Blood Harvest (24 page)

“You're heading for the farms?”

“It is the only safe place left.”

“Not safe at all. The nightwalkers have black powder. They'll isolate each farm, and then dig you out like ticks.”

“You destroyed the powder mill!” Honore glared. “The remaining stocks in the ville are in the nightwalkers' hands! What would you have us do?”

“Retake the ville,” Ryan answered.

“Retake it?” The foreman shook his head. “You're mad.”

“We take the med wag. Drive from farm to farm. Have the owners gear up for battle. Free the slaves.”

“Free the slaves!” the foreman spluttered. “You would—”

“Give any man who isn't too old to swing it an ax, a pick, a shovel, anything heavy that comes to hand.”

“I—”

“You come with me to convince the farm holders. Moni will talk to the slaves. Have your man here start rounding up refugees coming up the road and get them organized. You'll be safer in numbers.” Ryan needed the foreman and decided to take a chance. He held out one of the auto-blasters he had taken from the clinic. “Here. Take this. We don't have much time.”

The steamer chugged across the strait. J.B. examined their fighting force and thought about the battle to come. It wasn't good. Sylvano had thirty men left. His men were brave and well trained, but the mutated form of porphyria that afflicted them made most of them bleeders, and they didn't respond well to open wounds. Thirty was all the baron's son could muster that would not bleed out if they went back into action. The casualties had been horrific on both sides. The survivors had turned the church into a hospital ward, and the remaining pews were full of the wounded and dying. Mildred was swamped. Krysty could barely stand, but she was assisting as she could. J.B. ran a grim eye over Sylvano's thirty chosen men and their rifled muskets. The ville men were desperately low on gunpowder. Sylvano had told them of Ryan's escapades and the destruction of the powder mill and the clinic. J.B. looked at the Sister Isle contingent.

After the battle on the beach Doc had explained to the islanders that the ville was under attack and that he was going to save it from the nightwalkers. Most of the surviving Sons of the Sun had said let it burn, but Doc was walking with some pretty big medicine at the moment. He'd said he was going to ask for volunteers. Ago had raised the sun banner behind him. Fifty had
agreed to follow Doc, Ago and the flag across the strait. They had appropriated powder and shot bags from fallen sec men and filled them with sling stones, and resharpened their spears.

Most of them were currently seasick and vomiting over the rail.

“How many nightwalkers?” J.B. asked.

Sylvano looked up from running a stone over the edge of his great blade. “An interesting question.” He looked to his sister.

Zorime's eyes never left the approaching glow of the burning ville. They gleamed with unshed tears. “We keep a census of those who are driven out of the ville and into the caves. However, we have evidence that they often keep growing until even their mutant strength is not enough to let them walk or function. On the other hand, they breed among themselves down in the dark, as well as steal occasional slave women from the farms. How many turn into true nightwalkers? How many are stillborn or unsustainable freaks? It is hard to determine. I will tell you that five years ago my uncle made a demand for more food to be left by the cave entrances. That implies population growth.”

“Yes.” Sylvano sheathed his sword. “And while my uncle Raul is insane, he would not have made his move to take the ville if he did not believe he had the strength.”

Jak shrugged. “Fifty less.”

“Yes, and I cannot believe my uncle was willing to simply sacrifice them. He will expect that we routed your forces. I believe his plan was to have his brethren turn on us in the night.”

“Then we might have surprise,” J.B. said.

“Possibly,” Sylvano mused. “But how to employ it?
If Raul holds the ville, then he has the harbor guns. He can run them out and blow us out of the water when we sail in.”

“Caves,” Jak said.

“The caves?” Sylvano dismissed the idea. “They are extensive. The island is riddled with them. We could wander them for days.”

“Nightwalkers? Down there generations,” Jak countered. “Plenty sign.”

“He's right,” Doc said. “Your people never go down in the caverns because that is where evil dwells, but that is the point. It dwells there, and has lived there for an age. The inhabited sections and paths will show evidence of long use.”

“That may be the case,” Sylvano said. “But I have proposed going down in the caves before, always with at least a hundred men, with all the modern blasters of the ville, powder charges and smoke of the Lotus. I fear what we might meet down there, and it is the brethren's territory. They will have every advantage.”

“Sylvano.” Zorime spoke quietly. “This is our uncle Raul's night of terror, his night of triumph. He won't have held back a reserve. For that matter, once the slaughter started in the ville, I doubt he could hold any of them back. They will be fully committed to their—” Zorime's tears spilled as she contemplated what had to be happening to her friends and kinsmen “—revelry.”

“You are right. Very well, let us do as Senhor Jak says. We shall go through the caves and come out among them.”

Doc cleared his throat. “I do not doubt our brave islanders' courage, but seeing as the nightwalkers are their very image of the devil, I am not sure they will
follow us down into their subterranean lair. It is their hell. It may be too much to ask of them.”

Everyone had to admit Doc had a point.

“And we need a diversion,” J.B. said. “Something to make them look the other way.”

“Very well.” Sylvano rose to his full height. “I propose this. If we come, Raul will expect us to come in cannons and rockets blazing. I say we do. Senhor J.B., your leg is wounded. You will take command of the ship and the cannon. Sail into the harbor, then let yourself be driven back. That will draw their attention.”

J.B. had been given better assignments. “You?”

“I will lead my men through the beach cave. I would like Dr. Tanner to accompany me. Should we emerge successfully I will fire a blue rocket. Once we are engaged, come in and attack again if you are still afloat.”

J.B. looked at the islanders. “Them?”

“The slaves? I see little they can—”

“Not slaves!” Jak snarled.

“Veterans now,” J.B. agreed. He looked at Sylvano coldly. “And every man a volunteer. You show some respect, or you can forget about your ville and we can finish our battle right here on the deck of this tub.”

Zorime put a hand on her brother's shoulder. “Sylvano…”

Sylvano didn't need restraining. He looked over at the groaning, seasick men and sighed bleakly. “The Sons of the Sun,” he corrected. “Very well. I agree with Dr. Tanner. They will most likely balk at the caverns and will serve no purpose on the ship. I propose they disembark with my forces, but approach the ville landward along the coast. Senhor Jak will lead them. At the signal they will attack inward from the seawall.”

Jak shrugged.

J.B. pondered the three-pronged land, sea and subterranean attack. At night. With troops who hated each other. Sylvano seemed to read J.B.'s mind. He regarded the Armorer dryly. “What could possibly go wrong?”

Jak rolled his ruby-red eyes.

J.B. wished Ryan were here. “Kill the running lights. Head for the sea cave. We all attack on Sylvano's signal.”

 

R
YAN STOOD BEFORE
his army. He had hoped for far more. Many of the farmers had refused to leave their families and their land. Others had flat-out refused to free their slaves, and Ryan didn't have the time or the manpower to try to force them. Two hundred and fifty men from among the islands farm holders had signed on. They were led by a young man named Balduino. He was too young and too inexperienced in Ryan's opinion, but apparently he was important and he was willing. Men came when he asked. His men were armed with single or double blasters. Most of those were scatterguns rather than longblasters, but at least they were loaded with lead instead of salt. Most of Balduino's men had swords and looked like they might know how to use them. Moni had managed to recruit five hundred slaves. They had been grudgingly promised their freedom, and return to Sister Isle, assuming there was anything left of it, if they fought. They limped behind their overlords uncertainly, fingering the farming implements that had been thrust into their hands.

Victory was far from certain, and Ryan suspected losses would be appalling regardless.

“Honore, tell Balduino he needs to creep as close as
he can to the ville. I'm going to take the med wag and ram the roadblock into the ville. When I'm in, they charge. He leads them.”

“I will come with you.”

Ryan stared down at the stout foreman. “Why?”

“Because I can drive a wag, and I am old and don't charge well anymore. I drive. You shoot.”

“Fair enough,” Ryan decided. “Ask for six volunteers with blasters to ride in back. We crash the roadblock and head straight for the sec station and try to take it. If we can't get to it, we head for the church. Either way that might be enough to distract them, and Balduino is inside before the nightwalkers know what happened. No mercy. We chill them all or go cold trying. Even if we fail and we hurt them bad enough, the rest of the farmsteads and Sister Islanders may have a shot of survival.”

Honore stared up at Ryan. “Why would you do this?”

“If my friends are dead, I live or die with the ville. If they're alive, they need something to come back to besides nightwalkers and the shore blasters.”

“You are a brave man.”

“You just keep the wag on all four wheels when we crash the roadblock.”

Every head turned as the seawall lit up with the flash and thud of cannon fire. Out in the harbor answering fire illuminated a ship. Even at this distance Ryan could tell that the shore blasters were far bigger, and there were more of them. Shells hit the seawall with little effect. The shore blasters found their range, and the second salvo was brutal. The steamer's crane tore from its moorings and fell across the deck, crushing crewmen. Two cannon balls punched into her side like explosive fists and ripped her belly open to the sea. The steamer got off two more
badly aimed rounds that did little but dig craters in the beach. She limped toward the safety of the darkness beyond the harbor lights and the ranging buoys.

“So much for the sea assault,” Ryan remarked.

Honore shook his head. “I do not believe Sylvano would give up so easily.”

“Weight of shot. He's outgunned.” Ryan shrugged. “Mebbe he's dead.”

Honore grunted. “Perhaps.”

Ryan strode to the med wag. “Pick your men, and let's hit them while they're celebrating.”

 

D
OC WALKED THROUGH
Dante's Inferno. By torchlight the caverns of the nightwalkers were hell on earth. They stank of human waste, and the fire pits were full of human bones. In many of the chambers the embers of the fires were still glowing. The smell of roasted meat was fresh, and every man knew what kind of meat it was. The walls were painted with blood and charcoal and who knew what else. The artwork ranged from the abstract to childlike depictions of the horrific and the obscene.

The nursery was the worst.

Torches burned in crude sconces gouged out of the rock. Nearly two dozen infants and toddlers lay in cribs made of dried seaweed, feathers and scraps of cloth. Four filthy, brutally abused Sister Isle women in various states of pregnancy were bound on similar beds. The wet nurses were seven-foot mountains of bloated, swollen lactating flesh. They rolled forward ponderously, shrieking at the invaders and waving huge billets of driftwood. They fell beneath a fusillade of musket fire. The nightwalker offspring screamed and howled. Sylvano turned to his lieutenant in disgust. “Vasco, bayonets.”

Doc was horrified. “Sylvano!”

Sylvano ignored him and nodded at Vasco. “Be swift.”

“Baron Barat!” Doc shouted.

Sylvano froze. So did Vasco.

Doc pressed on. “If the ville is taken, then surely you are baron now, Sylvano. I implore you, as lord of the ville, do not do this.”

“The nightmare ends here, Dr. Tanner. Tonight.”

“You yourself have said the nightwalker gene does not always run true! And look beneath the filth! Are any of these children deformed? Indeed, do not some have the pink skin of Sister Isle blood? The populations of both islands have taken terrible losses this day. You will need these children! They are innocent, unknowing, and as human as you or I until if and when the change comes upon them in puberty. I implore you, Baron Barat, do not begin your reign with infanticide.”

Sylvano stared into the middle distance wearily. “Very well, Vasco, stoke the fire to keep the children warm. We shall come back for them after the battle.” His voice was bleak. “Or their parents will.”

They continued through the twisting cavern system. They came to a chamber being used as a smokehouse and human limbs hung suspended over slow fires of driftwood and seaweed. Another cave was a storehouse containing hundreds of skulls. Doc's compass told him they were roughly paralleling the beach and he detected they were slowly moving downward. The passage ahead opened on a blackened hole of blasted brick that led into the ville's predark sewers. The sewers were a maze, but Sylvano seemed to know where he was going, and all they had to do was to follow the stench of burned powder and the muffled sounds of screaming above.

Doc clambered up the rusting ladder and arose from the underground like Orpheus ascending from Hades onto a side street.

The surface wasn't any better.

Half the ville was ablaze. Men, living and dead, were crucified on wagon wheels or hung from the eaves. Women were tied across barrels and sawhorses for whatever pleasure a passing nightwalker wished to take. Others turned on spits over cook fires. Nightwalkers tore charred flesh from human limbs like drumsticks, upended barrels of wine into their mouths and raped and killed. In the light of the bonfires and burning buildings they looked like the ogres, giants and trolls of Doc's childhood fairy tales. They wandered about the conquered ville like dogs drunk on slaughterhouse blood. Baron Xavier Barat hung nailed to a great
X
of timber in the middle of the ville square. What had been done to him beggared description. Yet he was still alive, and they had left him his eyes so that even out of the peeled-off mask of his face he might watch the rape and fall of the ville.

Without thought Doc drew his LeMat, put his front sight on the butchered baron's chest and fired. The baron's body sagged on the frame. Nightwalkers throughout the square looked up from their pleasures. Doc blinked and lowered his blaster. “Sylvano, I—”

“You saved me the sin of patricide.” Baron Sylvano Barat barked out orders as his men came up onto the street. “Three ranks of ten! Vasco! Fire the rocket!” Vasco put punk to fuse and the signal rocket streaked up into the sky. It burst like a hard shimmering blue flower against the clear night. A dozen nightwalkers roared forward, waving war clubs. Sylvano barked out
battle orders. “First rank, kneel!” The first rank knelt with their blasters leveled at the charging nightwalkers. The second rank took aim over the first. “First rank! Fire! Second rank! Fire!”