“What is your name?” he demanded, taking her by the jaw.
“Sh-shala,” she stammered, and had to say the name several times before he comprehended.
“Shala. Such a pretty name,” the baron purred, running a hand through her blond hair, then grabbed a fistful and forced her to face him directly. Her eyes were beautiful and filled with sorrow. It was a devastating combination, and her fate was sealed on the spot.
“You belong to me now, girl,” Gaza snarled. “Understand?”
Fighting back more tears, she nodded, prepared to try to die with honor as a warrior of the Core.
Releasing her hair, Gaza slapped her face hard, then cupped both breasts, the delicious weight filling his palms and sending warmth to his groin.
“Prepare my new bride,” Gaza snapped, releasing the teenager and starting to remove his own clothing. “I can think of no better place for a honeymoon than the field where her race died. We’ll talk tomorrow about how to reach the city below.”
Crying out in terror, Shala tried to get away as the women converged on her with ropes. But soon she was bound helpless. Then she started to scream when they brought out pliers and a straight razor, the wives of the baron grinning to display their lack of a tongue.
The horrible noises mounted until they echoed among the concrete canyons of the preserved metropolis, then suddenly and horribly were cut short.
Chapter Nine
“Are you sure the mushroom cloud was in this direction?” the Trader asked, scanning the horizon with a pair of preDark binocs.
Her battered Stetson was tilted back to accommodate the longeyes, its single eagle feather fluttering in the breeze. A bandolier of grens stretched across the swell of her breasts, and a boxy 9 mm Ingram machine pistol hung at her side, with an ammo belt of spare clips around a trim waist. Riding on her left hip was a hand comm unit, turned off at the moment. But ever since Hellsgate she always traveled with the radio link.
“Yes, this is it,” Roberto said gruffly, checking the cracked compass in his right hand. “North by northeast. I marked the dial just to be sure.”
“Doesn’t look like any nuke damage that way,” the Trader said, resting a boot on a large rock and leaning forward.
Closing the lid on the compass, the man snorted. “Never said it was a nuke, just a nuke-shaped cloud.”
The Trader gave no reply as she continued to scan the horizon. The rad counters were reading clean, but she sure as shit wasn’t taking her convoy into a possible hot zone without doing a recce first. Any triple-large explosion formed a mushroom cloud; she had learned that long ago. However, any blast that size always meant local fighting and to just roll on in could get all of them chilled and triple quick.
The blond woman stood tall to the others in her group, especially in these lean days with so many starving. Her clothing was simple, just denims and a heavy white shirt, the shirt worn more to impress folks than anything else, since clean clothing was only a legend in most parts of the Deathlands these days.
Turning her head to scan the horizon, the tanned skin tightened on her neck to expose a thin scar that went almost completely around her throat, a memento from where a rogue coldheart tried to ace her from behind, and failed. One of the fingers on her right hand was oddly bent, a bone break that never healed properly, and on the back of her left wrist was a large puckered area where a stickie had grabbed her with a sucker. Caught reloading, Kate dropped her empty blaster and used a knife to gut the mutie, slicing it open from belly to chin while the creature was still attached to her wrist. The sucker came off as the stickie died, but the skin was permanently damaged. But that was a trade she would make any damn day— a life for some skin.
There were more scars, some badges of honor saving a friend, others dark memories of when she was a slave. Whip marks and brands that only her bed partners saw for a brief moment before the candles were extinguished.