James Axler – Shadowfall

Ditchdown had come around to see if they were settling in. “Good to have outlanders with us,” he said. “Schickel’s sure goin’ to be impressed with those blasters.” Then he’d nodded to himself and moved on.

THE FIRST WARNING of the hunters returning was when all the dogs in the camp started to bark. The children and women came out of their primitive huts and tents, setting up an ululating cry that rang around the forest.

Krysty had tied back the front flap, trying to let in some fresher air to take away the mustiness. “Coming,” she said quietly.

The light was poised between day and night, with a ghostly mist creeping around the tops of the taller redwoods. There was no wind, the smoke from the cooking fires rising vertically into the still air, vanishing among the topmost branches of the trees. Ryan could see shadowy figures, a few on horseback, most walking toward the camp, some with muskets slung across shoulders. Several of the party had animal carcasses tied to poles. The light wasn’t all that good, but Ryan thought that all of them were deer. There was no sign of the mutie pigs.

“How many?” J.B. had joined him in the opening to their tent.

“Close to thirty. Looks like only two or three with serious blasters.”

“See an M-16, like Trader. And another of the AKs. Which one’s their chief?”

“Schickel?”

“Yeah. Probably the one on that big stallion. Fur coat, cross-belted.”

“Carrying a scattergun. Sawed-down. Just the sort of blaster you’d take on a hunting trip.”

The Armorer smiled at Ryan. “You and me never believed that story, did we?”

Mildred and Krysty were also watching, the entrance to the adjacent tent crowded with Trader and the others.

“Plenty of fresh meat, Dad,” Dean called.

“That boy certainly takes after his father, doesn’t he, Krysty?” Mildred said.

“You mean only thinking of his stomach?”

“Yeah.”

Krysty nodded. “You couldn’t be more right.”

THE MAIN MEAL DIDN’T quite measure up to the delicious bread they’d eaten earlier. But what it lacked in quality it more than made up in quantity.

The nine companions were seated at a low table, cross-legged on rush matting, with wooden dishes in front of each of them and small pitchers of beer standing at intervals. Ditchdown had gone to their tents to ask them to come and be seated, telling them that the hunt had been successful and that Schickel and some of the older men would join them once they’d washed.

Women of the tribe carried in the food, haunches of venison, slightly blackened on the outside, bloody when the knives penetrated them, and whole salmon, the skin glinting silver. The vegetables were overcookedpotatoes and carrots and black-eyed peas with a mess of refried beans.

“Do we start?” Dean asked, his mouth watering as the supper dishes stood steaming in front of him.

The scene was lighted by smoky torches tied to long staffs of wood jammed into the dirt.

“Wait for their leader,” Ryan ordered.

“Food getting cold,” the boy protested.

“You want to get to eat supper?”

“‘Course I do, Dad.”

“Then sit still and keep quiet.”

J.B. nudged Ryan. “Here they come.”

It was a tense and potentially dangerous moment. The nine companions had brought all of their weapons, including the Steyr and the Uzi, ready for any card to be turned up.

But the twenty or more men who came striding through the camp, past the line of night fires, didn’t seem any great threat. A couple had handblasters at their waists, but the rest were armed only with knives.

Schickel was at their head, still wearing the thick fur coat that made him look even bigger than he was. Ryan put him at six-three, weighing around three-fifty pounds. He wore crossed ammo belts over the coat. His knee-length boots were splattered with mud. The sawed-down 16-gauge Ithaca, the Model 37, was tucked into a long greased holster, strapped onto the right side of a broad leather belt.

He looked to be a few years shy of forty, with sparse graying hair, a sharply hooked nose and a ruddy, outdoors complexion. The eyes that scanned the nine outlanders were deep blue, set unusually wide apart.