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"With the scattergun or the Uzi? Can't say either of them are the best weapons for
going wildfowling. That place is occupied. Don't want to let them know we're in
the area. Not until we're ready for that."
Abe flopped down and drank from the cool water, cupping it to his face, splashing
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noisily. The Armorer was more cautious. He stood still and took a good three-
sixty look around the open clearing before taking off his stained fedora and
placing his glasses neatly on top of it.
"Skin flames where the poison got sprayed on it," he said. "Come out in a rash."
Abe turned and stared at it. "Yeah. Kind of little whiteheads, with sore, red places
around them. Give them a real good washing, J.B."
The Armorer winced as the icy water bathed the spots, running down his neck,
inside his collar. "Better," he said. "Cooled them some."
He was kneeling down, leaning over the small lake, when he straightened. "Black
dust!"
"What?"
"Look. The surface of& It's another& "
The pool was rippling, as though a strong wind had gusted across it. But there
wasn't more than the lightest breeze. Abe, standing up, felt the earth begin to shift
beneath his combat boots.
"Quake! "he shouted.
"Could be an aftershock," the Armorer said, snatching up his spectacles and his
beloved hat. He straightened, rocking to his left at a severe jolt.
They heard the same rumbling noise, far below them, like a procession of
subterranean war wags.
Somewhere on the far side of the lake they saw one of the tallest of the pines
suddenly start to fall, crashing down, its top splashing into the water.
A beaver broke from cover, under the bank to their left, and started to swim across
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the rippling pool. There was an explosive gout of mud and bubbles and it
vanished, giving a desperate cry, disturbingly like a terrified child.
J.B. and Abe looked at each other, waiting for the quake to subside.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Baron Torrance was everything that his ville of Hightower would have led you
to expect disgusting, rundown and filthy.
He was lying on a mattress on the floor, in what looked like it might once have
been the main restaurant of the sprawling resort hotel.
Ryan guessed his age would be around seventy. Thin strands of white hair were
pasted across the top of a yellowing skull. It was difficult to calculate his weight,
but it was certainly the wrong side of three hundred pounds. His little eyes
glowered piggishly up at the two outlanders from their wrinkled beds of layered
fat. The baron's lips were thin, peeling pettishly back off the yellowed remains of
crooked teeth.
"So, these are the men who have been sent by my enemies to assassinate me,
Arkadin?"
"They lost their horses and trade goods in the quake, Baron. Managed to climb out
the canyon. Came here looking for some kind of help."
"Help? What sort of help would someone of my rank and dignity offer to a pair of
murderous wolf's heads?"
"Bed for the night, Baron," Trader said. "Little food to see us on our way in the
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morning."
"Do we know you?" Torrance asked, leaning up on one elbow, wheezing with the
effort of moving. His clothes were just as baggy and shapeless as the man himself,
looking like they'd been hastily tacked together from the stained and worn-out
curtains of a pesthole gaudy.
"We?" Trader looked across at Ryan. "Something wrong with my old glims, is
there, brother Danny? I don't see any 'we' in here, do you?"
They all heard a burst of muffled giggling, coming from behind a curtained
doorway at the far end of the shadowy room. But Torrance ignored it.
"A sense of humor can be a fine way of talking yourself onto the gallows,
outlander." The baron looked at his sec man. "Do they have names, Arkadin?"
"Danny and Willard King, Baron. Traveled with ammo. Lost the lot."
"Still got pretty blasters there. Managed to hang on to those during the shaky last
night? Perhaps you might like to give them to us."
Ryan couldn't tell whether it was supposed to be a joke or a threat. Or just the idle,
vacuous suggestion of a sick and bored madman. In terms of giving up their
blasters, it didn't much matter which.
"No, Baron. You can try and take our blasters, but we don't give them up."
Again there was sniggering from the far end of the chamber. This time Torrance
turned around, the question of their guns seemingly forgotten. "Oh, stop that rad-
blasted noise, children." He returned his attention to Trader and Ryan. "You can
meet my little girls, outlanders." The baron raised his voice. "Come out!"
"Well, I'll be hung& " Trader stopping his exclamation when Ryan nudged him
hard.
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Baron Torrance's little girls came simpering out of their hiding places like a pair
of overdressed spiders, sidling across the room, hand in hand, pushing and
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