“Learn well,” Jak echoed, before adding, “but no mate here, so mebbe we look for them on own?”
Ryan assented. “It’s a fair bet that rad-blasted fuckers like that are loners. And bide well,” he added.
“Something to look out for,” Gloria agreed. She turned to them, her icy blue eyes now clouded over with an infinite sadness. “But first we take Jess back to the Gate. We have to say goodbye to a warrior, bid her farewell.”
Without comment, Jak lifted Jess’s remains in his arms, marveling at how light she now was, and carried her back to the tribe, walking between Gloria and Ryan.
THE CEREMONY WAS simple. While Ryan and his companions stood back, the men of the tribe constructed a funeral pyre for Jess, clearing ample space lest the pyre cause a forest fire. While they did this, the Amazons laid the chilled corpse of their fellow warrior on the ground. They chanted around her, a wordless wail of anguish for a fellow lost, and a celebration of a life laid down for others.
When the pyre was ready, they carried her to it and laid her on top. The pyre was sprinkled with some of the precious oil and gasoline they carried with them, and Gloria set light to it. Then they chanted more, a rising crescendo in the late afternoon, speaking in tongues of a soul now set free from the Deathlands to soar, a farewell from those left behind to carry on.
The fire burned swiftly, and they waited until it began to die. It was extinguished by the men of the tribe, and the last remains of Jess were buried the next morning, a temporary camp being set up on the spot for the night, so that a vigil could be maintained over the cooling pyre. And so they moved on…
THERE WERE no other disturbances from the outside for the next few days of the journey. Gloria gathered her scouts and warned them of what she, Ryan and Jak had seen when they recovered Jess’s chilled corpse, and the outriders of the Gate were on triple-red alert for more of the mutie bears or for any other danger that might be lurking. But it would seem that the mutie that had chilled Jess was a loner, perhaps long since departed from its pack, or even just the sole survivor. Certainly, from the state of the stinking carcass, which they had moved before starting the funeral ceremony for Jess, it had been decomposing slowly while still alive.
The only danger seemed to come from within the tribe, and was directed at Jak. Three times he was nearly injured or chilled during the following few days, and each time he was pretty sure he knew where the attack came from, although each time his “accidental” assailant avoided detection.
The first attempt to chill the albino came on the day after Jess’s remains were buried. It was while the outriders for the day practiced with their blades, target throwing. Jak stood by, watching the different throwing techniques with interest. Tammy turned to him.
“Jak, take a turn,” she yelled.
Unable to resist the challenge, the albino came forward, scarred visage already set hard in concentration.
Palming three of his leaf-bladed knives, he threw quickly and with an instinctive accuracy, taking out one of the machetes that rested near the center of their makeshift target by deflecting the first blade off the handle with enough force to dislodge it, and landing the next two in the dead center of the target.
“Wow,” Tammy breathed, “you’ll have to teach me that!”
Jak allowed himself a smile as he loped forward to remove his knives and pick up the first blade and the machete as they lay on the ground. It was fortunate that he bent at the moment he did, as a blade thudded into the target only inches above his head.
The albino whirled, his eyes flashing and a knife already in hand. He was confronted by the group of Amazon outriders, all as perplexed as himself, looking around for who had thrown the knife.
He was sure he could see a blond head at the back of the crowd, moving away.