Starbucks and I exchange a look. If this was his goal, the Grass Man has definitely reached it before us. The question now is what to do about it. Starbucks is familiar with the general area but doesn’t know much about Mudcross itself. We leave the road to avoid passersby but parallel its progress north.
An hour later, we’re lying atop a grassy rise with my spyglass trained on Mudcross. It’s dark, but the moonlight helps. Mudcross is a collection of squat buildings clustered around a central plaza. It’s a market-town is enclosed by a solid barricade of tall spiked timbers. There are two gates at opposite ends of the town, and armed robots stand on raised platforms beside both. There’ll be no way to take the slaves by force–it would take a small army. It’s hard to tell much else in the darkness. We retreat east and camp in a remote copse of trees. I’m exhausted, but sleep is slow to come.
Things look different in the morning light. The origin for the town’s name becomes clear, and it’s neither articulate nor creative. The once-grassy field on which Mudcross is stationed has been churned to mud, and two roads intersect beyond the northern gate.
Our grassy rise yields a decent viewing-angle into the village. An auction block and various trade shops are visible. A few people–robots, mostly–are moving about the streets. I’m sweeping the spyglass to and fro–when my heart stops. There’s a concrete building near the central plaza. Its windows are small, high, and blocked by thick steel bars. One window frames a flash of blonde hair…
Echo.
In seconds, she’s gone. She must’ve boosted herself up on someone’s shoulders to reach the window. But it was her–wasn’t it? Was I seeing things? No, it was her. Which means they’re probably all in that building.
I give Starbucks the news. We back down the rise and swing around to see the town from another angle. The building looks secure. Guards are posted outside. We talk options. The list is depressingly short. We could try to break them out–“somehow.” Or we could walk in and buy them, but we don’t have the goods to trade, and they prefer gold in the flesh markets. Or we could wait for someone else to buy them, then ambush the buyer on the road–but here there are too many uncertainties, and it’s likely only one or two slaves would be purchased at a time. There’s simply no viable plan.
Back on the grassy rise, we continue to monitor the town. Then I spot him. Tall. Spindly. A black metallic hide covered with long, plastic tufts of imitation green-brown grass. It couldn’t be anyone else. A chill goes through me.
The Grass Man.
His face is hidden behind a mask fashioned from a human skull. He’s added long curving goat-horns for greater effect. Despite his robotic nature, the Grass Man looks to be a creature of the wild, no more than an infrequent guest even in a back-country town like Mudcross. Disappearing into a building, he doesn’t reemerge during our watch.
Starbucks uses the spyglass. We ruminate over vaguely plausible plans. I keep coming back to the breakout idea, working at it, only to conclude that it’s hopeless. We’d need an army to invade this place. The phrase sticks in my head, repeats itself on its own.