Chapter Twenty-Six

 

 

Straub was one of the most evil and dangerous men that Ryan had ever met, in a world that held far more than its share of dangerous and evil men and women.

 

He could visualize Straub without any trouble, recalling every detail of dress and appearance. He was about fifty years old, slender, a touch over six feet tall. His head was shaved clean, and he wore a large opal in his right ear and had a gold tooth at the front of his mouth. A beautiful necklace of raw turquoise hung around his throat.

 

He dressed totally in black black shirt, silken, and black jeans with silver rivets; black Western boots, high-heeled, with a silver snake embroidered around them. Straub didn't carry a blaster, but wore a straight-edged razor with a carved ivory handle tucked into a soft leather sheath that hung down the back of his neck.

 

His skin was soft and smooth, like a much younger man's. His voice was low and insistent, a creepy, insinuating sort of voice that set the hairs prickling.

 

But the most remarkable thing about the man called Straub were his eyes.

 

It was possible that they might just have been a very dark brown, but the impression one had was of black,

 

a deep, impenetrable sable with tiny flecks of silver light that seemed to whirl in them.

 

Straub was a successful hypnotist. Using the combination of his voice, his eyes and the whirling silver disk, he seemed able to overcome anyone, however strong their personality and resistance might be.

 

Power was Straub's goal, and he used his wicked and arcane skills to dominate and warp people to his own will.

 

It was Straub who had led the attack on Trader and Abe on that wave-swept, desolate beach some time ago, while Ryan and the others were helpless to assist Trader and his trusty companion. But events had moved on, and Ryan hadn't been able to witness the very last act of the dramatic tragedy and still didn't know whether the two men were actually dead.

 

But Straub would know.

 

And here was his silver hypnotism toy around the throat of a dead muddie, in the wilderness of Tennessee.

 

"It's hardly damaged at all," Mildred said, touching the smooth surface.

 

"Means that they took it off someone recently. Mebbe off Straub himself." Ryan rubbed a finger along the line of his chin. "Just a chance they have him prisoner. Lot of muties keep their captives awhile for sporting or sacrifice. Could even be planning to eat him." He stared down the ridge, where they could make out a narrow river. "Camp's that way. Muddies won't be looking for us to pursue them. Let's go take a look."

 

 

 

THEY LOCKED THE WAG, pulling it safely off the furrowed track into a narrow, wooded pullout a hundred yards west of the scene of the ambush.

 

The storm had finally passed on south, the thunder now a monotonous background rumble, the flashes of lightning few and far between. And the rain had stopped, leaving the highway awash with mud and streams. As the clouds cleared, the moon broke its way back through, giving them enough light to move after the muddies at reasonable speed.

 

The trampled trail was clear enough to follow through a lunar landscape of dismal gray pools and scummed ponds, with ragged, tilted trees scattered around.

 

The camp of the muddies was less than two miles into the swamp, in a part that lay under a cloud of thick mist, a stinking, whitish green fog that swirled around Ryan and the others as they crept closer.

 

"Smells primeval," Doc stated. "I wouldn't be that surprised to find dinosaurs browsing among this wilderness."

 

The camp was in an uproar, with the muddies squealing out in their own clicking language, undoubtedly telling one another about the massacre that had just taken place back on the road.

 

Ryan stopped when they were forty or fifty yards from the center of the squalid settlement of stunted thatched huts. "If they're holding Straub, where will that be? Can't go blundering in and search the place. Must be a hundred or more of the little bastards."

 

"Look!" Jak had the best night sight, and he pointed through the coiling tendrils of fog to a row of wooden stakes set in the ground on the far side of the clearing, beyond a smoldering fire. A figure was tied to one of them. Even at that distance it was possible to see that the man had a shaved head.

 

"Him," Ryan breathed. "Looks like he might still be this side of the black river."

 

"We waiting or going in?" J.B. asked. "My feeling is to hit them now, while they're still upset and disorganized."

 

"Agreed," Ryan said. "Jak, you and Krysty head straight for Straub. Cut him free and haul him back to the wag, fast and safe as you can. Rest of us charge at them, blasters firing. Drive them back, then establish a tight defensive perimeter. Hold it for no more than three minutes, maximum. Time for them to get Straub away. We pull in behind them. Loose skirmish, and try and hold the muddies off. Should work."

 

 

 

THE FOG GAVE THEM COVER over the first dangerous yards, and J.B. put the Uzi on full-auto, blasting out a stream of murderous 9 mm rounds that chopped into the heart of the throng of muties. Their little bodies danced and thrashed, tumbling into one another, the powerful blaster cutting off hands and legs. Ryan, Mildred and Doc were at J.B.'s side, picking their targets with more care, the Le Mat erupting in a cloud of black-powder smoke, with its 18-gauge shotgun round blowing a hole in the muddies ranks.

 

The dwarfish muties fled their village, vanishing and splashing into the pools and the fog behind the settlement.

 

Ryan set the perimeter along the rear of the last row of huts, with Doc on his left and J.B. and Mildred on the right. Behind him, he glanced over his shoulder to make sure that Jak and Krysty had gotten through unharmed. They were kneeling by the row of torture stakes, working at severing the rawhide cords that tied the prisoner.

 

The numbers raced on the wrist chron. "Two minutes and ten seconds," he called.

 

A spear came from the mist, its flaked stone point digging into the dirt a yard or so from Ryan. He fired a couple of aimless shots into the gloom, but heard nothing.

 

"Got him, lover," Krysty yelled. "Unconscious. But it's Straub. Leaving with him now."

 

"One minute thirty-five," Ryan shouted. "Everyone still all right?"

 

The three friends confirmed that none of them had been harmed.

 

"Forty seconds. Looks like they're gathering out there. I can see them by that fallen mangrove."

 

Ryan didn't want to have to fight a running rearguard action all the way back to the highway, carrying an unconscious Straub, the vengeful muddies gathering at their heels.

 

More spears were thrown, one of them so close to Mildred that she had to parry it with her left arm. Somewhere in the rolling fog, a number of drums had started beating.

 

"I fear that they are gathering courage to attack us," Doc said. "Either that or they are summoning King Kong from his mountain fastness."

 

If it hadn't been for the rain soaking the crude huts, Ryan would have tried to start a diversionary fire.

 

On the spur of the moment he changed his plan. "Wait for them," he said. "If they want to summon up their nerve and try and charge us, then we let them. We got the firepower to hold them off at least one more time without blowing all the ammo. Beat them back, and they'll think a long time before they try us again. That's when we pull out and support Krysty and Jak back to the wag."

 

The drumming was growing louder, closer, the noise only slightly muffled by the thickening fog, and they could now hear a rhythmic chanting as the muddies worked themselves up to attack the outlanders.

 

Ryan glanced once more at the wrist chron, seeing Krysty and Jak already had a lead of nearly five minutes. Two miles across poor terrain would take a good half hour. Probably half as long as that again if they had to help Straub.

 

"Coming," J.B. said, setting the Uzi back onto single shot, aiming and firing carefully at the line of stocky figures that was creeping from the wall of mist.

 

Despite the poor light and the numbers of the muties, Ryan never felt that they were in serious danger. The blasters kept the muddies out of viable range for spears and knives, and the bodies dropped with a relentless regularity. There was time to pick a target and aim and fire, and even Doc, not the greatest marksman, was able to make good use of the revolver rounds of the Le Mat.

 

"This is plain and simple murder," the old man complained. "Why do they not retire and save themselves from further slaughter at our hands?"

 

"Because they got brains the size of peanuts," J.B. replied, slapping in another mag.

 

"They're folding," Mildred said. "Stop firing."

 

Ryan ignored her taking over his role by issuing such a command. She was right, and there was no point in making any kind of issue of it. The gunfire ceased and the swamps became quieter, with only weeping and cries from some of the wounded muddies lying twisting in the watery mud.

 

The drumming had stopped.

 

"Lets go," Ryan said. "Quick and quiet."

 

 

 

THERE WAS NO SOUND of pursuit, and they quickly caught up with Krysty and Jak, who were dragging the semiconscious prisoner between them. Ryan glanced at the bald-headed figure, making sure that it really was the infamous Straub that they'd taken the trouble to rescue. Just for a moment he wasn't certain, as the face was lined and pinched and seemed years older.

 

But the lids blinked open, showing the familiar black eyes, rolling and trying to focus. The mouth sagged, showing the tip of the reptilian tongue.

 

"The countess will thank you for saving her servant," he said in his unforgettably deep, rich voice. Then his eyes closed again and he slumped back, unconscious.

 

 

 

THE WAG WAS STILL THERE, safe and snug, and they slid Straub into the back seat, where Mildred sat with him. Ryan took the wheel, with Krysty at his side, and the others crowded into the middle seat of the vehicle.

 

The engine started and Ryan slid it into low gear, aware that the walking and fighting in the swamps had strained the wound in his thigh, leaving him with a dull ache. But it seemed to be healing well.

 

"Memphis and the countess," he said.

 

 

 

DAWN FOUND THEM out of the swamps, into a part of the state that looked relatively unchanged. A rolling green plain, with the blackened scar of a nameless township, squatted mute and dead a couple of miles to their north. Ahead the land rose slightly toward bluffs, and they found a beautiful narrow river flowing fast alongside the highway.

 

"Can we take a break?" Mildred asked. "Straub could do with some water. He's slipping in and out of consciousness. Be good to stabilize him."

 

"Sure," Ryan agreed, pulling onto a patch of lush grass, switching the engine off and throwing open the door to let in the fresh, cool morning air.

 

 

Straub was placed on his back while Mildred used a wet rag to wash his face and hands, trickling water into his open mouth. The man was barefoot, dressed in his usual black shirt and pants, though the encounter with the muddies had left them torn and crusted with dried blood.

 

"Looks in a poor state," Krysty observed. "Not the man he was when we saw him last."

 

The jewelry was gone, including the opal earring, which wasn't surprising, and there was a gap where the gold tooth had been knocked out. Ryan had already checked to make sure the man wasn't wearing any kind of concealed weapon, but he was clean. Presumably the muddies had stripped him of the ivory-hafted razor that he used to carry.

 

Straub's skin was very pale, and he'd lost a fair bit of weight, looking to be around one-thirty pounds. As they stood around him, the man's dark eyes opened again, and he looked up at the circle of his old enemies.

 

A slight smile curled his lips. "It wasn't a dream," he said. "I was taken by those grotesque little bastards and was preparing myself to die at their cruel claws. Then I was plucked away amid gunfire and darkness. And who should it be?" He looked puzzled. "The names escape me. Brian?"

 

"Ryan."

 

"Yes. Ryan Cordell."

 

"Cawdor." He wondered how much of this was genuine memory loss. It just didn't ring true with such a devious and cunning man as Straub.

 

"And Krysty Wroth. J. Dix."

 

"Dix. J. B. Dix," the Armorer said. "Come off it, Straub. You can't have forgotten. Not that long."

 

"You others" He shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I've been through changes since we last met. Where was that? On the Greasy Grass of Montana? The red cliffs of Big Bend by the Grandee? In the haunted ruins of Los Alamos? I was there for some time, seeing what I could learn in those sterile, ticking corridors. But I've forgotten all of that, as well. I am grateful for your saving me from death, and the Countess Katya, who I serve willingly as her slave, will reward you."

 

"This is Jak Lauren, Mildred Wyeth and Doc Tanner," Ryan said. "We met before. Last time we saw you was on a cold beach, and you were attacking a good friend of ours. What happened to him?"

 

"Who?"

 

"Trader. Fireblast! Why are you playing this stupe game with us, Straub?"

 

The head shook slowly, and he seemed genuinely puzzled. "Never heard of this Trader. But since joining the countess, she's taught me to remember only what's important. What she wants is important. Nothing else. She edited my memory, marked me as hers and changed my body so that I no longer needed to be weak in lust."

 

He fumbled with his shirt, pulling it open.

 

"By the Three Kennedys!" Doc gasped. "What kind of?"

 

Straub's body was covered in tattoos. Silver chains had been etched around his wrists, around his arms, circling his chest. Both nipples had been pierced with steel rings, and a length of glittering chain linked them.

 

"She did that?" Ryan asked. "The countess did that and you let her?"

 

Straub rolled onto his stomach, smiling in delight at their reaction. "See how she claims me."

 

"I am the humble and valueless property of the Countess Katya, who may dispose of me in any way she wishes when I am no longer of use to her."

 

The words were tattooed in flowery letters of crimson, green and rich cobalt, covering him from shoulder to shoulder, down to his waist.

 

"Those are whip scars, lover," Krysty whispered, pointing to the seamed and welted surface of the man's skin.

 

Straub ignored their shock and horror. "But see how she rewarded me for a failure. I wasn't able to fulfill her deepest wish, so she has done this"

 

He pulled down his pants, revealing his naked loins to their eyes.

 

He had been emasculated, his penis and genitals sliced away, leaving a neat, puckered scar and a narrow incision that also carried two silver rings and a linking chain.

 

"Dark night," J.B. whispered. "She did that?"

 

Straub giggled, and they all realized with a frisson of disgust that the man was now mad, his once-brilliant brain tilted by whatever had been done to him.

 

"She did," he said. "And we're close to her ville, so you can all meet her very soon."

 

"That'll be interesting," Krysty said. "I can hardly wait."