Ritual Chill

by James Axler

  “Back which way?” Mildred queried. “We either walk into their trap or we try to get back through the storm and the crap on the trail, and they put us through this all over again.”

  “Only one thing we can do,” Krysty muttered. “Call their bluff.”

  Ryan agreed and indicated that his people follow him. He led them past the intersection and about two hundred yards into the forest. The snow and ice still blew here, stinging their eyes and skin, but a greater tension meant that they no longer noticed the raging storm.

  “McIndoe,” Ryan yelled, hoping his voice would carry above the roaring gales, “we know you’re there. You must know that, too. So come out and either fight or tell us what you want.”

  There was a pause. The companions focused their attention on the area ahead, all with blasters to hand except Doc, who blandly looked around as though not caring what would happen. It was obvious that, in his current state, he had little—if any—conception of danger.

  Jak jerked his head in the direction of small noises that alerted him to movement. The Inuit party was spreading down the area to the sides of the trail, moving toward the exposed party. Ryan noted Jak’s motion.

  “Come on, man, we know what you’re doing. Come out and fight, or we’ll come in after you. We’re like rats in a barrel out here, so we’ve got shit to lose.”

  There was a pause that seemed to reach to infinity, their nerves stretched taut and jangling as they watched and listened for the slightest sign of activity. They were more than on edge. They were tipped over into the abyss. So much so that when they heard the rustle of foliage as McIndoe stepped out of cover, five of them snapped their blasters in his direction, only their instincts stopping them from firing immediately, wasting him and starting a firefight they would be sure to lose. Only Doc refrained, seemingly oblivious.

  The Inuit hunter had his Sharps still flung across his back, and his arms were raised from his body as far as the bulk of fur and hide would allow. He had to have been sweating to see five blasters trained on him, but his flat features betrayed no signs of emotion.

  Gradually muscles relaxed, tautness subsided and blasters were lowered. Ryan tried to speak, but his voice came out harsh and cracked, his throat dry and tight with the tension.

  “You’re a lucky man.” His voice grated.

  “You chill me, it’s my problem. I got it wrong. But I’d buy the farm knowing you were following close behind.” The Inuit shrugged.

  “So why haven’t you chilled us?” Ryan continued, ignoring the hunter’s words.

  “Not my job. My job to take you back to the ville.”

  “Then why not just take us by force, why all this?” Ryan asked, gesturing behind to the blocked trail.

  “Try to force you, then it’s a firefight and some of you get chilled. Some of us get chilled. No good to anyone that way. Better to give you no option than to go back.”

  “But why?”

  “Come back and you see,” McIndoe suggested.

  Ryan looked to his people, seeing mirrored in their expressions his own confusion and bafflement. If there had been a reason to keep them there, then why let them leave? And if it were hostile, why not chill them now? And if not hostile, then what was the point of all this? There was only one way to find out.

  Ryan dropped his Steyr. Following his lead, the others let their blasters fall.

  “Okay, we’ll go with it. Doesn’t seem much choice, anyway. Take us back, let’s see what the hell this is all about.”

  At a signal from the hunt leader, the rest of his men came out of cover. All had their blasters secured, but the manner in which they clustered around the companions suggested that deviation from the intended route wouldn’t be tolerated. Following suit, and Ryan’s lead, blasters were secured and the bizarre party began its trek back to the ville.

  It was certainly more pleasant to be going back into the warmer climes of the volcanic regions, where the foliage broke the winds and provided a canopy from the worst of the storm, and where the bitter edge was taken off the cold. They traversed the trading trail until they reached the point where the hidden access to the ville was located and plunged through into the forest. In a short time, they arrived at their destination to find things were not as they had been just a few hours before.

  The center of the ville was no longer an empty space. A canvas canopy, much patched and repaired, had been laid over the area, suspended on poles eight feet high, pitched one in each corner of the clearing. Beneath the canopy were six tables: rough wood, with four legs and crosspieces to insure that they could bear a large amount of weight. Each table had been daubed. At first it was hard to see with what, but as they approached, even under the dimmed illumination of the canvas covering, it was apparent that there were symbols painted in red and yellow, each table the same in those markings.

  There was no sign of any life. Usually, there were people carrying out their work on the stoops of the huts and cabins or going about their business. Now it was empty.

  McIndoe brought his party to a halt, holding out an arm to prevent the companions taking another step into the center of the ville.

  “Are you going to tell us what this is all about?” Ryan asked softly.

  “I think we may have already guessed,” Krysty added under her breath.

  “Not my place. Wait,” McIndoe replied.

  The door to Thompson’s hut opened and he emerged, as though he had been waiting for them. Possibly he had. He was followed by a heavily limping man that they had seen around the ville. He was older and stouter than the Inuit chief and his impassive face was heavily lined. As opposed to the skins and furs they had seen him wear before, he was now in a ceremonial costume of dyed black hide with a white yolk, with a headdress of small animal bones around a broad-brimmed hide hat.

  “Are you going to tell me, then?” Ryan asked without ceremony.

  “Figure you’d be a fool if you hadn’t already worked it out.” Thompson shrugged.

  “So why did you let us leave?”

  The faintest trace of a smile crossed the chief’s face. “Couldn’t very well get this prepared while you watched—you would have figured out what was going on and tried to blast your way out.”

  “And we’re not going to do that now?” Mildred growled.

  “You could try, but you’re surrounded and heavily outnumbered, plus we’re prepared for you. No, my friends, it was less trouble to let you think you could go, then guide you back here. Avoided unnecessary waste of ammo, gave us time to prepare and meant you’re all here in one piece. Not harmed, or less than whole. And that’s important.”

  “Important for who?”

  “For us. In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re having a few problems here. Skydark was a judgment on the ways of the world, but the Lord was a little amiss. His own people got some shit, as well. Lot of us born with problems, and now a lot less of us born. A lot of barren women, and babies that don’t last more than a few weeks or months. Those that survive can adapt—that’s the way of the world—but ain’t no good if there aren’t any being born.”

  “And you think we can bring new blood to you?” Ryan said.

  Thompson looked shocked. “Hell, no! We don’t want outsiders among us. Hellfire and brimstone, boy, if that was the case, don’t you think we would have mixed a little more with those on the trail?” He shook his head. “Knew you wouldn’t get it. See, when our two tribes mixed, the ones from overseas—the ones you call Scots and Irish—they brought us the Almighty, our Lord. And they brought us other ways that worked for them on the islands they came from. Ways that had worked for centuries. Blood for boon.”

  “Ah,” Doc muttered, almost inaudibly, “the old ways. Pagan sacrifice to the moon and sun for bounty. Bound to be confused with Christianity in those outposts of civilization.”

  But no one was listening. They’d got the gist and didn’t care about the history.

  “So you sacrifice us? What makes you think we’ll just lie down
and take it?” Ryan snarled.

  Thompson sighed. “Look around.”

  They did so, to find that the huts and cabins were discharging the entire population of the ville, all armed.

  The chief continued. “You either chill in a firefight, maybe slowly and painfully, or you let us take your lives for the glory of the greater good and the Almighty. It’ll be quick, I promise you that. We don’t mean to make you suffer, it’s just that we need your blood for the Lord, so he’ll shine on us. We’ve tried the others, but they were too intrinsically evil. You came out of nowhere. You were sent.”

  The companions looked around at the Inuit as they closed ranks, coming closer to the companions. So that was the idea: a human sacrifice to appease their gods and banish the taint that was making them barren. And not the first. The condition of the ruined ville they had first encountered now made sense. How many others on the route to Ank Ridge had also been decimated in this cause?

  “You need us whole, do you?” Ryan asked calmly, drawing his SIG-Sauer. “So I guess that means you can’t chill us yet, or even blast us. One wrong move and your sacrifice is fucked, right? So if we try to do that, you can’t fire on us without ruining your plans. Mebbe you aren’t as on top of this as you’d like us to think.”

  He looked back over his shoulder at the others and could see the situation becoming as clear to them as it had to him. With the exception of the still-distant Doc, who was amiably smiling at their foes, the others began to reach for their previously secured blasters.

  Mildred grinned. “I do love it when you get logical, boss man,” she said, withdrawing her ZKR as the Inuit closed in on them. “Looks like it’s time to cut loose a little.”

  Chapter Ten

  “Call ’em off, Thompson, or we’ll start blasting,” Ryan said calmly, assessing the situation. In truth, it didn’t look good. The inhabitants of the ville were closing fast, and soon any kind of blasterfire would be as dangerous to his own people as to their opponents in such an enclosed space. J.B., having already realized this, had cast aside the M-4000 and the mini-Uzi, unsheathing his Tekna knife. Both the shotgun and the SMG would run too great a risk of taking out his own at these close quarters.

  Jak had also eschewed the use of his Colt Python. The .357 Magnum handblaster was too powerful to use in a combat area that was rapidly becoming as closed down as the center of the ville. He palmed two of his leaf-bladed throwing knives from their concealed sheathing in his patched camou jacket. Even impeded by the bulk of the fur he wore over it, the speed of the hand was greater than that of the eye.

  Mildred and Krysty had to rely on their handblasters, as they had no blades to substitute. Hand-to-hand combat would have to suffice when the distance was too small to risk shots.

  But as of yet, there was no initiation of fire. The Inuit kept coming and Ryan held his people back. Casting his eye over the crowd, he could see that they were at least twenty deep on all sides. Everyone who lived in the settlement had come back in for this moment. There were no hunters on expedition, no sec out on patrol. The odds were heavily stacked against the companions, and their only hope would be that Thompson would not wish any more of his people to be unnecessarily chilled.

  But then again, that depended on how you defined “unnecessary.” If it was for the greater good of the tribe, then Ryan had seen—with the sacrifice of the hunter Taggart—that none of the Inuit had any qualms about themselves or others buying the farm.

  It was as if Thompson could hear Ryan’s thoughts. The Inuit chief fixed the one-eyed warrior with a stare.

  “You won’t stop us. We won’t back down.”

  Ryan shrugged. If that was so, there was nothing to lose. If they were going to be taken down, they may as well go down fighting. He raised the SIG-Sauer and fired directly into the face of an approaching Inuit male. A neat round hole appeared in his forehead, and those who followed in his wake found themselves showered with blood, brain and bone fragments from the larger exit wound in the back of his skull. His otherwise impassive visage registered the vaguest shock before he crumpled to the dirt.

  It made no difference. Those behind him either stepped on, over or around his inert form. Those covered with the viscous fluid from his skull cavity, which steamed lightly in the freezing air, wiped it from their faces as they continued.

  “We aren’t going to stop them,” Mildred said with an air of weary resignation, “but we might even the odds if we take a few of ’em with us.”

  Before the last syllable had died, its echo was drowned by the crack of the ZKR. Her first shot hit an Inuit woman full in the face, shattered septum traveling up and out at velocity to pierce her frontal lobes as the shell from the target pistol was deflected downward through her palate, sheering flesh as it ripped into her throat before tearing a hole in the carotid artery as it exited her body. Although her brain function was now virtually nonexistent, there was enough motor function left to carry her forward a few stumbling steps, the blood rhythmically pulsing from the hole in the side of her neck, a steaming claret spray that showered over those who advanced beside her. The smell of fresh warm blood carried on the cold winds, drifting across the center of the ville.

  It was as though this, not the visual or aural signs of violence, was the trigger for an increase in action. From their slow, silent march toward their prey, the Inuit surrounding the companions suddenly snapped into faster, harder action. It was as if they had been held back by some invisible force that had curtailed their action, and now that this was lifted they found themselves propelled forward with a sudden and violent sense of momentum.

  Still eerily silent, they rushed upon the six people in their midst. Doc was the first to fall. The old man hadn’t even bothered to draw his LeMat, which, in the circumstances, was a good thing. However, neither had he unsheathed the silver lion’s-head sword stick, which may have offered him some protection. In his mind, he wasn’t looking for protection, he was looking to observe dispassionately, to see what happened next in this strange world that was of his own imaginings.

  What happened was simply that he was swept up by the onrush of human flesh, knocked from his feet, pummeled by fists and nicked time and again by sharp blades that made him bleed from superficial lacerations, energy draining with the sharp, nagging little pains and the loss of blood that resulted. Feet clad in skins and heavy boots thudded against him, some accidentally and some in deliberately placed kicks. The force of the feet was dissipated somewhat, cushioned by the fur and skins wrapped around them, but still enough to drive the breath from him.

  He rode these blows, allowing himself to be carried along with the flow of the hand-to-hand fighting. He was curious only to discover what would happen next.

  His companions weren’t so accommodating.

  As the wave of Inuit swept toward them from all sides, closing them in, they began to fight. They knew that the Inuit didn’t care about themselves and would gladly go to buy the farm to overpower their opponents. They also knew that the Inuit wanted them alive and not harmed in any major way. They had to be whole for the sacrifice, and to accidentally chill them before any ritual would be a pointless waste of a sacrificial lamb. So maybe they had an edge. If they could keep fighting and make their way through the crowds to the edge of the clearing, then they could attempt to escape into the upland slopes of the volcanic region, losing their opponents in the undergrowth.

  To say that this was a long shot would be an understatement: but it was something, no matter how slight, to which they could cling. Any hope was better than none and would fuel a seemingly hopeless fight.

  Mildred, Ryan and Krysty all fired into the oncoming crowd, each with a vague notion of clearing a path with their fire. In front of them, Inuit men and women too slow to move—either because of deformities that limited their movement or because of the density of the crowd surrounding them—were drilled with shells from the SIG-Sauer, the ZKR and the Smith & Wesson, each one doing enough damage to remove one opponent from the
pay permanently.

  Yet none of these shots made any real impact on the advance. For each Inuit that fell, there were many others to step into the gap their chilling caused. And once all three blasters were empty, there was no time to reload with the enemy in such close proximity. Ryan was able to snatch his panga from the sheath on his thigh, but for Mildred and Krysty it came down to trying to defend themselves with hands and feet.

  Jak and J.B. had made better progress. Working only with blades from the first, both had decided that the only way to make any kind of dent on the enemy would be to take an offensive rather than defensive stance—to take the game to them from the off. To this end, both men had moved toward the oncoming crowd, Jak becoming a whirling blur of arms as he twirled the knives, the razor-sharp blades cutting through hide, fur and skin with ease. He was the first to elicit any kind of vocal response from their enemies, his slashing motion drawing yelps of pain and screams of agony as easily as it drew blood. He cut an immediate swath through the mass of Inuit flesh, carving himself a small path. But it wasn’t to be easy for anyone to follow. No sooner had he made inroads than the gap closed behind him, sealing him into a pocket of the enemy, with no way to reach his compatriots, or for them to reach him should he need their assistance. All he had succeeded in doing was isolating himself.

  He fought harder, his arms never tiring as he thrust and parried with the knives, deflecting blows and scoring through the flesh of his enemies. Yet they kept coming, wave after wave, with an increasing determination. No matter that he deflected two with cuts that took them out of the action. Four would take their place. Fists and feet lashed out at him. Some he could skip over, shimmy and feint around. Others struck home. Not blows that were damaging by themselves, but with a continuing cumulative effect that bruised his flesh, drove breath from his body, caught him on an intake of air, stopping it short… Blows that, by their very persistence, were wearing him down. Short, jabbing motions from knives held by the Inuit, motions designed to lacerate and eviscerate rather than chill, became harder to avoid as he grew more and more tired. The sharpness of a sudden pain slicing across his skin became more frequent. More: more of everything against him, and less of his own blows hitting home. He could avoid so much, but not everything, and as he became exhausted, so the ratio shrunk until he was admitting more blows than he was able to repel.