Nightmare journey Read Online Free PDF Page B

later.”
    “Where will you go, though?” Jask asked.
    “I've already said.”
    “No one can survive the Wildlands,” Jask said. “Nature isn't in charge there. She's been put out by the Ruiner.”
    “No theology, please,” the bruin said. “We have to pack your supplies, and quickly. I don't imagine it will take them long to break in here on the off chance that we-''
    “You expect me to go into the Wildlands?” Jask said, incredulous.
    The bruin rooted industriously through a few nearby baskets, found a small, gray cloth sack, emptied its contents onto the floor and handed it to Jask. “I'll choose the stuff that goes in it,” he said. “Come along, now.”
    Jask followed down the aisle and into another one, numbed but able to speak. He cleared his throat and said, “I am not going to go with you.”
    Casually the bear-man tore open another crate, which proved to be packed full of paper-wrapped lengths of dried, salted meat, the ends of the packages tied with larded string. He lifted out handfuls of this and put it in the sack Jask held. “This gets to be pretty damn boring as a regular diet, but at least it's nourishing.”
    “Look,” Jask said, “I can't possibly-”
    The bruin waddled off to another batch of containers, opened several baskets and poked around in them, came up with half a dozen pieces of fresh fruit, dropped those into the Pure's sack. “Now, let's see… a few tools… certainly a knife…”
    Jask dropped the sack.
    “What's this?” the mutant asked.
    “Forget it. I'm staying here.”
    “They'll have you in less than an hour.”
    “Nevertheless, I stay.”
    The bruin bent, picked up the sack and handed it to him again, saying, “You're coming along, so get used to the idea.”
    Jask dropped the sack again. He was shaking so badly that his teeth rattled in the still of the storage chamber. “No.”
    This time the tainted creature did not pick up the sack, but he picked up Jask instead, gripped him by the collar of his cloak and hoisted him off the floor, so that they were eye-to-eye. He peeled his black lips away from his teeth and grinned that Satanic grin of his. His dark tongue licked the points of all those white teeth, as if he were anticipating the first bite. When he spoke, his voice was like a carefully controlled peal of thunder, all the force of his big lungs behind it. “Either you come with me, little man, or you die here, now.”
    Jask sputtered but could not find any words. He had begun to think he should never have resisted the death sentence that had been passed on him the day before, in the enclave court.
    “I can't afford to leave you behind for those others to pick apart. You know I have a pack, well provisioned, and that I intend to set out across the Wildlands. When I reach the other side, I don't want to find that those Pure friends of yours have radioed others of their sort on the other shore. It would make the trek seem wasted.”
    “You'll never make it anyway,'' Jask said. “You'll die in the Wildlands. Therefore, everything else is academic.”
    The bruin's breath was not especially pleasant, and he let Jask have a strong whiff of it, square in the face. “One thing you've forgotten, though. It will take me the better part of the day to reach the Wildlands. If I leave you here, you'll have spilled everything long before then. I'll be caught before I enter the forbidden lands.”
    “I promise not to tell them,'' Jask said, swinging gently from the creature's clenched fist.
    The bruin spoke with undisguised anger and disgust, his eyes squinted beneath the heavy, bony brow. “You? Hell, you'll squeal like a pinned pig, tell them everything they want to know. You'll break in ten minutes, you puny little bigot.”
    Then he opened his hand and let go of the Pure.
    Jask fell in a heap at the tainted creature's broad, flat feet.
    “Get up, now.”
    Jask got up, hating the big mutant but hating himself more. He rubbed his thin arms and wished that he did have a bit more muscle, enough to deal with the