Axler, James - Deathlands 63 - Devil Riders Page 15

  "No, just Kate," Sparrow corrected. "She's the sec chief for Trader."

  "How do you know about the Trader?" Ryan asked, trying to control his words. The blaster felt big in his hands, as uncontrollable as a thrashing snake.

  "I bought a predark med from him that saved my arm after a mutie bit me," Jed said, blood dribbling down his chin. "Didn't charge me anything what he could have."

  "How long ago was this?" Krysty asked urgently.

  Sparrow started to lower his hands, but at a gesture from Mildred he quickly raised them again. "I dunno," he said, scowling as if forcing a dim memory. "Maybe five months. Long time ago."

  "Months," J.B. said slowly. "You gotta mean years. Five years, right?"

  The fat man shrugged. "Whatever you say, you got the blaster," he replied. "But I ain't no feeb. It was less than half a year ago. He and the baron had a big fight about something, and the Trader ain't been back since. Used to stop by fairly regularly. Bought a lot of water."

  "What's he to y'all?" Jed asked suspiciously. "Kin?"

  "Describe him," Ryan demanded, feeling his heart pound in his chest. It was impossible.

  The brothers exchanged glances. "The Trader? Hell, I dunno," Sparrow said. "Never saw the guy. He was always inside a big-ass tank, stays behind a blister of the military glass."

  "How many wags?" J.B. demanded. "Describe them!"

  Sparrow scrunched his face. "Well, there were three, one big wag and two others, each plated with metal and covered with blasters. Big stuff, cannons, mortars and rockets. Baron Gaza was scared to death of the guy. Hell, who wouldn't be with all his weapons."

  "More," Ryan said through clenched teeth.

  Fumbling for a reply, Jed scratched his head. "Well, I heard Kate call the big wag War Wag One. That help any?"

  The universe seemed to go still at those simple words, as if it were breaking apart and rejoining in a new pattern, reorganizing itself on a most basic of levels.

  "He's alive," Ryan stated. "Trader is alive and back in business!"

  Chapter Eleven

  Mists of steam filling the air of the small marble room, Baron Edgar Gaza was sprawled naked in the shallow end of his large swimming pool, the clear mountain water flowing steadily around his hard muscular form from a feeder pipe. On the tiles near his head was a pile of dry towels and several loaded blasters. Laying at the bottom of the pool was a stiletto.

  "I think they're spies sent by the Trader," Hawk said quietly, leaning against a marble pillar. His shirt was unbuttoned to the waist, the entire tattoo of the scorpion visible on his broad chest. "Best to chill them. Gather ten, no make that twenty of our best men. We'll make this a night creep and garrote the bunch in their sleep."

  Soaping his arms, Gaza gazed at his sec chief with saturnine calm. "The women, too?"

  "Women we got," the sec man snorted angrily.

  At the far end of the pool, the women of the baron's harem were slowly washing themselves, the sudsy water carried away into another predark pipeline. Where the dirty water went the baron had no idea, but it was no place local so it wasn't a challenge to his control over the ville. Once, the wife of a blacksmith had given birth to a tiny baby, and when the boy was ten Gaza equipped the child with several bottles of air and flushed him down the pipeline with orders to return and his family would live comfortably for the rest of their lives. A lie, but the boy eagerly accepted the challenge and dived into the feeder pipe. He was never heard from again.

  The women stayed in this wing of the keep, their tongues removed to stop any of them from talking just in case one of them escaped somehow. Whenever one of them got too old, Gaza would brutally kill her in front of the others saying she had tried to escape, and then he would beat the rest as punishment for allowing her to try. Escape attempts were few and far between.

  It was something his father had taught him, keep the slaves suspicious of one another and they become the guards. His father had been a very wise man, the founder of Rockpoint ville. Wise and hard. Edgar had been the youngest son of the baron, and one day had been pitted against his older brothers in the Arena. Armed with knives and spiked clubs, the boys were commanded to fight, the winner to be the heir to the ville. Edgar had offered to team with a sibling and share the ville, and when the fool accepted and turned his back, Edgar beat him to death and stole his knife. Now armed with two weapons, he savagely fought the others and won. But the eldest brother had gotten in a few good strikes before dying, and Edgar's badly broken leg had never healed correctly. He still limped to this day, the old break aching badly when the acid rains came in the fall.

  "Well?" Hawk demanded impatiently. "What should we do, Baron?"

  Washing lazily, Gaza looked at the desert giant. His loyalty was unquestionable, which was why the baron allowed the mutie to challenge his orders. Only a fool listened to bootlickers. Hawk had been found in the desert crawling with scorpions, stung a hundred times. Incredibly, the man lived and was proved immune to the deadly poison of the tiny killers. A useful skill that became their safeguard on the Scorpion God.

  The sec men sometimes referred to him as the Big Scorpion, which amused Gaza greatly. The more the troops feared Hawk, the more authority the baron had over them. It was all a matter of control. Which was why he created the water shortage. If he opened the pipes, the entire valley would be flooded. But a simple twist of the valve and the water slowed to the merest trickle. Now visitors paid for the precious liquid with ammo and horses, food, and sometimes their very lives. His troops had the pick of the sluts, and his people believed that he was their savior and only chance of life.

  "We shall ace them, of course," Baron Gaza said, slipping under the water for a moment, then rising to push back his wet hair. The women waded closer to their "husband," wrapping him in dry towels as he walked from the pool.

  "How is the matter in question," Gaza said, taking a clean robe from a marble bench and belting a robe about his waist. "They have rapidfires and a predark ammo. And the black hair man, Ryan, has the look of a real fighter. I think it might be best to let them stay for a day or two, sell them water and then track them when they leave. Ace them far from the ville and bring the blasters and wag back for our private arsenal."

  Padding naked past the sec man, a blonde looked at the giant with no more interest than if he were a chair, her full breasts swinging to the gentle motion of her young body. Hawk understood why their tongues had been removed, but considered it a waste. However, they could still be bent over a bench. Didn't need a tongue for that.

  "Chill them now, tonight," Hawk countered, rubbing the scars along his neck with a palm.

  Taking the stopper from a crystal bottle, Gaza poured a goblet full of sparkling clean water, spilling some onto the floor in the process.

  "All right," the baron said after taking a sip. "Send troops to the motel and ace the outlanders in their beds. Then blame Sparrow and drag him through the courtyard to the temple. He has been stealing from me long enough."

  "Nobody is above the law," Hawk agreed, rubbing his tattoo as he watched the women splash about in the soapy pool. Already the currents were flushing the suds away, leaving the water clear.

  Noticing the direction of his gaze, Baron Gaza fixed the man with a hard look. "Remember that, old friend," he growled. "What scorpions can't ace, the Scorpion God can."

  IN THE LOBBY of the motel, the companions stood transfixed, their minds trying to absorb the implications of the incredible news.

  "The Trader and Abe are alive," Ryan repeated softly.

  "Mebbe," Krysty countered, then nodded at the two fat men. "We should continue this in private."

  "Please," Sparrow begged, misunderstanding her statement and dropping to his knees. "Don't chill us!"

  "Upstairs stupe," Ryan ordered, gesturing with the SIG-Sauer. "Jak, get the dogs."

  The teenager nodded and started urging the hounds into the office with a soft whistle. The beasts followed him into the room and he closed the door with a sharp b
ang.

  "My dogs," Sparrow cried. "Not my dogs!"

  "Shut up and move," J.B. ordered, poking the man with the Uzi.

  As they marched the fat men up the stairs, Jed tried to make a break and Ryan clubbed him to the floor with the barrel of his blaster. Trembling in fear, Sparrow did nothing, unable to speak. Going to the end of the corridor, Ryan shoved open a door to find a corner room containing only the barest essentials, a mattress on the floor, empty water pitcher and a night soil bucket.

  Putting the men back to back on the dirty mattress, Ryan and J.B. kept them covered while Mildred cut some rope from the blinds and Doc expertly tied their feet at the ankles, and then each man's hand to the other's arm in a crisscross pattern. The brothers grumbled and complained, but didn't resist.

  Coming out of the dark bathroom, Krysty ripped a paper thin towel into strips and stuffed a wad of cloth into their mouths before gagging them tightly.

  "Good job," Mildred said in approval. "They're not getting out of that."

  Leaving the room, J.B. used his tools on the door and tricked the lock into engaging with a solid click. "That'll hold them for a while," he said, tucking the picks into his munitions bag.

  Returning downstairs, the companions found Jak at the front counter, stropping a knife on a whetstone.

  "Oh, no, did you kill the dogs?" Mildred asked.

  "Nah," Jak drawled, sheathing the blade. "Locked in office."

  "Good enough," Ryan said, holstering his piece, then rubbing his face. Fireblast, he was tired. But the sleep that had been so tantalizingly close was now faraway. "So, what do you think?" he asked aloud.

  "Beats me," J.B. said bluntly, leaning against the sandbags and crossing his arms. "But it sort of makes sense. Where else could they get the ammo if not from a trader? There's certainly no ruins around here to scavenge."

  "Might be just somebody using the name," Mildred suggested. "As advertising. You can trust me, I'm Trader, sort of thing."

  "Never thought that," Jak growled. "Twisted."

  The physician smiled. "No, my friend, you're just an honest man."

  "Get lot enemies that," Jak added. "But make lot deals, too."

  "However, there's a chance that it might actually be Trader," Ryan said slowly.

  "Then again, it might just be some mercie who could have the Trader a prisoner," J.B. said, removing his glasses to clean them on a sleeve. "Forcing tech secrets about the wags and blasters to build an empire. Or his son, or a clone, or…"

  His voice trailed off, the possibilities were damn near endless. And after what they had seen traveling the Deathlands, the man knew that almost anything was possible these days.

  In reply, Ryan shook his head. There were too many questions and no bastard answers at all.

  Darkness was starting to cover the ville, so Krysty lit a candle. Out the front windows, Ryan could see the bright light coming from the barn next door.

  "Now what?" Mildred asked. "Somebody is going to eventually miss those fools, so the sooner we leave, the better."

  "We can't leave at night," Ryan said, starting to pace. "Not without acing some folks, and then we'll have a war party chasing our asses across the desert."

  "Tomorrow should be good. Got to remove that sticking thermostat anyway," J.B. said, slipping on his glasses again. "A few hours of work could triple our speed across Texas. Six hundred miles is a long way to the next—" he paused and glanced up the stairs to the closed door "—to the next, ahem, waterhole."

  Stopping near the fountain, Ryan grunted at the discretion. They knew better than to even say the word redoubt among others. Some people knew of the legends, but the fewer that number stayed, the better.

  "Engines have their use, madam," Doc rumbled. "But I have yet to see a car that can reproduce itself."

  Horses, eh? There was a thought. "How much ammo do we have?" Krysty asked, rummaging in her pocket. "I have a box."

  "Total of three more boxes of the .22 cartridges," J.B. replied. "More than enough to buy horses. The locals have plenty, so the price shouldn't be too high."

  "Unless the baron owns all of the horses."

  "Not going reach Grandee on horses," Jak said. "Need wag. Bad land down there."

  "Besides, we don't know how to find the Trader," Krysty stated bluntly. "His supply bases are secret, even if it is the same person."

  "We used to know them," J.B. added. "But he was always changing the locations in case of a traitor."

  Ryan frowned deeply. A traitor, that was something he hadn't considered until now.

  "But how find?" Jak demanded, brushing back his long snowy hair.

  Pulling a map from his munitions bag, J.B. smoothed it across the counter and the companions gathered around, the combined candlelight almost making the document readable.

  "Now we came from the east," Ryan said, "which leaves north, south and west. South of here is the Grandee, north is New Mex and the west is unknown."

  "Three choices, none of them guaranteed," Mildred said, using her butane lighter to start a lumpy candle on the front counter. The tiny flame constantly jerked as the fatty wax spit and popped.

  "And a million combinations mixed in between those three. This is hopeless!"

  "Damn straight. We need more info," Ryan agreed, smoothing out Texas with his hand. "Bastard lot of territory to recce blind."

  "Sec men know truth," Jak grunted, glancing upstairs. "Those tubs lard might be spinning shit-webs." The teenager knew that he could easily force the two men to spill their guts with a hot blade, but that was something he would hold off doing until there was no other choice.

  "Hey, we passed a gaudy house down the road," J.B. said, tilting his head. "There's always sec men there. It's only a couple of blocks away, and we do have free rein inside the ville."

  Glancing out the door, Ryan started to speak, and Doc cut off the man. "I shall stay with Dean," the old man offered. "The establishment in question is too far away for any response from us to be of effective use if there was an altercation."

  "Thanks. Save the MRE packs," Ryan ordered. "We'll bring you something for dinner."

  "Anything but dog," Doc muttered, glancing at the silent office door.

  Checking the street outside for any suspicious movement before leaving the motel, Ryan motioned the others forward and they split apart in the deepening darkness. As silent as a ghost, Doc melted into the shadows along the side of the building and was gone from sight. Krysty nodded in approval. The old fellow was getting good at that.

  In the night air was a faint reek from the garbage dump behind the motel, but that faded as they crossed the street. From the roofed section of the ville, the lights from the windows were reflected off the rippling cloth, giving the streets a golden hue like something from an old vid. Now there came the aroma of frying peppers mixing with the clean smell of the desert salt. Somewhere a horse whinnied, and there came the crash of pots and pans, followed by raised voices marking a fight. The desert ville was full of life, and the sound of a whip was noticeably absent at the moment.

  "It was this way," Mildred said, checking the map in her notebook.

  The companions passed very few people on the streets, a young boy dragging a burlap bag full of sticks, an old woman bundled under a raggedy shawl limping along a side street. Muted voices came from behind the closed shutters, and something flew by overhead, its passage masked by the patched material roofing the ville. Steadily, the temperature dropped as night descended in full, slices of light beaming through the shutters and around closed doors, becoming brighter in the purple dusk. His boots slapping against the cobblestone street, a sec man walked down the center of the street with a longblaster slung over his shoulder, a hand tight on the faded leather strap. He looked hard at the companions, then slowly nodded, granting them passage and kept slowly walking.

  Easing his stance, Ryan let go of his grip on the SIG-Sauer and Jak tucked the throwing knife in his hand back up the sleeve of his camou jacket.

  "
Lot of security here," J.B. muttered, taking his hand off his slung Uzi. "Everybody seems scared."

  "If the baron is at war with the Trader," Ryan growled, "they bastard well should be."

  "Roger that."

  Skirting around the temple, the group heard the gaudy house long before they saw the place. Gales of laughter came from the second floor, shadowy figures ran past the louvered shutters, and there was actual glass in the lower windows, showing a roaring fireplace and tables of men eating and drinking. The few women moving through the crowd were scantily dressed.

  A group of horses was tied to a stone hitching post, with a lone sec man leaning against it smoking a home rolled cig. He watched the outlanders cross the street, but said nothing as they passed by, heading for the brothel.

  "Must be the designated driver." Mildred laughed, and waited for a response from the others, then realized the joke was a hundred years out of date. Ah, well.

  Stepping through the doorway, Ryan pushed aside a blanket hanging across the opening to help keep out the evening chill. Inside the building, the air was warm and heavy with the smells of food and wood smoke. From the bolt holes in the concrete floor marking where heavy machinery had once been anchored, it was obvious that the place had originally been some sort of factory, now gutted into a single huge room with bare steel beams supporting the second story. Clusters of candles hung from chains attached to the metal rafters, clay bowls underneath positioned to catch drippings so as not to lose a drop of wax. A roaring fireplace was near the wooden counter that served as a bar, with a bubbling iron pot sitting directly amid the crackling flames, the roasted carcass of something slowly turning on a spit.

  The tables were mostly cut down wooden spools that at one time housed industrial cable, the chairs a mixture of anything that could be sat upon, including a flat rock and some plain wooden boxes.

  Incredibly, over in the far corner a stickie was stuffed and mounted on a wooden box, its eyes replaced with shiny glass marbles, its hands raised as if about to attack. The mutie was wearing pants, but its chest was bare, the mottled skin covered with the puckered scars of large bore bullet holes, along with a stitched slash on its neck that almost went completely across.