James Axler – Deathlands

Below him, the natives were chanting. Far, far below, and far, far away.

“DRUGGED OUT OF HIS DOME,” Mildred whispered. “Danger he could fall clear from top to bottom.”

“We got that covered,” Ryan said.

“Can’t I go around the back, as well?” Dean asked urgently. “Please?”

Ryan shook his head. “No. Stay here. Once the shit hits the fan, then it’s going to be triple action. Need all our blasters here.”

Krysty turned from the small gap in the bushes that had enabled her to watch the unfolding drama. “Nearly at the top,” she reported. “Another ten steps.”

Ryan brought the Steyr to chin level, settling the walnut stock into his shoulder, finger reaching for the trigger. He pressed his eye to the Starlite night scope, using the laser image enhancer to give him a clearer view of his target.

Jak’s shock of white hair filled the sight, and he adjusted upward a little to the figures on the flat apex of the pyramid, standing grouped together, all looking down at their young god. Ryan noticed that one of the black-clad priests, standing at the back, was a great deal taller than any of the others, looking to be close to six-three.

The same height as Doc Tanner.

ITZCOATL HAD TAKEN the center of the ceremony, as befitted his position as chief of the tribe. He stood between the two heaped fires, which waited only the application of a torch. Out of the corner of his eye he noted all the priests of the village, in a row.

He had come up the back of the monument, passing through the small hidden room where the high priests sometimes waited in their main rituals. It contained spare sets of robes in case too much blood was spilled.

After the prolonged giving of the outlander to the older gods, he and the priests would make their way to the back of the flat top, hidden by the pall of smoke from the fires. They would return to the ground down the rear steps of the pyramid, keeping elements of the mystery from the crowd of onlookers from the village.

JAK FINALLY STOOD ALONE, swaying slightly, with the priests circling him, none of them actually laying hands on his serene person.

The drug that they’d administered to him was beginning to wear off, but he still felt kitten weak, sick and dizzy.

One by one in the gathering darkness, the priests came to him and touched him on the heart with their fingers, each whispering an incantation to him.

None of it made any sense, as it was spoken in their guttural tongue.

Yet, oddly, two of the incantations did make sense to him, both coming near the end.

“Hang on, kid, we’ll have you out of here.”

It sounded like J.B., and Jak automatically started to respond. “Don’t call me” he began, when he realized that this was a part of the illness.

Until the last priest in line, an enormously tall man, also whispered to him in English.

“Avert your eyes from the fire, dear boy, lest you be blinded by it. And hold yourself ready.”

On top of the pyramid it was almost dark, and Jak strained to see why Doc’s voice was coming from a skull mask of jade and obsidian that topped a cloak of sable feathers.

“Let the fires be lit!” Itzcoatl’s voice rang out through the gloom.

The priest with the torch stooped and applied it to the two piles of dry branches, which instantly flared into crackling life, smoke curling into the evening sky.

Itzcoatl stood at the front of the platform, the other characters in the drama ranged around him. Out of the corner of his eye, Jak noticed that one of the priests had moved silently to both fires and pushed something into their hearts, something that looked like a couple of metallic tubes.

“HERE WE GO,” said Ryan.

There was no longer any need to whisper. The watching throng of natives was roaring out a rhythmic chant, hands raised, feet stamping, faces lifted toward the crowded top of the pyramid. Jak’s slight figure stood alone, the rising flames making his hair glow like living fire.