Sky Raider. James Axler

at that. Such a salute was reserved only for the baron and his wife. Sandra held the sec man’s gaze for a long moment, then regally nodded. Turning, Zane started shouting orders, and people rushed to obey. The line of men picked up the baskets from the dais and started marching around the blockhouse. An old woman burst into tears of happiness, and from somewhere a man started to sing a working song.

      “So it appears you are finally in charge, dear Daughter,” Baron Tregart said slowly, leaning back in his throne. “Your brother still burns, and he has already been replaced.”

      The woman said nothing, her thoughts dark and private.

      “Shall I jump onto the funeral pyre next?” the baron asked, lifting the round of bread and shaking it at her. “Or do you wish that pleasure for yourself, Baron?”

      “I do not want to rule,” Sandra said slowly. “I never have. You know what I desire.”

      “Bah, foolish dreams.” The baron snarled. Unable to restrain himself any longer, the old man chewed off a small piece of the bread. The first swallow was without taste, and the baron had to command himself to stop to let the yawning pit of his belly accept the food before swallowing any more. His gut roiled at the invasion, then finally settled down, and he tried another small piece, and then another.

      As his hunger slackened, the baron found he could now taste the bread. By the blood of his fathers, it was delicious! Sweetened with something, honey perhaps, or maybe a pinch of predark sugar. Food fit for a baron’s table, and not the sort of thing that was traded away for a few live rounds of ammunition.

      “All this food. There’s too much. It is the wealth of an entire ville,” the baron said, masticating each bite to make the food last. “Jeffers would never give so much for what we had to offer in trade.”

      Taking a round of bread from the basket, Sandra pulled out a knife and cut off a slice. “Oh, but he did,” she said with a private smile.

      Scowling, the baron lowered his repast. “Did you bed him for this wealth? Did you trade your honor to save the ville?”

      “There are blasters, too, Father,” she said, tossing the bread back into the basket. Reaching into a pocket of her leather jacket, Sandra pulled out a wad of gray cloth. Walking up the stairs, she placed it on the arm of the throne with a muffled thud.

      Taking one more bite of the bread in his hand, the baron placed it aside and chewed thoughtfully as he folded back the oily cloth to expose a wheelgun. The metal was unblemished, without any sign of rust, and the barrel shone with a blue tint like winter ice. Now, Sandra pulled out a fat leather pouch and laid it next to the blaster. With trembling fingers, the baron pulled open the top and saw it was filled with lead shot and a clear plastic jar of black powder.

      “So, you did it,” the baron accused in a hollow voice.

      “Yes,” she replied simply.

      “So that mule you mentioned, it was Digger’s,” he ventured.

      Over by the stone well, a group of laughing sec men tossed a rope over a bare tree branch normally used for hanging outlanders, and hauled the dead mule into the air. Even before its hooves left the ground, a child slid a plastic basin underneath and big woman started skinning the beast with a sharp knife.

      Smiling slightly, Sandra shrugged. “He didn’t need it anymore.”

      So the trader was aced, eh? he thought.

      “Were there any survivors?” the baron asked hopefully. “I know about the power of the Angel, but surely you could not have…I mean, an entire ville?”

      She laughed, and he received his answer.

      “It was them or us, dear Father.” Sandra chuckled. “There was no other way. One ville died, so another could live.”

      “But you took all of their food.”

      “All that I could find,” she corrected, clenching her teeth. “Some of it was…inaccessible.”

      Slumping in his throne, the old baron tried to come to grips with the idea of jacking the dead. More, Jeffers had been a friend. Long ago, the two villes had fought together in the Mutie Wars. Was that bond of honor to be broken over loaves of bread?

      For a time there was only the sound of the funeral pyre and the happy singing of the butcher doing her messy task. As the meat came away from the bones of the animal, children took the huge wet slabs and awkwardly carried them around the blockhouse to the cooking fire. Staying close by the littles, armed sec men guarded the food and carefully stayed between it and the starving crowd who watched the preparations with near madness in their gaunt faces.

      Hitching up his loose pants, a burly sec man approached the dais and clumsily saluted, his right hand not quite touching his temple. “Baron?” he asked hesitantly.

      Sandra frowned at the man, but the baron turned to look upon the man with patience. Gedore was a new sec man, recruited just before the crops failed. He was strong and obedient, but lacking in any imagination. A grunt, as the baron’s grandfather would have said. Just a blaster with feet.

      “Yes, what is it?” Baron Tregart asked.

      Gedore gestured to the chained men shivering near the funeral pyre. They kept casting furtive glances at the flames as if expecting to be tossed upon the conflagration at any moment. Plainly written on the faces of the sec men holding the chains of the two prisoners was their opinion that they would have heartily approved of such a command from their chief, or baron.

      “What about the thieves?” Gedore asked.

      Stroking the round of bread for a moment, Baron Tregart scowled at the two men in open hatred, his face contorting into a feral mask of fury. Releasing the bread, the old baron grabbed the blaster on the table and started loading the chambers.

      “Bring them closer,” Baron Tregart whispered hoarsely, both hands busy with powder and shot. “I shall do this myself. Myself!”

      “No, Father,” Lady Tregart interrupted, stepping in front of the elderly man.

      Snapping up his head, the baron stared at her as his hands continued their work. After fifty years of being a baron, the man could load a weapon in the dark while drunk.

      “They killed the son of the baron,” he reminded her, closing the cylinder with a satisfying click. “The punishment is death.”

      “And why should we waste precious ammo on scum such as these?” Sandra asked soothingly, then smiled at the chained men. She could see a flicker of hope come into their faces.

      “No,” the woman continued. “Don’t shoot them, Father, and there shall be no burning today to mar the funeral of my brother.”

      “Thank you, lady!” one of the prisoners cried, dropping to his hands and raising both hands.

      “Gedore!” Sandra said loudly, motioning him closer.

      The big sec man rested a boot on the dais and leaned inward. She could see the folds of loose flesh around his neck and guessed he had been giving some of his rations away. A lover, perhaps? That would end today.

      “Yes, ma’am?” Gedore asked.

      “Cripple them, and throw them alive to the dogs,” Sandra said calmly, savoring the panic that grew in their eyes. Fools, did you think to ace a Tregart and live to tell the tale? “I see no reason to waste all of the meat. Today marks the passing of my brother, and the salvation of the ville! Everybody eats their fill!”

      Her eyes sparkling with amusement, Sandra grinned at the stunned prisoners. “Even the dogs,” she added softly.

      “No!” a prisoner screamed, shaking all over. “Mercy, mistress! Chill us, please! It was an accident! An accident! I swear!”

      A guard cuffed the man silent, while the other prisoner slumped his shoulders and began to softly weep, his tears falling unnoticed onto the dusty ground.

      “Take