A belt of tall pines soon appeared in the northeastern horizon, in the general direction of where they believed the remains of Moscow lay. And they encountered fresh tracks of horses.
"Smoke," Krysty announced, sniffing the air.
Ryan couldn't detect it, but he didn't doubt that Krysty was correct.
"That way?" he guessed, pointing to the northeast.
"Right. Wood smoke. Not cooking. Although..." She hesitated. "I think there's also bread at the baking. Yeah, bread. Could be the ville."
J.B. drew his blaster and worked the action, relishing the oiled click as it moved. Ryan knew that the Armorer would already have checked the action before going to sleep the previous night, and once again before leaving that morning. It was as much a habit as breathing to J. B. Dix.
"How far off, lover?" Ryan asked.
"Difficult to tell. Wind's veering and dropping all the time. I'd guess it's around three to four miles off."
As the breeze fell away, the temperature began to rise. Within the next half hour it climbed at least a dozen degrees, making the walking slightly easier but much more unpleasant.
The dry frozen layer on top of the drifted snow was melting, softening and losing its pristine sheen. As the companions stepped through it their boots sank into a watery mush like cold oatmeal that rose above the knee if someone was unlucky enough to hit a deep hollow. The path meandered alongside a narrow stream. As they'd joined it, the water had been fringed with a delicate tracery of cobwebbed ice, stretching out from both the banks to meet in the middle.
Now that was gone, broken up and whirled away. The stream widened and ran faster, swelling with the inrush of meltwater. By the time the three friends came within sight of the ville the noise made conversation difficult, and the narrow stream had become a full-blooded river.
The trail had also widened into a horse trail, well trampled and thick with a sticky orange mud.
There was a sparse belt of trees ringing the hamlet. The houses appeared to be made mainly of packed earth with a roof of some kind of thatch. Ryan crouched behind a stunted larch, cursing as its branches dripped water down the back of his neck. Krysty and J.B. knelt on either side of him, all staring intently at the afternoon activity in the small ville.
The well at the center of the cleared patch of dirt, which seemed to be the village's square, was clearly the social focus for the community. Women, all seemingly identical in ragged furs and filthy boots, gathered there, drawing water and engaging in chitchat. A few men appeared every now and again, as well as a scattering of muddied children. A number of scrawny mongrel dogs slunk about the place, nuzzling for scraps, occasionally bickering noisily among themselves.
"Bastard dogs," J.B. hissed. "One of them scents us and goodbye'll be all she wrote."
Ryan nodded. It was true that animals around a strange ville were a difficult obstacle to try to overcome.
"Which way to Moscow?" Krysty whispered. "Looks like a wider road out the far side there. It's in the right direction."
J.B. pulled out the miniature sextant and compass, angling it to the light that filtered through the branches of the trees. He read off the direction. "Northeast by a half east. That could be about right. Yeah."
While they watched and waited, Ryan considered what scant knowledge he possessed of Russia, realizing that it was abominably little. After sky-dark, as far as he knew, there had been no communication at all between what remained of the Russians and the survivors of Deathlands. The only thing that was certain was that there was a bone-deep hatred of each other's country.
Having traveled around the edges of the rad-blasted devastation that had been New York, he figured Moscow wasn't likely to be a whole lot better. But there had to be suburbs. From his experience around the rebuilt villes of Deathlands, Ryan knew that most life flourished in what remained of the old suburbs.
"Nothing here," Krysty said.
"Nope. Nothing. Lot of dirt and stink and suspicion. Nothing we need."
J.B. flexed his shoulders. "Agreed. Let's move on around."
It was J.B. who killed the dog. They were three-quarters of the way around, picking their way cautiously between the patches of cover, checking that nobody from the ville was coming their way. They'd just negotiated a part of the woods that had been particularly unpleasant. From the copious evidence all around it was obvious that the wretched ville had no sanitation arrangements. Everyone simply came out and did what they had to among the trees.
Krysty began to giggle quietly to herself as they picked their way carefully onward.
"What's the joke, lover?" Ryan asked.
"Carl Lanning, the smith's son from Harmony. You know?"
"Yeah. What about him?"
"He always said I'd end up in the shit. He finally got it right."
All three of them laughed, laughter that was snapped off clean when the dog appeared from the far side of a small clearing.
It wasn't a particularly large animal, no more than two feet tall at the shoulder and probably weighing less than a hundred pounds. But it wasn't carrying much fat. Waves of muscle rippled over the squat shoulders and it stood foursquare, lips folding back off savage teeth. A thin trickle of yellow foam clung to its underslung jaw. In the sudden silence they could hear a faint snarl, rumbling deep in its belly. The sunken eyes were rimmed red.
"Gaia!"
Ryan took in a slow, whistling breath, leveling his SIG-Sauer P-226, finger taut on the feather-light trigger. He held his fire. If the dog barked they could have the whole ville teeming about their ears within seconds. If he shot the animal, even with the baffle silencer, there was a good chance of someone hearing the muted report of the blaster. Same result.
There was always the hope that the cur might simply take it into its head to turn and run, allowing them to move on unhindered.
That hope died the moment he saw the head go back and heard the first beginning of the howl of warning.
J.B. never hesitated.
He drew the Tekna knife left-handed and threw it underarm at the dog. The needle-sharp blade spun across the clearing, glinting in the sun. The point buried itself in the creature's throat, beneath the ruff of its muscular jowls. The yelp died, stillborn, and the dog staggered a few steps sideways, collapsing with a feeble, bubbling attempt at a bark. Blood oozed from its open jaws, tinting the froth, and its powerful legs kicked and scrabbled at the carpet of snow.
J.B. walked across and stooped to retrieve the heavy knife, jerking his hand away as the dying animal made a determined attempt to take a few of his fingers with it into the long stillness.
"Bastard," he muttered with no anger, waiting a half minute until the mongrel's eyes filmed over and it lay dead. Then he withdrew the Tekna and wiped it in the ground before resheathing it.
Ryan had figured that the bodies of the three horsemen might have been found by now. What he didn't know was the extent to which rural Russia was subject to sec patrols. Generally in Deathlands sec men were visible in any numbers only near a large ville run by a powerful baron.
They'd only been in the country for a few hours and they'd already managed to kill five Russians. And a dog, Ryan added. There wasn't going to be any way they could throw themselves on the mercy of their unwitting hosts and took for anything better than a hemp collar and a short dance on the air.
The path had become a trail and now widened to the width of a two-lane blacktop. Most of the snow had already melted from its surface, the potholed pavement showing through. The river ran alongside it on the left, pounding over huge tumbled boulders, its noise now deafeningly loud. On the right side of the road the forest had thickened and darkened, massive pines gathering close together with barely room for a man to squeeze between the trunks.