"Keep your voice down," Krysty warned. "Trees muffle sound, but the sentry's not that far away from us."

Ryan looked around. As far as the eye could see there was just the limitless expanse of trees, blurring eventually into a solid darkness. The forest would be an easy place to get lost.

"Best get the talking done. Don't want a hunting party coming after us."

"We think we should get out. Soon. Sooner. Soonest. Preferably yesterday."

He looked at the black woman, whose brown eyes were fixed to his face. Ryan sensed the great strength of character that Mildred possessed.

"I kind of agree. But it's not that easy."

"Krysty said the same. I don't see it. We have overwhelming firepower."

"Look around, Mildred. What's the good of having a rifle that'll rip off fifty rounds in a coupla seconds in this kind of terrain? Come on. One guy with a decent black-powder musket and a good eye could take us all out."

"So what've you men decided, Ryan? Do tell me and Krysty. I'm sure it would be nice to be told what we have to do. And how long we have to keep carrying firewood and washing greasy pots. Dotell us, Ryan. Please."

He looked at her without speaking for several seconds. "Don't fuck with me, Mildred."

"Sorry. Bit O.T.T., was it? That means 'over the top,' Ryan. Point taken. But we'd still like to know what you plan."

Ryan hunkered down, his back against a tree, relaxing on the soft carpet of pine needles. He listened to the distant song of a bird, enjoying the calmness. Mildred and Krysty sat down close by.

"We talked it through last night," he said. "Yeah, we all feel like we have to get out. But in a ville like this, isolated, the locals have the edge. I figure we stick it another day or so. Then we break close to midnight. Try and pick a clear time. Go fast and hard as we can for the ridge and into that swampy jungle. Hold up there and watch for pursuit. If it comes, we can try for an ambush. That's the plan." He looked at them. "Well?"

"Two days?" Mildred said.

"No longer, lover? There's something about this place I truly don't care for."

"And there's the radiation sickness," Mildred added. "We've seen a dozen or more of the folk — mainly kids — with too many symptoms."

"Yeah. We've noticed some of the men don't look well. Sores around the mouth and nails missing from fingers. That kind of stuff."

"So we wait for you to give us the word?" Krysty asked.

"Yeah."

"Best get on back."

Ryan led the way, ducking and weaving among the trees until they struck the main trail toward the ville. They kept together, passing a couple of narrower side tracks, one of which snaked away toward a steep outcrop of granite.

Krysty suddenly grabbed at Ryan's sleeve. "Someone's coming."

"Up or down? Front or behind? How many?" His questions machine-gunned out.

"Up. Front. Four or so."

Ryan hesitated, glancing to the woods on both sides of them. Here the trees weren't quite so densely packed, and there was a risk of their being spotted, even if they went some distance undercover.

"Back to that last cutoff. Quick."

Neither Krysty nor Mildred stopped to argue. They followed him up the hillside for a hundred yards, then onto the side trail. It snaked to the left and right, working its way up the steeper part of the mountain, zigzagging like a broke-back cottonmouth.

Ryan stopped and held up a hand for silence. He bent to try to peer through the pines to the main trail, but the foliage was too dense. However, they could all hear the sound of men's voices, raised in bellowing laughter. The noise grew momentarily louder and Ryan reached for his pistol. But then it faded again as the Norsemen continued up the main track.

"Carry on, lover?" he asked.

Krysty shook her head, the flaming red hair star-bursting around her shoulders. "This path... there's something up here that..." Her green eyes were clouded and puzzled. "Don't know. Don't like it. We got time to take us a look?"

Ryan glanced at his wrist chron. "Tight." But he saw the concern on her face. "Let's go a ways and look. Watch the time."

Mildred was beginning to pant with the exertion of the climb. "Wouldn't think I used to hike the High Sierras, would you? Spent three weeks up in Glacier Park one summer. Grinnell Glacier — what little was left of it — went there and back in a morning. Most beautiful place on God's earth up there. Now I'm bushed in five minutes."

"Wait here. Me and Krysty'll go up and take a look. Be back inside twenty. You be okay on your own, Mildred?"

"I'm bushed, Ryan, not totally senile. Maybe Krysty should leave me her shooter."

"No." Ryan shook his head, smiling at the look of disappointment on her face. "We'll get you a blaster as soon as we can. But we aren't directly threatened. Worst'll be they make you go back to the ville. Not killing time. Not yet."

A marmot scampered across their path as they neared the top of the climb. It was the only wildlife they'd seen, though there were old deer tracks everywhere. The trees thinned out, and they could see the silvery water of the lake stretching below them.

"Quiet up here. Thought there'd have been more signs of fresh game," Krysty said.

"The boy, Erik Stonebiter, told us that hunting was getting harder. Their fathers talked of hills that teemed with deer and rivers that brimmed over with trout and salmon."

"Could tie in with what Mildred suspects. Another good reason for moving on."

Ryan glanced around them. "Path leads over there toward that flat rock. We got time for a look."

Krysty hesitated. "Something bad, lover. Something up there."

"Danger?"

"No. Not direct danger."

"What?"

She reached out and touched him on the cheek with a long forefinger. "Better go and look."

On the far side of the high rock was a kind of natural amphitheater, the turf trodden flat by hundreds of feet. Ryan and Krysty stood together, looking up at a block of granite that was about ten feet long and five feet wide. The pale stone was streaked with glittering seams of quartz, and its flanks were heavily carved in ornate, swirling, interlocking patterns. A heavy ring of black iron on a short chain was inset at each corner. Long, thick stains of something black or dark brown had run down the sides of the rock that were exposed to them. The clotted streaks were unmistakably old blood.

Neither Krysty nor Ryan said a word. They turned away from the sacrificial altar and retraced their steps to where Mildred waited for them.

Chapter Twenty-Six

The three friends succeeded in slipping back into the ville without anyone having noticed their absence. Ryan passed the news of the hidden stone to J.B., Jak and Doc. "Had to be blood. Had to be some kind of sacrifice. I figure it as another reason to shake dust off this place."

Doc was most concerned at hearing about the slab of hewn granite out on the hillside above the lake. "I agree we should make haste to depart from here, gentlemen. Primitive societies have all manner of unsuspected totems, and human sacrifice would not appear to be out of character here. We saw the symbolic burning of the three prisoners."

"Tad more'n symbolic, Doc," J.B. said. "Looked like a real fire to me."

Doc tsked-tsked as though J.B. were a precocious student at a Harvard seminar. "The deaths were real. But the use of the human-shaped wicker figures turned them into symbols. I have noticed with some alarm that Jak here appears to be some kind of totem person to the villagers — I think because of his very white hair and pale skin. Several of the thralls make a detour to avoid walking through his shadow." He paused and looked toward the doorway of their hut. "Of greater concern is that they clearly regard our new freezie companion, Mildred, as the dark side of the same coin. If anything goes wrong I could imagine they might seek a scapegoat. And it might be Mildred."