With an elaborate flourish, Baron Henderson reached out and touched the man on each shoulder with his warm blaster. “Then raise General Thomas Henderson, heir to the Iron Throne. What is your first command?”
“You,” the general snapped, pointing at a private.
“Move my things to the dead man’s tent, get me his wag and bring me his handcannon and belt holster.”
“Sure thing, Sarge!” the man said, grinning.
Thomas backhanded the guard, sending him sprawling. “I’m your commander,” he stated softly, almost too low for the others to hear. They had to lean in and strain to catch the words. “Obey me, or die. Your choice.”
“Yes, sir,” the cringing man mumbled from the dirt.
Raggedly the troops raised a cheer for the their new commander, the officers saluting the preening goliath.
Delighted, Baron Henderson smiled craftily at the young fool. That whispering trick was good; he’d have to use that himself. Without his grandson to direct a battle, he would have been forced to lead any charge himself. Now this huge idiot would do that for him.
“What are your orders, Father?” Thomas asked, looking very serious.
“We have gathered everything salvageable from the wreckage,” Henderson said, taking another pinch of snuff with a shaking hand. He spilled most on his shirt but enough got up his nose to stop the trembling. “Now we go west, raid a few hamlets along the way for food, horses, anything else that we lack. Then, when we are ready, we strike at the enemy who did this to us, Nathan Cawdor of Front Royal!”
“Cawdor?” a lieutenant asked, puzzled. “But, ah, pardon me, my lord, but how you know he did it?”
“There were only three villes of any size in Virginia,” he said, sneering, “BullRun, Casanova and Front Royal. Two have been destroyed. That leaves Cawdor and his brown shirts.”
The troops murmured in agreement. They were more looking forward to raiding helpless farms than striking at the armed citadel of Front Royal. Muties or coldhearts, few whoever attacked the ville escaped alive. Maybe this melting thing was the reason why.
“And how, sir, we can stop a wep that fries stone?” a lieutenant dared to ask.
“Never question your baron!” Thomas snapped.
Then he turned to ask, “Do you wish to tell us your plan, Father?”
The private returned with a fresh suit, and the baron started to change. “Not at the moment,” Henderson said, removing his jacket. His bare arms were as skinny as sticks, discolored with splotches and bruises. “But it cannot fail. Tomorrow, Front Royal falls and we shall rule the entire state from the Lantic to the Shens!”
Led by their new commander, the sec men wildly cheered, and Henderson tried not to laugh at them. They would all die in the attack on Front Royal. That was the key past the stone walls. But they would gain entrance, and soon afterward, the weapon that destroyed Casanova ville would be his to unleash upon the rest of Deathlands. Not to rule the groveling masses, but purely for the sake of retribution for being born into this horrid world. When he died, so would the rest of humankind. And the sooner the better.
Chapter Six
Dawn was just starting to break, when a blue shirt hesitantly opened the door of the armory and glanced outside. “Rain’s over,” he announced.
Baron Sheffield and the rest of the bodyguards exited the brick building, careful of stepping into any of the steaming yellow puddles. The landscape was like nothing any of them had ever seen. Everything was coated with a hardened layer of condensed ash. The ground was covered with gentle ripples, as if somebody had tossed a stone into a lake of lava, which instantly cooled back into rock.
“See who is still alive,” Sheffield ordered, noting the piece of somebody partially buried in the weird stone carpeting. “Help anybody trapped, then get the slaves busy chipping this crap off the wags and the gate. Don’t touch the gap in the wall. This can only help strengthen our defenses there.”
“Sir!” The man saluted and dashed away.
“Nothing will grow in this valley again,” Collette stated as a fact, hooking thumbs into her gun belt. “We have to move the base.”
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