Dust of the Damned (9781101554005)

by Brandvold, Peter

  Zane noted with dread that the light angling down the canyon wall was striated and pink and orange—the light of late afternoon or early evening. The full moon would be up early, just after sunset. They didn’t have much time.

  “I’ll be damned,” Angel said, staring at the towering, turreted, many-tiered structures. She pointed to a near dome of a building set behind a vast wall. “Is that what it looks like?”

  “If it looks like gold,” said Turnipseed.

  As Angel, Zane, and Hathaway followed the man down what appeared an old wagon trail, wheels ruts still scoring the rock of the canyon floor, Zane’s eyes swept the terrain around him. Nearly everywhere were ruins of one type or another. Whatever structures they once had been—probably barns and stables, maybe some supply sheds—they’d been constructed of stone or brick, and now they were overgrown with brush including greasewood and sagebrush and green patches of grama and galetta grass.

  Zane stopped at the wall surrounding the giant, domed building nearest the canyon’s south wall. He used his gloved hand to scrape the thick dust and grime from the bricks and blinked in surprise. What lay beneath the dust was more gold. Gold bricks.

  Even the walls of this giant fortress had been constructed of gold!

  As he looked around at the other near buildings—there must have been more than a hundred such structures lined up along several cobbled streets—he saw that the sand, dust, grime, and bird shit of centuries covered the walls, lay piled along the foundations. A thought occurred to him, making his head light, and he turned to Turnipseed, who stood grinning at the amazed expressions on his visitors’ faces.

  “Are all these buildings built of gold?” Zane asked, unable to wrap his mind around the idea of nearly an entire city constructed of one gold brick after another, making up thousands of such bricks, maybe hundreds of thousands.

  “As far as I can tell,” Turnipseed said. “In some places, even the streets are paved in gold. They’re just buried under centuries’ worth of dust.”

  “How’d you find this place, Mistuh Turnipseed?” Hathaway asked, his eyes wide, jaw slack, in his dark brown face.

  Turnipseed chuckled. “I was out prospectin’ with a supply wagon and mule when I found the range. Wandered into it by the same route you folks did, and started followin’ them wolf heads. When the guardians attacked me, I run down that very corridor we just took…and found…all this.”

  “Who built it?” Angel was walking around, looking up in hushed awe.

  “Don’t know. There ain’t nothin’ here that tells—leastways, nothin’ that I’ve ever found. And I’ve been through every building, over every inch of this canyon. I can tell you one thing, though. They were mighty keen on the wolf. They have statues of wolves. Even temples to wolves, and pictures etched in gold.”

  A chill rippled through Zane. As it did, a realization rolled through him, as well, though he was reluctant to put words to it. There was a whisper in the back of his mind, so soft that he probably wouldn’t have heard it had he not been listening for it:

  Eurico.

  Demon offspring of Elyhann.

  Eurico, the Lord of Darkness.

  “What do you suppose Charlie Hondo hopes to find here?” Hathaway was down on his knees, staring at a patch of gold in the wall before him, caressing the shiny, unadulterated surface with the tip of his right index finger. “You think it’s the gold? Like maybe that witch leadin’ him an’ the others found a map or some such?”

  “Not sure,” Zane said, though he was sure but somehow reluctant to voice it, as if voicing his suspicion would give it more credence. “But we’d best split up and start looking for him. It’ll be dark soon.”

  Eurico. They were searching for the grave of Eurico, the Lord of Darkness. Long-dead apple of the demon-god Elyhann’s eye.

  And they’d better not find it….

  “It will at that,” Angel said, following his glance toward the rim of the canyon, where the sky was beginning to turn green, the sunlight angling over the ridges now touched with saffron and copper. Shadows bled down the funnels and talus slides of the steep western slope.

  Zane turned to Jericho. “The guardians ever venture in here?”

  “Not since I’ve been here. Figure it must be against their religion or somethin’. Maybe it’s off-limits to them. They’re only here to protect it.”

  “They must know about you.”

  “Oh, they do, but they won’t come in here after me. I live in the canyon, mostly. I mostly leave here at night to hunt, ’ceptin’ when I’m checkin’ my rattlesnake traps. That’s what I was doin’ when I spied them Angels and that Mex gal, saw ’em throw down on the guardians.”

  Turnipseed wrinkled his nose and raked a glance around the surrounding ridges. “I travel to Tucson for supplies couple times a year. Always come and go at night, and the guardians don’t do much at night. Hole up purty tight in their little brush-hut villages scattered around the mountains. Almost like they’re afraid of the dark.”

  To Angel and Hathaway, Zane said, “Let’s start looking around. Be careful. If you see Charlie’s bunch, fire a shot or two. I’ll do the same. No one tries to take ’em down alone.” Zane set his rifle on his shoulder. “Why don’t you stay here, Jericho? Fire a shot if you see anything. Don’t confront ’em. Remember, they’re the worst of the ghouls.”

  “Will do, Uriah.” The old desert rat smiled weakly. “Sure is good to see ya again. Awful about…back home…ain’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  Zane swung away and began heading toward the stream that seemed to bisect the city from west to east. Angel and Hathaway drifted off among the towering buildings, their eyes still amazed at the city they’d found here.

  Looking beyond the rooftops toward the ridges, Zane saw that while the city itself was large and extravagantly constructed, the canyon was vast. And likely nearly totally sealed off from the outside world—both naturally sealed, and sealed by the lost race of Stone Age warriors who might have lived here through the ages, one generation after another, fed by admonishment through legend and religion that it was their duty to protect this sacred place.

  Eurico’s home.

  The home of his race of werewolves who had likely ruled the continent. And now, most likely, the home of Eurico’s final resting place.

  No one had ever found this one until Jericho had stumbled upon it by accident.

  Zane followed the stream into the heart of the city. It was hard to watch for Charlie and the other Angels and Ravenna. The magnificent buildings seemed to whisper to him from down the centuries. They towered over him, still and dusty with the silence of expired eons. Window casements and doors gaped at him like the eye sockets and empty mouths of grinning skulls.

  The only sound was the distant whine of the wind combing the cliff tops and the faint crackling of occasional tumbleweeds or breeze-ruffled palm fronds. Pigeons cooed and warbled, perched along roof edges and window ledges. Here and there in the dust covering the cobbles were Jericho’s hobnailed boot prints and the tracks of small, scurrying animals—pack rats, rabbits, mice, and quail. Near a low, squat structure, he saw the week-old tracks of a hunting bobcat.

  Uriah strode slowly down the broad main thoroughfare, the façades of what must have been shops, saloons, and brothels on his left and beyond the verdant, trickling stream on his right. The buildings were of all shapes and sizes, all made of gold. Occasionally, he stopped to peer in an empty window, but the buildings, so extravagant on the outsides, were as hollow as caves within.

  Once in a while, he saw a golden statue of a wolf or the figures of wolves in all states of being—hunting, sleeping, fornicating—etched into walls. An anxiousness bit at him. It was like electricity from a near lightning storm leaching into his bones, plucking his nerves. As if from another world, he could hear a howling in his ears. Half-formed visions of werewolves flashed behind his retinas—dark nights of slaughter. Even bright days of slaughter during certain seasons. And then the retur
n to this canyon, this city of gold.

  Their home.

  Where they lived with their living god who allowed them to shapeshift even during the day.

  His pulse beat faster and faster. He pressed his hand to a gold casement. The gold fairly vibrated beneath his flesh. Silver had made them sick. But gold had given them strength. That was why they’d built an entire city of it.

  The gold in the city was giving Zane strength, as well. The wolf in him stirred. He cast a wary eye at the sky and drew back from the window casement.

  Something ripped his hat from his head and pinged loudly off the gold casement to his left.

  A rifle screeched shrilly.

  A man laughed and howled. “Uriah Zane!” The booming voice echoed madly. “Fancy meetin’ you here, pard!”

  Chapter 34

  STREET FIGHT

  Zane jerked around and pressed his back to the front of the building he’d been looking in. In a window across the stream-bisected street, a man stood aiming a Winchester at him.

  Smoke and flames stabbed from the rifle’s maw. At the same time that Zane flung himself forward and the bullet slammed into the front of the building behind him, ricocheting wildly, the rifle’s hammering report reached his ears.

  Zane rolled off his right shoulder and, staying low, sprinted into the palms and willows lining the creek.

  Dust blew up in front of him, and the rifle roared twice, sounding hollow inside the building from which the Hell’s Angel was shooting. Zane pressed his shoulder against the front of the palm he was crouched behind, swung his rifle around the tree, and aimed hastily toward the window as the shooter drew back away from it.

  Zane fired three silver rounds quickly, the ejected casings winging back over his shoulder and pinging onto the gravel. He racked another cartridge into the Henry’s breech, glad more than ever that the Henry firearms company had had the wherewithal to design a sixteen-shot long gun, and sprang out from behind the palm. He ran into the stream, splashing over the sandy, gravelly bed, the gold-colored water flying up against his thighs and knees.

  Gaining the opposite bank, he sprinted up it, through a heavy line of willows, stopped, and fired three more shots toward the large, square window in the building beyond.

  One bullet ricocheted off the gold façade. Two more screeched on through the window and hammered off the walls or support pillars beyond.

  Racking another cartridge, Zane bounded off his heels and began sprinting once more. He looked around carefully, knowing he could be running into a trap. Seeing no other Hell’s Angels around him, or the venomous witch who had guided them, herself led by Elyhann, he slammed his back against the building’s grimed front and slid a cautious glance through the window.

  He caught a brief glimpse of a man with a long yellow ponytail leaping out a window on the other side of the hall-like structure. Zane snaked the Henry through his own window and fired a single round that merely blew grit and grime from the foot-thick casing. The shooter disappeared, running toward the building’s rear.

  Behind Zane, water splashed. He whipped around, cocking the Henry and extending it straight out from his right hip. He eased the tension on his trigger finger when he saw Angel and Hathaway running across the stream behind him, about ten yards apart.

  “Be careful!” the ghoul hunter yelled. “Might be a trap.” He gestured for the two to head on up the fast-darkening street, then slipped around the side of the building and strode quickly down the gap between it and another hulking structure, toward the rear.

  When he reached the back of the building from which the man with the ponytail had ambushed him, Zane slowed. He stepped out into the open behind the buildings on either side of him. Something hot ripped into his right cheek, just beneath his eye, then hammered the corner of the building to his right. Zane lunged forward and dove into a stone trough of some kind—probably part of some elaborate sewer or freshwater system—as at least three rifles thundered before him. The slugs tore into the lip of the stone trough and into the shrubs lining it, throwing torn sage and rabbit brush branches every which way, spitting rocks.

  When the shooting died, Zane lifted his head to see one shooter standing crouched atop a ruined rock wall about thirty yards ahead and to his left. One more was crouched at the base of the wall the first man was shooting from, while another stood atop a boulder perched on a low ridge straight ahead of Zane.

  As the rifles exploded once more, all three shooters howling and yipping devilishly, Zane ducked his head behind the lip of the stone trough, gritting his teeth as the bullets hammered into the ground above, spitting more dust, branches, and rocks into the trough.

  When the shooting tapered off, Zane whipped his rifle up but held fire. He looked toward where the ghoul whom he’d recognized as One-Eye Langtry had been standing atop the boulder. The ghoul had disappeared. The others had disappeared as well.

  To Zane’s left and up the rocky, ruin-stippled slope, spurs chinged. He heard the thudding clacks of boots running on stone, and saw the three bushwhacking ghouls dashing along the base of the far ridge as they ran deeper into the canyon.

  Rifles barked to Zane’s hard left and from about twenty and thirty yards away. Angel and Hathaway were both down on their knees behind a ruined wall overgrown with ancient vines, firing toward the base of the ridge as they slid their rifles left, tracking the fleeing wolves.

  Zane scrambled out of the draw and ran over to where both Hathaway and Angel knelt behind the wall, reloading.

  “Only three,” Zane said. “Must’ve been looking for us.”

  He knelt down near Angel, pressed his back to the ruined wall, and slipped the loading tube up from beneath the Henry’s barrel. Quickly, automatically, while gazing through the ruins and the brush between him and the base of the ridge, he slid silver cartridges from his bandolier and punched them down into the loading tube.

  Angel gave an angry grunt as she racked a shell into her Winchester’s breech. “Ravenna must’ve missed her dragon, figured she had someone behind her.”

  Hathaway said, “Or maybe they heard our shots when we threw down on them guardians, as Turnipseed calls ’em.”

  “Well,” Zane said, “they know we’re here…and don’t like it.”

  “Where do you suppose Charlie and the witch are?”

  “Lookin’ for what they came here for. That’s why only the lesser three in the pack came after us. They’ll likely try another bushwack so’s we don’t interrupt Charlie and his sweet Mexican darlin’. I got a feelin’ they’re hearin’ ole Eurico’s howl.”

  Angel frowned at Zane, genuinely puzzled, more than a little worried. “Who’s Eurico?”

  “I’ll tell you later.” Zane shook his head and rose a little higher to stare off through the ruins. “But that they’re here now and the moon’s full is no coincidence.”

  “The moon’ll be up in an hour or so,” Hathaway said, “if I got the calendar right, an’ I usually do. Somethin’ big’s gonna happen here, tonight, with that moon on the rise. I can feel it in my blood.”

  Zane shuttled his glance between Hathaway and Angel. “The other three haven’t given up—they’ll try to circle around us. I’m gonna head up this slope a ways, try to cut their sign, stay behind ’em. You two split up again and gradually move down canyon. We’ll likely run into ’em again soon. We have to get those three out of our way, ’cause they’ll do everything in their power to keep us from getting to Charlie and Ravenna.”

  Zane broke away from the others, running at a crouch up the slope, weaving among the ruined outbuildings and cisterns where the city had probably stored its water during the dry months. He walked a hundred yards, following the clear sign of the three running ghouls until they split up, one angling straight back into the city, one angling up canyon, the other continuing along the base of the slope.

  Zane glanced at the sky. The light was almost gone. Heavy shadows plunged down the canyon walls, and the air was growing cold. Zane’s heartbeat quickened
. He squeezed his rifle in his hands as, on one knee where the tracks of the three ghouls had split up, he gazed off over the darkening city.

  Where would Charlie and Ravenna find Eurico?

  He crossed the stream and headed back into the city, where he promptly lost the tracks of the ghoul he’d been following. The man must have followed the stream either up or down canyon. Zane didn’t want to take the time to backtrack and look for him. He had to concentrate on Charlie and Ravenna. The moon would be up soon, and it was those two he needed to kill first.

  A half hour later, as he prowled a back alley and silently willed the moon to slow its ascent, there was the spatter of belching rifles. He broke into a run, leaving the alley and finding himself in a broad street between more golden ruins that were dark gray now in the thickening darkness. The rifles crashed from up the dusty, cobbled street down which a breeze now kicked up tumbleweeds and brought the dank odors of the canyon.

  Three rifles flashed above street level on the right side, while an answering gun barked in a shaded portico on the left. Just then a man screamed and dove forward out of a balcony on the right. Zane made out a black eye patch as One-Eye turned

  a somersault and dropped his rifle, his body thudding to the street, kicking up dust.

  The other two ghouls, one firing from a rooftop, the other triggering lead from a third-floor window, stopped firing. In the street, One-Eye arched his back and groaned. A rifle flashed and barked from the shaded portico, and One-Eye’s head jerked sharply to one side, dark blood jetting into the street.

  Zane sprinted to the street’s left side. The other two shooters opened up once more, hammering the building fronts around Zane. The ghoul hunter felt the burn of a bullet across his right thigh as he threw himself into the shaded portico behind four gold pillars, the base of each suspended on a long-clawed wolf’s paw.