Chapter Seven

 

 

They followed the continuation of the trail. It ran roughly west, picking up on the far side of the pool where the two natives had been hiding.

 

Ryan led the skirmish line, spaced out at about five yard intervals, with J.B., as usual, bringing up the rear of the small column.

 

The overwhelming humidity had mercifully eased, helped by the freshening easterly breeze that rustled the topmost branches of the mighty trees. Though they saw little of it, Ryan was aware of the profusion of wildlife that moved unseen through the forest around them.

 

A couple of times he spotted monkeys swinging noisily among the dangling fronds of liana, and once a deer crashed out across the trail, pausing to stare haughtily in the direction of the human invaders. It would have been absurdly simple to put the handsome animal down with a single bullet, and Ryan made the first instinctive move to shoot.

 

But he held back, partly to avoid the sound of a shot ringing through the trees. Partly because, as he'd said to Dean, there seemed to be more than enough fruit around to hold off starvation forever and a day.

 

The trail was well trodden, wide enough for a wag in most places, running over mainly level ground. Every now and again it was crossed by narrower side tracks that he guessed were probably for hunters.

 

"Trees thinning out some," said Krysty, immediately on his heels.

 

"Yeah. Seem to be moving steadily downhill. Could be heading toward a river."

 

He held up a hand, stopping and looking around him. Krysty was right. The giant forest of a couple of miles back had diminished, and they had just passed through several clearings.

 

"Look at that bird, Dad," Dean called, pointing up into a circle of blue sky.

 

Ryan squinted into the brightness. "Eagle of some kind."

 

"I believe that the bird in question is most likely to be a giant condor," Doc offered. "It was always a splendid bird, but that specimen seems unusually large."

 

Ryan's guess put the wingspan at thirty feet. The bird was circling lazily, riding a thermal, its keen eyes scanning the green carpet below for some sign of edible life. It had noticed the seven two-legs, attracted initially by the blaze of white that was Jak Lauren, but had rejected them from experience, knowing they would fight back too hard.

 

"What's that?" J.B. asked, pointing with the muzzle of the Uzi along a transverse trail that cut in from the right. "Some kind of statue?"

 

They all walked the hundred yards or so to examine it.

 

It was obviously extremely old, dating back to well before skydark. The stone of the double columns was deeply carved, but time had worn away the sharp, clean edges, blurring the design.

 

"Dragons?" Mildred suggested.

 

Doc peered closely at them, shaking his head. "No. I think not. I believe that they are the famous plumed serpents that typify the culture of the old Aztecs. See that they stand ten feet tall and have their jaws gaping open?"

 

"Oh, yeah." Jak sniffed. "What got in mouths?"

 

"Skulls, I believe," Doc replied. "Representations of human skulls. But moss has grown over them, and it's a little difficult to make out."

 

Mildred was on tiptoe, staring at them. "My guess is that they aren't carved skulls, Doc."

 

"But the eye sockets and the teeth that Oh, by the Three Kennedys! I take your meaning, Dr. Wyeth. They aren't carved skulls at all. They are real human skulls."

 

Ryan was more interested in what lay scattered around the base of the two pillars of stone.

 

There were bunches of flowers, already faded and dull, a large earthenware dish of fruits, mostly rotted, gnawed by predators, and the ragged carcass of what had probably been a large pig.

 

"Sacrifices?" he asked.

 

"The Aztecs were very fond of all manner of sacrifices," Doc pronounced, gripping the lapels of his frock coat as though he were about to deliver a lecture. "Their religion was totally dependent on them. In fact, it was not just fruit or animals that their blood-eyed gods demanded as visible tokens of their devotion and love. They were a deal more famous for their barbaric"

 

"Hold it, Doc," Ryan said, lifting a warning hand. "Think we might be close to company."

 

His attention had first been drawn by the cessation of the background noises of the jungle, the cheeping of insects and the fluid songs of the brilliantly hued birds. The forest had become unaccountably quiet, and even the fluorescent clouds of butterflies had vanished.

 

Then his acute hearing had detected other noises, faint and distant but coming closer a sound like the cracking of a whip, someone crying out in pain or anger, laughter, coarse and brutish, and a strange metallic tinkling.

 

"Take cover," he said.

 

"Here or on the main trail?" the Armorer asked. "Be good to see what's coming. Wouldn't see nothing from back here."

 

"Wouldn't see anything ," Mildred corrected, but J.B. took no notice.

 

"Yeah. Undergrowth's thick enough to keep us well hidden." Ryan glanced around. "Everyone stay still."

 

He ran back onto the main trail, pausing to check that nobody was in sight. But the trail curved in the direction of the noises, making it impossible to see more than about eighty yards ahead. Ryan eased himself quickly into the bushes, picking one that was covered in bright orange trumpet-shaped flowers that had a bittersweet perfume.

 

The others rapidly followed his lead, hiding on both sides of the trodden path, vanishing instantly into the banks of green vegetation.

 

The only sound was a muffled oath from Doc as he found himself uncomfortably close to a colony of red ants. He moved sideways a few yards, rustling the bushes until he found somewhere more amendable.

 

Now it was easier to identify the approaching sounds.

 

It was undoubtedly a whipseveral whipssnapping against naked flesh. And the voices reflected pain, not anger. The bursts of laughter were brutish, and the metallic tinkling was almost certainly the noise of steel chains.

 

All of which combined to point in only one direction.

 

"Slavers," Ryan breathed.

 

 

 

THERE WERE A DOZEN or so of them, sallow faced, with a look that was partly Mex and partly something else.

 

They were a ragged bunch, dressed mainly in cotton shirts and pants, stained with sweat. All had either rifles slung over shoulders or handblasters tucked into belts. The common factor in their faces was coarseness. Most had drooping mustaches, and a few had straggling beards. Their eyes were hard and dark, puffed around the rims like those of habitual drinkers.

 

The leader rode astride a lame burro, smoking a thin cigar. He wore a battered panama hat with a ribbon of red and yellow knotted around it.

 

By the time he had ridden slowly past Ryan, it was possible to make out the victimsthe slaves, for Ryan's guess was obviously correct.

 

They looked identical to the natives that Ryan and the others had already seen. He counted twenty-four nine men, eleven women and four children. All of the children were female, looking to be prepubescent.

 

The entire group was completely naked, and all of them showed bleeding welts from the short, viciously plaited whips of their captors.

 

Ryan noticed that most of the prisoners had long arms and broad feet. None of the men had any facial hair at all, though their torn and bleeding ears showed where the ornamental rings had been torn out.

 

The other thing that caught Ryan's eye was the amount of tattooing that was visible on the natives, mostly on the men, clusters of raised blue-and-purple patterns across legs and body and face.

 

The chains were fastened around the left ankle of each prisoner, meaning that they were forced to shuffle in a clumsy march to avoid tripping one another.

 

They looked to be thoroughly cowed and resigned to their fate, heads lowered, occasionally crying out at a particularly vicious cut from one of the whips.

 

Ryan peeked through the fringe of dark green leaves, looking back down the trail. At the tail end of the column, to his disquiet, he spotted a pair of the slavers walking together, with four dogs on leashes. The animals were slavering brutes with underslung jaws and the red eyes of killers.

 

They were tugging ahead, snarling at the heels of the last of the line of slaves.

 

Ryan tried to ease himself back into the undergrowth, praying that the overwhelming scent of the colorful flowers covered his own smell and hid it from the hounds. In his right hand, the SIG-Sauer was already cocked, his index finger resting lightly inside the trigger guard.

 

Now most of the sorry column had trudged by. Not one of the natives had lifted his or her head to look at the surrounding brush, and none of the guards seemed to be bothering with checking against a possible ambush.

 

Slavery was endemic in some parts of Deathlands, generally where there was some sort of crude manufacturing or processing plant set up, or where old mines were being reopened and reworked. In all those cases, the work involved was bitter and arduous, and it simply wasn't possible to attract paid workers.

 

So the barons and owners used slaves.

 

Over the years Ryan had encountered slavery on several occasions. Trader's rule in life was not to interfere unless there was some good reasongenerally commercialto justify it. For the miserable victims, condemned to dwell at the very bottom of the poverty heap, slavery was a way of life. If you tried to combat it and free a few poor wretches, then others would be taken and the circle would remain unbroken.

 

The only way of stopping it was to totally wipe out the slavers themselves, and there wasn't often much profit in trying to do that.

 

One of the young girls stumbled and fell, dragging down the next two in line.

 

For a moment there was chaos, with screaming and yelling and dogs barking. Whips raised and fell, cracking into defenseless flesh. The fattest of the slavers grabbed the girl and heaved her to her feet, slapping her hard across the face to teach her a lesson to be more careful.

 

"Don't spoil the merchandise," called the man on the burro's back.

 

"Stupe bitch went down on purpose," the angry man replied. "I'll show her to be trouble, tonight."

 

"No, you won't, Manuel. Not unless I say so."

 

There was a clear note of warning in the voice, and Manuel let the girl go, snatching a chance to brush the flat of his hand over her budding breasts, making her wince more than the slap had. "Sure, boss," he called out.

 

Ryan frowned, wondering about the accent. They spoke reasonable American, but there was a heavy guttural accent to it that he couldn't place.

 

Now the prisoners were almost past him.

 

Ryan felt movement and looked down, seeing that a tiny lizard, vermilion in color, was industriously climbing over the toe of one of his combat boots.

 

He noticed that it had a triple row of needle-sharp teeth, and it was trying to gnaw its way through the toughened leather. Moving with infinite slowness, Ryan hefted the two pounds of cold metal that was the SIG-Sauer P-226 and brought it down firmly on the back of the reptile's skull, cracking its head open in a puddle of gray-pink brains, sending it toppling lifelessly into the leaf mold that lay all around.

 

The dogs were level with him when he risked a glance through the fringe of leaves, and one of them, a brindled brute with scarred flanks, was heaving on the leash, as though it had managed to scent him.

 

But the guard took no notice, cursing at it and tugging savagely at the spiked choke collar.

 

"Come on, Diablo, you piece of shit! Walk on, will you."

 

He kicked at the dog, which turned and snarled at him, showing its teeth.

 

Ryan crouched lower, part of his attention fixed on the death throes of the little lizard, which was on its back, legs jerking convulsively, a thin trickle of green blood seeping from between the pointed teeth.

 

The column of slavers and their victims had almost gone, moving safely along toward the east, passing unsuspectingly by Ryan and the others.

 

Ryan relaxed his grip on the blaster, ready to ease down the hammer, when Dean leapt from the undergrowth immediately opposite him, yelling at the top of his voice.