Axler, James - Deathlands 28 by Axler James

Author:Axler, James
Language: eng
Format: epub

Chapter Nineteen

Ryan awakened early, disturbed by the first fragile tendrils of dawn sunshine peeking through holes in the thatched roof of their hut.

He had slept well, though there'd been a disturbing dream about losing handfuls of jack in a room that was burning. Everywhere he looked for the money would burst into flames, scorching his fingers, making

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him jump back to safety.

He and Krysty had made slow, gentle love during the night, bringing each other to a shuddering climax with the skill of long practice.

Now she lay by him, hair spread across the woven blanket like living fire.

Outside, he could hear the sounds of a community rising to meet the day.

Women pounded grain and readied the mixture to make the breakfast tortillas. A dog barked sharply, once, and somewhere in the village a baby was crying. Fires had been lit, and lazy coils of smoke drifted through the beaded doorway of the hut.

The acrid smell of the smoke and the cooking of meat brought back the jarring memory of the ritual sacrifices the previous evening.

Everyone in their party had been quiet, shaken by the savage, brutish violence of the ceremony, and nobody had felt like staying up late.

Now it was time to rise and face another day in the jungle. Ryan lay still, flat on his back, wondering whether they should leave and make their way back to the gateway and jump out, return to Deathlands.

Despite the savagery of the killings, Ryan's sense of morality pressed him to try to do something for Itzcoatl's tribe, caught between a rock and a very hard place.

Between their warlike Jaguar neighbors and the slavers away to the north.

"I think we could help."

Krysty had spoken without opening her emerald eyes, without giving the least warning that she had awakened.

"Reading my mind again, lover?" Ryan said, grinning sideways at her.

"Not exactly. Last thing we talked about last night." She touched him gently on the chest. "Last thing but one that we talked about. So I realized you were lying awake and I figured it was a fair bet you were still puzzling over whether we should go and jump back to Deathlands or stay. I think we should stay a couple more days and see what we can do."

He nodded slowly. "Guess so."

FISH STEW WITH TORTILLAS followed by fruit started the day for everyone.

Itzcoatl, two priests, Rain Flower and a dozen older men joined the outlanders for breakfast.

"You feel better this morning, Jak?" the chief asked.

"Yeah."

"You are not used to the way we pay our gods?"

"No."

"You did not like it?"

"Not much," the albino teenager admitted, helping himself to a second helping of the stew, ladling it into his wooden bowl. "No, not much."

"It is our way," one of the priests said. Some blood remained in his hair from the previous evening's ceremony, though he'd obviously made an effort to try to clean it.

"Saying that doesn't make it right," Doc pronounced. "Every religion in the damned world thinks it's the one that's got it right.

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