Читать книгу Bloodfire - James Axler - Страница 11

Rockpoint was melting.

Holding a large duffel bag in both arms, Alexander Hawk struggled through the waist-deep water. The man was wide with muscle, not fat, his features oddly flat as if there were a lot of Oriental or American Indian blood in his heritage, or just a touch of mutie. His long black hair was held back in a ponytail with a ornately tied length of rawhide, his boots were some kind of lizard skin and a brace of pistols rode protectively behind the buckle of his gun belt, the handles turned out for a fast draw. The blue head of a scorpion tattoo peeked from under his shirt, and the scars marring his body were too numerous to count.

Towering high above the ville was the water spout rising from the destroyed temple of the Scorpion God. Scowling at the sight, Hawk sloshed around a corner of a sagging building as he headed for the front gate. As the chief sec man of the ville, Hawk had known the water shortage was a lie concocted by Baron Gaza to control the ville’s population. They had to obey his every command, or else he cut off their water ration. The plan was brilliant, simple and brutal. It had worked for years and would have for a lot more.

Then those damn outlanders came riding into town and blew the temple, cracking open some sort of a preDark pip large enough to drive a truck into! Now the entire ville was flooded, the houses and buildings and barracks made of sun-dried adobe brick were literally dissolving under the never-ending rain from the gushing water column in the center of the ville. Most of the people had already fled into the desert, but the ocean of water was right behind them, pouring like a river through the gaping hole in the ville wall, and spreading out across the Great Salt in every direction. Rivulets of trickling water were becoming shallow creeks, and several nearby depressions had filled into small ponds. Hawk had no idea when the torrent rising from the temple would stop, mebbe never. Mebbe the preDark river was connected to some freshwater sea and would continue pouring into the Great Salt until it was an inland ocean again the way the wrinkles said it had once been in ancient times, millions of years before skydark.

Tripping over something unseen below the muddy surface, Hawk almost dropped his bundle and tightened his hold on the heavy bag. The clouded water was filled with loose floating items from the disintegrating ville—straw, wooden spoons, some bits and pieces of preDark plastic and a lot of drowned scorpions. The little bodies bobbed about like veggies in a soup, and it broke the man’s heart to see so many of his beloved servants lifeless in the swirling muck.

Then he saw a large black scorpion perched precariously on a dead child. With a shout of delight, he scooped up the tiny desert dweller and it instantly stung him, the barbed tail struck deep into his hand. Hawk grunted at the pain and put the creature on a shoulder for safekeeping. The scorpion dug in its legs and grabbed his shirt collar in self-preservation.

Ever since he was a child, Hawk knew he was different from most folks, maybe a mutie of some kind, because he was completely immune to most poisons. He used this ability to make others fear him by always carrying around a lethal black scorpion, the giants of the desert who were five times bigger than their little red cousins. More than once that had saved his life, and it was how he became the sec boss in Rockpoint. People were terrified of a man who got stung a dozen times and it didn’t even faze him. As always, fear meant power, and now that the baron had fled, he had been their first choice to be the new baron.

It was a bitter victory, though, since soon there would be nothing to rule. Not here anyway, but he would find another ville, and with the bundle in his arms and his few remaining sec men, Hawk would rule as baron yet! Then someday he would find former Baron Gaza and chill the man with a knife, twisting it slowly in his guts until he begged for death, then twist some more.

With a groan, another building tilted sideways, and Hawk splashed hurriedly out of the way as the gaudy house fell apart, the crashing wall forming a wave that pushed the sec boss helplessly along until he slammed into the base of the keep. The impact knocked the breath from the man, and a sharp stabbing pain pierced through his shoulder, the bandaged wound in his chest suddenly leaking red blood.

Struggling to stay erect, Hawk lurched away from the keep, still holding on to the heavy bag. Made of preDark brick and cinder blocks, not dried mud, the keep was the only structure still standing undamaged. It also used to be the home of the baron and was armed with a 25 mm cannon in perfect working condition. Not even the Trader in his armored war wags wanted to face the Scorpion’s Sting, as Hawk liked to call the gun. It tracked fast and could chew through any mobile armor, treads or tires. Once a war wag was motionless, it could be easily covered with loose tree branches, or anything else that burned, and set on fire. The crew would cook alive if they stayed, or be shot the moment they crawled outside. Either way meant death.

Recalling the last time he had been inside the keep, hot rage flared in Hawk. Gaza had betrayed him, gunning down his sec boss because Hawk discovered that the baron was really a coward. Unfortunately for Hawk, he was a coward with a very fast gun and got the drop on the sec boss, but failed to finish the job properly. Now Hawk was back and hungry for revenge.

Reaching the area near the front gates, Hawk found the rest of his sec men sitting on their horses and kicking away the occasional person who begged for a ride, or for food. One man tried to take a longblaster from the boot alongside a saddle of a riderless horse, but another sec man caught the motion and fired from the hip. The would-be thief staggered backward to flop limply into the dark waters, and his companions descended upon the dying man to yank off his boots, knife and other possessions.

Since they were robbing a thief, Hawk paid no attention to them and splashed directly to the empty horse and carefully placed his bundle across the saddle. The horse whinnied at the tremendous weight and shuffled its hooves about unhappily, while Hawk lashed the bag firmly in place with lengths of rope and a few leather belts.

“All set,” Hawk declared, hurrying to a second horse and climbing into the saddle.

Twelve other horses stood before the open gate of the ville, and a small wooden cart. Eight men and two women were in the saddles, all of them heavily armed with blasters from the former baron’s private arsenal, the woman also carrying bulky packs of food and assorted supplies. Everything was soaking wet from the constant rain of the water plume, the roar muted to a low rumble.

“Black dust, I can’t believe you got it,” a sec man said, shaking his head.

“Gonna need it when we face the Trader,” Hawk growled, pulling a longblaster from the boot and checking the load. “Did you get the stand?”

A burly man with a full beard grunted in assent. “Yes, sir. It was bitch and a half to drag through the mud, but we got her here.”

“Good job, Mikel,” Hawk said bluntly. Always compliment your troops on a tough job. It only made them work harder on the next task. Gaza was a fool. Dogs and sluts should be whipped until they obeyed, not valuable property like horses and men.

Hawk had gone after the 25 mm cannon from the keep himself. He couldn’t trust anybody else not to run away with the blaster. A man could almost buy a ville with a weapon like that. Unfortunately, it couldn’t be fired by hand. The recoil would have torn off a person’s arms, but there was a tripod from a .50-cal that had been altered by a blacksmith. Mebbe that would work, mebbe not, but it was the only hope of controlling the monster rapid-fire.

Hawk sheathed the longblaster. “Ammo?”

“In the cart,” one of the women said, jerking a thumb. “Got all we can carry from the junkyard without busting an axle. Almost a thousand rounds.”

“Well done. Let’s ride,” Hawk said, shaking the reins. “We got some chilling to do.”

“Gaza?” Wall Sergeant Henny asked, shaking the water from his face.

“For starters,” Hawk growled.

As the armed sec men splashed through the sagging front gate of the dying ville, they entered a shimmering saltwater plain that spread to the distant dunes, the searing heat of the sun causing it to steam into mists as if this were the birth of a new world.

Even more than Hawk wanted Gaza screaming under his knife, the new baron needed to meet up with that black bitch who traveled with the outlanders. He had felt she was going to be trouble the moment they entered the ville, and he’d been right. Now the ville was gone, and while Ryan may have pulled the trigger, it was that bitch Mildred who loaded the blaster. Hawk planned on keeping her alive for a lot longer than Gaza, and in a lot more pain. He had once heard about some old sec men called Nazis, real preDark hardcases with some twisted ideas about revenge. Hawk liked their style and remembered some of the really good parts. Yeah, trees would grow, fed by the blood and screams of the hated woman before he finally let her go into death.

SLUGGISHLY, the companions awoke in cool shadow with a steady wind howling in their ears. Blinking at the darkness, Ryan realized it wasn’t shade, but night. Craning his neck, the man saw a scattering of stars peeking through the roiling clouds of tox chems high overhead. Fireblast, how long had they been unconscious?

From what he could see, the companions were sprawled in the corner of a piece of building, the brick wall forming a triangle, with the desert wind howling around the sides. They had been moved from the dead Drinker and could be anywhere by now. Reaching for his blaster, Ryan was consoled to find the weapon still at his hip, his Steyr SSG-70 stuck through the lashings of his backpack, the saddle nearby. However, there were no signs of the horses.

Squinting against the windblown sand, Ryan could vaguely see that ahead of them lay more pieces of preDark building, the smashed windows looking across the desert like the eyes of a corpse. A thick layer of sand covered the paved street, and no structure rose more than a few stories until abruptly ending in ragged destruction. Beyond these few tattered remnants of the lost civilization, only a flat, endless desert stretched to the distant horizon.

Forcing himself to stand, Ryan shuffled over to the other companions and shook each one to rouse them from sleep. Everybody stirred easily enough, and once figuring out where they were located, immediately ran a check on their possessions. To Ryan’s eye, it seemed as if their packs and bags hadn’t been touched. Even the water bags were present, including the poisoned leather pouch from Rockpoint.

The wind kicked up sand and salt, and it howled straight through one open window. Going to the empty window frame, Jak took one of the plastic shower curtains they had salvaged from the Texas redoubt as a makeshift rain poncho and used four knives to tack it in place, covering the opening. The force of the wind lessened noticeably, and the companions could fully open their eyes now without salt being blown into them.

“A plastic shower curtain is the most massively useful thing a hitchhiker can carry,” Doc rumbled in amusement, deliberately misquoting an ancient novel.

“Check your things,” Ryan demanded, his words making him wince. Once, very long ago, he and Finn had been involved in a drinking contest that stopped only when the ville bar ran out of shine. The next day Ryan was so sick he thought death was near and welcomed it with open arms. This was worse.

“Looks like everything is okay,” Dean whispered, running his hands over a backpack. Checking his blaster, the boy used a bowie knife to open a round and inspect the greasy cordite inside. Nope, the blasters hadn’t been tampered with and the ammo was live.

“Why did they take the horses?” Doc queried. “If it was to keep us here, then surely they could have bound us prisoners instead.”

“Mebbe got do by choice,” Jak muttered, using his good arm to run stiff fingers through his unruly mane of snowy hair. “Why do hard way, when got no choice?”

“That makes chilling sense, Mr. Lauren.”

The teenager shrugged as he made sure his collection of knives was intact hidden in his clothing. His wounded arm had come out of its sling, but was still otherwise okay.

“Passive-aggressive recruitment techniques.” Mildred snorted in disdain, fingering a rip in her flannel shirt where a button had come off somewhere. Probably while they were being transported to this place. “Well, that’s a new one on me.”

“Shh, not so loud,” J.B. said, holding his glasses in one hand while massaging the side of his face. Then he noticed Krysty sitting quietly by herself. “How you doing, Krysty? You don’t look so good.”

Hunched over, Krysty said nothing in reply, her limp hair moving freely in the wind.

“You okay, lover?” Ryan asked gently, kneeling by her side. “I’m surprised you didn’t pass out before the rest of us, since you have some mental abilities.”

She glumly nodded, moving as if every atom of her body was in agonizing pain. “Worse,” the redhead muttered, hanging her head.

“What do you mean?”

“I stayed awake,” Krysty said woodenly. “I…saw everything. They fought each other with nightmares, demons in the mind. Alar aced Kalr with visions that drove him insane and cracked his mind until he died.”

She looked up with tears streaming down her face. “Gaia, help me, I saw it all! Everything! The things they did to each other…the…I…”

The woman began to shake violently and Ryan comforted her in his powerful arms, rocking slightly as if she were a child while the woman wept unashamedly on his chest.

“I got a pint of shine,” J.B. said quietly.

“Get it,” Ryan ordered softly.

“Just a minute,” Mildred countered and, rummaging through her satchel, Mildred dug out a battered tin canteen and passed it around to the others. Doing a jump through a mat-trans unit always made them ill—headaches, nausea, muscle cramps, which she attributed to a disruption of the human nervous system for that split nanosecond they were pure energy being shifted from one redoubt to another. The physician had been working a cure to counter the jump sickness using alcohol, herbs and what painkiller she could scrounge in the ruins or trade spare ammo for from other healers.

The companions relaxed and slumped gratefully against the brick walls. Mildred hadn’t found a potion that worked yet, but this batch seemed to be effective in countering the aftereffects of surviving a death battle between two mutie telepaths.

“Good batch, Millie,” J.B. said, passing her back the canteen.

“Thanks,” she replied, screwing the cap back on the empty container. “I grabbed some things back at Rockpoint to use at the Grandee redoubt. Came in useful sooner than expected.”

Ryan agreed, and the brew had to have even worked on Krysty as her hair started to revive, and soon the woman was limp against him breathing deep and regularly.

“She should be okay,” Mildred said. “Just let her sleep for as long as she wants.”

“Then we get fuck out,” Jak snarled, fixing the sling on his arm.

Ryan fixed the teenager with his one eye. “That loads my blaster,” he agreed. “The sooner we leave the better. Don’t know if I could take surviving another of their mind fights.”

“I wonder if the only reason we’re in this good a condition is because of the hundreds of jumps we’ve made,” Dean said, leaning his back against the brick wall. “Sort of hardened us to getting our brains scrambled.”

“Excuse me,” a new voice said. “What a redoubt?”

Caught by surprise by her sudden appearance, the companions said nothing to the member of the Core standing in the doorway, holding a sagging bundle of horsehide. For a brief moment, Ryan debated chilling the masked girl, but where could they hide the body from people who traveled underground? But something had to be done and quickly. The existence of the redoubts was the greatest secret of the preDark world, and they had no intention of sharing it with anybody.

“This is a redoubt,” Mildred said with a smile. “It means a fort, or a protected place, and this brick wall protects us from the wind.”

“Oh,” she said softly, then added, “My name is Dnal and I have some food for you. May I enter?”

Doc waved her inward. “Come in, child. This is your town after all.”

Hesitantly, she did so. “You are wrong, old one,” Dnal said. “This building has been given to you for your stay. None of the Core are allowed within a spear’s throw.”

“That looks like horsehide,” Dean said. “Are our horses aced?”

“Yes,” the masked girl replied, placing down the bundle. “Their minds could not handle what they saw. We carved them into food and brought the very best to you.”

Unwrapping the flap of hide, J.B. found a stack of thick steaks, the flesh still dripping with fresh blood.

“I thought you folks didn’t eat real food,” Ryan asked.

Dnal turned to face him. “We do not, but the Holy Ones do. They can eat anything, but prefer fresh meat.” Then she untied a small gourd hanging from her rag belt and placed it alongside the pile of meat. “I thought you might like some jinkaja to have in case you change your mind and wish to stay with us.”

Trying to hide his disgust, Ryan’s first impulse was to shoot the container and kick the mutie girl out of the ruins. Gaza had forced the obedience of his people by controlling their water supply; Alar and the Core did the same thing. Either way, it was just another form of slavery, and that was completely unacceptable.

“Thank you,” Ryan said politely. “However, we are still considering the offer.”

“If—” she paused and then rushed forward with the words “—if you’re going to cook the flesh, may I stay and watch? I have never eaten food before.”

Mildred patted the ground nearby, and the girl sat with the effortless grace of a ballerina. The physician wanted a better look at the Core, and this was a prime opportunity.

“First we dig a hole,” Mildred said, drawing her knife, “so the wind doesn’t put out the fire.” And protected within the ruins, nobody should be able to see the flames. Mildred knew Gaza was still somewhere out there. Perhaps he had given up hunting the companions, but maybe not, and it was always wiser to plan on what an enemy can do, instead of what he might do.

The girl watched excitedly while Mildred got to work digging the cooking pit. Meanwhile, the rest of the companions went to check the other buildings, soon coming back with armloads of fuel, wooden tables and chairs and bookshelves to build a respectable fire. Soon the campfire was going, and Mildred roasted the meat well to prevent any parasites from being conveyed to new hosts. The smell was thick and greasy and sent waves of hunger through the companions. Their last meal had been MRE rations, and before that, cold dog stew at the ville.

“By the way,” Ryan asked, turning the steaks with a whittled stick, “ever heard of a norm called the Trader?”

“Yes,” came the surprising reply from the girl, who seemed as fascinated as much by the fire as what it was doing to the slabs of meat. “He is the enemy of our enemy.”

“Ah, Gaza,” Ryan said, taking a shot in the dark. He was local and utterly ruthless. That made him a prime candidate.

Staring into the flames, Dnal nodded. “Yes! He controls scorpions, we worship the Holy Ones. They dislike each other greatly and always battle to the death.”

Well, not always, Ryan thought to himself. But here in the Great Salt it was probably true.

When the meat was dark brown and sizzling with fat drippings, Ryan carved up portions and served them. Using their U.S. Army mess kits, the companions filled the steel plates with juicy steak and started eating. The meat was stringy and difficult to chew, but it filled their stomachs and eased the growing pangs of hunger. That was more than enough for the moment.

Dnal watched their every move as if it was brand-new, and timidly accepted a roasted morsel to nibble on the edges. Through the slit in her bandages the girl had a very human-appearing mouth, tongue and teeth. Of course that meant nothing these days; muties came in every shape and size.

She inspected the food, sniffing at it for a while before taking a tiny nibble, and then popping the rest into her mouth. Chewing experimentally, Dnal almost immediately started to gag. Spitting the half-chewed meat onto the ground, she then grabbed the small gourd and deeply drank the jinkaja to cleanse her mouth.

“Hideous!” Dnal cried, wiping some blue juice from her mouth on the back of the wrappings covering her arms. “It was like consuming hot waste straight from the backside of some animal!”

“Definitely needs more salt,” J.B. said languidly, glancing at the Great Salt desert only yards away from the ruins. If the girl understood the joke, she didn’t find it amusing.

“You okay?” Mildred asked, touching Dnal’s shoulder. The bones under the coverings felt human, as did the muscle play. As far as the physician could tell, this was a perfectly ordinary fifteen-year-old girl. Maybe only the minds of the Core were unique, amplified a millennium into the genetic future of humanity.

Shying away from the steaks spitting on the fire, Dnal nodded vigorously. “I am undamaged,” she said, moving her mouth as if trying to get of the terrible taste. “Merely…wiser now.”

Rising, she started for the open doorway, then turned and paused, pulling a spear into view from where it had been hidden, leaning against the other side of the brick wall.

“I thank you for the hospitality,” Dnal said solemnly, and gave a small bow.

Somehow it reminded Ryan of when they had jumped to Japan and tangled with those samurai and the shogun king. Each bow meant something different to them, and no outsider ever really understood what the gestures fully meant.

“We thank you and your father in return,” Ryan said, giving a even smaller bow from his sitting position.

At that, Dnal tilted her masked head. “How did you know Alar was my father?” she asked quizzically.

Ryan continued eating and said nothing. As if a chief would have sent anybody else but blood kin to palaver with the outlanders visiting the tribe.

“If I may, I would like to ask a question, dear child,” Doc said as casually as possible, patting his greasy mouth clean with a grayish linen handkerchief. “Can we really leave whenever we wish?”

“Of course!” Dnal answered, sounding slightly insulted that the word of the Core should be questioned, especially by meat eaters. “Go anytime, and anywhere.”

Then she turned and pointed. “Except to the south. That is the blessed land, the origin of the Core and none may go except for the leader of the Core. For any others, it means death.”

J.B. shot Ryan a glance, and the Deathlands warrior subtly nodded in agreement. The land to the south was probably radioactive, he thought, glancing at the rad counter on his lapel. But the device indicated that they were in a safe zone. If so, why did the Core mutate into telepaths? Was it the bug juice? Merely another reason never to touch a single drop of the stuff.

“What about those?” Dean asked, waving at the nearby ruins.

“This is where we mine for the metal of our weapons and the clothing that protects us from the sand,” she said. “Explore all you wish, take anything you find.”

Turning on a heel, Dnal started to walk away into the wind, the loose ends of her wrappings jerking with whipcrack snaps. Then over a shoulder she added, “It doesn’t matter what you do. There is no water for a hundred miles. When your thirst is great enough, you will return to drink and join the Core.” As the girl walked, she soon vanished into the darkness and the windblown sand.

“Yeah?” Jak growled, easing the safety back on the blaster in his holster. “Like hell will.”

“Indeed, my taciturn friend,” Doc rumbled, placing aside his mess kit. “I do believe that it would be preferable to put lead in my head then join these antediluvian freaks.”

“How much water do we have?” Dean asked, wiping his hands clean on the sand and then on his pants.

“Three days,” Mildred answered promptly. “Not counting the poisoned stuff we’re saving for an emergency.”

“How far away?” Krysty whispered in a strained voice.

Looking at the stars overhead, J.B. hazarded a guess. He wouldn’t be able to shoot their exact position until the sun rose. “To reach the Grandee?” he said, rubbing his chin, “I’d say about three days on foot. If we move fast and head straight south.”

“Across the forbidden zone?” Dean said, casting a glance over a shoulder at the featureless blackness stretching behind them.

“Yep.”

“Damn,” Mildred murmured unhappily. “We have no choice, then.”

“Agreed. We better cook all of the meat tonight,” Ryan said, returning to his meal. “Gonna need it when we start running for our lives at dawn.”