Ryan looked at her, holding her veiled eyes, steady, until she broke and turned away. "Anyone harms any one of us, the shit breaks the air lock. Y'all better remember that." He glanced at Jorund.
"You are with us, One-Eye, and we have agreed the women can live here, with the others. The evil ones have attacked us before, from up the coast. They have not come in the day behind the cloak of the fog before. But we turned them, and they have paid a heavy blood price."
As he finished speaking, Jorund stared at the wise-woman, who spit on the ground in front of him and turned away. She threw her last words over her hunched shoulder. "The day will come when you will search your heart for a way to change what has happened. And Freya herself will not aid you. Nor will any man, Jorund Thoraldson, Karl of Markland."
Chapter Twenty-Four
Bjarni Earthmover and two of the other warriors were ready to begin the journey to Valhalla, and the three wounded mutie prisoners were to accompany them.
One of the boats, fallen into some disrepair, was to be used for the funeral ceremony. Ryan and his companions passed the afternoon in their hut, resting, eating and cleaning and reloading their weapons. Erik Stonebiter had come by and explained what was to happen and to invite them, on behalf of the karl, to join the ritual of death.
"It will all take place as the fire-sun touches our sister earth, and the water and night close the eyes of the world."
Now, dusk had come.
Other than the men who stood watch around the perimeter of the ville, everyone was there, including the women and children, free-born as well as thralls. Krysty and Mildred, like the rest of the nonmen, had their heads covered with shawls of dyed wool, a mark of respect for the passing of Bjarni and the others.
Ryan guessed that the slaves and the women and children who'd been butchered would be buried somewhere quietly. This funeral was only for the warriors of Markland.
Ryan led Doc, J.B. and Jak out into the calm gentle evening. The main fire of the steading had been built up and blazed so brightly that no one could stand within twenty feet of it. A number of smaller fires had been lit, some on the beach, some on a low headland where the trees grew close to the shingle.
Jorund beckoned the four to stand near him. "This will not take long. We do not grieve much over one of our brothers fallen in battle."
It crossed Ryan's mind to ask whether being shot through the temple while carrying an apple on your head really counted as falling in battle, but he decided to keep silent.
"What about the prisoners?" J.B. asked. "You question them?"
"You mean did we torture them, outlander? Of course we did. But we spared them life."
"But did you discover why they were attacking you?" Doc pressed, wiping a dab of mud from the ferrule of his ebony cane. "Did you find out if they planned to attack again?"
The baron looked puzzled. "Talk to the evil ones? How?"
Ryan sighed. "Course. Muties like them... they won't likely talk much of anything close to what you speak."
"No."
"So, what happens to them?" Ryan asked.
"There." Jorund pointed toward the headland.
At first, Ryan thought that three large men stood there, but the shapes were too big to be people, and he could make out something odd. The outlines were fuzzy, as if the men were built from branches and sheaves of grass.
"What are they?" he asked.
It was Doc who replied. "I believe they are called wicker men, my dear Ryan."
"What?"
Jorund nodded. "The old one answers truly. I have heard them called that. Wicker men. Straw men. Basket men. All the same."
"But I don't get it."
"You will get it soon enough," Doc replied. "Then you will quite possibly wish that you had not. It is damned barbaric."
The prisoners were to die before the funeral began so that their souls could accompany Bjarni and the other Vikings on their last dark journey.
They were led out, naked and bound tightly. As they stumbled past Ryan he noticed that the thongs around their wrists and ankles were thick strips of rawhide that had been soaked.
He glanced at Doc. "Why have they wet the cords on them?"
"Fire doesn't burn water, my dear fellow," Doc replied grimly.
The bodies of the muties showed clear evidence that they had been tortured, but not in the fiendish way that Ryan and the others had witnessed in the rancheriaof the Apaches. This seemed to have been more in the nature of a prolonged and brutal beating.
There was a woman and two men, one much older than the other. As with the rest of the attackers, the three were severely deformed. The woman had at least five pendulous breasts, and her nose was a ragged hole above a gaping, slobbering mouth. The younger man was unbelievably skinny, his ribs sticking through pale bruised flesh. He was clearly a deaf-mute, the sides of his shaved skull not showing a trace of ears. The oldest of the trio had only one eye, and his legs were unnaturally short for his body.
As well as bearing the marks of fists, boots and whips, each captive was wounded. The woman limped, and could stand only because a warrior supported her on each side. The deep cut from a sword had severed a hamstring. The old man had a gunshot in his right shoulder, and the third mutie had two deep stab marks under his ribs.
The people of the ville moved in behind the prisoners, walking in relative silence toward the low bluff. As they drew near it, Ryan caught the smell of lamp oil. And then he guessed what the wicker men were for and why the ropes were sodden with water.
"Fireblast," he whispered.
The wisewoman was there, carrying a small brass bowl with holes drilled into it in an ornate pattern. It held some scented herbs that were smoldering and giving off a light blue smoke. The setting sun flooded her malevolent little face as she capered around the tethered prisoners.
"Freya take thee and may thy passing be slow and hard," she croaked.
"Night comes fast," Egil said to the karl. "We must dispatch them."
"Aye." Thoraldson made a gesture with his right hand for the prisoners to be taken the last few yards to the three wicker men.
Then both Jak and J. B. Dix realized what was going down.
"Why not slit throats?" the albino boy asked.
"Because this makes a finer sight for everyone, Jak," J.B. replied.
Once they caught the sickly taint of the oil that drenched the three enormous straw figures, the muties also realized their fate and began to struggle. They were subdued with such speed and efficiency that Ryan wondered to himself how often this ritual had been performed in Markland.
Each wicker man stood about twelve feet high and was only a crude representation of a human being. The stout legs and the main trunk were made from thick twigs and slender branches, which formed a tight cage for the prisoner.
The bound muties were shoved into the wicker bodies, and more branches were hastily tied and woven into place to prevent their escape.
"We have to watch this through?" J.B. whispered to Ryan.
"Yeah. Don't like it any more'n you, but I guess we stay till it's done." He looked to the west. "Sun's down, so it won't be long."
"Figure more of the muties'll be back? These could have been a recce outfit."
"Depends on the size of their ville. They were a triple-poor lot. Poor armed. If we set our minds to it, I guess we could clear out the nest for these people."
The Armorer nodded. "Want to?"
Ryan glanced sideways at him, ignoring the old woman, who was now kneeling before the three wicker men and droning an incantation. "Guess not. You?" J.B. shook his head. Ryan sighed. "Stay down. Wait and watch. Try and get word with Krysty and Mildred tomorrow."