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Ethan studied them. “That all?” he queried. Ryan nodded and the baron gave a low whistle. “Now that’s what I call interesting damage you caused out here,” he added almost to himself. Then, seeming to remember where he was and what he was supposed to be doing, he whistled again—this time sharper and harder, the sound piercing the forest.
The foliage began to rustle and ripple as though it were alive with movement. Through the blanket of cover emerged a dozen riders, all clad similarly to their baron. The horses were a mix of squat pony stock and sleeker beasts. Similarly, the compose of the sec party itself was a mix. Short and tall, fat and thin, black, white and all shades between. Whatever kind of a ville Pleasantville may be, it certainly had no problem with ideas of physical difference.
It crossed Mildred’s mind that the Pilatu could have done with such an example. But then she remembered that Dean had been with them then and experienced a sense of loss she hadn’t felt for a long while. What, she wondered, must Ryan be feeling?
The riders surrounded the companions so that Ethan now sat in the middle of two rings: the inner a possible threat, the outer his protection. In truth, the clearing wasn’t large enough to accommodate all the horses and people that were now gathered there, and the companions could quite literally feel the breath of the horses down their necks as the animals jostled, the smell of death unsettling the beasts.
“This really all of them?” Ethan asked his men. Ryan knew that the one who answered would be the second in command. He made a mental note of who that sec chief may be. He was a hook-nosed, craggy man, with long dreadlocks down his back. He looked to be part white, part black and part Native American. But all mean…He had the still, calm air of a born mercie who would have no problem chilling everyone in the clearing—friend or foe—without a second thought.
The man shook his head. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, ain’t no others. They’re good, give ’em that.”
“Some are a whole lot better than others, if y’ask me,” another rider said lasciviously. He was a squat, fat man with one clouded eye and scars across his forehead. He smiled, but looked about as far from the idea of a jolly fat guy as it was possible to get. He nudged the side of his mount with his heel and the horse’s head came down, pushing at Krysty’s shoulder. “I’m betting this one could be real good, y’know what I’m saying?”
It wasn’t just the words, it was the way that they were used. There was something in his tone that couldn’t be ignored. Krysty focused on this and forgot that they were surrounded and outnumbered by a hostile group.
“Watch what you’re doing, fat boy,” she growled, stepping to one side.
“Whoo-hoo. What do we have here?” he jeered. “She’s a real feisty one, ain’t she?”
“Cut it out, Jonno,” the sec chief said wearily. But there was no real authority in his tone. It was something he was saying for the sake of it, not because he meant it.
“C’mon, Horse, it’s just a little fun,” the fat man whined before leering at Krysty. “Could be a whole lot more fun, though…”
Krysty backed away from the horse, her body tensing. Her Titian mane had closed around her neck and shoulders protectively, signaling her sense that she was in some kind of danger.
The companions tensed with her. They knew that they were hopelessly outnumbered, but they would always defend one of their own.
Ryan kept his eye fixed on Ethan. The baron was watching the developments with interest. The one-eyed man guessed that he was using this situation as a yardstick for how they would react, how stupe or smart they would be. Imperceptibly, Ryan signaled to the others to stay. They were watching him for a lead, and although they had the desire to fight, they knew that he was playing the odds.
The sec chief—Horse—sighed heavily. “Jonno, cut it out. Do I have to give you more bastard scars than you already got?”
“Shit, you big-haired fucker, it’s only some fun. Right, Baron?” the fat man asked, looking across at Ethan. The baron stayed impassive, which the fat man took as a sign of assent. “Yeah, only some fun,” he added, almost to himself. He leaned forward over the front of the horse and reached out for Krysty. “Just a little fun, honey. Now you-all ain’t gonna do anything with all your friends here about to get chilled if they get in the way, are you?”
He reached out and looped his fingers in her hair, trying to tug her toward him. The strength of the prehensile mane surprised him and a flicker of a frown crossed his face. He allowed it to pass, paused until he thought he had the measure of her strength, and then tried to pull her to him.
At first Krysty held back, making him tug harder, sit farther forward on his saddle. Then she acquiesced, moving a few steps closer and letting him believe that he had the upper hand.
It worked. He was still seated forward on the saddle and was complacent. He would offer little in the way of resistance.
Timing her actions, she waited until he was at the optimum point, then stepped back suddenly, wrenching her head, straining her neck muscles and feeling the hair tug on her scalp. The sentient tresses had encircled his hand to hold it in a viselike grip. It wasn’t something she could do consciously, but as a result of the fear and adrenaline that coursed through her body. She felt a searing pain as her neck muscles protested. Her hair, protective of her body and strength, let loose of the fat man’s hand.
It was enough. His balance completely thrown, he fell forward with a startled yelp, crashing onto the ground at her feet, landing heavily on a dead stickie. The yelp turned into a yell of disgust as he struggled to his feet, eyes blazing.
The mounted riders reached for their weapons, but a gesture from Horse stopped them. The sec chief could see that the baron was studying this with interest. Likewise, Ryan stayed his people. Krysty would have to deal with this on her own and he had no doubts about her capabilities.
The fat man was facing her. She backed off him to give herself more room to maneuver. He took this as a sign of weakness and a savage grin crossed his features.
“You won’t be so pretty—or so keen to fight back—when I’ve finished with you,” he snarled, pulling a long-bladed hunting knife from beneath the layers of skins and furs.
Krysty allowed herself the smallest of grins. He was telegraphing his intentions far too much, and taking him out would be easier than she thought. A fact that became obvious as he lunged at her with all the finesse of a runaway rhino—except that he had none of the danger. She moved aside to allow his arm to thrust past her harmlessly, then caught him at the elbow, snapping his arm backward and at the same time kicking back with the heel of one silver-tipped cowboy boot so that it cracked into his shin and raked down, splitting the cloth and flesh and hammering into the bone.
The fat man howled in pain and toppled over. Krysty took the knife from his hand and dug one knee in the middle of his back, pinning him to the ground. She pulled his head up by his hair with one hand and held the blade of the knife against his throat.
“One good reason,” she whispered. “Just one…”
The click of blasters being drawn and beaded answered her. The riders had been still long enough and now their weapons were trained on her. Horse held his hand aloft to stop them firing.
There was a second—so tense it seemed like an hour—before Ethan spoke.
“Seems to me you met your match, Jonno, and you got what you deserved. But don’t chill the fucker, lady. He’s too good a hunter to lose over his bad manners.”
Krysty let the fat man go and stood, stepping out of his immediate range as she did so. She didn’t want to give him the slightest chance to strike back. He stood and dusted himself down, shaking his head to clear it, cursing under his breath. He turned and glared at Krysty, then at his knife, which she still held by her side.
“I was only joking, y’know,” he said accusingly.
“Well, you’re not funny. And no fighter, either,” she added with venom.
The uneasy silence was broken by the baron’s harsh laugh. “More like you’re a better fighter.” He chuckled. “Jonno’s good, all right, but you’re better. All of you, by the look of what you did before we got here.”
“You’ve got to watch your own back,” Ryan said, emphasizing the dual meaning of his words with a look at the riders encircling them.
“You’d be as chilled as those stickies if I wanted,” Ethan commented, spitting on the nearest corpse for his own emphasis. “You’re interesting people, that’s for sure.”
“I cannot but think that ‘interesting’ is an unusual epithet for such a situation,” Doc mused.
The baron laughed again. “Y’see what I mean? What the fuck are you talking about, old man? You pitch up in the middle of a bunch of rabid stickies, whomp the fuck out of them, face off with a superior force in terms of arms and numbers, and then stand there and discuss the meaning of words…Shit, if that ain’t interesting, then you tell me what is.”
“A fair point, if a little forcefully delivered.” Doc Tanner smiled.
“Good,” Ethan said decisively. “Then you come back to our ville and we learn a bit more about you. In return, you get fed and watered, and get to rest.”
“And if we say no?” Ryan queried.
Ethan’s smile hardened. “Did I say you had a choice?”
The one-eyed man looked at the horsemen surrounding the companions. He didn’t like the fact that they were being told what they had to do. Handing over power to another wasn’t something that came easily to any of them. On the other hand, they were in no practical position to fight; they could already have been wiped out. The baron seemed open enough to want to learn about them, and any hint of hostility came only when he was apparently crossed. That was worth remembering. What was also worthy of consideration was that the companions needed rest and food and it would be stupe to turn up the chance of this. Any problems could be dealt with as they arose, when they were rested and in a better condition. Looking at his friends, Ryan could see that they were all bruised, dusty, tired. Some had cuts that needed attention and their postures were slumped, tired.
“Okay, we’ll come with you,” Ryan said slowly, testing the baron with his choice of words.
Ethan allowed himself a small, tight smile, acknowledging that he understood the one-eyed man and that he, too, would play the game.
“Good,” he said finally. “Now we wouldn’t expect you to walk, as it’s some way. You have any objection to sharing our horses?”
Ryan looked around at the riders. Some of the horses looked as though they wouldn’t support more than one man, but others seemed sturdy enough. He looked back to Ethan and shook his head briefly.
“Okay. As for you, Jonno,” he directed to the fat man, who was still standing where he had fallen, “you can take the lady with you. But she gets to keep that knife of yours for now. A trophy,” he added to Krysty. “Make sure the fat bastard doesn’t try anything else on the way back.”
The fat man said nothing, but his expression betrayed his less than charitable feelings about the baron’s decision. The ripple of laughter that spread through the other riders did little to improve his disposition and he looked sullen as he climbed back onto his horse, grudgingly holding his hand out for Krysty. The Titian-haired beauty made a point of ignoring this and mounted behind him without acknowledging his gesture.
Horse, the sec chief, took over, assigning a rider to each of the five companions, taking Ryan on his own mount. It was obviously a gesture of respect. Next to the baron, he was the highest-ranking rider, and he was acknowledging Ryan’s leadership. The one-eyed man took this in the spirit it was intended and nodded his thanks as he mounted the stallion that carried the sec chief.
When they were in position, Ethan held up his hand. “We go back the same way. Take it easy. The horses must be exhausted after the chase and some have extra loads. Keep alert, but I don’t figure on there being trouble, do you?” he asked of his sec chief. Horse gave a brief shake of his head, his dreadlocks brushing against Ryan, as hard and wiry as his body. Ethan nodded, pleased. “Let’s go…”
The hunting party started back through the forest, taking the path that had been carved by the pack of stickies as they had rampaged, tearing their way through the foliage and trees. It was only by taking this path that the companions became aware of the extent of the damage caused by the pack.
“What the fuck were they doing?” Ryan whistled, looking at the churned-up earth and devastation left in their wake. “I’ve seen a shitload of stickies in my time, but I’ve never known them to act like this. And to stay and fight like they did to us. Usually they run…”
Horse grunted. “Your guess is as good as mine. They attacked some farmers on the edge of the ville and we set out after them. Expected an easy hunt, chill them, then go home. But I’ve never seen stickies move at that pace. Something spooked them.”
“Figured it might have been you,” Ryan said guardedly. “After all, you were at their rear.”
“Only ’cause we hadn’t yet caught up with them when they ran into you,” the sec chief replied.
“Yeah, guess so,” Ryan agreed, keeping the hint of doubt out of his voice. Why chase after them when they had already passed by the ville? There was something about the story that didn’t quite ring true, but that could wait until later, until Ryan had recce’d the situation a little better. What was important now was to get to the ville and to rest. As the horses trotted gently over the rough earth, the one-eyed man felt every little rut in the ground as a jarring pain. His eye was heavy and he felt his body begin to give in to the fatigue that had been staved off for so long by the adrenaline rush of combat and the need to keep alert.
On their own shared mounts, the other companions were finding that they, too, were falling prey to their tiredness. Krysty kept herself awake by sheer willpower, not trusting herself to so much as doze while she had to ride behind the fat man. For his part, Jonno was trying to make amends for his earlier attitude by keeping up a nonstop stream of banalities.
“Look, I’m really sorry about earlier. I just got carried away. I was only fooling, and I misjudged. You know what it’s like in the heat of battle, you kinda find it hard to switch off and get back to being normal. Whatever the fuck that is, y’know. But I don’t want us to have got off on the wrong foot. Ethan wouldn’t like that, and he’s not the kind of dude you screw with, y’know what I’m saying? It’s not that he’s a bad guy, and he’s a great baron, right, but you don’t want to get on the wrong side of him, y’know? That’s just bad news for everyone involved, right? Hey, are you listening?”
Krysty answered with a grunt, then added, “Look, apology accepted, and I don’t care about the rest right now. Just keep your eyes on the path ahead and keep riding, okay?”
Jonno pursed his lips. No one talked to him like that. They all tried but they paid. All the bitches who laughed at him for being fat and ugly and scarred. He would just bide his time and get her when she didn’t expect it.
J.B. and Mildred were seated behind riders who said nothing beyond initial hellos. They were glad of it; the last thing they needed was to have to concentrate on conversation after the battle. Particularly, Mildred, who was sure that she would throw up again if the ride was any more rocky.
Doc was behind a large, heavily muscled rider with an ebony skin that seemed to shine in the moonlight that lit the path cleared by the stickies. The old man could feel he was slipping. Nothing seemed real anymore. What was real? A man who had lived his life over three different centuries, with large chunks removed between them, Doc’s grasp of reality was always a little loose, and now he was sure that he had descended into madness. In the distance, riding toward him, he could see a Brougham driven by his beloved Emily, the wife he had left behind in the nineteenth century, and who would never have known what happened to him, just that he vanished one day, without trace and forever. Perhaps it was better that she didn’t know; that she could never see him as he was now, aged and beaten by the fates. God, but he missed her. And here she was, driving toward them. Seated beside her, he could see Rachel and young Jolyon, the children he had never seen grow to maturity, and who had been dead for longer than he could know—longer, indeed, than he had been alive. How could a father so outlive his children? It wasn’t natural. But then, what had happened to him hadn’t been natural.
They couldn’t see him like this. They couldn’t. He turned his head away from them as they approached, tears streaming down his face, his body shuddering in convulsive sobs.
“You okay, man?” the rider asked him, a worried note creeping into his voice.
Doc didn’t answer. It took all his effort not to turn to look at his wife and children as he heard the Brougham approach, gaining with every second. If he could only…if he could just…just wait until the sound was on the wane. If he could only keep his will intact for that long, then surely his sanity would also follow?
It was no good. As the Brougham approached, he felt compelled to turn. It was a force far greater than his meager willpower could cope with—the force of longing, despair and loneliness. Everything he had ever held dear to him had been snatched away—or else he had been snatched away from it. His wife, his children…
Doc gave in to his longing and turned to face the oncoming Brougham. His eyes were wide, tears coursing down his cheeks. As the vehicle passed him, he could see Emily, Rachel and Jolyon turn to look at him. They were the ages they had been when he had last seen them, but changed. Their eyes were empty and their skins were dry and mummified. They were husks. As he, himself, was now…
Doc looked away, crying out in pain and rage. The rider in front tried to keep his eyes fixed on the path ahead. He had heard nothing, seen nothing. There was nothing…
The other riders exchanged glances and shrugs. If they were expecting any of the companions riding with them to explain, they would wait in vain.
Jak had questions of his own. He was riding behind a wide, fat-bellied bald man whose apparent bulk wasn’t just due to excess weight. Underneath, there was a lot of muscle, as Jak had found when he had almost fallen from the horse early in the journey, the horse stumbling in a rut and throwing both riders forward. The bald man had moved with the motion, but Jak had been taken unawares and almost thrown. As he’d toppled, the man had shot out an arm and grabbed Jak. The albino youth had, in turn, taken grip of the arm. He had expected soft flesh. Instead he’d gripped muscles and tendons that were like barbed wire wrapped around brick.
“Thanks,” he had said simply as he clambered back.
“No problem—name’s Stark,” the man had replied with an equal simplicity.
Both were men of few words, but had found a respect for each other in that seemingly inconsequential moment. Jak had thought the man a blubber mountain and had found hidden depths. In return, Stark had been impressed by the albino’s lightning-quick reaction, and the wiry strength with which he’d flung himself back into the saddle; all the more remarkable after the firefight he had just been through.
Since that moment they had conducted a conversation that had been drawn out not by the lack of things to say, but by the natural manner of both. Jak would ask an elliptical question and Stark would pause for a long while, considering an answer that wasted no words. He would then phrase a question of his own and Jak would reply in kind.
Neither had passed comment on Doc, but Jak chose that moment to ask what he felt was an important question.
“Why you hunt stickies?”
Stark waited for some time, then said, “Like Ethan said.”
“So why follow so far when they move on? No sense if they not cause damage. Waste of energy and ammo.”
“Mebbe. But like I say, it’s as Ethan says.”
Jak pondered this. There was a coded message in there, if only he could unlock it. His keen senses were jangling with the rush he always felt when there was danger ahead. It wasn’t like Krysty’s mutie doomie sense, it was something altogether more instinctual, a preternatural development of his instincts that had been honed by years of survival, years of hunting.
“Ethan always tell how it is?” Jak asked finally.
A long pause. “Ethan always tells it how he sees it.”
Jak considered that. Stark picked his words very carefully and he hadn’t actually agreed with what Jak had said.
Their conversation lapsed. The pauses lengthened into silence as they rode on through a night that was now approaching dawn. The other companions were having trouble keeping conscious as fatigue and lack of sleep tried to claim them. But Jak, who had spent so many hours in a state of inert awareness waiting for prey, was able to focus and to stay alert.
So it was that he noticed something very strange, something that made his instincts quiver more than ever.
As the mounted party traversed the trail ripped up by the stickies, the ville of Pleasantville became visible in the distance. A shattered metropolis lay beyond, remnants of old skyscrapers and buildings dimly visible in the early-morning haze. But the ville itself seemed to have been constructed in an old suburban area. It was still too dim for him to fully distinguish, even though his red albino eyes found the twilight of evening and dawn more conducive than the bright light of a daytime sun. However, there was something that made no sense if what Ethan had told them was the whole truth. For, to reach the ville, the riders now left the track that had been carved by the pack of stickies. A track that veered off to one side of the farthest outcrop of the ville, past the last buildings and signs of life that Jak could see.
Surely they had been told that the pack had attacked farms on the edge of the ville, which was why they had been chased. But the track, clearly visible because of the devastation it had caused, veered off way past the last sign of tilled land, cutting across an area that could only be described as a wilderness.
Why had Ethan lied? It looked as though the stickies had passed close to the ville, but hadn’t actually made contact. So why mount the chase at all?
Jak was sure that the answer to this question would also provide an answer to the churning sense of anxiety gnawing at his guts. They were riding into a danger of some kind, of that he was certain. What it was had to be determined, but as he cast a glance at the rest of the companions, tired and battered on the backs of their mounts, in no condition to fight, he was concerned that they were riding into trouble when they were least capable to deal with it.
The ground was now softer under hoof, less rutted and destroyed. The movement of the horses became more fluid, lulling the already exhausted companions into a stupor, with no bone-jarring ruts to shake them out of their torpor. Jak wondered if any of the others had noticed that they had left the stickies’ path, and that it deviated from the ville.
Why? Why had they been lied to? Why had the stickies been hunted so ruthlessly? Was that what had whipped them into a frenzy, or had something else happened to make them that way…perhaps so they could be hunted?
Jak felt the movement of the horse begin to lull him. A sense of fatigue and exhaustion swept over him, making it hard to concentrate.
Shit, whatever faced them, he needed to sleep first. He had no choice.
He jolted awake suddenly. What had caused him to stir? His head was pounding, his heart racing. The last thing he could remember was the ville coming into sight and feeling so, so tired.
Jak raised himself on one elbow and took a look around. First thing to strike him as weird was that he was lying down. How the fuck had that happened without his realizing it? His eyes adjusted easily to the gloom and he could see that the other companions were also in the room with him. There were two windows, with thick hangings that kept out the light, apart from at the very edges where they weren’t flush to the windowframe. Through these gaps, Jak could see that it was a bright light, but not the intensity of midday. Probably late afternoon, early evening.
The room itself was plastered and painted in a light color that trapped whatever could get through the hangings and magnified it. In this half light, Jak could see that the others, like himself, were in beds that were covered with blankets and quilts. Their weapons and supplies were by each bed, as though taken off individually and placed by the right bedside. He looked down: he was still fully dressed. He guessed that his friends were, too. The only other furniture in the room was a long wooden table, set against the far wall and bare apart from a pitcher and six cups.
It would seem that the companions had been lifted en masse from the horses when they had reached the ville, then put to bed like children. A gesture of this magnanimity was something that was unknown in the Deathlands, and Jak was curious as to why they had been afforded such respect. No one was that nice unless they expected something in return. But what? He couldn’t shake the memory of the track forged by the stickies, veering off away from the ville. It had been such a little, and such a stupid, lie. There was a connection of some kind, but he was too tired to work it out right now.
Jak stood, every muscle in his body aching as he did so, the rigors of the firefight and the ride not yet cured by his rest. He could feel every last blow that he had taken during the battle with the stickies, and was sure that the others would feel the same when they awoke. Tentatively he walked toward the table, testing his strength. He was sore, but still quite supple. His limbs hadn’t stiffened with injury as he feared they might. But he could tell that his speed was impaired. Movement was more…not difficult, but awkward. He reached the table and picked up the pitcher, sniffing at the contents. He could smell nothing but the faint aroma of the wood from which the pitcher was made. Jak dipped a finger into the clear liquid and then licked it. No taste other than what you’d expect from water—the faint coppery tang of earth and perhaps a hint of metal from whatever piping had carried it to an outlet.
