James Axler – Deathlands 35 – Skydark

At the table below, Roonie-Two reached up with a ‘ thumb and spilled her right breast out of the top of her ,’ dress. She deftly stuffed its pale nipple into her two-year-old daughter’s face. As Roonie-Three began to nurse noisily the teat, Roonie-Two dipped a potato halfway into her one-gallon gravy boat. She plunged the dripping end of the baker into her mouth and, with $ hollowed cheeks, proceeded to suck off the coating of

sauce. Her performance caught, but failed to hold, Ryan’s attention. Krysty, on the other hand, glared daggers at her.

“We saw this mutie leader with our own eyes about six hours ago,” Ryan said. “He’s close to seven feet tall and powerfully built. He had unusual coloring on his skin. Brown-and-white patches all over.”

Elijah squashed the chunk of cooked flesh in his fist, squirting warm grease on his jacket Ryan had touched a raw nerve. “You lie!” the baron snarled at him. “You lie trying to save your cowardly deserting hide! And it isn’t going to work. Nobody I hired walks out on me and lives. Nobody!”

It was time to play the hole card, shaky though it

was.

“If I’m lying to you, Baron,” Ryan said, “you’ll know it soon enough. The stickle army couldn’t be more than a few hours behind us. They’ll sure be here before daybreak. Until then, what’s it going to hurt to get your sec men ready for the attack? What’s it going to hurt to send out a warning to the other barons around here? Mebbe they’ll even give you some reinforcements, which you’ll need. But whatever you do, you’ve got to start now, before the stickies lay siege to Willie ville.”

The room again went silent.

“Me and my friends will fight alongside you,” Ryan

said.

“He could be a spy, Poppadaddy,” Toonie-Two

piped up.

“Yeah, a spy from Byrum ville, working for Black-heart Hutton,” Roonie-Two added.

“I don’t grow no stupe girls. One-eye,” Elijah told him with pride. “They can smell a dead mutie a mile off. What do you say? Did you sell me out to that thieving, r ad-tain ted bastard who runs Byrum ville? Is it a trick to get Blackheart’s sec men inside my walls so he can take my treasure and diddle my pure-norm gals?”

“Tm no spy,” Ryan said. “Just think about what I’m saying for a minute. Protecting yourself from the other barons isn’t a problem. If you’re worried about somebody pulling a trick on you, don’t let any of their sec men inside the walls. But put every one of your men on triple red tonight. You’ve got nothing to lose.”

Elijah pondered the matter in silence for a moment or two, then rose to his feet “I don’t see no downside to me here,” he announced to the crowd. “Anybody see a downside?”

If they did, they kept real quiet about it

“I’m going to do what you say, Cawdor, but don’t think it’s going to buy you any mercy from me, even if ten thousand stickies show up at my gates.” He pointed a thick finger at Ryan’s face. “You’re mine, and you’re going to die die way I see fit I got to think a while on how I want to do it, though. I’ve been waiting so long for this, it’s got to be something extraspe-cial. Something extrapainfiil.”

“Do whatever you want with me,” Ryan said, “but

let my friends go. They don’t owe you anything. They came here to help save your skin.”

The baron looked over his companions, then said, “Take One-eye, the old bastard and the one with glasses and stick them in the cooler overnight For now the red-eye boy goes to the zoo.”

“He’s not a mutie,” Ryan protested.

“Shut it, Cawdor.”

“And the women?” Lester asked.

Before Elijah answered, one of the toadies stood and raised his hand for permission to speak. Even though he’d lost ninety percent of his hair and put on seventy pounds around his middle, Ryan recognized Lee Strootz from the old days.

“Baron,” Elijah’s whoremaster said, “if you haven’t already made up your mind about the black one, I’d like to stake a claim on her. She’s got a sturdy look I like. With a little training from me and my boys, she’d take it any way you’d want to put it to her, as long as you want Make a nice addition to the gaudy stable.”