Deathlands 071: Ritual Chill Read online

  Watch assigned, Ryan settled down to sleep before he was called, Krysty moving up close to him.

  “Think we’re out of the rough yet?” she asked.

  “Not until we find people, another ville. We need to know we’re headed the right way, and that whatever took out that settlement hasn’t got to the others before us. We might be able to let up a little then, as we’ll have a source of food and water. But right now…”

  “It’s better, though. At least we’ve been able to eat properly and we can organize a proper rest. And it’s not so damned cold.”

  “Still be better to be in a warm hut with a blazing stove.” He grinned. “We could always try to make a little more heat.”

  “Lover, you get it out in this and it’ll break off with frostbite.” She laughed.

  “Mebbe… Sure you don’t want to try?”

  “Sure you do?” she countered.

  But they didn’t. Fatigue took its toll and the next thing Ryan knew Jak was waking him a few hours later to take over watch. Krysty was still huddled against him and he carefully disentangled himself before standing and stretching while Jak reported. There was nothing happening around them that suggested any danger. If the bears had emerged from licking their wounds, they had headed back to the settlement, drawn by the possibility that there was still some carrion. Other wildlife had emerged, but it was smaller, and discretion had dictated it give the intruders in its midst as wide a berth as possible.

  Ryan took his watch before waking Mildred for her turn. He, too, had little to report. It was as quiet and restful a night as they could have wished for in such conditions. Certainly more so than the previous evening.

  By the time day broke, Ryan had returned to his rest and was woken to the daylight by Krysty bearing water and some of the food left from the previous meal.

  “Time to kick over the traces, lover. We’ve still got a long way to go until Ank Ridge, and the weather feels like its gonna be stable today.”

  WITHIN AN HOUR they had struck camp and hit the trade trail once more. It moved up into the warmer areas of the volcanic ridge where there was a denser growth of foliage. The canopy provided protection from the harsher outside elements, allowing the flora and fauna to flourish to a degree that would have been impossible lower down. And although the air got thinner, and a little harsher with the sulfur fumes, the trail became more pronounced where it cut through the growth. As such, it made their progress easier: follow the trail and there was no battle with nature.

  On each side of them, the green of the leaves contrasted with the vibrant colors that flowered from the plants: oranges, purples and varied shades of red spotted the trail, while creepers with white blooms snaked onto the well-trodden path. They could hear the scuttling movements and cries of animals, while a few birds fluted and fluttered through the trees, audible but staying out of view.

  Strung out in line, with J.B. ahead at point, then Ryan, Krysty, Mildred and Jak, Doc unusually was bringing up the rear. He had seemed so much his old self, conversing in a lucid and coherent manner, and appearing to be fit enough physically to last the pace, that Mildred had fallen into leaving the old man to make his own way. She had her own concerns. They had taken a battering, and some of them were still showing signs of the wounds sustained in recent combat. They had lost their edge, both in speed and mobility, and it hadn’t escaped her attention that J.B. and Ryan both walked a little stiffly, as though troubled by leg strains and injuries. For her own part, she was aware that her right arm ached where she had wrenched it two nights before when battling the wild bears. She was right-handed and if it came to a firefight at some point in the near future, she wanted to be sure that it wouldn’t let her—or the others—down.

  Dropping behind the others, Doc was lost in a world that was all of his own making. Partly believing that this was all an illusion, partly that it was a test from a higher power, and partly that it was in his own mind and an examination of his own sanity, he had managed to keep enough cunning and lucidity together to construct an outward persona that seemed to be the old Doc—eccentric and unfathomable, but still a functioning and valuable member of a team.

  Inside his own head, it was all a little different. Things there were confused, following only the kind of logic that is found in dreams.

  THESE SURROUNDINGS DRAW me into them. Somehow, I recognize them as though more phantoms from my past come back to haunt me. The legends of the lost cities of gold—El Dorado—and the jungles that have drawn man into themselves since the beginning of time. For do not the interior hells of a jungle match the interior hell of a man’s mind? Is that what is happening here? Has my mind created this jungle for me as an exteriorization of the labyrinthine hot spots of my own psyche?

  It would, of course, make sense. For is not the idea of a city of gold, held at the center of a jungle, merely an allegory for the greater learning and understanding of what it is to be human that can be found at the center of each mind?

  Perhaps that is my purpose at this point in the journey? Could it be that I am sticking too closely to the well-worn paths of thought and that is why I cannot find the lost city of gold? What if I were to just step off the path and into the wilderness? Would I then find the treasure of enlightenment?

  But it would mean leaving my companions behind. Ah, yes, but if they are the figments of my imaginings that I assume them to be, then surely they represent things I must let go to find the truth? If so, then they will find me again when I find myself…the city itself.

  So if I just step off the path and into the wilderness, then I have taken the all-important first step: the plunge into the abyss without which true discovery cannot come.

  “DOC? FUCK IT, where has the stupe old bastard gone?” Mildred’s voice was, despite her words, racked with anxiety as she realized that the old man had disappeared.

  Up ahead, J.B. and Ryan stopped and looked back at her cry, while Jak and Krysty were already past her, searching the immediate area on each side of the trail to see if they could find any indication of what had happened or where he had gone.

  “Here,” Jak called, indicating an area where the foliage had been beaten down recently. As the others approached, they could see that the path he made was soon lost in the thick undergrowth, any disturbance made by his passing obscured by the sheer volume.

  “Doesn’t look like it was against his will,” Krysty commented. “It’s not messed up enough for a struggle, and besides which we would have heard that.”

  “Old buzzard’s finally flipped, gone off like an elephant to die,” Mildred said, finding it hard to believe that even someone as crazy as Doc would just wander off in the wilderness. She picked up something in the foliage that caught her eye. “I guess he just doesn’t care any more,” she whispered, handling the silver lion’s-head sword stick that the old man habitually carried.

  “Mebbe he figures he wouldn’t want that anymore,” Krysty said softly, adding when Mildred looked puzzled. “He got it from the redoubt first time we were here. Mebbe it meant something he wanted to let go.”

  “And mebbe he just dropped it,” J.B. snapped. “The longer we stand around acting like he’s bought the farm, the more likely that he will.”

  “Mebbe we should leave him,” Ryan said softly, explaining, “If Doc’s finally snapped, then nothing’s going to bring him back. And look at us. We need to press on—and face it, people, we aren’t in too good shape.”

  “We can’t just leave him,” Mildred said, as though it needed no justification.

  “I’ve got to think of all of us. I’ve seen you looking at us in turn, Mildred, I know you know what kind of shape we’re in. Risk it all chasing Doc or make sure we survive. What’s the better bet?”

  Mildred shook her head, glaring at Ryan. “That doesn’t matter, and you know it. Yeah, we’re tired and carrying injuries. But next time we fight, how are we going to be able to trust one another knowing we left one of our own without even looking for him?”

&
nbsp; Ryan tightened about the jaw, his eye blazing. There was no way he would leave any of them out of hand, but with Doc the way he was, and the rest of them carrying their own problems… In his heart, though, he knew she was right.

  “Okay, we search, but try to follow his path, and we only spread out a little. Keep in visual contact.”

  A delicate balance between searching for Doc and keeping their own security, but one he felt they could maintain. As it proved to be: although it was at first difficult to keep one another in sight as they moved through the dense forestation, moving back down the slopes on a sometimes treacherous incline, it became easier as they got closer to the foot and the trees thinned out.

  But none of them expected what they saw when, after a quarter of an hour battling the incline and increasingly harsh winds, they broke cover to find Doc standing near the base of the upland ridge, conversing with an armed hunting party. They could see that he was talking to the group, even though his words were whipped away by the winds. Ryan cursed the fact that all sound had been lost to them, and they were caught unawares and breaking cover, unable to easily track back on the slopes.

  Doc turned to them at the sound of the crashing trees, raising his voice as he called across the driving wind.

  “Ah, I was just this minute saying that you probably weren’t that far behind me. Just as well, it saves us having to look for you.’

  * * *

  Chapter Seven

  Doc’s tone may have been welcoming and pleasant—despite having to yell over the crosswind to be heard—but the demeanor of his new companions gave lie to his optimism. They were clustered around the old man and had been trying to understand who he was and where he had come from when the companions burst from cover.

  Although their faces were set as if in stone, betraying nothing, the manner in which their hands tightened around their blasters, ready to use them at a moment’s notice, showed that beneath the impassive exterior they were on edge.

  Ryan skidded to a halt, about thirty yards from where Doc stood. He had no weapon in his hands and neither—he was sure—did the others. He heard the others also slither and slide to a halt on either side of him, and he risked a look to see if they had all emerged. If one had been able to stay in cover, alerted by the sudden cessation of movement, then they may have an edge.

  Slowly, Ryan turned his head so that he could see to his right. J.B., Krysty, Mildred, Jak…all of them were in the open, frozen as much by the sight of the group in front of them as by the temperatures. Ryan swore under his breath. This was what came of not being triple red all the time; this was the result of fatigue and the inability to find a place where they could rest up and recoup themselves.

  Doc—the same Doc who had led them into this mess—had once used the word “ennui,” and told the one-eyed man that it came from a place called France, and that explaining it in English was hard. But he’d tried, at Ryan’s behest. Not that his explanation had made a whole lot of sense; Doc groping for words was even more confusing than Doc in full flow, never at a loss for them. But the gist of his explanation was this: the word meant that feeling when you couldn’t be bothered to go on, when it all seemed drab and pointless, and when you felt detached, as though watching yourself in a story but not really being part of the action.

  So, ennui: a good term for how they’d been since landing back in this pesthole of a region. A reason for why they had stumbled from one disaster to another. An explanation for why they were in so much trouble now, lined up against a fully armed group of hunters without a single blaster to hand.

  They’d be damned lucky if they didn’t buy the farm. Ryan had felt that they were sharpening up after they left the ruined settlement. How wrong he’d been. But if they got out of this… Fireblast, sharp wouldn’t even begin to explain how they were going to be.

  Bizarrely, as it was his own actions that had gotten them into this predicament, it was Doc who managed to extract them.

  The old man had been experiencing everything in a heightened manner since his return from the frontiers of madness to something that meant he could absorb his everyday surroundings. It was as if his nerve endings now jangled to the slightest stimulus, each one setting off chains of thought and association in his head.

  As he saw his erstwhile friends and companions break from cover, he could feel from them their concern for his safety, and his heart was glad. Even if this was all a construct of his own mind, at least his imagination had made people who cared for him. At the same time, he could feel the mood of the hunting party change. They had looked upon him with curiosity when he’d emerged from the trees, his ripped fur billowing around him, his hair whipping across his face. He was unarmed, alone, and had to have looked as though he were half-crazed—perhaps he was, but no matter for the moment—more importantly, he presented no threat.

  He had walked down to them, talking all the while, asking who they were and where they came from, then telling them who he was and the mission he was engaged upon…on reflection, it was little surprise that they had failed to reply to any of his questions. He hadn’t given them the space in which to speak and his crazed monologue had seemingly silenced them with bemusement.

  Curiosity, confusion, amusement—all these he could read in their attitude, if not their immobile faces. But that had changed when the others had burst from the trees. Tightening of muscles, setting of jaws. Doc could feel a sea of change. And he could see that his erstwhile friends were unarmed and at the mercy of the hunters.

  Doc took decisive action. He stepped back and around so that he stood in the area between the hunters and the companions, facing the former. He flung his arms into the air and intoned, “These people mean you no harm. They have arms, but do not bear them for you. They have only come looking for me, to assist me when I am lost. I beg of you, spare them.”

  Ryan had singled out one hunter as the head of the group. He saw the man’s eyes flicker—the only sign of life in an otherwise still body—from Doc to Ryan, then along the line.

  “You got blasters?” the leader said finally, his lips barely moving and his voice hard to understand beneath a burring accent that seemed to twist the words out of shape.

  Ryan nodded. “Yeah. All of us. But we can’t reach them before you can chill us, so you’ve got all the aces.”

  “Let’s keep it that way for now. This bastard always this crazy, or you people just been out here too long?”

  “Something of both,” Ryan said carefully. “Get even crazier if we have to stand here like this. So you figure on trying to chill us, or you figure on letting us be?”

  “Neither. Got some questions you might like to answer,” the leader said slowly, in a tone of voice that told Ryan this was not an optional question but a statement.

  “Talking isn’t going to chill us, so that sounds good to me. Figure we all agree on that.”

  The leader grunted, nodded and stepped forward. “Then you follow us.”

  THE COMPANIONS FELL IN with the hunting party, and walked with them. It gave each group a better chance to examine the other.

  As far as Ryan was concerned, the strangest thing was that the hunters didn’t choose to disarm his people. It couldn’t be that they were too stupe to do that. No one would survive long without acquiring such skills in this world. It seemed to imply more that the hunters were confident that they could strike down the companions before they posed a threat. Maybe they were right. Either way, it gave Ryan an uneasy feeling. It went with the air that the party carried with them anyway. They seemed to be at one with their surroundings and relaxed in a way that suggested they had long since established themselves as top of the chain. With that assurance came a feeling that anyone they picked up could be discarded with ease. Not a good feeling when you were walking with them to their ville.

  There were seven of them, and the things they shared in common were their facial characteristics and body shape. They had flat, broad faces, with noses that were also flat, spread with wide nost
rils. Thin, tight lips and dark eyes that were buried beneath protective layers of fat around their brows. All were fairly short and squat, with the bulk appearing to be muscle as much as fat.

  Ryan had read in some old books once about the people who lived in these ice-covered regions. Their overall name was Inuit, although there were several different tribes within this grouping. They had adapted and developed over the years to cope with the harsh conditions.

  They were still a very adaptable people, for their shape and facial characteristics were all they had in common.

  The nukecaust and their isolation had hit their gene pool hard. Some had obvious signs of mutation and inbreeding. such as eyes that were weeping and sore. One of them had a lipless hole where his mouth should be, with no teeth and a truncated jawline that suggested he was unable to speak. Not that this was a problem, as they seemed a taciturn people, none other than the leader speaking to the companions, and even his few words having ceased.

  Others walked with a peculiar gait that suggested they may have all their limbs, but perhaps they had something else amiss on their torso, hidden beneath the layers of clothing. These layers were composed of old rags and materials woven and stitched into furs in such a way as to make it hard to tell where one piece ended and another began. Their feet were encased in bound layers of cloth and fur, worn in places to show heavy boots underneath.

  They all carried blasters. Some were Lee Enfield .303s, there were a couple of Sharps rifles, and the leader of the pack carried a Steyr much like Ryan’s. From some of the bulges on their layers of clothing, it was probable that they also carried handblasters and almost certainly blades for skinning prey, if little else.

  As they walked, there was an almost casual air about them that made them seem all the more dangerous. This was their land, and no one could best them on it.

  Looking at the others, Ryan could see that they felt ill at ease to be joining the hunting party so casually. Jak’s face, as ever betrayed nothing, but his hands hovered expectantly, ready to reach for his concealed blades; J.B.’s eyes flickered behind his spectacles, taking in all that was around him; Mildred was impassive, but her stiff gait betrayed her tension, and Krysty walked as though nothing was amiss, but her hair had tightened protectively to coil around her head and neck, betraying her true feelings. Only Doc seemed unconcerned. If anything, the old man carried with him an air of casual fascination, as though curious and expectant for what should happen next.