Wolfehaven

by Foy W Minson

  By the time they spotted him, Warren was halfway across the open space in front of the academy a couple hundred feet away and running for the door. Forgetting the disturbing sequence of events over the past few seconds, they ran in pursuit.

  Once inside, Hans spun to secure the door. But he hadn’t realized a lock had never been installed and wasted several seconds fumbling with the knob before that fact dawned on him. At the sound of pounding feet rushing the door from outside, he threw himself backwards.

  The door burst inward and slammed against the wall. The two men who had rammed it both tried to enter at the same time and jammed each other in the doorway long enough for Warren to scramble back to his feet.

  “Witchman!” The man with the club bellowed. And then, remembering what he might be confronting, ‘Demon!”

  The man with the sword didn’t waste time hurling words. He raised his weapon over his head and charged.

  But Warren knew better than to try to stand against either steel or wood. He spun and ran down the hallway, but only as far as the sword rack past the Plaque of Heroes. He could tell before he got to it, though, that it was empty. He spun back to face the two men closing in, each readying his weapon for a killing blow.

  Desperation gripped Warren as he glanced about for something — anything — he could use for a weapon, or at least a shield. Then his visual search swept upward where, ten feet above the floor, it locked on Lilaspride, the Sword of Jared. Resting on hooks against its satin backing, it gleamed in the dimly lit space with a promise of unmatched temper.

  Again, the men the Prophet Morgan had brought to deliver righteous death upon the evil inhabitants of the village witnessed what could be only a blatant display of the ungodliness of the place. The young man standing before them vanished, and instantly reappeared in mid-air several feet above the floor. In the blink of an eye, before he could fall back to the floor, he snatched the sword from the satin and winked out again. In the next instant, he reappeared again with his feet on the floor before them, the sword in his hand, and a grin on his face.

  They were still staring agape when he lunged at them with his blade singing. The one with the sword went down without even raising his weapon in defense. The other one raised the club to fend off the demon’s blade, but it smashed through the handle of the club and then his skull.

  Warren almost left the academy with just Lilaspride. At the door, he turned and went back to pick up the sword Dagar had loaned him. Sounds of fighting still emitted from all about the village, and he was sure he could find someone back out there that would be grateful for it.

  And it didn’t take him long. Following the loudest shouts, clanking, thudding and screaming to a knot of battle, he found Joe Louis swinging a five foot long two-by-four against the clubs of three men. One went down with a shattered elbow and crawled away. The other two spread out and closed in again, but Joe met them both, one with a whistling back-hand swing that knocked the club from the hand swinging it, then on the fore-swing, caved in the rig-cage of the other.

  Just beyond Joe, Billy Ray swung his oversized Claymore, with both hands, dealing death in both directions, and then wading past the fallen to engage others. Upon their arrival at Wolfehaven six years earlier, Billy Ray was reluctant to part from the sword, a gift from Dagar, most men could not have wielded. He declined Dagar’s offer of a wall mounting in the academy, preferring to mount it on his own wall of the house he shared with Carlene. So, he had it with him on the trip to Riverhill because he was going to be part of demonstration of sword-play Dagar had put together. The great blade had not drawn blood since that terrible, final battle back in Petaluma, until now.

  When Warren rushed into the fracas, he tossed his original sword to a Riverhill man he had trained with at the academy then waded into battle beside him with Lilaspride.

  ◆◆◆

  “Charlie!” one of his men called out. “Hold up a sec. I think I found something we might wanna hold onto.”

  Just short of the last curve, Charlie broke off his mile-eating pace and shuffled to a stop. Turning, he looked back at his friend who had gone over to the edge of the road to the thicket of bushes lining the base of the hill. The rest of the group, which had strung out behind their leader by fifty feet or so, slowly regrouped and stood panting, half leaning forward with their hands on their knees, and a few cradling painful stitches in their sides.

  On his way to where the man stood looking at the bushes, Charlie diverted over to where Vonnie stood with her hands stretched over her head.

  “Stitch?” he asked with a concerned smile.

  She answered with a nod and her own weary smile.

  “Not much farther.” Then he continued past to see what had been found.

  As he approached, his fellow fighter reached into the foliage with one arm and withdrew it, his hand grasping the collar of Olen Johnson, who danced about on tip-toe until the man holding him flung him to the ground at Charlie’s feet.

  “He alone?” Charlie asked.

  “No one else in the bush. Can’t say who might be up there in the trees.”

  “You alone?” Charlie directed his question to Olen.

  Olen’s answer was a drawn out whine.

  “I’ll ask you once more then I’ll let my friend there behind you ask. Are you alone?”

  This time Olen nodded and squeaked out, “Yes. Alone.”

  “Why are you here?”

  Olen glanced about, like he was looking to see if anyone else might be listening.

  “They…I thought they were just going to…I didn’t want…”

  “You sayin’ you came with the ones attacking the village?”

  “They made me. I didn’t want to, but they made me.”

  “What — they made you come this far then left you? Why did they bring you in the first place? Who are they? Where are they from?”

  Olen glanced over his shoulder at the man who had found him, back at Charlie, then down at the ground. He mumbled something so faint Charlie wasn’t even sure they were words.

  “Speak up. Where are they from?”

  After a moment, Olen said, “Napa. It’s Morgan. But he made us bring them. He made us.”

  “Morgan? You brought Morgan here? Why the hell did you do that? And who do you mean by ‘us’? You mean Jackie and Jerry? They with you, too?”

  “No. Not Jerry. Just Jackie.”

  “Where’s Jerry?”

  Another pause and more looking at his feet before he answered. “They killed him as soon as we got there.”

  Charlie thought for a moment, and then nodded. “Yeah, Morgan woulda done that, all right. So, they killed Jackie’s friend, and you still brought them here?”

  “They made us,” he whined. “They would have killed me and Jackie if we didn’t.”

  “So, to save your own sorry hides, you brought them here to slaughter us, huh? Well, I can’t say that really surprises me. You’d sell your own mother to save your skin. So, where’s Jackie?”

  “He went on with them — but they made him. He didn’t want to, either. They made him.”

  “Yeah, sure they did.”

  Charlie turned to face the group and noted none were still holding their sides. None were still panting. Even Vonnie stood with her fists propped on her hips while she glared at the former member of the village. He motioned two of the older and slower men forward and said, “You two hang back and bring this piece of crap along. Keep him between you and make him work up a good sweat.” Then back to the others, he nodded, said, “Okay, let’s hit it,” and took off again.

  ◆◆◆

  Emmie peered around the corner of a house at her father and Dan surrounded by five raiders, four armed with four-foot-long clubs, and the other one with a bloody hatchet. A large red stain covered the outside of Jason’s right thigh, and he propped himself on the other foot while Dan supported his wounded side with an arm around his waist. Otherwise, both men held their swords at the ready, waiting for their foes to c
ome within range.

  But the raiders held back, leery of engaging men armed as they were and ready to take them on, even disadvantaged by one being wounded. They edged back and forth, working their way to the sides where they began jabbing in at the pair, forcing them away from the wall at their backs.

  Emmie knew what they were doing. She had seen the same tactic the day she had met Billy Ray and Ronald; the attackers would come at them from all sides at once, an offense just about impossible for two men alone to handle for long, especially when one couldn’t stand on his own. She started toward them as she pondered whether to join the fray with her own staff or to just hang back and deal with them with her mind. That could be tricky with everyone so close and in constant motion, plus she would be vulnerable to anyone coming at her from behind.

  She took three steps forward and something slammed into her back with such force she flew another five feet before hitting the ground. Gasping for breath, she rolled over and peered up at two men looming over her, each holding baseball bats.

  Yeah, just like that.

  Both men stepped closer as they raised their weapons, both grinning, and both probably expecting an easy kill. Then both popped up into the air about five feet and hovered there with their eyes as wide as their mouths while she scrambled back to her feet.

  Like she was directing an orchestra, Emmy raised her arms stretched before her, pointing one at each man. She spread her arms wide as though in preparation to enclose them in a group hug. In response, they floated apart about twenty feet. With only a moment’s pause, she brought her hands together in a harsh clap, and, in the same instant, the men matched the motion of her hands, smashing into each other with a resounding, heavy crunch. They didn’t move after she let them fall to the ground.

  By the time she turned back to the uneven battle behind her, the odds had tilted the other direction with the arrival of Warren. She paused to watch what she was pretty sure was going to be a bit of a shock to the five raiders.

  When he first approached from outside the circle, Warren did it with a charge and slash that eliminated the nearest one. Then when the two on either side turned to take him on, he vanished and reappeared between the two on the far side. Before they could react, he wielded his sword as he pivoted left and then right with deadly effect. Dan drove his sword through one of the two remaining, and Jason felled the other.

  CHAPTER 25

  In a courtyard a hundred feet away crowded with men intent on killing each other, Sherri crouched in the shadowy recess between a tree and the side of a house with Sarah next to her on one side and Tina on the other, and with Daryl in her arms. Each time they started to dart out of the killing zone, men hacking at each other moved into their path. She was about to rise again, hoping to make it to the corner and relative safety, when a hulking figure loomed over her. She looked up and quailed when she saw a too familiar face she had hoped to never see again. All she could manage was a whimper.

  “Get up, slut! I’m going to do what I should have done a long time ago.” Brad’s huge hand reached down like a clutching claw. “Now, give me that little black —”

  “No! Get away from us!” Her efforts to cringe away from him took her nowhere but up against the wall at her back.

  “Yeah, you wish. You had your chance to do what’s right. Now, before you die, you’re gonna watch me rip this —”

  Tina lunged forward and raked her fingernails across his forearm, then, when he jerked it back and turned toward her rising figure, she attacked his face. Blood welled in the deep fissures across his face, but she had missed the eye she aimed for, and he responded with a vicious back-hand that slammed her against the tree.

  He jabbed his finger at her and said, “Oh, you’re gonna get yours, all right, but first I’m gonna —”

  He reached out for the infant, but Sherri lurched to her feet and, pushing Sarah ahead of her, ducked out of range. He lunged again. They spun and ran for the corner of the house.

  Incensed, he bellowed, “Get your ass back here! Don’t you dare run from me!”

  But she did dare. They rounded the corner and nearly into another blood spewing battle filling the space. Her gaze darted left and right and left again, desperate to find a way away from the savage brutality she knew her husband was capable of. When the surge of the fight between the houses went one way, she rushed with Sarah around the other. But when she rounded the next corner, she ran into Erin who was coming the other way. Erin caught her before she fell and helped her back to her feet as Brad skidded to a halt just a couple of paces away.

  When he reached out to grab Sherri by her hair, Erin jumped between them and knocked his grasping hand away with her staff.

  Enraged, he lunged at her, both hands reaching for her throat. She spun away and met him with her staff slammed against his shin, his knee, then one end into his gut, and the other end down hard onto the base of his neck, scraping his ear half-off on the way.

  Tina came running around the corner, squeezed out from the last two courtyards by the fighting there. She slipped around Brad and Erin and joined Sherri crouched with Sarah and Daryl, again stopped from fleeing by the other battle nearby that had moved back to block her path. They all followed the fight between Brad and Erin with terror-stricken eyes.

  Sherri had never seen anyone stand up to her husband, had never imagined anyone could, especially a woman. But Erin didn’t even flinch before his rage; she merely lashed out again and again, meeting his ogreish assault with quickness, skill and confidence.

  Brad tried to use his imposing size to overwhelm his opponent, but Erin was too quick. Each time he lunged at her, she managed to spin away, duck beneath his grasping arms, or pummel him with her staff until he backed off. When their maneuvering eventually moved them out of the congestion of the courtyard to a more open space, he backed off again, but only enough to arm himself with his favorite weapon, the bullwhip clipped to his waist.

  Grinning, he flipped it out so that the end landed briefly near Erin’s feet, then, with a snap of his arm, he whipped it back, up and forward in a loud crack that left a streak of blood across Erin’s forearm.

  She flinched at the burning pain but retained the grip on her staff. She backed up a couple of steps and brought the staff up in front of her.

  Sherri cringed. She had seen that terrible strip of braided leather in action, had felt its bite more than once, and she knew how much the man holding it loved to play with it and his victims.

  Another sound like a gunshot, a sharp cry from Erin and a laugh from Brad, and another bloody gash appeared on her other forearm.

  “You think that little stick’ll protect you?” he taunted. “I’m going to strip your hide off an inch at a time, and there ain’t a thing you can do about it.”

  The leather flew again and cracked. But this time Erin was able to duck and twist out of its way. But before she could take another action, it was back. This time it ripped open her shirt across her left shoulder, leaving a spreading stain of red.

  Erin dodged to her left, and the whip cracked right in front of her eyes. She spun and ducked back to her right. The whip drew a red line across her left cheek crossing the old scar that had been there for years. Blood ran to her chin and dripped onto the front of her shirt. She lunged back to her left, but after one step, her feet locked up and she went down, landing just inches from Sherri.

  Still grinning, Brad stalked forward. He leaned over and untangled the end of his whip from around her ankles.

  But he tarried too long while bent over her. Erin’s arm flashed up and swept the blade of her dagger across the front of his throat. He jerked back at the last instant and she merely drew a thin, red line across the skin.

  Before she could swing again, he back-handed her, solid and hard, and she flopped back onto the ground. After a pause, she rolled over and glared up at him, but with her head wobbling and eyes she had trouble focusing.

  Brad backed away, wiping his hand across his bleeding neck several ti
mes. Finally, satisfied that he wasn’t bleeding to death, he grinned again and started forward, slowly approaching the two women, the two children and the infant that were at his mercy. He flipped the end of the whip back and forth a couple of times.

  “Well, what am I going to do now? Who should I start with? I think I’ll let you wake up a little more before I get back to skinning you. Wouldn’t want you to miss anything. And, you —!” He jabbed his finger at Sherri. “You I’m going to save for last. You’re gonna watch what I do to those two brats of yours. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do next. You ever rip a roasted chicken apart? You just grab a drumstick in each hand, and with a good twist and a yank, they come right off. Here, I’ll show you.” He stomped up to her. “Give me that damned —”

  When Erin fell from Brad’s back-hand, her dagger had landed within inches of Sherri. When he reached for Daryl, Sherri lashed out with it.

  He jumped back, stumbling over his own feet, and landed on his ass. But it didn’t take long for him to regain his feet, glaring between her and the open gash across his forearm.

  “You raise a knife to your husband?” he thundered. “You’ve had a taste of how my lash can strip hides. For that you’re gonna get a full meal.”

  The crack of the whip matched the instant searing burn on her left thigh. The cloth of her pants gaped open, as did the flesh beneath it.

  Another crack, and another line of red-stained cloth gaped open on her left breast.

  She shoved Daryl into Sarah’s arms and scrambled to her feet holding Erin’s dagger in front of her with the point toward Brad.

  He laughed and pointed at the puny weapon with his free hand. “What the hell are you going to do with that? It’s a little on the short side, ain’t it? Of course, you could use it to cut your own throat, but I sure hope you don’t. I’m just getting started.”