“Is it Ryan?” Mildred asked, knowing that J.B. would be with him. The men were brothers in everything but name.
“No, it’s Jak.” Krysty frowned. “I can faintly hear something about the albino outlander going up against Big Mike.”
There sounded a large roar from the crowd.
“Local fans like the idea,” Mildred said, furrowing her brow, knowing that arena fights were never fair and always deadly. All of the companions had fought their share.
Looking down, she saw the ground was only two stories below. An easy climb, even as sore as the women were. She ached in places that had never ached before, and her back felt stiff from the drying blood of those scratches. Mildred only hoped the abrasions didn’t go septic. Her med kit wasn’t in the room.
“We’ve got to try to help him,” Mildred said, closing the shutters. Going to a side window, she found that one overlooked an alleyway. Perfect.
“Better hide our trail first,” Krysty advised.
Going back inside, Mildred saw the madam try to rise from the crimson-stained floor and collapsed back down, the floorboards shaking from the impact.
“Might get some folks checking on her soon,” Krysty said.
“Get that jug of shine,” Mildred stated, taking the armoire and shoving it in front of the door. The cabinet wasn’t that heavy, but it should buy them some time.
Already, Krysty was pouring the shine on the floor and walls. Mildred yanked the dirty sheets off the bed and ripped them into long strips, which she then knotted into a crude rope. Meanwhile, Krysty poured all of the excess black powder on the floor and removed the corks from the unused bottles of shine and placed them carefully on top of the loose powder. Tying one end of the rope to a bedpost, Mildred tossed the other end out the window and started climbing down into the alley.
Close behind her, Krysty placed a closed bottle of shine on the window ledge and shimmied down next. Reaching the ground, she lit the rope with her butane lighter and it promptly caught, the flames licking up the rope to reach the sealed bottle of homebrew. After only a few moments, it burst apart, sending pieces of glass and burning shine everywhere. There was a brief pause before there was a whoosh, and blue flames began to lick out the open window. Mildred nodded. Good enough.
Moving quickly, the women darted down the alleyway, trying to keep out of sight as they headed for the arena. But turning a corner, Krysty and Mildred found themselves facing a squad of sec men lounging against a wall and smoking hand-rolled green cigars.
“And who the fuck are you two, strangers?” the sergeant demanded, glaring suspiciously over his smoldering stogie.
ONLY A FEW BLOCKS away, the line of chained slaves moved through a short dark tunnel toward death, step by grueling step. For Jak, the throbbing of his sprained ankle was worse than ever since the pirates had removed the bandage to see if it was hiding a weapon.
The curved walls of the concrete passageway were battered and in disrepair, water stains edged with black mildew and greenish-blue molds, with tiny yellow flowers. One of the slaves before him plucked a flower and sniffed its delicate perfume. Poor bastard. If he survived these contests, or whatever they were heading for, he’d be sorry he touched that flower. It was wart rot, nasty stuff Jak had encountered in the bayou. The mold consumed human flesh, invading your entire body until the victim fell to the ground and burst apart, a loose flap of crumbling skin jammed full of greenish-blue mold. As the line shuffled past a particularly dense patch, Jak held his breath, then breathed through his shirt. Hopefully, that would be enough.
“Next!” a gruff voice called out, and the line of old men, blind teenagers and crippled children surged forward once more.
One of the first things Jak noticed was there were no women in the group. But then, old, blind or cripple, the pirates had a use for any woman.
Chained at the neck and ankles, hands tied, there was little Jak could do about escaping until it was his turn at the head of the line. His blaster and knives were gone, and while he had something in his boot, it would take forever to get it out with tied hands. No, that old trick of the Trader would be of no use to the teenager this day. He wondered if it would be single combat with an armed opponent or a simple execution? But he didn’t hear any blasterfire, so the entertainment was most likely not a firing squad. That was both good and bad.