“I will climb to the top,” Morten said. “If there are still stairs.”
After exploring the abandoned church with its strange cargo, they moved the ATVs into the building itself and barricaded the doors from the inside. They had been locked before by a thick slab of wood set into huge metal hooks. They used the wooden board, but reinforced the barrier by parking two ATVs sideways in front of the doorway. Then they wandered until they found the tower stairs. Anders and Morten went up first, and they were gone for a long time.
Val started to worry. Ulrik could see it in her face, but when the men came down, talking about how far they could see, how exciting it had been to release Skjold from the tower and that the mountains were visible in the distance, they were all excited to make the long climb.
Anders informed them that the ascent was 768 steps. At first Nils stalled at the idea, but Oskar convinced him to go. When the two men came back, Val and Ulrik began the long ascent. Heinrich would go on his own when they returned. He was trusted, but Morten and Anders reported that the final stage of the climb was tight, barely big enough for one man at a time. He said that Stig would never have fit, and the mention of the man’s name dampened their spirits somewhat. Ulrik still set off to climb the steps, telling Val, “Come on. I want to see these mountains.”
The top of the tower, as advertised, was a narrow concrete enclosed spiral stair with buttresses that stretched from it to the outer, lace-like, gothic structure of the tower.
The view was sensational.
The stairs opened to a small platform from which they could see the land south of the church. The snow covered Alps loomed in the distance, tall behind the nearby rolling green hills. The mountains were a barrier between their world and Niflheim, the darkest and coldest of the Norse nine realms.
“We will not make it through the mountains before the winter,” Val said. Her frown revealed her dark thoughts, despite the beauty of the view.
“No. We will not,” Ulrik said. Then he decided to broach the subject he had not had time to speak with her about since the river, when he had seen her swim. “Can I ask you about your eyes?”
She turned her face away from the view, and looked up at him. The platform was tight, and they stood close, so she needed to tilt her head to see his face. Her broken nose—like all of her injuries thus far—had healed completely. She reached up and pulled the tight, red-lensed goggles from her face. The rims of the black goggles had left pink indentations in her clear skin, and the lines circled her brilliant, emerald green eyes, calling all the more attention to them.
In all his life, Ulrik had only ever seen people with blue eyes. No one had ever seen another eye color. Even the Blue Men and the swastika-faced Long Knives had had blue irises.
It was one of the only things most Northmen knew of the greater history of the world. During the Uttslettelse—the Great Annihilation—only those of hardy Nordic stock, with bold features, blond hair and blue eyes, had survived the cataclysms. No one had seen different colored eyes since decades before Ulrik’s birth.
“What is there to ask?” Val said, her face neutral. “I would appreciate it if you did not mention it to the others. It is difficult enough to maintain their trust in my leadership. Superstition would only make it harder.”
“Of course,” he said, giving her a curt nod. “But how is it that you are different from the rest of us?”
“I do not know. My parents were killed when I was quite young. My eyes are green for some reason. I find it is best to keep them hidden from view.”
Ulrik suddenly realized the hardship green eyes would have caused a person. Any person. He felt a deep sadness in his heart for her.
“You have worn the goggles to keep your eyes hidden your whole life?” he asked.
“Not these,” Val said, smiling. “I have gone through many pairs of goggles and eye covers over the years. But these have been the best.”
“I am sorry. That must have been quite difficult.”
“I am used to it now,” she said, gently running her hand on his bare arm.
He felt a tingle race through his skin at her touch. But his attraction to her presented him with a problem. He had pledged himself to protect her and support her through their mission. If he allowed himself to have feelings for her, to want her, then she would become a weakness for him in battle. He would continually check on her in a fight—and it could cost him his life. Before he could change the subject, she did it for him.
“I thank you for your support on this trip, Ulrik. I could not have made it this far without you.”
He paused a moment, considering his reply. She waited, content to let him have all the time he needed. Such was the Northern way. Silence often spoke volumes. Her sparkling green eyes filled him with confusion, but he found it hard to look away.
Eventually he broke the silence with the thing they both shared, which was more important than the both of them: the mission.
“We should go down, and rejoin the others.”
She started for the stairs, and they descended in silence, to spend the night in the church, with the ghosts of the past haunting their thoughts.
31
South of the piled ruins of Ulm, they followed a thin tributary of the Danube river, never straying far from its life-giving water and the plentiful game found near it. The liquid was clear and pure, fed from the snows in the mountains that were its source and the group’s destination.
With the blinding white mountains looming in the distance, juxtaposed as they were against the blue sky, it was hard for the Northmen to turn their thoughts to the difficulties that might await them. Instead they were pleased with the abundance of food—particularly Anders, who could show off his expertise and trade tips with Heinrich, redeeming himself in the eyes of the others as the better hunter and fisherman.
But the good times were not to last, and Val knew it.
Up until this point, they had been lucky to find propane along the way, which they had used to refuel the vehicles. They had found the gas in tanks attached to homes and buildings long defunct. Erlend had fitted the ATVs, which originally had tanks only large enough for one gallon of fuel, with twin eight-gallon surplus tanks on the rear. The massive silver drums added a lot of weight to the rear of the vehicles, so they had balanced the weight out by packing most of their gear on the front of the quads. He had explained that the added weight would reduce the distance they could get from a gallon of fuel, but due to the poor quality of the roads, they normally traveled at a very slow speed, thus increasing the distance they could travel on a single gallon. Ultimately, the sacrifice in distance from the weight was balanced out by the pace. They had needed to refuel only four times on their nearly 1500 mile journey.
But now the time had almost come again, and none of the standing structures they had passed in the last week had been contenders for a structurally sound propane tank. None of the others had mentioned the steadily lowering gauges Erlend had attached to the exterior of their surplus tanks, but Val had noticed that their red needles had crawled toward ‘Empty,’ and now all that remained was from their onboard tanks.
If they could not find more of the gas, soon they would be walking.
After passing countless crumbling farms and tiny ramshackle towns long since abandoned and reclaimed by nature, Val spotted a sprawling, low building to her right, just off the road. She raised an arm, and the others rolled up next to her on the road.
The exterior of the structure was white, though most of it was covered by trees and vines growing out of the roof and from cracks in the concrete on the side of the structure. All its windows were gone, leaving dark gaps, sometimes overhung with dangling foliage.
“Why do we stop?” Morten asked. His once neatly slicked blond hair was now simply brushed back over his head. His voice was hoarse and gravelly from not speaking or drinking for hours. Even if she didn’t want to stop because of the building, they would have needed to stop anyway for food and water, and to rel
ieve themselves.
Val spread her knee out and away from the ATV, leaning on the right footboard, so Morten could see. She knocked her knuckle on the silver fuel cap, in the center of the ATV, just in front of the black handle bars. It made a hollow ting noise, when she did. No words were necessary.
She had explained to them early on where Halvard had suggested they look for viable tanks of propane. Larger, industrial areas were better than small houses. And this building was the first large thing they had seen still roughly intact, since the church in Ulm.
Ulrik turned off the motor to his ATV, and dismounted. “Spread out. Pair up.”
Nils went with Heinrich, who had his bow out, ready for danger or any edible animals they might encounter in or around the broad structure. Morten and Oskar teamed up, as usual, and Ulrik and Anders moved in through an open doorway. Val looked up at the low roofline of the building.
“Heinrich,” she called. “Lift me.” She nodded at a concrete lip too high for her to reach. The man slung his bow and laced his fingers into a step. Val stepped into his grip and sprang upward, partly from her own leap and partly from the German shoving upward with his strong arms.
She flew high enough that she could thrust her arms straight down to catch the ledge, and then lift up her right leg. Then she stood. Along the wide, path-like ledge of concrete was a string of missing windows. Above them was another lip, and she leapt up, snagging the edge with her fingers and pulling herself up to the next level, which had thigh-height windows. Then she reached the roof. She scrambled up and looked out over a sea of broken and cracked black solar panels. Trees grew from some of them. Others were covered in thick carpets of mold, funguses and lichens.
Some of the panels had large nests of sticks, but they looked long abandoned. Instead of checking them for eggs, she skirted the edge of the roof, searching for exterior propane tanks, while the men searched the interior of the building for a basement or a loading dock. The building was large enough that it had probably stored large quantities of goods or vehicles—judging by the size of some of the doors. There was a better than average chance they would find what they needed here.
Peering down to the ribbed and buckled expanse of parking lot that surrounded the building, she saw the rust-red colored roofs of several long vehicles arrayed around the structure like fighters. More of the buses, Nils had described. All were missing tires, and most were missing windows. They might serve as a place to camp for the night, Val thought, if animals have not been inside.
A loud squawking noise spun her around. Perched next to a large nest she had thought abandoned was a bird unlike any she had ever seen. It stood taller than her on yellow webbed feet, like a duck’s. But instead of the smaller duck’s beak, this bird’s bill was longer than her arm, and had a strange bulbous throat that distended down its feathered chest. The throat looked big enough to hold Val, if she curled tight into a ball.
The bird twisted its head at her and spread its wings—four of them. One set of wings protruded out from under the other. The feathers extended to their maximum reach and twitched, like Aspen leaves dancing in the wind. Then the massive bird opened its huge maw, revealing sharp teeth lining the upper and lower edges of its spread beak, now resembling a shark more than a bird.
More so than with the lumbering mutant bear or the epic octopus, Val felt a tingle of fear zip up her spine to the back of her neck. This creature, if it turned violent, could maneuver through the air, defeating any combat strategy she could devise. The bird was clearly displeased, and telling her so with belch-like squawks.
But there was nowhere for her to go without turning her back on the creature. This side of the roof did not have terraced ledges, like the side she had climbed. It was a straight twenty foot drop to the ground. She considered getting a running start and jumping to the roof of one of the buses, but doing so might result in her plunging through the rusted metal surface. And she felt certain that if she turned her back on the bird-creature, it would attack.
Instead she took a single threatening step forward, spreading her arms wide, her long ax extended in one hand, making her ‘wing’ look longer than it truly was. As she moved. she shouted, “Aaaaahhhhh!”
The bird faltered for a second, probably unaccustomed to other creatures challenging its great size. Then it stepped forward as well. It dipped its head, gnashing its strange beak-teeth, and clucked, almost like a chicken.
The huge bird lunged as Val darted right, arcing around the creature in a semi-circle, as if she were trying to get to the bird’s eggs. But she wasn’t. She was positioning herself in front of the ledges she had climbed, her only hope of retreat.
The bird had other ideas, flapping its multiple wings. The creature banked back from its lunge, its feet left the ground and it swooped toward Val’s head. Its beak split open wide like deadly arms ready to embrace her.
32
Val brought her ax handle across, smacking the bird in the side of its giant beak. The huge flexible throat wobbled from the strike. The wings faltered.
She had no wish to actually kill the creature. It was probably protecting its young. The last and only memory Val had from her childhood was of her mother, protecting her. The brave woman had sent her into the frigid sea and raced across the ice to face the men who had murdered her father. Val felt a kinship of sorts with the massive, mutated bird.
As the creature tumbled down to the roof between green-encrusted solar panels, Val decided she would retreat, leaving the creature to care for its young.
She backed toward the edge of the roof as the bird flapped up and landed on the edge of a solar panel. Once again, its wings spread as it cawed at her, a threatening posture meant to send her on her way.
Val was ten feet from the bird now, and it showed no more signs of giving chase. She thought she might be able to turn her back on it. She just wanted to take a few more steps first.
She didn’t get them.
She turned just in time to see Anders standing on the edge of the roof, his bow extended, an arrow nocked and about to be loosed—directly at her face. She ducked and the arrow sailed past her, sinking into the bird’s chest, ending its life with a loud squealing squawk.
Val stood again and turned to assess the damage. The bird slowly toppled left, one of its webbed feet sliding off the solar panel, and then its body collapsing over like a falling tree.
She turned back on the archer, a scowl clouding her face. “There was no need to kill it.”
Anders shrugged, turned and leapt down to the first ledge. “It was a pitiful, deformed thing. It did not deserve to live. If I hadn’t killed it, Skjold would have.”
The people of the North had long known of creatures affected by rampant radiation in certain parts of the globe. She had encountered that attitude before. Mutated creatures were generally not eaten, and if discovered close to human populations they were killed and removed by whomever was unlucky enough to draw the shortest straw. No one had any tolerance for any kind of deformity. To be deformed meant you were weak. To be weak meant you would die in this harsh world.
She thought of her eyes and their strange green color. Would Anders, a calm and usually rational man, far more balanced than the others that had accompanied her on this journey, attempt to kill her if he saw her different eyes? Would the others? She had been stunned that Ulrik had accepted them so easily.
She spat on the roof, then leapt down the ledges and dropped to the ground unassisted, rejoining the others.
On the ground, the group had returned from their recon of the building’s interior, empty handed.
“No tanks on the sides of the buildings, either,” Val said. “But there are many of the long vehicles.”
“Buses,” Nils clarified.
“Yes,” Val agreed. “We might find some of the fuel in one of those.”
“They ran on a different fuel,” Nils said.
“Well, look around anyway.”
They found no propane that day.
The end came thirty miles further south, and just twenty miles short of the mountains. It arrived with a sputtering noise, followed by Oskar’s ATV coasting to a stop at the side of the road.
“What is our plan now?” Anders asked. “We never discussed this possibility.”
Val got off her ATV and looked at the gas gauges on all the vehicles. There was no way of sharing the fuel. The propane was a compressed gas, not a liquid. It was difficult enough getting it in the vehicles. As it was, without Erlend—and Stig, who had also learned how to fuel the vehicles—the next refueling would be a challenge. And that was assuming they could find more propane.
“We could simply press on without these vehicles,” Heinrich suggested. “I made do for quite some time with a two-wheeler powered by my legs alone.”
“For that matter, we could walk,” Val said. “But there is no denying the advantage these have given us.” She patted the nearly empty fuel tank on her ATV. “For now, let us try to pull Oskar behind us. We will run the tanks dry until they cannot go further or until we find more fuel.”
“And if we do not find fuel?” Morten asked. He looked as if he didn’t care one way or the other, and Val thought he was asking the question—acting always as devil’s advocate—merely out of habit.
As the chill breeze blew her hair, she looked at Ulrik and saw that he understood without the vehicles they would not make it past the mountains before winter.
“We will deal with it when it happens. For now, let us get a rope on Oskar’s ATV.”
Anders, Oskar and Morten tied ropes to their ATVs. With both Anders and Morten towing Oskar as dead weight, they would split the load and lessen the increased fuel consumption on their own vehicles.
Once the rig was set, with Oskar sitting astride his quad, its transmission in neutral, the group proceeded down the road, keeping a slower pace than usual. Recognizing how vulnerable Oskar would be, Val rode on one side of the tow ropes, and Ulrik on the other, ensuring that if attack came, he would be protected.
Viking Tomorrow (The Berserker Saga Book 1) Page 14