by James Axler
They had met little opposition to their plans to drive inland. Apart from the loss of Nul, and Stena's unfortunate shoulder wound, there had been few casualties on this trip, and they had lost only two men, both to a single rifleman a day back. The sniper had ridden on a slope overlooking the hamlet they were ravaging and had shot down both men from cover. Then, as the angry guerrillas charged him, he had put a bullet through his own skull.
Two dead, three if he counted the absent Nul, Uchitel thought. Only one injured, two if he allowed for the three toes that Britva had self-amputated.
Their journey to Stoppile was taking much longer than Uchitel had been led to expect. After a two-week southeasterly trek across the Alaskan interior, they'd encountered an impossible mountain range. Changing their course to the northeast, they'd eventually found a trail that led south through the mountains. Unknown to the Narodniki, they were traveling along the earthquake-riven remains of what had once been the main highway linking Anchorage and Fairbanks.
Now that they were finally drawing close to Ank Ridge and Stoppile, Uchitel was well pleased with himself, and as they rode along, he sang an old, old ballad about the stars being the sentinels for mankind. He liked the verse about the importance of order over chaos. It appealed to his sense of the rightness of things.
Far off to the left he glimpsed the skulking shapes of a pack of mutie wolves, their bellies flat to the tundra, shadowing the party. They must be disappointed, thought Uchitel, that there were no weak stragglers in his band as there might be in a herd of caribou — stragglers that they could drag down and rend apart.
There were no weak stragglers in the Narodniki.
Toward evening the ground shook with one of the worst quakes since they'd crossed into Alaska. Rocks on a slope of ice-bound boulders ahead of them broke free and cascaded down noisily, nearly blocking the trail. The horses were frightened, and several riders, including the massive Bizabraznia, were unseated. Angered by the mocking laughter, she grabbed her animal's bridle and delivered a fearsome punch to the horse's head, knocking it to its knees. Then she kicked and lashed it with her whip until it returned to its feet. As she remounted, she was rewarded with cheers from her fellows.
Uchitel touched the cold hilt of his saber, remembering the good feeling of decapitating an enemy. He wanted to capture more enemies so that he could use the sword once more. Perhaps in the town of Ank Ridge there would be plenty of chances.
When the wind shifted to the south he caught the bitter taste of salt on his tongue, in addition to the ever-present sulfur from the surrounding volcanoes. The salt meant the sea could not be far away, which meant that Ank Ridge must also be close.
Grom, their explosives expert, reined in his horse alongside Uchitel. "That would make a fine show for my toys," he shouted. Grom was almost stone deaf and shouted all the time.
Grom pointed to a large dam with towers, set across a valley to their left. It dominated the valley where they rode, silhouetted against the amber sky, which was splashed with streaks of vivid green lightning.
"The water will be frozen, Grom," he called, facing him so Grom could read his lips.
"No, Uchitel! See ahead, there is a river that flows and there is green to its sides. Away beyond that dam you see the smoking cone of a volcano. It heats the water so that it flows. Let me burst it and wash all away down here. It would be a fine sight, I swear."
"Not now, brother. Perhaps another day, but not yet. Not now!"
* * *
"What is that, Uchitel?"
Evening was dragging its murky cloak across the wasteland, the yellow clouds turning a sullen maroon. It had snowed a little during the late part of the afternoon, dusting the trail ahead. The dam was still visible behind them. This time it was Barkhat, with the smooth, velvet voice, who spoke; as he did so, the puckered scar at the corner of his mouth twitched and danced.
"Where?"
"Yonder. Like a large ball."
Uchitel strained his eyes into the gloom. He saw several squat buildings and a large saucer-shaped object, which was cracked along one side and mounted on a tripod. It was difficult to judge its size, but it looked to be about a hundred feet in height. There was also a huge ball, half as high again, that seemed to be made from a complicated pattern of interwoven triangles. Uchitel had never seen anything like it, but it nagged at his memory. There had been something like it in one of the old history books in Yakutsk.
"I think it was a defense against firefights."
"What?"
Uchitel nodded, the facts trickling back into his mind. "It was called radar, Barkhat. It was a way of seeing great distances and watching for enemies. There were many such installations along the coasts. I have read that such buildings stood where the Sakhalin and Kamchatka lands were. But they were..." he hesitated, seeking the expression that he'd read "Da, they were 'primary objectives' for the nukes. This one must have been missed."
"Should we go look, Uchitel? Might there not be much gold?"
"Imbecile! Would there be gold after a hundred years? They were not places of wealth. No. Let us ride on by."
"Perhaps we could camp there if the buildings are safe."
Uchitel considered it. "Perhaps, brother. Perhaps we can."
"And watch for enemies," added Urach, who'd come in time to hear the latter part of the conversation.
"Our enemies are all ahead of us. We need no radar to tell us that."
"None behind?" asked Urach.
"Nyet," replied Uchitel, forcefully. "If there were, then they stayed back in Russia. They will never be a threat to the Narodniki."
* * *
One hundred and fifty miles behind the Narodniki, Major Gregori Zimyanin was leading his group of one hundred mounted militia. They were at the foothills of the Alaskan Range, spread well out, the horses picking their way carefully through the torturous mountain terrain.
Aliev, the Tracker, was a little ahead of them, waving them forward. Zimyanin had deliberately held up the crossing of the Bering Strait, hesitant at the enonnousness of what he was doing, and uncertain whether the party would approve.
But now that he was closing in on his prey, some three or four days behind, it was time to press forward at all speed. As his horse crested a rise, the officer's heart filled with pride.
This might be just the beginning.
Chapter Thirteen
The crucifix was blackened and seared by the fires from the heavens. Icicles hung in the crevices around the twisted, tortured form nailed to the metal cross. The fingers were gone, so were the tips of the thorned crown, melted away a century back. The flesh of the crucified Christ was satin black, like the wing of a crow, polished by the ceaseless wind to a velvet consistency.
It stood bolted firmly to the tottering remnants of what had once been the side of a small brick church almost under the haunting shadow of a mountain. Its twenty-thousand-foot summit was permanently obscured by snow spume and chem clouds.
Around the crucifix, kneeling on the sharp stones, were about twenty people, most of them women. They wore dark clothes wrapped around them in layers, giving them a funereal appearance. Their leader, a tall skeletal figure with wild eyes and long black hair, was standing in front of them, facing the crucifix.
"Blessed are the nukes," he called.
His congregation responded, "And blessed shall be the fallout."
"Blessed is the punishment of the Dark Lord."
"And blessed are the nails of his hands and his feet."
"Blessed are the long chill and the many rads."
"Blessed be both the short heat and the long cold," came the response.
"We wait thy coming. Lord."
"Aye, we await thy black visage."
"Then shall we be released from bondage and into eternal life among those in the bunkers below."
The man turned then to gaze out at them. "In this place, tainted by the blood of many, shall we stay until He cometh to lead us to salvation. Amen, amen, amen."
/> "Amen," pattered the others, rising one by one.
At that moment they heard the distant sound of engines, throbbing and whining off to the south.
* * *
Anchorage was gone.
They stopped the three buggies and got out on a bluff overlooking the sullen expanse of gray-green ocean. J.B. and Ryan checked their maps, glancing at the compass for bearings. There wasn't any doubt.
What had once been a sizable city had totally disappeared.
"Nukes," said J.B. tersely, his sallow face showing no emotion.
"Yeah," agreed Ryan Cawdor. "Nukes. Must have wasted all round here, hot-spotted it, triggering quakes, or mebbe volcanoes. That's a big crater out there." He pointed to the east, where a smudge of smoke showed against the pale sky.
"Crater," said Doc Tanner. "Why should that ring a distant bell? I fear me I do not remember."
"Quakes dropped the cliffs in the sea. Up came the sea, and there Anchorage went."
The wind was so strong that it was blowing a waterfall that flowed over the cliffs back into a rainbow arch over their heads, drenching them. It wasn't a place to hang around, with some particularly vicious gulls gathering and swooping.
"You could throw out those fuckin' maps," said Okie. "The whole fuckin' place is changed."
"Mebbe not away from the coast. There's another big town shown, Fairbanks. We'll make for that."
After only six or seven miles of uneven driving, Ryan slowed, waiting for the others to come alongside. Not bothering with the radio, he stuck his head through a side ob slit and shouted, "Somethin' ahead. See 'em?"
In a shallow valley almost on the flanks of the high mountain was a huddle of buildings. Some of them looked desolate and ruined. Among the buildings stood a small group of about a dozen people, shrouded in dark clothing.
"They seen us," shouted Hennings, his black face almost invisible within the wrappings of clothing he wore against the bitter cold.
"Fingers on triggers," warned J.B. "Remember the Keeper. Let's go."
Oddly, none of the waiting group moved as the buggies came grinding closer, kicking up a spray of snow and ice behind them. In each buggy someone in the top bubble was manning the light machine gun, covering the strangers. At a signal from Ryan, the vehicles stopped about thirty paces from the watchers.
An extremely tall man, his face exposed to the elements, strode toward them, his hand raised in the universal sign of peace.
Ryan noticed the dark crucifix on the wall behind the man, recognizing it as a symbol of the old religion. Over years of traveling with the Trader they'd come across a few ruined churches, but they'd never been of any interest and obviously held nothing of real value, like food or blasters.
"Cut the engines down to idle," he ordered, using the radio. "These people don't look dangerous — they're mainly women, and I can't see anyone in the huts — but keep alert."
"Welcome," called the emaciated man. "Welcome in the name of the Dark Lord."
"Is that a baron?" asked Krysty. Ryan shook his head.
"If you come in peace, we will share with you what little we have. As we are all gathered here at the river by the throne of our Lord, we welcome you. Step down from your wagons."
Ryan flicked the switch on the speaker. "You got blasters?"
"Weapons are an abomination against our beliefs. We carry clean steel and that is all."
Ryan looked at Krysty, who shrugged. "I don't know, lover. We need some local knowledge. Do you think mebbe they can help?"
He nodded. "I'm goin' out. If there's no trouble, then you come. Tell J.B. and his team to follow, then Henn and his team last of all. All right?"
"Sure."
Ryan opened the hydraulic door, stepping out on the snow, holding his new G-12 caseless automatic rifle casually at the ready. "My name is Ryan Cawdor," he said. "These are my friends." The sweep of his arm took in the buggies and their occupants.
"My name is Apostle Ezekiel Herne, and these are the sisters and brothers of the Church of the Dark Lord Waiting. We have dwelled here in this field of blood for many years now, coming together from all over Laska."
Ryan looked around, beckoning Krysty to follow him. The sight of the tall girl with her tumbling mane of brilliant red hair brought chattering from the women. Their talk was quelled by an angry glare from their skinny priest.
"This is Krysty Wroth," he said. Then, as the occupants of the second buggy emerged, he continued, "The guy in the battered hat there is J.B. Dix, and the fat man's Finnegan. The lady with hair like straw is called Lori."
"What is straw, Brother Cawdor?" asked Herne.
"Let us pass, friend," replied Ryan, waving to the occupants of the third buggy to come out. They followed his lead, all of them hefting blasters ostentatiously, ready for action.
"The old-timer is called Doctor Theophilus Tanner, and the lady's name is Okie."
The black man was last out, holding his gray Heckler & Koch 54A submachine gun with its built-in silencer. As he stepped down he threw off his thermal hood, showing his face and his mass of cropped, curly hair.
The effect of Hennings's appearance was amazing. Everyone except for Herne gave a great cry of terror and exultation and fell immediately to their knees, prostrating themselves on the barren stones, moaning and shouting. Ryan and his party dropped into defensive positions, fingers tight on triggers, eyes flicking nervously. A single wrong move, and all of Herne's group would be iced.
The priest himself stood still, trembling and shaking, hands clutched together in front of him, his long bony fingers tangling like a nest of worms. His voice shook when he finally spoke.
"Lord, Lord, you have come. As it was foretold in the great books of defense and survival, you walk again among us."
"Lead us to salvation, Dark Lord," screamed one of the women, scrabbling forward on hands and knees toward the black man, who nervously backed away from her. But she seized him by the ankles and pressed her chapped lips to the steel toe cap of one of his polished black combat boots. Licking the gleaming leather, she writhed in ecstasy.
"Get this fuckin' gaudy slut away from me, Ryan," said Hennings, raising his blaster as if to crack it into the woman's skull.
"Oh, Lord," called Herne. "It is said that a man such as you would one day come to us. All our prayers and teachin' is for that."
"What does he mean, a man like me?" asked Henn.
The priest answered, pointing to the nuke-blackened Christ upon the tumbled wall. "There is our tortured messiah. Never in our lives has such a man been seen."
"I knew it, Henn," cackled Finn.
"What, stupe?"
"One day it'd be good news havin' a black man ridin' as my shotgun. Now it's come. These sons of bitches fuckin' worship you, Henn."
* * *
"It's true, J.B.," said Ryan, as they ate the last of the turnip stew and meat. None of them knew what the meat was, and nobody wanted to ask.
"Henn a god, just 'cos he's black. I don't believe it, Ryan."
Ezekiel Herne had led them to the largest hut, and had ordered two women to feed them and arrange their bedding. Ryan had made sure that the three buggies were locked and that small contact mines were placed and primed. He also made sure that the community knew it, so no one would tamper with the vehicles.
Hennings had been taken into another room and fed on his own. He'd protested strongly until Ryan pointed out that these people were ready to worship him, and if that meant free food and some guidance around the country, then being a god for a few hours wasn't such a bad thing.
After they'd eaten, the cadaverous priest came to them, sat crosslegged on the floor beside Ryan and grinned at him with the worst set of rotten teeth that Ryan had ever seen.
"You have brought such happiness to us here, my friend. You are blessed to be the brothers and sisters of the Dark Lord. Is there anything we can do for you?"
"Sure," said J.B. "Tell us, what happened to Anchorage? And tell us also, are there any sizable town
s round here?"
Herne's brow furrowed. "Towns are the abomination of the blessed, my friend. Ank Ridge, as we call it, was the Sodom of this barren desert. The seas rose and those monsters that dwell in the deeps came and washed away all evil. There are no towns left in all the world, friend. It is better so."
"No other villes? No small villages?"
"Nothin', my friend. There is the snow and the ice, both good things. A wind upon the mount. Who would wish to die, my friend? Not while the Dark Lord is here."
"What do you think Henn is goin' to do for you?" asked Okie.
"Henn, as you call him, is the chosen one, the awaited one, the one whose comin' will make all right. As the books say, the sheaves shall be harvested and bound, the chaff shall be winnowed, the blood shall give life."
"Blood, Reverend?" asked Doc quickly. "What blood?"
Herne stood up, knee joints cracking. "All will be seen, friends, tomorrow at dawn, when we gather to worship him as he shall be ordained."
"Is Henn goin' to be sleepin' in here?" asked Finn.
"No." Herne's gentle smile sent shivers up Ryan's spine. "The sisters wish the honor of fucking the Dark Lord. He will sleep little, as the plow sleeps not in the furrow."
Okie sniffed and spat, then went to one of the low truckle beds and sat down. The priest watched her, then moved to the door.
"We shall see you all on the morrow. One of the sisters will bring in a bowl of punch for you to drink your fill. It will aid you at sleeping."
He left, banging the heavy door shut behind him. Finn giggled. "That lucky son of a bitch bastard, Henn. Gettin' all that for free."
A great crock of drink was brought in and set on a table by one of the younger women. She was wrapped in black cloth from head to toe, and her face was veiled so that only her brown eyes shone from under the cowl. Finn tried to get her to talk, but she lowered her head and ignored him, leaving quickly.
"Can't wait to get back to her Dark Lord," Finn said, ruefully.
They tried the punch. Ryan wrinkled his mouth at the taste. It was flavored with herbs and obviously was strongly alcoholic. But as he rolled it cautiously around his mouth, he detected a strange, bitter aftertaste. He spat it out on the earthen floor.
