“This isn’t Cascade,” J.B. stated, fumbling in the shadows to check his boots. The laces were still tied. He glanced at Ryan and they nodded. A moment of privacy was all they needed.
“Indeed not, John Barrymore,” Doc agreed, tucking his legs together in a yoga position. “And if we had been taken by Mitchum and Glassman, they would surely be standing alongside to gloat. This must be some unknown ville on the island.”
“A secret ville on Forbidden Island,” Ryan muttered thoughtfully. Then loudly said, “Could be throwbacks, or even pirates.”
“We’re pirates!” boomed a voice from the front of the cage. “The true rulers of the world! Now shut up.”
Going to the front of the cage, Ryan reached through as far as he could with his tied hands and tugged on the dangling coat of the unseen man driving the horse and cart.
“Hey!” a voice called out. “Do that again, and I’ll use the whip! The baron wants you alive, but he never said undamaged. So be still!”
Alive, eh? “Fuck that crap,” Ryan snarled, attempting to check the man’s reactions. “Tell me where you’re taking us, or I’ll rip out your guts with my bare hands!”
“Ain’t telling you shit,” the driver snapped, and lashed down with a whip.
Ryan yanked his hands away from the bars just in time to miss losing flesh. The man was fast, and serious. A dangerous opponent.
“We can pay,” J.B. said from the other side. “I know the formula for”
“Nukeshit,” the driver interrupted. “You know shit, and you got shit, so don’t give me no shit. You belong to his nibs, and that means you’re dead. What can a dead man give me?”
Then he roared in laughter and pulled out a 9 mm Heckler amp; Koch Waster. “Besides, I already got your blaster!”
Retreating to the center of the cage, the companions rode through the bumps as the cart rolled up a short flight of stone steps and onto an older street made of cobblestones, the granite pegs worn smooth by the passage of the years.
Suddenly a mob of children shrieked in delight at the arrival of the cage and started pelting the prisoners with stones. The men moved quickly into a huddle to protect their faces, and grunted with the impact of every hard-thrown rock. The driver allowed it for a while, then whipped the brats away.
As the men released one another, they could now observe that this was a much nicer section of the ville. The houses were bigger, and many had glass in their window frames. There were no more farmers selling in the street, and the men and women slowly walking by were dressed in fine clothes with no patches, boots polished, faces well fed. Only the men wore the wide leather belts of a sailor, but both sexes carried blasters on their hips. Often they had liveried servants carrying parcels, or holding umbrellas to keep the sun off their fancy masters.
“Officers quarters,” Ryan said.
The horses whinnied as the driver took them up an inclined road, to crest onto a higher level. Here the road was made of redbrick, and the cart wheeled past a yard-tall stone wall lined with heavy cannons, mounds of cannonballs and bags of powder placed close nearby. The gunners stared at the passing prisoners, laughing and making crude comments. Each man wore a wide leather belt with a short sword thrust through. Many were barefoot, with rags tied about their heads to keep the wind from blowing hair into eyes. No lacy dandies here-these were fighting men, the defenders of the ville.
Rubbing a rock bruise on his shoulder, Ryan guessed it was these guards who fired cannons at the Pegasus when it arrived. He looked them over carefully, but saw no signs of recent scratches on their faces. Maybe Krysty, Jak and Mildred slipped free and were safe in the jungle. But there was no way of telling without giving away their presence on the island fortress. He would have to play this very carefully, or they’d all go under the yoke.
More buildings moved past the companions, sturdy structures of brick and concrete, most with sandbags lining the roofs as protection from incoming cannonballs. No children were in sight here, no peddlers, or dogs, and Ryan knew they had reached the heart of the ville. The baron’s fortress.