“I’d decided that I’d try for the baron with this,” he informed them, flourishing the blaster, “if he’d had you all chilled. Then the sky opened yonder.” The young man laughed. “Heard me some chem storms over the Shens. Never nothing like that. Thought the nukes were back again. Then I glimpsed the baron, face like a madman, double-stupe, galloping toward the ville. Streaked with blood and dirt. Thought I’d come see what had been going down with you.”
“They all died,” Ryan said.
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“What?” Nathan shook his head. “That can’t be, Uncle.”
“You keep calling me ‘Uncle’ and I’ll start calling you ‘Nephew.’ Understand, Nate?”
“Sure, Ryan, but.. .all of ’em? That’s nine tenths of the sec men from the ville.”
“Guess that’s ’bout right.”
“And Harvey’s driven clear-crazed. That means that anything could be happening back at Front Royal right now.”
Ryan nodded his agreement. “That’s right. Which is why we’re heading there. Back to the ville.” Under his breath, so that only Krysty heard him he added, “Home-ward bound.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
sec trooper baker was in charge of the main gateway into the ville, with young Sec Trooper Lesser as his com-panion. They were two of the dozen or so guards left be-hind when Baron Cawdor had ridden out to hunt an hour past noon. They’d watched him go, each man rigidly at attention, carbines at port arms.
The ville was quiet. Word had quickly gotten around the small settlements that surrounded the main house- word that the long-lost Lord Ryan had returned and been captured; word that during the day, he and his compan-ions would become the victims of the hunting pack of crossbred hounds.
It was something over an hour later-neither man was sufficiently high in the rankings of the sec men to merit his own chron-and they were talking quietly about the mer-its of a two-edged knife against a single blade.
Then the explosion came with a shock wave that flut-tered dried leaves on the cobbles leading to the draw-bridge, rippling the surface of the filthy moat.
The noise was like a hundred distant peals of thunder collected into one great booming crash.
Baker jumped, nearly dropping his M-16. “May Blessed Ryan save us!” he exclaimed, the words out be-fore he could stop them. But his companion was too star-tled himself to notice the treasonable utterance bursting from Trooper Baker.
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A cloud of smoke gushed straight up. It was dark and oily, and Lesser’s sharp sight picked out black shapes that rose within it and then fell again into the trees. The light breeze tugged at the toppling crown of the smoke, tear-ing it into ragged streaks of gray. Within a couple of min-utes the wind brought the faint smell of gasoline to the two men, overlaid with another scent, oddly familiar, yet elusive. It reminded Lesser of something in the kitchens, but he couldn’t say what.
Neither man knew quite what he should do. The explo-sion certainly had come from the direction of the Oxbow Loop, where the hunting always took place, and it had been a truly awesome explosion. But what it por-tended … ? That was the question.
Neither man even knew who was supposed to be in charge of the ville. The baron was gone, and he’d taken virtually everyone with him, including the senior sec of-ficer. Lesser wondered, nervously, if one of them ought to go and tell Lady Rachel about the explosion. But that meant going all the way to her suite of rooms and risking her anger if she was sleeping. Or “busy.” And both men knew what “busy” might mean to the Baron’s wife.
So they did nothing.
About half an hour later Baker heard a horse coming toward them at a fast canter from the general direction of the Oxbow Loop Road. And they could hear shouting- a man roaring in a hoarse voice.
With barely a dozen men in the whole ville, there was no question of turning out the guard. All they could do was move cautiously back inside the main gateway, readying their M-16s for whatever might be approaching them.
“It’s the baron,” Lesser said.
“Lost his hat.”
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“Cloak’s torn.”