Chapter Nineteen

"The raven of death!" shrieked one of the men at the back of the crowd, his voice ragged with stark terror.

There was pushing and jostling near the door, and at least half of the warriors of Markland fought their way outside. Even the baron took three steps back, half drawing his sword as though he feared that Mildred might physically attack him.

Instantly, magically, guns appeared in the hands of Ryan and his party. The only person in the large hut who seemed unconcerned was Mildred Wyeth.

She looked calmly around at the fearful confusion, shaking her head slowly. "I've made some spectacular entrances in my time, but this has to be the best. What..."

"Her skin..." Jorund Thoraldson hissed, licking his lips nervously. "Her skin is as black as jet. She is the spirit of death, the widow-maker herself, and you have brought her among us!" He pointed accusingly at Ryan.

More and more of the leading men of the ville were sidling out of the hut, stumbling over one another in their eagerness to get away.

"Have none of you ever seen a person with black skin before?" Ryan shouted. "It's not a thing to be frightened of."

"Of course it is, outlander fool! I have lived through more than thirty summers and I've never seen anyone with black skin. Except for those who are bitten by the jungle snakes or those whose corpses rise swollen from the depths of the water." The baron was shaking with nerves.

"No. Have none of you ever left this ville and traveled through the Deathlands?"

Jorund shook his head. "No. Markland has always been here. It was here before the long winters and it is still here. It will always be here. No man leaves, and what happens beyond the water or beyond the hot forest is nothing to us."

"You must trade with other villes along the coast here," J.B. said.

"No. It would be unclean and would damn us. There is a ville, forty sea-miles off to the east. There have been fights over the years, and they get stronger as we grow more weak. One day..." He suddenly recalled the origin of all this. "But the black witch must go. Nay, she must die."

"Be a lot of blood spilled if you try that," Krysty warned.

"We are many." He glanced around and saw that only a handful of his men remained behind. "Stay, you dogs! Come back!"

It was a delicate, balanced moment. Ryan knew they had overwhelming firepower on their side, but it would be a desperate gamble to try to take on an entire ville. It wasn't the initial firefight that was the problem. It was getting safe away afterward without being sniped off.

"Better not try it," Ryan said. "We got blasters that can take out a dozen of you just like that."He snapped his fingers loudly.

One by one, the blond warriors came sheepishly back into the meeting hut, most of them trying hard to avoid looking directly at Mildred Wyeth, who still stood among the friends, arms folded, a faint smile on her lips.

"No man's face is black," Jorund protested, "And no woman's. It is not natural. Notnatural!"

The young man with the hunched back pushed to the front of the others, his slim sword drawn in his right hand. "Waste not breath, Karl Jorund! Empty words from the outlanders! Legends tell of black witches... Valkyries from the pits of darkness. This is why there have been deaths. Sickness. Two-headed babies whose guts spilled from them."

Mildred glanced over to Ryan. "Sounds like radiation malformations. It would be interesting to try to find out why."

"She mutters a curse!" Odo Crookback yelped. "Fork-tongue, red-teeth, blood-eyed, black-skinned cursing. Burn her. Offer her to the gods. What do you say, my brothers?"

There was a roar of angry agreement, with every man waving either a sword or a pistol. Ryan's finger tightened on the trigger of the SIG-Sauer, but he held his fire. "I tell you that a dark skin is normal all over Deathlands. I have met many such men and women. All colors of skin. You will not harm her." He made sure that his gun pointed at the stomach of the baron of Markland.

"Burn them all!" Odo shrieked, brandishing his sword at Ryan. The suggestion brought the threat of slaughter even closer.

Ryan squeezed the trigger once, putting a bullet into the earth precisely between the hunchback's feet, splattering him with earth. He jumped a yard in the air, then nearly fell into the fire.

"Be a lot of death," Ryan said into the seething stillness.

Jorund Thoraldson took a deep, slow breath. "I see you are skilled with your blaster, outlander. But you will not make a change in our laws. There cannot be a nonman with black skin in Markland. It has never been. It will never be."

"I would venture to suggest to you that your statement is not correct, Mr. Thoraldson," Doc said. "I have great knowledge — almost personal, you could say — of the times before the long winters. I assure you that a person with a black skin was as common as a person with blond hair. Probably more common. It just happens that Markland has survived in its own little Aryan way."

"What do you say, old man?"

"I say that — unless my supposition is flawed — there must once have been blacks here in this vicinity. But after the great nuclear war that devastated our land and destroyed the American way of life, there must have been strife. Fights between villes. Between social groups within a particular ville. I believe that here the blond man ruled and the black man has vanished."

"Nothing changes," Mildred said bitterly.

"No. We have always been Norse here in Markland. Through my memory and that of my father and that of his father and..."

Doc held up an imperious hand to quiet the baron. "Crap! He said and he said and he said — All of that's like history written by the winners. We're talking here, my friend, about events from a century gone. None of us, even I, can conceive properly of the horrors of those first few charnel-house years." He shrugged. "But all of this is of scant interest. Your rules will be as entrenched as a redneck sheriff in rural Georgia way back when. I suggest, Ryan, that we simply make our excuses and leave this place."

"Sounds good," Mildred agreed, glancing at Ryan. "We go?"

It was the young hunchback who shouted the first objection. "An old man, a black witch and a one-eyed outlander make the decisions here, do they, Jorund Thoraldson?"

There was a chorus of yelled approval, and some of the Vikings began to shuffle forward, their initial fear of Mildred forgotten.

"She must burn, outlander. And you and the others will remain here. One way or another, that is how it will be."

Ryan caught J.B.'s eye and nodded imperceptibly. It had gone past talking; now it was down to shooting first. His finger caressed the narrow trigger of the pistol. Like Trader said, it was always best to get in the first bullet.

"What of trial by combat?"

Mildred's voice rang out through the hut, loud and clear, making Ryan hesitate before opening fire with the P-226.

"You were ordered to keep silent," Jorund said, but his voice lacked confidence.

"She speaks sooth," called out a stout, older man, who Ryan recognized as the father of the disgraced youth.

"And will you champion the black slut, Sigurd?"

Odo mocked.

"It must be one of her own. Outlander..." he looked at Ryan "...it is true that our laws in Markland make it possible for the... for her... to have someone to defend her right to live. Will you take up that challenge for her?"

"Yeah."

Mildred shook her head. "Just let me borrow that pretty little handgun of yours, Ryan, and I'll give the yellow-haired son of a bitch one through the forehead."

"Wait. See what kind of rules they come up with. Might not just be who can get nearest to the center of the target. Killing's like a lot of things, Mildred. It's a craft that you have to learn."