The mutie leader had been considered a congenital idiot, and perhaps he was: but not so much that he couldn’t sidle up to Alien in battle. Before the baron had a chance to chill him, he hissed, “Big chill come your way soon.” And even as Alien leveled his blaster, the mutie leader was gone.
Ryan was close enough to hear, and wondered what the mutie meant by his statement. But that was for later. Now there was chill or be chilled.
The battle was over as soon as it had begun.
“Leave them,” Alien roared as a few of the sec men turned to pursue the straggling stickies who were able to make their escape. “There has been enough slaughter. Let’s collect ourselves and return home. They won’t come back in a hurry.”
Ryan gave the baron a quizzical look. Would he mention the mutie’s threat to Harvey later, when they had privacy?
Even as the baron spoke, Mildred began the task of attending to the wounded. There were two sec men with blaster wounds, four who had knife wounds of varying degrees, one of who would need to be carried home, and twelve minor bite-and-scratch lesions. Blake was one of these, with two scratches on his face and a bite out of his left arm. Jak also had scratches on his face and on his neck, the red weals standing out ugly on his white skin.
“Hey, Jak, think those’ll turn us into stickies?” the sec man joked.
“Chill me if fingers start to suck,” the albino returned good humoredly. He admired the way the sec man fought, and felt a rare trust to have the wizened warrior at his back.
Alien took one end of the improvised stretcher holding the seriously wounded sec man. “Come, let’s return,” he said simply.
Ryan, admiring the way the baron automatically took the load, grabbed the other end of the stretcher and followed Alien as he led the way back.
The one-eyed warrior pondered Sunchild’s warning, and also the dark glances Harvey received from J.B. and Mildred. Things were perhaps coming to a crossroads.
Chapter Eleven
There were celebrations in Raw when Alien returned with his sec force. Celebrations that were obviously muted for the baron by the injury to one of his men. While the majority of the ville celebrated in the central hall with the help of their local brew and a band of musicians whose sobriety and ability to keep in tune was severely called into question by the end of the proceedings, the baron was at one point noticeable by his absence.
The reserve that the majority of the inhabitants of Raw had held for Ryan and his people evaporated on the strength of their performance during the firefight with the mutie raiding party. Blake in particular, his arm around Jak partly from comradeship and partly from the need to hold himself upright, was vociferous in retelling the events of the day.
There was no mention of the fact that Harvey had attempted to hold his men back from the attack, although J.B. did notice that Downey and Rankine, after an intense discussion, had thrown a few askance glances in the direction of the sec chief. It was something worth noting for later, something he would discuss with Ryan. That was, if he could find his friend and leader.
Ryan had slipped away from the celebration. He had noticed Alien exchange a few words with Jenna, who had nodded dismissively, before the baron had unobtrusively left the proceedings.
The one-eyed warrior was curious: why would a victorious baron wish to leave a celebration that was basically in his honor? Following him to find out would leave Ryan open to trouble if he was caught, and the baron had slipped away for some reason that was dangerous to himself and his companions. But if it wasn’t, then Ryan was sure he could talk his way out of trouble. Ryan had more to his armory than his fighting skills.
The baron moved through the near deserted corridors of the subterranean ville, his ceremonial cloak of faded, wine-stained damask billowing behind him, his hair moving in rhythm with the heavy tread of his bulky frame. Only those citizens with vital tasks to perform weren’t in the main hall, and the baron greeted them cordially as he passed. They returned his greeting, then quizzically viewed Ryan as he followed a few yards behind. He made no attempt to conceal himself, as that would only have been ridiculous given the geography of the ville.