Blood Harvest (14 page)

Zorime lifted her chin in challenge. “You are appalled.”

“I have seen far worse things in the Deathlands, but you cannot ask me to approve.”

“Your approval is neither here nor there, Doctor. What is required is your cooperation.”

Doc sought to steer the conversation away from that dreaded topic. “Your brother, Sylvano, he suffers the change?”

“He takes after his grandfather, who was a very large man. Sylvano is also an active physical culturalist and engages in lifting grotesque amounts of weight when he is not practicing his sword mastery and marksmanship. In some ways it is almost like he has made himself in the image of the nightwalkers. I was too young, but Sylvano remembers our mother. I fear when he becomes baron he intends a reckoning.”

“And so—”

“And so you will give my father your cooperation?”

“I fear I must resist the baron with all my might.”

“Then I fear tomorrow you will be broken.” Zorime rose from the bed. “I have a blaster of my own, Dr. Tanner. Your cooperation is necessary for the safety of my people, I will not impede your interrogation, but once my father has what he wants of you, I fear you will
be the subject of low sport, blood and finally food come the night. I tell you now, when you have given up your last secret, look for me in the crowd, and I will end your suffering.”

Doc took a long breath. “I thank you, my lady.”

Fresh tears spilled from Zorime's eyes as she turned away. “I will pray that you see reason come the dawn.”

“May the condemned make a last request?”

Zorime stopped at the door. “He may ask.”

“You can read Shakespeare in the original language?”

A hint of a smile crossed the young woman's face. “I can.”

“Then the condemned asks to spend his last night beholding beauty, with his ears caressed by the verbiage of the Bard.”

“I am currently reading
Much Ado About Nothing
.” Doc glanced helplessly at his bonds. “As ever I am your undivided audience.”

“Then let the request be granted.” Zorime smiled. “I shall fetch the book and a carafe.”

Ryan stood bare-chested in the rain. He would have given almost anything for Vava and Eva's poultices and salves, a hot fire and a bowl of gruel. He would have sold his soul to feel Krysty's healing hands upon him. Instead he let the downpour dissolve the chunks and crystals of rock salt crusting the wounds all over his body. Ryan lifted his head into the deluge and let the cold water sluice across his burning, ravaged face. Thoughts of Krysty focused him despite his pain and exhaustion. Ryan examined his liabilities. He was lost, the road had dead-ended and he could see the lanterns and torches of searchers behind him. He was busted up pretty bad. Doc was drugged and tied to a bed in the baron's manse. He had to assume Mildred was a prisoner. Krysty and J.B. were going to mat-trans into an ambush. The cave chiller and the baron's brother were out and about; and Ryan had a bad feeling they were one and the same. From the baron's talk, the cave-chiller had friends. Ryan was pretty sure he had run one of them over.

Ryan examined his assets.

He hefted his sword. It was on the short side with a brutal, diamond-shaped point for thrusting and two good edges that could lop off a limb if the wielder was strong and went for the joints. It was the weapon of a
warrior rather than a duelist, and that was just Ryan's game. He had Mildred's target blaster with six rounds in the chamber. It bothered Ryan that she hadn't gotten off a shot. The starting blasters were single-shot muzzleloaders but like just about everything in the Deathlands they were multitaskers. He had found a small leather sack of .410 gauge lead balls in the glove box. They weren't ideal, but at spitting distance they would put a .40-caliber hole in both man and mutie where their life had resided. He had three of them. He had his panga, and he had a wag.

Ryan slid back into the vehicle. He turned on the heater and was pleased as warmth from the alcohol-burning engine washed out of the vents. He loaded the starting blasters with lead as the heat washed across his cold, bleeding flesh, while keeping an eye on the lanterns in the distance. Ryan put the wag into Reverse and took it off the road into a stand of trees. The idea of leaving the warmth of the car was ugly but there was no other choice.

Ryan drew his sword and went for a walk.

Evading the search parties in the rolling, wooded, rain-washed hills wasn't hard, but a half mile into his hike wounds, exhaustion and cold reasserted themselves. Ryan knew he was going to have to take a risk. He descended into a valley, which was dominated by a fortified farmhouse. Ryan ignored it and made his way through the fields of grain toward the slave quarters. The people of the other island had been hospitable and willing to help. Ryan had to hope that subsequent enslavement hadn't ruined that attitude. Ryan approached the long building and listened at the door. People inside were talking. Ryan knocked on the door.
“Olá!”

All talk within stopped.

“Olá!”
Ryan pounded the pommel of his sword against the wood.
“Olá!”

People within whispered fearfully. “Fireblast…” Ryan muttered. “Ago!” He shouted. “Vava! Eva! Marco! Nando!” Ryan shook his head. “Boo!” he tried.

The whispering stopped.

“Ago! Vava! Eva! Marco! Nando!” Ryan repeated. He sagged in exhaustion against the door. Boards and beams thumped and rattled on the other side. Ryan nearly fell forward as the door opened. Warmth and light washed across him. Men and women dressed in plain tunics regarded Ryan in fear and wonder. All of them had a club or a stone in hand. A gray-haired woman stepped forward tentatively. “Vava?”

Ryan nodded. “Vava.”

She led him to an empty stool by the fire while others secured the door. Ryan counted fourteen people all between the ages of thirty-five and sixty-five. There was nothing in the room other than some crude wooden stools, a communal table and bunks along the walls. Ryan sheathed his sword and stuck a thumb into his chest. “Ryan.”

The woman nodded. “Moni.”

“Vava was your…” Ryan made a baby rocking motion at Moni. Moni burst into fresh tears and nodded eagerly. Ryan grunted to himself. It was the first piece of luck he had caught since stepping onto this pesthole rising up out of the Lantic. “Vava is…” Ryan made a fist and thumped his chest. “Good,
bueno
.”

Moni nodded hopefully.
“Bom?”

“Bom,”
Ryan agreed.

Moni seized Ryan's hand in gratitude. Her voice lowered to a whisper. “Feydor? Galina?”

His luck was holding. The Russian revolution had been here, as well. “Feydor?” Ryan shrugged. “Galina?” He shook his head. The slaves lowered their heads in mourning. Ryan's eye widened as he looked over his hosts. The slaves wore crude sandals, and each had been hobbled by having the toes of their left foot cut off. All bore wounds and scars old and new on their inner elbows. A woman took Ryan's coat and shirt and hung them by the fire. The slaves shook their heads at the number and severity of salt blasts Ryan had taken. Another woman went to a shelf and took up a crude earthenware jar. The one-eyed man sighed as she began applying some kind of salve to his wounds. The pitted scars on the slaves' arms and legs showed they were no strangers to the less than lethal kindness of the islanders' blasters.

Another woman filled a wooden bowl from a pot over the fire and gave it to Ryan. He ate. It was a thin stew of vegetables, stale bread and tiny shreds of meat Ryan made to be rat or squirrel. It wasn't the hearty food of the other island. These people were slaves and they lived like it. They were given what the ville didn't want and had to scratch out anything else in the small plots around their quarters. Ryan cleaned his bowl, made contented noises and nodded his thanks. Everyone smiled and nodded as the woman refilled his bowl.

A younger man stepped forward questioningly. “Ago? Nando?”

“Ago, Nando.” Ryan made a fist.
“Bom.”

The man nodded and gestured as he spoke. All Ryan could make out was that he knew them but perhaps
wasn't directly related. Everyone was nodding and smiling nervously. Ryan finished his stew and got to business. He held up his bandaged right fist. “Ryan.” He held up his left. “Barat.” Ryan punched his fists together. The slaves stared as if hypnotized. Ryan opened his left fist and waved his hand dismissively. “Barat.” The slaves looked at one another in shock. Ryan pointed at them. “You.” Ryan pointed at himself. “Me.” He held up his right again and made a fist in unity. The slaves broke into excited talk.

A demonic howl cut the conversation like a knife. It rose above and then fell below human vocal range. The sound froze the blood in Ryan's veins. A second, horrifically feminine ululating shriek answered from farther away in the hills. The slaves sagged. Some moaned and covered their heads with their hands in despair as a third roar tore the night from the direction of the ville. The sound was half summons and half victory.

They were hunting screams.

Something had picked up Ryan's trail, and it was triangulating on the slave dwelling with two of its friends. Ryan spoke a single word. “Raul.”

The slaves flinched as a unit.

A second round of hunting screams tore out over the wind and rain, and all of them were closer. If whatever approached was anything like the abomination he had run down in the wag then he knew he was in no condition to fight three of them. Whatever revolt the Russians had tried to foment among the slaves and the sister islanders had died with them. Ryan reached into his coat and took out one of the starter blasters and slammed it on the table. The slaves stared at it as if it were a snake. Ryan suspected handling a weapon was a death sentence
for any slave. Looking around, he didn't see a single ax or shovel or tool. The only knives were short and rounded for utility.

Ryan closed his fist and jerked it upward in an obscene and unmistakable gesture of violation. “Fuck Barat.”

The slaves stared, dumbstruck.

Ryan pulled out a second blaster. “Fuck Raul.” He set down the third. A third round of screams shook the night outside. They were getting close. Ryan filled one hand with Mildred's target blaster and the other with his sword and rose. He took a step toward the door and jerked his head. “Who is with me?”

No one moved.

Ryan shook his head. “Fireblast.” They were too conditioned to fear and servitude.

“Ryan.” The biggest man among the slaves stepped forward. He was white-haired, weathered and bent by untold years of labor, but still strong. When he rose he could look Ryan in the eye. “Cafu.”

“Cafu.” Ryan held out his hand. Cafu shook it. The man turned and gingerly picked up one of the little starter blasters. He stared at it in wonder. His knuckles suddenly went white around the grips. Tears spilled down his seamed face. Ryan could only imagine how many of Cafu's friends and loved ones he had seen worked and bled to death, much less how many times hunting screams had filled his nights with terror and how many of his people he had seen taken. Cafu's voice shook as he spoke his new word. “Fook…Barat.”

Moni seized up a blaster in both hands. “Fook Barat!”

The man who had asked about Ago and Nando took up the third. He thumped his chest. “Renan!”

“Renan.” Ryan nodded.

Renan gave Ryan a savage grin. “Fook Raul.”

“Bom,”
Ryan said. He looked around at the rest of the slaves.
“Bom?”

They all nodded and said
“bom”
or “fook” in the affirmative. Ryan watched as they filled their hands with clubs and stones. He considered the she-thing he had seen. Sticks and stones might drive off a nightwalker, but probably not before it had snatched a victim, and Ryan knew in his bones this night was a far more serious affair. He considered their arsenal. The starter blasters were woefully underpowered and inaccurate, purely a point-blank proposition. Mildred's target blaster wasn't much better. It had six shots, but it was Mildred's deadeye accuracy that made it such a premium chiller rather than any stopping power. Nine shots against three abominations, and three of the shooters had never held a blaster before. Ryan kept the grimace off his face.

It was going to end up a brawl, and one they were very likely going to lose.

Cafu picked up a stool. Ryan stabbed his panga into the tabletop and one of the slaves took it. The one-eyed man overturned the table and arrayed Cafu, Renan and Moni behind it. He went and drew an
X
in the dirt six feet in front of the door. He spit on it and then pointed his blaster at the door. He nodded at those holding stones and pointed at the
X
. They all got it. Whatever came through the door was going to take everything they had in a volley. Mebbe killing one would be enough to dissuade the others. If not, Ryan knew he would have to take point and hope the slaves would pile on. He ran his eye over the bunkhouse. The walls were heavy timber. The ceiling was thick boards. Mebbe it would hold. Mebbe—

Ryan whirled and the women screamed as timbers rent and tore. Rain and wind lashed into the bunkhouse as the back corner of the roof was ripped open to the sky. The nightwalker was female. Her filthy, milk-white face was a giant witch face of brutal knobs of chin, cheeks and brow. Fertility fetish breasts slopped down nearly as long as a man's arm. The hag's hunting scream froze every slave in their tracks. A woman howled as the she-creature reached down a huge, dripping white hand and seized her by the hair.

“Moni!” Ryan roared. “The head!” He tapped his own skull with his blaster. “The head! The head! The head!”

The spell broke. Moni scurried to the back of the bunkhouse as the nightwalker pulled up her struggling prize. The thing boomed something at Moni in Portuguese. Moni held up her blaster in both hands and screamed in answer. “Fook Raul!” She closed her eyes and pulled the trigger. Moni's blind blast tore away most of the hag's lower jaw. Moni screamed and fell backward as violet blood rained upon her. The she-creature made a horrible noise and dropped her prey. Moni and the woman clutched each other as the thing toppled backward and fell off the roof with an audible thud. Ryan kept his eye on the door.

It exploded into kindling.

A six-foot-tall and five-foot-wide thing burst into the room. It was bloated, bald and bullet-headed, and moved far too fast for its bulk. The nightwalker's grotesque rolls of fat leaped and jiggled in all directions as it charged. It held a yard-long club crudely shaped into the form of a blaster stock. The business end was studded with Orca teeth. The massive mutant was past the
X
before any of the slaves could act.

Ryan shot it twice in the chest as it hurtled forward. Renan fired wildly and missed. Cafu took a concerted extra second to aim. His blaster boomed and the nightwalker dropped its war club as blood exploded out of its neck. It screamed and came on. Ryan braced himself and rammed it through as it came across the table. The thing bowled Ryan over anyway. Every ounce of air blasted out of Ryan's lungs as four hundred pounds of filthy, screaming, bleeding, milk-white flesh fell on top of him.

The slaves piled on.

A forest of legs surrounded the pile. The slaves screamed and shouted out their long-suppressed rage. Clubs and stones rained blows on the nightwalker's head and back. It flailed and screamed, but it was wedded to Ryan by the blade through its ribs. Renan lifted a hearthstone the size of a loaf of bread in both hands and brought it down against the nightwalker's skull with crunching finality. He wheezed as its deadweight collapsed against him. The slaves roared in triumph. They shouted their defiance to the storming heavens above.

They were no longer slaves.

Ryan took a gasping breath as they rolled the vast bulk off him. They continued beating the corpse. Ryan shook off the cobwebs and got a knee underneath him. The shouts of triumph were instantly eclipsed by screams. Ryan blinked as one of the slaves flew overhead as if she had wings. The woman smashed into the far wall with the snap of breaking bones.