of jagged, salvaged concrete slabs. It was handsome work, he had to admit.
In the center of the plaza stood a low platform made of one big concrete slab laid with little regard for leveling: no finesse. It looked quite brutal by contrast to the almost unnatural primness of what they’d seen of the rest of the ville. A weather-stained tarp covered the slanted upper surface.
Garrison said nothing about the slab. Ryan didn’t ask for an explanation. It didn’t seem to bear on their continued survival one way or another.
Beyond it stood a sprawling two-story-tall block of pink brick, with a gabled slate roof and a brick chimney. It had a gaudily painted wooden entryway stuck onto the front, obviously a postdark addition. The garish gold and purple paint clashed with the ville’s overall reserve as harshly as the strange slab dais in the middle of the town square.
“Baron’s palace,” Garrison said.
“Never would have guessed,” Ryan commented.
Garrison led them down a side street to a gray brick house just behind the “palace.” It was unremarkable except for black iron bars on the windows. Garrison unlocked an iron-and-mesh sec door and opened it. The barred door had a steel flap in the bottom section. A closed wooden door was inside.
“In here,” he said.
“How long?” Ryan asked.
“Till you’re sent for.”
Ryan turned the knob. The inner door was one of the old flimsy predark plywood-sandwich variety that kept the wind and some of the cold out but a sturdy child could put her fist through. Of course with the outer door that didn’t much matter.
Inside was gloomy, musty and hot. Dust motes floated in the light through the open door. Some lumpy-looking pallets had been tossed around the wooden floor.
“How about food and water?” he asked Garrison. “We haven’t eaten all day.”
“You’ll be provided for,” Garrison said.
Ryan went in, followed by the others. “You got the run of the place,” Garrison said, closing and locking the outer door. “You might want to open the windows. Get some air.”
“Yeah,” Ryan said.
“What now?” Mildred asked when the sec boss went away.
“The usual. Scope out the house. See if there’s any way out.”
“Think there will be?” Krysty asked.
“Hell no. But we take nothing for granted.”
They searched the house, quickly but cautiously. They weren’t going to take for granted there weren’t hidden dangers, either. Given the sort of things that wandered around a ruined city there might even be unpleasant surprises their hosts knew nothing about.
But the place was as empty as an old skull.
As they finished their quick but thorough recon, somebody rattled the sec door. They went down to find several locals carrying several gallon ceramic jugs as well as several large covered pots. Under the longblasters of a pair of hawk-eyed sec men they unlocked the outer door and passed in the jugs and jars.
“Water,” Jak said, uncapping a jug and sniffing.
“But these are empty,” Mildred said. She held up the lid of one of the squat pots as if to prove her point.
Ryan just looked at her. “Oh,” she said, and replaced the lid with exaggerated care.
“So what now?” Doc asked.
“We wait.”
“I’m worried about J.B.,” Mildred said.
“Me, too,” Ryan said. “But there’s nothing we can do about it now. I’m going to sleep.”
He stretched himself on a lumpy canvas mattress.
A CLATTREING WOKE HIM. Burly Lonny stood outside, kicking the door with a boot. He held a large covered blue metal dish.
“They sent me with some vegetable stew for you,” he said. He set the dish on the porch, then shoved a bag through the flap-covered metal hatch in the bottom. Krysty retrieved it, opened it.
“Bowls and spoons,” she said.
“Wood spoons,” Mildred said, sitting up and blinking muzzily. “So we don’t dig our way out, I guess. They’re right on top of things, these folks.”
Lonny had stood up, still holding the dish. He had a strange and ominous look in his eyes.
“You’re gonna hunt her,” he said. “They’ll offer you supplies and jack, and you’ll take it. Because you’re just coldhearts who’ll do anything for pay. I know your type!”
“Hold on,” Ryan said, standing up. “Back up a couple steps. You lost me.”
“The princess!” Lonny snapped. “You don’t care about her. What they’ll do to her. Your kind don’t care!”
He snorted a deep breath through his lump of nose, drawing his head back on his thick neck. Opening the lid of the food dish he hawked and spit a big glistening green glob into the stew. Replacing the lid, he rocked the dish from side to side, to stir the mix up right. Then he bent down and shoved the dish through the hatch.
“There you go, coldhearts,” he said. He turned and marched off.
“What that about?” Jak asked.
Ryan shook his head. “Slagger’s a few rounds short of a full mag.”
He picked up a chipped bowl and a wood spoon from where Krysty had laid them out on the floor, went to the dish. Opening the cover, he spooned himself a bowl of stew.
Mildred gagged. “You aren’t seriously going to eat that?”
Ryan sat down cross-legged on the floor with his back to the wall, facing the door.
“Had worse,” he said, and dug in.
Chapter Eight
From the heaviness of the fist banging on the steel outer door Ryan knew who he’d see when he opened his eye.
“Garrison,” he said, sitting up. His body felt as if mules had been playing kickball with it.
Around him the others roused themselves from sleep. Outside the shadows were lengthening toward afternoon. The light had gone mellow, softening the edges of things.
“Baron wants to see you,” Garrison said.
BARON SAVIJ WASN`T what any of them expected.
His room made up pretty much a big chunk of the upper story of the baronial palace. The chamber was decorated lavishly. And also in what, even by Deathlands standard, was pretty dubious taste.
The
