"I can't... can't..."
"Soon, lover, soon... yes! Now, you fierce bastard, now!"
They fought to a mutual orgasm, Ryan collapsing on top of her, feeling as though the core of his soul had been sucked out from his loins. He could feel her powerful muscles, fluttering uncontrollably with the power of her own ecstasy.
"Fireblast," he exclaimed. "How d'you like them apples, lover?"
"I guess you don't get many of them to the bushel, huh?"
Ryan rolled off her, wincing at the stickiness. "Where d'you get that expression from? Not many of them to the bushel!"
Krysty grinned at him with the sleepy, contented face of a cat that's gotten the best of the cream. "Back in Harmony. Mother Sonja had a host of old sayings like that. Guess she never figured it'd be used for a real mind-blower like that."
"Guess not."
"Didn't you have sayings like that, lover? Back in your own family."
"Not that I recall."
The smile slipped away, and she saw the tension come snapping back into his face, hardening the lines around his eye and mouth.
"Ryan?"
He stood up, turning away from her. She had a moment to admire the muscular slimness of his naked body, his back, arms and legs seamed with a multitude of old scars.
"Ryan? I'm sorry I touched a nerve."
"Don't signify, lover." He moved to the edge of the water and dipped a toe in it, whistling at the cold. "Feels like meltwater."
"Going to bathe?"
"Hell, why not? Come join me."
She gasped at the shock of the icy stream as she crouched to wash herself. She leaped out suddenly, running on the cropped turf to try to get warm again. A raven wings carrying the polished sheen of sunlight, floated over the treetops, catching her eye.
Krysty pulled on her silken bikini panties, adjusting them across her hips, easing the flimsy material from the cleft between her buttocks. She hoisted her trousers and tugged on the elegant western boots. The water had splashed her hair, and she ran her fingers through it, letting it float across her shoulders.
"Come out, lover. You'll freeze, and the cold's doing nothing for that..." She pointed at his shrunken genitals, giggling at him.
"It'll warm up," he said, some of the toughness easing from his face once more.
"Get dressed, Ryan. Then come and sit here by me. There's another hour or more before we need be heading back to join the others."
He got dressed, leaving his chest bare, relishing the feel of the sun on his skin. Ryan held up his brown shirt, shaking his head at the stain on it, which was nearly black.
"Poor Hennings," he said.
"Seems years past. Can't be more'n a few weeks since he bought the farm. One too many mornings..." Her voice trailed away.
"Mebbe we should settle on going west and try to find some of the Trader's old crew."
Krysty rested her hand on his bare shoulder, feeling the skin still chilled by the stream. "What about Virginia?"
"And the Shens?"
"Sure, lover. And the ville at Front Royal where someone's the baron... someone who owes you a debt."
Ryan breathed deeply so that his ribs became prominent against the skin of his chest. "It's too many years. Like you said, Krysty. A thousand miles behind. Best leave it there."
But he couldn't hide the note of doubt in his voice. The girl lay stretched out on her back, hands behind her head, looking up at the harsh planes and angles of his face.
"You aren't sure?"
"No. No, I'm not."
"Talk about it."
"You know the story. You heard it down in the swamps."
"I want to hear it from you, Ryan. Now. Your story, your words. There'll never be a better time."
Ryan folded the bloodstained shirt and placed it on the grass, then lay down at the girl's side.
Beginning to speak...
Chapter Seven
"Plant a bullet anywhere in the domain of Front Royal ville and it'd grow a blaster. That's what folks used to say. By the long winter! It was a good, rich land, Krysty. The biggest ville in all of Virginia. My father said he figured it might be the biggest in the whole of Deathlands. But I don't know 'bout that. The nukes came so thick the sky was black. But they were short half-life missiles, most of 'em. My great-great-grandpa took what he saw and held it fast. Great-grandpa got more. Timber and water and grazing. Cattle and horses. Even a few hogs. Deep in the Shens there was sheltered hollows where the rad didn't reach. Great-Grandpa Ryan built and stole and killed and kept."
"You were named after him?" Krysty asked, not wanting to interrupt the flow of words from the man at her side. She felt that he wanted to talk it out, and like she'd said, now was the time and the place for it.
"Surely was. He had chill-cred, did Great-Grandpa Ryan. His son just held what there was. By then, around the mid of the century, there was some trouble from the Walkers and the Takers."
Krysty nodded. "Heard my Uncle Tyas McCann speak of them. Said they was the descendants of the Levelers and the Diggers."
"Never heard nothing 'bout them."
"Go on, lover." She reached out to touch his left hand and felt a reassuring squeeze from Ryan.
"My father took it over around 2050. By then the power was established. There was a rising of the workers on the west side of the ville. Wanted rights to the land they worked. Father put it down. Lots of dead, gibbets on every hill from Nineveh to Oak Ridge."
It had been a dreadful, awesome sight that struck fear into the hearts of every man, woman and child who worked for the Front Royal ville. The bodies hung there, tied with waxed cobbler's twine that didn't rot. The birds picked at the soft tissues of the faces first. The eyes and the lips went, then the cheeks and the tender flesh around the neck. As the slashing wind and rain tore the thin clothes away from the corpses, more of the weathered meat was revealed for the crows and the ravens to feast on.
Baron Titus Cawdor was a tall, broad-shouldered man with fierce eyes and a ready temper. He married the daughter of the baron of a neighboring ville, joining the families. He took over the other ville when his wife's father an excellent horseman died in a mysterious riding accident. His wife, Lady Cynthia, was never physically strong, and after the birth of the third child all boys she sank into a decline and a wasting sickness, accompanied by a bloody flux that carried her off less than a year later. She was buried in the marble Cawdor family mausoleum.
Morgan Cawdor was the firstborn of the baron's sons. Tall and as straight as a tree, he was everything that his father wished for. He could outride, run, wrestle, shoot or swim any of his fellows. He was kind where his father was cruel, considerate where the baron was a thin-lipped autocrat. Morgan took care to watch over his youngest brother, Ryan, protecting him from any danger.
And the main danger was the second of the Cawdor sons.
Harvey Cawdor.
"Harvey," Ryan said, his voice cold and far away. "Two years younger than Morgan and two years older than me."
"Why didn't your father do something to check him?" Krysty asked.
"Harvey was my bane. He was wicked. Fireblast! But such a bitter, evil bastard!"
Harvey Cawdor was everything that his older brother was not and lacked every one of Morgan's virtues. His sole strength was an overweening ambition, coupled to an iron will to garner what he believed to be his right. His mind was warped and twisted, dwelling in dark corridors that were rank with the lust for power.
"They told me that his birthing ruined him. He was breeched, they said. One leg trailed, like this... and his shoulder was hunched and crook'd up."
Ryan limped around the clearing, his right leg dragging a deep furrow, gouged from the soft green moss. His right arm was lifted, and twisted, giving him the lopsided walk of a hunchback. Krysty watched him, face solemn.
"I recall an old tape we had in Harmony. An actor from Europe. The paper was torn and the name was gone, but there was a picture on the label of a warped, bent man, long black hair, and a chain of gold. It was a play about a baron from olden times. Most had been wiped by the pulse. But the start was left."