Ryan watched, leaning on the wall, flexing the fingers of his left hand to make sure the bullet hadn't severed any ligaments or tendons on its way through. Apart from a dull ache, it didn't feel too bad.
One of the great brooding heads dipped, and the teeth closed on Harvey Cawdor's right leg between knee and ankle. There was the savage crunch of gnawed bone, and the man screamed, a terrified cry of gut-deep anguish.
"Brother... help me!"
The sudden noise disturbed the rest of the tusked monsters, and they all seemed to attack at once. The bloated body vanished under the bristled boars, and the last scream was muted and silenced, ending in a dreadful gagging, bubbling noise. Then there was only the grinding of teeth and the rending of meat.
Ryan straightened and heard the voice from behind him, a dull, flat voice that seemed bereft of any life.
"Now you can join your brother, Ryan. Jump in after him."
He turned and looked into the meltwater eyes of Lady Rachel Cawdor. She was holding the lethal dart gun that had once belonged to her son, and it was aimed at Ryan's stomach.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The dart guns had originally been manufactured by an armament firm with government contacts operating out of a guarded sec complex east of Butte, Montana. Not many of them were still around. Ryan had only seen a dozen or so in his life, mostly out west in the deserts and lagoons of what had once been called California.
They used a tiny explosive charge and held a half-dozen or so darts, a half inch long, barbed and made from the finest surgical steel. They tumbled on impact, for maximum impact, and were lethally difficult to locate and remove.
Rachel had been bleeding, and there was blood crusted around her mouth. Her face also bore the clear imprint of a ringed fist. The eyes were venomous with hatred for Ryan. She wore a long black dress that dragged on the floor, hiding her dainty feet. The stiletto was sheathed at her belt. The bag that she normally carried was missing.
Her voice was quiet and gentle, difficult to hear above the crunching of bones from the pit below them, but loud enough for Ryan to hear every word.
"I offered you the chance, didn't I? Now see what you've done. Harvey dead. Jabez, sweet child, dead. The ville ruined and everyone gone. All by the return of a middle-aged, one-eyed double-poor hired killer. You, Ryan."
"Aw, it weren't nothing, lady," he replied, grinning wolfishly. "Anyone would have done the same if'n they'd had the chance."
"I'm going, as well. I have my jewels packed. My favorite mare is in the stables, saddled and ready. She can outrun anything in the Shens. By sundown I'll be forty miles south of here."
"I thought you could run from your past," he said, feeling warm blood easing itself stickily down the side of his chest. "I ran for twenty years. In the end, I find I'd run clear back to where I'd started. You can't run from what you've done."
"Watch me, Ryan." A ghost of a smile flitted at the corners of her bloodless lips.
"You won't even get out of the ville."
"You won't even know, Ryan. Because you'll be dead with a gutful of steel darts. And I shall look back and enjoy watching you kicking at my feet. I shall remember that..." she concluded, leveling the gun, finger tightening on the flat, broad trigger.
"Nevermore," Doc Tanner said, squeezing the trigger of his beloved antique Le Mat pistol.
The blast of the .63-caliber scattergun damned near blew Rachel Cawdor's head clear off her narrow shoulders.
Ryan ducked away from the devastating noise and power of the old handgun, but he was splashed with blood and brains. The noise stopped the boars at their feeding for a few seconds. Then they resumed dining on the ragged body of the baron of Front Royal.
Rachel's corpse slipped untidily to the stone floor of the balcony, the dart gun still held in her right hand. Powder smoke hung in the cool air of the pit, and the stench of cordite was heavy in the nostrils.
"Just before being trawled forward by Project Cerberus, I worked in a laboratory with an elderly English geneticist," Doc said, holstering his blaster. "At the end of each working shift he would fold away his coat and say, 'And that, gentlemen, concludes the entertainment for today.' I think, my dear Ryan, this concludes our entertainment for today."
"Thanks, Doc."
It was raining heavily.
Evening had come early to the Shens, borne in on the teeth of a rising wind and the threat of a severe chem storm sweeping from the blue-ridged mountains to the north and west of Front Royal. Ryan and his friends regained their own weapons and clothes, then found ample food in the empty kitchens. None of the local villagers came near the fortress that first night of freedom from the oppression of Baron Harvey Cawdor.
In the abandoned palace it was easy for Ryan and Krysty to find an empty bedroom for themselves for the night. There was some wine from a crusted green bottle that Doc found in one of the old cellars. Called Chateau-neuf-du-Pape, it was a delicious soft red wine that lay like a silk ribbon on the palate. There were words on the dusty cobwebbed label that Krysty said she thought were French.
They made love with an infinitely gentle slowness, relishing each other's body, doing for each other the things they knew would give limitless delight. Afterward Ryan lay with his head cradled on Krysty's stomach, one hand stroking her breasts. The shoulder wound had been thoroughly cleansed and bandaged, and the pain had now abated to a steady throbbing. Nothing vital had been harmed by the .22, and he knew from previous experience that he would be as good as new within a week or so.
"Decision time, lover," she said.
"Stay or go, you mean?"
"You've done what you came for. Revenged your brother, Morgan, and cleared out the stables. Now you can take over.''
"I know."
"Nobody'd say a word 'gainst it. I'd stay here. Mebbe Doc and Lori would stay on."
"Not J.B. or the kid?"
She shook her head. "Some men need to keep on moving. Can't stay still. Both of them."
Ryan sat up and pulled the sheets around him against the chill of night. "What 'bout me, Krysty? Can I stay here for the rest of my life? Do I want that? Step into Harvey's shoes? Live as baron of Front Royal?"
She reached out and laid her hand against his face. "If you want to, Ryan. That's the only reason. It's there for you. That's what we came for to give you the peace of mind from knowing. Twenty years wondering. Now you know. Gaia, lover! Inside your head you must know what you want to do!"
Ryan knew she was right.
The heads and old men and women from all the hamlets within the control of Front Royal ville had been sent for and brought in. It took four days, by which time the place was back and running, with most of the servants returning to their old jobs. But there were no new sec men appointed. Ryan had made it clear he wouldn't agree to that.
He made a long speech the first he'd ever undertaken and told the listeners what was going to happen.
When he spoke of the ville existing for the good of all, there were scattered cheers.
But his announcement that he and his friends were moving on and leaving Nathan Freeman, now called Cawdor, as the baron of Front Royal was greeted with a stunned dismay.
"Why him, Lord Cawdor?" called out a toothless old crone in the front row, leaning on a blackthorn staff.
"Because he is the son of my oldest brother, Morgan Cawdor, murdered by Harvey. He is baron by right and by succession. I name Nathan Freeman as my own heir to Front Royal."