Emma tried to sit up, staring at the ruins all about her with eyes wide in horror. “My fault. All of this is. And there’s worse to come.”
Jak smiled at her, his voice close to her ear so that she would hear him above the sound of the storm. “No worse. What can be worse than this?”
The cold voice drifted down from above. “Plenty, Whitey, plenty.”
The three friends looked up to find themselves covered at short range by Joaquin and his trio of sec men, each of them holding a cocked musket.
ONCE THE REALIZATION had dawned on Ryan and the others what might have happened to Jak, Doc and Emma, it didn’t take long to find the tracks of the four horsemen from the ville.
“They waited for the heart of the tornado to pass,” J.B. observed. “Knew we’d hide out. Came in around the back, along that alley. Rain makes it hard to see, but they probably picked them out of the garden of the house where the wall was falling down. Tied them and stuck them double-up on the horses. See how the hoof marks on three of the animals are markedly deeper heading out than they were riding in.”
Krysty was distraught. “That sorry girl! Sharpe’ll stick her in his bloody collection for the rest of her life, like a little toy. And probably butcher Jak and poor old Doc.”
Ryan patted her on the arm, managing a smile. “Not if we stop him, lover. And we will.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Baron Sharpe is in need of getting himself chilled,” J.B. stated.
“A man who breeds tigers shouldn’t weep if his children are devoured,” Mildred said.
Krysty nodded. “Right on, sister. Won’t catch me shedding tears for him.”
“Not the easiest ville in the world to break into.” Ryan looked at the others. “Got a goodish sec force.”
“Undergunned,” the Armorer said.
“Agreed.” Ryan dug his index finger into his ears, scraping out the residue of mud. “But well trained. And Sharpe looks like the sort of man who might expect us to try and stage some sort of a rescue of Jak, Doc and Emma.”
“We got to try, Dad.”
Ryan grinned at the worried expression on his son’s face. “Sure we do.”
JAK LAY on the single bed in the room where he, Doc and Emma had been taken by Joaquin and the sec men. Closely guarded, they had been searched and their weapons taken from them.
The woman hadn’t been carrying any sort of blaster or blade.
Doc’s Le Mat had been removed, but he had clung stubbornly to the sword stick, claiming that it was only an ebony cane to help him walk.
“Ligament trouble in the old days. Stealing second at the top of the fourth in a big college game,” he said. “Unfortunately the damage proved to be inoperable and I am forced to rely on my trusty walking stick.” He paused and favored Joaquin with a toothy smile. “The saddest thing of all was that the squint-eyed umpire called me out.”
Jak’s Colt Python was also taken from him, and one of the guards gave him a cursory pat-down, so cursory that it failed to find any of his hidden throwing knives.
The leader of the sec team had paused in the doorway. “Should be safe here. Men in the corridor and all around. Wait here until Sharpie decides that he wants to see you. Probably won’t be until supper. Likes to do some of his thinking and talking over food, does the baron.”
The heavy oak door had been firmly shut, and the three friends had heard the sound of heavy bolts being slid across and a key grating in the brass lock.
Now they were alone.
Emma sat down in a large brocaded armchair beneath the barred and shuttered window. She put her head in her hands and began to cry.
Jak stared across her, his ruby eyes drilling into her face. “Waste time weeping,” he said. “Dish’s broke. Can’t be repaired. Crying doesn’t do shit.”
“My fault.”
Doc laid a gnarled hand on the young woman’s shoulder. “Jak’s right, my dear,” he said. “Once the milk is spilled, and the wine drunk and the cane raised back up when it’s in the field. No, that’s not quite what I had in mind to say. But the point is, assuming blame does none of us any good. Our sole intent now must be to seek a remedy. A remedy a day keeps the doctor away, I always say.”