Through the Veil

by Walker, Shiloh

  “None of us just disappear, boy.” There was a thoughtful look on her face and she looked westward, staring at the flickering lights. “Not even the Warlords with their infernal magick, and saints know they have a vast power supply. What did you feel?”

  Kalen shrugged restlessly. Something flickered out in the distance and he lifted the night specs. The lenses digitally enhanced and magnified objects, and through them, he saw easily a hundred times better than he could with his naked eye. Just a boar.

  He did a visual sweep with the specs and then lowered them. He thought back to that night, absently rubbing a hand down his face. The light beard growth there was getting thicker. “Nothing.”

  Eira narrowed her eyes. “There had to have been something. A ripple in the air. A shift in energy. Something tangible. Unless, of course, you did lose her trail.”

  Without looking back at her, Kalen snorted. “I didn’t lose a trail. There was no trail. And I felt nothing.”

  “Hmmmm. A puzzle.” She followed his gaze westward. “We’re surrounded by puzzles, aren’t we, Kalen? Lee is the newest—and yes, one of the more elaborate puzzles. She has always been such an enigma. Now as much as ever before. She is fighting to accept it, when most people would do the opposite. It’s almost unnatural.”

  “Perhaps it is because so much of her remembers. Every moment that passes brings more and more remembered knowledge,” Kalen suggested. He lifted the night specs again, this time studying the far eastern quadrant. The specs let him see nearly three miles away, and through them, he saw nothing. But without them . . . were there odd colors dancing just above the tree line? He had an odd itch low in his gut, and foreboding crowded his mind.

  The small skirmishes they had dealt with lately had him on edge. Small skirmishes, no real battles—too quiet all in all. Even the Raviners that kept trying to encroach along the western line had fallen back without much of a fight the past two nights.

  “I don’t know the why of it. I’m not even sure the why of it matters. Right now, she’s dazed. Whatever magick let her enter our world has clouded her mind. And part of her remembers . . . before.”

  “Before what?” Kalen asked, but he wasn’t really paying attention. Other things in the night called to him. He reached out with his mind, trying to find it, but it was too insubstantial just yet.

  As though she sensed his unease, Eira looked out to the west. “What do you see?”

  Disgusted, Kalen shook his head. “Nothing,” he muttered, lowering the night specs and leaning against the waist-high wall that surrounded the surveillance tower. He squinted, staring into the dark, trying to find whatever had him so uneasy. But there was nothing. The night was quiet. “I don’t really see anything.”

  No threat, no sign of the enemy, just those odd colors dancing in the dark that might not mean much of anything. But the knot in his gut said otherwise. He switched to the inner sight that let him look across the Veil, but he could see nothing out of the ordinary. Raviners hovering near the gate, their favorite place to be. Any little flicker let them cross over in twos or threes. Sirvani in their evening rituals. A Warlord with a woman who didn’t look like a native of Anqar—

  Helpless anger twisted inside him and a snarl formed on his lips. His hands closed into fists and the rage inside him spun itself into a maelstrom. Eira touched his arm, jerking out him out of the trance required to see through the Veil. She stared at him and he saw an answering anger in her faded eyes. “Sometimes I wish I had never taught you how to see through the Veil, Kalen. We cannot save those alreadylost to us. All we can do is try to keep from losing more.”

  It was an old argument, one Kalen didn’t feel like having again. Weary, he replied, “You know as well as I that if I couldn’t see across the Veil, more lives would have been lost. That knowledge saved lives.”

  “And it’s taken over yours.”

  Kalen shrugged. “If it saves others, then I call it a fair trade.” He pushed the worry and fury in his gut down, burying it deep. The emotions were nothing new to him, and late at night, when he was alone and cold in his bed, he’d let them rise to the surface. Not the most warming bed-mate, but at least dwelling on them kept him from being as aware of the empty space next to him.

  Although he wondered if that would continue with Lee sharing his living space. And that was just another problem he wished he didn’t have to deal with—the problem of what in the hell to do with a warrior who didn’t realize she was a warrior. “You mentioned something about before?”

  Eira’s smile was all too knowing. Too unsettling. But she seemed content to let it go for now. “Before she went to the other world. You know she wasn’t born there. She belongs here—always has.”

  He knew that. Part of him had suspected just that for years, but actually hearing somebody else voice it lifted a weight off his shoulders. It was like a reaffirmation of his gut instinct that Lee was the key to their nightmare. Somehow, some way, they could win—so long as Lee was there to help.

  “I knew it,” he whispered, and he sighed, some of the tension inside of him easing just a bit. “I knew it. But it still puzzles me. How did she leave our world for theirs? She was just a child when I first met her, Eira. Only the Warlords have the power to open a gate.”

  She shrugged, her eyes thoughtful. With a lined, age-spotted hand, she tugged off her knit cap and ran a hand over thick, snow white hair. “She was sent there, perhaps. I don’t understand the how of it, but I cannot imagine she found a way to pierce the Veil on her own at such a young age.”

  She cocked her head and a faint smile appeared on her lips. “Yes. Perhaps that is the answer. Someone took her across—to hide her. Part of her remembers. That is why she crosses back and forth between the Veil in her dreams; part of her still remembers her true home. And I wouldn’t be surprised if she started trying to cross back to the other world in her dreams. Part of her will try to cling to that life. It’s human nature,” Eira said.

  She turned her head and gazed out into the darkness, staring into the west, following Kalen’s stare. “Demon fires. Echoes of the unrest in Anqar. Nothing to fear in itself, but we’ll have another raid soon.”

  “Another storm,” Kalen said. He had known it in his gut. The uneasy quiet of the past few months was a bad omen, and even though he had known it was just a matter of time, it ate at him. Feeling Eira’s compassionate, understanding gaze on him, he spun away from it and started to pace. Fury and desperation—they were emotions he lived with on a regular basis, and emotions he hated. But he couldn’t control those emotions any more than he could control the coming raid. It would happen; men and elders would die, and women and children would be dragged across the Veil.

  “Pacing will not stop it.”

  Kalen shot her an evil glare. “What is the point of this, Eira? Was our world created just to provide them with breedable women? Can’t they rape their own women and leave ours alone?”

  She had no answer. None of them did. For as long as the raids had been happening, those left behind had sought answers and there were none to be found.

  “I wish I had a sure and certain answer for you, lad. I do. But I have none,” Eira said. Her shoulders seemed to slump just a bit more, as though the burden of the war was too great for her to handle. Then she took a deep breath and slid down from the stool. As her feet hit the ground, she winced a little and rubbed her left hip for a minute. Her first few steps were more awkward than normal, and Kalen could tell by the look in her eyes that every step hurt.

  Morne came and visited the old woman twice a week, doing what he could to ease the pain in her aging joints. Kalen suspected the healer needed to visit her a little more often. He forced his mind away from Eira’s ailing health and back to Anqar. “AmIafool to hope we can beat them, Eira? This war has been around for centuries and the raids will not stop so long as the gates exist. I know that. Yet still we fight. I make my people believe there is hope. Am I wrong?”

  With an enigmatic smile, Eira rep
lied, “As long as there is life, there is hope, Kalen. Believe in that even if you believe in nothing else.”

  Hope . . . it seemed such a foreign word. Even now with Lee at his side, hope seemed so out of reach. He turned his head and looked out over the war-torn, twisted landscape. The base camp was sturdy and strong, surrounded by earthen barricades that could be set to flame in seconds. Beyond the fire walls, there were other barricades, made out of rubbish and salvaged metal from the fallen ruins of nearby New Angeles. They were strong and as impenetrable as they could make them—and they were ugly as hell.

  The landscape itself had long since started to show the ill effects of a war lasting too long. Most of the standing trees were ancient giants. Saplings couldn’t grow in the poorly nourished soil, and the scant sunlight didn’t help much.

  Food supplies hadn’t yet become scarce in their part of the world, thanks to the copious rainfall through the summers, but eventually, even their food supplies would be compromised. Other parts of the world were little more than barren wastelands, either too arid or too swampy to grow crops. As food became more and more scarce, so would the animal population, and fresh meat would be hard to come by.

  They no longer had the technology to use synthetic food sources, so as time went by, it would get harder and harder. Theirs might not be a dead world yet, but it was coming. The Warlords and Sirvani never remained in Ishtan. Once they got their supply of human flesh, they returned to their world and never stopped to think about what would happen if the demons continued to breed unchecked in Ishtan. Ishtan’s ecosystem hadn’t been created with demonkind in mind.

  “We live now, but for how much longer, Eira? We’ll withstand this raid, and the next, and the next . . . but what about a few years down the road? We’ll start to starve. The snowcaps and rain still provide adequate water, but how much longer until the streams and rivers are as poisoned as the rest of the land?”

  She had no answer for him, and dread lay in his belly like a jagged hunk of metal, cutting into him, weighing him down. The darkness that had been pushing at him for weeks felt like it was expanding, exploding. Like it was going to swallow him and everything around him whole.

  Voice tight and raspy, he asked Eira, “We truly are running out of time, aren’t we?”

  “Only the good Lord and his saints know the answer to that, Kalen. Time is of no consequence, though. If it is within our power to end this once and for all, it will happen when it is meant to and not according to some unseen timetable.”

  She made it sound so simple, Kalen thought darkly. He turned back to look where the odd green lights continued to flicker sporadically in the sky. “Of no consequence,” he repeated.

  Eira patted his shoulder. “Have heart, Kalen. We still live. While there is life, there is hope.” Then she hobbled off, leaving him alone to brood.

  Kalen stared off into the bleak darkness. There was one simple, unsaid fact. As long as the gates existed, invaders from Anqar would continue to rain down holy hell on Kalen’s world.

  There seemed to be only one solution: the Roinan Gate had to fall. It was the last remaining active gate that was strong enough to trigger the smaller gates throughout their world.

  If the Roinan Gate fell . . . well, that was a hope that was actually worth believing in. If only they could figure how to make it happen.

  Kalen found Lee sprawled facedown on his bunk, sleeping a deep, exhausted sleep. Her hair lay in a matted tangle around her shoulders and there wasn’t a visible inch that wasn’t dirty. Occasionally, a gentle, sighing kind of snore escaped her. Kalen lowered himself to the bunk, resting one hip on it as he brushed her hair back from her dirt-smudged face.

  “Damn, Eira, what did you do to her?” he murmured.

  A light touch on her mind showed him she was sleeping dreamlessly, so exhausted his touch never even stirred her.

  He rose and moved down to her feet, grasping one narrow ankle in his hand and loosening the laces that held the oversized shoes on her feet. One of the supply runners had her measurements. He’d hit his sources and try to find her a pair of shoes that fit, but for now, she had to make do with the boots. He tossed them aside and rolled her socks down, wincing as he saw the nasty blisters forming on the back of her heel.

  Damn it, what he wouldn’t give for them to be able to use the synthit. He could just program in her sizes, and in a matter of moments, the synthit would have her a set of clothes and shoes that fit, not just stuff she had to borrow. But they couldn’t use most of their machinery. The vibrations were like a siren’s song for the wyrms.

  Smaller equipment wasn’t too much trouble; solar power was safe, but anything large-scale was downright hazardous. Even if it hadn’t been such a danger with the wyrms, they had to conserve their supplies. If he used the synthit for Lee, then when there was a real emergency, what they needed might not be there. He couldn’t take away from somebody who would need it more just because he didn’t want to see Lee’s feet bruised and bloody.

  Medical supplies, weapons, food necessities, material for clothes, all the things needed for fighting an endless war . . . did a pair of decent shoes really count when an abundance of boots lay around?

  He left the bed and rummaged through the medkit for some antiseptic and skin sealant. After he cleaned the raw patches of skin, he applied the sealant, gently running his hands over her narrow feet, looking for any other mark.

  A few more blisters on her toes and along the ankle, but none were as ugly as the ones on her heels. After he cleaned the rest of them up, he put the medical supplies aside and gently rolled her over. He eyed her from head to toe, studying the battered condition of her gear. Mostly just dirt and wear. Eira’s granddaughter, Elina, had left behind most of her clothing and the women were of a similar size, so at least Lee’s clothes fit.

  And she had more than one set of clothes. Thank the saints for that. What she was wearing was filthy. Beyond filthy. Caked with dirt, soaked with sweat. He did a mental tally, thinking through the work rotation for the nonfighters. He was pretty sure one of the women near his bunker was on rotation with the cleaning staff. The fighters all took their turn through the work rotation, but the last thing Lee needed was more work heaped on her. Eira wasn’t done with her yet.

  Once Eira gave her a chance to breathe, Lee could pick up the rest of the grunt work they all had to do, but until then, he’d pull rank and get her a little help. Decision made, he reached for the seal of her jacket. The edges peeled apart and he cradled her against his chest like a doll as he tugged the jacket off. The sleeveless top she wore molded to her sleek curves like a second skin, the hem of it ending just at her waist, inches above where the waistband of her pants started.

  He ran his fingers over the narrow strip of skin and watched as the muscles in her belly rippled. So soft. He remembered how Lee had looked standing in that field, her hair falling in a riot of curls around her shoulders. She had been all big blue eyes, soft curves and golden hair, wearing those slinky, silky garments that outlined each and every curve.

  Looking at her had hit him on so many levels. A fist in the heart, actually seeing her and knowing she wasn’t going to disappear with the sunrise. An uppercut that left his head reeling as he tried to figure out what this could mean for him, for his world. And then there was the more basic reaction—the one that had his cock standing at attention, bringing to the surface all the urges he had been forced to bury for so long.

  Getting her naked, getting her beneath him, all warm and open and waiting for him. Desperate to feel the heat and softness of her sex as he pushed inside. She would be hot and soft. He knew it without even touching her.

  Soft—Kalen couldn’t remember the last time he’d experienced anything soft in his life. War had a way of hardening things. For a minute, he was jealous. Jealous of Lee and the world she’d left behind. Life would be hard there as well, in some ways. He wasn’t fool enough to think that the magick-blind world was without its difficulties. But a man there would h
ave more time to slow down and enjoy a warm, soft woman.

  There were women in the resistance. Even among his fighters. But Kalen was in a difficult position. It wasn’t a wise idea to fuck a woman if he knew he might be sending her out to die the next day. Or, with the nonfighters, it was just too damned messy. The few lovers he’d had ended up thinking that being in his bed automatically equaled special treatment.

  The men Lee knew in her world weren’t trying to live in a war zone. They could have sex one night and go about their lives the day after without fearing that they’d find their lover in a bloodbath. In one form or another. Soft didn’t belong in Kalen’s world. And Lee wouldn’t stay soft. He couldn’t help the regret that filled him as he thought about that.

  Unable to resist, he pressed a hand flat against her belly. She sighed in her sleep and Kalen watched as the smooth, pale flesh undulated under his hand. Silky soft. Soooo soft . . . His lids drooped as he ran his hand from her belly down over her hip, until it rested on the curve of her thigh. There was firm, supple muscle under his hand. Thoughts of the war, thoughts of securing supplies or soldiers—all of them fell away and he found himself lost in a fantasy. A fantasy where he found himself wondering how those long, slender legs would look wrapped around his waist. How her body would feel under his, how her hair would feel wrapped around his hands while he kissed her.

  He wanted to feel her mouth again. Wanted to taste her again and again, but just a kiss wasn’t going to do it. Kalen groaned and flexed his hand against her belly. He traced a finger around the tight, neat little circle of her navel and then lower, staring at the covered curves below her waist.