a wicker basket as High Pile stepped up to Jak, who was next in line for sacrifice. Ryan knew the pirates weren’t going to discount the albino because of his size or mutie appearance. Just the opposite. They’d already seen him in action with a commandeered machete. One of them put a submachine-gun muzzle to the back of Jak’s head before they unfastened his ankle chains from the others.
Ryan planned to make his play the moment the pirates started to rush Jak forward to his doom. When they pulled the albino youth to the side instead, he held back. One by one, High Pile ordered the companions released from the file and moved over to join Jak. They were then rechained together at the ankles. After J.B. was linked to the others, the next slave in line, to his surprise and dismay, got the standard dagger treatment.
The companions glanced at Ryan again, wanting the go signal.
He shook his head. It looked like they weren’t going to be slaughtered along with the rest. It appeared their captors had other plans for them, which changed everything as far as he was concerned.
A pirate approached High Pile with a heavy, blanket-wrapped bundle. The captain ordered the man to untie it and lay it out on the ground at Fright Mask’s boots. When the bundle was opened, Ryan saw it held his scoped Steyr longblaster, J.B.’s scattergun and the rest of their weapons.
Trophies of conquest.
Or mebbe objects of ridicule.
Fright Mask got a big laugh over the LeMat. After inspecting it closely, he held Doc’s black-powder blaster by the barrels and swung its butt like a hammer head into his palm—as if pounding nails was all it was good for. He tossed the antique pistol back onto the blanket, which the pirate rolled up and retied.
High Pile waved the blaster-bearer ahead of him, through a white stone archway toward the dock and sailing ship beyond. Surrounded by Matachìn, Krysty, Jak, Mildred, Doc and J.B. were then shoved in that direction. They looked back over their shoulders at Ryan one last time, still awaiting his signal for them to act.
He shook his head. A final emphatic no.
It was also a goodbye.
The companions disappeared from sight.
Ryan had no clue where they were being taken or why. But whatever fate held in store for the others, the odds had to be better than what they faced here. If they still had a chance to survive, they had to leave him behind and take it.
The sacrificial chilling of the galley slaves continued as his pirate escort spun him the opposite way and forced him to walk under the red brick colonnade. They followed a dimly lit passage that led through the fort’s exterior wall, and out the door of a cylindrical guardpost.
In front of Ryan was a floodlit stone bridge, wider and more ornate than the first he’d crossed, and twice as long. This one was painted pale yellow and decorated with stout pairs of pillars at both ends. It led to a separate island, which was completely covered by a ravelin half as large as the courtyard they’d just left. The three-story structure was shaped like a triangle, or an arrowhead, pointing away from the bridge. Above the arched entryway were more crenelated battlements. There were only two windows that Ryan could see. The rest was smooth, featureless stone.
There was no doubt in Ryan’s mind that what lay at the far end of the bridge was the epicenter of the bad juju he’d sensed earlier.
A death camp for the ages.
As they mounted the bridge, Ryan considered and rejected his options. Even though it was way easier for one man to slip through a crack than six, the pirates had him cold—at least for the moment. Without a diversion, he’d never get the jump on them, never get his hands on a blaster, never get righteous payback. And trying to swim away chained hand and foot, assuming he could dive over the bridge wall before they caught him, was suicide.
The pirates marched him through the prison entrance and into a stone-walled anteroom. A half dozen red-sashed guards awaited his arrival. Two of them immediately took up long wooden poles, which had metal hoops attached to one end.
While the Matachìn pinioned his arms and two red sashes aimed double barrels at his chest, the poles were extended, front and rear, and the hoops slipped over his head and down past his chin. The red sashes then pulled on straps at the ends of the poles, drawing the steel bands so tight around his throat that he could hardly breathe.
When the Matachìn released his arms, the men holding the poles were in total control of him. The rods were so long, he couldn’t reach them with fists or feet. The leverage they offered made it easy for his captors to drive him to his knees, if they wished. And if that didn’t tame him, they could tighten the nooses even more and choke him into unconsciousness.
With a pole-bearing red sash in front and one behind, Ryan was simultaneously pushed and pulled forward, through a floor-to-ceiling iron gate. He entered a labyrinth of stone, and stifling heat and humidity. The walls and floors were warped and worn. There were standing puddles of unidentifiable fluid everywhere.
To his left were rows of passages, presumably the cell blocks, stretching off into the dark. From that direction he heard moaning.
When they passed by one of the cramped cells, Ryan saw it had no bed. It had no water. No toilet. No window to let in air or natural light. It reeked of urine and rotting flesh. A human form lay huddled and hidden under a pile of rags on the damp stone floor. There were rats inside the cell. They were merrily burrowing under the rags, feeding on the dead or the nearly dead prisoner. When Ryan looked farther down the passage, in the faint light he saw rats scurrying in bands of a dozen or more, darting back and forth across the corridor, between the cells.
At that moment he knew that few if any had ever returned from this awful place.
It wasn’t just a prison.
It was a tomb.
They continued on until they reached the very heart of the darkness, the place that was the hottest, the rankest, the most oppressive, the core of the man-made hellhole. With double barrels pointed at his head, Ryan was uncollared and booted into an already occupied cell. The iron-barred gate clanged shut behind him. Their work done, the red sashes turned away and left him to get acquainted with his cell mate.
The other prisoner squatted with his back pressed into a corner, his head lowered, his long black hair hanging down over his face. He appeared to be naked except for his chains. The weak light from the single overhead bulb threw him in deep shadow. As Ryan took in the bleak cell, he noticed the stalagmites on the floor, white beestings of calcite that had dripped from the ceiling. When he stepped closer, his fellow prisoner stirred and slowly raised his face to the light.
For the second time in as many hours Ryan exclaimed, “What the fuck!”
His words echoed in the gloom.
Then a disembodied voice whispered in his ear, “Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?”
The words seemed to have come from behind him. Ryan whirled, but there was no one there, only the sweating limestone wall.
When he turned back, the deadpan expression of his mirror image had transformed into a wide grin.
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