Free Doomsday Warrior 17 - America’s Sword by Ryder Stacy Page A

waters. After another half mile or so, they came to just about the strangest village the Doomsday Warrior had ever seen. Set right in the middle of the black swamp was a huge development of wooden and vine houses built on stilts. They stood on thick foundation logs at each corner and ranged from simple huts with hardly more than a shack on their log-backs, to quite large structures. One house in the center of the three concentric circles of wooden stilts was like some sort of jungle palace. Huge, perhaps a hundred feet from ground to the top, it had levels every twenty feet, each one wider than the next.
    As the rafts came slowly into the midst of the village, with enough space between the circles of stilt-dwellings to allow easy passage, Rockson stared in amazement. For men were fishing over the sides of their swamp homes, only they were using snakes instead of poles. Holding one end of what looked like mostly six- to eight-footers, they stood around the edges of the stilt structures on the porches that surrounded all of them. They held the snakes by the tail and then dropped their heads down into the murky depths. It seemed to take only a few seconds to get a strike. The snakes would shake a little and the men would pull them back up—with a squirming fish or frog in their wide-open jaws.
    Either the snakes were amazingly well-trained—or had some kind of plugs in their throats! For once they were pulled back up onto the wooden verandas, the snakemen would sort of tickle the reptiles’ throats, and the creatures would respond by coughing out the catch. Then the snakes would be allowed to take a few breaths of air—and then sent back under for another catch.
    “Wish I had a few of those back in C.C.,” McCaughlin said. He was a few yards behind Rockson on the lead raft. Detroit whistled behind him as the whole assault team gulped hard and wondered just what the hell they were getting themselves into. With fruits hanging down from trees and their ability to catch plenty of food out on the porch, Rockson decided the snake-people had it made here. It was like a mini-paradise, with every need provided for and hardly any need to work very hard.
    Again, the townsfolk were clearly fascinated by the group of outsiders and their strange animals being ferried in on the rafts. They stood around their fishing platforms where they’d been talking and drinking some kind of beverage from gourds that Rockson suspected was somewhat alcoholic. They all had that slightly bleary-eyed, good-natured look that alcohol brings on. All wore variations of the snakeskin outfits: vests, shirts, pants, mocassins. And the same tight-skinned headdresses. Everything in their lives came from the swamp in some fashion. Rock was beginning to appreciate just how ingenious the swamp folks were.
    They were poled up to the huge central stilt-building and then stopped, the rafts pulling side by side until they were held in place by ropes thrown up from the bow and grabbed by snakemen waiting on the nearly hundred-foot-long dock. Ramps were lowered down as the rafts were about five feet below the swamp building’s lowest story. Slowly they were led off and then directed about thirty feet. There was a long log and the ’brids were tethered up while Rockson and the rest of the unit’s men were led into the great stilt building.
    Inside, Rockson could see in a flash that they were in the head-honcho’s house. The main room was immense, as wide as the entire structure itself, and at least thirty feet high. Pictures of snakes were everywhere, with skins hanging down from the walls in great tapestries. Snakes, mostly smaller, slithered all over the place, but stayed several yards away from the men, evidently trained to not entangle themselves in the humans’ feet. The place had a slightly off-putting smell, a mix of the swamp and muck beneath the building and the scent of so many snakes.
    Then Rockson saw the throne at the far end of the great wooden chamber