Chapter Thirty-Two

 

 

Hayden LeMarck stood behind Baron Hardcoe's chair and stared out the bulletproof window. His hand rested on his Glock blaster, the restraining strap already popped open enough that a yank would have it in his hand. Wallis Thoroughgood stood at his side, eating a turkey drumstick from the kitchen that had been set up outside the room.

 

The other barons sat in chairs in front of the window, as well, two sec men allowed in with each of them.

 

The window gave a view of the pit that had been created of the quake-stricken area. LeMarck watched the sporadic gunfire dispassionately, making himself breathe regular enough to appear calm. For the past handful of years, he'd remained on watch in the room during the Big Game. No experience was ever the same as a previous one.

 

"Boys?" Baron Dettwyler drawled, pausing to glance at Vinge Connrad, who was safely out of arm's reach. "You sent boys into that pit, Vinge? Were you addled when you made that decision?"

 

Connrad hoisted a glass filled with a native beer Hardcoe had brought from the seven villes in weather-beaten casks. Though the barons had separate views on how rulership of the villes should be managed, they all kept the beer makers and wine presses moving right along, no matter in whose hands the villes were.

 

Taking a long drink, Connrad wiped the foam from his beard with the back of his hand and belched loudly. "You haven't seen those boys in action. Trying to get them out into the pit, they chilled four of my men in that room, injured seven others before we chased them out with burning gasoline."

 

"They shot bullets through the plas sheets?" Dettwyler asked. He was a huge, fat man with a bald head, and many people, LeMarck knew, made the mistake of thinking Dettwyler soft or simple. Neither was the truth. The fat disguised hard bands of muscle, and Dettwyler had a preference for biting out the throat of anyone he fought in hand-to-hand combat. A black silk half mask covered the right side of his face. Years back the baron's head had been forced up against a boiling-water container in a mutie encampment. The metal had contained some dangerous rad, hanging on from the nukecaust. The burn had opened Dettwyler's face, and the rad that seeped into it caused chronic cancers that had to be cut out, leaving a raw, bleeding area that never healed properly.

 

"Not through the plas," Connrad corrected. "Little bastards bounced bullets off the wall."

 

"I've never seen or heard of that being done." Francis Giskard's youthful face broke into a delighted smile. He raised his glass. "I must compliment you on your choice of champions this year. They appear to be most industrious."

 

Connrad lifted his glass and drank the rest of its contents.

 

"Where did you get them?" Giskard asked.

 

LeMarck kept track of the conversations, but his eyes remained focused on the pit area. One of the wall sec men near the old Las Vegas Convention Center raised a flash with a purple lens cover, signaling twice. They had thermo-graphic binoculars and could see a person's body heat through the walls of buildings. Special rad buttons inside the body armor, treated so they reflected different levels of light, announced the color of the person they looked at.

 

"It appears that you've lost a couple more men, Giskard," Deke Ramsey, the remaining baron, said. He was tall and ruddy, his rust red hair shot through with gray and thinning on the top. "That brings your total lost to what? Five?"

 

"Four," Giskard said easily. "And might I remind you, I need only one to win." He leaned forward and slid two more purple beads across the free-standing abacus on the low table in front of him. "Connrad, I await your answer."

 

"You can wait on it," Connrad growled. "It's my secret."

 

LeMarck flicked his eyes toward the pit, searching the valleys cut through the shadows by the strings of neon lights. He got only a glimpse of the boys in their green body armor, then they faded under the tree coverage. It was no great feat of intellect that they were on their way to the Mirage. He smiled to himself, knowing they would find plenty of surprises in the building. Connrad, who was the only baron among them who hadn't had to shift a bead yet, would be doing that in short order. Perhaps it would be a lot of beads. LeMarck waited in anticipation.

 

"Usually the mortality rate runs much higher at this point of the game," Dettwyler said. "Perhaps we didn't include enough beasts and muties this year."

 

"There's plenty," Hardcoe replied. "People we've got out there, they're better chillers than most."

 

All the barons nodded, then Dettwyler yelled out for more pitchers of beer to be brought.

 

"Something I want to ask you, Giskard," Connrad said.

 

"Ask away, my friend."

 

"Assuming that you by some freak of accident manage to win, what do you plan on doing with the seven villes?"

 

"I plan on living a life of luxury for a year," Giskard replied. "I'm painfully overdue, as you're well aware."

 

"Wasn't talking about that," Connrad said. "I was talking about the construction that Hardcoe's managed this year."

 

LeMarck felt a tremor of anxiety thrill through him. The statement confirmed that Connrad did have spies among their people at the seven villes. And he hadn't found all of them. He cursed silently.

 

"An intelligent man would take what I've started," Hardcoe said in a soft voice, "and keep on building."

 

Connrad whipped his head around. "That's what you think?"

 

"Yeah."

 

"You saying I'm not an intelligent man?" Connrad demanded.

 

LeMarck shifted in response to the new stances assumed by the sec men behind Connrad. His hand closed hard around the butt of the Glock.

 

"Didn't say that," Hardcoe said flatly.

 

"I think you did."

 

Hardcoe shrugged. His pistol was in his lap, LeMarck knew, barely covered by a red cloth napkin with white dice showing black pips on the faces. "Up to you what you think."

 

Connrad showed wolfs teeth, a rictus devoid of anything near human emotion, showing only cold calculation. Then he laughed raucously. "Better hope you win, Sparning, because I'm going to burn you out if you don't. And that's a promise."

 

Out on the wall, a sec man raised a flash with a red lens. It blinked on and off.

 

LeMarck surprised himself by holding his breath, waiting for the lens to flash again. But it was only the once. Hardcoe leaned forward and slid over another red bead on the abacus on the table in front of him.

 

"Your second casualty," Connrad stated.

 

"Only my first in this Mars Arena," Hardcoe acknowledged. "It's sure a fit place for that old god of war. But the Big Game is young yet. Don't count your victims before you see them stretched cold on the slabs in the morning."

 

Connrad laughed loudly, sure of himself.

 

LeMarck hated the sound, but his thoughts turned instantly to the red team out in the pit, wondering which among them had been lost. He hoped it wasn't the one-eyed man.

 

 

 

RYAN WENT TO GROUND, rolling over twice to put more yardage between himself and the big mutie cat.

 

The huge animal's shoulders stood almost as tall as Ryan's armpit. The eyes spit green fire, rolling in the weak moonlight, threaded with brilliant crimson blood lines burning in the yellowed whites. Its fur was night black, and white fangs stabbed free of purple-gray lips, drooling crystal-clear strings.

 

The cat landed with a loose thump in the area where Ryan had stood. Spitting out a wicked, irritated cough, the animal sprang after him.

 

J.B.'s Uzi ripped a spray of bullets against the trees and through the brush where it had been standing, but the mutie cat gave no pause at all.

 

Ryan squeezed off two rounds, faster than he'd wanted to because he knew he didn't have the shot he needed. Both bullets creased the raised muscle mass surrounding the cat's neck; neither did any permanent damage.

 

"Get back, Ryan!" Mildred yelled. "Get back and give me some room!"

 

Her last words got tangled up in the sudden screams and yells of the stickies breaking out of the brush. Gunfire broke out in earnest as the other members of the group opened fire. Even with a number of them going down, the stickies rushed forward, waving clubs and stone-sharpened knives made of whatever metal scraps they could find.

 

The cat's shoulder smashed into Ryan. He barely managed to avoid the snapping jaws, but the impact knocked the SIG-Sauer from his hand. There was no time to bring up the Steyr because the mutie cat wheeled around instantly.

 

Whipping its head forward again, the cat tried to sink its fangs into Ryan's throat. Even focused on the animal as he was, he was aware of the stickies getting closer.

 

J.B. and Mildred raced forward to take away the no-man's-land that separated the stickies from Ryan and the cat, grabbing cover behind trees and rocks where they could. Spears sailed through the air, followed by a few stone axs and squared-off hammers that split or broke off pieces of the rocks they slammed against.

 

Ryan caught the cat by its dish-shaped ears, halting the wedge-shaped head. It howled in pain and surprise. Instantly changing tactics, the cat curled up backward and tried to bring its claw-studded hind legs into play.

 

Already expecting the move, Ryan wasn't there when the claws slashed through empty air. He moved to the right, feeling that he was moving in slow motion next to the cat's quickness.

 

Before the animal could come around, Ryan grabbed a fistful of the loose hide at its neck. With a lithe jump, he bounded onto the cat's shoulders, he gripped the fur-covered flesh he had hold of as tightly as he could, then locked his legs around in front of the cat's forward legs so it couldn't rip him to shreds with its hind claws.

 

The cat snarled and spit, twisting and turning to rid itself of its burden.

 

Ryan held on, putting his body on top of the cat's, weighing down the animal's head. Making the cat work the larger muscles of its body to support him and try to throw him off would cause the beast to use up oxygen more quickly, slowing and weakening it. Ryan still believed the creature could outlast his own strength. He leaned forward, biting into the animal's neck in an attempt to forge one more point of attachment.

 

He ripped the panga free and used his left hand to work the big knife. Reaching under the mutie cat's neck, he stabbed it in the chest. The beast quivered as though an electric shock had hit it.

 

Drawing the panga from its flesh sheath, Ryan stabbed again, burying the weapon as deep as he could, then twisting it to tear the wound open as wide as he was able. The cat snapped its jaws as he pulled the knife free again, barely missing sinking its ivory fangs into his arm.

 

The exertion of hanging on, avoiding the cat's snapping jaws and being on the offense took its toll. Ryan had difficulty breathing, choking on the wet, smelly fur in his mouth, the smell of fresh blood clogging his nostrils.

 

He took a fresh grip on the panga, shifting the blade. Knowing he couldn't hang on to the cat much longer, feeling the burning ache throbbing deep in his shoulder, his lungs working hard to suck in air he couldn't breathe, he drew the panga hard against the mutie cat's throat, pulling with everything he had left. The effort unseated him from the cat's back, but not before he felt the cascade of hot blood spill in waves across his knife arm.

 

Ryan sailed backward, flailing for something close to control of his fall. The cat had already turned, searching for its tormentor, scarlet frosting its purple-gray lips and black fur of its throat.

 

Landing hard on his side, Ryan felt the breath spurt out of his lungs. He forced himself to roll over and get to his feet as the big cat padded toward him. "Fireblast!" he cursed. He spotted the SIG-Sauer on the ground, but it was to the mutie cat's left. Getting it was impossible without coming too close to the injured animal.

 

"Ryan!" J.B. yelled from his position behind a young oak tree.

 

It was the only warning Ryan got about the stickie that exploded out of the brush with a spear held at waist level. Reacting to the attacker, Ryan shifted his body, letting the triangular spearhead slide past him, ripping along the scarlet armored vest. He chopped down with his hand and grabbed the forward haft of the spear, watching a look of surprise spread across the stickie's rad-burned features.

 

Continuing to use his weight and strength to push down the spear, Ryan buried it point first into the ground. He used the added leverage to flip the stickie toward the mutie cat.

 

The stickie shrieked as it flew upside down, smashing against the beast's snarling face. The cat closed its jaws over the stickie's head and shoulders. Bone crunched as it chewed. Breath rattled and made sucking noises as it passed through the animal's ravaged throat.

 

Still hanging on to the spear, Ryan ran to the mutie cat's side. It spit out the dead, nerve-quivering stickie and turned to face him. Before it had time to respond, Ryan moved in close, both hands gripping the spear. He chose his spot, then rammed it in behind the cat's foreleg, aiming for the heart.

 

The cat lifted a paw and swatted at Ryan, who was already in motion. The claws came close enough to shear his hair and break the skin along his forehead. Warm blood slipped across his face.

 

The paw slapped against the embedded spear, snapping the haft as if it was a straw. It took a step at Ryan, who'd moved off to recover his SIG-Sauer. By the time he'd scooped up the blaster and raised it, he saw death claim the cat.

 

The animal's hindquarters shivered, then dropped out from under it. The eyes were already glazing before its head slammed against the ground.

 

Breathing hard, his throat feeling as if it were on fire, Ryan raked a hand through his curly hair and moved it back out of his face. He kept his blaster pointed in the direction the stickies had attacked from.

 

Only a few of them were in view, and they were headed back into the brush, some of them limping or holding hands over bleeding wounds. The rest of them were dead, lying in all kinds of poses between the tree line and where J.B., Mildred and the others had held the line.

 

Waiting for his heart rate to slow to somewhere near normal, Ryan used the slack time to reload the partially spent magazine in his blaster, then do the same to the clips he'd used inside the holding area. "Everybody okay?"

 

"Not everybody," J.B. said quietly, nodding back and to the right where one of the Thompson twins lay on the ground, a short-hafted ax jutting from his cracked skull. The other twin knelt beside his dead brother, holding his sibling's bloody hand.

 

Ryan crossed to the younger man, making himself hard. He put a hand on Thompson's shoulder and shook it. "Got no time for grief. We need to be pushing on."

 

"Fuck you, mister," the twin said hoarsely, his eyes filled with tears. "My brother needs burying."

 

Ryan met the man's rage and sorrow head-on. "You plan on staying to bury him?"

 

"It's the Christian thing to do," Thompson replied. "I don't feel good about just leaving him here. Like this."

 

"You're not supposed to," Ryan said. "But it's got to be done if you're going to have a chance to tell your kids about their uncle. Only way he's going to live on."

 

Tenderly laying his dead brother's hands across his chest, Thompson stood. His jaw tightened, becoming a hard line as he gripped the haft of the ax and pulled it from the dead man's skull. The blade came free with a sucking noise. He tossed it away.

 

Ryan adjusted his gear. "Then let's get moving." He looked across the tops of the trees and brush. "See that building there, Mildred?" He studied the red neon lettering on its side.

 

"The Mirage," the woman said.

 

"You figure on making for the Mirage?" J.B. asked.

 

"Highest vantage point," Ryan answered. "We get inside there, mebbe we don't have to worry about the animals or the muties so much."

 

"We aren't going to be the only ones thinking like that," Mildred warned.

 

"Kind of planned on that," Ryan said, breaking into a ground-eating stride. "Some of the other groups will think of it eventually. Be best mebbe if we were already set up and waiting for them. I don't think any of the Five Barons have made any converts tonight. Could be we can offer to let them throw in their lot with us. The Mirage is close to the wall on that side."

 

"Mebbe," J.B. said. "Even if we made a way across the wall, chilled our way through the sec men keeping watch there, we'd still have to find a wag and get enough of a head start on the barons that they couldn't catch us."

 

"I know." Ryan nodded. "But Trader always said no matter how many beers you drink"

 

"you can only take one piss at a time," the Armorer finished.

 

Mentally Ryan plotted a course toward the Mirage that would take advantage of as much cover along the way as possible.

 

 

 

A FEATHERY WARNING brushed the back of Krysty's skull. She halted, Doc and Bernsen just behind her, ducking in the jagged crack they were using to creep up on the Las Vegas Convention Center. Her hand stayed tight around her .38 as she scanned the uneven terrain for any sign of Jak or whatever had tripped her psychic alert.

 

Jak had been less than twenty yards in front of them, but he'd disappeared as quick and traceless as morning mist getting hit by full sunlight.

 

Thirty yards away the convention center looked as if it had been through a war. Bullets and rockets from past encounters had left scars and gouges on the cracked exterior. If any of the windows had survived intact, Krysty wasn't able to see them.

 

The thing that made the convention center attractive was its proximity to the eastern wall surrounding the sunken center of the ville. She'd already spotted the men making the rounds on top of the wall, armed with blasters. The sounds of battle and dying, the crash of weapons and the growls of beasts, the smell of foliage thick and sweet with blossoms and otherworldly scents filled her physical senses.

 

Boots crunched on the rocky terrain only a few yards away.

 

Freezing into position, knowing sudden movement caught a person's peripheral vision faster than anything, Krysty waited, barely breathing. She saw the sec guard only a few heartbeats later, then he was gone, and the feathery touch inside her head disappeared with him.

 

She let out a tense breath, surveying the grounds in front of their position again. Three wags were parked near the entranceway to the convention center. She guessed that some of the sec men on top of the wall had driven over, then went up stairs on the inside.

 

Looking back over her shoulder, she waved on Doc and Bernsen. From the repeated scans she'd made of the sec men on the wall, their interest was primarily on what was going on in the pit.

 

Jak rose up out of the darkness by the first wag as Krysty reached it. Tense and nervous, she put the .38 on him before he realized who it was. Her finger had taken up the trigger slack.

 

"Me," the teenager said. "Was inside for a bit."

 

"What's it look like in there?" Krysty asked.

 

"Empty," Jak answered, coming closer and speaking in a whisper. "Most sec watching pit."

 

"Is there a way to get to the top?"

 

Jak nodded. "Way to get to top. Way underneath, too."

 

"Underneath?"

 

"Yeah. Place to park wags. Lots of dead wags already there."

 

"We'll take a look," Krysty said. "See what we have to work with. Let's check the wags out here first."

 

They split up. Doc and Bernsen went through one of them while Krysty and Jak took the other two. All of them held ammo and assault rifles, supplies and spare jerricans of fuel.

 

Jak's wag turned out to have something extra tucked away in a large red toolbox. "Krysty."

 

She crossed over to him, watching him drop the toolbox on the ground. Someone had put a lock on it, but the youth had gotten rid of it by simply slicing through the plastic grooves. When he opened it, she saw small grease-paper-wrapped blocks placed neatly inside.

 

"Plas ex?" Krysty asked.

 

"Yeah." Jak took out one of the small packages, juggling it easily in his hand. "Got detonators, too. Some timers, some distance. Batteries look okay."

 

"Help me put this stuff into the bags," Krysty said, kneeling quickly and beginning to shove it into her backpack. "Ryan and the others are going to need a back door. With this, I think we can make it."