Outlanders 13 shadow sco.., p.1
Outlanders 13 Shadow Scourge, page 1
Prologue
Louisiana, the time of skydark
The distant booming of drums almost smothered the rustle of swift and stealthy feet in the clearing. Falconer whirled to see a small figure lunging at him from the moss-shadowed arch formed by the intertwining boughs of two cypress trees. Although the light of the noonday sun could not penetrate the vast clouds of pulverized dust overhead, nor the leafy canopy of the bayou, his eye implant afforded him a clear glimpse of a fierce, dark face and the glitter of steel in an upraised hand. Twisting his body, Falconer avoided the down-sweeping edge of the machete. Before the attacker recovered his balance, Falconer brought his own heavy blade down on the swampie's forearm. The razor-keen steel sheared through flesh, muscle and bone. The arm dropped to the marshy ground, fist still clenched around the handle of the machete. Blood spurted in a crimson arc from the hacked-off stump just below the swampie's elbow. It almost immediately became a trickle, as if a spigot valve had closed. Falconer wasn't particularly surprised, since the briefing jacket he had studied in White Sands footnoted the swamp mutants' conscious control over their double circulatory system. He whipped his eighteen-inch knife up and around in a horizontal sweep. He felt the shock of impact vibrating in his Teflon shoulder socket, then the swampie's head tumbled from his squat neck, seemingly propelled by a scarlet fountain. The creature's body trembled for a long moment, then toppled forward. Falconer stepped aside to avoid being doused by the flow of blood from the severed carotid artery. Foliage rattled behind him, and he pivoted on his heel just as the underbrush disgorged the houngan, Mama Minuit. Her lilting voice, pitched to a husky amused whisper, said "Done tol' yo' there be guards. Good t'ing he not one o' les morts-vivants." It had taken Falconer several days to focus past her Creole accent, liberally sprinkled as it was with debased French slang. He turned his snort of derision into a grunt and nudged the disembodied head with a foot. "One of the undead or just another mutant, he's still not regenerating a new head." The heat-sensitive cell in his right eye socket showed him the decapitated swampie's expression, frozen in a fierce death rictus, lips pulled back from discolored teeth. He also saw the pattern of raised scar tissue around his eyes. "Ritual scarring," he murmured. Mama Minuit gestured with her own machete, gripped tightly in her be-ringed right hand. "Caste marks. Disgusting! He one o' the baron's own, one o' his beasts. Had me no doubt about it. Now what yo' do? Not too late to leave, y'know." Falconer turned to face her, responding to the mocking challenge lurking in the woman's question. Mama Minuit's deep black eyes drew his as a magnet draws steel, and they seemed to glimmer with a wisdom peculiar to her alone. Her only garments were wrappings of bright red fabric that left her brown limbs and midriff bare. She was almost as tall as Falconer himself, broadly built and heavy breasted. Her hair was an unkempt explosion of glossy ebony, framing a smoothly contoured, almost regal face. The voodoo priestess had an aspect of the feral about her, but it was in keeping with their surroundings. Rather than answering the woman's question, Falconer responded with a terse query of his own. "Your people are all in place?" She nodded. "Oui. We must reach the church afore the ceremony is done and he—it--has recruited 'nother soldier to his army of the plague." "Plague?" "Ocajnik bring disease, he bring plague, he bring the Black Death." She pointed at the pattern of scar tissue wealed around the dead swampie's eyes. "Only those who bear his mark are immune to it. They are his beasts." "What's he do—inoculate them?" Falconer tried to conceal the disdain from his tone, but he knew he did a poor job of it. Mama Minuit regarded him with a level, dispassionate stare. "That he do. An' you will see how...if you have the nerve." Falconer saw little point in commenting derisively on her superstitious melodrama. He stepped away from the dead swampie, his movements at once lithe and economical. Of medium height, his physique was compact, but he moved with a stealthy ease through the underbrush, despite the weight of the Steyr Mannlicher SSG rifle slung over a shoulder. His boots made no noise, and in his black suit he was all but invisible. No sound broke the stillness other than the steady vibration of drums, and if there had been, his ears trained by years in the wild zones would have caught even the faint sigh of a breeze. The only thing he couldn't hear was a signal from White Sands. The high-frequency receiver implanted in his mastoid bone was designed to relay signals to an organo-metallic synapse in his left ear. But no matter how high or tightly focused the frequency, it couldn't penetrate the miles-wide blanket of debris clogging the sky and choking off sunlight. It was the time of the endless night, the twentieth year of the nuclear winter. Conditions weren't as horrific as even five years before, but were still bad enough. The sky itself was no longer of a blackish hue—over the past decade it had lightened to the red- brown color of an old bloodstain. The veil of dust and dirt choking the atmosphere was still too thick for radio signals to penetrate more than a few miles from the source of transmission. The satellite uplink on his Road Agent might as well have been a Teflon-coated washbasin for all the good it did him out in the swamps of southern Louisiana. In all directions, heat lightning flickered luridly, but no boom of thunder came. Falconer wiped away droplets of sweat trickling from the roots of his dark- blond hair, guessing the humidity was close to ninety percent. The combat cosmetics striping his face had become runny. He accepted the discomfort as part and parcel of his duty, but he wished he were back in New Mexico, where the heat might have been fierce but at least it was dry. The swamp's tangled lianas and creepers made a more impenetrable barrier than any obstacle course he had run during his Special Forces training. A dangling vine snared the barrel of the Steyr and he stopped, trying to disentangle it. Mama Minuit did it for him, murmuring, "You think this will do you any good 'gainst Ocajnik?" "It's done me a lot of good—and against worse than a madman trying to build a mutie army in the bayou." Mama Minuit's full lips twitched in a smile, both pitying and scornful. "You can't kill one o' the old ones. We can mebbe contain him, but not kill him." Falconer retorted with scorn of his own. "He's a scumbag with delusions of grandeur. More and more of his kind have been popping up since the war, calling themselves barons. You may want to think he's some kind of demon, but he came from a bomb shelter, not from hell." The voodoo priestess's eyes flashed with anger. "There are worse places than hell, soldier-man. De loa done tol' me what Ocajnik really is." Falconer shook his head in disgust and said nothing more. The six days he had spent in Mama Minuit's small settlement, some thirty miles inland from the drowned city of Lafayette, had shown him the futility of overcoming superstition with tales of bioengineering run amok. In the minds of Mama Minuit and her people, a faith in science was far more insidious than their belief in the paranormal. After all, their ancient beliefs in spirits, bocars, zombies and otherworldly deities hadn't destroyed the world. To them, science was far more monstrous than the blackest voodoo rites. They had never heard of the Totality Concept or Genesis Project or Eternity Enterprise. Therefore, in their view, the swampies were demon-spawned monsters, not mutated human beings. Falconer wasn't sure if there was much difference any longer between the womb of an artificial fertilization tank and the womb of hell, even though alterations had been performed on his own body. Without the application of bionic science, he would have long ago succumbed to the toxic wastelands of America following a nuclear holocaust. The former United States had splintered into villes, frontier settlements with only remnants of the old ways. The concept of law and order had vanished in a mere matter of years after skydark. The universals were suffering and death. Baronial rule depended on greed and terror, but the Deathlands beyond the villes harbored beasts and outlaws whose cruelty was unrivaled. In any event, if Mama Minuit found comfort in the belief that Baron Ocajnik was an inhuman old one, Falconer wasn't going to argue with her. He'd be able to prove to her how wrong she was soon enough. As it was, he was grateful she and her people had agreed to help him fulfill the mission. The farther they walked through the morass, the more Falconer became aware of people moving furtively around and ahead of them, gliding noisily among the ugly cypress roots and beneath the hanging nooses of Spanish moss. Not even with his augmented vision could he see them clearly. They were of a new breed, born into a raw, wild world, accustomed to living on the edge of death. Grim necessity had taught them the skills to survive, even thrive in the post-nuke environment. They might have been the progeny of civilized men and women, but they had no choice but to embrace lives of semi-barbarism. "We ver' close now," the voodoo priestess whispered. "Go careful. My people may not have taken out all de guards." Falconer obeyed her, wading carefully through the brownish, vegetation-sticky waters between buttress-rooted cypress knobs. The rotten-egg odor of swamp gas made him want to hold his nose. He saw several moccasins coiled around the roots, but they did not so much as hiss when he passed by. He heard no sound of night birds, crickets or frogs, only the steady rhythm of the drums increasing in volume. After a few minutes, the heavy foliage began to thin out and they reached comparatively high ground. The man and woman approached a widely cleared area surrounded by brush-clogged thickets. In the center of the clearing rose a building made of blocks of dark stone. It was a church, or at least it had been. The shape of a steeple could still be identified through a covering of intertwined vines. Although most of the stained-glass windows were broken, a flickering, lurid radiance glowed from within. "Jean Lafitte built it for his Cajuns, long time ago," Mama Minuit said lowly. "Hauled all de stones from a quarry in Lowellton, floated dem downriver." She shook her head sadly and added, "Place long ago de-sanctified
Falconer repressed the impulse to use his knife on it, despite the fact that the rodent seemed unusually large, nearly two feet tall. Baring its incisor teeth, the rat chittered, but not in fear. He received the distinct impression of a challenge. Spittle leaked from the creature's wedge-shaped mouth, and its long hairless tail whipped back and forth across the floorboards, sending up scraping echoes. Flesh crawling in revulsion, Falconer stepped away from the rodent. Placing his feet carefully on the litter-strewed floor, he reached the single door and pushed it open on rust-stiff hinges. He found himself high on a small balustraded gallery, overlooking the central chapel some twenty feet below. What he saw caused his breath to seize in his lungs, adrenaline to flood his system and to raise the short hairs on the nape of his neck. All of the church's pews had been cast carelessly aside on either side of the chapel to make an open central chamber. On the podium, where ministers once preached the Scripture and promised unending hellfire for the unbeliever, there now stood a tall, shrouded figure. He was as still as a carved idol, his features hidden by a red cowl. Around the base of the podium knelt thirteen people, each in an identical hooded robe. They pounded hide-covered drums with their fists, setting a hypnotic rhythm. They shouted words in a singsong chant, but Falconer did not understand them. They didn't sound like Creole or any language he had ever heard. From a brass censer atop the lectern, yellow cloying smoke poured. The opiated stench filled the chapel, collecting in a cloud beneath the arched ceiling. Falconer inhaled a bit of it and nearly succumbed to a coughing fit. Torches sputtered at equidistant points around the chapel, the wooden columns thrust into buckets of sand. The red flaring light they cast did not seem to touch the ring of black shadow hugging the chapel wall behind the raised dais. The figure on the podium made a sharp imperious gesture with both arms, causing the sleeves of his robe to bell and flap like crimson wings. He moved so suddenly, Falconer instinctively recoiled. The drums fell silent, but the chant continued, now in whispering monotone. Raising his hands, the figure thrust back his cowl and Falconer knew he was the man called Baron Ocajnik. He felt a shock of surprise at the baron's appearance. He'd expected a seamed, malevolent face, but instead saw the epitome of sculpted male beauty. It looked as if all the standards of masculinity had been shaken together in a bag then applied to Ocajnik. His thick, jet-black hair had just a suggestion of wave, and a comma of it fell over his high, unlined forehead. His nose was exceedingly well-defined, as were his lips and cleft chin. Only his eyes spoiled the effect of perfection. Inhumanly piercing, of a yellowish green, they blazed with more than intelligence and purpose. Falconer sensed the exceedingly charismatic force that radiated from them. Ocajnik spoke a single word, a harsh metallic syllable. Then the drumming began anew, but with a slower rhythm. One of the people rose from the floor, and the robe dropped. A naked girl, her brown body gleaming with either a coating of oil or perspiration, danced toward the dais. Her hips jerked in a lascivious rhythm to the drumbeats. Her eyes were dull, her mouth slack, but she twisted and gyrated in wild abandon, whipping her coarse black hair to and fro. Falconer saw the half-healed cuts around her eyes. Ocajnik watched her approach with a welcoming smile on his lips. He shrugged his broad shoulders and the robe slid down over his torso, to his feet. He stretched out his arms, beckoning to her. As Falconer watched, he caught the briefest ripple of motion around his body. The effect lasted only a microsecond, but he wondered if his infrared implant was malfunctioning or if the fumes from the censer were making him light-headed. He closed his left eye and continued to stare with his augmented right. A dizzy wave of vertigo swept over him, and he experienced the bizarre sensation of seeing two Ocajniks at the same time, occupying the same place, both completely different, one superimposed over the other. Ocajnik's body rippled, strobed, and for an instant Falconer saw a skeletal figure with every bone of his emaciated frame visible beneath tight-stretched skin. The flesh was yellowed, the color of old parchment. The human features seemed to fade like a watery paint in a horrific transmutation. Instead of a high-planed, handsome face, he glimpsed a hairless head with malformed ears that seemed far too long, reaching toward the temples and terminating in blunt points, with strands of lank, white hair tufted behind each one. The face was heavily lined, gaunt to the point of emaciation. The nose, cheeks and chin were protuberant. The sharp turtle's beak of a mouth stretched in gaping grin from which oversize, discolored teeth gleamed. Falconer was nauseatingly reminded of the bared teeth of the rat. Behind the teeth stirred a black tongue, damp with saliva and slithering restlessly in the half-open mouth. The fingers of the outstretched hands were frighteningly long and bony, like the gnarled twigs of a long-dead tree. They were tipped with curving, dirt- encrusted nails at least three inches long. Only Ocajnik's eyes remained the same. Falconer fought off the disorientation that threatened to engulf him. The naked girl reached the podium and took Ocajnik's hands. He lifted her effortlessly into his arms. He caressed her slender limbs, shoulders and flanks to the insistent beat of the drums. Falconer's augmented aural receptors heard him whisper, in accented English, "Kiss me and live forever." Cupping the girl's face between his hands, Ocajnik gently tilted her head back. Her trembling lips opened. From Ocajnik's mouth snaked his tongue, and he plunged it deep into her mouth, down her throat. She convulsed in his arms, not struggling to free herself but rather spasming in reaction to the choking penetration. As if the entry of his tongue were a signal, the worshipers at the podium voiced a blood-freezing howl in unison. Tossing aside their drums, they ripped out of their robes and flung themselves on each other in shrieking ecstasy. There seemed to be an even number of men and women, though it was hard to differentiate between them when they became a single writhing mass. They howled and bayed in hoarse voices. All of their swarthy faces bore the caste marks. Falconer watched in mindless revulsion and closed his right eye. Below, on the raised platform he saw a handsome naked man passionately kissing an equally naked and equally ardent young woman. Her knees buckled and her arms dangled limply while Ocajnik kept his mouth pressed against hers. Then, from the entrance arch came shrieks of pain and confusion. Mama Minuit and at least a dozen machete-wielding men burst into the chapel. They hacked and chopped a path through the naked cultists. The voodoo priestess shouted commands in Creole, and then began the slaughter. Screaming insanely, the people rushed about the chapel, slamming into one another, stumbling and falling. Mama Minuit's men dashed among them, their razor-keen blades sinking into skulls with grisly crunches. Within an instant, the church was a mob of howling, terrified figures. Bodies dropped like cords of wood about the podium. At the priestess's appearance, Ocajnik released the girl. She lay in a shuddering, twitching heap at his feet, vomiting blood. Ocajnik's lips were scarlet coated and he roared a few words that sent crimson droplets flying from them in a spray. Mama Minuit responded with a stream of shrieked invective as she fought her way toward the platform, her own machete slashing out and down. One of the naked cultists rushed at her in desperation, lifting a dagger. A backhand stroke almost severed the man's head. A half dozen of Mama Minuit's blade-brandishing men surged toward the dais, leaping up to surround Ocajnik. The man-thing voiced a sobbing laugh and snatched them up as if they were dolls, grabbing them by arms, necks and even their stomachs. They screamed as his hands crushed their bones, as talon-tipped fingers punctured their organs, the long, sharp nails flaying the flesh from their bodies as if husking ears of corn. They fell and flopped and jounced and screamed as Ocajnik flung them away amid crimson sprays. Blood fountained from slashed arteries, splashing the floor with looping artless patterns. In a handful of seconds, Ocajnik cleared the podium of attackers. Swiftly, Falconer brought the Steyr-Mannlicher SSG to his shoulder, seating the stock firmly and squinting through the telescopic sight with his left eye. Although the range was short, he wasn't about to take chances. He centered the crosshairs on Ocajnik's forehead. Even as his finger contracted on the trigger, he saw Ocajnik startle almost imperceptibly. His head swung up and around. His flaming green eyes focused and something struck Falconer. He felt it like a terrible blow at the base of his spine, and Falconer's hand froze. He felt a terrible pressure squeezing his mind, and his nerves seemed to misfire. The tendons and bones in his hand locked. Through the scope, he saw a triumphant smile cross Ocajnik's handsome face. Falconer didn't waste any time trying to reason out the cause of the sudden paralysis. Without hesitation, but awkwardly, he planted his right eye against the rim of the scope. Once again he glimpsed the strange rippling phenomenon around Ocajnik. Whatever force had seized Falconer and insinuated itself into his mind ebbed away and he squeezed the rifle's trigger. Switching eyes cost him the head shot, but with the sharp explosive report, Ocajnik staggered across the podium, driven by the devastating punch of the 7.62 mm round high in his chest. As he toppled from the platform, one of his flailing hands caught the smoldering censor and pulled it with him to the littered floor. Embers scattered and ignited a half-dozen small fires. Apparently inspired by the flames, Mama Minuit wrenched a torch from a bucket of sand and shouted at her followers to do the same. They snatched the burning sticks of wood and pitch, using them first as bludgeons to drive the last of the panicked cultists out of the chapel and then to ignite the splintered pews. Mama Minuit cried happily, "A fine fuel for the fires of purification!"
