01. When the Changewinds Blow (42 page)

It apparently ended in a sheer rock wall, but when you got right to it you could see that the trail veered sharply to the left and continued on up. It was real nasty badlands, all right, but clearly
somebody
lived around here.

The trail reached the top, then followed it for a bit, then continued on part way down the other side. There was no way to
get
much farther today, and nobody, but nobody, human walked the badlands at night. She found a rock-ringed depression that gave some shelter from the wind and wasn't
too
uncomfortable and settled in. Both pistols were loaded with dry bullets; it was
some
comfort, but not much. Sooner or later she'd have to find somebody or starve or die of thirst or exposure. If that person were Akhbreed she'd be his or her slave instantly under the law-or else. If it was somebody else, it would most likely be somebody allied with the woman with the machine gun and that wasn't too thrilling an idea, either. One day at a tune, one problem at a time. At least she was still alive and in one piece.

When it got dark out here, it got
very
dark
very
fast. The wind died down to nothing, though, causing for a while an eerie stillness. She slept for a while, never very long and never very deep, and then she'd wake up for periods, during some of which she would be unable to keep from dwelling on her fears. She'd been brave and tough long enough; she couldn't hold it back anymore, and during more than one waking period she couldn't help crying until she was just more or less cried out.

Then she'd just sit mere, trying to see
anything
in the blackness. The stars overhead were pretty thick but blurry, and what moon there'd been went down not long after the sun. So she sat there, staring into the blackness, and after a while she swore she heard voices. Imagination? Wish fulfillment? She strained again to hear. Definitely somebody, maybe a lot of people, and some animals, too. Where? She carefully made her way back onto the trail and tried to look down and around.
There!
A sort of blurry glow like a big campfire or something. She wished she had better vision or glasses, but that was the best she could do. Now the question was, what to do about it?

There was nothing to do but try and make for it. Even if it was the bushwackers, it might be the only chance she had. She'd be going down the trail blind and in the dark, so take it slow and easy girl, but the trail up had always had one side against solid rock. The trick would be figuring the curves. Slow and easy . . .

It took her quite some time, perhaps two hours or more, to get down, but finally she was close enough to really see where she was going. It was a big, mostly level area just off the main trail, set into a huge natural stone arch. There were horses there, and a few small wagons, and some people, too. She needed to get closer. It looked like a couple of guards down there, with rifles, but they weren't looking
her
way. Who could come from
this
direction, after all?

That allowed her to get in very close, close enough to see just what was what in the encampment. What she saw both excited and repulsed her.

There were two men with rifles all right, one at the head of the trail and the other by the fire. The one closest to the fire was wearing a duty blue uniform; definitely one of the pair that escaped. The other might have been the other one; it was hard to tell for sure. There was also somebody asleep in the arch, maybe two. There were also four horses and a pair of nargas tied up there docilely.

Laid out to her right and the right of the fire was a grisly scene. There were bodies, lots of bodies mere, all stripped naked, all terribly mutilated. Maybe five or more. All looked to be men, although it was hard to tell from that distance and in their condition.

To the left and nearest her were more bodies stretched out, but some of these, at least, were definitely alive. They were all lying naked on their backs, spread-eagled, their arms and legs apparently tied down with rock bolts securing heavy rope. All were female, and all appeared to have gags or something stuck in their mouths. She counted four and she knew them all. Boday was easiest to spot-long and looking like an abstract painting. Sam, too, was there, in all her corpulent glory, and the other two . . .

Sweet Jesus! The Serkosh girls! Rani and Sheka! Those
bastards!
It didn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure this out.

After it was safe, these men and their confederates had gone hunting for loot and maybe survivors. They'd found both, from the looks of it. They might even have saved a few lives-but not out of the goodness of their black hearts. The loot was piled up in front of the fire, with the Mandan gold blankets neatly separated off to one side. Sam-it was hard to tell but it didn't look like she had anything around her neck. Ten to one the Jewel of Omak was in that pile as well, the demon helpless with Sam probably unconscious and maybe half-drowned, while they cut the neck chain off her and tossed it in their loot sacks. Helpless now because there was nobody to aim the damned thing.

The male survivors had been brought here and then apparently tortured to death, either for revenge over the morning's work or just for fun. The women had been stretched out and, well, it didn't take much of a leap of imagination to figure out how they'd been used. Sheka-she was only nine years old, her sister just thirteen!
Damn
these monsters!

But what could she do about it? Two guards, and at least two more in the arch, probably with weapons nearby. She spotted the machine gun on its little cart, but it was well on the other side from her and looked packed down, anyway. Useless. She had two single-shot pistols. She had always been a good shot, and even with the distance she thought she could take the far guard, which would alert the one by the fire but wouldn't give him anyplace to hide of a clear target to shoot at. She might take both of them-but then she'd be at the mercy of the ones

264
Jack L. Chalker

in the cleft until she reloaded, and that would take precious seconds. During that time those others could take cover-and use the stretched out and helpless women in between as a bargaining chip. Sam had twice come to her rescue. There was no question of not doing something, only what to do without getting her and them killed?

She had maybe an hour til dawn to figure that out.

12

A Choice of Evils

It took charley several minutes to realize that the guard by the fire was asleep. It figured; he'd had a long day, although not as long as she had. Let
him
survive a raid, a chase, an ambush, and a flash flood and wind up in fairly good shape! Still, she'd experienced nothing like those prisoners there, and nothing like what they might experience if she couldn't figure this one out. She had no demons or magic jewels to help her, no special powers, but she
did
have weapons she knew and superb control of her body and whatever brains she'd been both with. They would have to do.

The real question was the other guard. If he was the other raider and he was asleep as well, then there was a chance. He had a rifle, perhaps other guns, and a very good field of fire for the whole area. If she had
his
position, then she might not be able to rescue the prisoners but she sure as hell would have a point-blank field of fire into the arch. Her long vision was poor enough that she might not be able to hit still forms in there, but she sure as hell could detect and hit moving ones, while she would be in darkness and behind some cover. She also wondered what a few rifle shots rattling around inside that arch might hit.

But first she had to get over there.

The fire was down but it still gave off pretty good illumination; there was maybe a twenty-foot section of trail that was lit, if dimly, by the flickering fire and its reflections against the deep rust red of the rock arch. If the trail guard had either nodded off or was concentrating entirely on the trail in the other direction, and if she was quiet enough, she had a chance. She just hoped there weren't two trail guards there; she would have to shoot the bastard from the start and then try and nail the other one before he reacted to the first shot. If there was somebody else up there or farther down the trail she was dead meat.

She had no reservations about shooting these men, though. In fact, if it hadn't been for her courtesan life where she'd met some pretty decent guys and had seen a slice of normal life, she might have had the impression that, here in Akahlar at least, all the men were vicious, brutish monsters, even the good ones. Even Jahoort and his crew had butchered those wounded raiders without a qualm; the only real deep down difference between them seemed to be that one was official and the other criminal. Just like in the Old West, where the only way most times to tell the difference between the psychopathic killer and the marshal was that the marshal wore a star.

No matter what, though, nobody with any guts at all could have any feeling for these men, not with the grisly sights laid out right here in front of them. The problem was, could she do it alone? Everything she saw told her that all she'd be doing would be adding another victim to these bastards' scalp belt even if she got one or two of them. Still, she would have to try.

She looked at the looming cliff wall that followed the trail opposite the camp; that went up who knew how far into the darkness and she wondered if there was any possibility of another route over to the other side. She backed off and decided to see if there was any way short of a direct walk down the trail where either of the guards might, if he wasn't really asleep, pick her off with ease.

Still, she didn't relish the climb. It might end in a sheer drop for all she knew, and it'd be pretty close to pitch dark up there. If it had been easy or a real threat to them they'd have put a guard up there, too.

That was a nasty thought. Maybe they did. Looking at the potential field of observation and fire such a poet would present such a guard, she knew she damned well had to find out.

It wasn't an easy climb, but the rock was mostly layered shale on the far side and there were footholds, if tenuous at times. Still, it was very slowgoing in the darkness; for all she knew a single misstep might send her plunging a mile or two down into some nameless canyon.

After twenty minutes or so it began to level out, but just as she felt she had a real chance she sensed something in the darkness ahead and froze.

"Shhhh!"
somebody whispered in Akhbreed. Then it added, in the lowest of whispers, "Come ahead, girl. I won't hurt you. I'm from the train as well."

She wasn't sure if it was a trick or not, but considering her position there wasn't much she could do but act as if it was not. She hauled herself up and sat, breathing hard. She could see the figure of a man now propped against a rock outcrop, but it was impossible to tell more about him.

"You are the courtesan," he said softly. "The butterfly girl. I always thought you were a lot smarter than you were supposed to be. Can you understand me?"

She groped for the words and hoped they came out all right. The trouble with the language wasn't learning the words but duplicating the complex intonations. "Saa," she whispered back. "Ducadol, nar prucadol."
Yes. Understand. No speak.

He gave a low chuckle. "You just told me you want to speak to my ass, not blow it, but I think I get the meaning. I saw you down there with the two pistols trying to work it out. I know how you feel. I was a mess when I crawled out of that damned ravine after hiding from them scavengers, but I made it after 'em. I was already busted up somethin' fierce; this just about's done me in. Kind'a hoped you'd try this route, though. I thought I could get the drop on 'em but wasn't much I could do. Might plug one or two of 'em but the rest would get me or hold them women hostage. They's bloody monsters, they are. Don't worry 'bout them hearin' me. Wind's wrong at this low pitch."

"Who?" Charley managed.

He coughed and seemed to shake a bit but got hold of himself. "Who, you mean? Them two guards is the ones who hit us and got away. There's four more in the cleft. One's Zamofir, the little fellow with the moustache from the train. He's banged up bad and wasn't with them but they knew him and took him in. He's a bad 'un. Two more are big suckers, maybe changelings. Hard to say. Their leader's mighty strange. Changeling sure. Woman in purple cloak and robes, real sharp tongue, but there's a lot more movin' under them robes than should be. She was the gunner-and the leader."

"Who?" Charley repeated, somewhat impatiently, She didn't like the idea of fighting six of
them,
not one bit-and if one or more were inhuman . . .

The man seemed to grope for a moment, then understood. "Oh-you mean me. I'm Rawl Serkosh. The two young ones down there are my daughters. It's why I had to follow and why I haven't been able to act." He shook again, this time in rage. "You don't know what it's been like, or how long I been wonderin' if causin' their deaths wouldn't be a mercy." He sighed. "Rini's dead. So's Jom. I don't know about Tan. Right now, though, them girls is all I got left." She crawled slowly over to him. He had a gun-maybe more than one. One was a rifle, anyway, and maybe there was ammunition. He saw her feel it and sighed. "Yeah. Took it off a dead narga. One of the pack animals. Rifle, couple'a pistols, even a crossbow. What good does it do me? I'm busted up bad inside. Bleedin' inside, too, I think. I ain't goin' nowheres now."

Her mind raced as she thought of how to use this poor man to best advantage. She struggled, then came up with a few words she needed. "Knife?"

"Yeah. Still got mine. Why?"

"Me cut girls loose. You-protect. Up here."

For a moment there was no response, and she was afraid that he was dead, but suddenly he said, "Maybe. If they ain't been drugged or magicked or somethin'." Again a slight cough. "Been thinkin', though, what I could do if I was able to move right. That big repeater of theirs. See them boxes right there? That's the bullets. Somebody stick a fire under that, all hell would break loose. Might blow up, might shoot all over. Yeah, I know, might kill the women, but they're better off dead if they can't be rescued. Go down, toss a fire under that gun wagon, then get back and cut 'em loose-I'll cover. Get 'em to the rocks on this side if they can move, otherwise leave 'em. When it goes, we shoot the guards under the cover of the bangs and booms. The ones in the cleft will stay put til its over, then come rushin' out, not knowin' we're here. By that time we'll have reloads. We have to nail 'em before they know they're bein' nailed." He paused a moment, as if expecting a reply, then sighed when none came.