LITMIR.BIZ

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Why would you be going that way? Hey?”

      “Reckon there’ll be less competition for gigs, anyway,” J.B. said.

      The blond sergeant—or guard—stepped forward and slapped the Armorer across the face.

      “Speak when you’re spoken to, outlander,” he said.

      J.B. gave his head a couple of upward nods to settle his glasses back on his nose. He blinked mildly through the circular lenses at the sergeant as the man stepped back to his place and said nothing.

      The sergeant didn’t know he was a marked man. If anything, J. B. Dix had less bluster in him than Ryan did, and he was slowest to anger of any of the party. But if you did anger him, you were in trouble.

      “It’s true, Baron,” Ryan said. “It may seem triple-stupe to you, but we have no choice in the matter. Especially since we had to relocate in something of a hurry.”

      Which, of course, was true enough.

      “So,” Toth hissed, “you admit you are fugitives from justice.”

      Yep, Ryan thought. Sec boss.

      Jed waved him off. “They’re not fugitives from my justice,” he pointed out. “Not yet, anyway. So, you’re not spies for that treacherous dog Baron Al, are you?”

      “We never even heard of the man until you spoke the name, Baron,” Ryan said truthfully.

      The baron sat forward and stared at him intently. His map of wrinkles got a marked furrow down the middle of the forehead region, suggesting careful thought or scrutiny.

      “You don’t know, do you?” he said at last, leaning back in his chair again. “Al Siebert, baron of Siebert, so-called, is the vile, claim-jumping bastard in command of that band of land-stealing ruffians who call themselves the Uplands Alliance. And who are nothing but a bunch of dirty, low-down, mangy sheep herders.”

      He said that as if it was the worst insult in the whole world. Ryan found that interesting, although he had no clue on Earth what use it could be.

      I know a lot of people take stock in the notion that the enemy of my enemy is my rad-blasted friend, he thought. But the enemy my enemy hates that much might be eager for a little help in making himself a worse enemy. He thought he knew some people who might like to sign on for just that job, once they cleared up a certain current misunderstanding.

      “They’re lying,” Toth said, though rather blandly this time. “You should let me torture them, Baron. I’d have the truth out of them in a flash!”

      “You just like to torture people, Bismuth,” Jed said. “Which is fine. I like a man who enjoys his work. Keeps his mind serious. But would you say, Sergeant Drake, that these men are fit?”

      “All ran all the way from where we caught them, General,” said the black sergeant from behind Ryan. He sounded...not awed of the baron or his officers, by any means, and that much less fearful, but as if he’d rather be almost anyplace else, right now.

      “Even the white-hair?”

      “Even him, sir. Ran like a damn deer, for all he looks like he couldn’t cross the room without going flat on his wrinkly old face.”

      Ryan actually heard the sergeant brace even tighter behind him. “Sorry, sir!”

      “Why?” the baron asked. “Very well. I need soldiers more than you need torture victims, Colonel. And these five men are obviously fit to fight, and have all their part, minus the eye from the crusty bastard here. Which I reckon he doesn’t miss the use of much. He’s a stoneheart if ever I saw one.”

      He stood up. “Gentlemen—and I use the term loosely—I welcome you to the Grand Army of the Cattlemen’s Protective Association of blah-blah and so on. No, I can’t stand all those nuking titles, either, but they impress the troops and the citizenry. So, off you go to your new duties.”

      “And our weapons, Baron?” Ryan asked. The latest twist of events hadn’t surprised him even a little. If Jed’s army had another serious army to fight, it needed fodder for the brass muzzle-loading cannon he’d seen lined neatly along one side of the parade ground.

      Ryan could tell he smiled by the way he showed his teeth.

      “Like your sorry asses, young man,” he said, “they now belong to me. You’ll be issued with whatever happens to be available, like any new recruits. Now, off with you! Sergeant Stone?”

      “On your feet, ladies,” Stone rasped. Krysty and Mildred stood up, promptly if not looking too happy about it. “You others, on your feet, too!”

      “Speaking of the womenfolk, Dad—” Captain Buddy began, licking his fat lips.

      “They belong to me, too, son,” Jed said. And then to his guards, “Put them in the special annex. I’ll see to them later.”

      Chapter Four

      Like most of the companions, Krysty was capable of falling asleep given the slightest opportunity. Sleep was a commodity as precious as food or water, to anyone who wanted to stay breathing. Like everybody else, except Mildred, Krysty also slept lightly, and came awake at the slightest change in her surroundings.

      She smelled him before she even heard the rustle of the tent flap, and the graceless heavy clump of his boots: Buddy, the baron’s redheaded son. He had an unclean scent to him that seemed to come from something more than the fact he didn’t bathe often. The fact he had drenched himself with some kind of awful predark perfume that smelled as if a skunk had been drowned in sugar-water only made it nastier.

      She cast a quick look at Mildred, who lay near her in the small tent near the baron’s. Both women had been stripped with ruthless and probably fear-based impersonality by Baron Jed’s bodyguards, before being stuffed willy-nilly into frilly dresses over several layers of underclothing, which apparently their captors found far more suitable to females—even prisoners—than the masculine dress both women wore.

      Krysty found it itchy and uncomfortable as well as impractical. Plus she was fairly sure the pink dress clashed with her hair, although the yellow really sort of flattered Mildred.

      The unappealing smell of Buddy was followed at once by the apparition of the far less appealing Buddy himself. From up close Krysty could see that the tunic of his blue uniform was carefully tailored to hide more than a substantial start on a paunch.

      She knew better than to let that lead her to underestimate the redheaded kid. He still had a chest and broad shoulders that owed precious little to his flab. Plus his square, loose-lipped face, juvenile and freckled though it was, seemed to just radiate malice.

      “So,” he said, straightening to his full height as he stepped into the small tent where Krysty and Mildred had been thrown after they were tied up. “What do we have here?”

      “Prisoners,” Mildred said sharply, sitting up. “And your daddy told you to keep your grubby hands off us!”

      For a moment Buddy’s face fisted and ugly light glinted in his eyes, then he relaxed and laughed. He might not be the brightest candle in the box, but he knew he had the whip hand here, and Krysty could just tell he knew how to use it. Or better, abuse it.

      He emitted a halfhearted chuckle. “Well, now, he surely didn’t mean me, his son and heir and all.”

      He made a big show of peering left and right, as if the little tent, even with its crates, could hide anything bigger than a healthy rat.

      “Anyways, I don’t see my daddy hiding nowheres around here. Do you, girls?”

      “You’re about to make a terrible mistake, Buddy,” Mildred said.

      He backhanded her, and she fell back on the ground.

      Krysty gave him a flat gaze. “Don’t touch me.”

      He brayed another laugh, much louder this time.

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