"All dead!" she screamed, voice like a saw cutting across sheet glass. "Then we are lost? Everyone's gone off and left us to die! It's your fucking brother. Why didn't you give him to me to kill? You fool..."

Her hand went to the dagger at her belt, wanting nothing more than to slit the flabby throat of her husband and then run and run.

From the basement, they could both hear the hideous cacophony of the wild boars, upset by the scent of death that filled the Shens.

"At least the old man and the yellowhead still live," she screeched. "I can butcher them. Then we must go."

"Go? Where? Here's home. I'm home now, my sweet child. Ally, ally oxen free. Home and safe. I shall soon... The yellowhead girl? I had forgot her. Before I... I shall go and..."

The knife was out, flashing through the air. With a deceptive speed, Harvey batted it away from his neck. Bunching his ringed fist, he smashed it into his wife's face with a casual ferocity that sent her spilling to the stone flags, blood seeping from her mouth, a livid bruise springing to her cheek.

"The yellowhead," he said, turning away from his unconscious wife as though he'd already forgotten her.

Doc Tanner slept contentedly on the bunk, lying flat on his back, hands folded on his chest like a crusader resting in a cathedral vault. The explosion had hardly ruffled him. Lori had called out to ask him what it had been, and he had mumbled some reassurance before sliding again into a dreamless sleep.

Lori was also lying on her bunk, wishing that she was in bed with Doc, wanting him to cuddle her and do the nice, gentle things that made her feel all squirmy inside.

"Wop bop a loobop, a wop bam boom," she hummed to herself, repeating the nonsense verse over and over, like a mantra, lulling herself with it. The girl wondered how long it would be before they were released. It was getting really boring in the little stone room with the barred window. She stood up and looked out, seeing that the afternoon was wearing on. "Wop bop..."

She turned at the sound of the cell door grating open.

"Hi, there, yellowhead. Having a nice day?" Baron Harvey Cawdor asked.

"Looks deserted," J.B. said, squinting through the screen of trees at the ocher walls of the ville. There was nobody in sight, not a single guard on the ramparts or on the drawbridge.

"Trap?" Jak suggested.

Ryan turned to Krysty, raising an eyebrow in a silent question. She shook her head. "I can hear those bastard pigs he breeds. Nothing else. Feels empty to me, lover."

"Me, too," he agreed. "Nathan? You ever know it with no sec men showing?"

"No. Never. Baron doesn't sleep well o'nights. Fears death. If he came back here, he'd have the bridge up and blasters everywhere. I think..." He stopped, hesitating.

"What, Nate?" Ryan asked.

"If'n I didn't know better, I'd figure they've all done a runner on him. Heard of the massacre and fucked off. That's my guess."

"One way to find out," Ryan said. "I can't figure it for a trap. No reason. Let's go see."

Doc Tanner clung to the bars, terrified that he might faint. His brain creaked with the effort of trying to do something. He knew the man was hopelessly mad, but he had to find the words that might save Lori.

Harvey stood against the door, his grotesque bulk blocking it. One of his pretty little pistols was in his right hand, pointing at Lori's stomach. The man was whistling tunelessly to himself, gesturing for her to hurry. His cloak hung open and he had unzipped his hunting breeches, revealing his tiny, budlike penis. Lori had taken off her top, showing her breasts, and she was now, slowly, stepping out of the skirt.

"She is my daughter, Baron Harvey. A child. Can you not spare her?"

"You croak on like some raven, old man. Mebbe I should close your beak," Harvey sneered, pointing his pistol at Doc's anxious face.

Lori was naked at last, hands by her sides, making no effort to cover herself from the baron's stare. His cock was struggling toward a partial erection, and there was a thread of spittle hanging from a corner of his mouth.

"I'll not..." Doc began, nearly weeping in his helpless frustration.

"Don't, Doc," she called out. "Don't hurting me. I'm used fit. Don't watch it, Doc."

Lori was crying.

"Like tears and fears, child." The baron laughed. "Lie down and spread 'em."

"Beware of the teeth," Doc shouted, voice cracking with emotion.

"Keep her mouth shut. Mebbe fill it later, know what I'm meaning, huh?"

"Not the teeth in her mouth, my lord!"

"How's that?"

"Shames me to admit it to a great noble like yourself, and you ready to do her honor, but the girl's a mutie, my lord. Don't show much. Normal, apart from the teeth in... in her... you know, my lord. Can do fearsome harm to a double-stud in the coupling."

"Teeth... inside her... in her... teeth in... teeth for... You mean she could bite my cock off with?.. You can't..."

"Try her, my lord," Doc babbled. "Times they only close a little. But they have razor-sharp points to 'em and... she can't help it, my lord. It's being a mutie."

Harvey drew back, reaching down to zip himself up again, the gun wavering. "Muties should be shot and killed," he muttered.

"She is a good girl, my lord."

"So many dead today," the baron said, letting himself out of the cell, leaving the key dangling in the lock. Without a backward look he left the guardhouse.

Doc let go of the bars, finding great weals across his palms.

Lori started getting dressed again, unconcerned by what had nearly happened. "Doc?" she asked.

Somehow there wasn't enough air in the cell for him to answer. So he cleared his throat and tried again. "What is it, child?"

"That about teeth in my... you know?"

"Yes, Lori?"

"Ain't true, is it?"

Doc laughed, feeling suddenly a great deal better than he had for some time. When he'd finished laughing, he pointed out the key to the blond girl.

Ryan led the way, now only a few paces from the end of the drawbridge. There was still no sign of any threat to them. The ville seemed utterly deserted. Jak was behind him, carrying the M-16. Then came Krysty, followed by

Nathan with his blaster in his hand and J.B. with his drawn knife.

The sky was darkening, and the air over the Shens seemed heavy and threatening. The wind rose and fell, driving a whirling column of dust ahead of Ryan's boots, which collapsed in on itself as it reached the water of the moat.

"See any guards?" Ryan asked. Nobody answered him.

Suddenly, with no warning, there was a figure in the main gateway to the huge house, under the spiked portcullis, a staggering person in burned clothes that shone and glittered. Ryan's first thought was that he was seeing some monstrously fat, drunk old gaudy whore. Then he saw the two matched Colts pointed at him.

And he realized.

"Harvey!" he shouted.

"Farewell, brother!" Baron Harvey Cawdor bellowed, opening up with both blasters.