While they exchanged these comments, Krysty was looking around the hall for Jenna. The baron’s wife was nowhere to be seen, which wasn’t what Krysty would have expected from her on the verge of such a battle. But then again, that completely summed up Jenna’s attitude to her husband and to her people.
All the same, the flame-haired woman would have liked to have had Jenna where she could see her for as long as possible, for she was sure that the baron’s wife was holding Dean captive, and she wanted Jenna to have as little time as possible with the boy until they were able to find him.
Mildred, too, was unhappy about unfinished business. Standing beside J.B., she murmured, “John, do you think it would be possible for one of us to stay behind and look for Dean?”
The Armorer tried to hide his surprise. “How the fireblasted hell would we work that?”
“I don’t know, but if only Jenna and Harvey know what’s happened to Dean, they couldn’t say much about another one of us going missing without giving themselves away.”
“I suppose so,” the Armorer muttered in reply, polishing his spectacles before placing them back on the bridge of his tanned and scarred nose. “But with all these people around, you’ve left it a bit late to just slip away. We’re going to have to roll with this.”
Meanwhile, Alien was outlining the situation to his people, skimming over the potential destructiveness of the nuke in favor of the advantages of getting it away from the muties. He then had Harvey outline the plan of attack—two scouting parties would go in advance of the main group, in order to prevent any outriding parties from Samtvogel spying the main party and taking advance warning back to the ville. Once at the valley, they would surround and attack as soon as they could get in position, using the RPKs and grens to blow an advance path for the first warriors down the slopes and into the heart of the ville. It all seemed straightforward enough, but relied heavily on surprise and not allowing the Sunchildren time to defend their ville. If Harvey had a contingency, then he was keeping it to himself for now…which, to Ryan’s mind, was a bad idea. Any force could only be effective if it had a clear idea of what it was doing.
Then again, it did cross the one-eyed warrior’s mind that this would be the perfect opportunity to “accidentally” get rid of Alien if Harvey and Jenna had any notions of ridding themselves of the baron. Finally, Alien mentioned the disappearance of Dean, asking if anyone had seen the boy since the night before. From the muttered conversations, Ryan and his people gathered that few had any clear recollections at all of the previous night, let alone if they had seen a lad they barely knew.
It was unsatisfactory to leave the situation like that, but Ryan and his companions were forced to let the matter rest. At least, for now…
Chapter Thirteen
It was daylight aboveground. The forest was lit with a radiant, twilight glow that was as bright as the day would ever be. The humidity was intense, and Doc could almost feel the drops of moisture in the air, causing him to wipe his face every few minutes. Moreover, as he breathed, the air seemed to scald his lungs, making him cough. He could almost see the droplets as a fine, drizzling rain around him.
Mildred had hung back to keep an eye on Doc, wary of how the trek would affect him, hitting such humidity so soon after so much alcohol, lack of rest and the psychological stress he had endured when remembering the nuke. Doc was incredibly strong, but had moments of contrasting fragility that meant he always walked a tightrope, balancing precariously. The last thing Mildred wanted was for Doc to fall off the rope at that moment.
They were in the center of the group that marched through the forest, using the well-worn paths. They had already passed the area where the previous day’s firefight had taken place, picking their way over the corpses that were still strewed across the path. The Sunchildren hadn’t returned to claim their dead, and the corpses were already bloated and rotting in the heat, swollen with gases that emerged as moans when the dead meat was touched by a passing foot, making the ordinary ville dwellers jump with fright and the hardened sec men laugh. It helped to relieve the tension for the sec men, who in their view had a whole heap of inexperienced chill fodder to nursemaid, as well as attend to their own task.