the events at the waterfall came rushing back, and Ryan sat up, clawing for the blaster at his hip. But the weapon was gone, along with everything else he owned, including his outer clothing. Even his eye patch was missing.
Trying to focus his good eye against the constant bouncing, Ryan glanced around to see that he was inside some sort of a wooden cage. The floor was covered with dirty hay, the bars were thicker than his wrist and the door was set into the ceiling a good ten feet high. The man had to grunt at that. Smart. It would be triple-hard for any prisoner to escape when they couldn’t even reach the bastard door.
Outside the cage, a rolling grassland stretched to the horizon. A few trees were scattered around, along with the occasional stand of cacti and bushes, but the grass itself was a deep emerald-green. There was no smell of salt in the air. Wherever this was, they were a long way from the desert. Just how long have I been out, Ryan wondered, rubbing the stubble on his chin.
Scattered around the squalid cage were the rest of the companions, clad only in their undergarments and clutching their heads as if in pain. The bouncing came from the fact that the cage was in the back of a large buckboard wag. Ryan could dimly see the two drivers sitting in the front seat, one of them holding a crossbow, and the other man working a set of reins. As he gave them a shake, several horses whinnied and the bouncing got worse.
Slavers. Ryan cursed quietly. The sons of bitches had to have dosed the water and then simply sat back to wait for parched fools to come racing out of the Great Salt and straight into their waiting chains. The man felt like a feeb, but pushed those thoughts aside to concentrate on how to escape.
There came a rustle from the largest pile of hay.
“You okay, lover?” Krysty whispered from inside the pile of loose material. Both shapely legs stuck out from the green hay, her full breasts just barely concealed. Her face was calm, but her hair flexed wildly, showing that she was furious.
“More importantly, are you?” Ryan countered, studying her for any sign that she’d been raped while they’d been unconscious.
“Nobody rode me,” Krysty answered softly, casting a glance at the fat men in the front of the wag. “Nor Mildred, either. But I don’t think we’re likely to stay that way for long.”
“Not likely,” Ryan agreed grimly, rubbing his unshaved jaw. There were two other wags in the convoy, the cages in the back jammed full of scrawny people. However, Krysty and Mildred were the only adult females with some flesh on their bones, and all of the slavers were men, not a single woman among their ranks. Yeah, come nightfall, things would get ugly.
“I am glad to see you back, my dear Ryan,” Doc rumbled, wiping his mouth on the back of a hand. “I had feared that your consumption of the tainted water may have taken you across the River Styx.”
“Not aced yet,” Ryan stated, flexing his hands, feeling the strength slowly return.
“Got a plan yet, buddy?” J.B. asked, reaching up to adjust his glasses. With a start, the man frowned when his fingers only touched bare skin. Dark night! the Armorer thought. Without those I’m nearsighted to the point of being blind! About as useful as a dick on a cactus.
“Working on it,” Ryan murmured, studying the cage and wag.
“Work faster,” Jak whispered, picking up an old piece of string and using it to tie back his long hair. Although only a teenager, the albino youth was covered with a wide assortment of scars forming a rippled pattern caused by being caught in acid rain, knife cuts, laser burns and the circles showing a healed bullet wound.
Deep in thought, Ryan merely grunted in reply. If this had been an iron cage that would have been another matter. But these wooden cages were generally the providence of slavers. Cannibals used iron cages because they didn’t really care if the prisoners banged their heads against the bars and took their own lives. They were going into the cooking pot either way, and beating themselves up only made the meat more tender. However, slavers used wood, sometimes with canvas padding wrapped around the bars, because they needed the merchandise alive and relatively undamaged.
Carefully, Ryan studied the other two wags, noting their positions in the caravan, then he turned his full attention to the two men in the front of their wag. Both were fat, but with broad shoulders and wide hands, suggesting that some of their girth came from being large men. The driver had a mustache, the gunner was bald, and each was armed with a machete, a club and a bullwhip—but not any of the blasters taken from the companions. Fireblast! He had been counting on the slavers carrying the weapons on them.
Unfortunately, aside from the green hay, bits of string and some old yellow straw, there was nothing else in the cage but the companions. Slowly, a plan began to unfold in his mind, and Ryan briefly told the others. They nodded and moved to the appropriate positions. They would only get one chance, and failure meant worse than death.
Briefly, there was a tickling sound along with the smell of fresh urine.
Abruptly rising from the hay, Krysty and Mildred loudly yawned and scratched themselves, the women spreading their arms to display their figures to the fullest advantage.
“Well, well, looks like we got a couple of gaudy sluts this time.” The gunner leered, glancing over a shoulder. “Keep it up, sluts! I likes me a good show!”
“Then how about some dinner theater?” Mildred snarled, throwing forward a gob of newly moistened dung. The drek hit the wooden bars and splattered across both of the slavers.
“Stupe move, bitch,” the driver snarled, the back of his shirt speckled with the material.
“Yeah, tonight we’re gonna make you eat that.” The gunner smiled, rubbing his crotch. “Along with some other stuff, too!”
“Without first having dessert?” Krysty asked, and flung a second wad. The dripping drek sailed through the bars to smack directly into the gunner’s face, catching him in the middle of a chuckle.
Hacking and choking, the fat man bent over the side of the wag to loudly wretch, while the driver howled with laughter.
“She got you good, Billy!” The man guffawed, slapping a knee.
“Shut up, Henry,” the gunner panted, using a sleeve to wipe the bile and drek from his face. Pursing his lips, the man spit filth from his mouth, then stood to uncoil the bullwhip at his side. “Fuck the bounty! I’m gonna skin that bitch alive!”
“How very odd,” Doc said in a cultured tone of voice, sitting upright amid the hay. “Because that was exactly what I said to your mother before I raped her.”
“Wh-what did he say?” Henry gasped in genuine shock, almost dropping the reins.
“My, my, you should have heard how she squealed like a little piggy.” Doc grinned amiably. “It was most amusing. I bet that you can squeal like a piggy, too, if you try. Come on, squeal, my fat little piggy. Squeal for Daddy!”
Sputtering obscenities, Billy turned a bright red in the face and lashed out with his bullwhip.
Expertly, the knotted length shot between the bars to score a bloody furrow across the old man’s chest.
Gushing crimson, Doc was thrown backward from the brutal strike, but Jak and Ryan dived on the whip and pulled with all of their strength. Caught off balance, Billy was hauled forward to smack his face hard against the wooden cage. Rising from the
