Siren Song. James Axler

was possible—and had a new swagger in his step.

      The sun was higher in the sky as they entered the courtyard beyond the tower door, slowly notching toward midday. Waiting there on one of the crescent-shaped benches were Mildred and Jak. Mildred sat, rummaging in her backpack as she reordered her supplies, while Jak was crouching with his feet up on the bench, his head down, his eyes narrowed as he watched the surroundings. Jak looked incongruous in the tranquil surroundings, like a cat ready to pounce on an unsuspecting bird.

      Mildred looked up as the group approached. “Hey, guys, what kept you?” she asked cheerfully.

      “Tea and scones with the queen,” Doc replied, delight on his aged features.

      Mildred glared at him before turning to the others. “Anyone else care to elaborate?” she asked.

      Ryan ignored the question, instead asking one of his own. “What’s the news on Ricky?”

      “He’s fine,” Mildred told him, “but a few days of bed rest would do him good. We left him at the...hospital, I guess you’d call it.” She pointed to the white-walled tower. “They’ve made some interesting medical developments there that I think are worth looking into, if we have the time.” She was clearly excited by the prospect.

      “We have the time,” Ryan told her. “The baron of this ville just invited us to stay.”

      Mildred looked suddenly wary.

      “Is there a problem?” Mildred asked, her eyes flicking to the Melissa guards who stood at a discreet distance from the talking companions.

      The companions had been forced to stay in places before, often at the mercy of a sadistic baron who wanted to use them either as slave labor or something even more reprehensible.

      “No problem,” Ryan told her. Not yet anyway.

      Call him suspicious, but Ryan didn’t trust this place. It was too friendly, too welcoming. They’d been asked to stay, but it was really a soft sell, with the offer of abundant food and a place to sleep. People in the Deathlands didn’t give without expecting to get. Plus there was the issue of the bomber and just why he had found it necessary to plant a bomb in a mat-trans that had only just been made operational. There had to be a reason for that, and Ryan wanted to know what it was. But he knew better than to ask straight-out; that was a quick way to alienate themselves and maybe get chilled for the inquiry. Sticking around a few days and observing the goings-on in this strangely peaceful ville might just yield the answers he was looking for.

       Chapter Seven

      Life in the Deathlands was all about “take” with very little “give.” That was the sole reason that Ryan and his companions distrusted what they had found there in the mountains. But when they left the central towers of Heaven Falls and followed the Melissas to their new lodgings, their anxieties began to diminish.

      The land the Trai had acquired massed several acres within a valley. It was ideally placed, set within the declivity in the mountains to provide natural protection that was as effective as any wall. Two mountain peaks soared high above to either side, leaving in their wake sharp, craggy walls that towered to the left and right of the Trai’s land. These walls were wide spaced, leaving enough land between them for farming but creating almost vertical plummets from above, making it difficult to reach the settlement from that direction. The chances of a sneak attack from above were remote, but the vast space that was left for the valley gathered plenty of sunlight, allowing crops to flourish. People worked at those fields, tilling them and sowing seeds in the midmorning sun, as Ryan and the companions followed a rough path down into the valley.

      Jak sniffed the air and smiled. There was sweetness here from wildflowers that dotted the slopes and from the blossoms in the trees.

      “How many people do you have here?” Ryan asked.

      Phyllida smiled, pushing her hair back from her slender neck. “Almost one hundred and eighty adults at the last census,” she said, “and expanding all the time.”

      Doc nodded in comprehension. “You have security and an organized food supply, from the looks of things,” he said. “Little wonder that this young ville is growing. Long may it continue.”

      “Thank you,” Phyllida replied, leading the way down a roughly marked path that led toward a cluster of cabins.

      The cabins were simple wooden structures, single story with no walls or fences to stake any boundaries around them. The land was the Trai’s shared garden; individuals needed no parcel of land to call their own. There were approximately thirty dwellings in total, and they were widely spaced on a gentle slope that gradually rolled away toward a natural step in the ground, beyond which three additional wooden lodges waited.

      At first glance, the placement of the cabins seemed haphazard because of the slope, but Ryan realized that they were placed in lines, albeit far apart from one another. The buildings followed a single basic design, with a door to one side and a window in the center of the front, more windows along the sides and a chimney on top. Puffs of smoke emanated from a few of the chimneys where the occupants were cooking, for it was too warm in the sunlight to need to heat them. Teams of carpenters worked at two new structures in varying states of construction, their component parts laid out on the grass around them as they toiled.