“Now nobody will doubt any story you tell them,” the one-eyed man replied, and moved out the door into the night. The ville was quiet, the darkness lying over the trailers like a thick blanket.
Few people were moving about on the streets, and the companions stayed in the shadows as much as possible. They backtracked out of the moonlight when a squad of armed troopers ran by, heading for the front gate. The men were armed with flintlock pistols, crossbows and nets. An unnerving sight those. It meant they wanted to capture the companions alive.
“Looks like he was telling the truth,” Dean muttered.
“Could be,” his father replied tersely. “But he betrayed his own baron to repay us, so who’s to say he didn’t do the same thing to us for some other reason? Trust nobody.”
“Not even the dead,” Dean said, finishing the old saying. “I remember.”
“Gaia, watch over us this night,” Krysty said to the sky, and distant thunder seemed to rumble in reply. But whether that was an agreement or denial, there was no way to know.
There were bright lights and drunken singing coming from the gaudy house, and as they passed by a window opened, somebody relieving himself into the street.
“Ah, civilization,” Doc mumbled under his breath.
Easily avoiding some people hurrying to their trailers, Ryan led them on a circular path to finally reach the baron’s home from the other side. Crouching, they hid in some bushes while a contingent of guards and sailors marched past, long-blasters cradled in their arms. Baron Thayer was in the squad, as was a stranger in the livery of the lord baron. Ryan frowned. So that was Glassman, their new hunter. The Deathlands warrior didn’t know what happened to Brandon, but he hoped it was painful and lasting. They would have been long gone if not for the sec man’s interference.
“I do not see the latrine,” Doc rumbled, squinting into the darkness.
“Me neither,” Krysty said, her eyes held open wide, taking in the night around them.
Ryan was forced to agree. Even with the pale moonlight coming through the clouds, he still couldn’t see much of anything. However, the ville was becoming well lighted, torches burning on every corner. Oddly, the palace was still masked by the night. To lure them there? Could be.
Just then a couple of sec men walked slowly by, speaking softly, longblasters resting on their shoulders.
“Let’s ask for directions,” Ryan whispered, drawing the panga.
Jak pulled out a leaf-bladed knife, and the men moved, sliding up behind the sec men. Ryan placed the curved blade of the panga around the throat of one, the touch of the cold steel making the man freeze motionless. Jak thrust his blade into the head of the second man, just to the right of the spine where it joined the skull. The man stopped moving instantly, then the teenager twisted the blade and the sec man exhaled once, sliding to the dirt as if his bones had turned into water.
“Cry out, and you’re chilled,” Ryan whispered in the sec man’s ear. “Now drop it.”
The blaster fell to the grass.
“Okay, where is the baron’s private latrine?”
“The what?” the guards whispered, acting confused.
Jak stabbed the man in the upper arm, then grabbed the fresh wound and squeezed. The sec man inhaled sharply, tears coming to his eyes before the teen finally let go.
“You bastards,” the guard panted, his face ashen white.
“Not what I want to know,” Ryan said in a dangerous voice, and Jak tightened his grip again, blood welling between his strong fingers.
The sec men broke into a sweat. “Okay, okay! No more! It’s past the horse corral, behind the woodpile.”
Ryan maintained his position while Jak disappeared into the darkness to return a few minutes later and showed a thumb.
“You get to live,” Ryan said, when the guard unexpectedly broke free and spun with a blade in his palm. He slashed for Ryan’s belly, but the man swayed out of the way and Jak buried his blade into the guard’s left kidney. Caught in the middle of a shout, the sec man could only gasp from the pain, and Ryan kicked the doubled-over man directly in the face. Bones audibly crunching from the strike, the guard fell sprawling, a hand clawing madly for his dropped blaster.