Blood Harvest

“Dear Lord!” Doc stared around in shock. “I believe you are right!”

“Ask if they’ve seen any other strangers.”

Doc spoke a few words and got blank looks. “I am afraid the Portuguese word for stranger has wandered far from the Latin.”

“Talk around it,” Ryan said. “Use your hands.”

“Ah.” Doc began speaking very slowly in Latin and gesturing at himself and Ryan and pointing out toward the sea and the island housing the mat-trans. Ago sat upright and for the first time lost his smile. The islanders around the fire began a rapid exchange.

“Tell them we found a girl.”

Doc nodded. “Very well.”

“Tell them we found her on the escarpment and she was dressed like they are, but had dark hair, short, had something on her wrist.”

Doc made a show of touching his hair, Vava’s clothes and circling his wrist with his hand as he spoke words in Latin. Vava suddenly got very excited.

Ryan knew they were hitting pay dirt. “Tell them she’s dead.”

Doc stopped. “Are you sure?”

“Do it.”

Doc said a few words. Vava burst into tears and ran from the circle. Everyone else grew very quiet. “Doc, ask what her name was.”

Ago sighed unhappily at the question but answered. “Galina.”

“That Portuguese?” Ryan asked.

Doc shook his head. “No, it is a Russian corruption of the Greek name Helen.”

Ryan wasn’t surprised. “Ask if Galina had friends.”

Doc asked and Ago held up a single finger as he spoke, and that confirmed Ryan’s suspicions about the mat-trans. “I believe a man named Feydor, that’s Russian for Theodore,” Doc said.

“A Russian team tried to jump and the mat-trans here only let two through, just like us. Something happened and Galina and Feydor got separated. I’m thinking that something was the people on the other island.”

“So deductive reasoning would dictate,” Doc agreed.

“Ask them about the mat-trans.”

Doc spent long moments doing some very elaborate pantomime. The islanders stared uncomprehendingly until he finally dropped his hands to his sides in defeat. “I cannot seem to communicate the concept, and frankly I do not believe these people know of mat-trans devices much less what they do.”

Ryan agreed. “I think the folk in the ville do. They came quick as a bullet from a blaster when they saw our fire.”

“Yes.” Doc nodded. “And they were willing to sail straight into a storm to retrieve us.”

Vava returned with tears in her eyes and a basket laden with bundles of homespun and a collection of sandals, and began pushing them at her guests. Doc sighed sadly as he surveyed the garments. “I believe these good people want us to put on these clothes and try to blend in. I believe they intend to hide us.”

“Didn’t keep that Russian girl from taking the last train west, and we can’t hide here forever.”

“So, we journey across the strait and confront this Baron Barat?”

“In our favor that felucca went down with all hands chilled in the storm. With luck he won’t know we’re coming. We’ll do a recce to get the lay of things and then decide how to play it,” Ryan decided.

“And how are we to negotiate the strait?”

Ryan glanced around. “I doubt these folk have much in the way of boats. We’ll have to build a raft.”

Doc looked at Ryan steadily. “My friend, you are wounded.”

“Yeah.” Ryan’s hand went unconsciously to his side. Vava instantly leaped up and her breath sucked in as she noted the rent material of Ryan’s coat. Ryan almost pushed her away but the hot fire, hot food and millet beer were beginning to have their way with his beaten, half-drowned exhausted body. Vava called to a girl named Eva and the two of them led Ryan to a hut. Doc followed as they sat Ryan on a straw pallet and began brewing things in a clay pot.

“Willow bark, chamomile and bee balm by the smell. Traditional herbals.” Doc looked askance as Vava and Eva began chewing mouthfuls of herbs both fresh and dried and then packing the dripping green chaw against Ryan’s hand and side. “I shudder to guess what that may be but I suspect it is the most effective treatment available until we can reacquire Mildred and Krysty.”

The goo stung. Ryan gritted his teeth as Eva and Vava pushed his broken rib into place and bound it with strips torn from their shifts. Eva shoved the steaming pot beneath Ryan’s nose. It smelled like a swamp and tasted about the same. Ryan drained it and sat back on the pallet. Vava undid the stained bandage on his hand, then washed the wound and took an iron needle and sinew and began to sew it. The sting and tug felt far away, and Ryan knew there was something in the brew stronger than chamomile and bee balm. It was cozying up to the bucket of beer he’d drunk.

“Doc, keep watch. I’m gonna shut my eye for a while.”

Doc laid his LeMat revolver in his lap. “You may rest assured.”

Ryan was asleep as his head hit the straw.

Chapter Four

Ryan awoke with his blaster in his bandaged hand. Dawn was rising gray out the open door of the hut. Vava and Eva were gone. Doc sat snoring in his sentry position. The one-eyed man checked his pack and found none of his belongings had been messed with. He sat up and did a quick self-assessment. His side and hand ached but far less than he’d imagined, and no infection or fever had set in. His stomach was growling, and he took that as a good sign. Checking the loads in his blasters, Ryan warily stepped out into the morning.

Ago, Nando and another man were standing around the coals of the previous night’s fire, passing around another huge bowl. They waved Ryan over and he took his turn slurping down leftover millet gruel that had been mixed with some kind of watery goat yogurt. Doc came out with a sheepish look on his face, painfully aware that he had fallen asleep on guard duty. Ryan simply handed him the bowl. “Tell Ago we need to get to the big island.”

The old man took a few swallows and handed the bowl to Ago. He pointed toward the big island said some words. Ago started talking excitedly and pointing inland instead.

“What’s he saying, Doc?” Ryan asked.

“I believe he wants to show us something.”

Ryan nodded. “Tell him we’re amenable.”

Ago nodded. He whistled, and Vava and Boo came out of a hut across the way. They spoke for a moment. Vava looked unhappy but she nodded, and they began walking inland. Ryan and Doc followed. The wind blew strong across the rolling hills and whipped the grassland as they came out of the vale. They walked for a quarter of an hour through fields and vales and passed more villages. They stopped in a gully. Ago and Vava began pulling apart a deadfall of twisted branches to reveal a skiff. Ryan ran his hand across the graying wood. The little rowboat had been sitting there for some time. The oarlocks were rusted and the oars themselves were warping. “What do you think, Doc?”

“I believe we would be safer building a raft.”

Ryan stood and shook his head at Ago and Vava. The two islanders looked crestfallen but Ago pointed farther inland. Doc rose from the rotting skiff. “I believe there is more they wish to show us.”

Ryan and Doc followed the islanders through more rolling hills and came upon an overgrown gravel path and followed it through another little valley. As they came out, they stopped and stared at the structure at the top of the hill in front of them. It was taller than it was wide. Four slender, two-story spires encompassed a high, peaked roof. The central spire was three stories. It was made of ancient gray stone that was worn but intricately carved. Ryan noted the wrought-iron fence with spear tips was of more recent manufacture and unrusted. “What’s that? A castle?”

“In a sense,” Doc said. “It is a church. God’s fortress on Earth. Sixteenth-century Gothic architecture, I would say.”

“Haven’t seen a church ever like that.”