Twilight's End

by Kaitlyn O'Connor

  The cats exchanged a look, as if they were communicating silently. Finally, almost seeming to shrug, they lay down, watching her as she moved back and forth from the tent to the bot, collecting her gear and stowing it. When she’d finished, she moved as close to the edge of the gorge as she dared and studied the walls in both directions. Seeing no access to the bottom within range of her own vision, she summoned the bot closer and had it analyze the problem.

  The bot used laser sighting to calculate the elevations and produced the information that the fall was to the south. The cliffs surrounding the gorge should decrease in depth to little more than twenty feet over the next five to ten miles.

  “Shit!” Dionne greeted that information with irritation.

  There was no hope for it, though, she knew. She was going to have to detour ten or twenty miles and there was no sense in dragging it out. In fact, the faster she moved, the more quickly she could make up the lost time.

  She struck off southward, following the lip of the gorge. The ground was hard and strewn with rocks and pebbles--too hard for vegetation, which crept no closer than fifteen to twenty feet at any spot, forming what looked like a natural roadway along the edge of the gorge. It was relatively flat and smooth, however, free of anything but scrubby vegetation and sloped downward in a fairly gradual decline. She found that she was making far better time than she had on either of the two days previously, for the downward slope of the mountain she’d negotiated the day before had been steep enough that it had been almost as hard to traverse as the climb upward had been.

  Settling down to rest and eat not long after the sun had passed its zenith, Dionne considered her progress with slightly more optimism. At the rate she was going, she figured she would only lose one day off her calculations--not even that if she considered that she’d added a full day for just this reason. Instead of hiking back up to the point across from where she’d met the problem, she could strike off at a tangent and recover some of the detour, she decided.

  Her blisters had burst, leaving raw, exposed skin. She didn’t even need to take off the boots to know that and decided it would be best not to. At the moment, she was reasonably comfortable. If she disturbed the injuries by pulling her feet out and shoving them back into the boots she was going to pay for it.

  She glanced around at the landscape speculatively.

  Two days and no sign of Khan. She supposed he’d either not been able to track her or he’d decided not to try. He would’ve caught up to her by now if that wasn’t the case.

  Sighing in disgust at the direction of her thoughts, she got up and struck off again.

  Less than an hour later, she heard the clatter of hoof beats behind her. Her heart leapt into her throat, threatening to choke her, but gladness filled her. She slowed, listening intently and finally turned to search for the rider.

  He was still a good distance from her, but closing fast.

  It wasn’t Khan.

  “Sachi! Nomi! Come!” Dionne called loudly when she glanced around and discovered the cougars had disappeared again.

  Within moments, they came loping toward her out of the brush some twenty feet from where she stood. “On guard!”

  Both cats skidded to a halt and changed directions, moving to a position between her and the rider.

  He dragged back on his reins when he saw the cats. Pebbles flew in every direction as the horse he was mounted on screamed, rearing up and flailing its forelegs in the air. The rider, caught off guard, rolled off the horse’s back and hit the ground so hard Dionne winced as the smacking sound of flesh against stone echoed along the canyon like a clap of thunder.

  He growled in fury as he scrambled to his feet.

  His horse, riderless, beyond his control and scared witless by the cougars, tore off in the direction from which it had just come, bucking and kicking.

  His chest heaving, Notaku glared at her, thrusting the long, stringy locks of his pale hair out of his face. “I came to take you to the forbidden lands,” he said, his voice still tight with anger he was trying hard to control.

  Dionne studied him critically, but she thought his hostility went way beyond anger at being thrown from his horse and fear of the cats. There was something in his expression she completely distrusted. Then again, she hadn’t trusted him from the moment she’d set eyes on him. Everything about him screamed ‘brute and bully’. He was a huge man, taller even than Khan and broader of shoulder. Fat overlay the bulging muscles of his body, indicating a tendency toward self-indulgence and laziness.

  She just plain didn’t like him.

  “Thank you, but I don’t need an escort. I have Sachi and Nomi to protect me--and my own weapons.”

  He reddened with anger. “You are just a woman,” he pointed out. “You need a man to protect you.”

  That settled it. If she’d had any doubts whatsoever in her mind, his insulting remarks clenched it.

  He’d thought she would be easy prey without Khan around. That was as crystal clear as if he’d said it plain out.

  Dread clenched at her stomach at the thought of Khan, the fear instantly surfacing that he might have had something to do with the fact that Khan hadn’t shown up.

  “If I’d felt the need for a man, I would’ve asked Khan to bring me,” she said pointedly.

  He wasn’t as stupid as he looked. She could tell from the way his eyes narrowed that he realized she’d just insulted his manhood. His next words confirmed it. “I am a better warrior and hunter than Khan!” he growled, but he seemed to think better of his display of temper. With an obvious effort, he tamped it and attempted a smile of reassurance that looked more like a grimace of pain. “He is too busy arguing with the council of elders to come. He sent me.”

  He must think she was a complete moron if he thought she’d believe that lie. Even if she hadn’t seen the hostility that existed between the two men with her own eyes, she knew Khan well enough to know that he would never delegate her care to anyone else, much less a man like Notaku--who represented everything Khan despised.

  Notaku was the sort of man who expected his enormous size and show of aggressiveness to intimidate others, and very likely it was a tactic that worked most of the time--except with Khan, which was probably why he hated Khan so much. She doubted very much that he had the balls to back up his bluster. Of course, frightened people were usually far more dangerous than the brave hearted.

  “That was kind and thoughtful--of both of you. But as you see, I’m more than halfway there already--and no problems. You can go back and tell Khan I didn’t need help.”

  His eyes narrowed. After a moment, his gaze shifted from her to the cougars and he studied them speculatively. She didn’t like the gears she saw turning in his head. They were watching him steadily for any threatening move, but at the moment they appeared completely docile.

  He was trying to decide whether or not he would have time to shoot both before they could reach him.

  She didn’t really care for the idea of turning her back on Notaku, but she couldn’t allow this standoff to continue either. She’d dismissed him. She had to make a pretense, at least, that she’d believed his lies and considered the matter settled. With an effort, she turned away. “Sachi! Nomi! Come!”

  Trying not to give the appearance of flight, Dionne resumed her march along the lip of the gorge. She counted out five minutes and then ten. Finally, she turned to see if the cats were following. As she turned, Notaku began to back slowly, warily, away from the cats, who were still sitting where she’d left them. She stopped to watch until Notaku disappeared into the brush at the foot of the mountain, searching, she supposed, for his mount--which might well be halfway back to the village by now.

  After about twenty minutes, Sachi and Nomi came trotting up behind her and she relaxed finally, realizing Notaku must have retreated beyond range of his scent.

  She discovered she was trembling with reaction. The encounter had unnerved her far more than she’d been willing to let on and she doubt
ed very much that she’d seen the last of Notaku. He’d been embarrassed by the way things had gone down. He wouldn’t take that sort of humiliation well. Whatever his intentions had been--and she strongly suspected they’d included claiming her as his woman and subduing any protests she might think to make--she had a real enemy now. She doubted very much that he would simply give up and head back to the village.

  He was either ghosting her, maintaining a distance that prevented the cougars from catching his scent, or working up his rage and sense of mistreatment and thinking up ways to punish her once he caught her.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Khan lost his temper. He had not been completely easy in his mind since he’d left Dionne. He had thought she was too occupied with her project to pay much attention to his absence since she hardly seemed to notice his presence, but he’d begun to feel uneasy almost from the moment he left. He’d shaken the vague, indeterminate feeling over and over, but each time it came back stronger than before.

  There was something about the way she’d been behaving that just didn’t sit right, but, turn it though he might, he couldn’t figure out what it was and he’d finally pushed it to the back of his mind when he’d reached the village and summoned the council.

  The talks had started promisingly enough. When the elders had gathered, he had very carefully explained what Dionne had proposed to them, in terms he knew that they would understand.

  The remainder of the day had been spent hashing and rehashing every tiny detail and discussing every conceivable outcome of every change. Khan’s patience had worn to a thread long before the elders had taken their leave to consider their opinion in the leisure of their own lodge.

  He’d swallowed his impatience with an effort. There was nothing unusual in the request to ‘sleep on it’ and this matter was far more important than anything that they’d considered before.

  He could not seek his own rest. He had to fight the urge to return to the lab and make the trip back to the village the following day. After tossing and turning for hours instead of sleeping, he finally managed to convince himself that he was worrying about Dionne for no rational reason. Beyond that, if he left instead of prodding the elders the chances were that they would spend another entire day rehashing everything--or a week.

  They were in no hurry.

  Despite the few hours of sleep he’d managed, Khan felt reasonably relaxed when the talks resumed the following morning, primarily because he’d convinced himself that the issue would soon be settled and he could return to the lab. By noon, he had a pounding headache, however, and his patience was fading fast.

  It wasn’t the umpteenth request to explain the benefits to the people that finally pushed Khan into exploding. It was the realization that the elders were doing nothing at all but stalling because they were afraid that enlightenment of the people would diminish their importance as the respected elders and wise men in the community.

  Shooting to his feet, his face as dark as thunder, Khan had virtually roared at them and ten ancient jaws had dropped in stunned dismay. “Out!” he’d growled furiously, pointing to the door of the lodge.

  Without waiting for them to comply since it looked as if they were too stupefied to move, he strode from the lodge and addressed the villagers that were loitering near his lodge to hear the decision of the council. “Go, now! Tell everyone in the village that they are to gather there,” he said, pointing toward the rise where Dionne had stood to speak to them, “for they are going to the holy place where they will joyously receive the gift the goddess Dionne has offered!” He lifted his head then and issued the tribal war cry. The moment he did the warriors of the village scrambled to gather their weapons, raced from their lodges and mounted their horses. They met him at the ridge, but there was confusion on their faces as they looked around for a threat and saw none.

  “Every man, woman, and child will make pilgrimage to the lifeless plain. See to it that there are no stragglers!” He summoned his five brothers then and informed them that they would be the first to receive the gifts. None of them looked particularly thrilled to discover that they were volunteering to go first, but it was a hard and fast rule within the family that they never questioned their Chief’s authority--publicly. Privately, Khan had found himself and his brothers at odds almost as often as they agreed on anything.

  Too impatient to wait for the villagers, who would be making the trek on foot, Khan nudged his horse to a trot. His brothers, after exchanging questioning glances, shrugged and followed suit.

  The first thing that Khan noticed when he arrived at the lab was that there was only one bot. Surprised, he pulled up on the reins, bringing his horse to a halt, and surveyed the landscape.

  “What is it?” Rikard, his older brother asked uneasily.

  “There is only one bot?”

  “What’s a bot?”

  Khan pointed. “A machine.”

  Rikard stared at the machine for several moments in horrified fascination before glancing around nervously. “Do you think it is waiting to attack?”

  Khan threw a disgusted glance at his brother. “No, I do not. And I do not like it at all that there is only one when there should be two.” Kneeing his horse into motion, he raced the short distance to the lab and leapt from the horse’s back before the animal had even come to a complete halt.

  He knew the moment he entered the lab that Dionne was gone. He searched the building from top to bottom anyway, becoming more angry and worried as he did so. When he finally emerged once more, he saw that the villagers were assembling on the rise above the lab, just as they had for generations when they had come to worship.

  “She’s gone,” he said flatly.

  His brothers, who’d remained mounted, exchanged a look of confusion. “The goddess?” Rikard asked hesitantly. “Where would she go?”

  Khan ground his teeth, but it didn’t take more than a split second for the answer to present itself to him. “The forbidden lands.”

  “Why would she go there?” his youngest brother, Tin demanded, appalled.

  Khan ignored him. “I should have known she had something in mind when she kept looking to see if I was still here,” he muttered angrily, realizing she’d made a complete fool out of him--again. More correctly, he supposed he’d made a fool out of himself, thinking with his little brain rather the one that actually worked--because he’d thought her seeming preoccupation was with him, that she was finally thawing toward him, when the reality was she’d only been waiting for him to leave. “We will have to go after her,” he added, climbing onto his horse once more.

  “In the forbidden lands?” his brothers chorused.

  Khan fixed them with a sweeping glance. “To hell if necessary.”

  He didn’t wait to see if they would follow. Instead, he turned his horse and kicked it into a brisk trot. After a moment, his brothers turned and followed. They paused on the ridge and Khan looked out over the villagers. “Dionne is disappointed in you. You will wait here until I return to show her that you are repentant.”

  He glanced from one face to another, making certain that each realized that they would know his displeasure if they did not do as they’d been told. After a moment, a frown drew his brows together. He scanned the people again, hoping he was wrong and it was only anxiety that was clouding his judgment. Finally, he turned to his brother, Rikard. “Where is Notaku?”

  * * * *

  He attacked her from behind as Dionne stepped from the tent. Still sluggish from just waking, it took her several critical moments to collect her wits about her, but in that stream of random data transfer, her brain instantly connected ‘attack’ with ‘Notaku’. One hand covered half her face, cutting off her air supply. The other was cinched so tightly around her waist, trapping her left arm, that it was almost like being squeezed by a boa constrictor.

  The cats had vanished again--or he’d killed him. If they’d been anywhere around they would have been all over him before he could get so close.

&nb
sp; Reacting automatically to the threat rather than consciously, Dionne swung her free arm upwards and back. The pistol she held in her hand went off on impact, firing harmlessly skyward, but the metal connected hard enough with the side of his head that his grip loosened fractionally. It was enough to give her the chance to bite down on the hand covering her nose and mouth hard enough to draw blood. At the same time, she lifted one leg as high as she could and slammed it backwards, catching his shin bone with her hiking boot in a glancing blow.

  The moment he reacted to the pain by snatching at his hand, trying to free it from her teeth, she released her grip, screaming at the top of her lungs to summon the cougars.

  He retaliated by cuffing her hard enough along the side of her head to send her flying. The landing stunned her almost as much as the blow itself. She lost her grip on her pistol. The weapon struck the stone and went skittering away as she landed. Shock slowed her reactions and paralyzed actual thought. It was instinct that sent her scrambling toward her pistol to retrieve it, but she felt as if she was plowing through a thick liquid. Each movement seemed to take minutes to complete. She could hear her own thundering heartbeat, the rush of air in and out of her lungs as she struggled to catch her breath and very little else.

  She heard Notaku scream even as she curled her fingers around the pistol and her heart clenched reflexively. Expecting another attack any moment, she dropped to the ground and rolled onto her side instead of trying to regain her feet. Blinking to clear her vision, she saw that one of the cougars had returned from its morning stroll--Nomi, she thought. The great cat was standing on her hind legs, her teeth clamped onto Notaku’s shoulder. “Subdue him, Nomi! Don’t kill him!” she gasped out, though the words sounded slurred even to her own ears.

  The cat had heard her, though, and obeyed reluctantly, releasing its grip on his shoulder and dropping to all fours. With an effort, Dionne staggered to her feet just as Notaku, who’d recovered with surprising speed from the attack, lifted a stone ax and swung at the animal. Nomi ducked, but Sachi surged forward, leaping and snapping at Notaku’s arm.