Chapter Twelve

 

 

"What?" Krysty's response would have shattered a plate-glass window at fifty paces.

 

"It is our way."

 

J.B. winked at Ryan. "Sounds like a good way to me. What do the rest of you reckon?"

 

"Dean's too young," Ryan said straight-faced. "Much too young."

 

"And Doc's likely too old," the Armorer added. "Be wasted on him."

 

"Oh, no it would not, John Barrymore Dix! There may be snow upon the roof, but there is a positive inferno still capable of blazing in the hearth."

 

"How about me?" Jak said. "I'm the god, so I get first picking."

 

"I don't believe this." Mildred stamped her foot. "How can you guys possibly?" Then she caught the smirk that passed between Ryan and J.B. "Oh, I get it. You bastards!"

 

The chief had watched the byplay, looking puzzled, trying to work out what it was that the Anglos were saying. He finally sensed that some kind of a joke or a trick was being played, and he started to laugh.

 

"You men say you want our women, but your women say not," he spluttered. "But you not want them." The broad smile vanished as quickly as it had been born. "Why it is that you not want our women?"

 

"No reason. Just that where we come from"

 

"The dark land of death?"

 

"No." Ryan hesitated. "Well, yeah. Back there we pick our own women."

 

 

 

DEAN FELL ASLEEP QUICKLY on the grass-filled mattress in the far corner of the kitchen. He'd dragged it there without anything being said. Though there wasn't even a curtain between the two parts of the house, he gave Krysty and his father a semblance of privacy and modesty.

 

They lay together, Ryan having done no more than take off his heavy combat boots. He had suggested to the rest of the friends that they take care sleeping, not post a watch, but not get undressed, in case something roused them fast in the middle of the night. And they were to keep their blasters close to hand.

 

He reached out and put his arm around Krysty, feeling for the warm swell of her breast. But she eased away from him. "Told you, lover. Wrong time of month."

 

"Tomorrow?"

 

"Likely."

 

"Be nice."

 

He could almost feel her grinning in the smoky darkness. "Sure it would. If you want it real bad, lover, then I'd be happy to slide down and give you"

 

"No. Not tonight. Too one-sided. Like it to be two-sided."

 

She sat up and patted him on the cheek. "Hey, not bad. Not bad for you, lover."

 

Outside, the village was falling into sleep.

 

Itzcoatl had told them that the warriors always kept a watch, though they didn't expect the slavers to run at them again for at least another month. That had become the pattern of their savage raids. But there was always the threat from the Jaguar people, out there in the blackness of the forest.

 

The dogs of the settlement had quieted, and the only sound was a baby crying in a nearby hut, a noise that quickly faded away into stillness.

 

Then there was only the jungle.

 

 

 

RYAN AWAKENED ONCE in the night. He could hear the regular sound of Krysty's breathing at his side and Dean carrying on a mumbled conversation with himself, still locked deep in sleep.

 

The fire had crumbled into itself, leaving only a pile of white ash, speckled with tiny glowing embers. Through the beaded curtain that was the front door to the hut, Ryan could see that it was a brilliant, moonlit night, throwing sharp shadows across the dirt floor.

 

Outside, there were the ceaseless night sounds of the tropical forest, insects chittering and hunting birds crying out, the occasional barking snarl of some larger predator.

 

Ryan wondered what had awakened him. There was slight pressure on his bladder from the octli that he'd drunk. The surprisingly potent liquor had also given him a sick headache, with pressure behind his good eye.

 

He decided to go and take a leak. It didn't seem a good idea to wander off and risk being shot by one of the guards. Ryan had noticed that some of the natives carried small leather pouches with rawhide thongs attachedstone-throwing slings. As well as the archaic blasters, they had bows with long arrows, and a few had blowpipes slung across their shoulders. Any of them could strike him down from the darkness unless he stepped carefully,

 

He walked to the rear of the hut, looking out past two more buildings, seeing the surrounding fence through the gap. There was no sign of any of the sentries.

 

Ryan felt the short hairs begin to prickle at his nape, and he padded back to the sleeping room and picked up both the SIG-Sauer and the panga, bolstering one and carefully sheathing the other.

 

He stepped down into the open space, his head turning from side to side, suddenly realizing what had disturbed him. The background of noise from the trees beyond the fence had ceased and the night was unnervingly still.

 

It crossed his mind to go back and wake Krysty, to stir the others from sleep and go out to see if there was anything wrong.

 

But there was always that moment of serious doubt that everything was fine, and he would have roused J.B. and the others for no good reason.

 

And he was already outside, breathing in the rich night air.

 

Ryan moved with infinite caution, picking his way between the houses toward the fence. His shadow preceded him, etched on the cropped grass of the compound.

 

When he reached the perimeter he stopped for a moment, puzzled that he hadn't yet seen any of the sentries or been seen by one of them.

 

His hand had been hovering over the butt of the blaster, but now he relaxed a little. He unbuttoned himself and started to piss against the high fence, playing the amber jet back and forth, watching as it trickled down the smooth-barked logs, soaking into the turf.

 

He buttoned up his pants again and started to turn away from the fence, when two things happened.

 

His eye caught a glimpse of a pair of naked feet sticking out from the deep shadow of the nearest building. Someone was either sleeping there, or something had gone very seriously wrong in the village.

 

Before his mind had taken a vital second or so to try to rationalize what he'd seen, Ryan was dealt a crunching blow across the throat.

 

He hadn't seen it coming until the last fraction of a moment and didn't have time to parry it successfully. He managed to get up his right hand to slightly deflect and dull the force of the hit, and if he hadn't, then he would certainly have been killed.

 

Ryan staggered two steps away and slumped to his knees, all of his fighting instinct rallying to stop him going down into the darkness.

 

The man who'd attacked him was an etched silhouette, holding a long club shaped like a baseball bat. He was certainly a native, but wore a necklace of teeth and claws from some kind of forest predator.

 

A jaguar, Ryan thought as the club started to whistle down toward him for a second, killing blow.

 

He ducked and rolled, trying to yell out a warning to the village, but his vocal cords had been damaged by the attack and all that came out was a strangled whisper.

 

The club hit the turf, inches from his skull.

 

There wasn't time to stand and try to draw either the panga or the SIG-Sauer. Any attempt would have opened him up to a terminal blow from the native.

 

If you couldn't get safe away, then try to get in close. Trader's advice for intimate combat situations was always valid, and Ryan followed it instinctively.

 

Even though he was still hovering on the right side of consciousness, he powered himself up from hands and knees and ducked inside the third swing of the club, taking a glancing blow into the ribs that made him gasp.

 

He grappled with the man, his fingers slipping on the oiled skin, immediately aware that his opponent was nearly as tall as he was, and felt, at first contact, at least as strong.

 

The native grunted something, dropping his useless club, trying to knee Ryan in the groin. A half turn parried it with his thigh, but there was a jar of pain.

 

Ryan tried to grab at his enemy's genitals, but the man was quicker, moving sideways and drawing him off-balance, his own hands reaching up for a stranglehold.

 

To negate that attack, Ryan pressed himself closer, pushing his face against the native's neck, sliding upward and managing to get his arms around the barrel chest. Both men were soaked in sweat, panting hard with the desperate effort of trying to kill without being killed.

 

Ryan could hardly breathe through his damaged throat, was unable to cry out. He tried to bite the man's muscular neck, but the heavy coating of grease defeated him.

 

The bitten nails on his adversary's stubby fingers were digging into his own neck, clamping off what remained of his breath. The man dipped, trying to lift Ryan off his feet, but the Anglo's slightly greater height defeated him.

 

The necklace of claws and teeth was digging into Ryan's cheek, and he could feel blood trickling down his face.

 

It occurred to him, like a shock of Sierra melt-water, that this nameless native from a stinking little village in the middle of nowhere was going to chill him.

 

They struggled face-to-face, Ryan not daring to relax his grip on the man's body.

 

The moonlight was stark enough to show the flat features in sharpest detail, the patterned tattoo across the forehead and the streaks of black paint smeared over each cheek, and the eyes. The dark slits showed no emotion, no hatred or anger, and stared incuriously back at Ryan.

 

Acting on a primitive, atavistic impulse, Ryan opened his mouth, pressed his lips against the bony cavern of the socket and sucked as hard as be could.

 

For a moment he thought that there couldn't possibly be enough suction.

 

But there was.

 

He felt the eye move, quivering with uncertain life, and the grip on his throat relaxed for a moment.

 

Ryan sucked harder, pushing his face in closer, the muscles in his neck and shoulders like cords, his jaw aching with the unbelievable pressure.

 

Once more he felt the slippery orb move, feeling moisture flood between his lips, the eye sliding from the socket like a boiled egg, entering his mouth.

 

The hands fell away from Ryan's throat, and he drew in a shuddering gasp of air, pushing the native away and spitting out the eye, where it dangled on the native's cheek.

 

The man opened his mouth and began to scream in mind-blanking horror at what had been done to him. His vision was shot. One eye showed the moonlit fence and the powerful figure of the Anglo, the other a swinging, confused picture of the grass and his own staggering feet.

 

Ryan gave a sickened groan, spitting to try to clear the bitter taste from his mouth. But while he took a couple of stumbling steps away, he reached for the cold butt of the 9 mm blaster, leveled it and squeezed the trigger.

 

The old baffle silencer had been through some hard times, and it didn't do much to muffle the sharp crack of the explosion. Ryan felt the jolt run up his arm, past the elbow to the shoulder, the muzzle of the SIG-Sauer jerking upward.

 

But the bullet had already done its job, hitting the screaming native through the center of the chest, blowing his lungs apart, exiting and taking the splintered shards of four spinal vertebrae with it.

 

The agonized cry of horror was choked off and the dying man tottered backward, hitting the fence and sliding down, leaving a slick, snaillike trail of blood, sable black in the unforgiving moonlight.

 

As he fell, the extruded eye dangled on the painted cheek, swinging back and forth like a young child's toy, connected to the skull by a narrow strand of nerves and muscle.

 

Ryan looked down, holding the smoking automatic. His left hand reached up and unconsciously touched the patch over his own missing left eye.

 

"You get used to it," he said softly.

 

 

 

THE SCREAM AND THE SHOT roused the entire village.

 

Within a handful of seconds, Ryan had Jak, J.B. and Krysty at his side, all carrying drawn blasters.

 

"Attack?" the Armorer asked. "Saw dead man under the hut there as I came to Dark night!" He'd spotted the monocular corpse lying crumpled by the tall fence. The eye was still swinging gently from side to side. The necklace of claws and teeth glinted white.

 

Krysty touched Ryan by the arm. "You're shaking, lover." She lifted her face to kiss him on the lips, her eyes showing hurt when he pulled away from her.

 

"Tell you later," he said.

 

The warriors of the village poured from their huts, carrying a rich variety of weapons, muttering to one another when they saw what the tall outlander had done to one of their most bitter enemies, the manner of the Jaguar man's passing.

 

 

 

ITZCOATL arrived at the hut, where Ryan was sitting with the others, telling them what had happened.

 

"There were four of them," the chief said. "Come from the lakeside on logs that What is word?"

 

"Drifted?" Doc suggested.

 

"Yes. Drifting logs. We think one guard slept. But his wife's sister's youngest son was taken by the Jaguar people two moons ago. Perhaps he was leaned on to help."

 

"You catch them all?"

 

The chief shook his head, the necklace of small feathers around his neck rustling softly. "You wasted one. We took two alive, but wounded. One escaped into the woods. Perhaps they will learn we have a god and his friends now fighting with us and not come again." He didn't sound convinced. "Perhaps."

 

"How many dead you got?" J.B. asked. "Saw the one under the hut."

 

Itzcoatl brightened. "This is good news of good news and bad news. Two of my people have gone to help the rains fall and the winds blow and the wheat rise and become gold. They lost more than we lost."

 

Ryan nodded. "Right glad to hear it. Yeah, triple happy for you. Now I'd like to get back to sleep."

 

The native nodded and walked out of the hut. J.B., Doc, Mildred and Jak stood and followed him, leaving Ryan alone with Krysty and Dean.

 

"What?"

 

"How did you pull that stupe's eye out?"

 

"Go to sleep, son," Ryan said. "Just go to sleep."