Nathan spoke slowly. “A fever, you say?”
“She throws off these things quickly. Tough lady.”
“Good,” Baron Cawdor said. “Good for her.”
“Now let me tell you a little secret about my woman,” Ryan chuckled, laying an arm across his nephew’s shoulders and drawing him closer.
“Okay, what the fuck is going on here?” Ryan demanded softly in his ear.
“I’m being replaced as baron,” Nathan answered, almost too low to hear, his lips barely moving, “and I can’t stop the process.”
“How?”
“We were attacked in the summer by muties, hordes of them.” Nathan shook his head. “It was like a nightmare where you shoot a man only to find another behind him, and so on and so on endlessly.”
“Swampies?” Ryan asked. “We tangled with one of those coming here. Pretty tough. Had to head-shoot the bastard twice.”
“Swampies, yes,” the baron answered. “And stickies, and scalies, and a dozen more we have no names for. Waves of them.”
For one terrible moment, Ryan had a flashback to Kaa’s army, then he shook off the memory. The mutie king was dead, and his army scattered. There would never be another Kaa.
“You’re still here,” he stated bluntly. “So it couldn’t have been too bad.”
“A southern hamlet was attacked at night. The muties killed every man, woman and child. A runner brought the word, and we galloped there on horseback with blasters firing, and every dog I have came along with us.”
He paused. “The triple-damn things had hatchets.”
“Armed muties?” Ryan scowled. “Bullshit.”
Wordlessly, Nathan pushed up his sleeve and showed a badly healed scar that ran from his shoulder to his elbow. He let the sleeve drop back into place. “The blades were roped to their arms. The muties couldn’t drop the weapons if they wanted.”
Ryan remained silent. There was nothing he could say. A cool breeze was blowing in from the Shens, carrying with it the faint smell of the forest and the ville below. Wood smoke, horse dung, soap, tarthe smells of life. But there was also the stink of gasoline, the sounds of marching boots, the crack of a whip and a prisoner’s scream of pain. The music from the dining room didn’t seem to reach into the courtyards of the ville.
“They were eating the dead, the living. You know muties.”
“Thought I did,” Ryan said skeptically.
“Me, too. We went through the hamlet once and didn’t find a soul alive.”
“So you set fire to the place.”
“As your grandfather taught us to, yes. The muties went mad and attacked in a suicide rush. We slaughtered the things, but the horses got wounded, dogs died by the dozens” His voice trailed off, then came back strong. “We won, but what a loss of lives! Over half of my sec men got chilled that night.”
Ryan knew where the story was going. “The mutie attack was a diversion,” he said. It was stated as a fact, not a question. “And the next day, Overton arrived, posing as a mercie and offered his services. Once inside the walls, his troops started to take over.”
“Not quite, Uncle,” Nathan said, which meant that was exactly how it occurred. “Now we share the ville, as I train him to be my replacement. He controls the walls and the food warehouses. My men control the dogs and the armory.”
Controlling the walls meant Overton’s troops had seized the front gate also, the only way in or out of the ville. Nathan was a prisoner in his own fortress. It was a classic stalemate. But Nathan should have fought to the death to stop the invaders once he discovered their plan. When Overton finally took over, the first thing he’d do would be to chill Nathan and every loyal sec man. His own life was on the line, yet the man was merely stalling for time instead of fighting back. There had to be a reason.
“Why?” Ryan asked. There was no response, so he grabbed the man and roughly spun him. Nathan jerked away from the contact, his face contorted in anger.
“Watch yourself, Uncle,” he growled. “I’m still the baron here, not you!”
“Just wanted to see if you lost your balls in that battle,” Ryan countered, losing control and speaking loudly. “There’s Cawdor blood in your veins, man! What’s going on here? Why are you letting Overton take over?”