As he passed Tom, Ryan whispered to the old man. “One night you’ll feel cold steel in your groin.”
The villager turned as white as a sheet and tottered, hand going to his heart.
Ryan smiled at him as they were led into the wagons. The three men were put in the first cart, Krysty in the sec-ond one.
the sky threatened rain. The air felt cool and damp and the breath of the horses hung about them like fog. They could see mist filling the hollows on the other side of the wide valley, leaving only the tips of the trees emerging from the pale blue haze.
The sergeant was at the head of the convoy, followed by a dozen mounted sec men. Then came the cart with the men, and a dozen more troopers, followed by the wagon with Krysty, and another dozen horsemen at the rear.
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Oddly there had been no attempt made to disarm them. Ryan had seen the eyes of the sergeant home in on the butt of the SIG-Sauer, but it remained in its holster. He guessed they would lose their arms when they reached the ville.
For Ryan it was a journey deeper into his own past.
Every rattling turn of the wheels brought him closer to the ville. Every now and again he’d recognize some bridge or building or turn of the road. Once a massive wild boar thundered across the trail, making half the horses rear and whinny, throwing a couple of the sec men. Its eyes were vicious rubies, and Ryan saw fresh blood on its curved tusks.
They also passed more signs of the tyranny of Baron Cawdor and his family. Eight corpses. One in chains at a crossroads gibbet, not a shred of flesh remaining on the dry bones. Three on makeshift gallows, one a woman. Three crucified, two of them children, whose frail little bodies looked no more than six years of age. And the charred remnants of a corpse, smoldering in glowing metal links at the center of a heap of ashes.
It took close to two hours for them to finally reach the massive ville of Front Royal. And when they did, Krysty stared out in disbelief. The ville was just about the big-gest building she’d ever seen in her entire life. It was like pictures of medieval castles in the old books she’d read as a child in Harmony. The brick was weathered to a glo-rious golden hue that shone, even on such a dull morn-ing. The windows were mainly narrow slits, as in most armored wags. But high up on one wall was an arched window that looked as if it were made of colored glass. There was a wide river around the outside with only a single bridge that crossed it, which could be raised or lowered on chains from inside the ville. Through the
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archway, under a spiked gateway, Krysty could make out a central courtyard, where armed men patrolled. For at least two hundred yards on all sides of the squat build-ing, the trees and bushes had been hacked down to pre-vent them being used as cover by any would-be attackers.
She realized then why the Cawdors had been able to control so much of the Shens for so many years. With a hundred armed sec men and a ville of this strength, it was impossible to conceive of the baron ever being humbled.
Krysty began to feel very frightened.
As soon as the wagons had rattled over the cobble-stones of the bridge across the sedge-crusted moat, they reined in to a halt. The four friends were hustled with an overfirm politeness through a studded doorway, along a narrow corridor, past other guards and into a large chamber.
“One at a time into there,” the big sergeant said, pointing at another door. “Everything off. There’s a bolt on the inside, in case you worry about your privacy or whatever. There’s clothes and boots on racks on the walls. All sizes. Leave everything there. It’ll be boxed up and kept for if… for when you get out of the ville.”
“Blasters?” J.B. asked.
“Watch my lips, short-ass. Everything. Know what that means? It means ev-er-y-thing. Far side there’s another door. Go through it and wait. Don’t try to fuck off any-where else. You’ll be watched. And don’t forget to un-bolt this door before you go on through. You read me?” He glowered at J.B.