Chapter Nineteen

 

 

The final port was in the northwest section of New London. The sun was setting when Doc and Jak arrived, spreading a pool of orange and gold across the rolling, whitecapped waves of the green ocean. They'd already been through three other port areas, two of them bigger than this one. New areas had become necessary as the ville spread and the population increased along with the trade.

 

Ships lined the docks, from small rowboats to large freighters that had to have been used to haul goods and people across from the islands to the mainland. Doc recognized a number of languages spoken by the sailors and dockhands, but the majority were English.

 

Jak remained at his side, though the albino made it clear that he thought they should have given up the chase. He kept his hands out of sight near his clothing, but there was slim chance that his fingers weren't within an inch of one of his blades at all times.

 

Doc breathed hard, his lungs laboring to keep up with the physical demands he'd placed on his body. He paused at the railing. Spotting a man hobbling along on a wooden leg that looked handcarved and splintered from rough use, Doc yelled over to him. "Sailor."

 

The man glared in his direction.

 

"I have a question, my good man, and I think you should be able to help me."

 

"Got no reason to," the sailor said gruffly, resuming his stride and moving away from the old man.

 

Doc slipped a silver coin from his purse. He flipped it toward the sailor with his thumb and offered an encouraging smile. "I did not mean to imply that I was going to take liberties with your time. I shall gladly pay."

 

The sailor bit the coin experimentally and seemed satisfied. He made the coin disappear. "If I can."

 

"Long Johnson's vessel," Doc said. "Where is she?"

 

The sailor turned around and pointed out to sea. "There. Call her the Tail Twister . Bastard's got a dark sense of humor about him. Course, you'd have to know about his appetites to understand the nature of the joke."

 

"I just saw him at the Globe," Doc said. "However, I did not get the chance to speak with him. The audience became somewhat unruly."

 

The sailor grinned knowingly. "Never been there myself. I don't cotton to that sort of business. But I've heard tell there's a lot can go on." He shaded his eyes against the setting sun. "If you're wanting to talk to Long Johnson, though, mate, you're shit out of luck. The ship's pulling out of port now."

 

Doc turned and scanned for the ship.

 

"There," Jak said, pointing.

 

Following the albino's pointing finger, Doc spotted the ship moving out under full sail, heading north around the outer horns of the port area. "Long Johnson's aboard her?"

 

"That ship," the sailor said, "never goes anywhere without her captain."

 

Gripping the railing, Doc watched the Tail Twister pull away, disappearing into the glare of the sunset. So many unanswered questions danced around inside his head, sucking at his consciousness. What ties bound him to the pirate captain, and what were they to inspire such vehemence? He had no answers.

 

"Doc," Jak said, gently, "staying here's no good. Better we get back with Ryan."

 

"You are right, lad." Doc made himself move away. Already he felt the hot gazes of the cutthroats and robbers who would fill the walks along the port with the hookers once true dark drained the light from the dregs of the day. "There is safety in numbers."

 

But he didn't see how he was going to leave New London without learning more about the pirate captain. And whatever descendants he himself could have had that might have made it through the destruction of this country.

 

 

 

SERGEANT GEORGE CONTE crept out of the shadows near the ville and grabbed the sec man by the face from behind. He administered a cool crimson kiss with his Kabar fighting knife across the man's throat, and held the bucking man while he died.

 

Once the body was totally limp, he dragged the corpse into the brush and laid it out of sight. Squatting next to it, he took time to wipe the blood from his hands.

 

Fifteen yards away Abner Whittaker licked his own blade clean. The little rat man had already accounted for the sentry he'd been assigned to. His grin was thin and frigid.

 

Conte held up a hand, briefly stepped out into the moonlight so he could be seen by the rest of his team, then closed it into a fist and pumped it twice. At a count of three, the six men burst from cover and raced for the ville's wall.

 

Turley, broad and muscular, took the anchor. Henderson, the tallest of the group, scrambled up on top of the private and stood with his boots on the other man's shoulders. When he reached up, he could manage the top of the wall with relative ease.

 

Squatting in the shadows pooled at the bottom of the wall, Conte covered his team with the silenced Hamp;K MP-5 submachine pistol.

 

Whittaker was the next man up, running along the backs of the first two men easily. He vanished over the top of the wall, a shadow ghosting along on an invisible wind. Cruse followed as quickly, but running a slightly larger profile.

 

Conte kept a mental count going in his head. One set of numbers was for the time since they'd taken out the security guards, and the other was for the time they were spending scaling the wall.

 

For a time during the battle along the mountain ridge, the team had lost sight of Cawdor and his people. But the tracks of the vehicles had been easy enough to take up. They'd made the outskirts of the town almost two hours before sundown.

 

After a recce through binoculars, Conte had spotted the dearth of guards hanging around a tavern visible from their vantage point among the trees almost three hundred yards distant. The tavern was called the Bent Rose, and the heavily armed vehicles in front of it looked a lot like the ones that had intercepted Cawdor and his group.

 

It had been enough to warrant further investigation. And if Conte found Cawdor, he fully intended to see the man dead before morning.

 

The vehicle they'd taken themselves from the small redoubt they'd arrived in was secured almost five miles back. Getting around the men on horseback had been tricky, but they'd been focused on the invaders who'd taken Cawdor. During that time Conte had also seen that the green-garbed people had taken the black woman among Cawdor's band prisoner.

 

That was a loose end that would have to be taken care of later. Possibly. From the looks of things, it might only require ascertaining the woman was no longer a threat.

 

Aames went next, vaulting up Turley and Henderson with only a little trouble. He halted at the top long enough to flash Conte the all-clear hand signal, then vanished.

 

Conte broke cover, sliding the Hamp;K MP-5 over his shoulder to hang by its sling. In swift strides he was beside the two men against the wall. Without breaking his rhythm, he climbed up.

 

He lay flat on the roof, resting lightly against the blanket Whittaker had put down to cover the jagged pieces of glass mortised into the stones. A quick glance assured him the three men on the ground had the situation well under control. None of them was visible.

 

Conte reached down and helped Henderson and Turley over the wall. Then he dropped over the edge himself. He held up a hand and signaled his team. Whittaker took up point and Turley brought up the rear, then they were moving down the alleys they'd chosen for their approach on the Bent Rose. In the next few minutes, if everything went well, Ryan Cawdor and his people would be dead and they'd be looking to link back up with Major Burroughs.

 

 

 

"YOU FEELING BETTER?" Ryan looked down at the boy on the bed.

 

"Yes. Thank you." Tarragon lay quietly, one hand against his forehead above his fever-reddened eyes and the other touching the pouch at his neck.

 

"Think you're ready to move?"

 

"We have to, don't we?"

 

Ryan gave it to him straight, laying the ace on the line. "Yeah."

 

"We're in New London, aren't we?" The boy looked around at the walls.

 

Ryan nodded.

 

"I thought so. I've never been inside a building like this except for the abandoned ones farther out from the thorpe." The boy struggled to bring himself to his feet.

 

Ryan reached down and took the boy by the shoulder, steadying him as he brought him into a sitting position.

 

"Have you friends here?" Tarragon asked.

 

Before Ryan could answer, the boy reached up and touched his hand, gripping to bring himself upright. Tarragon's flesh was still hot, but not as hot as it had been. Then an electric charged seemed to ripple through him.

 

"No," the boy said. "I guess you don't. You're strangers to this land." He fixed Ryan with his bloodshot gaze. "The Prince has taken one of your own, and you intend to get her back."

 

Ryan broke the grip and took a step back. "Mutie?" he asked the boy.

 

"I don't recognize the term," Tarragon replied.

 

"The way you know things."

 

The boy hesitated for just a moment. "I've always been different. The Prince has made a habit out of killing anyone who was different, but my father kept me very well hidden."

 

"Your father?" Krysty repeated.

 

The boy nodded. "Foxglove. He was a healer. One of the best. Pepper killed him, though, at Prince Boldt's request."

 

"Have you any other family?" Krysty asked.

 

"None by blood. But there are those who will take me in if I manage the return home."

 

"Why didn't you go to them?" Ryan asked.

 

"I would have endangered them. Pepper and his seed heralds were following too close to me. And Bean."

 

"So you chose to endanger us instead?" Ryan asked.

 

"I thought perhaps you were raiders. If I could get close enough before Pepper and his seed heralds overtook me, I planned to lose them during the skirmish. But by the time I reached you, I'd been wounded and was barely able to stand, let alone escape."

 

Seeing the pain buried deep in the boy, Ryan felt he had to take away some of the brunt of his accusation. "It was a good plan. Mebbe it would have even worked."

 

"They killed Bean before we had the chance to reach you."

 

"We're sorry to hear that," Krysty said.

 

"I'd expected more of you. In numbers, I mean."

 

"Looks like it worked out anyway," Ryan said.

 

Tarragon looked up at him, his eyes filled with old grief and fresh guilt. "Except that the woman in your group is now missing."

 

"What are the chances that she's still alive?" Ryan asked, not pulling any punches. There wasn't time.

 

"They took her alive?"

 

Ryan nodded.

 

"Then the chances are very good. For a time. Prince Boldt usually kills anyone he finds who stands against him."

 

"Why was your father killed? For protecting you?"

 

Tarragon shook his head. "That wasn't discovered until later. Wildroot is fragmenting." The boy shivered.

 

Krysty reached down and pulled the blanket around his shoulders.

 

"Thank you," Tarragon said.

 

"You said Wildroot is fragmenting," Ryan reminded him.

 

"Yes."

 

"What is Wildroot?" Krysty asked.

 

"What they call their ville," Ryan answered. "By fragmenting, you're talking about the rebellion?"

 

The boy nodded. "You know about this?"

 

"Gehrig told me." Ryan knelt and picked up one of the boy's boots. It was knitted of some fibrous growth, the strands thin and seeming to be tough and supple at the same time. He eased the boy's foot into it.

 

"Gehrig?"

 

"The raider captain."

 

"We never knew his name."

 

Once the boot was on, Ryan tied it, trying not to think about the fact that traveling tonight could kill the boy before morning. J.B. was out now procuring horses for their escape. Ryan was still working out the details of that, but he figured with enough plas-ex, anything could be accomplished.

 

"Are you part of the rebellion?" Ryan asked.

 

"My father was." Tarragon lifted his other foot weakly and shoved it into the boot Ryan offered.

 

"That's why he was killed?"

 

"Yes."

 

"Pepper found out."

 

"The Prince did, but he sent Pepper out to kill him."

 

"Is that going to stop the rebellion?" Ryan asked.

 

"No. It can't. Prince Boldt is trying to bring about the Time of the Great Uprooting. If he is successful, it will be the death of us all anyway. Our only chance to live is to destroy him first. Before he can enact it."

 

"What is the Time of the Great Uprooting?" Krysty asked.

 

"It's a plague," Tarragon answered in a voice that was just above a whisper. "It was designed by Prince Boldt's father. It was supposed to be set free in the world in the event the Celtic peoples were threatened from without. The seeds of rebellion were already sown in Wildroot." The boy shook his head. "The Prince's ways are too harsh. Living things need space to grow. He's allowed our people none of that."

 

"Why?" Krysty asked.

 

"To keep our stock true to our roots," Tarragon answered. "So that we may breed true and be the best of what is in our natures."

 

"The people of Wildroot haven't done that."

 

"No. There were some who wanted children of their own instead of the vat-grown offspring Prince Boldt gave out in exchange for hard work and diligence."

 

"So they had them," Krysty said.

 

Ryan looked at his lover and saw that her hair had crept in on itself, lying tight against her scalp. He spared a glance out the window. The only light in the room was a small oil lantern in the back. From where he was standing, the moonlight outside was more revealing.

 

Without electricity the streets below were dark. Light from the front of the Bent Rose spilled out into the avenue and over Gehrig's wags parked outside. The eaves blocked part of the view.

 

Glancing east, Ryan searched for sign of J.B. The Armorer would post a red lantern once he'd secured the horses. Then Ryan and Jak would take care of the rest. Provided the albino and Doc returned any time soon.

 

"Yes," Tarragon said, "they had children. And they loved them. Some, the ones that the Prince could ascertainand even some he wasn't sure ofwere put to death, their bodies burned so that they weren't even allowed the dignity of becoming part of the growth cycle."

 

"Why hasn't anyone chilled this prince?" Ryan asked.

 

"He is too well guarded," the boy replied, "and we have no weapons. No blasters, anyway. The seed heralds know their futures depend on the prince's well-being. If they fall out of his favor, they won't be granted immunity from the plague."

 

"What will the plague do?" Krysty asked.

 

"It's specially designed. My father was able to look at some of the plans for it. He was high up in the Prince's hierarchy. When it is released, the plague will replicate itself, killing everything remotely human that it touches."

 

"Including muties?" Ryan asked. "Some of those can be hard to kill."

 

"Mutations were expected," Tarragon said. "With the amount of nuclear radiation involved in the war, Prince Boldt's father knew the surviving humans would be radically affected. He feared monsters. When the raiders came among us, killing the bands of pollinators and caretakers, and raping the women among them before putting them to death, my people felt certain only the vicious had survived the end of the first world."

 

"That's not always the case," Krysty said.

 

"But more often than not, it is." Ryan wanted the boy to get it straight. "If Boldt releases this plague, how does he plan to survive it?"

 

"There are cryo chambers beneath his castle. He and his chosen few are supposed to go there and wait out the effects of the plague."

 

"How long?"

 

Tarragon shrugged. "A generation. Two. Perhaps longer."

 

"Why didn't your father and the other people dissatisfied with life around Boldt leave?" Krysty asked.

 

Tarragon looked at her, his feverish eyes opened wide. "There is no place to run to that the plague will not reach. It was designed to cover the entire world in a decade or less. Wind-borne, waterborne, even spread by carriers that will later die, it will be everywhere."

 

Ryan felt chill with the knowledge. It wasn't just Mildred in the line of fire now. So was Dean. And so were his friends. "What about an antidote?"

 

"There is none," Tarragon answered hoarsely.

 

 

 

J.B. FOUND ONE of the stable boys leaning over a section of fence inside the barn that had been made from one of the older buildings. He reached out, unseen and unheard, and seized the dozing boy.

 

The stable boy started fighting at once. He was beefy and strong, twenty pounds heavier than the Armorer. But J.B. was relentless. The Armorer kept his grip on the younger man's carotid artery, shutting off blood flow to the brain only long enough to cause unconsciousness and not death. He kept his other hand clapped over his victim's mouth to prevent shouts or screams.

 

When all struggle had died away, J.B. eased the boy to the ground amid the straw covering the concrete floor.

 

The barn housed about forty horses. All of them seemed to be well cared for, and all of them belonged to Gehrig or Gehrig's people. Ryan had found that out during a brief trek down to the kitchens for their evening meal.

 

The structure was dimly lit by oil lanterns that hung on support posts lining the paddocks. Saddles, bridles and blankets hung from shelves on one side of the barn.

 

"O'Neil?" a male voice called out.

 

J.B. froze, his hand gliding to his hip where he kept his flensing knife.

 

"O'Neil, where the bleeding hell are you, mate? I got the bottle."

 

Footsteps came closer as the Armorer took cover beside a paddock. The horse inside whickered and stamped its hooves restlessly.

 

The boy came forward, carrying a whiskey bottle by its neck, the dark liquid sloshing inside and catching light from the lanterns. He looked enough like the other boy that they could have been brothers.

 

Reversing his knife, J.B. waited until the boy had passed him, then stepped out of hiding and brought the hilt of the blade crashing into the boy's temple. He muffled the groan of pain with his free hand, at the same time catching the boy's sudden slack weight.

 

J.B. dragged the second stable hand over by the first. He returned to the saddles and other gear. In minutes he had six horses saddled, tied together and ready for travel. Getting down the alley on one horse while leading five others was going to be no easy thing, but it was worth the risk, since riding out of the ville was a better option than escape on foot. Stealing one of the wags had been an alternative, but Gehrig kept guards posted on them. One of them went missing, the raider captain would know immediately.

 

A hissing cat that had been plundering the garbage bins streaked away as J.B. led the horses through the alley.

 

Then he saw the two shadows moving on the other side of the Bent Rose. He caught only a brief glimpse in the moonlight, but he was sure the man he'd spotted was one of the military people that had followed them into the mat-trans unit in White Sands.

 

Muttering a curse, the Armorer stopped the horses and pulled himself into the saddle, the leather creaking as it took his weight. Taking up the lantern he'd brought, he struck a self-light and lit the wick.

 

When he had the flame burning well on its own, he keyed it up, then wrapped the red homespun napkin he'd stolen from the Bent Rose around the glass. The light turned red. He held it up, looking toward the window where Ryan was.

 

A self-light flared inside the room, briefly tracking illumination over the one-eyed man's face. He shook it out.

 

J.B. waited, hoping. Two self-lights meant that Doc and Jak had returned. There was no other light. And there was no time, because the Armorer knew Burroughs's team was closing in on Ryan.

 

With a quick heave J.B. sent the red-wrapped lantern smashing into the wooden side of a dentist's office. The oil splashed over the dry timber, catching fire with a whoosh.

 

Ryan would know they were up against it now, and the fire might buy them a little time.

 

J.B. kicked his heels into his horse. The animal bolted forward immediately, ready to get away from the spreading fire already twisting up into the upper rafters of the dentist's shop.

 

Behind him J.B. could hear the first strident yells of consternation. By then he was riding hell for leather, guiding the horses into the alley behind the Bent Rose.