Deathlands 071: Ritual Chill

by James Axler

  Unaware of the exchanges that continued to their rear, Ryan’s companions had fanned out and surrounded the three huts. The absolute still of the settlement told them that it was deserted. From their points around the settlement they could clearly see one another—indeed, they could have clearly been seen from inside the cabins and would surely have been attacked by now if the settlement was populated—and Ryan indicated that they close in.

  In a tightening circle, they moved toward the cabins. The cinder-block hut to one side was open to the elements and had obviously been used to house dogs. The inside was clearly visible, the pen door thrust wide and the smell from within confirmation of its purpose. That was now out of the running. There were just the two cabins, the windows of which were intact and blankly staring out at them. The doors were closed. As with most of the cabins they had seen on this trek, the design was simple and functional: two windows for light and a view of the outside; a solid wooden door; the remainder built firm, with no other ingress or egress, designed solely to combat the elements and reduce the heat loss from within.

  It meant that whoever may be within was trapped, yet at the same time secure as there were only three spots to defend from attack.

  The only way to tackle these cabins was full-on: Ryan, Mildred and Krysty took one; Jak and J.B. the other. One member of the party attacked the door, while the others flanked them, ready to provide cover if necessary.

  It was over in a second. The two men taking the entrance to each hut tried the doors. They were unlocked, opening outward. Pulled to their fullest extent, they allowed a wide-angled view of the interior while also framing their target in the portal. Ryan and Jak both went low as they pulled at the doors, making themselves as small as possible and scanning for any enemy within.

  There was none. As their instincts had told them, the cabins were long since deserted.

  J.B. joined Jak in his cabin, shouldering the M-4000 he had been ready to use in this instance. A spreading load of barbed-metal fléchettes from the weapon would have been the simplest and most effective one-shot within such an enclosed space.

  “Looks like they left in a hurry, but of their own accord,” he noted, taking in the contents of the cabin.

  Jak agreed, his eyes roaming the interior. There were three beds in the cabin, each covered in filthy blankets and furs. A small table stood near the stove and on it were plates covered in scraps of food that had congealed. The floor was scattered with clothes and stray shells, as though spilled from a pack. It looked as though the contents had been packed in a hurry, but there was no sign of destruction or forced entry as there had been in the small villes they had seen along the trail.

  Jak leaned over the plates and sniffed them, then tentatively felt the stove. Frowning, he opened the door to the grate and sifted the ashes gathered.

  “Mebbe twenty hours since went—mebbe less,” he said, ruminatively rubbing the powdered ash between his fingers.

  “So where would they go in such a hurry?” J.B. queried.

  “Or why?” Jak returned.

  In truth, both men suspected the answer. They left the cabin and walked over to its adjacent companion, where Ryan, Mildred and Krysty were inside.

  In essence, this cabin was the same as its partner. It had been stripped of most things, and seemingly in a hurry. There were two beds here, and a larger table that had a battered and rusting tin chest beneath it. As Jak and J.B. entered, Ryan had just pulled the chest from beneath the table and was opening it.

  “Looks like they shot through in a panic,” Mildred remarked to the two newcomers, indicating the surrounding area. The beds were covered in disheveled furs, with a couple of empty plates lying on top. There were a few clothes also heaped on the bed, as though discarded at the last moment, and a wooden box that had a stenciled reference on the side. J.B. recognized it immediately as a predark case that would have contained ammo for a Heckler & Koch MP-5, the boxes of ammo cased in the wooden container for easy transport. At a guess, there had been little left in the case; whoever had fled the cabin had decided it would be easier to carry the ammo another way.

  Which meant they had been in one hell of a hurry.

  The table had been cleared before the inhabitants left, and Ryan hefted the tin box onto the rough, scarred top. It was lighter than he had expected and he found that it was more than half-empty. There were old photographs and papers jammed together in a haphazard fashion, some of which had succumbed to damp and mildew over the years and were stuck together and unreadable. Ryan pulled out some of the photographs and passed them to Mildred.

  She thumbed through them and could see that they were a mixed collection of snapshots from the twentieth century. Some were old black-and-white photographs that had almost faded to sepia that she could pin down as being either from the twenties or the forties by the fashions and hairstyles. It had been a long time since she had seen such things, and it surprised her that she could still remember enough to place the period with such accuracy.

  Others of the snapshots were in color and from the last thirty years of the century. These she was able to place and date with a much greater accuracy as the fashions and hairstyles were those during her time. In some instances she was able to identify the exact year from some seemingly inconsequential feature of the snap: a slogan on a T-shirt, a billboard in the background.

  She felt a tear prickle at the corner of her eye. It had been a long time—too long—since her old life had tapped her on the shoulder in such a way. It was an ache that was painful yet at the same time pleasant: to recall those days reminded her of a part of herself that she had been forced to bury. To have that bubble to the surface was good. That it was still there at all was something of a miracle.

  Yet as she looked at the snapshots, there was something about them that seemed odd. The people in them didn’t appear to be related in any way and the locations seemed to be from all parts of the U.S., with no rhyme or reason to them. It was as though someone had just collected these photographs whenever they had come across them. Why? To recall a world they had never known? To satisfy their curiosity at what life had been like before the hardship they now endured?

  Ryan was wondering much the same thing. The papers left in the tin box told him nothing. A collection of letters to and from people that appeared unconnected, pages torn from magazines, old newsprint that crumbled to the touch, half a paperbacked book and some invoices and receipts for products and services that had been obsolete for well over a century.

  It seemed a completely random collection. But only half. What had happened to the top layers of the chest? And did they have any relevance to the mission of which the companions were now engaged?

  It appeared unlikely, but this train of thought had its own reward. Scanning the walls, Ryan could see patches where some hangings had been taken down and carried away in the flight: but other things remained. Among these was a map of the area, drawn by hand. A scrawled note along the top edge read, “Trale from volcano to Ankridge,” with a compass marking beside it.

  “Who the hell lived here?” Ryan muttered to himself as he examined the map.

  “Someone who could have been something at another time,” Mildred murmured in reply, putting the photographs back into the chest.

  Krysty joined Ryan at the map. “I’d like to know how accurate this is, and how they got to draw it,” she commented.

  “Figure whoever did it must have used the trail often, and not just to go to Ank Ridge and back. This takes us back past the slopes, and I think they must have scaled the volcano slope to get a good look at the territory. Think about it. It’s flat all around here, and if you were to risk getting far enough up, you could see the surrounding area probably all the way to the sea.”

  “Look,” J.B. interjected, indicating a point on the map just beyond where they now stood. He had joined them to examine the map and had been drawn to one particular spot.

  “Fireblast, that’s going to fuck things up,” Ryan breathed a
s the implication of J.B.’s discovery hit him.

  The Armorer’s finger was on the part of the trail that passed Fairbanks. It indicated that the land had shifted, forming an incline that had collapsed into a valley. About twenty miles in circumference, it formed a bowl in which the ville of Fairbanks was set.

  They would have to approach the ville from above and would be a sitting target as they descended the slope with little or no cover.

  “Aw, shit, this is bad, isn’t it?” Mildred moaned as she realized what had caused Ryan’s exclamation. “It’s bad enough that we were coming on them on a flat plain that didn’t offer cover. Now we’ve got to try to get down into a valley where they’ll be barricaded and we’ll be in the open.”

  “Shit!” Jak exclaimed. “They know we’re coming by now.”

  “Why?” Ryan queried.

  Jak shook his head. “How easy see us coming over land? One hunter from here on ice, see us coming, know what happened in other villes… Not hard guess what we want. That’s why they gone. Bet they gone to Fairbanks. With twenty hour start.”

  “Dark night, that ville’s gonna be locked up tighter than a gaudy’s pussy when you’ve got no jack,” J.B. murmured.

  “Say that one again,” Ryan lamented. “So how we gonna break this to Thompson and Jordan?”

  “Uh, carefully,” Mildred said wryly.

  THE REACTIONS of the three men who were leading the attack were certainly instructive when Ryan and the companions rejoined them and relayed what they had found, and the conclusions they had drawn.

  Thompson was thrown. It was apparent that he hadn’t considered that their force may be visible enough to give early warning. To him, the trappers and hunters who lived in the isolated settlements between the volcano’s lower slopes and Fairbanks would be far too preoccupied with their every day existence to notice the encroaching forces. And even if they did, they could be taken by force and eradicated. The fact that Fairbanks may now be awaiting their arrival with hostile intent was a factor that he hadn’t considered, and had no contingency plans to implement.

  Jordan took it all in his stride. “So they will be ready for us. A sacrifice that is hard-won is all the sweeter. They will die a more noble death as warriors if it is battle, and not in a halfhearted defense of an attack from the blindside.”

  McPhee kept his own counsel, but couldn’t disguise an askance glance at the chief and the stranger that suggested he felt that one was out of his depth, the other verging on insanity. McPhee had to follow the chief; the evidence of his own senses suggested that Jordan was what he claimed to be. And yet his seeming disregard for tactics beyond a plan to charge head-on into a glorious war that may result in a pointless and Pyrrhic victory suggested that he didn’t have the grasp on reality that he suggested.

  McPhee cast a surreptitious view around the tribe. Those who were close enough could hear what Ryan told Thompson and Jordan. To the companions, they would remain as inscrutable and unreadable as before, but to the shaman, who knew them well and was of them, it was evident that an uncertainty spread through them. They had a communication that was based on body language and the slightest of gesture; through this, the unease felt by those closest to the chief spread through the ranks.

  Unease could mean vacillation at a crucial moment. The shaman was no fool. He was aware, even if Thompson and Jordan chose to ignore it, that many in the tribe were unhappy at having the strangers in the war party. Furthermore, he was certain that the trap in the last large ville had been down to McIndoe. The medicine man now began to weigh options in his mind. If the sec chief was against the outsiders, then perhaps he felt a lack of confidence with the chief and the supposed voice of the Almighty. Being sec chief, he would carry the support of most of his men and perhaps many of the other tribe members now that this latest revelation had sent a shiver through the ranks.

  Perhaps it would be a good time for him to cultivate McIndoe. As a good pragmatist, McPhee was an old man who wanted to live to be a little older. Whatever that may take.

  A FEW HOURS remained until they reached Fairbanks. As they marched, the companions became aware that they were slowly ascending the land-shift. It was a very small gradient over a long distance. This could account for why it was barely visible, as the distant horizon seemed to be stretching flat out in front of them. It would also explain why the bulky outline of a ville the size of Fairbanks was lost to them. All that appeared was another group of cabins that housed trappers, off to one side of the trail.

  Thompson sent the companions off to recce the cabins: three, this time, with two cinder-block structures adjoining, that had housed livestock. All five buildings were empty and showed signs of being vacated with some haste. There was little else to see and no time in which to conduct a thorough search. This time, there were eight beds in the three cabins, and a greater number of dogs, perhaps some other livestock that had been loosed or taken. Two of the beds suggested that these trappers numbered children among them, and in view of what the Inuit would probably have done to them, Ryan was relieved that they had fled. To chill children in cold blood was against the grain, and he would have found it hard to hold back, even though greatly outnumbered, and he knew his people well enough to know that they felt the same.

  They reported back the condition of the settlement and left it behind them, the mood within the tribe growing as dark as the skies above them, the hours of daylight bleeding fast away. To mount their attack by night, even if only by chance, would give them a greater chance of success, as it would mean that the night gave them greater concealment. And yet the tribe had been marching all day, and would fight better for rest, even if only a few hours. The companions were aware of the mood changes within the tribe and had noted the resignation with which Thompson had received the news of yet another settlement where the inhabitants had fled to the comparative safety of Fairbanks.

  “Do you think he has a plan for the firefight, or are we just supposed to run, shout and shoot?” J.B. muttered to Ryan in dry tones as they marched.

  “I don’t think he’d know how to find his ass with both hands,” Ryan replied. “But it wouldn’t matter shit if we could rely on McIndoe. He’s a good fighter and he will have thought about a strategy. Problem is, part of that strategy will be us getting our own asses hung out to dry.”

  At the head of the caravan, Thompson brought them to a halt. Jordan signaled back for Ryan to bring his people forward.

  “It lays over the ridge,” he said without preamble as they approached. “Like ye, I have never seen the place. The others are familiar with it, but before we plan, it would perhaps be as well to take a look.”

  Sounded like a good idea to Ryan, so he agreed, allowing Jordan to lead them to the lip of the incline. From the valley below, the glow of lamps lighted against the encroaching dark cast a faint glow in the air. Lowering themselves lest there were observers below, they approached the edge of the incline. It fell away relatively steeply, falling around fifty feet in total over a length less than a quarter mile.

  Below them, in the basin of the valley, the ville of Fairbanks stood. It was their first sight, and whatever they had expected up to this point, those notions were now dismissed.

  “It will be an intriguing challenge, will it not?” Jordan asked of them.

  “That isn’t the word I’d use,” Mildred answered. “If they know we’re coming—and it’s fairly certain they do—then we are well and truly screwed.’

  * * *

  Chapter Sixteen

  The sight that greeted them presented a challenge that would be, at the very least, formidable. At most, it would be a headlong charge into disaster.

  Fairbanks lay in the bowl of the valley, a collection of about one hundred buildings, some of which were small shacks that housed only one or two, but the majority of which were larger buildings, some of two or three stories, that were either used to house several people or as places of trade and entertainment.

  A faint buzz of music and ch
atter drifted up from the valley below, the lip of the incline cutting down on the harsh winds that blew across the plain, allowing the gentler currents of air coming from below to lift the heat of the ville, and the sounds of its life, until it reached their ears. The music was discordant, played on out-of-tune instruments, with singing that was even less mellifluous laid over the rhythmic base. The conversations that were carried on simultaneously formed an excited buzz. Words weren’t discernible, but the tones and frequencies of the sounds betrayed a certain excitement that was running through the ville.

  If only on a rough estimate, based solely on the buildings and the sounds rather than any sight of them, Ryan guessed that the Inuit were outnumbered by the ville people—perhaps as much as two to one. They had seen villes that size and with that kind of construction. The valley location gave it shelter, and the old predark buildings that had survived had been augmented by cabins and constructions that had added to the size and security of the ville. Fate had protected it when the earth shifted, and those who made their homes in this barren area had welcomed the slight respite it gave, banding together gladly.

  It wasn’t enough that they were outnumbered, and that the solid state of the ville gave it an impenetrable look, giving those warriors protection while the Inuit had to approach down the exposed sides of the valley. There was one other thing that made Ryan feel the whole mission was a suicide charge. A feeling he didn’t experience alone.

  “Someone chill me now, ’cause that’s all we’ll be doing if we take this on.” Mildred sighed with a barely disguised exasperation.

  “Thompson must have known. He must have. So why didn’t he say anything?” Krysty added.

  “Because we not come—make break and risk buying farm then, not walk gladly into chill,” Jak commented before spitting heavily on the ground, the sputum acting as an emphasis to his disapproval.