Plague Lords (Empire of Xibalba, #1) Read online

  Chapter Twenty

  Harmonica Tom’s spirits skyrocketed the second he climbed out of the putrid bilge into full, Texican sunlight. All of a sudden, escape seemed not only possible, but highly likely.

  His elation and his hope both faded as he summited the facing dune. Beyond the northeast end of the island, he saw four sets of sails bearing down. The pirates’ ships were already through the Aransas Pass and into the Waterway. They had the wind behind them. It was going to be tight getting back to Tempest, pulling the hook and making top speed before the pursuit swarmed into the little harbor.

  At least it was all downhill from here. The shacks on the outer edge of the ville were still standing. While they’d provide no cover from high-powered rifle fire, they’d block the shooters’ view of targets running down to the beach.

  Tom lowered his head and really picked up the pace, taking the slope in long, even strides.

  The red-haired woman, Krysty, was behind him. She was keeping up, no problem, and she was maintaining a twenty-foot distance, calculated to make accurate sniper fire from the ship more difficult.

  When he heard the shouting from the freighter, a chill rippled up his backbone. He couldn’t make out the words, but he knew what their impact would be if the top deck was manned by enemy gunners.

  A couple of strides later he heard the shrill whistle of incoming. Whatever it was, it was too damn big to be a rifle shot.

  Behind and to the right came a double whump of gas grens bursting in the sand. He didn’t look back, but he knew the steady breeze would sweep the cottony clouds over the folks running single-file after him.

  In short order, two more whumps.

  He heard coughing, but he didn’t stop, then heard a gunshot. He hoped the others didn’t stop. They had to reach the shacks.

  More grens exploded behind him.

  There was a brief flurry of autofire, but it wasn’t aimed at him. Then he was behind the nearest shack and around the bend. When he looked back he saw he was alone.

  “Shit!” Tom said.

  He immediately reversed course. Higher up the hill, he saw familiar figures on their knees, shrouded by dense clouds of CS smoke. Some were doubled over and wretching in the sand.

  The red-haired woman stood between him and the others, about forty feet away. She was apparently unaffected by the gas, as well. Krysty looked at him expectantly. When he didn’t make a move to come back to join her, she abruptly turned away, running toward the smoke and her companions.

  Tom just stood there for a moment, his guts twisted in a knot. There wasn’t any help he could give her or her friends. He imagined what it would be like trying to guide six blinded, vomiting people to the water, to the dinghy and to Tempest. If he did that, no one would get away.

  There was something else, too.

  He knew the significance of the awnings on the Matachìn tugs. He had seen similar sunshades before. He knew the tugs had been converted into slave galleons. Sharing that fact with Ryan and the others had seemed a pointless infliction of torture. At the time, the odds were better they would end up chilled, anyway. Now he wished he had told them. Bottom line: dead over someone else’s oar was definitely not how Harmonica Tom wanted to check out.

  Turning back for the ville and the beach, he left Ryan and the others to their fate. He felt bad about it, but he did it just the same. He was man enough not to rationalize the decision. He didn’t try to make himself feel better by listing all the other things he didn’t owe them.

  As he ran past the backs of the shacks, overlooking the flattened ruin of the ville, he heard blaster shots from behind.

  Who was shooting, he couldn’t tell.

  But the redhead had a handblaster, he recalled.

  There were six quick shots, then silence. Silence except for the rasp of his boots digging into the sand. Whatever had happened, it was over. He muttered a curse out of reflex, but he knew the additional six shots in his handblaster wouldn’t have changed the outcome one bit.

  When Tom reached the water, he turned left and raced along the shore, into the acrid smoke blowing off the ville. Nothing but smoke was moving inside the perimeter. Smoke and ash. The rows of huts had been turned into a smoldering rubbish pile.

  As he ran past the uncovered burial trench, he realized the whole island had become an open grave.

  The dinghy was where he’d left it, and it hadn’t been hit by mortar shrapnel. Turning the bow around, he pushed the raft into the water, jumped in the stern and stroked hard for his ship.

  Because every second counted, he didn’t try to pull the dinghy aboard by himself. He just tied the bow off on a side cleat of Tempest and climbed aboard. Jumping into the cockpit, he ducked belowdecks and immediately started the engine. The ship had swung around on its anchor. It was pointed bow into the breeze, 180 degrees in the wrong direction.

  This wasn’t Captain Tom Wolf’s first hasty getaway. It was more like his fiftieth—trouble and close scrapes were part and parcel of the trader lifestyle. He knew exactly what to do and when to do it.

  Gunning the motor, he slipped it in forward gear. As the ship moved ahead, it took the strain off the anchor line. He left the ship in gear, left it slowly creeping forward and ran to the bow. He grabbed the crank handle and winched up the anchor as fast as he could.

  After he locked it off with the eyebolt, he looked toward the ruined JFK Causeway bridge and his heart did a little flutter. The pirate sails were about a quarter of a mile away and closing rapidly.

  Tom raced back to the cockpit and cut the wheel hard over, making Tempest pivot to port. It was a painfully slow, tight turn. Before the ship came around 180, he was up on the deck, frantically freeing the lines that allowed him to raise all sails. Wind filled them with a loud snap, and because the rudder was hard over, the ship completed the half turn in a hurry.

  A rifle shot whined along the starboard gunwhale.

  Then another.

  He looked over his shoulder and saw the first pursuit ship coming down on him fast. Two pirates with longblasters kneeled on the bowsprit, shoulder to shoulder.

  The water in the channel was calm, perfect for shooting.

  The distance between Tom’s ship and the pirates had dwindled to about two hundred feet. But Tempest was picking up speed, moving faster and faster.

  More shots zinged through the lines, punching tiny round holes in the sails.

  Tom decided it was time to show them this bee had a sting in its tail. He reached up for the PKM’s pistol grip and pinned the trigger. The machine gun thundered, and he swept the muzzle back and forth, sending heavy slugs stitching across the oncoming bow. The full-metal-jacket rounds banged the anchor and skipped off the steel rails of the pulpit. One of the shooters crumpled under the hail, and as he did, he lost his weapon over the side. The other pirate grabbed him by the arm or he would have gone overboard, too.

  With the shooters occupied, Tom stood from behind his armored cockpit, took careful aim and gave the bow of the ship another sustained burst for good measure. He streamed autofire down the ship’s centerline, blasting holes in the steel masts, skimming the cabin roof and the cockpit.

  The second volley made the remaining shooter abandon his post, abandon his comrade and duck for cover, and it forced the captain of the pirate ship to take evasive action, slewing his ship from side to side, trying to make the machine gun miss.

  Which meant the ship lost speed.

  In the confines of the channel, the slowing lead vessel was like a plug in a bottle. There wasn’t room for the ships chasing behind to pass, and if they didn’t slow down, as well, they would ram into each other from the rear.

  Tom’s mind was running triple speed as he turned back for the cockpit. How fast were the pirates really? Could he outrun them? In what kind of seas? Were they carrying RPGs, or something else that could reach out long-distance and sink him? How long would they chase him if he could maintain good separation? Would his fuel hold out longer than theirs if the wind d
ied?

  The questions had no answers.

  But he knew he had to be prepared for the worst. The worst being that he couldn’t get cleanly away, and that the enemy ships would swing in close enough to throw grappling hooks and board him. He thought back to the longest chases he’d ever had. They’d all been eventually broken off by bad weather. That was not something he could count on here.

  After taking a bearing on the northwestern tip of the island, he lashed the helm in position with a loop of rope. As he slipped belowdecks the rifle fire from the rear resumed. Bullets slapped into the stern and ricocheted off the cockpit armor.

  The pirates weren’t giving up.

  Tom hurried into the salon and grabbed one of the backpacks of C-4. Then he hauled it up the companionway steps into the cockpit.

  He was greeted by slugs plinking into the main boom and chipping divots in the fiberglass deck.

  When he looked over the armor, he saw the pirate ships had broken their single-file formation. The channel had widened. They were coming after him two abreast.

  And they were gaining.

  He quickly untied the wheel and adjusted course, putting the wind square on his sails. Tempest’s hull hissed through the water as it picked up a tad more speed.

  “Come on, baby. Come on…” he urged.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  When Krysty Wroth heard the warning shouts, she didn’t turn; she ran faster downhill. The advantage of stealth and surprise was gone. All they had going for them was speed. They had to cover the open ground before the pirates started shooting.

  They could make it, she told herself. They could still make it.

  She heard the pops of a pair of grenade launchers fired from the top deck of the freighter, the whistle of the canisters as they arced to earth, then the hollow explosions behind her. Not the solid whack of frag grens. More CS gas. Her heart sank. She knew they had landed and burst right in front of the companions. She knew the others had run straight into the caustic clouds.

  She stopped and looked back. The dark green cans were hissing, belching plumes of white smoke out of the sand. Ryan, Jak, Mildred, Doc, J.B. and Garwood were enveloped in it.

  Even as they tried to run through the smoke pouring toward them, more grens landed upwind and burst, doubling the concentration of CS.

  Mildred stopped running and dropped to her knees, clutching her eyes and coughing.

  Jak tried to run past the second volley, but he was blinded by tears. He tripped and fell.

  Another pair of grens exploded upwind, and it was impossible to see anyone else for the boiling smoke.

  Krysty turned to Tom who waited by the edge of the ville. He saw what was happening, he couldn’t miss it. He had to know what was coming next, too. The pirates were going to swoop in and clean house. They had to get the companions out of the gas, to cover, if not safety. But the skipper just stood there. She knew then he wasn’t going to help. His body language said, it’s your problem.

  Maybe it was.

  Maybe that was the hard truth of it. She had no choice. She had to go back. She couldn’t leave the others defenseless. No matter what.

  Her eyes streaming, her nose and throat burning, Krysty ran back up the hill. The breeze had blown most of the gas away, but not before it had done its damage.

  All the companions were down in the sand. All of them were blinded. Tears and mucous streamed down their faces and dripped from their chins. They couldn’t even open their eyes for the pain.

  J.B. was on hands and knees, vomiting and moaning.

  Somewhere in the back of her mind it registered that the Fire Talker was not among them.

  Holding her breath, she ran from one fallen friend to the next, trying to pull them to their feet and head them downhill. “Come on! We can’t stay here! We’ve got to move!” she said.

  None of them could get up.

  Even if had been able to rise, they couldn’t see where to run.

  “Ryan, please,” Krysty said. “Please, you’ve got to…”

  “You go!!” he said, his voice a tortured rasp. “You can still make it! Go while you can!!”

  She couldn’t. She wouldn’t.

  Then it was too late.

  As CS gas cleared away downwind, she saw figures popping over the top of the dune. At least a dozen. They were carrying longblasters and heading downhill. She had no doubt who they were.

  Krysty held her .38 Smith & Wesson in a solid, two-handed grip and aimed up the hill. She let the murdering bastards get within thirty yards, then she emptied her blaster into them, center body.

  Every shot hit its target, but only one of the pirates went down. He fell backward on his butt, but immediately got up again. Like it was nothing.

  Armor, she realized. They had body armor.

  The Matachìn broke into a trot.

  No time for the speedloader. She rolled to her feet and scrambled to reach Ryan’s side. She was trying to get his SIG-Sauer clear of its holster when a gruff voice from very close behind her said, “No!”

  She looked up. The pirates stood in a half circle around her and her incapacitated companions. They held submachine guns in their grubby hands, and machetes were scabbarded at their hips.

  If enemy guns hadn’t been aimed at the others, if it had been just her facing them down, she would have gone for the blaster, anyway, taken as many head shots as she could get off before they chilled her. But under the present circumstances, it was something she couldn’t bring herself to do.

  She didn’t want to watch as her friends were murdered.

  The Matachìn closed in and started confiscating the companions’ weapons. Krysty couldn’t tell if Ryan and the others didn’t resist the pat-downs because they couldn’t see, or whether they realized resistance was futile. Eyes weren’t necessary to recognize the pressure of a blaster muzzle against the back of your head.

  Krysty stared down a gun barrel and surrendered her empty .38 without a struggle.

  Up close the pirates had a style and an aroma all their own. The style was like a uniform, down to the hair. Every one of them wore dreadlocks. Some had piled the lengths of felted hair piled on top of their heads and woven gold chains through them. Their weapons were all of the same design, and it was one she had never seen. The blasters looked like nine millis, but with very short barrels and top-of-action handles-rear sight protectors like M-16s, only scaled down in size. Their armor consisted of overlapping plates of black metal or ceramic, which was sewn into vests of what she knew to be Kevlar cloth. The armor covered their chests, backs, crotches and legs.

  The pirate with the highest pile of dreads was ordering the others around. High Pile seemed well pleased. She couldn’t understand a word of what he was saying.

  Understanding began to dawn on her, as the Matachìn lined up in front of her in order of hairdo height, with leers on their filthy faces. It dawned brighter when they unbuckled their crotch armor, then opened the fronts of their trousers. Some of them were already in a state of extreme readiness.

  Daniel Desipio stepped out from behind the last pirate in line. He wasn’t tear-gassed, and he wasn’t in restraints. It was pretty obvious to Krysty that he was the one who had given them away.

  “You backstabbing little shit,” Krysty called to him. “I wish I’d saved my last bullet for you.”

  The Fire Talker stood well back from her and the other companions, poised to duck behind the pirate’s considerable bulk if things suddenly got out of hand.

  “We all do what we have to in order to survive,” he said with somewhat brittle conviction.

  “You didn’t have to do this to us,” Krysty said. “You wanted to do this to us.”

  “Hardly,” Daniel said. “Seeing you and your friends brought so low gives me no pleasure at all. And I will get no pleasure from watching what comes to you next. But I have to watch because I’ve been ordered to do so.”

  “Poor, poor you,” Krysty said.

  High Pile was at the head of t
he line. He was the only one who hadn’t partially disrobed. He gave up his place in the queue to a much younger, much taller man.

  Krysty fought back a start of shock when she realized the guy with the weird eye was wearing a woman’s dress pulled down over his body armor. The shoulder and side seams were all split to hell. The dress had bloodstains. It had evil written all over it. The pirate standing in front of her dropped his machete scabbard and belt, then undid his fly.

  “What’s going on?” Ryan said hoarsely. He still couldn’t see for his tears. There was a gun barrel pressed behind his left ear. “What are they doing, Krysty?”

  She wasn’t about to tell him, although it was pretty clear what was going to happen to her.

  If Ryan tried to help, if he went berserk when he found out, he’d get a bullet in his head.

  Krysty rose to her feet. Outnumbered, outgunned, she knew she was probably going to die in the next few minutes, and wish she was dead long before she breathed her last. At least the pirates were coming at her one at a time, in some kind of dreadlock pecking order. That gave her some hope for a little bit of payback.

  Given the size and strength of the man who was about to attempt to violate her, she wasn’t sure she could do the trick unarmed. She had a secret weapon, though, an invisible connection to the power of the earth. Her mother, Sonja, had schooled her in the ways of Gaia, the Earth Mother, passing on the ancient knowledge that had been passed on to her. Krysty rarely tapped into the energy of that potent spirit, and never without good cause. She needed that special help now, and in silent prayer, in the words her mother had taught her, she begged for Gaia’s intercession.

  The mantra was like flipping a switch, opening a circuit that was always there, always ready.

  Gaia came to her as a sensation of warmth, then crackling electric energy. It surged into the soles of her feet, up her legs, filled her chest and arms, illuminated the inside of her skull. She felt a confidence and deep calm.

  Time seemed to slow down as the pirate reached for her left shoulder.