“Scavies like this are liable to take our boots soon as we take our eyes off them.”
J.B. nodded his agreement. “You keep close to Doc. Left on his own, he can get a mite too trusting, if you ask me. Remember what happened the last time he was in the frozen north.”
Ryan silently agreed. Doc was a valuable asset to their group and his marksmanship and ruthlessness in battle were faultless, but he had grown up in another era, over two hundred years before, where trust of one’s fellow man came easily. Even now, after the years he had spent trekking the Deathlands, Doc could let his guard down too quickly, longing to find a glimmer of humanity in this cruel new world. Old habits died hard, it seemed.
While Ryan and J.B. watched, the two women were joined by a man wrapped in furs and carrying a long shaft of wood. Ryan guessed that the shaft had begun life as a tree trunk—it was roughly six feet long and three inches in diameter, with its bark stripped away and one end sharpened to a vicious point. The man dropped the pole, leaving it on the snow with the women as they stripped the last of their dead colleague’s clothes from his pale body, which was already turning blue, the flesh puffy with cold. In a hotter climate, it didn’t take long for a corpse to decompose, Ryan knew. But out here, decomposition could take months or more to set in; corpses could remain almost unsullied for a whole season until the frost started to thaw.
Ryan watched in grim silence as the women placed the dead man on the spit, emotionlessly driving it through his anus and up into the cavity of his bowels. The shaft was shoved with some force, a grim explosion of blood leaking down the dead man’s bare legs as one woman worked the wooden pole into his sprawled body, tapping its blunt end with a wooden hammer while the other guided it into the cavity of the corpse’s back passage.
Satisfied, the man strode away, clomping past Ryan in his heavy fur boots. The man noticed the one-eyed stranger watching, and he snarled something in his guttural tongue in Ryan’s face before laughing. Ryan didn’t understand the words but he recognized the language—Russian, like his old enemy Major Zimyanin.
The man passed then, grasping the hand of one of the sec men and laughing once more. Ryan watched them, his eye narrowed. The sec man saw Ryan watching and he laughed. “Curious, are you?” he asked in heavily accented English. “Be thankful it ain’t you, my friend. But that day will come, too, you can bet your good eye on that.”
* * *
J AK , R ICKY AND THE three nameless prisoners were marched to another ladder that led to a clutch of caves across from where their female companions had been taken. Made of splintering wood, the ladder reached all the way to the top of the glacier, halting at the uppermost cave entrance where a sec man stood swinging an iron chain around and around.
One of the hunters, dressed in rags with a pair of night-vision goggles pushed up onto the top of his hood, shoved Jak toward the ladder. “You climb, white man,” he said in a thick accent before turning to the next man, one of the disheveled-looking captives. “Once he’s up to your head, you follow. And you,” he said, jabbing at the remaining men with a gloved finger, “do the same once the man in front of you is at that height. Keep the line moving, no stragglers.” The man held a blaster in one hand and had a knife strapped in a leather holster close to his left buttock. He used the former to make it clear that he would shoot anyone who didn’t follow his commands.
At the rear of the group, Ricky glared at their guard, his teeth chattering in the wind.
“You have a problem, youngster?” the man growled, bringing his face up close to Ricky’s.
“Only your breath,” Ricky replied. “It smells of goat dick.”
The man’s face turned red with anger, and he balled his empty hand into a fist, knocking Ricky hard in the stomach and causing the
J.B. nodded his agreement. “You keep close to Doc. Left on his own, he can get a mite too trusting, if you ask me. Remember what happened the last time he was in the frozen north.”
Ryan silently agreed. Doc was a valuable asset to their group and his marksmanship and ruthlessness in battle were faultless, but he had grown up in another era, over two hundred years before, where trust of one’s fellow man came easily. Even now, after the years he had spent trekking the Deathlands, Doc could let his guard down too quickly, longing to find a glimmer of humanity in this cruel new world. Old habits died hard, it seemed.
While Ryan and J.B. watched, the two women were joined by a man wrapped in furs and carrying a long shaft of wood. Ryan guessed that the shaft had begun life as a tree trunk—it was roughly six feet long and three inches in diameter, with its bark stripped away and one end sharpened to a vicious point. The man dropped the pole, leaving it on the snow with the women as they stripped the last of their dead colleague’s clothes from his pale body, which was already turning blue, the flesh puffy with cold. In a hotter climate, it didn’t take long for a corpse to decompose, Ryan knew. But out here, decomposition could take months or more to set in; corpses could remain almost unsullied for a whole season until the frost started to thaw.
Ryan watched in grim silence as the women placed the dead man on the spit, emotionlessly driving it through his anus and up into the cavity of his bowels. The shaft was shoved with some force, a grim explosion of blood leaking down the dead man’s bare legs as one woman worked the wooden pole into his sprawled body, tapping its blunt end with a wooden hammer while the other guided it into the cavity of the corpse’s back passage.
Satisfied, the man strode away, clomping past Ryan in his heavy fur boots. The man noticed the one-eyed stranger watching, and he snarled something in his guttural tongue in Ryan’s face before laughing. Ryan didn’t understand the words but he recognized the language—Russian, like his old enemy Major Zimyanin.
The man passed then, grasping the hand of one of the sec men and laughing once more. Ryan watched them, his eye narrowed. The sec man saw Ryan watching and he laughed. “Curious, are you?” he asked in heavily accented English. “Be thankful it ain’t you, my friend. But that day will come, too, you can bet your good eye on that.”
* * *
J AK , R ICKY AND THE three nameless prisoners were marched to another ladder that led to a clutch of caves across from where their female companions had been taken. Made of splintering wood, the ladder reached all the way to the top of the glacier, halting at the uppermost cave entrance where a sec man stood swinging an iron chain around and around.
One of the hunters, dressed in rags with a pair of night-vision goggles pushed up onto the top of his hood, shoved Jak toward the ladder. “You climb, white man,” he said in a thick accent before turning to the next man, one of the disheveled-looking captives. “Once he’s up to your head, you follow. And you,” he said, jabbing at the remaining men with a gloved finger, “do the same once the man in front of you is at that height. Keep the line moving, no stragglers.” The man held a blaster in one hand and had a knife strapped in a leather holster close to his left buttock. He used the former to make it clear that he would shoot anyone who didn’t follow his commands.
At the rear of the group, Ricky glared at their guard, his teeth chattering in the wind.
“You have a problem, youngster?” the man growled, bringing his face up close to Ricky’s.
“Only your breath,” Ricky replied. “It smells of goat dick.”
The man’s face turned red with anger, and he balled his empty hand into a fist, knocking Ricky hard in the stomach and causing the
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