Northstar Rising

by James Axler

  "There aren't enough slaves to go around," Ryan concluded. "With the sickness and all, the ville must be shrinking around its own ears."

  "Vanishing up its own..." Mildred began, shutting her mouth as she caught Ryan's glance.

  The crone nodded. "That's correct, masters. Not enough thralls. So bad a murrain for the steading these past weeks. So many gone."

  "What'll happen," Krysty asked, "if there aren't girls to sacrifice?"

  "Oh, the wisewoman has a plan for that. Young godling there—" she grinned gap-toothed at Jak "—he'll provide what… Oh, Freya's tits! I wasn't to speak of that. I'll be given a good beating if they find out I spoke what I shouldn't."

  "We won't tell anyone. But what did you mean about Jak?" Ryan asked.

  But the slave woman had terrified herself by her indiscretion. Nothing could persuade her to open her mouth again, and she darted from the hut in a flurry of torn skirts and ragged shawl. The door was closed firmly behind her by one of the young sentries outside.

  IT WAS almost midnight. Ryan and J.B. sat close together, one on each side of the single candle they kept burning. They talked about old times, half-remembered, part-forgotten: good times and bad; friends dead and lost; women they'd known in a hundred frontier gaudies; men they'd fought and chilled; men they'd fought who'd then become friends. Sometimes the silences crept in from the corners of the hut, bearing fragments of memory.

  They kept their voices quiet, to avoid disturbing their sleeping companions. Eventually the talk came reluctantly back to the present.

  "Not good, Ryan."

  "No."

  "I figure they'll chill us all. Except, mebbe, the kid." J.B. looked around from habit, knowing how much Jak hated being called "kid". But the boy was still locked deeply in sleep.

  "Wish now I'd never gotten us into this crock of shit."

  J.B. waved a dismissive hand. "Black dust! Not like you to worry about what you might have done." He pushed the fedora back from his temples, the candlelight playing on his narrow, sallow face. His eyes were invisible behind the polished lenses of his spectacles. "No jack in that, Ryan."

  "Sure." He sighed. "But there's been chances, times I could've pulled the trigger and I didn't. Odds weren't really good enough. But now—"

  "Now we'll have to move with the odds stacked against us. Rad-blast it, Ryan! You think you and me haven't done that before? A whole load of times before. Sure."

  "Yeah. Late. Reckon to get some sleep now, and then we—" He was interrupted by the sound of the bolts of the hut door being slid quietly across.

  Without a word, both men drew their knives. J.B. padded silently to the side of the room near the door. Ryan blew out the candle and crept to flatten himself against the opposite wall.

  The door opened, admitting a rectangle of watery moonlight.

  "Ryan Cawdor? Outlander One-Eye? Are you awake in there?"

  It was the voice of Jorund Thoraldson. Ryan, staying where he was, whispered his reply. "What d'you want?"

  "To speak with you."

  "Me? Or all of us?"

  "You. You're the leader of the outlanders. Just you."

  "Now?"

  "Yes. Out here. Just the two of us. You have my word you will not be harmed while we speak."

  In the darkness, Ryan could just make out the pale blur of J.B.'s face. Since the Armorer wasn't shaking his head, Ryan figured he must think it would be okay to go out.

  "Coming," he said.

  TALL THOUGH HE WAS, Ryan felt dwarfed by the giant figure of the baron. The two sentries closed the door when he left the hut and slid the bolts across. The baron beckoned to Ryan and the two men walked together through the sleeping ville, toward the beach and the calm, mirrored expanse of the lake.

  Neither spoke until they stopped a couple of yards from the tiny, breaking waves.

  "This is a hard talk, outlander," Thoraldson began, "yet I must speak it."

  "Go ahead."

  "The first fight against the evil ones. You aided us. And on the water, you all fought bravely. And in the tests, you did much to shame the finest warriors of this steading."

  "But?" Ryan could still smell blood and sweat on the massive Norseman at his side and almost taste an odd kind of nervousness.

  "But…the wisewoman has been warning for weeks that there was a plague coming toward us. When the first child became sick of the bloody flux she said it would be worse. Now she swears the omens blame you and your friends, particularly the black-skinned woman."

  "You believe her?"

  Jorund's shaggy head swung slowly toward him. "No. I think you and your brothers are true fighting men of courage. But since you came, there have been so many deaths. I cannot stand against the wise-woman and all the steading."

  "She wants us all dead?"

  "Truly. All but the white-haired one. She says we must adopt him into our family, and he will lead us from the darkness."

  "The darkness is what I've been trying to tell you about. Along the coast we found undeniable evidence of a dreadful rad leak, and that's what's chilling your folks. The rashes and the sickness and—"

  "No, no! I must not listen to this. She made me swear to speak only as she had told me."

  "She runs this? She's the fucking baron is she?" Ryan felt his anger misting his mind, and he tried to control it. "You're the baron, aren't you?"

  "Aye. I am. Yet the wisewoman has the minds and souls of my people. But I have spoken against her. I have tried. And she has agreed that I shall make you this offer."

  "Go ahead."

  Ryan felt the faintest tremor from the restless earth beneath his boots. But Jorund said nothing, and Ryan wondered whether he'd even noticed it.

  "The outlander you call Jak Lauren?"

  "Sure. With the white hair. What about him?"

  "If you will agree to this, then he must stay with us."

  "And the rest of us go free?" Ryan had enough confidence in Jak's cunning to be certain that the teenager would find a way of escaping within a day or so.

  "No. All but one of you."

  "Mildred?"

  "This is the only hope I can give. You refuse this, and you will all pay the price."

  "Jak stays. Mildred dies. The rest of us walk?"

  "Aye. And Jak will sacrifice the black woman to our gods before you go free."

  Chapter Thirty-One

  "YOU SAID WHAT?" Krysty shouted, raising her hands to her forehead to try to calm herself. "What did you say to him, Ryan?"

  "I told him I'd think about his suggestion and give him my reply before noon."

  His short conversation with Jorund Thoraldson had ended a quarter of an hour ago. He'd gone straight back into the hut and been locked in. It hadn't taken long to shake the others from sleep and tell them what had happened.

  "You'll think about it!" Mildred exclaimed. "Terrific, Ryan."

  "You think I should have looked him in the eye and told him to fuck off? Think that would have been a real clever idea?"

  "I guess not. No. Sorry."

  "What else did he say?" J.B. asked.

  "Said that any more attempts to escape by any of us would mean flying eagles all around. One chilled, all chilled."

  The Armorer nodded. "It'll be harder to make the break this time. Lot harder."

  "Sure. But that's the only choice we have."

  "Does it sound dipshit stupid to suggest you could always do like the big guy says? That way I go up the Hudson, one-way, and the rest of you walk clear."

  There was a long silence, while everyone thought about it.

  If Jorund Thoraldson kept his word, then the death of one man would buy the lives of five. It was a lot better arithmetic than most you got in Deathlands.

  Ryan broke the stillness. "Can't argue with odds of five for one. I think we'll take you up on the offer, Mildred. After all, we pulled you out of the ice and saved your life. Least you can do is give us that life back again."

  Krysty stood up, her finger pointing at Ryan li
ke the barrel of a sawed-off shotgun. "I don't believe what I'm hearing, lover."

  Ryan faced her. "Well, you better believe it, lover, because I'm the man in charge here and I say what happens. And what's going to happen tomorrow evening, is that Jak does what they want and takes Mildred's life. The rest of us'll walk free. That's the way it'll be."

  Doc leaped to his feet, his face glowing with righteous anger. "I do not believe that I have been traveling with such an unprincipled scoundrel! If I were a few years younger and more spry I vow that I would teach you a lesson you would not forget in a hurry. Blast you!"

  Jak didn't stand, and he wouldn't look directly at Ryan. "Since father chilled, thought you… Fucking wrong, Ryan."

  "That only leaves you, J.B. Let's hear your thoughts on the matter."

  His oldest friend looked at him. "We'll do it like you say."

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  THE BARON OF MARKLAND was delighted when Ryan told him their collective decision.

  "The black woman will offer herself willingly on the stone of darkness?"

  "Sure."

  "And the blade of mercy will be wielded by…"

  "By Jak? Yeah. And all this'll be tonight, will it?"

  "After the sun has set. The whole of the steading will make its way in a procession of flaming torches through the forest to the arena of seeing. And there it will be done."

  "And the rest of us can go free?"

  Jorund nodded solemnly. "I have given my word as karl."

  "Can we leave before the chilling?"

  Ryan held his breath as the Norse leader considered the question. "No."

  "No? But you gave your word."

  "And I shall keep it. But the sacrifice to the gods must be completed first. You and the others, but not Jak Snowhead, may leave us at first light on the morrow."

  Ryan nodded. "Will you give us food and milk for our journey?"

  "We will. And the wisewoman will instruct Jak in the ceremony. It is simple. And the black one will feel little pain. It is swift."

  "Glad to hear it."

  "JORUND AGREED that we didn't have to actually go along and watch the execution. Says he'll let us stay here in the hut, with just a handful of guards to watch us."

  "Ryan?"

  "Yeah, J.B.?"

  "How many's a handful?"

  "Not more'n six, I'd guess. I've promised we'll stay and wait until the chilling's done. I gave my solemn oath on the bones of Odin himself that we wouldn't try to escape again."

  Jak had been taken out to be schooled by the wisewoman. By the time he returned, the afternoon sun was already slipping away behind the hills.

  "How d'it go?" Mildred asked. "Wouldn't want you to screw up and give me a messy ending. Wouldn't like that at all."

  "By the three Kennedys!" Doc said. "I fear that I do not find this a fit topic for merriment. This is life and death for all of us."

  Mildred patted him on the arm. "Simmer down, Doc. It's your life and my death."

  Ryan turned to Jak. "What did the old woman say to you?"

  The boy looked down at his feet. If he'd been able to blush, Ryan suspected there'd have been a pink glow to his cheeks.

  "Wanted fuck. Grabbed cock. Lay down, legs open. Wanted."

  Krysty grinned. "Gaia! That must be one of the sidelines of being the wisewoman. You get to lay every young god that comes by. What did you say to her, Jak?"

  "Said too old."

  Mildred laughed. "She must have loved that, honey. Way back when I was alive—when I was first alive— it got to be common for older women to take a much younger lover. They were called toy boys. So the old bitch wanted a blond toy boy, did she? Tough shit, lady."

  "Said gods didn't fuck old women," Jak muttered embarrassedly.

  "Good one. Ace right on the line for her," J.B. said. "But did she tell you about tonight? What's going to go down?"

  "Mildred's on altar. I cut throat. End story."

  "Yeah. End of story," Mildred agreed.

  THEY CAME AT DUSK, when the gray mist lay upon the sullen waters of the lake and the sun had all but disappeared.

  The entire population of the ville seemed to be there, other than a half dozen grizzled warriors left behind to guard the outlanders.

  Mildred's farewell to her friends was one of restrained emotion. She hugged them all, one by one, finishing with Ryan. There were no tears from any of them. The Vikings watched approvingly, though the capering wisewoman couldn't hide her disappointment that there was no weeping and tearing of hair.

  Jak stood aside from it, simply giving the black woman a cursory embrace, his face set like carved ivory.

  Jorund Thoraldson and the senior men wore their greatest finery: horned helmets, the brass glittering like beaten gold; cloaks of leather, trimmed with white fur or with layers of heron feathers; high boots, laced to the knee; their best swords or long-handled war-axes, blades polished like mirrors. But Ryan noticed that very few of them carried blasters to the ritual.

  He wondered whether all of their blasters were still stored in the longhouse by the blazing bonfire at the center of the ville. The friends had their knives, but against the armed mass of Vikings, knives would be little use.

  "After the…" Jorund hesitated a moment over precisely what he might call it. He tried again. "After the ceremony is concluded, we will celebrate with a great feast. It would be better if you outlanders remained within this hut. Food will be supplied to you. Then, at first light on the morrow, you will all go free. As we have agreed, Jak will stay with us as a token against further harm to the steading. Is all of this well, Ryan Cawdor?"

  Without looking at his companions, Ryan simply nodded his head.

  At a signal from the karl, one of the warriors began the slow beating of a slack-skinned drum, the hollow and sonorous sound carrying the melody of death.

  Mildred walked into the cool evening air and threw her head back, taking a deep breath. The Vikings surrounded her and led her away. Jak kept pace at the side of the Norse chief. The procession quickly wound its way out of sight. Ryan and the others stood in the doorway until one of the older men gently gestured for them to go inside the hut.

  The door was closed and they were left with only the flickering light of the candles.

  Ryan looked at his companions. "Now we wait."

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  TIMING WAS EVERYTHING. Too soon, and Mildred would still die; too late and she would be dead.

  The four friends sat in silence, while Ryan kept a careful eye on his wrist chron, counting the seconds away.

  "Now?" Krysty asked, breaking the long stillness.

  He nodded. "Now."

  THE SACRIFICIAL PROCESSION had reached the point on the main trail where the side path wound its way toward the natural amphitheater and the high stone above it. Nobody had said anything to Mildred, and the villagers made sure that they didn't get close enough to accidentally brush against her evil skin or catch a glance from her evil eyes.

  The women and children surrounded her, and carried smoky torches that filled the evening with the tang of burned pine resin. Even by the flaring light, she could see in the people more evidence of the dreadful, pernicious seepage from the age-old storage site. It was the children who seemed to be suffering most. Several of them had ghastly sores around their mouths, cracked lips and bleeding gums. Some had weeping chancres near their eyes, and a toddler close to her on the left was struggling to carry his torch, because he'd lost most of the nails from his fingers.

  Mildred couldn't see Jak, though she knew he was marching with the baron and the principal warriors of the ville.

  As she'd been in this area once before with Ryan and Krysty, Mildred guessed they'd reach the oblong block of bloodstained stone in less than a quarter of an hour.

  THE DRIED GRASS AND STRAW that filled the canvas mattresses caught fire easily—dangerously easily. Thick smoke surged to fill the hut, and the bright flames began to catch at the wattle and daub walls.
<
br />   "Help. Candle knocked over! Fire!" The four companions began to yell and scream for help, coughing and choking in the darkness.

  For one heart-gripping moment, Ryan wondered whether the men on guard duty would simply stand by and let them burn to death, deciding it was the safest option. The fire had caught hold with a ferocious intensity. Ryan was almost ready to try to charge through it and break through the back walls.

  It wasn't the plan, but neither was being burned alive.

  "Help us!"

  It might have been Krysty's screams that finally tipped the balance in their favor. The bolts crashed back and the wooden door was flung wide open, showing the darkness of evening beyond.

  "Now! "Ryan shouted.

  He'd stressed to Doc and Krysty—no need with J.B.—that total violence at the fastest possible speed was their only chance. They knew they had at least six opponents, skilled fighting men, who would be on the watch for an escape.

  Ryan had his panga; J.B. gripped his narrow flensing knife, held point up; Doc had dropped the ebony case to his swordstick, and flourished the rapier blade by its silver, lion's-head hilt; Krysty had borrowed J.B.'s broad, saw-edged Tekna knife.

  The Vikings stood in a loose circle around the open door, staring at the inferno of flames and smoke. There were six men, the youngest of whom looked at least forty. Two held battered sawed-off scatterguns. The rest carried axes or swords.

  Ryan was first out, his fighter's eye spotting the two blasters. He went for the closer bearded Norseman who was leveling his weapon.

  If either Viking got off a shot, the noise would carry miles on a quiet windless night. And that would be the end of Mildred.

  During their discussions, when Ryan outlined his plan, he'd made it clear that if anything went wrong at this stage in the ville, it would mean every man for himself.

  His panga thudded home against the side of the man's throat, with a satisfying jar that ran clear to Ryan's shoulder. The edge of the blade grated between the vertebrae, nearly slicing all the way through.