Blood Red Tide

by James Axler

  Strawmaker looked to Ryan in desperation.

  Ryan waved a hand in introduction. “Strawmaker, meet Mr. Squid. Mr. Squid, Strawmaker.”

  Strawmaker searched the faces of the surrounding crewmen, clearly suspecting he was the butt of yet another joke. The crew watched poker-faced to see what might happen next.

  “I see.” Strawmaker made a show of straightening himself and gave a short bow toward the barrel. “Hola, Senor Calama. ¿Como estas usted?”

  Mr. Squid contemplated the Argentine musician before him. “Muy bien, gracias, Senor Pajero. ¿Y tu?”

  Strawmaker screamed. “¡Madre de Armagedón!”

  Mr. Squid contemplated this. “I believe I am an offspring of it.”

  “An eight-armed offspring we are lucky to have, then!” Atlast declared. “Aren’t we?”

  Miss Loral appeared, hurling lightning and thunder. “You can all stand around sucking Mr. Squid’s eight suckered cocks or you can finish your watch and get fed! Mr. Manrape and the hard end of his rope can decide for you if you’re all torn up about it!” The crew went back to its work about ship.

  Miss Loral pointed at Ryan. “You, you’re wanted in the captain’s cabin.”

  “Aye, ma’am.” Ryan smiled. “Ma’am?”

  “Aye, Ryan?”

  “Captain wanted me to train Strawmaker. Can you find something for him to do while I attend the captain?”

  The she-wolf grinned at the minstrel. “I can find something to occupy his time.”

  * * *

  RYAN WALKED IN on another council of war. Doc was there along with J.B. Commander Miles was up out of the med with one arm in a sling and a crutch under the other. Purser Forgiven stood with the book, and Ryan was interested to note that Mildred and Skillet were in attendance. Oracle nodded.

  “Thank you for joining us, Mr. Ryan. I will take reports. Skillet?”

  “Oh, we got barrel after barrel o’ ñandú, Cap’n. And the crew seems partial to it. But neither me nor Boiler ever salted away poultry.” Skillet pushed back his braids and shook his head. “Dunno how long it’ll save. Was chatting up Strawmaker when he wasn’t puking. Says the land is cattle country for thousands of leagues. Now a few good head of beeves, some pigs if they can spare ’em and some salt if someone’s goin’ shoppin’? That might get us around the horn.”

  “Thank you, Skillet. J.B., powder and ammo.”

  “You’re short, Captain. That broadside cost you. The good news is that I reckon their outliers saw that and nobody on this side of the earth will want to mess with you. But if anyone does, it better be short and sweet. Or it goes hand to hand.”

  Oracle nodded. “Mr. Forgiven?”

  “Forgive me, Captain, if this seems like the only song I know, but that ballad is canvas, cordage and wood. No ship in memory has tried the horn in winter without an engine. All the spare rigging we’ve got we took down because it was dangerously worn. They say its storm after storm down there. One or two bad ones, and we’ll be sewing our coats together to make sails.” The fat man shook his head mournfully. “Speaking of coats, Captain. It’s winter and getting colder every sea mile we log south.”

  “Aye, Mr. Forgiven.” Oracle spread the fingers of his remaining hand on the pile of charts before him. “We have nearly a thousand miles of coast to work with. There has to be something to eat. Failing that we’ll whale. Food I am not worried about currently, nor powder, ships supplies or our enemies. What I cannot out fight, out sail or improvise against is scurvy. Miss Mildred?”

  Mildred went into full medical doctor mode. “You haven’t had fresh vegetables or fruit on this ship in weeks. From what little I know about scurvy, the influx of ñandú might help. You can get the nutrients you need from the fresh meat of animals that make their own vitamin C.”

  Oracle’s shark eyes stared unblinkingly. “What is vitamin see?”

  Mildred did an admirable job of containing her impatience. “You know limes, lemons and oranges stop scurvy.”

  “All sailors do.”

  “Unlike humans, most animals make vitamin C themselves. So when you eat most animals, you get it. The problem is the meat has to be fresh. I’m afraid that salting away the meat destroys the vitamin C.”

  “Miss Mildred, I have spent my life in the Caribbean, where every island was lush with fruits and vegetables and another island is nearly always just over the horizon. In my sailing experience scurvy has always been a horror story passed on by old salts. Are they true?”

  “Probably every horror story you heard was true. You need vitamin C to maintain your mucous membranes and collagen, among other things.” Mildred met more blank looks. She shifted gears. “Short version, if you don’t get vitamin C, the body starts breaking down. Initial symptoms include weakness, lethargy and shortness of breath. As it progresses, the skin breaks out in sores and the gums start bleeding. When it gets bad, the teeth start falling out and scar tissue—and every member of your crew has old wounds in abundance—starts breaking open. New injuries won’t heal. Jaundice, bone pain and hair loss ensue. Except for the swelling and edema, you end up looking like a radiation victim. It ends in fever, convulsions and a very unpleasant death.”

  Commander Miles’s jaw set grimly. “Captain, I beg you. Turn and fight Dorian, and then the rest of the Sabbaths, until we put them all down in the Old Place or they do us.”

  “He has engines, Commander,” Oracle noted. “All he has to do is turn one broadside toward us and blast us into kindling.”

  “Better than what lies south.”

  Ryan tended to agree. The cabin went silent. Doc suddenly straightened and nearly hit his head. His long fingers tapped the table. Ryan felt a faint ray of hope. He had seen this behavior in various forms many times before. Doc was rummaging through what could be charitably described as the extremely random access memory of his mind. “Captain?”

  “Doc?”

  “May we fetch Mr. Strawmaker?”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, well, when I was at Oxford I had a number of fellow students of Argentine extraction. The wealthy Argentines in that day often sent their children abroad for study. I was fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of several, and we spent many a morning or evening drinking maté in our dormitory or in study group.”

  “What is maté?” Oracle asked.

  “A form of tea. One puts on a kettle of water and fills a gourd with the dried herb. You insert a silver straw, often with a gold tip, and pass it around among your companions. I found it stimulating and refreshing and pleasingly social. They swore it was healthful and prevented many illnesses.”

  Mildred’s brow furrowed. “I’ve heard of it, Doc. They had it in health food stores, don’t worry about what those were, but they pushed it as an alternative to coffee, supposed to be much healthier and full of nutrients.”

  Oracle’s eyes went into unblinking shark mode. “Full of your vitamins.”

  “Loaded with them, according to the literature.”

  Oracle called up through the skylight. “Miss Loral, Mr. Strawmaker to my cabin, if you please!”

  “Aye, Captain! Strawmaker, to the captain’s cabin!”

  Strawmaker teetered breathlessly into the cabin. “You sent for me, Capitán?”

  Oracle nodded at Doc, who continued. “Good Strawmaker, might I ask if your people still drink maté?”

  “Yerba maté? Of course! Every day! I have a supply in my saddlebag. Why do you ask?”

  Oracle leaned across his table. “This maté, it stops the scurvy?”

  “Forgive me, Capitán, but what is this, the scurvy?”

  “It is a disease,” Doc tried Latin. “A scorbutic.”

  Strawmaker brightened. “Ah, the escorbuto! In my land some of the estancias are vast beyond imagining. A gaucho can spend weeks, even m
onths at a time out upon the pampas and consume almost nothing during that time besides dried meat and maté!”

  “Mr. Forgiven, what did we take off Spada’s sec men?”

  The purser flipped back through the book. “Most went under the water directly. We recovered a few blasters, though their powder was wet. Some very fine knives, some lances. From the birds’ saddlebags some spare clothing, odd trinkets and tools and a goodly supply of light rope.”

  “What of their food and supplies?”

  “Each bird carried a supply of dried meat and a water gourd, which we kept.”

  “And the maté?”

  “If you mean the little linen bags full of twigs and leaves.” Forgiven cleared his throat uncomfortably. “The men kept the bags and gave the rest to the sea.”

  Oracle closed his eyes. “I see.” The captain suddenly straightened. “Very well, we must obtain meat and maté, either by trade or raid, and we must do it quickly. Mr. Ryan, I have heard rumor to the effect that you have traveled from one side of the Deathlands to the other, engaging in just such activities.”

  “I have,” Ryan responded.

  “Very well, Mr. Strawmaker, I assume you can read and write?”

  “In both Spanish and English.”

  “You can read a map?”

  “I can.”

  “You claim to have traveled the length and breadth of the eastern coast. I wish you to pick a good landing place, close to where we might be able to acquire what we need.”

  “I am at your service, Capitán.”

  “Mr. Ryan?”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  “Choose your shore party, and then present Mr. Forgiven with a list of weapons and equipment you will require.”

  Ryan looked at Strawmaker. “You’re saying there’s no horses left in Argentina?”

  “They were one of the things the disease weapons, during the Great War, attempted to wipe out. They have had something of a recovery in the south. Indeed, in the north we talk about crossing the Horse Line, and in the south they call it the Bird Line.”

  “Why a line at all?”

  “Because ñandú love to prey upon horse, Ryan, just as the richer people of the north love to prey upon the south.”

  “Captain?”

  “Aye, Ryan?”

  “Let’s cross the Horse Line.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Ryan marched across the wet, rolling, winter pampas. His party had rowed ashore just before dawn and had been walking inland for hours. It felt jarring to have the earth beneath his feet after so many days at sea. Strawmaker was the clear candidate for translator-negotiator, and he was pathetically grateful to have solid ground under his feet again too.

  Ryan had brought Jak and Doc from his own people. Of the sailors, Hardstone was a Deathlander and had been a hardened fighter before he’d heeded the call of the sea. Miss Loral had come along to represent the ship and Skillet its larder. Manrape rounded out the party as the most dangerous man on two legs. The shore party was festooned with weapons. Manrape and Hardstone were loaded down with packs full of trade goods. Miss Loral wore her full ship’s uniform but had added a peacoat and combat boots. She and Hardstone carried AKs. Skillet looked positively barbaric. The handle of a two-handed meat clever jutted from behind the cook’s back, and the front of his bandolier held three more cleavers of various sizes that, according to rumor, he was adept at throwing. He carried a massive, double-barreled monstrosity of a longblaster with a horrifying, barbed, black iron harpoon head sticking out of each muzzle.

  Ryan walked beside Manrape. The bosun held a nickel-plated pump scattergun that looked to have been lovingly maintained; he held it crooked casually in his arm as if he was going duck hunting. The effect was ruined, or heightened, by the ugly, painted red against rust, home-forged bayonet clipped to the ventilated shroud. A hatchet and his lead-weighted rope end hung at his side.

  Jak topped another hill about a hundred meters ahead and stopped. He waved the party forward. They gazed upon a vale. A road ran through it. Like most ancient small towns, the buildings clustered on either side of the main road and spread back.

  Every building had been burned to the ground.

  Ryan snapped out his longeyes and scanned. It wasn’t that the ville had been bombed or a fire had raged through it. Every single building, including the outliers, had been deliberately reduced to ancient, blackened foundations. Only crumbling chimneys, cracked concrete, rusting rebar and collapsing stone or cinder block remained upright.

  “Spread out,” Ryan ordered. The shore party formed a loose skirmish line and descended. The only thing still standing above head height was a perilously leaning lamppost holding a sagging sign. Nothing moved other than the miserable, misting rain. Ryan stopped and stared up at the sign. It had just two words on it in faded orange.

  MONSTROS

  PESTE

  Jak frowned. “Pesty monsters?”

  “Strawmaker?” Ryan asked.

  The musician stared unhappily at the warning. “We use peste where you would use the word plague.”

  “Plague monsters?” Ryan didn’t care for the sound of it.

  Strawmaker’s shoulders twitched with more than cold. “This place was burned.” The troubadour pointed to a pit in what might have been the town square. “There, in the plaza, you will find your answer.”

  Ryan walked over knowing what he would find. The pit had been dug through the cobblestones and was big enough to drop half a dozen wags into. Its sides had eroded long ago. Nevertheless, blackened bones stuck up through the nearly frozen mud. The pit was an open grave. Like the town, the bodies had been burned. The shore party stared soberly into the pit.

  Strawmaker sighed. “You will find many towns like this in my land. In fact, almost no one lives in a city or town. We are all rurales now.

  The shore party spread out and kicked around in the rubble, but there was little to find. Ryan followed a one-lane road up a bit of hillside. He found a scorched foundation that implied a house of considerable floor plan. He walked across it and stared at steps leading down.

  “Over here!” Ryan’s party formed around him and stared down the steps. A pair of corroded, nearly eaten down to gossamers of rust I-beams still wedged the equally rusted steel security door shut. The one-eyed man gazed at the crude, faded graffiti painted on the steel. It was the same color orange as the sign in town but brighter for having been sheltered. It depicted a face. The eyes were two angry diagonal slashes. The mouth consisted of two very jagged, horizontal and opposing lightning bolts, clearly representing teeth. “Your plague monsters?”

  Strawmaker looked close to bolting. “I have not seen that symbol in a very long time, Ryan. Always, it was very old. But I am a troubadour, and—”

  Skillet scoffed. “And I still haven’t heard ya sing anything save the breakfasts I serves ya up from ya belly!”

  Miss Loral spoke quietly. “Skillet.”

  “Sorry, ma’am.”

  “Strawmaker?”

  “I play many songs, tangos, ballads, wild festival dances and, to my shame, paeans of praise to jefes that I wrote to earn my supper. Some few songs of my very own I am proud of. But I also sing the folklorico and tell stories. The old stories say that sometimes the epidemics didn’t just kill. Some of them, they changed people.”

  Ryan had seen far more of that than he cared for in the Deathlands. “Monsters.”

  “Si, Ryan.”

  “Is it over?”

  “Is what over?”

  “The peste, Strawmaker. The monstros.”

  “One would like to think so. I have traveled this land more than most, but one always hears stories of those who have gone into the cities for the treasure trove of tools, materials and technology left behind during the great die-o
ffs and the urban exodus. These stories never end happily. Most often the people never return, or they bring something worse back with them. I myself saw a rancho in the north where every last cow, pig and ñandú looked like they had been torn apart by giants, but all of the people were gone. No bodies. Just gone.”

  Miss Loral stared at the door and then Ryan. “Booby-trapped?”

  “Looks like they were trying to keep something in,” Ryan made his decision. “Hardstone.”

  Hardstone reached into his pack and took out a sawed-down double-barrel scattergun. Ryan slung his Scout and drew his SIG. Jak went around the steps and squatted atop the overhang with his Colt Python and his favorite fighting knife ready. Hardstone was an old hand at breeching ancient houses. Thunder echoed as he put a slug into the door where each hinge should be. Rust sifted off the door as he stepped back and kicked the two I-beams. They collapsed in clouds of rust beneath his boots. The door hung by its knob.

  Manrape looked at Ryan. “Together?”

  “On three, I’ll take point. Hardstone? Light.”

  Hardstone took a ship’s lantern from his pack and struck a sulfur match off his belt buckle. He took up his AK with the stock folded like a giant blaster and held the lantern high. “Ready.”

  “One, two, three!” Ryan and Manrape slammed their shoulders into the ancient steel. The door snapped off the deadbolt and fell inward. Ryan took a knee on top of the fallen door and covered the cellar. Manrape followed him like a bayonet charge about to happen. The golden light of whale oil flooded the cellar as Hardstone unshuttered the lamp. Ryan took in a tableau trapped in time like an insect trapped in amber. The one-eyed man rose. The cellar was wide and low ceilinged and seemed to take up a great deal of the space below the foundation. It had a kitchenette, a bathroom and a living and sleeping area.

  “Clear! Manrape, keep a watch up top.”

  “Aye.” The titan went back up the stairs.

  Ryan advanced and the rest of the shore party filed in behind him. Jak took in the arrangement of the bodies like the veteran scout he was. “Bad.”

  “Wasn’t good,” Ryan agreed.