“Should we hit the beach?” Dean asked. “Easier walking.”
Jak answered, “They know coming. But not which way.”
“Gotcha.”
Tall palm trees laden with green coconuts festooned the sky, and the lower trees were heavy with breadfruit. No starvation here. The greenery stopped abruptly and Ryan found himself standing on the edge of a twenty-foot drop. At the bottom was a flat plain that stretched into the distance only to rise into jungle again after fifty or so yards. A thin creek flowed down the middle, some small birds drinking from the stream. Just around the bend on the other side, they could see the top of the wall around the ville. J.B. unfolded his telescope and gave it a once over. Odd, no sign of guards.
“Riverbed,” Jak identified.
Doc beamed a smile, flashing his perfect teeth. “Ah, a most excellent location for a ville. The sea for fish, and the river brings freshwater to your door.”
“Dumb,” the teen corrected. “Coldhearts attack, only escape has no cover. Easy chilling.”
“Dark night,” J.B. muttered. “From the lighthouse, I thought the wall had iron plate bolted to the outside, but that’s wrong. It’s made of cargo containers stacked on top each other.”
Pushing some leaves aside, Ryan took a look through the scope. Damn, the man was right. A wall of cargo containers. The Deathlands warrior had encountered them before in the ruins of dockyards, just never this many of them all at once. There had to be a hundred of them in the wall.
The containers were always exactly the same, ten feet high, twenty feet wide, thirty feet long. According to Mildred, folks would pack them with whatever, and then load the containers on ships. That kept things fast and easy, with no juggling around in the hold of the vessel to try to fit one more item. Modular—that was the word she used. Like bullets in a blaster.
“Damn good wall,” Krysty said, passing the longeyes to somebody else. “Just stack two of the containers on top of each other and repeat. Could fill them with sand if you wanted, and no pirate cannon ever made would breach that wall.”
“You wouldn’t have to fill them,” Mildred said slowly, “if they were already packed. These boxes are air- and watertight. Sometimes they were welded shut if the cargo was valuable. If they haven’t been opened, the wealth of the old world is sitting right there, ready to be found.”
“Could be filled with anything,” J.B. said, compacting the longeyes and tucking the device away in his pack. He glanced at the others. “Wonder if the local baron knows this?”
“Let’s find out,” Ryan said, and started forward along the edge of the riverbank.
Reaching the beach once more, they headed for the ville, walking in the open with hands on their blasters, but no weapons drawn. They didn’t want to appear hostile and start a fight, or walk naked into a slaver camp. If possible, they would trade the two M-16 rapidfires they had with them for that purpose, or the secret of the cargo containers, for a ship, and leave without incident. Spilled blood would only make cutting a deal with the sec men that much tougher.
As Ryan rounded the bend and the ville came full into view, the first thing he noticed was the ruined dockyard. The smashed hulls of burned ships and rowboats lined the crude wooden docks, tiny birds pecking at the bodies sprawled everywhere. Not a soul could be seen moving about in the dock, or on the top of the wall. No guards were in sight, and no alarm bells rang at the approach of outlanders.
“I don’t like this,” Mildred said, drawing her piece and thumbing back the hammer. A wave crashed on the rock formations along the beach, spraying the woman with salt water, and she moved away from the shore.
“This could be Spider Island all over again,” Krysty said, her hair flaring outward.
Jacking the slide on his semiautomatic pistol, Dean concentrated on the ocean. No ships of any kind were in sight at the moment. But that didn’t mean a pirate ship, or one of those damn steam-powered PT boats wouldn’t appear at any moment with blasters blazing.