilling speed, Ryan took him out with a hollowpoint round to the knee. Letting go of the sling, the wounded man cried out as he stumbled into the campfire. As his clothing caught fire, Doc aimed, using both hands, and blew away most of his throat, cutting off the wild shrieks of pain. Still aflame, the body tumbled off the cliff.

With the blonde out of the way, J.B. leveled the Uzi and opened fire, burning through a full clip of 9 mm Parabellum rounds. The shocked coldhearts were torn to pieces.

Moving forward, fast and low, the companions swept across the bloody campsite, chilling every coldheart they found with ruthless efficiency. Tucking away the Ruger, Doc used his sword to slash the throat of every man, just in case one of them was only pretending.

While Ryan and J.B. stood guard over the campsite, Jak and Krysty gathered firewood and Mildred knelt alongside the unconscious woman to check for any serious damage. Privately, Mildred fumed over losing her weapon, but concentrated on the task at hand. Thankfully, the blonde seemed fine, just undernourished, and with a knot on her head that was going to be very tender for quite a long time. The pretty blonde was going
to have a monumental headache when she awoke, but that was infinitely better than the alternative. However, now that the rush of battle was over, Mildred’s wet clothes were starting to feel clammy once more; every gust of wind from the ocean sent a shiver through the woman.

“How is she doing?” Krysty inquired, dumping an armload of loose sticks onto the dying campfire. The dully glowing embers pulsed into life under the deluge of dry fuel, rapidly building into a roaring blaze.

“She’ll be fine,” the physician declared, realizing slightly under the waves of heat. “Just battered and bruised.”

“They not ride?” Jak asked, adding more fuel to the fire.

Brushing back the long hair of the woman to expose her face, Mildred wearily smiled. “No, we got here in time.”

“Glad about that,” J.B. said, handing the physician the dropped Beretta. She accepted it gratefully.

“The filthy blackguards,” Doc growled, the sound of hate thick in his voice. “They perished too quickly for justice. A nice long hanging would have been their reward back in Vermont.”

Cleaning off his sword on a headless corpse, Doc sheathed the blade and started to remove his damp frock coat, but then he paused and instead kicked over the body of the largest coldheart to strip the corpse of its dry furs. He draped them over the woman, covering her naked body.

“Looks like they ambushed her while cooking din
ner,” J.B. said, studying the footprints in the dirt. “Guess she forget to rig a trip line.”

“Stupe place for a campsite, anyway,” Ryan agreed, resting the plastic stock of the Steyr on a hip.

“Wonder if this was her first time outside a ville,” J.B. added, rubbing his jaw. The lee side of the cliff sloped down to the water, the other end rising high above the rocky shore, which meant that when the coldhearts had attacked, she had nowhere to go aside from jumping onto the rocky shoreline. Glancing over the edge of the cliff, the man saw the crumpled bodies of several coldhearts sprawled on the beach, their red guts splayed across the shiny pebbles, only inches from the cresting waves.

“Even then, she held off ten coldhearts all by herself,” Krysty said, feeling a strange touch of pride at the act. “Naked and alone, she fought ten men. She may not be very experienced, but she’s got guts.”