J.B. cast a glance back over his shoulder to where Mildred was still tending to Doc. ‘Not if we’ve got a passenger, as well. Whoever the hell he’s going to be next,’ he said simply.
‘So, a rock and a hard place. Fireblast, whoever thought that one up must have been thinking of a place like this,’ Ryan murmured. ‘J.B., we don’t know what lies off the trails, and we don’t know how far anything is in any direction except one. We’ve only got the two choices.’
‘Go back past the slopes, all the way back to the redoubt, and then jump.’ It was a statement rather than a question.
‘That’s only one choice. What’s the second?’
Ryan shrugged. ‘Lie down, go back to sleep and buy the farm.’
FACED WITH A CHOICE that stark, even the most tired of limbs, the slowest of dulled reactions, couldn’t fail to click into gear. Mildred made Doc as warm and comfortable as was possible and then joined the others in their mission under the fading light.
There were animals roaming, lost around the rim of the valley. Some of the dogs still had sleds or partial sleds attached to them. The companions’ task was to round up as many of the animals as they could, taking care not to spook them. Easier said than done, as the events in the valley had set a wave of fear trembling through those creatures that survived. But they, too were exhausted, and so, with a little patience, the companions were able to round up the surviving livestock and tether it as best as possible.
The plan was simple: from the partial and whole sleds that survived, they would attempt to cobble together enough transport to hook up to the beasts. That would enable them to tackle the distance between their position and the redoubt perhaps faster than they would on foot, and certainly enable them to preserve their energies. The remainder of any salvaged wood they could use for fires along the journey, to warm them and their pack beasts in the darkest, coldest watches of the night.
The beasts could be used to pull the transport. They could also be slaughtered along the way to provide food for both the companions and for those beasts that survived. The slaughter would perhaps put fear into the beasts, but that would be countered by their intense cold and hunger, which would make them perhaps more malleable than usual.
By the time that they had collected the livestock, made a fire for the now imminent night, and begun to hammer together enough sleds to carry them and any animal carcasses they would slaughter for food back to the redoubt, they were exhausted. Unwilling to begin the slaughter so soon and to face a sleepless night with the unsettled livestock, the companions resorted to the remaining self-heats. Whatever else occurred, J.B. and Mildred always insured that they could keep their essential stocks close to hand. It wasn’t even something they thought about: it was a second nature.
The food was foul, but it was nutritious enough to justify forcing it down rather than throwing it to one side in disgust. Their stomachs full, they settled to rest, Ryan opting to force himself awake to keep first watch.
As his companions and the beasts slept soundly into the night, Ryan cast his eye around him. The valley was now a distant glow, the fires finally burning themselves out. Nothing more had emerged from the ruins, and nothing was likely to have survived. Just the six of them and a smattering of livestock.
The one-eyed man wondered at how his friends were able to drag themselves from precipitous situations, coming back time and again from the brink of being chilled. One day their luck would run out, but until then there was little they could do except to keep moving.
But to keep moving across this plain that they already knew to be so hostile? With the sleds and the livestock, they had increased their chances of survival. Nonetheless, it was going to be a hard ride.
THE JOURNEY WAS LONG and hard. Started the next morning, it took two days and well into a third before the area of the redoubt hove into view. They stuck to the trail proscribed by the traffic between villes, now reinforced in view by the detritus left a few days before by the Inuit as they had passed. The pace they set was steady. To go too fast and risk burning out the strength left in the livestock would have been ultimately self-defeating. Nonetheless, it was important that they cover the ground quickly. The wood for fires, the livestock for food—neither would last for very long. Moreover, it was vital for their state of mind that they traverse the trail with speed and get out of that godforsaken territory.
It was almost a pleasure for them to be able to relax and to rest weary and torn muscles as the beasts pulling the sleds took most of the strain. They still had to be steered, which sometimes took its toll on wounded biceps and shoulders. A small price to pay for such a rapid and relatively easy progress.
Along the trail, the few landmarks that existed seemed to come upon them so much faster than before—inevitably, given their mode of transport, but vaguely disorienting after the rigors of the outward-bound march.
The deserted settlements, ripped apart by the plas-ex detonations of their previous visit, stood alone and desolate, their keening loneliness speaking more of the isolation and vast tracts of empty space than the companions could have cared to be reminded of, reliant as they were on exhausted beasts on a trail to nowhere. They were a stark reminder of how close the companions had come to being chilled themselves in such a manner—not once, but several times during the expedition. Even now, they weren’t out of danger. The weather had been holding for more than forty-eight hours, the heavy yellow-tinged chem clouds pregnant with rains and snows that could engulf them, lose them in the roaring blizzard, and soak and chill them to the bone, with no shelter within view where respite could be sought.
There were, in the distance, the occasional glimpses of deer or bear as the packs and herds went about the business of trying to survive. They could be a danger if they approached, but hopefully held too much fear of the sleds and those pulling them, based on past experience, to come too near.
The ice and snow plucked from the rock and swirled in the never-ending flurry of winds still numbed and chilled when coming into contact with exposed skin. Despite the layers of skins and furs that still swathed them, the companions were chilled to the bone by the constant crosswinds, this time without the exercise of marching to warm them in any way. It was all they could do not to succumb to the ravages of hypothermia. How ironic if their attempt to increase their speed was to cause their demise. However they chose to make their flight, it seemed as though they faced nothing but life-threatening obstacles.
Two nights huddled by fires built—on the second night—from some of their sleds caused them to double up for the last day, and to put more strain on the livestock—livestock that was becoming more and more unsettled as Jak slaughtered some to feed the others and to feed the companions. Ryan had been correct in his assumption that the creatures would be too hungry and cold to be that distressed by the slaughter, intent as they were on eating their chilled companions to appease the hunger gnawing at their guts; however they were still unsettled enough for their pace to be upset on the following day’s trek.
The trail took them along the base of the volcanic slopes that housed the Inuit village. They skirted the rock-enclosed passage and didn’t take the trail as it wound up into the wooded slopes, choosing to avoid a possible firefight by keeping to the base of the slope. Ryan hoped that the few remaining Inuit wouldn’t be hunting at that point in the day. The way he had it figured, they’d have enough trouble keeping the settlement going, and it was too early for them to be sniffing around for any sign of their warriors returning.
After passing the volcanic region, and watching it recede peacefully into the distance, it was only a matter of a few hours by sled before they reached the area where the redoubt was hidden.
All the while, Doc hovered between conscious and unconscious. Mildred tended to him, but could still find no reason why he shouldn’t be fully aware of what was occurring around him. It seemed to her almost as if he were surfacing, taking note of his surroundings, then retreating into his own mind after deciding that he didn’t like what he saw.
J.B. took what sightings he could in the