"I'm top," the boy replied from somewhere ahead and above them.
"I fear that the bellows to this organ of mine are becoming a trifle short of pressure," Doc said, doubling over in a coughing fit, hands on his knees.
"He means he's run out of breath," Mildred translated, picking up the ebony cane the old man had dropped and handing it back to him.
"You certainly have a way with words, ma'am. Short and simple."
She didn't rise to his baiting.
"Looks like the ridge, here," J.B. said, moving a few cautious feet along the spine of the hill, testing the path beneath his boots.
"Hear drums?" Jak asked suddenly, looking first to Krysty, as he knew that she had the best hearing in the group.
"Last night, in the tree, and this morning," she confirmed. "Down there. I can also feel water. Like an ocean. Could be one of those big lakes you mentioned, Mildred."
"Lake Superior? Could be. Would account more for this blasted fog."
J.B. joined Ryan. "Drums like they hear could mean Indians. Could be more of this stinking wet forest down there. Figure we go on or turn back now? Could be near the redoubt before full dark."
Ryan thought about what the Trader used to say: "Most men, faced with going on or turning back, will likely go forward. Nobody likes turning back. All you have to do is think clear which option is best." Ryan sometimes wondered if Trader's words had always been true. Certainly, in Deathlands, most men would strike ahead.
"It'll be closing on dusk when we're down in that jungle, J.B., and we don't know where those bastard mutie ants went. I say we go on, but slow and careful. You?"
"On? Hell, I knew that all along, Ryan. Just wanted to check you thought the same."
"Drums again, louder this time," Krysty called over her shoulder.
"And trees," Jak added, dancing light-footed ahead on point. "Spiky, not soft."
They were conifers, sparse at first, looming from the mist like stunted guards wrapped in cloaks of dark green. Then there were more of them, packed in closer to the edges of the winding trail.
By now they could all hear the rhythmic beating of drums.
"Kind of chilly for Indian savages," Doc said.
"Crap!" Mildred spit.
"How's that, madam?"
"Saying Indians don't come from cold regions. I guess I could name you a dozen tribes or more that do."
"Go on," Doc challenged, stopping on the path and bringing the whole group to a halt.
"Micmac, Penobscot, Algonquin, Huron, Ojibway, Mohawk, Yakima, Okanagan, Tlingit, Chinook, Beaver, Tanana, Cree, Bannock, Crow, Shoshone, Cheyenne. How many's that?"
"Around fifteen or so," J.B. said, grinning. "Better'n a dozen."
"If you like I could go on with another fifty, Doc. My minor was North American Indian Sociology, groupings and distribution."
"Humph!" Doc snorted and turned on his heel, setting off again down the trail at a fast lick.
The trees grew thicker, filling the damp air with the scent of balsam, and the mist became thinner.
"Think there's water close by," Krysty said, putting her head back and sniffing.
The steady beat of the drums was very loud. The path was leveling off as they came onto a flat wider trail among the trees.
"Meat cooking," Jak said.
Moments later they all caught the flavor of roasting, overlaid with the tang of smoldering pine logs.
"I'm not sure that noise is Indians," Mildred guessed. "More like African. Or... I don't know. It's not really like anything I ever heard."
There was the sudden sharp barking of a dog, followed by a shout and a blow. The barking stopped.
"Got to be a ville. Sounds less than a coupla hundred yards off," J.B. said, unholstering his Steyr AUG.
The wind gusted, and like a magician's trick, the curtain of fog vanished. They could see that they were close to the edge of the forest, and off in the distance they could make out the glittering expanse of a vast body of water. But between trees and lake was a largish ville: huts and fires, cows and hogs, men, women and children.
For several seconds none of the six friends spoke. It was Mildred Wyeth who broke the silence.
"Well, pardon my French, but you can fuck me sideways if they aren't Vikings!"
Chapter Eighteen
Jorund Thoraldson, the baron of Markland, stood five inches over six feet and weighed nearly three hundred pounds. Not a lot of it was soft fat. His eyes were as blue as melting sea ice, and the hair that hung over his broad shoulders was white blond. Not quite as stark a hue as Jak Lauren's hair, but not far off it. His voice was a hearty rasping bellow that carried the flavor of oak-aged beer and salted herrings. He wore a shaggy woolen coat and leather pants, which were tucked into knee-length suede boots. A long, two-handed sword was sheathed on his left hip, and he carried a .38 Colt on his right.
"Greetings, outlanders!" he called, striding into the main hut of the ville, where Ryan and the others had been taken.
There had seemed no great threat as they hid at the fringe of the forest, watching. Then a skinny mongrel had scented them, its furious yapping bringing a dozen men to investigate.
It was a hair-trigger decision. Five or six of the villagers were carrying blasters, but they looked like old cap and ball pistols with a couple of ancient automatics. If Ryan had given the word, the villagers would have been down and dying in the damp grass.
"Hold it," he'd said.
And that looked like the correct decision.
The men, all of whom had long or plaited blond hair, had surrounded them and asked their business. Ryan had explained they were travelers from the other side of the hill, beyond the tropical jungle. Their wag had broken down and then they'd run into the army of ants that had driven them up the mountain, and down into the ville.
They were greeted with no hostility, nor was there any clear evidence of friendship. Just a calm acceptance of what they said and the suggestion that they should all come to the ville's meeting house to explain themselves in front of the Vikings' karl, Baron Jorund Thoraldson.
The last half mile or so of the friends' trek had been colder, and Mildred Wyeth had pulled the hood up higher, covering her head and shadowing her face. Krysty's red hair was tightly curled and dulled by the mist. Jak's white hair hung limp like curdled milk over his shoulders.
No one had made an attempt to try to take away their blasters as they walked toward the largest of the wood-roofed huts.
Ryan, as ever, had kept his eye skating all around him.
The ville contained forty dwellings, but no sign of any sort of mechanization, which wasn't unusual in isolated villes throughout the Deathlands. There were no wags in sight and the packed, moist earth around the huts didn't bear any tracks of vehicles. The smell of cooking was much stronger, but the drumming had ceased — had ceased at the moment the raw-eyed cur had begun its yapping.
The feature of the ville that had caught the friends' eyes were the boats — or were they ships? Ryan had never been that sure of the difference between the two.
Each craft was forty to fifty feet in length, narrow with high sides and ports for a number of long oars. The elongated prow ended in a carved head of what Ryan recognized was supposed to be a kind of fire-breathing monster or dragon.
Most of the men of the ville wore some kind of dagger or short sword at their sides, and several had axes with hafts two feet long. A number of helmets hung over the entrances to the huts, looking as if they were made from varied combinations of iron and leather. The one common factor of the helmets was that all of them were horned.