“And you know this for a fact?” the baron asked, not looking in his direction.
Baron Henderson grinned anyway. “Of course.”
“Good.” DuQuene turned. “Because you will be leading my troops into battle.”
“That wasn’t part of our deal,” Henderson snapped.
“It is now,” Seaton replied, eyeing him with disdain.
Suddenly, a sec man burst into the room and drew his blaster. The sec men closed around the baron, but the newcomer had his weapon pointed at Henderson. “What is the meaning of this outrage!” he sputtered, sticking a hand into his pants and grabbing the squat derringer.
“Well?” DuQuene demanded. “Report, trooper,” Seaton added, a hand on his own weapon.
“Bind that son of a bitch!” the sec man ordered, cocking back the hammer of his handcannon. “He’s a fucking liar, my lord! I just rode back from Front Royal and found them hard at work repairing damage from an attack. I bought some of the civilians drinks in a bar and got the whole story. There was a revolt. Some man named Overton pretended he was the bastard son of a Cawdor and tried to take over.”
“If he was strong enough to do so, good,” DuQuene stated. “Only the strong should rule.”
While the sec men murmured approval at the statement, Henderson edged a little closer to a gun rack. His derringer would buy him a few seconds, but after that, he was in for a fight. The whitehair had no intention of getting captured alive and letting DuQuene do what he had done so often to his own prisoners. The very thought made him feel ill, and Henderson fought back a wave of nausea. Some of the sec men noticed his movement and moved to intercept him. Henderson changed his course, a new plan already forming in his mind.
“He had lots of blasters and a war wag in perfect condition, but Ryan Cawdor stopped the man. They have no intention of attacking anybody. They’re building their walls and planting crops.”
“Not what you do when planning an invasion.”
Seaton stated, drawing his oversized weapon and pointing the business end at Henderson. Everybody behind the old baron moved away quickly.
Going backward to the wall as if terrified, Henderson quickly drew his tiny derringer. The sec men laughed at the miniature blaster, until the old baron thrust it against an alcohol lantern and fired. The glass reservoir shattered, spraying burning fluid over a gun rack and the stack of ammo boxes underneath.
The sec man yelled as they scrambled for cover. Seaton kicked over the map table for protection, and DuQuene pulled a guard in front of him as a shield while Henderson dived for the open doorway and sprinted down a hallway just as the first of the bullets began to ignite from the spreading flames. In seconds the war room was under a barrage of ricochets, the flames spreading across the carpeting toward the kegs of black powder
EVENING WAS starting to darken the sky over Green Cove ville, and the sec men on top of the baron’s building grew tense as they heard the sounds of distant blasterfire. Only the noise was muffled, and they weren’t sure from what direction it was coming. All looked quiet in the streets below. Just then, the guards felt a warm wind wash over them and noticed a sudden increase in the waning daylight.
“What the fuck is that?” a sec man asked, looking straight upward. There was no lightning in the sky, no sounds of thunder. But as he watched, the red and orange clouds began to thin and within moments a clear blue sky was visible.
“Nuke me,” a corporal whispered in astonishment, rubbing at his itchy cheek. “Never seen nothing like that before!”
“A clear blue sky,” another agreed, twitching at the gnats biting his skin. “Got to be a good sign.”
“You think?”
“What else could it be?”
“Mebbe so,” the first man muttered, idly scratching at his exposed forearms, then doing so with more force. What was going on? He felt as if ants were crawling over his body, but nothing was visible on his skin. Maybe he caught something from those travelers he raped last week. Damn farmers, weren’t even good for a decent hump.