“So they’re finally here,” Elder Thomas said in a low growl. He wasn’t sure to be glad the long wait was finally over, or nervous that the long awaited battle was about to begin.
“The day of the Devils,” an old woman announced, her six fingered hands shaking with excitement. “These are not the men you know. Impostors from your great enemy.”
The slave wore no chains to bind her hands or feet, and she was dressed well in canvas moccasins and a thick woolen dress to keep her old bones warm. But her weathered face was grotesque, her eyes empty holes ringed by layers of scars where white hot knives had removed the orbs.
“Yes, I have seen it all happen in my mind,” she said, cackling. “Death comes here today.” What the wrinklie didn’t add, was that she saw the destruction of the ville come in the form of a ray of sunshine. What that could possibly mean was beyond her understanding, so she wisely kept quiet, knowing that she risked death by withholding information, but also at displeasing the chief elder.
“So you say, witch,” Thomas growled, fingering the barbed whip coiled at his hip. “You’d best to right this time, or we’ll see if you do a better job without your hands!”
She bowed at that, gushing affirmations until he ordered her silent. Damn talky bitch was more trouble than he liked to tolerate, but the wrinklie was a doomie, a mutie with the gift to see the future. A former elder of the Hellsgate had heard that sight weakened the powers of a doomie, and so he had her eyes removed to increase her value to the ville. Only thing wrong with her predictions was that once she told what was going to happen, that changed the course of events, sometimes drastically. The witch was correct more often than not, and thus couldn’t be harmed. But the pretense of listening to advice from lowly food was repugnant to the elder, and he eagerly looked forward for any excuse to gut the woman and toss her into the stew pot.
The sea breeze whipped over the tall walls of the ville, bending the torches in different directions, making a few of the men flinch as the flames got too close to their faces.
“The question is, do we take the chance?” Elder Getty asked gruffly, leaning heavily on a yellow cane carved from human thigh bones. His long beard knotted into two strands to resemble the forked tongues of a snake, and he tugged on the end of one thoughtfully. “If we chill the wrong people, we could anger the storm gods and rain destruction upon Hellsgate!”
“Praise be the sky gods,” Elder Thomas muttered, pulling a shiny blue .38 Colt from within his shirt and tucking it into his belt with the handle turned out for a fast draw.
Privately, Thomas didn’t believe in any unseen gods that ruled the air. The man had traveled far in his youth, and everywhere he went the sky was a boiling mass of rads and chems. Although, Thomas had to admit, why the acid rains never fell upon Hellsgate was something for which there was no explanation. Some said it was because they were the chosen people, or because they ate man flesh to please the gods, and once a demented slave said it was merely because of wind currents from the ocean. That sacrilege sent the slave to the table of the Blood Feast, and his wails lasted long into the night. Oh, yes, Thomas remembered it fondly. The slave had been a very satisfying meal.
“Four miles!” the guard in the tower shouted, silhouetted by the moonlight.
Elder Getty ceased tugging on his beard. “The choice must be yours,” he ordered, pointing at the younger man with a skeleton thin hand.
“Accepted.” Thomas sneered, pulling his blaster. “Master of the guards, call out your men! Let’s get the shields in place before the Devils arrive.”
A sec man blew a single clear note on a ram’s horn, and guards rapidly spread across the courtyard of the stone ville, shouting orders. The armory was opened wide, weapons passed out to eager hands, along with sealed jars of ammo and even a few grens.