Death Hunt

Doc didn’t answer. It took all his effort not to turn to look at his wife and children as he heard the Brougham approach, gaining with every second. If he could only…if he could just…just wait until the sound was on the wane. If he could only keep his will intact for that long, then surely his sanity would also follow?

It was no good. As the Brougham approached, he felt compelled to turn. It was a force far greater than his meager willpower could cope with—the force of longing, despair and loneliness. Everything he had ever held dear to him had been snatched away—or else he had been snatched away from it. His wife, his children…

Doc gave in to his longing and turned to face the oncoming Brougham. His eyes were wide, tears coursing down his cheeks. As the vehicle passed him, he could see Emily, Rachel and Jolyon turn to look at him. They were the ages they had been when he had last seen them, but changed. Their eyes were empty and their skins were dry and mummified. They were husks. As he, himself, was now…

Doc looked away, crying out in pain and rage. The rider in front tried to keep his eyes fixed on the path ahead. He had heard nothing, seen nothing. There was nothing…

The other riders exchanged glances and shrugs. If they were expecting any of the companions riding with them to explain, they would wait in vain.

Jak had questions of his own. He was riding behind a wide, fat-bellied bald man whose apparent bulk wasn’t just due to excess weight. Underneath, there was a lot of muscle, as Jak had found when he had almost fallen from the horse early in the journey, the horse stumbling in a rut and throwing both riders forward. The bald man had moved with the motion, but Jak had been taken unawares and almost thrown. As he’d toppled, the man had shot out an arm and grabbed Jak. The albino youth had, in turn, taken grip of the arm. He had expected soft flesh. Instead he’d gripped muscles and tendons that were like barbed wire wrapped around brick.

“Thanks,” he had said simply as he clambered back.

“No problem—name’s Stark,” the man had replied with an equal simplicity.

Both were men of few words, but had found a respect for each other in that seemingly inconsequential moment. Jak had thought the man a blubber mountain and had found hidden depths. In return, Stark had been impressed by the albino’s lightning-quick reaction, and the wiry strength with which he’d flung himself back into the saddle; all the more remarkable after the firefight he had just been through.

Since that moment they had conducted a conversation that had been drawn out not by the lack of things to say, but by the natural manner of both. Jak would ask an elliptical question and Stark would pause for a long while, considering an answer that wasted no words. He would then phrase a question of his own and Jak would reply in kind.

Neither had passed comment on Doc, but Jak chose that moment to ask what he felt was an important question.

“Why you hunt stickies?”

Stark waited for some time, then said, “Like Ethan said.”

“So why follow so far when they move on? No sense if they not cause damage. Waste of energy and ammo.”

“Mebbe. But like I say, it’s as Ethan says.”

Jak pondered this. There was a coded message in there, if only he could unlock it. His keen senses were jangling with the rush he always felt when there was danger ahead. It wasn’t like Krysty’s mutie doomie sense, it was something altogether more instinctual, a preternatural development of his instincts that had been honed by years of survival, years of hunting.

“Ethan always tell how it is?” Jak asked finally.

A long pause. “Ethan always tells it how he sees it.”

Jak considered that. Stark picked his words very carefully and he hadn’t actually agreed with what Jak had said.

Their conversation lapsed. The pauses lengthened into silence as they rode on through a night that was now approaching dawn. The other companions were having trouble keeping conscious as fatigue and lack of sleep tried to claim them. But Jak, who had spent so many hours in a state of inert awareness waiting for prey, was able to focus and to stay alert.

So it was that he noticed something very strange, something that made his instincts quiver more than ever.

As the mounted party traversed the trail ripped up by the stickies, the ville of Pleasantville became visible in the distance. A shattered metropolis lay beyond, remnants of old skyscrapers and buildings dimly visible in the early-morning haze. But the ville itself seemed to have been constructed in an old suburban area. It was still too dim for him to fully distinguish, even though his red albino eyes found the twilight of evening and dawn more conducive than the bright light of a daytime sun. However, there was something that made no sense if what Ethan had told them was the whole truth. For, to reach the ville, the riders now left the track that had been carved by the pack of stickies. A track that veered off to one side of the farthest outcrop of the ville, past the last buildings and signs of life that Jak could see.

Surely they had been told that the pack had attacked farms on the edge of the ville, which was why they had been chased. But the track, clearly visible because of the devastation it had caused, veered off way past the last sign of tilled land, cutting across an area that could only be described as a wilderness.

Why had Ethan lied? It looked as though the stickies had passed close to the ville, but hadn’t actually made contact. So why mount the chase at all?

Jak was sure that the answer to this question would also provide an answer to the churning sense of anxiety gnawing at his guts. They were riding into a danger of some kind, of that he was certain. What it was had to be determined, but as he cast a glance at the rest of the companions, tired and battered on the backs of their mounts, in no condition to fight, he was concerned that they were riding into trouble when they were least capable to deal with it.

The ground was now softer under hoof, less rutted and destroyed. The movement of the horses became more fluid, lulling the already exhausted companions into a stupor, with no bone-jarring ruts to shake them out of their torpor. Jak wondered if any of the others had noticed that they had left the stickies’ path, and that it deviated from the ville.

Why? Why had they been lied to? Why had the stickies been hunted so ruthlessly? Was that what had whipped them into a frenzy, or had something else happened to make them that way…perhaps so they could be hunted?

Jak felt the movement of the horse begin to lull him. A sense of fatigue and exhaustion swept over him, making it hard to concentrate.

Shit, whatever faced them, he needed to sleep first. He had no choice.

He jolted awake suddenly. What had caused him to stir? His head was pounding, his heart racing. The last thing he could remember was the ville coming into sight and feeling so, so tired.

Jak raised himself on one elbow and took a look around. First thing to strike him as weird was that he was lying down. How the fuck had that happened without his realizing it? His eyes adjusted easily to the gloom and he could see that the other companions were also in the room with him. There were two windows, with thick hangings that kept out the light, apart from at the very edges where they weren’t flush to the windowframe. Through these gaps, Jak could see that it was a bright light, but not the intensity of midday. Probably late afternoon, early evening.

The room itself was plastered and painted in a light color that trapped whatever could get through the hangings and magnified it. In this half light, Jak could see that the others, like himself, were in beds that were covered with blankets and quilts. Their weapons and supplies were by each bed, as though taken off individually and placed by the right bedside. He looked down: he was still fully dressed. He guessed that his friends were, too. The only other furniture in the room was a long wooden table, set against the far wall and bare apart from a pitcher and six cups.

It would seem that the companions had been lifted en masse from the horses when they had reached the ville, then put to bed like children. A gesture of this magnanimity was something that was unknown in the Deathlands, and Jak was curious as to why they had been afforded such respect. No one was that nice unless they expected something in return. But what? He couldn’t shake the memory of the track forged by the stickies, veering off away from the ville. It had been such a little, and such a stupid, lie. There was a connection of some kind, but he was too tired to work it out right now.

Jak stood, every muscle in his body aching as he did so, the rigors of the firefight and the ride not yet cured by his rest. He could feel every last blow that he had taken during the battle with the stickies, and was sure that the others would feel the same when they awoke. Tentatively he walked toward the table, testing his strength. He was sore, but still quite supple. His limbs hadn’t stiffened with injury as he feared they might. But he could tell that his speed was impaired. Movement was more…not difficult, but awkward. He reached the table and picked up the pitcher, sniffing at the contents. He could smell nothing but the faint aroma of the wood from which the pitcher was made. Jak dipped a finger into the clear liquid and then licked it. No taste other than what you’d expect from water—the faint coppery tang of earth and perhaps a hint of metal from whatever piping had carried it to an outlet.

Figuring it was safe to drink—or at least, as safe as any water—he poured some into one of the cups and drank deeply. His mouth felt as though someone had held a jolt party in there; it was thick and dry. The water eased it.

Jak put down the cup and turned as he heard stirring from behind him. Ryan was starting to come around, raising himself.

“What the fuck happened?” the one-eyed man asked slowly, looking around him and taking in his surroundings.

“Guess were more tired than thought.” Jak shrugged. “Water,” he added, pouring another cup.

Ryan got up from his bed and walked slowly to Jak, taking the cup from him. “Thanks,” he said after drinking deeply. “So this is Pleasantville. I see they’ve left us all our stuff,” he continued, indicating the packs that had been stowed by their bedsides. “Mighty nice of them. A bit too nice,” he added, exchanging a look with Jak. The albino youth nodded.

“Yeah. Triple-red on that,” he said simply.

By this time their lowered voices had penetrated the consciousness of the others and they were all beginning to stir. Krysty and J.B. were next up and they shared Jak and Ryan’s caution. Mildred pulled herself out of bed, but didn’t immediately go to the others. She knelt beside Doc’s bed and checked him.

“Old buzzard was hallucinating out there,” she said over her shoulder to the others. “Just want to see that he’s okay.”

Doc opened one eye and fixed her with a baleful glare. “My dear Dr. Wyeth, pray tell me what is hallucination and what is not, when all—either concrete or fancy—seems so tangible that you can reach out and touch it. Whether or not ’tis there, does that make the emotion it causes any the less real?”

“Yeah, you’re okay,” Mildred muttered. “Now get the hell up and drink something before you dehydrate.”

When all six companions were up and clustered around the table, the door on the far side of the room opened and Horse stepped through. The tall, gaunt sec chief eyed them, then nodded in some private satisfaction.

“So you’re all still here and all awake. Good. Ethan wants to see you. Now.”

Chapter Four

With some hesitation, the companions followed the sec chief, leaving their weapons and supplies by the sides of their beds. To attempt to retrieve any of them could easily be construed as hostile action and, until they knew what they were up against, it was best to maintain innocence. Besides, the sec party could easily have taken their weapons away while they’d been unconscious and not have treated them with such respect.

It wasn’t as if they were exactly unarmed now. They might not have their blasters, but Ryan still had the panga sheathed at his thigh, and his scarf—a deadly weapon in experienced hands with the lead weights sewn into the ends that turned it into a bolo—around his neck. Doc carried his swordstick with the silver lion’s-head, and J.B. was equipped with his Tekna hunting knife. As for Jak, it would have been interesting to see if anyone could have found the number of leaf-bladed throwing knives secreted on his person.

So, if Ethan, baron of Pleasantville, and his sec chief trusted them enough not to do a body search, to take away Jak’s jacket and Doc’s cane, and to leave their weapons by their bedsides, then why should they feel any suspicion? Not for any reason that could be rationalized. Just their instincts telling them that people in the Deathlands—particularly barons—were never normally this friendly.

Horse led them along a maze of corridors lined with windows that showed that they were moving through more than one building. Some of the old suburban sprawl of houses that constituted part of Pleasantville had been joined together by stucco-and-brick corridors that made several houses and shacks into one single building. It would be possible to travel almost an entire circuit of the ville without actually setting foot outside into the elements.

It would also make finding the way around more difficult if you weren’t familiar with the ville. This was something that always set alarm bells ringing loudly in Ryan’s head, and they were certainly deafening right now.

“Why does Ethan want to see us?” he asked the sec chief in as neutral a tone as possible. It was the first time any of them had spoken since leaving their dormitory, and Ryan felt his voice sound unnatural and loud in the quiet corridor. They had passed no one on their journey, and although they could see people outside and through the windows of other buildings, it was almost as though they had been purposely isolated from the ville inhabitants until they had seen the baron. It didn’t help their sense of paranoia.

The sec chief seemed to take a long time to answer, leading them through another corridor, not looking back. For a moment, Ryan thought it possible that the man hadn’t heard his question, and started to speak again. But Horse finally broke the silence, looking back over his shoulder. His dark skin and sharp features accented his hooded eyes, which stared coldly from under his nest of dreadlocks.

“Ethan just wants to get to know you better, see where you’re from, where you reckon to be going. It’s not a problem, is it?”

The wording of the second sentence was innocuous enough, but it was the tone of his voice—it carried an undertone of menace, as though he were daring them to say that it was.

Or was it just that customs and manners were different here and the mix of races and accents that had gathered over the generations had produced a strange speech pattern? Certainly, they had heard so many different modes of speech over the years.

Ryan looked over his shoulder at Krysty. She was his barometer of mood—her mutie doomie sense was liable to pick up the slightest tremors, even if she had no conscious idea herself. Her Titian mane was flowing, not tight and coiled, but there was some agitated movement from the strands around her neck.

She noticed Ryan staring at her and gave him a puzzled look. The sense of danger—no, not even that, but rather of caution—was so slight that she wasn’t aware of it herself. The one-eyed man returned her look with a slight, crooked grin and turned back to the sec chief.

“No, it’s not a problem. Not unless you want it to be. Not at all,” Ryan replied.

So there may be no problem right now, but it was a time to be triple-red. That was okay—he could tell from his brief glimpse of the others that they felt entirely the same way, without needing to be told.

Finally they seemed to reach the end of their journey. The corridors, which had been sparse up to now, were becoming more and more decorated. Animal heads mounted on wood, paintings that looked both new and scavenged from predark times and tapestries of bright colors were hung from the walls in an organized fashion, as though someone had applied some thought to their placement. That little fact alone gave Ryan a clue as to the man they were about to meet properly for the first time.

A pair of white-painted double doors—modest but tellingly clean—marked the end of the corridor. Horse stopped in front of them and knocked twice, standing back to wait for a response.

“Come,” a voice intoned from the other side, loud enough to be heard, but calm and unhurried.

The sec chief put a hand on each door and opened them. They were on the verge of the baron’s lair and each of the companions felt a tightening in the gut. Now they would find out if this was going to be friendly, or if they would have to fight.

They followed Horse into the baronial chamber. Like the corridors outside, it was decorated in a combination of paintings, animal heads and tapestries, tastefully arranged against a brilliant white wall. The floor was polished wood, shiny and slippery underfoot. The furnishings were sparse but comfortable: two sofas and three high chairs covered in a multicolor tapestried material that matched some of those on the walls; two long tables against the walls, with books and papers neatly arranged on the top, along with a wooden bowl of fruit and a pitcher of—presumably—water, and an old, mid-twentieth-century desk in a dark wood, polished and cared for, restored to its original sheen. Behind the desk was a late-twentieth-century swivel chair, carefully restored with animal hide, dyed and colored to resemble the original black leather or PVC covering.

Ethan was standing behind the desk, leaning forward and supporting himself on his knuckles, resting lightly while he perused a document unfurled on the desktop. Behind him, a window onto the outside framed him in a halo of light. If this was the effect he wanted, then it succeeded. It painted him as a man caught in the middle of a busy day running a ville, a man looked up to with a godlike status. If it was chance, then he was lucky. If it was deliberate, then he was a clever manipulator.

Which one was it?

Ethan looked up. “Ah, good,” he said lightly, folding the document so that its contents would be concealed before coming round his desk and striding across the room to Ryan, taking the one-eyed man’s hand and forearm in his own and grasping them firmly. “You are, I trust, well rested after the rigors of yesterday?”

“It was good of you to look after us,” he answered evenly.

Ethan gave a crooked grin. “Not at all, not at all. The pleasure is entirely mine, I assure you. As you may recall, I described you as ‘interesting,’ and I haven’t changed that opinion in the slightest. You fascinate me, and if you wish, you can look on my hospitality as a way of satisfying my own curiosity. Now come, sit down.”

Ethan led Ryan toward the sitting area, Horse indicating to the other companions that they should follow. They sat, following Ryan’s lead as he and Ethan reached the sofas. They were soft and yielding. Ryan felt a twinge of concern, as they were so soft that springing from them if attacked would be difficult. But why be too concerned when there was only Ethan and Horse in the room, and the baron’s attitude was distinctly nonthreatening?

When they were settled, the baron lifted one of the high chairs and placed it so that he was positioned in the middle of the two sofas, able to see all parties. He sat, leaning forward with one elbow on his knee, fist under his chin, the very model of attentiveness.

“You can go, Horse. I’ll summon you when I need you,” he said to his sec chief without looking up. The dreadlocked sec boss nodded almost imperceptibly and withdrew, closing the doors behind him.

“So,” Ethan began when it was certain that they were alone, “I’m thinking that you have a tale to tell. You see, we have regular patrols around the territory, as we have to protect the trade routes to and from this ville. We have a thriving economy from our trade, and we live better than many baronies. But vigilance is the price we pay. You see my drift?”

“I’m not sure,” Ryan said guardedly. He was all too aware of what Ethan was saying, but wanted the baron to come out with it himself. Unfortunately, Doc still wasn’t as sharp as at his best and took Ryan’s words at face value.

“My dear boy, I feel sure that our kind host here means to ascertain how we came to be in his lands without seeming to have passed any of his patrols.”

Ethan smiled, noting the flicker of exasperation that flared briefly in Ryan’s eye. “Precisely,” he said levelly. “I’ve never known anyone to get past our lines without warning.”

“What about stickies?” Jak asked.

Ethan’s face darkened and something hard and cold shone through. “We thought they would be no problem, just pass through and then go without even bothering us. Whatever stirred them up, it’s an error we won’t make again.”

It was a plausible enough explanation, but there was a darker undertone to the baron’s voice that suggested this wasn’t the entire answer. It served to remind them to keep on guard, especially as Ethan picked up his subject again without hesitation.

“Point is, we knew they were coming, as we left them. We didn’t know you were here until we stumbled on you and damn near chilled you along with the stickies. Now how does that happen?”

“To tell you the truth, we don’t really know. We came from the northeast, across the dry plain. We should have been visible enough,” Ryan stated. He would let Ethan work it out from there. He wasn’t going to explain anything beyond that.

“My people avoid the plain. Nothing can really live on that shit, and I’m mightily impressed that you got across it. But we circle it with our patrols and we should have sighted you before you hit there. It’s not that big a place and there’s nothing to conceal you if you’re observed from the surrounding territory. My guess is that you’re not telling me the whole story, here,” he added, eyeing Ryan carefully.

“My guess is that mebbe some of your patrols aren’t as thorough as you’d like, or not as observant,” Ryan returned coolly.

The baron gave Ryan a cold, hard stare that was difficult to read. It was as though he had deliberately hooded his eyes to block out all his feelings. From what they’d already seen, Ethan didn’t take kindly to not having his word instantly obeyed. But weighed against this was the fact that he was fascinated by the companions and could sense that there was some bigger story lurking behind their guarded words.

He spoke again after a long, considered pause. “Okay, if you won’t tell me, there’s not much I can do. No, that’s not true. Actually, there’s an awful lot I can do. We have methods of torture that would normally break a man in less than a day—that’s if he survived. But you people aren’t like that, I can tell. You’re not the kind who give anything away, and I figure you’d rather buy the farm than give me the satisfaction. Besides all that, you’ve proved yourselves to be exceptional fighters, and we can always do with those in Pleasantville.”

“Really? You strike me as not having much trouble,” Ryan replied.

Ethan gave a small smile that was entirely lacking in warmth. “Why d’you think that is? Because we fight hard for what we’ve got, and we fight hard to defend it. And people—by which I mean other, lazier barons who would want to take rather than build—know this. So they leave us alone. There’s a lot of jack and a lot of goods in this ville, and we wouldn’t be able to hang on to it if we didn’t know how to. Y’see what I mean?”

Ryan nodded. “So what do you want from us?”

Ethan smiled again. This time, there was a knowingness behind the eyes. “You don’t waste words, do you? I like that, although I wish you’d waste a few in telling me where you came from and where you learned to fight like you do. So I figure that mebbe you will if you hang around for a while, get used to us. Mebbe you’ll like it enough to stay. We could always do with people like yourselves, who contribute to the well-being of the ville.” He leaned forward, so that he was looking Ryan directly in the eye. “I’ll tell you what I offer. You can stay in Pleasantville for as long as you like. You’ll work for your accommodation and food, but it’ll be good work, not crap. I want you to work with Horse and look at our sec strategies, in return for which we learn things about combat from you. If you like it, then you join his men and stay on. If not, you leave and carry on to wherever you were going. And mebbe—and only if you want—you tell me how the fuck you ended up in the middle of that forest.”