James Axler – Bitter Fruit

“These we bring in with us are milked,” the raider captain said. He reached inside his blouse and brought out a vinyl pouch on a clip around a chain on his neck “This” he poured out a greenish powder onto the tabletop, “is worth its weight in blasters, gold or any kind of money you’d care to name.”

Ryan glanced at the powder. The granules were large, shaped like dry rice, only a quarter the size.

“Dreamsand,” Gehrig said in a low voice. “Every little piece of it an experience like no other. Takes you just this side of death, brings you nightmares and dreamings the like you’ve never had before. Found out about it from a dryad seer I had chance to talk to. Had a bag of this stuff hanging around his neck.” The raider captain made an open gesture, offering the dreamsand to Ryan.

The one-eyed man shook his head. Nothing that put him out of touch with being able to take care of himself sounded at all good. But he was aware of the lust emanating from the men around him.

“This dryad seer,” Gehrig went on as he scooped the dreamsand back into the pouch with his little finger, “was on the run for his life. Seems he’d started a little business for himself back in Wildroot. That’s what the tree-huggers call their thorpe. Prince Boldt didn’t take kindly to self-enterprise. He sent his seed heralds out after the seer, probably intending to sacrifice him on one of those altars he’s got tucked away out in the woods for those times when be really wants to make a point. Anyway, it didn’t take me long to convince the seer to part with his information about how to make the dreamsand. Especially not since my mates and I had saved him from the seed heralds.”

Ryan had the feeling that Gehrig’s generosity hadn’t extended much past the learning of that secret.

“After we milk the tanglers,” the raider captain said, “we harvest some of them. Many as we can get. Bastard vines don’t do so well transplanted here, but we can usually get another milking or three out of them before they drop dead. Then we turn them into mulch. Never have been able to get them to seed properly, but they grow everywhere in the dryad lands. And you should see these things moving when the dryads sing to them.”

“They sing to them?” Ryan asked.

“Yes. Blighters can make the tanglers slither and dance, too.”

“The vines got intelligence?”

“Or close to it.” Gehrig rubbed his little finger against his lower gum.

Ryan saw the drug take effect almost immediately, lending the raider captain’s eyes a glow.

“You don’t want to try to take those vines on when you got a dryad around,” Gehrig said. “What those bastard tanglers can’t think of on their own, the dryads will. A man going up against them in the dark, he’s best off killing any dryads within seeing distance, and even then could be better off just forgetting the tanglers because they’ll be all stirred up by the tree-hugger getting himself killed.”

“Tell me about Boldt,” Ryan suggested.

Gehrig leaned back against the booth and let out an expansive breath. “He’s smart and he’s harsh. Has no qualms about killing his own people if it comes to that. Any one of them crosses him, he and the seed heralds that’s his raid squad near as I can figuretake that person out. Sometimes those people will just turn up dead. Sometimes he offers them on the altar, sacrifices them to the pagan gods those people hold near and dear. Lugh Silverhand himself, and a goddess, but I don’t recall her name at the moment.”

“What does he do with strangers?” Ryan asked.

Gehrig’s eyes gleamed like a cat’s. “Thinking about your missing woman?”

Ryan nodded.

“It’s a fool’s errand you’d be on if you went after her. More than likely, he’s killed her already.”

“Either way,” Ryan said, “I’m going to have to know the lay of it. Got a habit of going home with the ones I brought to the dance.”

“I like the cut of you,” Gehrig said, his eyes sleepy with the power of the dreamsand. “You speak your mind, and you aren’t afraid to back it up, either.”