Thorough questioning after drug injections had established that these Ganiks were a most unprepossessing race and were better avoided, being aggressive, vicious in the extreme and numerous in this part of the mountains. Among their common, everyday practices were the savage torture of prisoners, incest of every variety, bestiality and cannibalism.
Because of the danger of running into a large group of these barbarians, Corbett moved due west, into the mountains, then angled south, marching by compass bearing. In order to effect this, Braun had to be removed from his horse litter and strapped into the saddle of a riding mule. He was injected with drugs at regular intervals to prevent the pain from driving him into shock. He began to hallucinate that Erica was deliberately, sadistically torturing him, and nothing could then or later convince him of the baselessness of this charge.
Despite Corbett’s painstaking precautions, the presence of his party was detected by a large group of the Ganiks, who trailed them for days, made one abortive dawn attack against the camp, picked off several troopers along the route of the march and, finally, confronted the reduced column—several hundred strong, though very ill armed—at one of the rare open areas, where the track crossed a small valley.
Having expected just such a confrontation, Corbett had already split his command, giving Sergeant Gumpner one full squad and the responsibility for Erica, Braun and all of the other wounded.
Therefore, the full column formed a wedge and charged the strung-out mob of Ganiks, commencing a deadly fire at twenty-five yards, then continuing at full gallop up the farther slope to the high, narrow, rock-walled defile that split the mountain. Here they divided, with Gumpner’s people speeding on southward, while Corbett and the larger group prepared to hold back pursuit as long as possible.
The narrowness of the pass forced Gumpner’s group to string out in ones and twos, soon to be separated by the twists and turns and the difficult, rock-strewn footing. Erica found herself behind Braun. When she caught up to him, he begged her to check his girths, saying he feared that they were loosening. Against her better judgment, she had dismounted and done so, only to find them both tight and secure. But when she looked up to tell him so, it was to see a face twisted in hate, a wild look in his bloodshot eyes and the gaping black muzzle of his big pistol.
After raving for a few moments, he tried to shoot her but failed, so he kicked her viciously with his good leg, then slammed the heavy steel weapon down on the back of her unprotected head and rode on southward, even as she crumpled to the rocky ground.
She had been found by a brace of Ganiks, her rifle still slung diagonally across her back, and possession of it along with the fact that her female body was young and attractive had saved her from the stewpots. The leader of that small group of Ganiks had taken her for his own, raping her whenever the mood struck him and also making her available to his lieutenants, these latter called “bullies” in the Ganik “bunches.”
For many days, Erica’s mind was confused; except for her name and title, her memory was a blank. Then another, less forceful buffet by the Ganik leader brought all of her memories back in a rush at almost the same time that her principal rapist managed to kill himself through mishandling her rifle.
Securing the rifle and a supply of loaded magazines for it, she shot the cruel, slatternly Ganik woman who had been her jailer, then proceeded to shoot each of the bullies who had accepted the leader’s offer to abuse her, being aided and abetted by the only two bullies who had not raped her—a pair of incestuously homosexual brothers, Abner and Leeroy. After the executions, oddly enough, the remaining Ganiks of the bunch had freely accepted her as the new leader and the brothers had aided her in selecting new bullies to enforce her dictates.
Shortly after this, the new paramount leader of all the Ganik bunches had ridden in with his bullies and the man he had chosen to be their new leader. Erica had shot three of the newcomers dead and coldly offered the same to any others who tried to displace her from her new status. The surviving bullies of the dead paramount leader had conferred amongst themselves and elected Erica to replace him, so she and the rest of the small bunch had ridden back to the camp of the main bunch.
This had all taken place in early spring. Later that same spring, well-armed, well-mounted forces of the Kingdom of New Kuhmbuhluhn—a group of misplaced natives of the Middle Kingdoms, or rather their descendants—had commenced a serious and successful attempt to either drive the entire Ganik race out of their kingdom or kill them all. And having lived with the Ganiks long enough to leam to really hate and despise the bulk of them, Erica had not been able to fault the Kuhmbuhluhners in their purpose.
As the summer was ending, the fortified camp of the main Ganik bunch fell to the Kuhmbuhluhners. Those of its defenders who had not deserted were butchered in a final battle. Then while the victorious Kuhmbuhluhners rode up into the empty camp, Erica and twenty-odd bullies made a narrow escape.
5
Erica’s announced reason for guiding the twenty-six Ganik bullies from the site of their defeat by the Kuhmbuhluhners to the place where the pack train had been crushed and buried was that she wished to secure more rifles with which to arm them. Of course, she also had a private reason. She hoped to get at and use the big, long-range transceiver to summon help from the Center, not wishing to spend any longer than necessary among the Ganiks—even these relatively civilized specimens of that degenerate race.
Arrived at the site of the tragedy, the Ganiks set to with a will at the spots Erica’s memory told her were the most likely locations and, during the first day, found two rifles, three sabers and a big pistol. The agent assumed that the collection of crushed, clean-picked and partially disjointed bones among which the handgun had been found were those of the late Sergeant Major Vance, for only senior noncoms and the three agents had originally carried the short-range, big-bore weapons.
Erica appropriated for herself the pistol and the three magazines of thick, stubby cartridges, awarding a rifle each to Merle Bowley and Counter Trimain, and leaving the finely balanced stainless-steel sabers to whoever fancied them.
Then she and the leaders set the rest again to the back-breaking job of shifting boulders and heaving at rocks. But long days went by without the uncovering of much more in the way of weapons or even equipment. There was a multitude of bones, all of them as cleanly picked as the first ones found, and Erica was puzzled as to how any predator or scavenger had managed to get between or under the rocks to strip off the rotted flesh and muscle tissue and even cartilage and tendon, leaving abundant toothmarks on the bones.
Nor were these toothmarks restricted solely to bones. Metal fittings and equipment too showed where businesslike attempts had been made to devour saddles, belts, slings, cartridge boxes, harness, anything made of leather. She found it all most odd and not a little sinister, for the waterproofing compound used on Center leather goods normally repelled vermin of all sorts.
They worked northward along the verges of the landslide, where the rocks and boulders were mostly smaller. Farther in, the chunks of the once-plateau were far too large for ten or twenty times her available force to handle without the use of explosives to fracture them.
Some usable items were garnered, including quite a bit of ammunition, but all of the rifles they came across were clearly damaged to one degree or another and Erica did not know enough about them to be certain that any repairs she might undertake were proper for safe operation, so she simply emptied them of magazines and ammunition and left them among the rocks. After those found on the first day, only one other undamaged rifle was found, and this one was presented to Horseface Charley.