James Axler – Gaia’s Demise

Sullivan tried not smile. This was why he had done the act, to infuriate them beyond reason. Nathan always killed common thieves with firing squads, and hanged rapists and other such scum. Only once did he burn a man alive, a traitor who turned against the ville and allowed coldhearts past the walls. But Sullivan couldn’t be burned alive. His skin was resistant to flames, and once his ropes were weakened he would break loose, kill the startled baron with a single blow and escape over the wall in the confusion. The fool was playing right into his hands.

Nathan drew a blaster and weighed the weapon in his palm, deliberating justice the way a butcher did meat. Was this enough, or too much?

Standing along side the throne, Lady Tabitha took his free hand in both of hers. “You have no choice, dear.”

“I know,” Nathan said, bolstering the weapon. “This coldheart mutie deserves the very worst punishment we have. Once, I burned a man alive at the stake for treason, and you all still remember that smell. It haunts me at night and clings to my clothes. No amount of washing or soap will ever remove the memory. And that day I made a solemn vow to never repeat that again for any reason.”

The crowd held its breath, anxiously waiting.

“Captain of the guards!” Nathan called out formally.

Clem stepped forward and saluted. “Yes, my lord?”

“Bury him alive.”

Icy panic filled the mutie as he realized this was a death sentence with no escape. “No!” Sullivan screamed, and he stood, ripping the nets apart with bare fingers. He shook back and forth, trying to escape from the chains, but they weren’t cold iron forged in some Deathlands smithy, but predark steel. The metal didn’t even strain at his awesome strength. Gasping for air, terror a fist in his belly, the mutie started to weep as his bones broke in the blind madness of trying to escape.

There was a gunshot, and Sullivan fell to the floor, blood pooling around him, spreading outward in pumping waves. He tried again to rise, a chain snapping loose in his death throes. There was another shot, and Sullivan collapsed, his body exhaling its last breath and going still.

Ceremoniously, Nathan slid the clip from the execution blaster and laid them down separately on a silver tray. “And so it ends today,” he said sternly. “Anybody buried alive would soon go insane and live out their last few hours in a delirium of escape and freedom fantasies. The very worst thing I could do was threaten him with the act. Sullivan punished himself, and I ended the matter.”

“What about Baron Markham of Bull Run ville?” Clem drawled, watching the corpse for any signs of returning life. “Y’all know she sent the mutie here.”

Leaning back in his throne, Nathan nodded agreement. “Because she believed we were attacking her, and she was too weak fighting off some samurai baron from Washington Hole to withstand an attack by us.”

“I would be happy to make a stand against her, my lord,” a bearded lieutenant said, kneeling. “My life for yours!”

“Thank you, Jarod, but that won’t be necessary,” Nathan acknowledged graciously. The baron turned to address another man. “Clem, would you go to them as an ambassador and talk the truth? We aren’t enemies. Tell them of Overton and enlist their aid. His plan was to divide the baronies so we couldn’t work together. If that was his greatest fear, then that’s exactly what we should do. And quickly.”

The chief of the sec men scratched his neck. “She may not believe me, but I’ll sure as shit try.”

“Thank you.”

“What about those Casanova assholes?”

“I’ll deal with them later,” Nathan said in a low, dangerous voice.

Clem smiled. “Gotcha. You’re a pretty good baron.”

Startled at first, Nathan smiled back at the man. “And I’m pleased to also call you a friend.”

“Beg pardon, my lord,” a sec man asked politely. “What about the…ah, Sullivan?”

Stepping in front of her husband, Tabitha scowled at the dead mutie. “As he lived, so shall he die,” she said in controlled anger. “Burn the body.”