The baron itched horribly on his arms and legs, but through sheer force of will kept his hands from tearing at the flesh. This wasn’t what Henderson had described. The stone walls were cool to the touch, and there was a smell of smoke, but not fire in the air. Front Royal was doing something new. However, if this was a sky attack, then he better get as far away from the open air as possible.
For a split second, he debated trying for the river, then changed his mind and headed for the stairs that led to the dungeon. Deep underground he should be safe from the sky machine. And when the attack stopped, he would take all of the supplies he could pack into a wag and leave the rest of his people to await the arrival of the enemy troops. The survivors would probably be taken into chains as slaves. But not him. That wasn’t how Armand DuQuene would exit the world.
Reaching the basement of the predark building, DuQuene felt the terrible itching noticeably lessen and sighed with relief. Then he heard the telltale click-clack of cell doors opening and saw the ragged prisoners walking out of their cells, carrying the blasters and keys of the prison guards.
Snarling, DuQuene swung his blaster around and fired, chilling half a dozen before the rest swarmed over him, yanking away the blaster and knocking off the steel helmet. DuQuene braced himself for the onslaught of blindness and was shocked when it didn’t occur. The walls had to be too thick down here. He was protected from the ravages of the sky machine, but then he realized it also meant that the prisoners were unaffected. They could see! The men and women he had been brutally torturing for months, years, were loose and armed, and could see!
His pitiful wails for mercy were swamped by the gleeful howls of the starving prisoners as they savagely ripped away his clothing and began to tear the hated baron apart with their bare hands. DuQuene’s ghastly screams of agony rose in pitch as the starving men and women began to gorge themselves on raggedy gobbets of his tender flesh.
Chapter Seventeen
In the bottom level of the redoubt, the companions checked their equipment one last time.
“Ready?” Ryan asked, shifting the weight of the heavy pack on his back. The fluted plastic tubes of a couple of LAW rocket launchers jutted from the pack, along with a single HAFLA. The attack was going to be a nightcreep, a silent penetration, but in case of trouble, Ryan wanted some big ordnance to help blast their way to freedom. As the Trader always said, a man could never have too many friends, or too much explosives.
“Ready as we’re going to be,” J.B. replied. He felt more like himself again with the Samp;W shotgun and an AK-47 strapped across his back, the Uzi hung at his right side and a bulging bag of explosives serving as a counterbalance on the left side of his body.
In preparation for the assault, the companions had enjoyed a good meal and gotten a few hours of sleep during the day. Fed and rested, every companion carried a Kalashnikov, a bulging ammo pouch either on their belt or slung over a shoulder. Jak also toted the remaining crossbow with an arrow notched under the string and two more taped to the either side of the stock for fast loading. These were the last three of the homemade arrows, and only two had steel arrowheads. But the weapon was silent, and in the teenager’s deft hands would chill from a very great distance.
Only Dean wasn’t burdened with plas charges. He had hauled down a chair from one of the offices upstairs and was piling boxes and bags in front of it to make a crude barricade.
Rotating the cylinder of his LeMat to visually inspect the charged chambers, Doc set the selector pin and slid the mammoth handcannon into its holster. “You know,” Doc said from out of the blue, “sometimes I am sorry about throwing my hat into the Hudson River. A hat makes a man feel more protected, fully clothed.”