Chapter Twelve

 

Dawn was breaking on the horizon, the indigo clouds of night lightening into the purple and orange of a new day. Sleepy people rose from their cots and beds, stumbling out of their cottages and huts, shuffling across the dirt to start another long day in the bitter fields. The rains had come late this year, and the soil was yielding poor crops. Many of the plants grew twisted and wrong, the grain inedible or deadly poison. Game was scarce, and few cans of predark food were found these days, so farming was the only hope of surviving another year.

Suddenly, the roar of a powerful machine broke the morning stillness as an open-topped wag full of armed sec men drove into the middle of the ramshackle ville. The machine was closely followed by a line of trucks draped in canvas. Armored and bristling with weapons, the war wags stopped with a squeal of brakes in the middle of the gawking crowd, the population backing away from the fearful machine. Some of the smaller children started to cry, clutching their mothers, while burly men with callused hands stepped forward brandishing sickles and axes.

"What are you doing here?" a towering giant demanded, squinting in hostility. "Go away!"

In the vehicle, a clean-shaved lieutenant in a crisp blue shirt stood and raised a small cone to his mouth. "Greetings and salutations, my fellow Americans." His loud voice boomed across the motley collection of huts. "I bring you great news from the baron of the United States!"

Instantly, a few men on the outskirts of the crowd dropped whatever they were doing and raced into the field. But black shapes plowed through the summer weeds to cut them off, and the men found a dozen more Hummers encircling the little ville.

"Return and obey!" a loud voice ordered.

Most of the escapees turned and skulked back to the crowd. But two bolted past the war machines, nimbly racing for the forest. The deadly whine of autofire sounded, brass shells arcing into the air like a golden rainbow. The stuttering line of tracer rounds reached out to sweep across the escapees, and the dead men tumbled to the ground, torn to pieces from the heavy-caliber bullets.

"As I said," repeated the sec man in the first Hummer, "greetings and salutations. We have come to offer you a once-in-a-lifetime chance to help feed your families and assist in rebuilding our wounded nation into the glory it once was! America reborn from the ashes! And only you can help!"

Murmurs came from the crowd. Some glanced at the fields, and the ring of wags turned on their headlights.

"Don't live in no America!" an old man shouted. "This be Tennessee!"

The lieutenant scowled at the man until he lowered his head. "As I was saying," the blue shirt continued, "you will receive the fabulous honor of being allowed to work for the glorious Great Project and help us rebuild America! It is a noble cause, one you will tell your grandchildren about with pride. Yes, you very people can become soldier-workers whose strong backs and brave hearts will gloriously fulfill our nation's ultimate destiny!"

There were more murmurs from the farmers, and the sec man began to wonder if any of them knew half the words he was using from the speech given to him. He decided it was time to cut to the bone of the matter.

The officer tossed the paper aside. The major was an ass; he knew how to do this. "All right, listen up you, brain-dead hillbilly scum!" he snarled. "We're here to gather everybody in the ville capable of doing a day's work. No pregnant women, crips or babies. But everyone else is coming with us!" He paused a moment to let that sink in.

"We asked this service of Shiloh ville down the road. The leaders of that ville foolishly refused us." The sec man paused again. "We begged them to reconsider, but they refused to help America and forced us to punish them severely."

The lieutenant took a breath and lowered his voice. "Shiloh will no longer worry about how to bring in their crops or hunt for food." The whisper changed to a shout. "Or anything! Have you seen what remains of their ville? Well, have you?"

Sobs came in reply, and he knew they had seen. This was why Dr. Jamaisvous waited a day before sending them to the next ville, to let the word spread and the fear build.

"As workers for the New American Army, you'll receive three meals a day, clean housing, and after one season you'll be sent home with a blaster and a pocketful of ammo. We have done this before and will do so again."

Faint hope brightened in their faces, and he smiled benignly at the crowd. God, what a lie, the officer thought, but kept a straight face. "That's the deal. Work and reap rewards. Or defy us, and force us to again bring down terrible destruction."

As if on cue, the overcast atmosphere rumbled and miraculously cleared, the heavily polluted clouds thinning until an azure sky was visible. Sunlight flooded the ville. Some of the people stared in wonder; others gasped in fear at the unnatural sight.

"Yes! The sky is ours to command. Watch!"

Another rumble, and the clouds rolled in to obscure the sun. As they touched, sheet lightning flashed and continued raging for more than a minute.

"Get in the bastard wags," the lieutenant ordered, supremely confident.

Beaten, the people of the ville walked toward the waiting line of vehicles. Sec men armed with long-blasters separated them, the men going in one truck, the women into another. A young woman saw the leering faces of the blue shirts and realized her horrible fate. With an anguished cry, she pulled out a knife from under her skirt and slit her own throat. Bright blood gushed from the wound, and she fell limply to the ground. At the sight, the farmers tensed, fear overlapping into anger, rage fueling courage. Heads started to rise in defiance, and hands became fists.

In unison, the sec men fired their weapons into the air, and the heavy autofires on the wags added their awesome barks to the deafening cacophony. Hot shells rained over the farmers, making them wince and hide behind raised hands. Stunned, shaken, their hesitant resolve broke, and once more they started to climb into the wags. Iron shackles lay on the floor and they chained themselves without instructions, knowing it would be the last free act of their short lives but having no other choice.

As the wags started rolling away, the babies wailed as the whitehairs held them tight. Nobody left in the ville believed that they would ever see any the departing villagers again. Not alive, anyway.

HOOVES POUNDING the misty ground, the companions rode hell-bent for leather through the early Carolina morning. The Flat Rock sec man had chased them for miles through the night, but Baron Polk had dealt fair and given the companions his best mounts. They easily outdistanced the older nags. However, soon after losing the sec men, they began to hear the long howl of hunting dogs. Hounds were a lot faster than horses on a short pull, and the companions were forced to slow and try to stealthily evade the relentless dogs.

"It's been a couple of hours since we heard them," J.B. said, glancing over his shoulder. "I think we finally lost them."

"Can't hear anything," Krysty said, closing her eyes to listen hard. The breeze rustled the leaves on the trees and a small animal was being eaten alive by something that purred, but nothing else. No barking dogs, no shouting riders. "I think we lost them."

"Said so," Jak stated. "Double back over creek, sprinkle black powder. Works good."

"My black powder," Doc complained, uncomfortably rolling to the gait of his animal. At least he still had enough for a few reloads, which was better than nothing.

Reaching a creek, the companions reined in their mounts and let the wheezing animals drink for a while, before forcing them onward.

"But they were still thirsty," Dean said, stroking the sweaty neck of his pinto mare. She nickered in response, her long ears twitching happily.

Rocking at the hips to the gentle stride of his stallion, Ryan answered, "Never let a horse drink its fill. Slows them down too much. They get enough to stay healthy, no more."

"Should feed them soon," Krysty added, leaning forward as her mare daintily stepped over a pile of bricks. "We left in such a rush, we forgot to bring along feed."

Tightening her thighs, and holding on to the pommel of her saddle with both hands, Mildred leaned sideways and studied the grass rising from the low mist. "Plenty of grass around," she said, swinging back upright. "It shouldn't hurt them too much to live on just summer grass for a while."

"Okay, short break," Ryan said, reining his stallion to a stop. "No fire, cold food only. Stay alert. We leave in five minutes."

Guiding the horses to a nice section of grass, the companions tethered the reins to bushes and tugged hard to make sure they were secure. Shaking themselves to adjust to the lack of weight on their backs, the horses relaxed and began chomping at the tender blades, munching contentedly.

Opening his saddlebag, Dean took out an MRE envelope and ripped it open. Most of the food packets he dumped back inside the bag, but he kept the one marked Creamed Beef. Ripping off a corner, he sucked the food down and stuffed the empty foil back in the saddlebag. Loose trash on the trail would lead the dogs to them like bees to honey.

"Hey, Dad, can horses eat apples?" Dean asked, wiping off his mouth with a pocket rag. "There are some trees over there."

"Sure can," Ryan said around a mouthful of dried fish. Swallowing, the man looked over the area and nodded in approval. "Go gather a bunch. Doc, stay with him as cover."

Pulling up his pants, Doc stepped into view from behind a bush. "Certainly, my dear Ryan," he said, splashing some water from a canteen onto his hands and washing quickly. "Hum, we shall need something to carry the succulent fruit. John Barrymore, may we borrow your hat, please?"

Arching both eyebrows, J.B. lowered the self-heat he was eating from and turned slowly, but the man and boy were yards away and moving fast.

"Old coot," the Armorer growled, smiling.

Reaching the trees, Doc stood guard while Dean knelt on the ground, and, folding up the front of his shirt,
started gathering apples. A plump one rolled away, and he made a successful catch.

"None from there, dear boy," Doc said, the LeMat held ready. "Too many bruised apples can give a horse cramps."

"Okay," he replied, then stood and emptied the fallen fruit from his shirt. Tucking the garment into his pants, Dean grabbed hold of some low branches and scampered up the trunk as if it were a ladder.

"Ah, youth," Doc said with a sigh, and removed a wedge of cheese from the pocket of his frock coat. It was hard and crunchy on the edges, but still edible. There was movement in the bushes. Doc dropped the cheese and aimed the LeMat, thumbing back the trigger. Then he spotted the squirrel nibbling an apple and withheld firing. The miniball from his weapon would leave nothing of the squirrel to cook for dinner. It was the one drawback of big-bore blasters. Game had to be at least as large as a fox, or it was a waste of ammo. Retrieving the cheese from the ground, Doc wiped it clean, cut away a suspicious area and continued to eat.

"You know, horses are like wags, aren't they?" Dean spoke from the foliage. "Got to constantly watch this and feed them that."

"True words, lad. But I would love to meet the wag that could make more wags," Doc said, taking another bite. "I daresay humanity lost something important when we stopped riding."

Returning to the others, Dean passed out the apples, keeping a couple of the best for his mount.

"Here, girl," he said, offering the fruit. The pinto lifted its head and sniffed the offering, then took the whole apple in its mouth and started crunching.

"Careful fingers," Jak warned, feeding the fruit to his mount. The horse was a young dappled stallion, lean muscles rippling under its coat. "Can't see good. Take finger accidentally."

"I know," Dean replied, stroking his horses neck. "I watched Dad before doing mine."

"Smart move," Mildred acknowledged, coming over and inspecting the mare. "Damn, I thought she was limping. That's a bad cut on the fetlock. You better clean that with witch hazel before it gets infected."

"Me?"

Mildred went to her mount and came back with some bandages and a plastic bottle. "A rider tends his own horse," she explained, giving him the bottle and cloth rags. "They trust you more that way."

Speaking soft words, the boy tended the animal. It shook at the sting of the witch hazel, stomping its hooves, but he got the cut thoroughly cleaned and wrapped tightly.

"Gaia, they found us," Krysty said, standing and dropping the partially peeled apple from her grasp.

Seconds later, howls sounded from the east.

"Mount up," Ryan commanded, rushing to his stallion.

He checked the belly cinch, then climbed into the saddle. Shaking the reins free from the bush, he started off at a brisk canter. The rest did the same, then kicked their horses into a full gallop.

"Thank God spurs haven't been rediscovered," Mildred said, holding the pommel and bending low over her animal. "Come on, girl, faster!"

At top speed, the companions crossed a field, jumping over a low hedge and starting a flight of robins.

"Fuck!" Jak cursed, glancing over a shoulder. "Give away position!"

Angling away from the soaring birds, Ryan led the companions over some irregular terrain to where a broken expanse of a paved road peeked out from the grass.

After a hundred yards, Doc reached into his saddlebag and found his last container of black powder. Slowing to the rear of the pack, the old man leaned low in the saddle and shook it out, the wind spreading the powder into a fine spray. Stuffing the empty powder horn into a pocket of his frock coat, Doc slumped in the saddle, concentrating on staying mounted.

The sloping land flew beneath the pounding hooves of the horses, the baying of the hounds rising and falling as the dogs found the companions' trail, lost it and found it once again.

Ryan heard the low moan of winds whistling in a ravine. Moving to the south, the warrior saw that the land was cracked wide alongside the weedy field. Slowing his mount, he trotted close to the edge. The division was shallow, only a sheer drop of one hundred feet, but there was a bridge only a few hundred yards behind them. The structure was a box trestle, dripping with ivy and hanging moss. Older than predark, it looked solid and that was a gamble he was willing to take.

"No way we can jump this," Krysty said, fighting to retain control of her mount. The horse was trying to walk in a circle to get away from the chasm. She pulled on the reins to keep the animal under control. "Whoa, girl. Good girl. Easy does it."

"Why should we jump?" Dean asked, confused. "There's a bridge."

"My point exactly." She smiled. "Once we're on the other side, nobody can follow us. Especially the dogs."

"Follow me!" Ryan shouted. Kicking his mount into a gallop again, he backtracked to the bridge and rode across to the other side.

"We were headed north," J.B. said, stopping near his friend. "Going to try for an ambush?"

"Better," Ryan replied, sliding off the horse and heading toward one of the pack animals. Digging in the bags, Ryan found a hurricane lantern filled with oil reeking of fish.

"Good dry timbers," J.B. announced, running his hand along the supporting beams.

"Trap?" Jak asked, holding the reins in one hand, his Colt Python drawn to give cover. Far below, a riverbed was visible, but there was no sign of any water. Just bare gray stones and smooth black pebbles lying across the red clay bottom of the riverbed.

Removing the flue, Ryan tipped over the lantern, spilling out the rancid oil. "No time for traps or bombs. Those dogs are too damn close."

"And the sec men right behind them," Mildred added tersely.

Removing the wick from the lamp, Ryan lit it with his butane lighter. The rag caught at once, and he dropped it on the planks. Smoky flames spread across the planks and over the sides, following the path of the flowing oil.

The howling was closer.

"Let's go," Ryan grunted, climbing back into the saddle. "Just in case one of the dogs makes it across before the bridge collapses."

Kicking their mounts into a gallop again, the companions rode away from the burning bridge, knowing they were safe from pursuit for the moment—but also knowing that there was no way back into North Carolina. The plan to head into Tennessee was abandoned as they rode deeper into the wild country of Georgia.

STANDING IN THE throne room of the castle, Nathan Cawdor bowed his head in contemplation. He didn't believe in torture. It served no purpose except personal revenge. Information was always more easily bought, or stolen, than extracted.

But as he looked down upon Sullivan lying wrapped in his cocoon of netting and chains, Nathan felt a fury build within. His mother had referred to it as the blood-fire, a sort of madness for violence that ruled the Cawdor bloodline.

"I have no wish to kill you," Nathan said. "Or rather, I had no wish. To the best of my knowledge, you had harmed nobody within the walls of this ville. Plus, you saved many lives in the hospital sewing wounds and removing crushed limbs so gangrene wouldn't rot my men."

The room was packed with sec men and civilians. Justice wasn't served in the dark. Only tyrants ruled from the shadows because daylight made them wither and die.

Hands clasped behind his back, Nathan walked around the supine prisoner. "No, my plan was to find you and send you back to BullRun ville alive and unharmed."

The mutie sneered at the man, not believing a word of the pretty speech. Barons would always say golden promises before the crowd, then feast on flesh in private. Soon they would be alone, and Sullivan would discover his real sentence.

In a flash of anger, Nathan kicked the bound man. "You idiot! I had no wish to kill you. But after seeing what you did to the patients, nukestorm, you set wounded men on fire merely to hide your escape with their death screams!"

"Hang him!" a woman shouted from the crowd. "Peel off his skin and feed it to the dogs!"

Patiently, Nathan allowed the interruption as the woman was the wife of a now dead sec man. "Yes, Sullivan, I would be justified in torturing you to the point of death, then leaving you alone in the dungeon for a year to heal and grow strong, then start the torture again, and continue on until I was too old to wield the pliers or hot irons. So my sons would take over, and their sons and theirs, and it would still not be enough! There can never be enough revenge for what you did!"

Nathan turned away from the man and walked to his throne. Sitting down heavily, he sighed. "There is no choice but the ultimate punishment."

Sullivan tried not smile. This was why he had done the act, to infuriate them beyond reason. Nathan always killed common thieves with firing squads, and hanged rapists and other such scum. Only once did he burn a man alive, a traitor who turned against the ville and allowed coldhearts past the walls. But Sullivan couldn't be burned alive. His skin was resistant to flames, and once his ropes were weakened he would break loose, kill the startled baron with a single blow and escape over the wall in the confusion. The fool was playing right into his hands.

Nathan drew a blaster and weighed the weapon in his palm, deliberating justice the way a butcher did meat. Was this enough, or too much?

Standing along side the throne, Lady Tabitha took his free hand in both of hers. "You have no choice, dear."

"I know," Nathan said, bolstering the weapon. "This coldheart mutie deserves the very worst punishment we have. Once, I burned a man alive at the stake for treason, and you all still remember that smell. It haunts me at night and clings to my clothes. No amount of washing or soap will ever remove the memory. And that day I made a solemn vow to never repeat that again for any reason."

The crowd held its breath, anxiously waiting.

"Captain of the guards!" Nathan called out formally.

Clem stepped forward and saluted. "Yes, my lord?"

"Bury him alive."

Icy panic filled the mutie as he realized this was a death sentence with no escape. "No!" Sullivan screamed, and he stood, ripping the nets apart with bare fingers. He shook back and forth, trying to escape from the chains, but they weren't cold iron forged in some Deathlands smithy, but predark steel. The metal didn't even strain at his awesome strength. Gasping for air, terror a fist in his belly, the mutie started to weep as his bones broke in the blind madness of trying to escape.

There was a gunshot, and Sullivan fell to the floor, blood pooling around him, spreading outward in pumping waves. He tried again to rise, a chain snapping loose in his death throes. There was another shot, and Sullivan collapsed, his body exhaling its last breath and going still.

Ceremoniously, Nathan slid the clip from the execution blaster and laid them down separately on a silver tray. "And so it ends today," he said sternly. "Anybody buried alive would soon go insane and live out their last few hours in a delirium of escape and freedom fantasies. The very worst thing I could do was threaten him with the act. Sullivan punished himself, and I ended the matter."

"What about Baron Markham of Bull Run ville?" Clem drawled, watching the corpse for any signs of returning life. "Y'all know she sent the mutie here."

Leaning back in his throne, Nathan nodded agreement. "Because she believed we were attacking her, and she was too weak fighting off some samurai baron from Washington Hole to withstand an attack by us."

"I would be happy to make a stand against her, my lord," a bearded lieutenant said, kneeling. "My life for yours!"

"Thank you, Jarod, but that won't be necessary," Nathan acknowledged graciously. The baron turned to address another man. "Clem, would you go to them as an ambassador and talk the truth? We aren't enemies. Tell them of Overton and enlist their aid. His plan was to divide the baronies so we couldn't work together. If that was his greatest fear, then that's exactly what we should do. And quickly."

The chief of the sec men scratched his neck. "She may not believe me, but I'll sure as shit try."

"Thank you."

"What about those Casanova assholes?"

"I'll deal with them later," Nathan said in a low, dangerous voice.

Clem smiled. "Gotcha. You're a pretty good baron."

Startled at first, Nathan smiled back at the man. "And I'm pleased to also call you a friend."

"Beg pardon, my lord," a sec man asked politely. "What about the…ah, Sullivan?"

Stepping in front of her husband, Tabitha scowled at the dead mutie. "As he lived, so shall he die," she said in controlled anger. "Burn the body."

IT TOOK A FULL CORD of wood to finally consume the mutie, his flesh oddly resistant to the conflagration. But at least he was reduced to ashes, the residue thrown into the river to be washed away.