He was waxing enthusiastic. His sister leaned forward, a frown on her dark comely face.
"What is that doing here, Captain?" she said, toying with the long single braid of her hair. "These wild men, they can't even take apart a pair of old garden shears to make knives. Make shetes?"
She made a complex dismissive sound that involved gargling and spitting.
"Yeah, that's the question," Ingolf said. "So they must have stolen it off the body of someone in from the Mid west like us. I don't think I know of more than three or four other expeditions that've gotten east of the Ohio."
"There could be more that we don't know of, more so if they were small and done quietly," Singh said. "If they died here, who would hear anything?"
Ingolf grunted skeptically. "News travels slowly, but it does get around," he said. "And it would take a big outfit, well found, to get this far."
He took the shete back, reversed the blade and held it out to Kaur. "This is a little light for my arm, but it should be about right for you."
Her eyes lit as she took the blade and ran through a series of cuts and thrusts, feet moving like a dancer's as she whirled and lunged. "Yes! Thank you, Captain. This is a very fine weapon, better than mine or my spare."
"And see if anyone else knows what those marks on the blade are," he said.
Kuttner was standing by his bedroll. Ingolf got out his pipe and fixings and lit it with an ember held in a green twig as he sat and leaned back against his saddle. He didn't smoke much. If nothing else, tobacco was too hard to find outside the Republic of Richland, or too bad if you did-good leaf and fine cheeses and apple brandy were his home country's main exports. But sometimes it was an aid to thought.
And hopefully it might discourage the mosquitoes, or at least Kuttner, who he'd noticed hated the smell. He dragged the smoke across his tongue and blew a ring into the darkness, watching it catch faint light from the lan terns and coals of the fire and enjoying the mellow scent.
"Why did you give the shete to the woman?" Kuttner asked at last.
Noticed he doesn't like Kaur. Doesn't like Singh ei ther, but he really doesn't like Kaur. Doesn't seem to like women in general much, at least none of the ones with us, but I don't think he's queer, either.
"It's the right weight and length for her. You've seen her fight," Ingolf said reasonably, then described the etchings. "You ever seen anything like those marks?"
Firelight was good for playing poker; the shadows cast on a man's face made it harder to lie. He could see the slight hesitation in Kuttner's response, and the way his eyes flicked aside for a moment.
"Not really. I think I've heard that someone uses those symbols in the far West, but no details-there isn't much trade that way."
Ingolf nodded; it was true enough. Iowa had plenty of cattle and wheat from its own fields, and the metals trade mostly went up and down the Mississippi and its right-bank tributaries. But there was something…
He's not telling all he knows, that's for sure.
****
A dozen of them rode into Innsmouth the next morning, as soon as the sun was high enough-too many shadows were convenient for ambushers. They came out of the forest, and into what had been the town proper; their hoofbeats echoed off the walls that flanked the broken pavement. This part didn't have many tall buildings; most of them had burned out at one time or another, their soot-charred windows like eyes in a skull. Bare black frames occupied half a street where the vacant spots weren't covered in second growth of saplings and sumac and brambles. Then they were back among brick structures that still stood.
It looked like the final collapse here hadn't come at once the way it had in Boston; there had been an effort to get the streets clear by pushing the vehicles off, and peeling, faded paint on a big warehouse-looking building read, EMERGENCY FOOD DISTRIBUTION CENTER.
That one had been inhabited more recently; you could tell by the stink, stronger than the silt-salt of the nearby sea, and the flies. And the crude wooden rack outside with the rows of skulls was a giveaway.
Dead giveaway, he thought mordantly. But it feels dead now, uninhabited.
"Check it out," he said.
They waited, bows ready, eyes traveling to the roofs on either side; the horses shifted nervously under them. Singh and Kaur swung to earth with their shetes in their hands; when they came back out they both looked disgusted, but relaxed and with the steel sheathed.
"Nothing, Captain," the man called. "They were here, but they cleared out last night. I think you were right-they fought among themselves a little when they got back from rushing us."
"Nothing?"
"Nothing living, and nothing I wish to remember having seen," Singh said, and spit.
Considering some of the things he'd seen Singh do himself in the war, he decided he really didn't want to look inside-no point in putting things like that in your head unless you had to. Instead they cantered down to the water's edge. There they found what they wanted; an old time warehouse for boats, where they were stacked up several layers high in metal racks. He'd seen that be fore in the ruined cities on the Lakes, and the guide-books listed several here.
The ground floor was smashed remnants where small animals scurried amid the tendrils of shade-loving vines, hiding as the humans dismounted and looked the place over; storm surges had come up the town's narrow cen tral harbor several times in the past decades. Beams of sunlight lanced down from holes in the rippled plastic of the roofing, catching on a chain, turning the bulks of cabin cruisers and catamarans into shadowy vastness. Birds flew in and out, tending to their nests.
Ingolf sighed and did some climbing-not easy in armor, but he certainly wasn't going to take it off. His limbs felt heavy after little sleep and a bad fight last night, but he was used to working while he was exhausted; it was a requirement in both the trades he'd followed since he left home. A lot of the boats were made of the old time material called fiberglass. He was familiar with it; some bowmakers used it instead of horn on the belly of a saddlebow, though it was getting rare back in civilized country. It had the advantage of not rotting if kept out of the sun, and at last he found a good sailboat with a folding aluminum mast.
"This one'll do," he called down.
More birds flew up at the echoes. Everyone in the Villains was used to working with pre-Change ma chinery, and more than one of this group had dealt with boats before, on the Lakes. It was still long hours of nightmare work to get the rusted slideway work ing, with only the spells of watch duty to break the hot monotony. He had barked knuckles and a sweat bath worse than the usual summer in-armor by the time the boat was in the wheeled cradle on the ground. Scavenging had found them enough Dacron and cord to rig the simple lug sail.
As the others were stowing the supplies, Jose drew him aside and spoke softly, with a glance at the Bossman's agent.
" Capitan, this cabroncito wants to go to that Nan tucket place really bad, let him go. So he's close to the Bossman, close enough his farts don't make no sound anymore, but that don't make him no friend of ours."
Ingolf smiled at the other man's worry. "And which friend of ours would I pick to send with him, to do something I'm afraid of, Jose?"
The Tejano blew out his lips in a gesture of frustration. "OK, I know what you mean. I still don't like it."
" I don't like it. Doesn't mean it doesn't have to be done."
Then Jose grinned, a quick white flash. "So now I complain how you take Kaur and Singh both. I'd feel better here with them to spot for us if the wild men sniff around. They're the best sneakers we got."
"That's why I'm taking them! And you know they don't work apart. It's the smallest number that'll do the job-me, the Sikhs, Kuttner."
Unspoken went: And the least loss if we don't come back. Losing three more wouldn't fatally weaken the Villains for the trek back to the living lands. He clapped his second-in-command on the shoulder and nodded back towards the wagon camp.
"Just keep it together for ten days. If we're not b
ack by then, then break camp and head west on the eleventh day. That's an order. We've already got all the stuff the sheriffs and the bossman wanted, apart from this, and enough gold to start a mint. We'll catch you up, but you move. You hear me, trooper?"
" Si. Doesn't mean I have to like it either."
****
The harbor mouth hadn't silted up quite enough to catch the sailboat's keel, possibly because it was protected by the half sunken hulk of a great ship whose bow reared out of the water like a dull-red hill. There was a little lurch of contact as the four of them labored at the sweeps they'd found, and then they were over the bar and out into Nantucket Sound.
Ingolf found himself relaxing as the green-brown shoreline faded. That wasn't very logical-drowning killed you just as dead as a sharpened shovel in the brain, and if they were shipwrecked anywhere around here it was right back into the stewpot. The fresh breeze and clean salt air and bright sunlight must have something to do with it, and the fact that he was finally out of his armor; it was bound up with a couple of cork life vests, like all their gear. They had enough smoked venison and biscuit to last them for a few days, fishing line and hooks, map and compass, and their weapons.
Birds went by overhead, gulls and some sort of pigeons moving in a big flock. Not far away a whale breached; he couldn't tell what kind, except that it blew its spout forward in twin jets.
The wind was from the northwest, just off the star board quarter. He looked at the map again, at his com pass, and then up at the sun. Spray came in over the rail and flew backward, stinging his eyes with the salt, and he squinted into the brightness over the blue water and its white-topped waves.
"Should be there just before sunset, unless it moved," Ingolf said, lolling back with the tiller under his arm.
Neither Kaur nor Singh spoke, which was fairly typi cal. They were ready at the lines, with the care of people who liked to do things right but weren't entirely sure they could; their experience in boats was more limited than his, and he was no expert, just competent enough to set a straight course in not too bad weather. Kuttner didn't speak either, which wasn't like him. He usually had some order or observation or complaint. Now he was tensely silent.
Ingolf shrugged. I like him better this way, except that he looks like he's about to snap like a lift beam under too much weight. I suppose it was too much to hope he'd get seasick and call the whole thing off.
Instead he concentrated on his sailing. As they passed out of sight of land, the Sikhs' silence grew a little tense too. After an hour or so Ingolf spoke:
"Hell, you two, we don't even have to tack for a while. I've been out on Michigan in rougher weather than this."
And nearly died, he didn't add.
For all his cheerfulness-you had to show willing and look confident if you were the leader, which necessity made it easier-he also let out a whuff! of relief when a low line of beach showed on the southern horizon. The sun was only a handspan over the horizon to their right, and it was starting to cast a glitter path on the water, tinging it with red. As they came closer Ingolf began to frown.
"Singh!" he said. "Take the tiller!"
When the other man had, he moved cautiously to the bow and stood with one hand on the stay line that ran from there to the mast, peering ahead. Then he unshipped his binoculars, careful to settle the loop around his neck-they were big military grade field glasses, an heirloom from his father, irreplaceable if dropped over the side-and took another look.
A long shore, sandy beach backed by fifty-foot bluffs, interrupted here and there with lower parts. And…
"What's wrong?" Kuttner said.
"The books said Nantucket was covered with scrub and thicket, with a few trees here and there, and lots of those houses like back on the Cape," he said.
"Well?"
"It isn't. That's forest there, dense forest. Oak, I think. Maybe hickory, and some pine, but lots of oak."
"That could have grown up since."
The three Villains looked at him; surely nobody could be that ignorant?
"Not in twenty-two years it couldn't," Ingolf said. "And it's sandy there, and there's the salt wind. That's old forest. Not very tall, yeah, but it's old. Take a look."
He handed over the binoculars reluctantly and kept a hand ready to grab; as far as he knew, Kuttner had never been afloat on anything but the Mississippi before this trip.
The smaller man's lips went tight. "We must land," he said, but it was as if he had to force himself to say it.
"Yeah," Ingolf said, equally unhappily. "It's getting too close to dark to head back."
"I do not know," Kaur said. Ingolf looked at her in surprise, and she went on: "It is as if something tells me, Go away."
She shivered. "Perhaps this place is cursed."
Her brother nodded. Ingolf was surprised; usually the two of them had the steadiest nerves of anyone in the company-sometimes he suspected they really didn't care much if they lived or died.
"We don't have a choice. Let's go for it."
An opening in the straight line of the coast showed. It wasn't where the maps said it should be, but it did break the surf bound ramparts.
"And see that?" he said, pointing to a faint trickle of smoke rising there. "That means men. We'd better be cautious."
The three Villains kept the boat's head into the wind as they all put on their fighting gear; the choppy up-and down motion made it awkward, but they managed. Ingolf and the others wolfed down rabbit cooked that morning and some biscuit, grimacing at the sawdust taste of the thrice baked bread. It hadn't been very warm out on the water and it was cooling now, enough that the padding and armor didn't make you sweat much. Kuttner wore his usual odd cuirass of overlapping plates of leather boiled in wax, with metal buckles and trim, its color a russet brown contrast to the oiled gray of the others' mail shirts; his helmet was round-topped, with a spike in the center of its dome and hinged cheek guards.
Ingolf settled his shete over his shoulder, made sure that his bow was protected in its waterproof oiled can vas case by his feet-moisture could play hell with the laminations of a horn and sinew recurve-and then turned the boat into the sheltered waters.
Those were shallow; the keel gave a nasty tick that made the rigging groan and everyone lurch as they crossed in from the sea.
"What was that, Captain?" Singh said, pointing west.
"I didn't see anything," Ingolf answered, concentrat ing on avoiding the green patches as he wended his way towards the shore.
"I saw a flash of light to the west, farther up this coast. Like sun on glass, I thought."
Kaur nodded. Ingolf sighed: "There weren't supposed to be any tall glass buildings here, either. We'll see."
Ingolf had been right; the land around the low spot was mostly forest where it wasn't reed-rustling salt marsh. The trees weren't very tall, forty or fifty feet at most, but the trunks were thick and gnarled, with a dense un derstory of bushes. He recognized white and black oaks, chestnut, beech, maple, pine and hickory; the broadleaf trees predominated, lush in their summer foliage, and there were a lot of dead elms. The smell reached him, strong even compared to the sea salt and the marshes, earthy and wild, familiar from the wooded hills of home and yet a little strange.
Compared to their surroundings, the habitations looked small. Six boats were drawn up, wooden twenty footers; he got the binoculars out and looked. They were open undecked craft made of planks that looked hand sawn, with oarlocks and unstepped masts and furled gaff sails. Behind them was a little hamlet of six long rect angular houses, built low with a mud-and stick chimney coming out of the shingle roofs and earth heaped up against the sides. The chimneys were idle, and the smoke came from a central open hearth in a cleared space.
He switched the view; there were fish drying racks with the catch on them, and more fires-very low smol dering ones, giving off a dense haze that clung to the ground.
That must be to smoke 'em, he thought.
Ten or twelve acres around the haml
et were planted, amid haggled-off stumps that showed how the land had been cleared. Lush growth hid the soil; there were corn stalks wound with beans, pumpkin vines, tomatoes, the tops of potatoes, turnips and more. A buzzing midden a thousand yards away looked to be mostly oyster-shell; when the wind backed and shifted they got a powerful whiff from it. Otherwise the community seemed pretty tidy; there was even a paddock fenced with split rails, though no stock in it he could see.
"I don't think this bunch are wild men," he said. "Not the usual kind at least. How many do you think, Singh?"
"Forty. Sixty if they pack close in those houses," Singh said. "Perhaps twenty fighting men at most, counting boys."
His sister gave him a look, and he cleared his throat and went on: "And perhaps some strong women. That would be as many as could row those boats, as well. You are right, Captain. That is not a wild-man den. Those are people."
Ingolf nodded. "Doesn't mean they're friendly people, necessarily."
He focused on the edge of the woods. "Looks to me like they cleared out when they saw us coming in, but they're watching from there."
Decision firmed. "We'll go in, but cautious. Get one of the anchors and some line."
Two hundred yards from shore they dropped it; it splashed in and sank away to the bottom twenty feet below, and he could see the puff of sand as it struck through the clear water. Then they jerked the heavy rope to see that the flukes had set, and paid out line as they sculled the sailboat closer to shore. He halted them when the bow just touched bottom; that way they could snatch themselves out fast if they had to, pulling up the line. They dropped another anchor and secured it with a slipknot; he took a deep breath.
"Let's go."
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