Moonfeast (21 page)

Building a litter from tree branches, rope and a horse blanket proved to be no problem. Even dragging the rig along behind, the horses still made good time on the dry land.

Two days later the companions began to recognize some of the landmarks and headed to the south toward the shore. Soon, they caught the refreshing smell of a salty breeze coming off the ocean—along with crackle of multiple blasters, closely followed by the dull thud of a gren.

Quickly taking cover behind a stand of trees, Ryan climbed into the branches and used the Navy telescope to try to find the fighting.

As expected, there were people fighting all over the lagoon—the docks, the Quonset hut, even inside the mouth of the tunnel, even though J.B. had closed it off and the passageway was only about fifty feet deep. Some of the people were bare-chested and covered with tattoos, while the others were dressed in the dark blue uniform of the giant from the volcano.

“It’s the baron and his sec men from the volcano,” Ryan called down, adjusting the focus on the antique longeyes. “They’re fighting a bunch of pirates.”

“Who winning?” Jak asked, brushing the snowy-white hair off his face with the barrel of his Magnum blaster.

“Nobody,” Ryan answered truthfully. Crumpled bodies from both sides were strewed everywhere, oddly mixed with the corpses of dogs, horses, a couple of
stickies, a lot of stingwings, even some eagles and one blubbery sea lion. Weird. It was almost as if the animals had also attacked the people, but if they were trying to ace somebody specific, or to help one side over the other it was impossible to say.

In the center of the battle was the
Moon Runner,
or what remained of the bedraggled ship. The wheelhouse was missing, there was a splintery hole in the stern hull, a dozen bodies festooned the sagging gunwales, and deep inside, the engines seemed to be on fire. Thick black smoke poured from every porthole and hatchway to spread a murky haze over the screaming combatants.

Out at sea, just this side of the breakers, was a ship, or boat of some kind, although Ryan would have called it a canal barge. On the bow was the name
Tiger Shark
. The craft was big and flat, with sandbags lashed to the deck with netting to serve as a crude gunwale. The barge was covered with pungi sticks and barbed wire, and looked about as maneuverable as a lead safe. On the other hand, the sailors were firing at the sec men with a couple of .50-caliber machine guns and a pair of huge arbalests. As the one-eyed man watched, a sailor launched an arrow almost a yard long. It lanced through the masking smoke of the
Moon Runner
to slam into a sec man frantically reloading his flintlock pistol. The giant arrow pierced him completely, slamming the norm against the rock face of the cliff. Still horribly alive, he began to shriek, pinned in place like a trophy to the wall.

“I can hear the names of Captain Carlton and Jones,”
Krysty said, her face scrunched tight in concentration. “Along with baron.”

Grunting in reply, Ryan eased down from the leafy branches to drop the last few feet and land in a crouch. Slowly he stood. At least they now knew the names of the people who wanted them chilled. That might come in useful if there was a chance at negotiations. Ryan doubted that highly. However, it was smart to prepare for what the enemy could do, instead of merely guessing what they might.

Suddenly a raven-haired woman stood into view and aimed an M-16 combination assault rifle at the
Tiger Shark
, first triggering a short burst from the M-16 rapidfire, then launching a gren. The 40 mm round smacked into the sandbags, blowing open a three-foot breech, and sending everybody on the deck flat on their backs.

“An M-203? My, my, it’s good to be the king, or in this case, the queen,” Mildred remarked dryly, peeking out from behind a pine tree. “With a weapon like that, she has got to be the baron’s wife.”

“Good thing she has it,” Ryan countered gruffly. “No body out there is a very good shot.”

“Don’t really need to be, the way they’re throwing around lead,” J.B. added in frank disapproval.

“The damn fools don’t seem to be fighting over the
Moon Runner
, control of the dock, or any damn thing else,” Krysty stated with a scowl. “They’re just fighting.”

“Civil blood doth make civil hands unclean,” Doc muttered.

“You really think that anybody out there is biting his thumb?” Mildred snorted.

“Each in their own way, of course, madam,” Doc espoused, with a hand to his heart.

“So, pray tell, what is the plan, my dear Ryan? Shall we steal their bikes to drive inland, far away from the tumultuous sea?”

Touching the bandage on his face, the man scowled. “Back to where, the volcano? We’d have to abandon the bikes, swim across the bay, climb a waterfall, and even if we find the right tunnel leading to the redoubt, we haven’t a single implo gren to use against three Cerberus clouds,” Ryan said, rubbing his jaw. “No, we need that boat.”

“Any chance repair
Moon Runner?
” Jak asked hopefully.

“Double zero on that,” Krysty answered brusquely. “So we’re going to do the only other thing we can.”

“Steal the
Tiger Shark
,” J.B. stated.

“Nightcreep,” Jak said, a pair of knives dropping into his waiting palms. “Fast and low.”

“Everybody else start moving down the coastline,” Ryan said, sliding off his backpack, then dropping his gunbelt. “Jak and I will handle this. We’ll meet you past the tumbledown.”

“We’ll be there, lover,” Krysty replied, glancing at the laser strapped to the litter behind the nervous horses. The animals clearly didn’t like being this close to violent death, and kept trying to shy away, only to be drawn back by loyalty to their new masters.

Stripping down to their underwear and boots, Ryan and Jak gave the clothing to Mildred for safekeeping. As
the rest of the companions headed for the horses, each man carefully wrapped a handkerchief around a knife before tucking the blade between his teeth. It reduced the shine and gave a much better hold than wet steel.

Going to their bellies, the men crawled along the ground until reaching the beach, trying to keep behind a low rill of black lava. The sounds of battle got much louder.

Skirting past a nesting brood of crabs, the two companions eased into the shallows, then dived into the waves and ducked underwater. Several minutes later they resurfaced behind the
Tiger Shark
. The incoming tide was pushing the cumbersome barge steadily toward the shore, so the anchor chains were taut, rising from the watery depths to the main deck. Using their fingers and toes, the men crept along the slippery steel links to reach the vessel, pausing at the deadly array of pungi sticks and barbed wire before hopping over. They landed on the wooden deck with soft thuds, the noise going completely unnoticed by the sailors over the yammering fury of the big-bore rapidfires.

“How do ya like them flying fish, Jonsey-boy!” the sailor laughed, burping the weapon again, the powerful muzzle-blast slapping against his face and flapping his vest open wide like leather batwings.

Fast and low, Ryan went to the left, Jak to the right.

“Just don’t shoot his bitch, I want to moor my tug in her harbor first!” The other sailor guffawed, working the arming bolt to clear the breech before lifting the firing block. But as the sailor laid in a fresh belt of
ammo, Jak stepped around the sandbag wall and neatly slit his throat from ear to ear.

Gurgling into death, the man grabbed his throat and Jak stabbed him again between the ribs, twisting the narrow blade to enlarge the hole in his lungs. Unable to draw a breath, the man slid to the deck, his mouth moving in a desperate attempt to warn his fellow guards.

As the second gunner hauled out a sawed-off shotgun, Ryan ghosted up behind the sailor, slapping a hand across his mouth, the other burying the panga in his stomach. As the curved blade went in deep, it arched around the protective rib cage and entered the heart. Going stiff, the sailor began to tremble all over, and Ryan mercifully removed the blade to slash his throat. Still shaking, the bleeding man dropped to the deck and went still.

Checking the feed on the massive rapidfire, Ryan and Jak racked the dockyard freely, trying for the troops on both sides. Two of the caged motorcycles violently exploded, and a dozen of the sailors were ruthlessly executed, shot from behind by their own blasters. As the big rapidfires cycled empty, Ryan and Jak buckled on the gunbelts of the chilled sailors, then separated again to do a fast recce of the main deck for any more crew members.

Running low and fast, Jak found a sailor sitting on a coil of rope, lazily smoking a cig. The man barely had a chance to register the presence of the nearly naked albino teenager when Jak introduced him to a pair of his leaf-bladed throwing knives and the sailor stopped smoking forever.

At the stern Ryan found a row of canoes, most of them homemade, but a couple were made of predark aluminum—dented, but still in very serviceable condition. Several of the canoes were missing, and Ryan sincerely hoped they had merely been used by the landing party. If not, this fight was a long way from over.

At the bow of the rectangular vessel, a burly sailor stood from behind a sandbag, working the bolt on a BAR longblaster. The tattoo of a single red strip adorned his bare arm, clearly displaying his rank.

“Cornelius, Mel, why’d you boys stop shooting?” the boson demanded suspiciously, starting through the maze with the surety of experience. There was nobody standing at the pair of Fifties, and he couldn’t believe that a bunch of ville boys could snipe a pair of seasoned sailors this far out at sea.

As the boson turned into the gunnery station, Jak rose behind him and swung a barge pole oar as hard as he could. The stout pine cracked across the back of the boson’s head, and the sailor dropped to the deck. Whipping out a knife, Jak began cutting the man’s clothing into strips, then using them to securely bind and gag the sailor. The youth had decided that an officer might know important details about the strange craft that could come in useful later. If not, well, there was always the ever-patient sea just a few feet away.

Discovering a companionway leading to the lower level, Ryan paused to remove the cartridges from the sawed-off blaster, then toss it onto the next level. Hushed voices gasped at the sight, and a hand darted out to grab the weapon. Ryan fired twice, blowing off some fingers, then the SIG-Sauer jammed.

“He’s out! Get ’im!” a sailor bellowed, and five big men brandishing machetes and clubs boiled out of the shadows.

Kicking the first man in the teeth with his combat boot, Ryan sent the man flying backward into the others, and they went tumbling back down the stairs in a wild tangle of limbs and curses.

Struggling to stand, a plump female sailor hauled a zip gun from a pocket and pulled back the rubber band to fire. Instantly, Ryan threw the panga. The weapon spun sideways through the air like a buzzsaw and buried itself into her left breast.

Shrieking in pain, the sailor still fired at Ryan, and he felt his wet shorts jerk at the passage of a tiny .22-caliber bullet. Fireblast, the bitch was good! Too bastard good! he thought. Flinging himself down the stairs, Ryan scraped his belly along the wooden steps to grab her ankles and jerk hard. With a cry, she went over, and Ryan grabbed the empty sawed-off from the deck to swat her hard across the face. Blood and teeth hit the wall, and the zip gun skittered away, loose brass cascading from a pocket.

Ignoring the weapon, Ryan laid into the pile of cursing sailors like a Viking berserker, breaking arms and smashing in heads with the sawed-off until the double-barrel was dripping with gore.

An alabaster hand grabbed his arm in a grip of steel and Ryan furiously turned to see Jak standing close.

“They aced,” the teen said simply. “Which way engine room?”

It took a few moments for the red haze of battle to clear from his mind, then Ryan stiffly wiped the
sawed-off clean on the shirt of a corpse and thumbed in some cartridges. Then he recovered the SIG-Sauer and worked the slide to eject the dud brass.

“This way,” Ryan growled, his throat tight from the rush of adrenaline. Since the onslaught of adulthood, a young Ryan Cawdor had come to accept the fact that someday his wild temper would put him in the dirt. Thank fully, it wasn’t this day. There was still a lot to do before the
Tiger Shark
was under their control.

Heading down the corridor the sailors had come from, the two companions noted this level was made of riveted steel. Genuine predark stuff, and lovingly scraped to a surgical cleanliness by the crew. But then, this was their home, and only stickies used their nest as a lavatory and a nursery.

Reaching a wooden door, Ryan kicked it open and ducked. Wearing a greasy apron, a sailor waiting inside fired a crossbow, the arrow shattering against the iron wall. Stroking the trigger of the SIG-Sauer, Ryan shot the cook in the forehead, then moved on, having no time to waste watching the man expire.

Jak took the next room, finding only an interrupted meal of fish stew, and Ryan the one after that, which proved to be the barracks, or whatever it was called on a ship—row upon row of empty beds, each with a footlocker at the bottom and a gunrack at the top.

“Nice digs,” Jak admitted grudgingly, noting the prevalence of good boots, soap and canned goods. Whatever else could be said about the captain of the vessel, he treated his crew like kin. Unfortunately that made the bastard even more dangerous, as the crew would willingly fight to the death for the man.

“I think this is their flagship,” Ryan answered, then paused as a closet door started to slowly open. Firing twice, Ryan saw the copper-jacketed rounds punch clean through the thin wood. There came a muffled cry of pain, and then a sailor fell out, his sawed-off discharging into a bed. The mattress exploded and a geyser of fluff and feathers filled the air, the blizzard swirling madly.

Snatching a feather on the fly, Jak tucked it behind his ear as they grimly continued their hurried sweep of the vessel.

Passing a porthole, Ryan briefly looked outside. He could see that the fight was still raging on the dock, and nobody seemed to be coming their way yet. But it was only a matter of time before the sailors figured out what was happening and came boiling back to regain their ship. Sec men polished their blasters in the night, cavalry riders curried their horses daily, and Mildred claimed that predark pilots actually named their jet-fighters, but sailors were just plain insane about their damn boats. The feeling was more than simple dedication to the craft that was their home, hearth and harbor. It was something else, something deeper, a sort of primordial bond that couldn’t be explained to anybody but another sailor.