Rat King, page 23
Without comment Ryan, Jak and Dean all started to strip down to their underwear.
Having acquired it at the redoubt the day before, it was relatively clean, and
having been under their other clothing, was protected from the ravages of the
dust and dirt that had assailed them in the storms.
All three men took off the regulation military white T-shirts and handed them to
Mildred. Jak also handed her one of his leaf-bladed knives, with which she
sliced the material into strips, handing it to Krysty. The material formed a new
dressing on the poultice, which was replaced on J.B.'s injuries.
"Will he make it?" Ryan asked, speaking for the first time since their
imprisonment.
Mildred shrugged. "This gunk is working by the look of it, and he should be past
the crisis of his fever before too long. If he gets through that okay, then
he'll live. The question then is how fit will he be to move when we make a
break."
She tried to keep her voice even, to sound offhand about J.B.'s chances. But she
was fooling no one: they all knew how much it was eating into her.
"I'm just wondering if we should make a break," Ryan said quietly.
Dean looked at his father sharply. "We've got to, Dad. There's J.B. to get out
of here, and Doc to get after. Besides, I don't want to be chilled as part of
some dumb-ass ritual to the frigging sun."
Ryan regarded Dean coldly. His one eye blazed anger. "Remember who's in charge
here, boy. The only chance we have is if we work together, not pulling
separately. Before you jump to conclusions, hear me out. I've got no intention
of being chilled, either. Trader used to say that when your time was up, you had
to go down. Well, I don't feel like going down without fighting. But there's
more than one way of fighting."
"Sorry," the boy muttered.
Jak put an arm around his shoulders. He was only a few years older than Dean,
and yet in terms of harsh experience he was an old man.
"More one way skin mutie rabbit. Mebbe not best blast way out—'specially when no
blasters."
Dean bit his lip and smiled. It was a good point. Still stunned by Abner's
pronouncement, none of them had been ready for the sudden swarm of ville
dwellers, who had taken it as their cue to rush forward and disable the
outlanders, moving like a mass of ants that engulfed their enemies, sheer weight
of numbers pinning them to the ground and enabling the ville dwellers to strip
them of their weapons.
Or almost all of their weapons. Jak's throwing knives were so well hidden in the
patches and folds of his coat that it would have taken a long and thorough
search to uncover them.
There hadn't been time for such a search. They had been picked up by the swarm
and rushed into the hut.
Once in there, Mac and his mute sec men had trained their blasters on them while
Abner had told them that he would assist them, in whatever way his people could,
to heal J.B.'s wounds. It was important that the sun receive a "whole"
sacrifice, and not a damaged one.
And so they had been left here. At least, as he had warned them that the outside
of the hut would be guarded, Mac had had the grace to look embarrassed at his
behavior.
"Why can't we make a break for it?" Dean continued impatiently.
"Because walls have ears for one," Krysty snapped, losing her patience,
"especially walls that are made of mud and straw. And for two, how can we move
with J.B. in this condition?"
"I guess…yeah, I guess so," Dean said quietly.
Ryan beckoned them into the center of the hut, where they crouched around the
prone Armorer, as though watching him. Ryan spoke low and soft.
"We're better fighters, but this is their terrain, and they're used to the
weather conditions. Besides which they outnumber us. We've got a short while to
prepare something. They won't chill us in this ritual until J.B.'s at least
coherent. Thing is, what exactly do we do?"
"Mebbe," Jak said, scratching idly, "mebbe need take Abner."
Ryan nodded. "They seem to follow him blindly, so yeah, if we have him, that's a
powerful bargaining tool."
"How far are we going to get out there with John like this?" Mildred looked down
at J.B. and shook her head. "The thing he'll need most is time, and that's just
what we don't have."
"Then we'll buy it." Ryan looked his son squarely in the face. "I've got an
idea, and I need to know I can rely on you totally."
"Dad, you don't even have to ask," Dean replied.
THE STARS TWINKLED faintly through the ever present curtain of dust. It was a
lighter breeze than usual on this night, stirring motes on the surface of the
tracks that comprised the roads of the small ville.
Mac sighed and leaned on his blaster, his arms crossed and resting on the mouth
of the long, roughly beaten barrel. It was bored smooth inside, but the outer
metal was still pitted and uneven, where he hadn't been bothered to shape or
smooth it. The butt rested in the dirt, trigger a long way from his finger. He
was supposed to be on guard, but felt tired after the long trek from the redoubt
back to the ville. They had been on a scavenger hunt, hoping for some equipment
that had been left by the insiders, and hadn't bargained on walking into a
firefight between the prisoners and some of the insiders.
And it had been a real firefight. Mac had never really gone along with Tilly's
idea that it was part of some plot to infiltrate the ville. After all, how would
the insiders know that they were going to be there, let alone that they wouldn't
just chill anyone they captured?
He sighed to himself, barely able to keep his eyelids open. It had always paid
to go along with Tilly, because she was insane and might just tear your throat
out if you said the wrong thing. Tilly and the giant Tod had been two of the
best fighters in the ville, and now they were gone. Mac shook his head sadly.
They were good to have on your side. What his people would do now worried him.
He yawned. It wasn't his problem. Except that if not for the outlanders, he'd be
as chilled as Tilly and Tod. Even so, Abner had wanted to use them for the
ritual chill. It didn't strike him as being a good move. Their skills would be
good for the protection of the ville. Besides which, he figured that he owed
them for his life.
But he was just a sec man—the chief, sure, but still just a sec man. He couldn't
go against the leader.
He was so occupied by his thoughts that he didn't notice the slight scuffling
behind him, didn't notice first Jak and then Dean emerge from around the side of
the hut, covered in dirt and mud, pieces of straw still clinging to their
clothing.
Jak picked up a rock from the ground, a jagged but basically round rock that fit
into the palm of his pale hand, and brought it down with a sharp and fierce
force on the back of his skull.
"I CAN'T SAY I feel good about sitting on my ass doing nothing while they're out
there risking their necks." Mildred's tone was angry, but from frustration
rather than anything else, as she soaked strips of cloth in the now cold water,
squeezed them out and applied them to J.B.'s fevered brow.
"Can't say I don't agree with you," Ryan said, squatting by the hurricane lamp
and drawing patterns in the dirt with his finger. "Fact of the matter is, I'm
itching to get out there, but it just isn't possible."
"I know," Mildred whispered. "I just feel the frustration, too, I guess."
Ryan didn't answer. There was nothing to say. The plan had been worked by
himself and Jak, but this was one of those rare occasions where Ryan could do
nothing but sit and wait.
The albino had noticed that the adobe wall at the back of the hut had a small
gap of a few inches, forming a hollow that bit into the wall and the earth
beneath. It formed a small channel into which the inhabitants of the hut had to
urinate and defecate, a kind of primitive sewer.
Jak and Dean were small and slender enough to squeeze through the gap without
disturbing the fragile wall too much. The albino teen was certain that the back
of the hut wouldn't be guarded, and if it was, then the guards wouldn't expect
anyone to crawl out through the channel. The sec men in the ville were too used
to defeating any enemy using the storms. They had little idea of what to
actually do with any captives.
It was a theory in which he had been proved correct. He and Dean had squeezed
through and come around to the sole guard at the front of the hut without
encountering anyone else.
Now they were on their way to where Abner lay sleeping, while Ryan, Mildred and
Krysty stood watch over J.B.
"SO WHERE DOES this guy Abner live, anyway?" Dean whispered to Jak as they slunk
from shadow to shadow, in and out of the huts and shacks. It was incredibly
quiet, as though all life ceased with sundown. Perhaps it did. If the ville
scratched a living from the soil, with only the occasional opportunity to trade,
then it was probable that the inhabitants were ruled by the rise and fall of the
sun, working the land as long and hard as they could.
If that was so, then it would make it easier for them to find Abner and make him
see their point of view.
If they could ever work out where he was.
Jak stood in the shadows, his ruby eyes raking the darkness. His night vision
was better, in some ways, than his day vision. Because his albino traits left
him sensitive to the light, he was able to make out shapes in the darkness
without an excess of light blinding him.
"Guess look for biggest shack. No baron live in shithole," he answered finally.
"The whole place is a shithole," Dean replied with a grin.
Jak returned the grin. "Some less shit than others. Like that…"
Dean followed Jak's arm. About fifty yards in front of them lay a shack with a
veranda. It was the only one they'd seen so far that had such a structure. And
there was more—two sec men were seated in old cane chairs at each end of the
veranda, cradling handblasters. It was impossible to tell from that range, and
in this light, but by the shape of them Jak suspected that one was a .44 Magnum,
long barreled and deadly. The other was a .50 Magnum Desert Eagle. Both were
deadly blasters, even given that they probably weren't in the best of condition.
None of the blasters Jak had seen so far in this ville were well cared for.
"Looks like it could be the place," Dean murmured.
Jak nodded. "Big shack, two sec men…not home of shit shoveler, even in
shithole."
They withdrew farther into the shadows to watch and observe. They stayed there
for almost half an hour, crouched in the dark and ignoring the cramp in their
aching limbs. Neither had been able to rest adequately before setting out to
search for the dwelling.
Nothing happened. The guards didn't move, seeming to be sleeping fitfully. There
was no movement other than the snuffling of a stray dog.
"These guys are slack," Dean commented eventually, shifting to rid himself of
the pins and needles running down his leg. "I don't think they'd know what to do
if they were attacked."
"Mebbe not, but no need to take for granted," Jak returned. "Act like best sec
men ever seen."
Saying no more, he slipped Dean two of the leaf-bladed knives to use as weapons
and gestured to indicate a roundabout pattern for the boy to follow so that he
would come up to the sec man on the left from behind, hitting the man in his
blind spot.
Dean nodded and set off, leaving Jak to make his way around to the right.
The albino took off, using the shadows as cover. His dark camou clothing kept
him well hidden, and his face, hands and hair were streaked with mud, disguising
the usually all-too-conspicuous white. He kept low to the ground, running
swiftly and lightly in the way he had learned as a youngster in the bayou. He
passed shacks where the windows were open to the outside, and could hear the
animal sounds of rutting humans or the contented snores of sleepers from within.
Whichever, he was careful not to disturb them, nor to kick up dust when he
passed the doorways to huts that were covered only by haphazardly hung pieces of
old sacking.
It was a twisting route, as the paths through the ville were winding and not in
any kind of order that could be described as a road. Once or twice Jak nearly
lost his bearings, and hoped that the less experienced Dean hadn't become
hopelessly lost.
Rounding a corner, Jak got the sec man in his sights. He was approaching him
from an angle and from behind. If he was quiet enough, it was doubtful that the
sec man would ever feel the knife as it slipped between his ribs and punctured
his heart.
Stealthily Jak moved in. He was less than three feet behind the man, and poised
to strike, when he heard a muffled groan from the other end of the veranda. It
startled Jak's target out of his slumber, and he sprang to his feet, looking
around in confusion.
It was obvious that Dean had found his way to his target and taken care of him.
It was just unfortunate that his route had turned out to be a fraction easier
than Jak's, and his chill had been achieved more quickly.
The sec man turned toward the far end of the veranda and raised his blaster.
He didn't speak or make a sound, so there was still a chance to keep things
under cover, as long as Jak acted quickly.
Springing forward, Jak reached up while in midair. He was shorter than the sec
man and had the disadvantage of being on a lower level, the veranda forming a
six-inch platform around the house. But he had the element of surprise.
If the sec men in this pesthole had been more familiar with keeping prisoners,
and in being attacked from the outside with any degree of regularity, then it
was certain that Jak's task would have been well-nigh impossible. The sec man
would have been expecting an attack to parallel Dean's on his colleague.
Instead he was an easy prey. Jak's hand snaked out in the darkness, grabbing the
man's straggling blond hair and jerking back hard. A surprised gasp was all that
escaped his lips before he fell into Jak and onto the knife as it slipped
between his ribs and punctured his vital organs.
He tried to scream as he died, but only a harsh gurgling escaped as blood
bubbled from his lips.
Jak fell back, the sec man becoming a deadweight as he slipped into
unconsciousness and death. Jak's feet planted themselves firmly as he landed,
swiveling so that the chilled sec man's weight was used to Jak's advantage,
pitching him past the albino to collapse in the dust.
Jak knew he was dead and didn't bother to look back. He had bounded onto the
veranda by the time the sec man was laid flat on the ground.
Dean was waiting for him by the entrance to the shack, grinning. "What kept
you?" he whispered.
Jak returned the grin, but said nothing. He gestured to Dean to follow him, then
tried the old wooden screen door that hung lopsidedly in the doorway. It wasn't
locked, and Jak had almost expected it not to be. They were too sloppy in this
ville, protected only by the weather conditions and seclusion of the valley.
Inside, the shack was pitch-dark, the scant outside illumination from the moon
and from the protective fires around the ville shut out by the sacking that hung
over the windows. It also served to trap the filthy smell of unwashed humans and
raw sewage, which seemed concentrated, as though the shack hadn't been cleaned
out for a long while.
Jak and Dean slid in the door and up against the wall, flattening themselves
into the dark and waiting for their eyes to adjust to the new level of darkness.
It took several seconds, in which time both youths used their ears to take in as
much detail as they could from the sounds around the room.
Heavy snoring came from one corner of the room, to their left, and at the back.
Away from any of the windows. Not so stupe, then. The snores came from two
people. One had to be Abner. The other was from a woman. It was higher pitched,
lighter, and followed by a small groan that was unmistakably female. There were
the sounds of someone shifting in his or her sleep.
Eyes now adjusted to the dark, Jak could see that they were sleeping on an old
iron bedstead, raised from the floor. There were few items of furniture in the
room, all salvaged from predark and in varying states of disrepair.
Craftsmanship was obviously not high on the list of priorities in this ville.
There was no one else in the one-room shack, no other sec men. Even more stupe.
