by James Axler
But now the baron was speaking.
"Outlanders here in Markland! By Baldur's eyes! This is a strange day. There have not been outlanders here in more than a score of years. Fishermen, cast up on our shores in a violent storm when I was a stripling of a dozen summers."
"What happened to them?" Ryan asked.
"The outlander fishermen?" Jorund gave a great bellow of laughter, echoed by many of the thirty men who had crowded into the hut. Not a single woman, Ryan noticed. "By Freya's dugs, my one-eyed friend, if my memory serves me well, I think they went to sleep with their fish."
"A man swims badly when his knees are broken, outlander!" someone yelled, earning a look of angry reproach from the baron.
"Egil Skallagson! Hold your tongue, or I swear I'll feed it to the midden curs. These men are our guests."
Krysty took a step forward. "And the women, Baron? Are we not welcome in your ville?"
Jorund ignored her and spoke to Ryan. "In this ville the nonmen do not speak out like that. Not without our permission. Will you chastise the firehead thrall for her forwardness?"
"She is not a thrall." Whatever that was, thought Ryan. "Where we come from the women are equals of the men and can speak how and when they wish."
There was some laughter at that, as though he'd said that where he came from it was usual to drink through your arse and piss through your ears — laughter tinged with a profound disbelief. The baron didn't even smile.
"Here in Markland, you follow the old ways of Markland, or it will go hard with all of you. Your women will be as our women — a willing thrall at the cooking and a pliant receptacle when we wish to spend our passion. Is that one also a woman? Beneath the hood?"
Ryan's heart sank. He had only known Mildred for a couple of days, but he already knew enough to guess she wasn't going to sweet-mouth Baron Jorund of Markland.
He was right.
Mildred didn't remove her hood, but her voice was loud. Loud and angry.
"Try to spend your passion in my 'receptacle,' bro, and you'll be picking slices of your cock out of the middle of the lake."
Ryan felt the chill of the butt of his pistol, knowing that J.B., Krysty and Jak would be doing the same.
The tall Viking looked at Mildred, wrinkling his blue eyes as though trying to penetrate the darkness beneath her hood. There was a total and quite overwhelming silence in the hut. Outside they heard the laughter of a young woman and a child crying for comfort.
"The ways of an outlander..." he spoke with a measured slowness "...are not our ways. But we have our own rules, and any outlander while he is with us in Markland shall observe them. Or the price will be high."
In his life Ryan had heard a lot of threats and more than a few promises, and he'd learned to tell the difference. This was a promise.
Mildred turned slowly to look toward Ryan, holding his gaze for twenty beats of the heart. Then, even more slowly, she turned back to face the baron and dropped a deep curtsy. "I apologize for my forward tongue. I shall endeavor to keep it guarded while I am in the presence of... of men."
A strong, white-toothed smile split the face of Baron Jorund Thoraldson, and he slapped his thigh. "Well said, woman. Well and wisely said."
"Will we feed the outlanders?"
The voice came from a slightly built young man who stood at the front of the crowd, his hand ostentatiously on the silver hilt of his sword. His right shoulder was noticeably higher than the left.
"Feed them, Odo Crookback? Why should we not? Do we forget all hospitality because an outlander is such a scarce sight?"
"Forgive me, Karl Thoraldson, but can we know a little more of them? Their names?"
"True ale from a cracked vessel, Odo. We shall know their names. Speak, One-Eye."
"My name is Ryan Cawdor, and I am the uncle of the baron of Front Royal ville in the Shens. This is Krysty Wroth and Mildred Wyeth. J. B. Dix here, Doc Tanner and..."
He was suddenly conscious that this was what everyone was waiting for. There was a breath of tension that hadn't been present before.
"And this is Jak Lauren."
Thoraldson nodded slowly. "Jak Lauren. It doesn't sound like the name of one of the people here."
"Come swamps south," the teenager muttered, shaking his head, the long mane of snowy hair whipping around his narrow shoulders.
"Not a Norseman?"
"Don't know. What's horseman?"
The blooming smile on the face of the Viking leader began to wither and fade. "Norseman. A man from the north."
"Said south," Jak repeated.
"Yes, yes. But your hair... Every man here in this ville has yellow hair. But no man has hair as pure and white as yours. It's a miracle to behold."
"You talked of a wag breaking down." The insistent voice was that of the local called Odo Crookback. "We do not have any such vehicle, but we know of them from old times. Tell us more."
"Surely. We were traders. The wag had a failure of the engine. We got stranded. None of us had ever been up this way before. Found a hot, stinking jungle, then these ants came and we got kind of driven up the mountain. Over the top into the fog and down again. And here we are."
Jorund looked at Ryan, then turned his eyes to each member of the party. He lingered longest on Krysty, whose sentient hair was beginning to relax and uncurl, revealing its full flaming beauty.
"Ants? Big killers? We hardly ever go up and over the crest of the mountain. On the other side lies many-faced, sharp-toothed, swift and silent, long-sleeping death."
"The ants sure killed a dog on the far side," J.B. said.
"Odin!" shouted a young man at the front of the crowd.
The Armorer looked at him. "That was the name on a kind of medal around its neck. Your dog, was it, son?"
"What color was he?"
"Mostly white."
"Odin wasn't white, so it cannot have been him you saw, outlander."
"Bones, son. Ants left nothing but bones, and they were sure white. Few bits of fur left were brindled."
"Oh, no..." the lad cried, falling to his knees and burying his face in his hands. "Then that's why he didn't come back last night. He was..." His weeping swallowed up his words.
Baron Thoraldson banged a fist on the long oak table in front of him. "By the runes of Baelthorn! Is this your son, Sigurd Harefoot?"
The boy looked up, his face wet with tears. "I'm sorry, Father. Sorry, Karl Thoraldson. Forgive me for my weakness."
"Weakness! Milksop wench! You whining bitch! Your dog dies and you howl as if your honor was lost. You were warned not to take the name of Father Odin for a cur. Look what ill fortune you've brought on yourself."
The boy stood straight, wiping away the signs of his weeping. "Forgive me."
"Nay. You behave in such a feeble, womanish way in front of outlanders. And even in front of their own women! What must they think of the warriors of Markland? Until you can learn the true ways of manhood, you had best spend some time with the maids, doing their work until the end of the Cuckoo month. And you will not ride or sail or walk with men until that time is spent. Go."
"He keeps up this antiwomen shit, lover, and I'm going to help Mildred on her suggestion about some thin-slicing." Krysty's whisper only reached Ryan's ears.
When the totally dejected boy had left the hut, the baron brought their first meeting toward its ending.
"I will tell you this, outlanders. In the history of this ville, strangers have often had a short shrift. We keep to our own. But in the past year or more there has been much visiting with the gray-haired widow-maker. The waters have not always been clean. Men have wasted to the bone, and we are falling short of numbers who can hold a blaster or a sword. You and the one with the eyeglasses and the snow-headed boy could join us if you pass the testings."
"And what of me?" Doc asked.
The Viking looked at him and shook his head slowly and sorrowfully. "I know not what fire still smolders in your belly, old man, but you have seen too many winters
to be a warrior."
Doc was about to bark back, when he caught Ryan's warning glance and closed his mouth again.
The baron walked to Doc and patted him on the shoulder. "But lament not. Old men may sit by the fire and spin tales of their courage and pass on their wisdom to the young men. And the maids will bound to do their bidding at all times."
Doc looked at Mildred's shadowed face. "Then it might not be so bad. I can get our maids to leap about some."
Ryan was next to the black woman, and he was the only one who heard her mutter. "Fuck you, Tanner, you asshole!"
Jorund stared at Ryan, who realized with a sense of some shock that the man's talk of their joining his warriors wasn't just casual, friendly conversation. This was a serious invitation. But like a lot of invitations in isolated villes, it came hedged around with barbs.
"Thanks for the offer, Baron," he replied, trying to pick his words with some care. "You mind if we get a chance to talk this over some?"
The Norseman nodded. "You may have this night. At dawning you will tell us whether you will stay here as our brothers. Or... whether you will choose not."
Once again, Ryan knew the difference between a threat and promise. This one was both.
The fire in the hut blazed up as one of the men kicked some logs into its center. It was very hot, and Mildred reached up a casual hand and pulled down the hood of her sweater, for the first time revealing her face to the Vikings.
The world fell in.
Chapter Nineteen
"The raven of death!" shrieked one of the men at the back of the crowd, his voice ragged with stark terror.
There was pushing and jostling near the door, and at least half of the warriors of Markland fought their way outside. Even the baron took three steps back, half drawing his sword as though he feared that Mildred might physically attack him.
Instantly, magically, guns appeared in the hands of Ryan and his party. The only person in the large hut who seemed unconcerned was Mildred Wyeth.
She looked calmly around at the fearful confusion, shaking her head slowly. "I've made some spectacular entrances in my time, but this has to be the best. What..."
"Her skin..." Jorund Thoraldson hissed, licking his lips nervously. "Her skin is as black as jet. She is the spirit of death, the widow-maker herself, and you have brought her among us!" He pointed accusingly at Ryan.
More and more of the leading men of the ville were sidling out of the hut, stumbling over one another in their eagerness to get away.
"Have none of you ever seen a person with black skin before?" Ryan shouted. "It's not a thing to be frightened of."
"Of course it is, outlander fool! I have lived through more than thirty summers and I've never seen anyone with black skin. Except for those who are bitten by the jungle snakes or those whose corpses rise swollen from the depths of the water." The baron was shaking with nerves.
"No. Have none of you ever left this ville and traveled through the Deathlands?"
Jorund shook his head. "No. Markland has always been here. It was here before the long winters and it is still here. It will always be here. No man leaves, and what happens beyond the water or beyond the hot forest is nothing to us."
"You must trade with other villes along the coast here," J.B. said.
"No. It would be unclean and would damn us. There is a ville, forty sea-miles off to the east. There have been fights over the years, and they get stronger as we grow more weak. One day..." He suddenly recalled the origin of all this. "But the black witch must go. Nay, she must die."
"Be a lot of blood spilled if you try that," Krysty warned.
"We are many." He glanced around and saw that only a handful of his men remained behind. "Stay, you dogs! Come back!"
It was a delicate, balanced moment. Ryan knew they had overwhelming firepower on their side, but it would be a desperate gamble to try to take on an entire ville. It wasn't the initial firefight that was the problem. It was getting safe away afterward without being sniped off.
"Better not try it," Ryan said. "We got blasters that can take out a dozen of you just like that."He snapped his fingers loudly.
One by one, the blond warriors came sheepishly back into the meeting hut, most of them trying hard to avoid looking directly at Mildred Wyeth, who still stood among the friends, arms folded, a faint smile on her lips.
"No man's face is black," Jorund protested, "And no woman's. It is not natural. Notnatural!"
The young man with the hunched back pushed to the front of the others, his slim sword drawn in his right hand. "Waste not breath, Karl Jorund! Empty words from the outlanders! Legends tell of black witches... Valkyries from the pits of darkness. This is why there have been deaths. Sickness. Two-headed babies whose guts spilled from them."
Mildred glanced over to Ryan. "Sounds like radiation malformations. It would be interesting to try to find out why."
"She mutters a curse!" Odo Crookback yelped. "Fork-tongue, red-teeth, blood-eyed, black-skinned cursing. Burn her. Offer her to the gods. What do you say, my brothers?"
There was a roar of angry agreement, with every man waving either a sword or a pistol. Ryan's finger tightened on the trigger of the SIG-Sauer, but he held his fire. "I tell you that a dark skin is normal all over Deathlands. I have met many such men and women. All colors of skin. You will not harm her." He made sure that his gun pointed at the stomach of the baron of Markland.
"Burn them all!" Odo shrieked, brandishing his sword at Ryan. The suggestion brought the threat of slaughter even closer.
Ryan squeezed the trigger once, putting a bullet into the earth precisely between the hunchback's feet, splattering him with earth. He jumped a yard in the air, then nearly fell into the fire.
"Be a lot of death," Ryan said into the seething stillness.
Jorund Thoraldson took a deep, slow breath. "I see you are skilled with your blaster, outlander. But you will not make a change in our laws. There cannot be a nonman with black skin in Markland. It has never been. It will never be."
"I would venture to suggest to you that your statement is not correct, Mr. Thoraldson," Doc said. "I have great knowledge — almost personal, you could say — of the times before the long winters. I assure you that a person with a black skin was as common as a person with blond hair. Probably more common. It just happens that Markland has survived in its own little Aryan way."
"What do you say, old man?"
"I say that — unless my supposition is flawed — there must once have been blacks here in this vicinity. But after the great nuclear war that devastated our land and destroyed the American way of life, there must have been strife. Fights between villes. Between social groups within a particular ville. I believe that here the blond man ruled and the black man has vanished."
"Nothing changes," Mildred said bitterly.
"No. We have always been Norse here in Markland. Through my memory and that of my father and that of his father and..."
Doc held up an imperious hand to quiet the baron. "Crap! He said and he said and he said — All of that's like history written by the winners. We're talking here, my friend, about events from a century gone. None of us, even I, can conceive properly of the horrors of those first few charnel-house years." He shrugged. "But all of this is of scant interest. Your rules will be as entrenched as a redneck sheriff in rural Georgia way back when. I suggest, Ryan, that we simply make our excuses and leave this place."
"Sounds good," Mildred agreed, glancing at Ryan. "We go?"
It was the young hunchback who shouted the first objection. "An old man, a black witch and a one-eyed outlander make the decisions here, do they, Jorund Thoraldson?"
There was a chorus of yelled approval, and some of the Vikings began to shuffle forward, their initial fear of Mildred forgotten.
"She must burn, outlander. And you and the others will remain here. One way or another, that is how it will be."
Ryan caught J.B.'s eye and nodded imperceptibly. It had gone past talking; now
it was down to shooting first. His finger caressed the narrow trigger of the pistol. Like Trader said, it was always best to get in the first bullet.
"What of trial by combat?"
Mildred's voice rang out through the hut, loud and clear, making Ryan hesitate before opening fire with the P-226.
"You were ordered to keep silent," Jorund said, but his voice lacked confidence.
"She speaks sooth," called out a stout, older man, who Ryan recognized as the father of the disgraced youth.
"And will you champion the black slut, Sigurd?"
Odo mocked.
"It must be one of her own. Outlander..." he looked at Ryan "...it is true that our laws in Markland make it possible for the... for her... to have someone to defend her right to live. Will you take up that challenge for her?"
"Yeah."
Mildred shook her head. "Just let me borrow that pretty little handgun of yours, Ryan, and I'll give the yellow-haired son of a bitch one through the forehead."
"Wait. See what kind of rules they come up with. Might not just be who can get nearest to the center of the target. Killing's like a lot of things, Mildred. It's a craft that you have to learn."
The baron of the ville smiled. "Not blasters. Our champion selects the weapon and the grounds for the challenge."
"Don't take fucking chances!" Jak spit disgustedly.
Ryan waited. Over the years he'd come across an occasional duel, generally over a woman. Or drugs. There'd been two stupes up near the northwest coast, logging country, who sat on adjacent, identical branches, eighty feet up a ponderosa pine. Each started sawing on the other's branch at the same point and finished sawing through at the same moment.
Both hit the ground at the same moment.
There'd been a skinny little kid in some pesthole gaudy house near a desert hot spot, someplace. He'd been challenged by a big bounty hunter to fight, and the kid picked pool balls from the length of a table. The big man laughed at that. The kid wiped him away with his first shot — an eight ball between the eyes, with a vicious snap of the wrist. Ryan could still see the look of shock in the dead man's eyes as he went down.
