Wolfehaven

by Foy W Minson

  A hundred yards from the first of the four bends, Woody had drawn up abreast of Emmie’s boat. Lila matched their speed from a hundred feet back. There were no hazards in that familiar stretch of river.

  Suddenly, a floating log appeared just ahead.

  Emmie swerved left around it, and rather than swerving right where shallower water flowed, Woody did the next best thing. He took his boat to the air. No much. Just enough to clear the log, then settled back to skimming the surface.

  Emmie’s concentration bounced back and forth between the river ahead of her boat and the village, her home that was in terrible danger but still out of sight and out of reach.

  Suddenly, like an image projected on a fogbank, she saw it. The village appeared in front of her as though she were approaching the boat landing superimposed over her view of the river before her and the several acres of wooded land within the oxbow.

  But the village she saw was not like a snapshot that was frozen in time. It was there, moving and alive, and it crawled with men, men not of the village. They dragged others about, others that she knew. Other men wielded blood-smeared clubs on their captives. And there in the clearing a group stood around a tall, thin man — Morgan. Sherri cowered on the ground before him with a man holding her there; one man held Sarah on the ground next to her while another held Daryl on the ground before her. Yet another man — Jackie Johnson — raised an axe to his shoulder, and then over his head.

  She focused her power on the axe in Jackie’s hands, pushing it, pulling it, pounding at it. But all her efforts were for nothing. She could see the village with her far-sight, but her moving powers would not work at such a distance.

  “Raven!” she cried out without looking over at the boat beside her. She held her arm pointed forward and to the left as her boat fast approached the point at which she would have to turn. “Quick, an arrow!”

  Because she had total trust in her friend, Raven knocked, drew and launched her missile on the course indicated without question.

  The arrow had barely cleared the bow when Emmie’s mind grasped it and propelled it over and across the land around which the river curved and toward the village, pushing it to a speed far beyond what any arrow had ever flown and adjusted its course to the target she prayed would remain in her vision.

  ◆◆◆

  Jackie hefted his axe, giving his muscles the feel of its weight and balance as he eyed the small body writhing in the dirt. Coarse hands pinned the babe down against his wailing struggles and held his legs flattened out.

  He set his feet and raised the long handled axe over his head for the first stroke, eyeing his target and the nearness of the hand holding it; it would be terrible to lop off the hand, too. He allowed himself a quick glance at the baby’s mother and the pleading look she focused on him without words. Eager to do as bid, he answered it with a smirk. With his own focus back on the baby’s foot pressed against the ground, his axe raised another inch with the tensing of his muscles. His right hand slid down the shaft next to the left for extra leverage in the blow’s delivery. The blade accelerated in its descent until —

  Flying too fast to be seen, Raven’s arrow arrived with the explosive sound of a lightning bolt. Pushed on course to supersonic-speed before leaving the control of Emmie’s mind, and with a mass greater than any rifle bullet, it slammed into Jackie’s chest like Thor’s hammer. His chest exploded outward in a spray of blood as the mind-guided missile impacted, and with another gory spray as the disintegrating shaft burst from his back in a shower of blood, wood splinters, arrow head, and bone fragments. It hurled Jackie ten feet back where he slammed against the wall of a house before sprawling in the dirt. The force of his movement ripped the axe from his grip to land in the dirt at Morgan’s feet.

  Blinking from the spray of red droplets that splattered his face, Morgan spun left and right, enraged that his display of absolute authority ordained by God had been challenged.

  The men about him, all those within sight of Jackie’s dying, paused in their assault of the villagers and looked about, especially toward the sky from which the possibly heaven-sent bolt must have come.

  When Morgan heard mutterings of God’s punishment and angel of death, he roared his own outrage. “It was a bullet, you fools! Someone is shooting at you! Find them!”

  His own first thought was just what had disturbed his men. But, just as he had always done, self-assured of his own favor in the sight of God, he convinced himself that it had to be a gunshot.

  But what kind of gun available in the present world had such power? His next thoughts centered on that gun and what he could do with it, the power it would give him to expand his crusade far beyond New Napa. Its acquisition rose in priority of his campaign of destruction until it settled near the top. He must have that gun!

  The aimless pattern of his men in turning about, looking this way and that for the source of Jackie’s gruesome death coalesced with arms pointing upriver. Morgan turned, still yearning to get his hands on the mysterious gun. What he saw drove the thought from his mind.

  Three boats, those same witch driven boats he had watched moving upriver, each filled with scowling men holding a variety of weapons at the ready, shot spray up behind them as they coursed away from the east bend and bore down on the beach before him. Before they made landing, a fourth boat came sliding around the bend behind them. As the boats turned and beached on the shore just upstream of the pier, and those on board launched themselves over the sides even before they came to a full rest, he realized the punishments for the wicked he had envisioned lasting for two, hell-filled weeks had been cut short.

  He had little time to wonder about what sorcery had alerted the absent villagers, but not how the boats had brought them silently back. The vile vision he had seen when their witchcraft had moved them upstream still haunted his mind.

  Men and women piled out of the boats and, wielding quarterstaffs, knives and swords, charged up toward where he had begun to hold his court of damnation, yelling rage filled challenges at him and his band of God’s warriors.

  With a nod of approval, he watched about half of his men step forward with their weapons already bloodied to meet them. But the others, also with pre-bloodied weapons, fired his rage when they fell back glancing left and right for a route away from the coming battle. Rather than leading those standing forward, he chose to admonish those seeking to flee by rushing behind them to block their paths. Of course, that also moved him farther away from armed men and women who would, no doubt, target him first. Better, anyway, to not get in the way of his own fighters in whom he had full confidence. Let them do what they did best — kill. He’d just observe from somewhere out of the way, out of view, lest they look to him for instruction. He wanted to be no distraction. There, through that doorway, that looked like a good place to…not be a distraction.

  Dan scrambled to his feet, lurched past Jackie’s gory corpse and snatched up the axe. He turned to follow Morgan through the doorway before the door closed, but one of the reluctant raiders decided to fight and confronted him. However, the man swung his baseball bat like he was in a ball game. Dan had little difficulty in parrying each swing and ending the duel with a single counter-swing. When the man hit the ground and stayed there with his blood flowing from his gaping chest and into the dirt, Dan turned and ran to the now closed door.

  CHAPTER 24

  The first to hit the beach was Warren with his loaned sword gripped firmly in his hand. Satan was second to disembark, but first to draw the blood of the enemy when he knocked a man flat then clamped down on a his arm holding a bloody knife, crushing the bones and shredding the forearm. He left the screaming man squirming on the ground and charged onward. By the time Jason climbed over the side, the boat had emptied. He gave up trying to keep up with his daughter and the other, younger fighters. He crested the lip of the bank and rushed into the village center, a space filled with yelling, clanging, bellowing, screaming, bleeding and dying. His eyes swept the scene for Mor
gan, but the tall figure was nowhere to be seen. Before he could choose a direction to pursue his search, a man swinging a large club charged him, and, raising his staff to parry, Jason’s focus reverted to staying alive.

  Nearby, Raven and her sword wove a dance of death with a pair of Morgan’s raiders, each armed with a club and a hatchet. To her right Woody swung his quarterstaff, sharing it equally with two more startled men who realized too late that their clubs were no match.

  Beyond Woody, Dagar surprised one raider after another. Too late, they learned that the little old man with the long walking stick was not to be dismissed as merely someone else to bludgeon to death.

  As promised, Lila moved her boat back upstream after it unloaded. Although, even from there, she easily disarmed startled raiders, tripped others, knocked some flat, and lifted one higher than the tallest trees in the area before releasing him to fall flailing back to earth. She grimaced with that one, but it didn’t stop her from searching for other ways to assist her fighters.

  Nearby, wielding her staff to deal vicious blows with both ends, Emmie found herself trying to handle three men, two armed with blood-smeared clubs and the third with a very long carving knife with a blood-smeared blade. Their attacks from all directions were so fast she couldn’t bring her mind to bear on any one of them.

  Still, she held her own well enough until a pebble rolled under her foot, throwing off her balance and her concentration. Like wolves falling upon a prey showing sudden weakness, they pressed harder. With one knee on the ground, she parried blow after blow, but she couldn’t do more than parry. The three spread around her, making it impossible to watch them all, and, although she spun about as well as she could without rising to her feet, she knew the ending blow to her back would fall at any moment.

  It took but an instant to recall the first time she had ever used her new power. She didn’t know at the time how she had done it, or even if she had. She was back six years ago with her father crouching together atop a hill overlooking the city of San Francisco across the strait. Above them and almost close enough to touch, a kryl flyer fired its beam of death at them, a beam that had already left several foot-wide holes of bubbling lava around the area, and yet they lived. She had since learned many things about her power.

  She curled up with her staff and hunkered. The three men around her all struck at once, and their weapons bounced off the shield she had created over her like an inverted bowl. The men continued to pound their clubs on it, but they never got closer to her than a couple of inches. Slowly, she raised her head, raising the shield with it, and grinned at them. Being fully aware that at times she was still a child, she couldn’t resist giving them a playful wink. Then, she raised her hand and flicked her finger at the man in front of her, the one with the knife, a seeming miniscule action fit for sending a pea sailing across the room, just as the man did across the battle site. The other two stopped swinging their clubs and gaped.

  Suddenly, with a bellow, Warren emerged from the melee about them and fell upon the two men with thirty inches of double-edged, honed steel. Emmie was still on one knee when the last one fell. As she dissolved her shield, Warren’s free hand reached out to her and pulled her to her feet. His battle-tensed eyes peering into hers almost drove her back to her knees, but then, he spun around to meet the next challenge, and she jerked her staff up to parry a descending club from the other direction. No longer overwhelmed with multiple assailants, she brought her mind to bear. She slammed her opponent back against a nearby house wall so hard, he left a bloody smear where his head had hit. After he hit the ground, he didn’t move.

  ◆◆◆

  On the steeply sloping riverbank several hundred yards back upstream, Charlie held out his hand to pull Vonnie up over the last boulders lining the water’s edge and onto dry land. Behind him, the four strongest swimmers already ashore set about checking that they had what they would need when they eventually arrived at the battle. Behind her the river swirled around the bobbing heads and stroking arms of the destroyed boat’s passengers. The last of them, eighteen in all, made it to shore along a hundred foot stretch, a few helped by others. A man climbed out of the water a few feet away and went to his knees, cradling one arm with the other. He looked toward Charlie and Vonnie and started to rise but couldn’t make it. When Vonnie got to him, the crook of the man’s forearm like a second elbow made it clear what the problem was.

  Charlie turned to those first four. “Rick, you and Juan get up there to the road and make sure it’s clear. I doubt if they would have left anyone behind to guard it, but you never know. The rest of you move along and help the others out of the water. Some are gonna be hurt. Vonnie, honey, how about you? You okay?”

  “I’m fine. Oh, God, Charlie, I’m so sorry. I just didn’t see it. It must have been —”

  “It’s okay, hon. Don’t worry about it. We’re just lucky we only lost one boat. The way we came flying down the river, we could have lost every one of ‘em. Sayeko and Lila were able to keep going, so there should be enough of ‘em to seriously kick some butt. Anyway, you see to Amos’s arm, and I’ll see if anyone else needs a medic.”

  A quick head-count satisfied Charlie that no one was missing, and only six had injuries bad enough to keep them out of the battle: two broken arms, one wrenched but not dislocated shoulder, a few cracked ribs, and lots of scrapes and bruises.

  Addressing the injured, he said, “I know you guys don’t like it, but you need to maintain here until I send someone back for you when it’s safe. If no one comes after an hour, head for Riverhill. Red, you could probably fight, but these guys should have someone with them that can fight if someone else comes along. Okay?”

  Red, a burly fifty-year-old had one side of his ribcage scraped raw, but otherwise was hale. He started to protest, but seeing the urgency in Charlie’s eyes, he relented. “Sure. Give ‘em hell for me.”

  “Will do.” Charlie nodded and watched the others climb wearily to their feet and join Red on the shady side of the road. “Okay,” he said, turning back to the dozen men eager to get to the fight.

  They all stood dripping water into puddles around their feet. All held weapons, mostly quarterstaffs, but no swords. There was no need for a speech. He simply nodded to them and pushed off with one foot into a fast jog toward the west. Over his shoulder, he called out, “Double-time!”

  ◆◆◆

  Dan charged out the back door he found ajar hoping to catch Morgan before he ducked out of sight around another house. He saw two men, one he knew as a villager, punching each other with fists while stepping over their grounded clubs. Beyond them, a woman was getting the best of another raider who thought she would be another easy kill. But Morgan was nowhere in view. Apparently the old man could move fast.

  Dan was about ready to turn around and check the rooms in the house before he left it when he saw the woman fighting the man across the way trip and go down. The raider wasted no time in falling upon her. Dan rushed out into sunlight and to her aid without noticing the tall shadow lurking at the back of a door-less closet off to his right.

  The woman, he recalled her name being Irene, fought with a wild ferocity against the man atop her. The man had just ripped the top of her dress enough to expose one of her breasts when Dan reached them.

  “Come on, bitch, what you need is a—”

  But those were his final words. Dan gripped his mane of mangy hair with his left hand and jerked his head back. With his sword pressed against the man’s throat, he had little difficulty in urging the man upright and away from the crying woman. Once clear enough to avoid dousing her with blood, he finished with a quick slash of the blade. He left the dead man and the crying woman to continue his search for Morgan.

  Warren leaped over the body of the raider he had just felled with a back-hand swipe of his sword and pursued two others who had just clubbed down a villager ten feet away and then ran away when they saw how easily he had killed their cohort. But, being young and inexperienced in com
bat, the young man from Riverhill made the mistake of charging around the corner he had seen them take without making sure of what might be waiting on the other side. He tripped over the suddenly appearing club thrust between his legs and went down hard. He lost his grip on his sword and watched it skid away from him as he landed.

  It hadn’t been long, though, since he had trained in Dagar’s academy, so his still honed instincts kicked in. As soon as he hit the dirt, he rolled to the side and rose to his feet before the second man’s club smashed the bare dirt where Warren’s head had been. But by the time he located his sword several feet away, the man who had tripped him was already picking it up. He still lived, but he was now faced with one man with a club and another with a sword while he had nothing.

  “What’sa matter, sonny? Don’t know how to fight without a blade?”

  “Hey, that’s okay, little boy. Here you can have my thumper — if you want to take it from me.”

  Both men stood looking at the young man and laughed. Still wearing broad grins, they began edging apart and forward in an obvious attempt to hem him in against the house behind him.

  In his mind, Warren could still hear Dagar’s instruction in such a situation to not wait until it was too late to take any action but defensive. He must wrest the initiative away from his aggressors. He must take the fight to them, but not until he could do it on his terms. So…

  The sword rose back over its wielder’s shoulder just as the other man drew back his heavy club for a two-handed swing from the other side. And then, as each weapon swung at the centered target — he was gone. Sword blade and blood-soaked club slammed together in the space that, an instant earlier, had contained a young man.

  “What —?”

  “Where’d —?”

  They spun about in confusion and fury searching for the man they were sure they had not imagined, but as equally sure they didn’t want to believe had vanished in a wholly unnatural manner. They had been warned by the Prophet that they were entering a place of evil where the devil’s worshipers were known to perform unholy acts, but — but, he was right there, and then he wasn’t!