He was interrupted by Jak's exclamation of disgust. "Fucking triple-hard. Kill 'em, yeah. But kill them fast."
Three iron-collared women had been assigned the task of lighting the wicker men. At the karl's signal they touched their smoking torches to the lowest branches. The oil caught quickly, and yellow flames licked eagerly at the dry grass that covered the framework.
The screams began immediately.
The oil was crudely processed and gave off vast quantities of choking smoke, which quickly handed a kind of mercy to the condemned muties. There was little wind, and the column of boiling darkness rose straight into the evening air, like an accusing finger.
The wicker men were transfigured into giant men of fire.
Most of the Vikings watched the hideous passing of their captives with a stoic silence, the flames staining their cheeks a bloody scarlet. Within a bare minute the piercing screams had ceased.
"Suffocated," Doc pronounced. "The best that one could hope for the poor wretches. Murderous they might have been, but that is a damnably wicked passing."
Jorund realized that the ritual of revenge was too quickly done, and he lifted his sword, shouting to his people. "So they perish, and their soured spirits shall tread the path of tears for our brother, Bjarni, and for the other warriors. Let us now go to them!"
Ryan trailed along with the Norsemen, hoping to be able to get close to Krysty for a word, to sound her out about making a run from the archaic ville within the next forty-eight hours. But the press of moving men stopped them.
The long ship was pushed out into the still waters of the lake, with Bjarni and his companions laid out on its deck. Ryan saw for the first time that the corpses of three of the young women — thralls — were also lying on the doomed vessel.
Erik Stonebiter was next to him, watching the ceremony. "The girls? How did they get chilled?" Ryan asked.
"Strangled by three women, free-born, to accompany their masters on the road to Asgard."
Ryan didn't say anything. One of the first lessons he'd learned in life was that there was a time for speech and a time for silence. Knowing the difference was real important.
The warriors chanted a paean of death to the lost men, as the ship floated away, its sail furled on the high mast, the dragon's head on the bow nodding at the wavelets. Ryan couldn't catch many of the words, but it sounded like it was all about honor, valor and brotherhood.
He caught the odor of lamp oil again. At first he thought it was still filling his nostrils from the fiery slaughter of the muties, but he soon realized that the woodwork of the long ship was also soaked with it.
Jorund threw the first flaming torch. The fire caught immediately, tongues of smoky red and orange dancing along the deck and creeping up the mast, lapping their way toward the snarl-toothed figurehead.
The next senior warrior threw his torch, followed by Egil Skallagson and Sigurd Harefoot, then all the others. The lights whirled through the dusk, then flames exploded in roaring streaks. In less than a minute, the ship was ablaze from end to end, the smoke beginning to obscure the small group of corpses.
"It's the way for a warrior to leave this life for the next," Erik said with an almost religious awe.
"What's the next life like?" J.B. asked interestedly.
"You carouse with a multitude of available women," the young man replied.
J.B. turned to Ryan and lowered his voice. "Sounds like living forever in a frontier pesthole gaudy house."
"Yeah. Look. Boat's near burned down to the water already."
"With the evil offered through the wicker men, there will be no need of further gifts," Erik told them.
"Gifts?" Doc asked. "What kind of gifts, young fellow?"
The Viking turned to face him, his mouth working uncertainly. "Gifts? I had not meant that. It is that our warriors need company on their sky-road, once taken and never retraced. The sluts and evil ones are enough, and they will keep off more dark days."
There was a roar of noise from the throng of watching Norsemen. Fire hissed as the lake swallowed the flaming remains of the long ship. The fierce dragon's head was the last part to be consumed and disappear beneath the water.
The sun had gone, the last sliver of scarlet vanishing over the hills. Darkness had come to the ville of Markland.
Ryan led the other friends back to their hut, feeling tired from the fight, the killing and the brutality of the executions. And he still hadn't been able to snatch a private moment with Krysty.
The night would call for a lot of thinking and talking with the others.
And the development of some kind of plan.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The sun rose into a sky of brilliant blue, with only a handful of scattered, purple chem clouds to mar its perfection.
Ryan, J.B., Doc and Jak had talked quietly until late in the night, trying to formulate some sort of plan. There'd been general agreement among them that Markland surely wasn't the kind of ville in which to pass the rest of your life.
The conclusion was simple, and Doc voiced it best. "A rad-sick, brutalized, antiwomen, primitive and lost community. To visit here is like visiting the dark side of the Middle Ages on a bad day."
"So we get out." Ryan's words weren't any kind of question.
"Today," Jak agreed.
"Tonight," J.B. offered.
Ryan hadn't been so certain. And now, as he stood with one hand on the crudely carved door frame, looking out across the great lake, he felt his worries were justified.
The setting of the ville made it difficult to break clear and run. The bowl of wooded hills were a maze of twining paths, and the Norsemen would know and hunt along all of them. Once the crest of the ridge was reached, there was the perilous descent into the hothouse tropical world that hid the redoubt.
Some of the Vikings were obviously sickly, but there were enough healthy warriors to make escape hazardous. Though Mildred looked as if she could wrestle a grizzly, she obviously wasn't anywhere near fit yet, after the long freezing. And stamina over rough backcountry had never exactly been Doc Tanner's strongest suit.
J.B.'s idea to creep away at night was the best, but since the muties' sneak attack, Jorund had announced that there would be extra roving guard patrols after dark.
They'd even talked about trying the lake. In addition to the dragon-head long ships, the ville possessed smaller boats. But there was little prospect of getting far in those without the faster ships catching them.
On the far side of the steading, beyond the big central fire, Ryan glimpsed Krysty's dazzling hair. Mildred was only a step away, as she'd been ever since they arrived at the Norse ville.
Ryan glanced around furtively, then beckoned to the women. There was no doubt that they had seen him, but they kept walking at an angle, cutting around the side of the longhouse, ignoring him. Nobody noticed them. The ville went about its business: men worked on one of the boats and a hunting party readied itself to go out into the woods; women carried water and wood and began the preparation of the evening meal.
Ryan looked back into the hut at his three friends, who were finishing off a jug of buttermilk. "Women are off some place. I'm going to meet them if I can. Stay here."
"Would it not be possible for the rest of us to accompany you, Ryan? A stroll through the pine trees would be most beneficial in purging my mind of the unpleasant scenes of yesterday. I would be most obliged, Ryan."
"Sorry, Doc. If anyone comes, try and cover for me. Don't straight out lie. Kinda hint I'm inside resting. Be back soon as I can."
He left the rifle inside, carrying only the pistol at his hip and the sheathed panga.