“Outlander dog!” he yelled. “Come thou here, thou mutie spawn!”
“Easy, Jak,” Ryan warned, hand dropping, so casually, to the butt of the SIG-Sauer pistol.
“No problem,” the teenager said, stopping and turning calmly to face the enraged man, who was several inches taller and a hundred pounds heavier than the albino.
“Thou hast given insult to my poor, afflicted child!” he screeched.
“Then sorry. Not deliberate,” Jak apologized.
“Mutie demon! Thou shalt be beaten and driven from the ville for thy wickedness.”
“Boy didn’t mean anything by it, mister, and he’s said he’s sorry. Let it lay.”
Ryan’s attempt to pour oil upon the troubled waters was ignored. The man carried a stout cudgel, and he raised it above his head and aimed a blow at Jak’s skull.
“Oh shit,” Ryan sighed, hoping the white-haired youth wouldn’t butcher the man in the street.
Jak dodged effortlessly, dipping under the crushing swing, one of his many hidden throwing knives appearing in his fingers like magic. He held the leaf-bladed weapon by its weighted hilt, point up, like all classic knife fighters. He waited in a half crouch, whispering to the man.
“Last warning, bastard. Said sorry, now get away. Cut you horrible. Peel face like skinning rat. Fuck off!”
The last was hissed with such fearsome malevolence that the angry father took three tumbling steps backward, tripping over his own feet and nearly falling. A muscle worked at the corner of his mouth, making his lips twitch and jerk. Ryan thought he looked like someone who’d been about to strangle a kitten and found he was holding a panther. From the way the man was standing, slightly bowlegged, he guessed that he must have lost control in his sudden terror and fouled his dark serge breeches.
“Best do like the boy says, mister,” J.B. urged.
They left him there, still holding his cudgel, knuckles white, face drained of blood, and carried on with their walk around the streets of Claggartville in the brisk fall sunshine.
Twice they passed sec patrols. The first time they were stopped and questioned. With an infinite, oppressive politeness, the sec boss carefully wrote down their details in a small leather-bound notebook, using a stub of lead penciltheir names and when they entered the ville, that they’d registered at the Rising Flukes Inn, and that they knew the regulations about finding work within three days or they would have to leave.
“Tightest little ville in all Deathlands,” Krysty said as they moved on.
They went past a shop selling fruit and vegetables, the contents spilling out on tables over the narrow sidewalk. The owner, a stout man with jolly red cheeks and eyes like small chips of Sierra melt ice, greeted them.
“Morning to ye, outlanders. A merry pippin to crunch? Punnet of blackberries? Lovely ripe pears from the Shens? What’s your fancy, fine ladies and fine mariners? Come taste.”
Lori reached for the golden pear that the shopkeeper held out temptingly toward her, but at the last moment he snatched it back.
“Why d’you did that?” she asked crossly.
“Show thy jack, lady. Handful of jack buys a handful of good victuals. No jack. No eat. Thy credit runs only with Master Jedediah Rodriguez and the Rising Flukes. And no place else.”
“Then stuff it up your fat arsehole, you sad fat bastard,” she said, knocking the false smile clean off the plump lips.
THE QUAYSIDE of Claggartville was bustling with action, men heaving casks and bales, pushing small carts with iron wheels over the clattering cobbles. Mongrels slunk around, snapping at one another, cowering from the blows and kicks aimed at them. As they moved through, Ryan and the others could catch the scent of tobacco and liquor.
“Git out th’way, outlanders,” bellowed an enormous man in a stained white shirt, who carried a pile of baskets filled with fish on his head.
The ships loomed over it all, masts rocking in unison on the gently rolling waters of the harbor.
“She’s a whaler,” Doc said, pointing to one called Rights of Man . “There’s the ovens on decks there.”
“The one painted dark brown?” Donfil asked interestedly.
“Not paint. Blood,” J.B. said.
The last ship along the line was another whaler, painted in somber black, with a narrow white stripe running all the way around her, just beneath the rails. False gun ports were etched in white along her sides, and a white flag hung limply from the masthead.