Madman Run

Chapter Nineteen

Blade stepped to the doorway and saw dozens of smiling serfs packing the corridor, blocking any possible escape. Every one carried a knife. None made a move to harm him—yet.

“Hello, Pard.”

The youth glanced to the right and recognized a pair of friendly, beaming faces. “Tabitha. Selwyn. Not you, too?”

“What do you mean, sir?” Tabitha responded. “We like to play pincushion as much as everyone else.”

“But pincushion isn’t a game. All of you could be killed.”

Tabitha chuckled. “Not us, sir. Why, unless we’re eaten or chopped into itty-bitty bits, we just curl into little balls for a couple of hours and wake up as good as new.”

The full extent of her insanity staggered Blade. He sadly shook his head and scanned the rows of fragile, thin figures. “You don’t understand about dying. You don’t know the first thing about pain and suffering, Please, please, put down your knives and go have fun in the forest.”

“But we can’t sir,” Selwyn said. “The great mast wants us to play pincushion with you, and that’s what we must do.”

“What if my friends and I don’t want to play?”

“You must, sir.”

“We don’t want to hurt you.”

The serfs laughed, exchanging amused looks, and then, all at once and all together, without a signal to spur them forward, they attacked.

A glittering knife almost ripped Blade’s left arm open as he stepped backwards and tried to shut the door. Fists and blades rained down upon the wood, and the press of bodies kept the door a foot from the jamb, preventing him from doing more than temporarily thwarting the serfs.

Hickok and Geronimo rushed to his aid and added their weight to the fray.

The serfs laughed, giggled and snickered the whole time. As they pounded on the door, as they pushed against the panel in a compact mass, as they slashed at the space between the door and the wall, they did so with the utmost hilarity, and the harder they fought, the more mirth they expressed.

Blade’s muscles were taxed to their limits. He pushed on the door until he was red in the face, but after all he’d been through he was in no condition to withstand the combined strength of dozens of determined serfs, no matter how weak they might be individually. Even his finely sculpted physique wasn’t made of iron.

“They’re gettin’ through!” Hickok declared as the door slowly inched inward and the serfs were able to extend their reach.

In the end it was the knives that made Blade acknowledge the door couldn’t be held. A razor edge sliced into his left forearm, not much more than a prick, but he realized it was only a matter of time before they inflicted a grievous wound. “On the count of three,” he told his companions. “We let go and fall back. Spread out and take as many with you as you can.”

“I don’t much cotton to gunnin’ nymphs,” Hickok grunted.

“It’s either them or us. We can’t afford to go easy on them or we’ll never see the Home again.”

Standing near Elphinstone, Endora Morlock cackled and mocked them.

“You’re not so tough now, are you, boys? In a few minutes you’ll be lying on the floor, and I’ll be dancing in your blood.”

“One,” Blade said, ignoring the barbs. To think he’d once felt sorry for her!

The nonstop drumming on the door continued, mingling with the laughter and the tittering to create an insane din.

“Two,” Blade stated. If nothing else on this trip, he’d learned never to take potential enemies and circumstances at face value. Hidden motives and meanings always lurked beneath the surface, and they had to be diligently peeled off like the layers of a rotten onion to expose the putrid core within.

“Kill them, my little darlings!” Endora cried. “Show them how foolish they were to cross the Morlocks.”

“Three,” Blade barked and leaned backwards. He held the Marlin in his right hand, leveling the barrel as his friends swiftly backed up and the door crashed inward.

Serfs jammed the doorway in their eagerness to plunge their knives into the youths, beaming inanely, bloodlust animating their eyes.

The Marlin boomed, and two serfs dropped. Blade fired twice more, wishing there was some other way he could stop them, overcome with guilt.

Geronimo’s Winchester cracked five times in succession, and with each shot a pale, smirking fury fell.

“Kill them! Kill them!” Endora shrieked.

Doing their best to accommodate her, the serfs pressed inside without a spare glance at their fallen comrades. They were about to crest into the room like a tidal wave breaking on a shore when a lean youth in buckskins barred their path.

Hickok had held himself in reserve for just this moment. A lopsided grin creased his lips as he slapped leather, both Colts clearing leather in a streak of movement too fast for the eye to follow. He thumbed off two shots and bored two slugs through two atrophied brains.

The serfs concentrated their attack on the gunfighter. A male lunged with his knife extended.

Unflinching, Hickok sent a round into the male’s nose, then shifted and blasted two others. More took their place, and he gunned them down, a single shot apiece, invariably going for a head shot, firing until both revolvers were empty and a pile of corpses choked the doorway.

Over the pile came the rest of the serfs, their enthusiasm bordering on fanaticism, those in the front laughing the hardest.

Blade saw the gunfighter trying to reload, and he grabbed Hickok’s shirt and propelled him backward. Discarding the Marlin, he drew his Bowies and advanced to meet the serfs head-on. Suddenly they were swirling around him, cutting and hacking and cackling, always cackling, thoroughly enjoying themselves. He blocked and countered and stabbed, matching their madness with a frenzy of sheer desperation, becoming a tornado of whirling limbs and flashing Bowies, only dimly aware of Geronimo battling on his right, of the twin tomahawks weaving a lethal tapestry to rival his own.

Incredibly quick, the serfs fought like spitfires, prancing and lancing and thrusting and dancing, always in motion, always laughing.

Fury seized Blade, a fury at these creatures—for they could hardly be called human—who had no regard for life, their own or anyone else’s. All that mattered to them was fun, fun, fun, having a good time at the expense of everyone and everything. Work became a game. Killing became a game. Existence was a giant game presided over by an insane games master.

His flesh was pierced and gashed and nicked, but he fought on. His arms flagged and his legs complained, but he endured. The sight of so much blood and gore sickened him, but he let self-preservation take its course and took on all comers.

After a while individual foes no longer existed. In their place was a pale demon of many guises who cackled and popped up here, there and anywhere, wounding him in a score of spots, decorating his clothing with crimson streamers. He killed and killed, and still they came on.

Blade ripped a male from gut to sternum, then severed a woman’s neck with a single swipe. He deflected an overhand swing and gave a thrust to the throat in return. A knife bit into his side and he bit back. On and on the combat raged, until all of a sudden he found himself standing alone with a carpet of corpses all about him.

“We did it, pard.”

The weary voice drew Blade’s attention to the right, where Geronimo and Hickok were back to back, the Blackfoot holding gore-spattered tomahawks, the gunfighter a red-stained axe. Bodies ringed them.

There wasn’t a serf alive. They were sprawled in all manner of positions, many coated with blood, ripped and torn and cleaved. And every one, every male and every female, smiled even in death, as if they had played a monumental joke on their slayers, a joke only they comprehended.

“Dear Spirit,” Geronimo said softly, “is this what it’s really like to be a Warrior? Is this the price we’ll pay for protecting our loved ones?”

“I am a mite tuckered out,” Hickok confessed.

Blade swallowed and surveyed the slaughter. He spotted Tabitha and Selwyn a few feet to his left, dead side by side, and realized, in horror, that he must have slain them.

“Thank goodness there wasn’t any more of those rascals,” Hickok said.

“A few more minutes and we would have bit the dust.”

“I wonder if I should become a Warrior?” Geronimo asked, a question meant more for himself than his friends.

Blade looked down at the wounds he’d sustained and the blood seeping out. One knife had cut his vest right above the heart but missed the skin.

His cuts weren’t life-threatening, but they hurt terribly.

“You murdered our babies, you fiends!”

The youths turned to find Endora Morloek gazing in shock at the serfs.

“You bastards will suffer for this!” Endora raged. “I’ll torture you personally.”

“Shut your face, bimbo,” Hickok snapped, dropping the axe. He began reloading both Colts.

Endora stepped over several bodies and shook her fists at all three of them. “Why couldn’t you leave us alone? We were perfectly happy until you butted in. You barged into our castle, sat in judgment on our lives and decided we were evil, decided you had to meddle in our personal affairs.”

She trembled in her fury. “You had no right.”

Blade licked his dry lips and tasted blood on the tip of his tongue. “We had every right. Evil must be exterminated wherever it’s found.”

“Who the hell are you to say what’s evil and what isn’t?”

It was Hickok who answered. “We’re Warriors, lady.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

“It means we know the difference between loving, decent folks and perverts who go around preyin’ on people who can’t defend themselves. It means you can have one minute to make your peace with your Master.”

Both Blade and Geronimo glanced at the gunfighter. “Don’t,” the giant said.

Endora Morloek snorted in contempt. “My Maker? There is no God, you fool. We are what we are, and that’s all there is to it.”

Hickok nodded once. “And I’m a Warrior.” His right hand swept straight out.

“No!” Blade cried, taking a stride toward him.

The weapons room thundered to the retort of another gunshot, and the lady in white sprouted a hole between her eyes, eyes that conveyed a flicker of astonishment a millisecond before she spun in a graceful pirouette and sank to the floor.

Geronimo dashed over to her and uselessly felt for a pulse. “She’s dead.”

“What did you expect?” Hickok asked.

“We had no right to kill her,” Geronimo said. “How could you, Nathan?”

“Piece of cake,” the gunfighter replied. “And we had every right to kill her. She wanted us dead, didn’t she? She was goadin’ the nymphs on to tear us apart.”

“But Warriors aren’t supposed to be cold-blooded killers.”

“And what do you think Warriors do for a living? Grow flowers? We’re trained to kill. That’s our purpose in life. Oh, I know we do it to protect the Family and the Home, but when you get down to the nitty-gritty, we kill scumbags for a living.”

“There’s more to being a Warrior than that,” Blade said, staring at Endora’s oddly composed features.

“Like what, paid?”

“Like adhering to higher ideals of duty and purpose.”

“You’ve been listenin’ to Plato again. Ideals are fine and all, but when those nymphs came through the door at us I’ll bet you didn’t spend one second thinkin’ about ideals, duty and purpose. All you were thinkin’ about was stayin’ alive and killin’ as many of those crazies as you could.

Am I right?”

“Of course, but—”

“I rest my case.”

“You didn’t let me finish. Yes, we kill for a living, but only when the need arises. We can’t go around blowing people away for the hell of it.

There must be a reason.”

“How about savin’ the lives of lots of innocent folks? Is that a good enough reason for you? The Morlocks have been torturin’ and murderin’ people for years. All we’re doing is puttin’ a stop to it.”

Blade dropped the subject. He knew better than to waste his breath trying to persuade the gunfighter to change his mind. Also, the sentiments Hickok expressed matched his own in many respects, but he still disliked the callous way in which Hickok had slain Endora Morlock. It had beem more like an execution than a necessary act of preservation.

“Let’s go find the brains of this outfit,” Hickok suggested, walking toward the doorway, carefully stepping over the many bodies in his path.

Blade and Geronimo started to follow him.

Unexpectedly, Elphinstone sat up, the armor rasping loudly, then heaved himself erect and surveyed the room. His gaze lingered on the dead serfs and finally on his sister. “Endora?”

The three youths simply watched as the brute sank to his knees and lifted Endora’s head into his metal lap.

“Sissie? Talk to Elphie.”

Blade could barely stand the sight. Shame saddened his soul, and his broad shoulders slumped dejectedly. Should they just leave Elphinstone to his misery? If they did, he might come after them. Perhaps it would be best to reason with him. “Elphinstone?”

Those dull eyes snapped up, peering through the dented visor, and locked on the youths. “You!” he growled. “You did this to her!”

“Please, Elphinstone,” Blade said. “Stay calm.”

“Kill!” the brute bellowed, surging to his feet, his sister’s head hitting the floor with a thud. “Kill!” he repeated, raising his enormous fists, and charged.