It was these uprights and horizontals that the stickies had used as a frame for their sporting.
Some of the time the muties would indulge their extreme love for torture by fire in total immersion in flames, often spicing it with stolen blasting powder or even, if possible, plas-ex. But here they’d taken their time and used the fire in a slower, more subtle and delicate way.
“Been a hard passing,” the Armorer said, studying the ravaged, mutilated bodies of the three men.
Two were tied upright, crucified, arms stretched out sideways, while the third of the victims had been hauled up to a cross beam and bound upside down, head toward the trampled earth. All three had been stripped naked. All of them were blackened, skin bloated as corruption worked its inexorable progress through their swollen tissues.
Ryan squatted on his heels, shaking dust from his jacket, laying the rifle on the ground. “Doesn’t look like this happened all that long ago. Three, four days. Wolfram said they were taken longer than that. Stickies must have kept them alive since then, waiting for the right place for their funning.”
There was still the faintest odor of gasoline hanging in the clearing.
Since the birds and predators of the forest had been at the soft parts, it wasn’t that easy to see where their work ended and the labors of the muties began.
Eyes had been plucked from raw, crusted sockets, noses gone, the mouths peeled clear, lips vanished, showing the brown-smeared rows of teeth, exposed in the ripped jaws. There were clear burn marks all around the leathery, taut skin of the faces, where torches had been thrust against the living flesh. In every case all of the hair had been reduced to a blackened stubble.
The genitals showed similar horrific burning and gashing, and the bellies had been slit open so loops of dried intestines dangled in the ashes of the fires.
Hands had been cut off two of the men, and fingers were sliced away from the third victim. One of the bodies was missing both feet. It looked as though all of the major joints had been smashed with clubs shoulders, knees, ankles, elbows and wrists.
Deep cuts had been inflicted across bellies and chests, which had then been flooded with gasoline before being ignited. Ryan sat in the stillness, almost able to hear the demonic whoops of delight from the hideous, capering stickies, drowning the moans and screams of their helpless, doomed victims.
As J.B. had said, it had been a long, hard passing for Wolfram’s men.
“Least we know the muties are still around,” he said, rising to his feet.
“Or they were a few days ago.”
“Yeah. We going to cut them down?”
The Armorer turned away. “Won’t do them no good, Ryan, will it? Might as well leave them. Any muties pass by and see the bodies’ve been disturbed might take it into their heads to follow our trail.”
“Guess so. Northward, then.”
“Watch out for the mines and traps that the map shows around this part. Between here and the fortress. Last thing that we need is to get ourselves blown up or caught in the steel jaws of the mantraps.”
THE HUNTING TRAIL linked up once more with a good stretch of blacktop that showed signs of recent use by four-wheel wags. Ryan pulled out the map to refresh his memory. “Wolfram and the Magus’s excavations are out that direction,” he said, pointing east. “Not far.”
“Think we should take a look?”
“Later, mebbe. If we get the others free, then there won’t be any need.”
“If they got wags, then we can use them to run,” the Armorer said, wiping his sleeve across his forehead.
Ryan folded the map and put it in his pocket. “Not going to be easy. Those sec men looked tough. Bastards like Magus and the fat man have got them well trained. Good as they come. Still, talk gets us nowhere. Got to give it a shot. Come up with something when we’ve seen the setup.”
THEY MOVED along the trail, still running northward, without any sign of traps or danger, though they kept clear of the verges, where they knew from experience that antipersonnel mines could do most harm.