"My mother didn't raise any stupid children, Ryan."
He smiled. "Sure. Sorry. I go first. J.B. comes last. Jak second, then you. Doc and Krysty at four and five. Blasters ready."
"I'll be damned glad when you get me a decent gun, Ryan," she said. "I never was much into the NRA and all that God-given-right-to-bear-arms stuff. But I sure as hell feel naked without something on my hip around here."
They soon arrived at the river. One thing Ryan had noticed was that the swath cut through the jungle by the marauding army of ants had almost totally disappeared under fresh, green growth.
From there to the ruins of the Wendigo Institute of Botanical Research, incorporating the Black wood Center for Chemical and Neurological Research, Military Division, with the Shelley Cryonic Institute — Private, wasn't all that far.
They saw few signs of life: a glimpse of what could have been a small pig or a large rodent, scurrying about its business, rooting among the leaf mold; fresh, seeping tracks of a massive snake, winding sinuously across their trail, so recent that water still oozed into the long furrows.
As they moved down from the higher part of the mountain, they'd seen a lot of birds, including bright parakeets and tiny, darting budgerigars. But in the past ten minutes the birds had disappeared and the vast tract of jungle had fallen silent.
Ryan held up his hand again. "Got a feeling there's company around."
"We don't have a lot of time to wait them out," J.B. said. "We need water. If they hold the river, we're in serious trouble."
"Can't we loop around them, if they're near that small bridge?" Krysty asked.
Ryan shook his head. "One way or another we have to get over the river, and I'm not going to try swimming it. I'll go ahead on my own. See if I can spring the trap. Rest of you stay close, but not too close."
"We got double-blaster on 'em," Jak said. "Chill 'em up front."
"No. If it's Jorund and the rest of his men, they'll have picked up all their blasters from the ville on the way through. If we'd had time I'd have got them and heaved them all in the lake. The Vikings could've got over the ridge before the worst of the weather."
J.B. agreed. "And in this kind of hostile terrain they could be dug in well. Sure, we got the firepower, Jak. But we won't have the chance to maximize it. Time and place give them the megacull facility over us. Ryan's right."
"Why can we not attempt to sneak up behind them and ambush the ambushers?" Doc asked. "Hoist them with their own petard, as it were?"
"Look at you, Doc. Look at Mildred. Look at all of us. We're real tired. Tired man makes mistakes. Make a mistake in this forest and it's your last. No. I'll go ahead. J.B., give me a word."
The two men stood together, talking quietly and earnestly. J.B. took off his glasses and wiped them on his sleeve, looked up at the pink sky through them, then replaced them on the narrow bridge of his nose. He burrowed his hand into one of his deep pants pockets, then gave something to Ryan.
Ryan took it and nodded, and they walked back to the others. "This is it. I go ahead. J.B. leads the rest of you behind. Keeps as close as he thinks safe. I'm gonna try to talk to them. Seems there's been enough chilling, and they may listen and let us go through. We'll see."
Ryan half turned away, but Krysty took him by the arm. "Don't ever do that, lover."
"What?"
"Go someplace you might not come back from and don't at least say 'bye' to me."
He half smiled, took her in his arms and kissed her very gently on the lips, the tip of his tongue just probing against her teeth. Then he broke from her. "Bye, lover."
Ryan walked away, his rifle over his shoulder. The path cut to the left, and within seconds he was swallowed up by the dark green warmth.
He could smell the water before he actually saw it, a soft, earthy smell, sweet with long years of decay.
Now the jungle was utterly silent. He stopped for a moment and listened. Not a breath of wind stirred the palmlike leaves of the trees around him. Not an insect buzzed after the rich pollen in the brilliant banks of flowers.
Ryan had lived long enough in the Deathlands to be deadly sure that his life could now be measured in seconds. His sixth sense warned him of someone hiding in the undergrowth, twenty yards to his right. But he ignored it, carefully not looking in that direction. He continued to walk steadily ahead.
Ryan paused when he finally caught a glimpse of the sullen sheen of muddy water. To his left, clear as a breaking twig, was the sound of someone belatedly cocking a cap and ball musket.
"I'm here, Thoraldson!" Ryan called, stepping out into the clearing that overlooked the ruined bridge.
Nothing happened. No shots were fired.
"Come on! We're all wasting time. We know you and your men are in hiding. We knew it all along. Better talk first?"
He waited, conscious of sweat trickling down the inside of his collar, running along his spine to the small of his back. Despite the oily brown sheen to it, the water looked tempting. Ryan swallowed hard, licking dry lips.
"Nobody else is coming, Jorund Thoraldson. Not until I say so."
"We could shoot you down, and they could do nothing to help you."
The voice came from ahead of him, behind some thick shrubs, decorated with yellow bell-like flowers.
"True. And how would you get back to your ville, past five blasters?"
This time there was a long stillness. Then Ryan heard other voices whispering. It seemed that one of the loudest was Erik Stonebiter's.
Eventually Jorund spoke again. "This place is filled with dread, Outlander One-Eye. Perhaps you and I should talk."
"Face-to-face. Let's see you. And the others. Unless you're frightened of one man."
The long fronds of leaves trembled and quivered, and out stepped the baron of Markland. At least twenty of his men surrounded Ryan, each holding a blaster.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The Norsemen still wore their ceremonial clothes, which were badly stained with clotted mud, an indication of their haste in leaving their ville and their desperate speed over the mountain to get ahead of Ryan and his companions.
There'd been times in Markland when Ryan had regretted that he and his companions didn't have warmer clothes. Now he was relieved to be wearing more comfortable clothing than the sweltering Vikings.
"Hail, outlander."
Ryan nodded. "You willing to let us pass, or will there be more chilling?"
"You have destroyed all our happiness. You and your friends, the false godling and the black woman of evil."
There was a hysterical note to Jorund's voice, and his eyes were wide and staring. Ryan realized at that moment that he'd misjudged how this confrontation would go. It hadn't entered his calculations that the baron had gone mad.
"Your ville was doomed," Ryan replied, still trying for sanity and balance.
"Lies."
"No."
"Yes, lies. Nothing was amiss with us."
Erik Stonebiter, who stood at his karl's side, spoke up. "There was sickness before the coming of these outlanders, Jorund."
The taller, older Viking swung around, his mouth working, the twin barrels of his scattergun aimed at Erik's midriff. "And you also lie!"
"It's the water you drink and fish in," Ryan said, sensing the futility of it all. "Biggest hot spot I ever saw. Rad count off the scale. Move your ville, and some of you could still live."
"Lies!" the baron screamed at the top of his voice. Ryan saw his finger whiten on the trigger of the scattergun and reached into his own pants pocket.
Before he could act, one of the older Norsemen, on the far side of the clearing, threw his own dice into the game. And found snake eyes.