Tankbread 02 Immortal by Paul Mannering Read Free Book Online

people shut in a confined space for far too long.
    “Are we gonna settle this in the Hole!?” Hob shouted. The crowd took up the call.
    “Hole! Hole! Hole!” they roared.
    “Where is my baby!?” Else pushed back at people who pressed against her, the stink of them turning her empty stomach.
    “The kid is salvage. You gotta fight for him!” Hob sneered.
    “I’ll kill you!” Else shouted to be heard above the crowd.
    “Not me, love! You fight the one who claimed salvage!” Hob addressed the excited crowd: “This woman came from on land! Came here saying we took her salvage!” Hob feigned indignant surprise and the crowd dutifully booed and hissed.
    “Rowanna!” Hob yelled to the ceiling. A woman came through the press of people. She ignored the hands that patted her shoulders and back. She took no notice of the shouts of support and the instructions on how to kill the stranger. She held a tiny bundle that nursed against her swollen breast. She stared at Else with dead eyes.
    “Rowanna, do you want to give up the salvage you rightly claimed as your own?”
    The crowd went still, listening for an answer to Hob’s question.
    “They took my Alex,” Rowanna said. “I prayed to the Captain that he would be spared. Captain gave me salvage. I thank the Captain for that. I’m never giving up my baby. He’s Captain’s gift to me.”
    Hob turned to Else, grinning a showman’s smile. “How about you, girly? You gonna crawl back into the mangrove swamp and dust? You gonna walk outta here and go back to dodging evols?”
    “I’m leaving,” Else said, never once taking her eyes off the tiny figure in Rowanna’s arms. “And I’m taking my son with me.”
    “We have a contender!” Hob bellowed.
    Else charge forward. The mob grabbed her, holding her arms and lifting her into the air. They carried her through the dark corridors of the ship. She would have fought them all. Cut them down and waded through the river of their blood, but two men hung off each arm, keeping her still.
    The Hole was deep in the belly of the ship, a dark and empty chamber of steel walls and doors. The gloom retreated from the sputtering light of oil lamps as the crowd pushed into the room. A fence of woven wire had been erected around an open space. The wire strands had been braided into cables with shards of glass and jagged metal jutting out to form vicious barbs. Hob stepped up to the fence and twanged a taut line.
    “It ain’t Thunderdome!” he told the crowd and they howled in delight. “It’s the cage match to end all fucking cage matches. It’s the judge, the jury, and the fucking executioner! You come in here, you’d better believe in your cause!”
    The crowd stamped and cheered, clapping their hands as they were swept up in the excitement of the show and the suffering to come.
    Hob waved the noise down to a guttural growl. “We got a salvage dispute. We got two women set to tear each other apart for the right to claim a puke-stain as their own. Another mouth to feed, who fucking needs it?!”
    The crowd roared in approval and Hob waited till they subsided to continue. “Salvage is salvage, we don’t dispute that. The last one standing gets to claim the kid and the Captain’s reward! Even King-fucking-Solomon couldn’t give you a deal like that!”
    The crowd cheered again and Else was forced to the edge of the wire. Hands lifted the screaming Lowanna from her sling and Else twisted in the rough grip of a dozen hands, glaring at a young woman who took Lowanna in her arms and cradled the baby gently.
    “Gotta hand over the knife. You’ll get it back,” Hob said. “If you win,” he added with a grin.
    Else growled as the machete was taken from her. The lowest wire rope was lifted and she slipped into the square ring. She stood for a moment, taking stock of the surroundings. A movement high above the spectators’ heads caught her attention. A small camera mounted on the wall turned and stared back at her.
    Rowanna