The fear died without warning, and the villagers ran to one of the fires and made some sort of preparations. The women in the hut rose, put their hands on the riders, and led them outside. Wodan was disheartened that this band of primitives did not speak the common tongue of the west. Still, they seemed friendly enough with their gap-toothed grins. He noted that there were no men at all among them.
Some older women with hanging breasts clamored about them, chirping in their strange tongue, while others brought up gourds full of liquid. They pressed in on all sides, fingers probing, tongues clucking, and soon Jon looked about in alarm and Chris, towering over all of them, said, “I’m not afraid to hit a girl! I’m not afraid to hit a girl!” but Wodan laughed, put his hands on an older woman’s shoulders, then hugged her. The villagers laughed wildly. The story spread as others pantomimed Wodan’s act.
Jake spluttered and spat on the ground, cursing. Liquid poured from his face and one of the gourds shook in his hand.
“Shit!” Jon shouted. “What’s wrong? Is it poison?!”
“Yeah!” said Jake, nodding. “It’s booze!”
They laughed and passed the stuff around, but Wodan could not get over the complete absence of men. He and Justinas declined the drink.
Several of the boys danced around the fire with the young girls. Wodan saw the sweat glistening on the bodies of the girls, drops making vivid streaks in their cracked paint. Sylas sat with a group of older women, nodding as they pointed to the sky, to the ground, to their bodies. Sylas pointed to the bikes, to the land, to his own hands. Once he was satisfied that no one was paying him any attention, Wodan picked up a flaming stick that was cool on one end, then made his way to an empty hut.
He found the thing he had expected to find, a small religious shrine on a rickety pedestal. Wodan crouched before it and held the light close. The icon of their god was in the shape of a serpentine creature with segmented armor, many legs all in a row. Shells made of beetle hulls were on its back, with bits of fur and leather on its belly. Perched on top of the demon centipede was a fearsome little head, complete with fangs and glowering red eyes. It was an image of the thing they sacrificed to, and it was doubtful that the monster was herbivorous.
Wodan went outside and approached the elders. He sat beside Sylas, then said, “They sacrifice to a flesh demon in order to survive.”
Sylas nodded. “They’ve been trying to tell me about it. I think that it comes every full moon, and that it’s done so for as long as any of them can remember. Except that it hasn’t come around for several months.”
“So where are their men?” said Wodan, glaring at the wrinkly-faced women.
“Some kind of hunting trip, according to them.”
Wodan hummed a skeptical note. “What’s the name of their monster god?”
Sylas smiled faintly and said, “I keep trying to get that out of them. It, uh, has some kind of phallic connotation, but I can’t understand it.”
Wodan hummed again, then rose and left them. He sat near the dancers and, seeing the joy on their faces, wondered if he was just being paranoid. If the demons were gathering into some kind of army, as Zach said, then it wasn’t entirely unlikely that this village’s demon had been called away for just such a purpose. The young dancing girls seemed happy, entirely unlike an oppressed people.
Wodan watched his new friends. Jon held a girl close as they danced, his whiskered face beaming with light. Even sad, sorry Jake looked reborn as he showed a young girl some sort of ballroom dance. Cedrik held two girls on either knee and they giggled as he talked smoothly to them. Chris unashamedly made out with a girl lying in the sand, groping at her breasts feverishly. Wodan turned away from the dance and walked into the night.
His sense of unease lessened as he entered the valley. He walked for a long time, eyeing the cold pinpricks of light overhead, until he drew near the truck. He saw a form shifting on top of it, unholstered his gun in a flash – then realized that it was Justinas. Wodan waved, then stepped onto the bumper, climbed over the cab, then sat beside the young man.
“You do not go to the party?” said Justinas.
“It’s not my scene,” said Wodan. “Something’s not right here.”
“I do not like the party, either.”
They sat in silence for a long time. Wodan considered that they were both foreigners in Pontius. “Do you miss your home?” said Wodan.
“Yes... no. I thought that I will go with Hargis airships, back to Greeley. But what is in Greeley? My family, we leave it because of religion persecution. They do not want us. Is that a home, then?”
“You’re a Smith, aren’t you? I thought your religion was the Machine.”
Justinas shook his head slowly. “All is pretend, a job. You tell boss what he wants to hear. I like machines, true. Easier to understand than people!”
“What is your religion?”
In his native tongue, full of rolling R’s and harsh guttural consonants, he said, “Forgon Szaturn. We are disliked because we believe in the Redeemer, but also, many Redeemers. Many vegetarian who preach peace want to cook my people and eat them. You see then, how it is?”
“Yeah, I see it. We’ve been fighting and killing each other for so long, and over nothing at all, that it’s given the demons enough time to organize and finally do away with us. It’s a mess.” Wodan thought for a moment, then said, “Maybe we should just settle down here and make a utopian nation where people can believe what they want to believe without getting hurt. What do you say, Justy? We could settle down with these ladies.”
“A-a-a-ah, Wodan, now! These women, they are not for us. Sooner or later the big-man types, like Chris or Jon or even little Jake, they are get jealous looking at each other girlfriend’s mrahachans, and then they are shoot and kill one another. You do not want to settle here, Wodan. You want to move on. Even to plant a seed in a little desert girl is bad idea, worse if you move on, which you must. What if you bring a child into miserable existence, and you do not even know him, to help him? A little Wodan Junior, and he makes sacrifice to devils just to survive, with no father to protect him. Is this what you want?”
“Of course not!”
“See, it is a decent thing, the way you are. You carry yourself with distance. You are very deep inside yourself. Why carry on in a manner like Chris Kenny? Why wear heart on sleeves like Jake Herndon? Wodan will require a very strong woman, one who can bridge the gap between reality and self. A woman who will follow you into death itself. You will be patient!”
A very strong woman…
Wodan’s thoughts drifted into dreams. He saw Dove Langley sitting beside him on the beach, the wind touching her black hair. He saw her spinning on a dune, saw her hands dance as the bodies of succubi exploded around her, shredded by her Cognati power. Nothing was more powerful than her dance, nothing more powerful than her smile.
* * *
Wodan woke in complete darkness, the air stifling hot. He groped about and felt metal walls hot to the touch. Trapped in some steel prison! Eventually he felt a stack of boxes, then saw a crack of light and realized that he was in the back of the truck, where he had laid down to sleep the night before. He raised the rear gate and sunlight flooded the chamber and the wind of the desert felt cool by comparison, and he knew it was a wonder that he had not suffocated to death.
“Justi!” he called out. His voice echoed off the walls of stone.
He walked in the glaring light of day for a long time, and would have passed up the village if not for the sudden screaming of the women. He ran, then saw Jon Best, shirtless, glaring defiantly at a group of older women, one of whom shook some dead animal near his face. Justinas crouched in the shade of a mud hut nearby.
“What’s going on?” said Wodan.
“Your guess, just as good as mine,” said Justinas.
Chris stumbled from a hut, one leg in his pants and one hand fumbling with his gun as it dropped into the sand. Wodan approached Jon and the women, his heart beatin
g harder as he approached some crisis long overdue.
Jon turned to him suddenly. “This old bitch says I killed her stupid chicken.”
The old woman whirled on Wodan and waved the body of some gutted bird in his face, shrieking unintelligible outrage. Wodan waved the bird away. The woman stuck it closer and he pushed her wrist away, harder this time.
“Did you kill her chicken?”
“Man, what the hell am I going to do with some fuckin’ old bitch’s fuckin’ chicken? I didn’t even know they had chickens up in this bitch.”
More women gathered about, then began shrieking like the first. Wodan glanced to the side and noted that their bikes were still there.
Wodan turned on the old woman. “He didn’t kill your chicken. Lady, he didn’t kill your chicken, alright?” The women shrieked louder, and Wodan shouted, “We’re not going along with your little scam! If you wanted to trade it for something, we would have.” They were deaf to him. “Trade! You understand, trade? No?” The women forgot Jon and focused on Wodan, their eyes burning into him, their nostrils dilated strangely. The air crackled, sharp and surreal.
“We gotta get out of here,” said Chris. He ran toward the bikes and several of the women broke and ran after him. Wodan looked back and forth, confused and angry. Just then the old woman shoved her chicken right into his face. Wodan cursed and snatched the chicken away from her.
“Wodan, wait!” shouted Sylas, and Wodan slapped the chicken into the ground, unholstered his automatic, raised it, and fired it into the air. The women and boys jumped, then the women shrieked and scattered and filed into the huts.
Wodan saw Cedrik roll out of a hut, shirtless, two pistols held high. “What’s happening!” he shouted.
“We’re out of here!” said Wodan. “It’s a scam. We have to get out of here before they make us kill them.”
They quickly gathered their things. Sylas emerged covered in red and yellow face paint, looking forlorn as they mounted up. The roar of the engines drowned out the cries of the young women who gathered near the huts, beating their breasts and wailing in horrified silence.
And here I thought they were going to sacrifice us to a demon, thought Wodan. All along, they were just setting us up for their big chicken play.
* * *
They rode hung over during the middle of the day, mindless from the heat and from sweating inside their suits. After several torturous hours Sylas pointed at something, over and over. They stopped and passed around binoculars and scopes. A long line of men passed over a hill in the distance, each covered in garish black and blue paint. Unable to comment on the sighting, the boys drank water from the truck, a few puked, then they moved on.
Hours later, just when they were about to stop, they drove right upon another village. The riders turned about, squealed tires, and threw dust up all around. People shouted and ran as they tore through the center of the village, then blasted through a series of valleys until they were sure the village was far behind. They stopped to pee and to drink, and Chris said, “What the shit was that about!”
“Did you notice,” said Sylas, laughing, “that the women in that village wore black and blue paint, just like the men we saw earlier today?”
“You’re right,” said Jake. “But the men, they were wearing yellow and red, just like the women in the first village we went to!”
“You know what it is?” said Cedrik. “The men go on hunting trips to pick up some food for the ladies. But the men in both villages, they go huntin’ at the same time...”
“So they can do the ladies-next-door,” said Chris. “And I bet all of ’em think they’re fooling everybody.”
“Sylas,” said Wodan. “You talked to them. Do they venerate marriage?”
Sylas chuckled. “They think a woman should stay a virgin until the very night she’s married. Otherwise, they say a demon will know, and become very angry.”
Wodan shook his head. “They get uncomfortable about their own reproductive cycle, and that’s what makes flesh demons hungry? It’s worse than I ever thought.”
“What do you mean?” said Jake, still laughing.
“Because that’s what we’re really fighting out here,” said Wodan. “Bad ideas grow in the shadow of the demon.”
Chapter Eight
Civilization vs. Barbarism
Zeppelins with the yellow sun of Hargis, the scorpion of Pontius, and benign white banners drifted by day and flew hard by night when Edwar could guide them by his star charts. Virgil was sick for days, gripping his stomach and rolling around belowdecks, but finally he emerged and was full of wonder despite the grim nature of their mission. He had never been so far from Pontius in all his life. The tales of demonic murder and wasteland sacrifice he’d been raised on seemed like old wives’ tales here among the clouds, the pure air, the clean wind, and the expanse of empty earth so far below.
But not all of the airship’s occupants were filled with bliss. Miss Oliver and Judge Rosebudd sat and stared at one another from across the deck. They had done this for days, ever since their brief, polite greeting ended and they’d put faces to names and realized that one of them worked for the state and the other worked for personal profit. Miss Oliver clicked one steel-lined heel of a traveling boot on the deck, then clicked the toe against her chair in endless repetition. Judge Rosebudd’s beady eyes shone like lasers under his immense forehead, incredibly imposing except for the fact that his thin judge’s tie flapped about in the wind and constantly slapped against his face.
“Admit it,” said Judge Rosebudd, finally breaking his silence. “As soon as we reach Sunport, you’re either planning to leave us and settle down there, or at least stake out property so that you can move there in an efficient and profitable manner.”
“Let’s be honest,” said Miss Oliver. “When that army of dogmen hits Pontius and it becomes obvious that the forces we’ve cobbled together can’t hold them off, neither one of us are going to be manning the walls ourselves. We’ll be one of the first ones on an airship out of there.”
The judge grunted in satisfaction. “Typical response from someone used to making a living wherever she can and however she can, rather than staking her reputation on the strength of her moral backbone.”
“Is that how you see this trip?” Miss Oliver feigned a smile, then gestured to two servants. One extended a long cigarette from a silver case while another hunched over and attempted to light the thing against the fierce wind. Miss Oliver had to lean to the side so that she could be seen. “That’s interesting, because the way I see it, when we negotiate with Sunport, or Haven, or Greeley, or any other city, the first bargaining chip that will come into play will be the resources that are at my disposable. I can’t remember, judge, so please help me; what resources will you bring to the negotiating table? Will you be using your political pull among the Pontius city officials?”
“Our elected officials have given me full authority to negotiate as I see fit when it comes to defending our home from complete destruction!”
“I’m sure they have. It’s always easy to spend other people’s money, isn’t it?”
Judge Rosebudd betrayed no emotion at all, except his face briefly turned beet red before it returned to its usual color. “It always comes down to money with people like you, doesn’t it?”
Miss Oliver placed a hand to her heart in a gesture of shock, then said, “Is it about something other than survival to you?”
“It’s about…” Judge Rosebudd realized that he had begun his reply before it had fully formulated, and his reply was not yet fully formulated because most of his mind was caught up in the fantasy of grasping the insufferable woman by her heels and casting her off the airship while her servants fled in terror. With no small effort he stifled the satisfying mental image, then said, “It’s about doing the right thing, no matter the cost. We must never give in to barbarism. Not now, not ever.”
“Ah. Unbending moral principles, then. Hm, let’s see, is that the common thread
of the human experience that you plan on harnessing in order to get the common citizen to defend Pontius, not to mention the citizens of a few other city-states who don’t really care whether we live or die?”
“I –”
“Good luck with that.”
“Alright, you two,” said Virgil. “You’re both being complete and total downers. Can’t you see that-”
Just as Virgil gestured toward the blue sky and a strip of dark mountains in the distance, King Zachariah came up from belowdecks and said, “This isn’t a vacation, detective.”
Virgil started to explain what he’d been attempting to say, then stopped himself when he saw the young king’s expression as he passed by. The young man with a reputation as a hopelessly idealistic and emotionally imbalanced drunk seemed completely changed, hardened and determined. He went and stood at the bow and soldiers on either side of him saluted and stood at attention. The elders knew that the young man wanted revenge for what had been taken from him, but for some reason, his base desire for vengeance seemed nobler than their own intentions.
Zach gestured to one of his soldiers, who stood ready with a powerful Smith radio set. Zach took the mouthpiece, then said, “Commander Sipara.”
A pause, then, “Yessir!”
“There’s a change of plans. I want you to leave us and go to Greeley. There’s no reason for us to stick together as we continue on to Sunport. What ships and resources you take, I’ll leave that to your judgment. I’m going to put Bruner on so you can decide on a good place to regroup.”
“Yes, sir,” said the tinny voice on the radio. “We’ve been talking about that ourselves. There are some decent people in Greeley, their kind have done alright by us. The least we can do is warn them.”
“That’s right, Commander. But the most you can do - remember, we need reinforcements.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I trust you to negotiate a deal.” Just then Edwar Bruner approached and whispered something to Zach. “You’re sure?” said Zach. Edwar nodded. “Commander?”
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