James Axler – Deathlands

Itzcoatl was looking at him across the table. “I ask you a question?”

“Sure. Go ahead.”

“You have good firearms. Better than we have.”

“I guess so.”

“Better than men with whips and chains?”

“The slavers? From what we’ve seen I reckon we could give them a run in a firefight.”

“We have trouble with them.”

“Since when?”

The short question threw the native for a while, until he puzzled it out. “Since when not long time. Four moons. Maybe five moons.”

“Where do they come from?”

“From north. Across rivers and mountains. They have taken our people three times. Bad. Very bad. We have angered the gods to make this happen.”

He looked at Ryan as though it had been a question rather than a statement.

“Mebbe you have. More likely you’re just sort of unlucky. There’s slavers all over Deathlands.”

“Lands of death?”

“Deathlands. Name of where we come from.”

The native was on his feet, spilling his beaker of octli . His hand went to a small ornament on a cord around his neck. “You are from the land of death?”

He turned to his comrades around the table, his voice carrying to the people of the entire village, who were sitting quiet and patient in the shadows beyond the fires. He called out to them in their tongue.

From their reaction it was obvious he was telling them that the strangers in their midst were some kind of gods of death, bringers of death. Living dead?

Everyone cried out and Ryan could see the shuffling movement, hear their fear. The row of serving women also broke and edged away. One of the men at the table, wearing black, made a stabbing gesture at Ryan and Jak with his fingers, obviously trying to avert their evil eyes.

Ryan jumped to his feet, clapping his hands, causing a few more seconds of panic. He shouted to the villagers. “We are not dead men. We are not gods. We come from the land of living men, this side of the grave.”

He looked at the chief. “Tell them, damn it! Stop this stupe terror.”

Licking his lips nervously, Itzcoatl stammered out a version of that Ryan had said, calming the natives.

“Tell them that if we can help while we are here, then we’ll do what we can.”

After he’d translated that, the chief sat down again, beckoning urgently for more liquor. “There is not just the men with whips and chains.”

“No?”

“There is another village,” he said, pointing across the lake, “a half day from here. They have been at war with us for all the years in the world.”

“Why? I mean, why has the war been going on so long? How come one side or the other hasn’t won?”

The Indian shook his head sorrowfully. “Our numbers are always about the same as their village. And the gods are pleased with the blood spilled in the wars, with the gifts that we make to them. So we keep fighting. Now, the slavers have taken many from this village. Not from our enemies. We are becoming weak and may lose all.”

“You’d like us to stand the fight on your side against them? Is that it?”

“They are the Jaguar people. That is the nearest in our tongue to what you understand. The ferocious animal, holy to us. Like a cougar.”

“Sure, I know what a jaguar is, Itzcoatl.”

“It has been our plan, when the gods will permit it, to throw the bones and risk all and go against them. But the odds are very long.”

“And life is very short,” Doc added.

“Truth. Life is short. But to give it in battle means the gods will smile.”

Smoking Crest said something to the chief in their tongue. Itzcoatl looked around, considering the sky.

Ryan guessed what was going on. “Time is passing,” he said. “And we have journeyed long and fought hard.” He found himself slipping into the old-fashioned, stilted manner of speech of the chief of the tribe.

“You wish to go to the beds?”

“I think so. Was a good meal, Chief. Thanks for it. Talk again in the morning.”

Sitting cross-legged on the floor had been a strain, and Ryan winced as he stood, feeling any number of old wounds tugging at muscles, cartilage and tendons. He managed to steady himself without making it too obvious.