Howls Softly laughed bitterly. "Spirits have stories. They were created because of a story and move on when the story is finished. If this is the work of a spirit, bullets will do you little good.
"The mother of my father is one such story. She died when she birthed him, just days after she had reached eleven years. She was a very pretty child-it was said that her eyes were so brown they were golden. But the soldiers thought she was pretty, too."
He had a sudden flash of a screaming girl hauled into a tent by four laughing men. He swallowed hard. "After she died, it was said that her spirit would wander Nunna daul Tsuny until she found the childhood that was taken from her. Her name was Ahyoka. It meant 'she brought happiness' in your tongue, yet her life only brought her pain."
"But my life brought you, son of my son."
Rawls' eyes shot wide and the rifle raised to a point just beyond Howls Softly. He turned slowly and gasped.
Not a horse's length away stood a figure wearing a shawl much too large for it. It was stooped over as though it were an old woman, its shoulders as high as the center of his chest, but the voice was too clear to be that of an old woman. He couldn't see a face in the darkness of the shawl, but two golden-brown eyes shone in clearly in the moonlight. He felt their weight upon him and fell speechless. They moved beyond him to Rawls and he saw them weighing; judging; assessing.
"You're more child than soldier. You should be with other children."
Howls Softly heard the rifle fall to the grass. He glanced behind him and saw that the young soldier was fighting to keep from turning tail and running. Rawls' teeth were chattering and his voice was thick with fear, but the soldier gasped, "I want to know what you— I want you to tell me-"
"Yes?"
"Why did you kill them? Why did you-"
"Because of what they did to me."
"They didn't do anything to you!" Rawls shouted, eyes brimming. "They never knew who you were!"
The air grew cold and Ahyoka's eyes blazed within the darkness of her shawl. When she spoke, her voice was very soft.
"None of them ever knew who I was."
Howls Softly felt a great sorrow wash over him.
"They took me from my family when they wanted to. Sometimes they brought me to the tent. Other times they didn't even bother to bring me there. They made them watch. They made all of them watch."
"You-you tore them apart—"
"They tore me apart!" she screamed. "They ripped me open and discarded me when they were finished, like a half-chewed leg of deer! They pulled me apart and then left me for the flies!"
Her eyes pulsed with a golden light that grew as bright as the sun and he shouted as he brought his hands before his eyes.
"You want to know why?" she shrieked, the air growing unbearably hot around them. "You'll know more than you ever wanted to!"
They were pulled into the light.
***
Howls Softly felt himself thrust into the roiling pain of thousands of minds, each filled with images and sounds and smells and tastes that made him want to close his eyes, but he didn't have eyes to close, so he flitted from mind to mind as he saw things that he would never have—shouted as one of the soldiers sawed three fingers off of his left hand and then held the stumps before his face-taste of dirt in her mouth and the mud clogging her throat made her gag but she kept eating, because she knew what would happen if—
—without him, so she drew the carving knife along her arm and lay quietly in the darkness, praying that they wouldn't find her before all of her life pulsed out-
-and the blows kept coming, but he didn't fight back because he if he did they would kill Galilani instead of using her, so he—
—killed him, they'd shot him right in the face when he told them to stop—burned like fire and she cried and cried and cried but all they did was laugh and-
-as the shell tore through his chest and spilled his life in the road—screamed "Stop, grandmother! Stop!" And she did.
She held him as he wept. They were not tears of anger, tears of sorrow, or even tears of pain. They were just tears.
"You came to me," she said softly. "I can leave now that you're here—I can be a child once more-but only if you finish what I have begun."
"What have you begun?"
"Vengeance. You'll return to our people and lead them to war on those who broke the treaties, on those who found profit in our pain, and on those who made us cry. You will no longer be known as Howls Softly, for all shall hear your howl. "Do you accept this burden?" "Yes, I accept it."
She smiled softly. "Thank you, son of my son. You've given me back what I have lost."
He was thrust into darkness.
***
Howls Softly blinked as he realized he was once again standing by the Union camp. Rawls staggered and turned away from him, weeping. Howls Softly tried to say something but couldn't. The words wouldn't leave his throat.
On the ground was Ahyoka's shawl. Inside were two flowers, each with petals of white and a golden center. He smiled and picked them up, slipping them into his shirt. Rawls coughed and wiped the tears away.
"It's almost sunrise. If I were you I'd be gone by the time the sun is over the horizon."
"Why?"
"Can't say. But I wouldn't want to be a Reb around here in an hour, if you know what I mean."
"I'm not a Reb. I'm Cherokee."
Rawls smiled weakly. "Just get going, Hal."
He nodded and started up the hill, heading in the general direction of the horse and supplies he'd left behind before setting out to find the Union camp.
"Goodbye," said Rawls.
"Yes," he called behind him.
COLD ISLAND
By Chris Snyder
The raider's steam-powered Gatling gun strafed the deck of the Dragonfly. Chung's men dived behind barrels, railing, anything at hand. Praying, screaming, dying. Chung leapt to the gun-deck, leveling his rifle at the enemy. Pain flamed in his mind as the
enemy cannon roared once, thunder and flame.
***
Chung Li screamed, gut churning as pain shot up his right arm. His head felt as if a saber pierced his skull. His body spasmed as he rolled to his knees on the gravelly beach, spitting out blood and seawater. A mottled gray crab scuttled sideways, stuffing Chung's severed fingers into its bloody mouth. He staggered to his feet, kicking at the hideous thing. Then he stared down at his hand, blood pumping from where his last two fingers should have been. His knees buckled as a new wave of pain swept over him. The crab shifted, waiting patiently for its current meal to give up the fight. It waited a split-second too long and his knife shattered its sHell, pinning it to the rocky ground.
Chung shoved his mangled hand into his armpit, groaning in pain as he clenched his arm around it, trying to stop the blood. A few of his men were moving around, finishing their own battles with the carrion crabs. He staggered up the beach toward them.
***
Captain Marcus Alby stood silently at the bow of the landing skiff as his men paddled slowly into the cove. He heard the men talking in whispers behind him, felt their eyes on his back, on the smartly pressed uniform he still wore. Cutthroats and thieves, all ten of them, but they were the only kind he could get. His jaw clenched as he thought of their smirks, so much like those worn by the so-called officers who called for the removal of his command.
"Conduct unbecoming an officer" they claimed. They stripped him of his rank, forbidding him to command Union vessels. "How dare they judge me?" he thought. They were children, unfit for command, unable to understand the harsh truths, and harsher duties, of war. His hand clenched in anger as he remembered the whispers, the testimony brought against him. Now he commanded the Stalker, a Union raider, outside the law. MacCully had told him that it would be men like Alby, men who did not balk at the necessities of war, who would win this Great Maze of destruction, death, and ghost rock for the Union.
A smirk of his own stole across his face as the gravel scraped the b
ottom of the skiff.
***
Chung Li gritted his teeth as his mate wrapped his fingers in clean rags. He scanned the beach, watching the other two survivors gather as much as possible from the wreckage of the Dragonfly. He had ordered the dead weighted down with rocks and consigned to the ocean, away from the large crabs that scurried about. No sailor would want his body ravaged by those things. He would have dearly loved to blow all the things to Hell, as would his men, but their powder was useless, and they could not risk using up the last of their cartridges. The raiders would be coming ashore looking for their loot and ghost rock. Let them deal with the damn things.
Chien finished the job of binding his master's wounds and turned to gaze out at the sea. "The fight carried us far from normal lanes, milord. We cannot count on friendly ships sailing this far from the safe zones."
Chung Li nodded numbly. His hand still burned with pain, and he felt the cold to his bones. His eyes found the men who were sifting through the wreckage. They had lost much on this voyage, friends and fellows lying on the sea's bottom, blood and sweat. Now they were stranded, chilled and hungry, on this unknown island, somewhere in the middle of the Great Maze.
They needed a spark, and it needed to come from their captain.
"Hyet!!" His voice sounded like it came from the bottom of the sea, faint and icy But the men heard, turning to the sound. "We must move inland. Gather only that which is necessary, but all you can carry. Those damnable pirates will come here, looking for loot. They will see that we have survived and will come for us. We must find some place on this island, some place we can defend."
He could see the doubt in their eyes. They were sailors, some of the best, but not soldiers. He softened his voice, turning to look out over the brackish water. "They will kill us, my friends. Do not hope for mercy, for each of us is a witness to their deeds. We will exact vengeance upon them for our brothers, our ship, and ourselves. Then we will take their ship, and sail back for all to see that we were not cowards. We will honor our dead by drawing the pirates' flesh from their bones."
Chung turned his back on the water, and marched toward the trees. His men fell in behind him, leaving the wreck and the crabs to the whims of the sea.
Alby stood alone on the beach, watching the black tide rise, while the men made camp near the rocks. Tomorrow they would find the last of the smugglers, then return for their prize. His informants claimed the Dragonfly carried over a ton of ghost rock in her hold. That amount would surely make an impression on the do-nothings who had delivered this Hell upon him.
***
Chung Li gazed silently into the dark forests and rocks around him. They had made their way here, to this damp cave, trying to find some shelter from the elements and their pursuers. Now he stared into the darkness, trying to devise a plan which would conserve their pitiful supply of munitions. He turned his head as Chien crept to his side.
"They will have to climb to get at us," Chung said. "That will give us an edge. Only one clear path up here. Traps set there, and there," he gestured, "will break their bones and their will to fight."
The noise of gunfire and screams erupted far below, the sounds carrying in the cold night air. Chung lifted his mangled hand in salute. "Eat well little crabs."
***
I hunger. The delicious aromas of fear, blood and pain came to it from above. These smells mingled with the odor of mold and mud sending jolts of pleasure and pain through its mind. It could hear hearts racing in panic, blood pumping in fear. So very hungry. The creature, long forgotten by the world, felt the birth hunger well up in its soul.
It lifted its heavy bulk from the dark crevasse where it had slept for ages and shambled forth in search of food and prey.
***
A howl of pain jerked Chung Li from his sleep. Chien squatted in the mouth of the cave, their only rifle resting across his knees. He turned his head as Chung made his way to the front of the cave. Silently, he gestured toward the bottom of the valley the cave overlooked.
They could see the tops of trees, swaying in the lifeless air. The ground fell sharply only a few yards from their position, dropping harshly into rocks below. The forest started again at the ring of rocks thirty yards below them. It was unlike any forest Chung had ever seen. The trees grew so thick that men could barely turn around, with needles that could draw blood. Where game paths should have snaked and wound through the wood, only dense underbrush existed. It was if only the men of the Dragonfly and the pirates occupied this desolate island. Staring at the dead trees, listening to them crack in the icy wind, his spine tinged with fear.
He and his men had spent the day cutting into these trees, using every ounce of their ingenuity and strength to secure traps around them. One of the men, Paul Yao, possessed a great knowledge of traps to bring down game. It had taken little prodding for him to turn these traps from the securing of rabbits and squirrels to the harming of man.
Now they could hear the fruits of their labor. More pain-filled cries came from the woods below them, as the renegades found more of the pitfalls and snares laid for them. Chung Li smiled at Chien. "They will be angry now, wanting blood for blood. That will make them foolish. We must keep our heads about us, take advantage of their carelessness."
Chien nodded, their small fire reflecting in his eyes. He gestured at the rapidly darkening skyline. "Some will come for us during the night. They will try to make their way behind us. If it pleases you, lord, my knives would like to greet them."
Chung sat back considering, then slowly nodded. Chien smiled and disappeared into the darkness.
***
"Damn my luck. Out here in this God-forsaken Hellhole, lookin' for them damn Chinese. 'Find a path up to the cave' Cap'n says. 'Course he's sittin' back there, kickin' back with his coffee. Idjit thinks he's still in the Navy. I swear, I'll let 'im know what's what when I gets back."
"Zeke, shut up. I'm tired of your bellyachin'."
Zeke spun on the other man, then shrank back. Nobody messed with Black Duke. They said he had strange powers, given to him by some dark god. Zeke didn't care about that, but he knew from first-hand experience how quick Duke's guns were and how bloodthirsty he could be. He and the rest, four in all, had been ordered by the demented Captain to find some way up the back of the black mountain the smugglers were holed up in.
"Don't know why the Hell we're even botherin' with these guys. I says we should just let 'em starve to death up here," he murmured, just low enough to escape Duke's hearing. Several of the men suffered badly from the wounds inflicted by the traps laid for them. One would not see the morn, and another was almost useless.
Johannson suddenly raised his hand, peering into the dark timber surrounding them. He gestured Black Duke to him, and the men gathered closer to hear what was being said. "I 'ought I 'eard somethin' out there Duke. Somethin' movin'. Not sure, but I thinks it's gone now."
Duke nodded, then turned to face the men. "Stay together, and move slow. We don't want to spook whatever it is. It may raise a cry to warn the men on the hill. And keep your fool mouths shut." The last statement was directed at Zeke.
The men moved forward in a tight bunch, weapons ready. Zeke felt something wrap around his leg and fell, face first, into a small pine. Duke spun, a hog-leg in his hand. "Zeke, dammit, get up," he hissed. Zeke nodded and tried to stand. Then the pain began, white-hot fire in his ankle. He flopped back to the ground as the thing on his leg moved up toward his crotch carrying the pain with it. One of the other men recoiled, screaming and pointing at where the cloth and flesh had been stripped from Zeke's leg.
Something came at them from the woods, murderously fast, flowing through the trees. Duke shot, a blossom of fire stabbing the darkness. Another scream cut short. Zeke rolled over, clutching and fighting the thing's hold on him, coming face to face with Owen's head, face still screaming, as the body fell to the ground. Shots rang out like thunder rolling across a hill, hitting nothing as the thing bore another man to the ground.
The man's screams seemed to come from the bowels of Hell, as the thing leapt back into the darkness and silence filled the woods.
Zeke moaned, fighting against the darkness filling his mind. Black Duke had both guns in hand, back against a tree, staring out into the woods. Zeke shifted himself against a tree of his own and screamed as the pain flared again. He could see the bone peeking through the black wetness that used to be his leg. Losing his fight, he spit in the dirt, and shifted his body to see Duke. And the thing falling out of the darkness above him.
Black Duke, a Louisiana born gunslinger, practitioner of Voodoo, never saw the monstrosity that took his head from his shoulders.
***
Chien slid through the forest, moving to the sound of gunfire. As he got closer, he pulled his knives from their resting places on his back. With any luck, some of the pirates had turned on others, making this night's task much easier. He could smell the sickly-sweet odor of blood, like liquid copper carried on the fetid air, and fear began to twist his spine. Something was wrong here, something not right.
His foot struck something heavy and round. Chien fell backward as the sightless eyes in the black, severed head stared up at the sky. He moved forward into the small clearing. The broken, mangled bodies of the pirates lay where they had landed. One man, a dirty, bearded mongrel, leaned against a tree, the flesh stripped from his leg. His chest rose and fell, breathing shallow.
Chien prodded the man with his knife, watching as the man's eyelids fluttered open. "What happened here?" he demanded. The man shuddered, his tongue working in his mouth. Chien leaned closer, trying to catch the words coming from the man's pain-filled face.
"Cold...cold. The cold came."
Chien heard a twig snap behind him, and spun to face the sound. He saw its eyes, spread across its flat head, slitted and glowing. Those eyes, ancient and evil, were the last thing he ever saw.
***
Two men, one respected by his men, the other despised, waited anxiously for news of the battle.. Both heard the sounds of men dying in terror and pain. They needed to know the reason for the battle, the details, and the results. But both knew, deep inside their souls, that the information and men they so desperately needed would not return this night.
Deadlands: For a Few Dead Guys More Page 16