Ryan half turned away, but Krysty took him by the arm. "Don't ever do that, lover."

"What?"

"Go someplace you might not come back from and don't at least say 'bye' to me."

He half smiled, took her in his arms and kissed her very gently on the lips, the tip of his tongue just probing against her teeth. Then he broke from her. "Bye, lover."

Ryan walked away, his rifle over his shoulder. The path cut to the left, and within seconds he was swallowed up by the dark green warmth.

He could smell the water before he actually saw it, a soft, earthy smell, sweet with long years of decay.

Now the jungle was utterly silent. He stopped for a moment and listened. Not a breath of wind stirred the palmlike leaves of the trees around him. Not an insect buzzed after the rich pollen in the brilliant banks of flowers.

Ryan had lived long enough in the Deathlands to be deadly sure that his life could now be measured in seconds. His sixth sense warned him of someone hiding in the undergrowth, twenty yards to his right. But he ignored it, carefully not looking in that direction. He continued to walk steadily ahead.

Ryan paused when he finally caught a glimpse of the sullen sheen of muddy water. To his left, clear as a breaking twig, was the sound of someone belatedly cocking a cap and ball musket.

"I'm here, Thoraldson!" Ryan called, stepping out into the clearing that overlooked the ruined bridge.

Nothing happened. No shots were fired.

"Come on! We're all wasting time. We know you and your men are in hiding. We knew it all along. Better talk first?"

He waited, conscious of sweat trickling down the inside of his collar, running along his spine to the small of his back. Despite the oily brown sheen to it, the water looked tempting. Ryan swallowed hard, licking dry lips.

"Nobody else is coming, Jorund Thoraldson. Not until I say so."

"We could shoot you down, and they could do nothing to help you."

The voice came from ahead of him, behind some thick shrubs, decorated with yellow bell-like flowers.

"True. And how would you get back to your ville, past five blasters?"

This time there was a long stillness. Then Ryan heard other voices whispering. It seemed that one of the loudest was Erik Stonebiter's.

Eventually Jorund spoke again. "This place is filled with dread, Outlander One-Eye. Perhaps you and I should talk."

"Face-to-face. Let's see you. And the others. Unless you're frightened of one man."

The long fronds of leaves trembled and quivered, and out stepped the baron of Markland. At least twenty of his men surrounded Ryan, each holding a blaster.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

The Norsemen still wore their ceremonial clothes, which were badly stained with clotted mud, an indication of their haste in leaving their ville and their desperate speed over the mountain to get ahead of Ryan and his companions.

There'd been times in Markland when Ryan had regretted that he and his companions didn't have warmer clothes. Now he was relieved to be wearing more comfortable clothing than the sweltering Vikings.

"Hail, outlander."

Ryan nodded. "You willing to let us pass, or will there be more chilling?"

"You have destroyed all our happiness. You and your friends, the false godling and the black woman of evil."

There was a hysterical note to Jorund's voice, and his eyes were wide and staring. Ryan realized at that moment that he'd misjudged how this confrontation would go. It hadn't entered his calculations that the baron had gone mad.

"Your ville was doomed," Ryan replied, still trying for sanity and balance.

"Lies."

"No."

"Yes, lies. Nothing was amiss with us."

Erik Stonebiter, who stood at his karl's side, spoke up. "There was sickness before the coming of these outlanders, Jorund."

The taller, older Viking swung around, his mouth working, the twin barrels of his scattergun aimed at Erik's midriff. "And you also lie!"

"It's the water you drink and fish in," Ryan said, sensing the futility of it all. "Biggest hot spot I ever saw. Rad count off the scale. Move your ville, and some of you could still live."

"Lies!" the baron screamed at the top of his voice. Ryan saw his finger whiten on the trigger of the scattergun and reached into his own pants pocket.

Before he could act, one of the older Norsemen, on the far side of the clearing, threw his own dice into the game. And found snake eyes.

"Harald said the water for his ale seemed to be fouled and..."

The boom of the double-barrel was deafening. A gout of powder smoke erupted from both muzzles. The Viking who had just spoken was hit in the lower chest and stomach by the double charge, the impact lifting him off his feet and throwing him screaming and torn, ten paces back in the undergrowth.

"No!" someone shouted, but Jorund was too deep in blood. He flicked out the spent cartridges and jammed in another pair, before anyone had properly registered the reality of the brutal chilling.

Anyone but Ryan.

He knew that the shouts and the thunder of the 12-gauge would have been enough to bring the other five at the run, and it was obvious that Jorund Thoraldson wasn't in the mood for further discussion.

"Jorund!" he called, loud enough to attract the Viking leader's attention. "Here! Catch this!"

"This" was a small, heavy egg-shaped object that had a colored band around one end. Jorund, surprised, reached automatically and grabbed it in his right hand, still holding the scattergun in his other.

Without another word, Ryan threw himself to the ground, pressed his hands over his ears and opened his mouth wide. Hardly any of the Vikings moved, though Erik and two of the younger men reacted quickly enough.

The karl blinked, bewildered, and brought the object nearer to his eyes to try to work out what it was.

J.B. had set the fuse on the implode gren, at Ryan's request, to a minimal five seconds.

"Why do..." Jorund began.

The gren detonated.

The force was directed inward, creating a brief but devastating vacuum. Ryan, squinting behind his arms, winced at the effect of the gren. It sucked the skin off the Norseman's face, sucked flesh from bone, sucked eyes, which popped from their sockets, sucked lips from teeth. Arteries and veins were destroyed by the unimaginable force of the small gren, and tendons and ligaments snapped like whipcord.

Jorund didn't have time to scream. He had barely enough time to die.

The implode worked over a small area, but its power became translated into a more conventional explosive force. Several of the nearby Vikings went down, yelping in pain, bleeding immediately and profusely from eyes, ears, noses and mouths.

Ready for the shattering effects, Ryan was up on his feet in a fraction of frozen time, his rifle leveled at his hip. He looked grimly at the horrific sight of Jorund's body, some residual nervous reflex keeping it on its feet and staggering toward the river. His skull was bare bone, streaked with smears of blood and gristle, and one hand was also fleshless. The other still gripped the shotgun, its stock splintered and stripped.

As Ryan and the surviving Vikings watched, the corpse took a last tottering step and splashed into the muddied water. For a moment it floated there, arms and legs twitching spasmodically. Then there was a flurry in the wide, slow stream, and the water began to boil with a frantic, crimson feeding frenzy. Ryan's fears about swimming in the river were all too graphically justified.

"Here, brother," J.B. called, appearing from the fringe of the jungle, his Heckler & Koch rifle at the ready. Jak was on one side of him, Krysty on the other. Doc and Mildred stood just behind them.