Borderlands: Unconquered (13 page)

“I’ve got another idea,” Mordecai interrupted. “How about if I stop my friend Bloodwing here from taking
both
your eyes? One might be enough. He does like to eat both, though. He’s partial to a man’s eyes.”

The prisoner stared. “Your friend
who?”

Mordecai smiled thinly and opened the door of the jail cell. He whistled, and Bloodwing flapped into the cell and landed on his outstretched hand. It cocked its head to eye the prisoner hungrily.

The prisoner recoiled into a corner. “What
is
that thing?”

“It eats carrion, and it doesn’t care,” Mordecai said, “if the carrion is alive or dead.”

“Can there be living carrion?” Dakes asked,
as if academically curious.

“There can be, in this case. So—” Mordecai smiled coldly at the prisoner. “Which eye do you want to lose first? Left or right? Your choice.”

Roland winced at this. Torture was not his style. But he knew that Mordecai was largely bluffing. He’d maim anyone who was trying to kill him, but an unarmed man in a cell? No, he wouldn’t really order Bloodwing to rip a man’s
eyes out under those conditions.

Or would he?

The prisoner swallowed hard, and Roland could see him working up his courage. He spat at Bloodwing, which squawked and snapped its beak with a clack.

The prisoner snarled, “Go to the pit of darkness and rot there! I’ll twist that thing’s neck if it gets anywhere near me!”

Mordecai sighed and murmured something to Bloodwing, something inaudible
to Roland. Bloodwing sprang into the air and immediately dove at the prisoner, who flailed his arms to keep Bloodwing back. Bloodwing hovered, flapping its wings rapidly, deftly avoiding the man’s hands, then pointed its wings at the ceiling so that it dropped at the prisoner’s face and dug its talons deeply into the skin just over the Psycho’s right eye. The prisoner grabbed at Bloodwing, but it
performed a remarkably adroit twist with its entire body, pushing off the bloodied face to leap into the air, out of reach. It screeched mockingly, flying over to light on Mordecai’s shoulder.

“You
missed
his eye, Bloodwing, you only got close to it,” Mordecai said chidingly.

Bloodwing ducked its head as if in sorrow and shrugged.

The prisoner was furiously wiping blood from his eyes. Mordecai
grunted and said, “Well, one more time, then. This time, see if you can get both
eyes, really rip them up good—I know you can do it! This is a great training opportunity, Bloodwing!”

“No no no!” the prisoner screamed. “I’ll tell you! It doesn’t matter, because you can’t stop her! Gynella’s just waiting for her new commander. She’s waitin’ for Smartun, and when he gets here he’s gonna take the
whole place down. And Gynella’s gonna waltz in here, and she’s gonna take her pick of the prisoners, and Dr. Vialle’s gonna use some for experiments, and she’ll use some for slaves to help build stuff, and they’ll kill anybody that resists, and if there’s women or girls, they’ll be given as prizes to the soldiers for good behavior—”

“Good
behavior
!” Dakes burst out, laughing and shaking his head.
“Oh, for the Angel’s sake.”

“Obedience to her is good behavior!” the Psycho prisoner insisted, pointing a filthy, bloody finger at them. “And you’d better obey the General Goddess! Because she’s going to come here, and she’ll tear you right in half! I
promise
you she will! Why, she could kill any one of you
personally
! There’s a reason we call her Goddess! She has the power in her hands to take
a man to heaven! And she has the power to take his life—” He snapped his fingers. “Like that! And she’s coming to you, to destroy you or enslave you. And you can’t stop her. Because she is the vengeful soul of this world!” He
tittered madly and howled, “She is the vengeful soul of Pandora!”

•  •  •

They were standing in front of the mine entrances in Bloodrust Corners—Roland, Mordecai, and Dakes—as
the dusk gathered and the sky got slowly more gloomy. “That’s one of our kill-mechs,” Dakes said, pointing at a big tri-wheel robot trundling by, the mech shaped like a cylinder with arms. It was a little taller than Roland, and it had a ring of sensors all the way around its cylinder, near the top; from its upper sides extended long mechanical arms, one ending in a rifle that had been built
seamlessly into its metal forearm, the other ending in a jackhammer. Behind it came a much smaller robot, a Claptrap, jigging as if dancing as it came, singing to itself in an artificial tenor,

“I gotta program that lets me sing

Everybody oughta try this thing

I gotta chip that lets me dance

Come on baby take a chance.”

Despite amusing itself with song and dance,
the Claptrap seemed to be directing the mech in some way.

“Unit seven,” Dakes told the Claptrap. “See that mech gets charged and serviced quick as possible. We don’t know when the attack might come!”

“Gotcha, boss! Gotcha, I’m on it! I gotta program that lets me sing . . .” The robots trundled past.

“Glad that big mech’s on our side,” Mordecai said. “How many do you have?”

“Only three mechs
programmed for fighting,” said a woman’s voice. Roland turned to see a young black woman striding confidently up to them, a look of amused curiosity on her face.

Dakes smiled, seeing her. “Ah, here’s my daughter. Roland, Mordecai, this is Glory.”

“Sure is,” Mordecai muttered. He winced when Roland gave him a shot in the ribs with his elbow.

But both he and Roland were staring at Glory, Dakes’s
beautiful daughter, a shapely, poised, young woman, wavy dark hair tied back, eyes set off by white eyeliner. She wore shorts on her taut, muscular legs; a desert camouflage top tied off over her belly; on her hip was an Atlas pistol, and she wore large miner’s boots, but they somehow didn’t spoil the effect.

Glory was staring at Roland. “Hi,” she said. “You’re Roland, yeah?”

Roland was surprised.
“Yeah. Your dad tell you?”

“Naw, it’s a . . . well, people talk about you.” She seemed a little embarrassed and turned to flash a smile at Mordecai. “You’d be Mordecai, I bet. I’ve heard about you too. Maybe you could teach some of us how to shoot better.”

“I’d give you lessons anytime,” Mordecai said. Then he quickly added, “In shooting.”

“You going to join our little town here?” she asked,
looking back and forth between them—but her eyes lingered on Roland.

“I, uh . . .” Mordecai began. “Well, I
could
consider it, actually . . .” He tore his gaze from Glory and pointed at the mines. “So, these mine shafts all finish in dead ends? I mean, suppose you got to give up this outpost for a while? How do you retreat? That prisoner made it clear Gynella’s not letting anyone go. It’s either
die or surrender to slavery. So if we can’t beat ’em, how do we get away from ’em?”

Roland looked at him, not sure what he meant. “What’s that got to do with the mine?”

But Dakes was nodding. He spoke in a low voice. “Yes. That center mine, there, connects with a cavern. And there is a way out to a canyon, a little farther south, through that cavern. But it’s a narrow way—and anyhow we don’t
want to just give up what we’ve worked for here.”

Roland shrugged. “If it comes to that, this place could be retaken later, like Mordecai says. You’ve got money from all this. You could hire mercenaries.”

“Mercenaries,” said Glory, her face clouding, “are scum.”

Dakes put a protective arm around his daughter. “She had a bad encounter with a merc. But she waited her chance—he’s buried outside
the walls.”

“Not all mercenaries are quite the same,” Roland said softly. “Anyhow, I think you ought to have a plan B, if this thing goes sour here.”

“You’re
here now,” Glory said, looking at Roland. “Now I’ve got more hope.”

Mordecai rolled his eyes, and Bloodwing rolled its.

Voices drew their attention to the nearest mine entrance. Four tired-looking men shuffled out, talking wearily, all
wearing miner’s coveralls, energy-charged mining jackhammers in their hands. They were followed by a cylindrical mech lacking the rifle arm, pushing a cart of gem-bearing ore.

One of the men, the youngest, a pale, dirt-smudged man with a thatch of brown hair, paused, seeing Glory, then hurried over to her, wiping dirt off his face with his free hand.

“Hi,” he said. “What’s going on?” He frowned,
looking Roland and Mordecai over, taking in their weapons and their innate spring-coiled wariness.

“This is one of our engineers—we call him Lucky,” Dakes said, nodding at the young man. Roland could see by the warmth in Dakes’s eyes that Glory’s father liked Lucky. “He’s foreman of mine number one, there. Lucky, this is Roland and Mordecai. They broke through Gynella’s lines out there while
you were down below. Did some real damage. Mordecai got something out of that prisoner.” Dakes looked at Roland. “Lucky here’s
the one who caught the prisoner. He snuck out at night, and dragged him back. Almost got shot doing it.”

Lucky turned to Glory. “You guys sure these mercenary types are . . . trustworthy?”

He shot Roland and Mordecai a hard glance, as if daring them to take offense.

“Dad’s a good judge of character,” Glory said. Her eyes softened when she looked at Lucky. “You oughta go clean up, get something to eat.”

“Come over to our place,” Dakes said. “We’ll give you dinner, Lucky. We all need to eat. I’ve gotta feeling we’re going to need our strength.” He turned to Roland. “You both are invited too.”

Roland nodded. “Thanks.”

Dakes pointed at a hut. “That little place
is empty. You can bunk there for now. We’ll talk at dinner. About . . . what Mordecai suggested. I don’t incline that way, but no reason to not have options.”

He nodded at them and walked off with Glory, his arm around her, the two of them talking in low tones. Roland could see how strong their relationship was in their relaxed body language.

Something in him ached. What would it be like to
have children? To have a daughter like that?

He shook his head.
Ridiculous.

“So, you two,” Lucky said, hefting his jackhammer. “Where’d you come from before here?”

Mordecai pointed. “That way.” He seemed annoyed by Lucky’s obvious mistrust.

But Roland didn’t blame the young miner. “We’re not sure we’re staying,” Roland said. “But we’re not going to do you any harm. We already cut down the
odds against you people out there. We’ll do what we can—if we decide to stay here.”

“Don’t do us any favors,” Lucky said. “We’ll do all right without your type.” And he walked away.

Mordecai looked after him and snorted. “He doesn’t trust us. It’s jealousy, is what it is,” he whispered to Roland. “He’s into that girl, Glory. Big-time.”

“Is he? Real perceptive of you, Mordecai,” Roland said
dryly. “Almost as hard to see as that goddamn beard on your chin that nearly puts people’s eyes out.”

“Very funny. Well, anyhow, it’s obvious what we have to do. Get out through that center mine, there. We’ll go out through the cavern, and we’ll have to steal an outrunner somewhere, or hire one, and then . . . what?” He lifted his goggles from his eyes and squinted at Roland. “No! You’re not
really thinking of . . .”

“I don’t know. But it’s a little hard for me to leave these people without any backup at all. They’ve got kids running around in here. Actual—” He stared as a little boy and girl ran by, chasing a Claptrap. “Children.”

“Sure, well, that was their dumb mistake, bringing kids here. I mean, who does that? Kids on this planet?” He shook his head.

“It’s not unheard of.
But I agree, it was foolish.” Roland sighed. “I just don’t see how we can just walk off.”

“You don’t? You just watch me. I’m gonna eat, I’m gonna rest, then I’m getting out of here. With or without you.”

“Okay. But suppose General Gynella finds out about that cavern? Suppose while you’re using it to get out, she uses it to get in?”

S
martun was tired, aching from the long drive in the outrider. But in another way he felt good, driving along with the wind in his face, the engine growling defiance to the world, crossing the Salt Flats in the moonlight, two protective outriders flanking him. It felt good to be away from the Devil’s Footstool, roaming a world once more, on a mission for his mistress, his Goddess . . .

The feeling
of renewed freedom whispered to him, suggesting that he could get away from those idiots Gynella had sent as his bodyguards. He could kill them when they weren’t expecting it, or give them the slip, and he could heave off in another direction entirely—maybe just head full blast to Fyrestone, and then the shabby little spaceport, and just get himself free of this planet entirely. He was sick of
the sight and smell of the
Psycho soldiers. He had some money tucked away in his coat for emergencies.

Pleasant to dream about. But he knew he could never do it.

He could never abandon Gynella. If he tried, he’d only come back on his knees, begging her to forgive him. She’d probably kill him for desertion, then and there, and he wouldn’t blame her at all.