Wanderer: The Moondark Saga, Books 4-6 (The Moondark Saga Boxed Sets Book 2)

by Don McQuinn

  That was the trap. His emotions were hidden, the way a river’s quiet surface hid its bounty. The best fishermen always knew the secrets of the rivers because that was what they did, not just to eat. Women had an even greater curiosity, could never resist exploring the depths of men. Especially those like Conway.

  The worst torment was knowing there was nothing she could say without making matters worse. They were both clearly blind to the thing about to fall on them.

  Something sharp and unexpected caught at Lanta’s thinking. Inexplicably, she found herself visualizing a rose’s thorn, although the quick pain had been more of an ache. Sorrow, she decided, because Sylah was being so careless. Anger, too. Conway should be alert enough to realize his attractiveness was endangering a happily married woman. He wasn’t the type who’d do something dishonorable intentionally. What was happening was no less dangerous for all that.

  Something had to be done.

  Lanta scraped the last cereal from the bottom other bowl and licked the spoon. She continued to run her tongue across its textured wooden surface, watching the others. Contemplative, sleepy-eyed, she might have been a small cat, aloof, cleaning a paw while pretending no other interest whatsoever.

  Chapter 21

  When the meal was over, Conway said, “We should change the way we travel today,” and everyone stopped to stare at him.

  He went on, “I didn’t want to mention it, but I’ve decided I have to tell you; other riders passed here in the night.”

  Questions crackled around him. He tried to gesture them away, finally calling for quiet. “The woman who left this morning’s footprints isn’t a very likely threat. What really troubles me is what the ferryman told us about that lone rider and the group he was watching. I have to wonder who’s chasing whom.”

  Sylah asked, “What do you propose? If they’re hunting us, they only have to backtrack to find us.”

  “If our information’s correct—and if we haven’t gotten off on a wrong trail—there’s a village at the next river crossing, and that should be a short day’s ride ahead. I’ll scout. The rest of you follow halfway between now and second meal. If everything’s normal, I’ll be waiting for you at the village.”

  Lanta wished she could scoff aloud. Taking on the most dangerous role was exactly the sort of thing that would impress Sylah. Soon she’d be noticing his other qualities. Then it would be too late.

  “We lose almost a half a day’s travel,” Lanta said.

  “He’s right though,” Sylah answered thoughtfully before turning to him to add, “but I don’t want you going alone. I’m going with you. Tate, you and Lanta follow with the packhorses.”

  “No.” Lanta’s voice surprised everyone, including her. She forced words. “I mean, if they’re after anyone, Sylah, it’s you. Whoever means to stop you has no reason to hurt me. I’m Church, and I’m not seeking the Door.”

  “You’re my friend, my traveling companion.”

  “I insist. I go with him, you ride in the safer position with our friend, Tate.”

  Anger wadded Tate’s features. Sylah prevented any outburst by gripping her shoulder, saying, “If I need protection at all, Donnacee, I’ll need any warning Conway can provide, and I’ll need your very best effort. Ride with me.”

  Tate managed a smile. She called Dodoy to her and walked toward the stream.

  As Conway and Lanta saddled up, Sylah lent a hand. Wrapping Conway’s blankets in the peculiar cloth manufactured by the people of the Whale Coast, she made a face and punched it irritably, saying, “How long does it take for the dead-fish stink to washout of this stuff? I love the way it sheds water, and it’s certainly strong enough, but that smell! Ugh!”

  “If we didn’t have it, we’d be using Dog blankets for shelter, and you know what they weigh.”

  Unimpressed, Sylah said, “Men. Sometimes I think you only have a nose to keep your eyes separated.”

  “No woman believes that. You’re the ones who keep the perfume makers busy. For men.”

  Lanta squeezed her reins to stop the shaking of her hands. She dug her heel into her horse’s ribs, startling it out of its lethargy and into an athletic sideways hop. Bumping into Conway’s mount, it barely dodged a kick from the offended war-horse. The resultant whinnying and skipping about set Karda and Mikka into a growling, threatening crouch. By the time everything was calmed down, Lanta was feeling very pleased with herself.

  On the way downhill to the trail, Conway reined up by the sand deposit and dismounted, indicating the footprints to the dogs. They sniffed, ears pricked up at the urgency in his voice.

  To Lanta, he said, “I hope they understand that scent’s important. It’s not part of their training, unfortunately.”

  When she expressed surprise, he explained as he remounted, “Some are trackers, all right, but most are what Gan calls ‘eye dogs,’ meaning they rely more on sight.” Karda was watching as if he understood every word, and when Conway laughed aloud the big male heaved himself up on his hind legs, resting his forepaws on Conway’s thigh. The dog was large enough that his rear feet were some distance away from the side of the horse, and his huge head was still even with Conway’s elbow. Looking down into the panting maw, Conway noted that Karda’s teeth seemed even larger than usual from that angle. He tousled the hand-sized ears, then had to do the same for the smaller Mikka, who demanded equal attention on the other flank.

  Lanta said, “They love you. They want to do what you want them to do. They’ll be looking for her.”

  “I wish I had your confidence.”

  They were the last words they exchanged for a long time.

  For a while, the trail was as it had been for days, a narrow line snaking between towering evergreens. Morning mist drifted through the forest, pushed uphill by a sighing breeze. Sometimes it was low enough to obscure vision, sometimes rising to trickle through the higher branches. Wherever it touched the needles, it glossed them with a fine film, so the pair of riders moved through a soft, enveloping gleam. Ahead of them, almost as silent as the haze, the great dogs quartered back and forth, one or the other occasionally dropping back to look for signals, then lengthening stride to resume the scout.

  Conway noted signs of recent passage; scuffed earth, broken fern fronds. A great many very large slugs had died messily under the horse’s hooves. He wished he could estimate the number of riders. His lack of skill irritated him. Gan or Clas would know numbers, condition, the size of the riders. They’d read the trail the way a civilized man read a book.

  Civilized.

  He looked around him at the forest. In his world they paid security companies to provide round-the-clock protection for the scraps of unsettled land. Access to the remaining wilderness was strictly controlled. Primitive areas were treasured, because most “forests” were sterile plantations. If they’d saved more natural land, kept the seas healthy, done something about the population growth that turned the whole earth into a screaming, starving rookery, would they have avoided the slow, interminable dance of small wars and retributive terror that led to the final convulsive collapse?

  The piercing cry of a flicker broke his reveries, reminded him that arrows from ambush in this world were as lethal as nerve gases in the one he’d left behind.

  Not long afterward, they found fresh horse droppings on the trail. Conway had no idea how fresh. The calmness of the dogs was some reassurance, however, and when they came to a fork in the trail and the unidentified riders had clearly gone west, Conway breathed more easily. Nevertheless, he kept his attention on the business at hand, and left off comparing his two worlds.

  The sun was shortly past midpoint when they started up a slope. It developed into a lung-bursting climb that had Conway and Lanta struggling along on foot beside the horses as the latter scrambled for purchase. When they topped the ridge, they sagged against the same tree and stared in awe at a shallow, sea-green valley that stretched for hundreds of yards ahead of them and even farther to both flanks. Only a few widely s
eparated trees studded the affected area. To the east a broken cliff face blocked any passage by horseback. Conway debated exploring for a detour to the west, but abandoned the idea, reasoning that the trail wouldn’t simply drive ahead through such an obstacle unless there was a necessity.

  “How can this be?” Lanta asked. “Look, there can’t be more than thirty or forty trees in the entire valley. It’s awful. They look so isolated. It’s blackberries, isn’t it? Is it all blackberries?”

  Conway said, “I think so. There must have been a burn; something let the vines get a solid foothold. Whatever happened here, we’re on the wrong trail. It’ll cost us days to go back and find our mistake. At least this route goes on south. It looks passable. I wonder who maintains it?”

  “Church pays local people to clear trail in some places. Messengers, too. They add the cost to their fee. That’s one reason why they can be so expensive. Sometimes rulers make their people do it, because it helps trade. This one has a bad feel; I think it’s probably kept up by Peddlers and smugglers.”

  Conway stretched aching muscles. “I suppose this is what we get for keeping to the lesser-known routes. No one ever mentioned anything like this.” He glanced at her from the corner of his eye as he spoke, searching for any suspicious reaction. Simultaneously, he cursed himself for not remembering exactly who suggested the route they’d been following for the past few days. Whoever told him of this trail never mentioned anything like this. Could it have been someone who wanted to deliberately delay them or endanger them?

  If so, it had to be a result of the Church schism.

  Sylah and Lanta were close as true sisters now, but what would happen when their different sects pressured them to regard each other as strayed? Conway had seen people divide themselves into true believers and the damned. They consumed each other.

  Was he to watch that happen again?

  He looked more closely at Lanta.

  Seer. Violet Priestess. Healer. She was a tiny thing, but without any affected preciousness. Rather, there was a quality about her that made him think of the resilience of good steel.

  Studying her so closely forced him to confess that he didn’t like looking into her eyes. Attractive. Beautiful wasn’t too strong a word. Such a deep green color, they had a trick of appearing darker. Especially when she drifted into that wan, lost sort of look. He wished he could know what she was thinking then. It’d be nice to say something to help, maybe even make her smile. She had a smile like sun on flowers. He was surprised at how clearly his memory conjured it up for him.

  What if Church’s feud forced her to be Sylah’s enemy? His enemy? If she attacked Sylah or Tate, could he stop her? Kill her?

  He made an involuntary sound deep in his chest, earning a questioning look from Lanta. To cover his confusion, he unfastened his canteen, took a long pull.

  They stood on the crest of a ridge where the trail broke out of the forest. An outcropping of stone formed a downsloping approach to the blackberry tangle. At the point where the rock jumble ended, the path was reduced to a ragged cut in the canes.

  Conway whistled the dogs ahead, following slowly. Inside the gap, the fresh growth seemed to reach for him, its new strength so eager the unhardened vine tips were translucent. In contrast, the ground was nearly dark. Thick, woody stems, living and dead, stood jammed against each other. Survivors strained to lift lifemaking leaves up to light. Conway slashed off the more aggressive intrusions. When the sun broke from cover, the tunneled path was suddenly a mosaic of shifting, dancing greens and golds.

  Conway pulled first one foot, then the other, from the stirrups and up to the saddle. Carefully, gripping the pommel as long as he could, he rose to a standing position. From the animal’s back he could barely see over the top of the jungle.

  Progress was slow, but uneventful, for quite some time. They soon discovered that the man-made trail wasn’t the only one in the sea of canes. Animals, large and small, created their own meandering paths, and these intersected the main route like streams feeding a river. Conway actually began to enjoy the novelty of the place. Each turn and bend offered some surprise. The dogs were far ahead, and the gap between them and the riders gave small animals time to resume their normal wanderings. The first rabbit to scamper across in front of Conway brought a delighted exclamation from Lanta. A little later, another one, caught out, dashed wildly ahead of them. The powderpuff tail winked agitation for several yards before it was able to leap away to the side. Several of the joining path entrances they passed were far larger than any rabbit’s scurry. Looking from one of them to Lanta, Conway saw she was as concerned as he. There was no need for either of them to actually speak of tigers or bears.

  When the huge boar suddenly appeared directly ahead, Conway’s first thought was of anticlimax. He’d been worried about a fearsome, roaring predator. He estimated the thing in front of him was at least three feet tall at the shoulder and must weigh at least three hundred pounds. Impressive, by all means. But, after all, a pig.

  The boar swung its head from side to side. Conway had never seen anything like the shining, curving tushes. It opened and closed its mouth rapidly, making a clacking rattle like eager shears. The bristled ruff around its neck rustled when it stamped the ground in warning. Conway noted the hooves. They were so tiny they seemed almost caricature. Clean, however. Shiny, in fact. And the animal’s rough coat wasn’t pig-dirty, either, but glowed with a robust luster.

  Conway told himself it was a pig. Just a pig.

  It stamped again. Clashed its teeth. Saliva flew. Fierce eyes widened and rolled.

  Far, far away, a dog barked.

  Conway cautiously kneed his horse into retreat, simultaneously easing the wipe around, trying to assure a clear shot. The horse backed, step by painfully slow step.

  Chapter 22

  For a space of several heartbeats, all went well.

  Behind him, Conway heard the nervous whuffling of Lanta’s horse as it, too, retreated. The stink of sweat-lathered animals clotted the humid air of the enclosed pathway.

  The boar continued to threaten.

  Hidden in the undergrowth off the trail, unobserved until that moment, one of a litter of piglets lost its nerve. Squealing falsetto terror, it erupted almost directly under Conway’s mount’s nose. After a quick jerk of surprise, the war-horse was back in control.

  Not so the boar. It was charging even as the sow contributed her hysterical racket to the uproar and raced after the bolter with the rest of the litter.

  Conway’s horse half-reared, the flailing iron-shod forefeet fearsome weapons. The boar checked its rush, dancing from side to side, seeking an opening. Unable to bring the wipe to bear, Conway could only curse and hang on.

  The great hounds bayed in the distance, hurrying to assist.

  The boar seemed to understand exactly what that sound meant. Abandoning all caution, he drove past the war-horse’s windmilling, trying to strike at the more-vulnerable hind legs.

  He almost got them. The horse twisted sideways, landed far to the side of the path. Entangled momentarily in the clutching canes, it then seemed to rebound. The combination and swiftness of the moves was too much for Conway. He soared out of the saddle, falling heavily face down in the matted growth. He watched in dismay as the wipe buried its muzzle deep in the soil, effectively transforming it into useless junk. Disregarding the tearing thorns, he pulled his murdat free of the scabbard.

  The boar was no longer interested in Conway or the war-horse. With those enemies behind it, it focused its attention forward, aiming at Lanta’s terrified mount. One buck served to pitch her from the saddle. Stampeded, her horse then vaulted over the back of the boar, directly into Conway’s war-horse. The force of the collision dropped both horses into the thicket, one on each side of the trail.

  The pair scrabbled wildly, noisily. Lanta’s mount caught Conway’s war-horse a crushing blow between the eyes with a hoof just before smashing into Conway’s head with the same foreleg.

 
The impact threw the man farther into the canes, thorns shredding clothes and flesh as he went. He ended on his knees, facing the trail, holding himself upright with his left hand. The murdat hung loosely in the right, the point in the earth. It was more of a prop than a weapon.

  His horse was down. Blood poured from a jagged wound on its forehead.

  Lanta screamed. It was a wordless, horrified plea.

  Clumsily, Conway lurched forward. Tumbling onto the trail, he saw the boar between himself and Lanta. It was gathering itself for a charge when he shouted a hoarse challenge. The boar whirled, and, with a thick, heavy grunt, accepted the new contest. Conway knew he wasn’t fast enough to draw his pistol. The boar would cut him to ribbons before he touched the holster.

  In that same thought-instant, Conway knew he was secretly glad.

  The murdat. Live or die, it would be by hand. Matt Conway. Not a machine. A man. Steel in fist.

  Idiocy.

  He dropped to his knees, extending the murdat in both hands.

  The charging animal took the point an inch or so above his eyes. The impact bowled Conway over like a toy, but he held the blade rigid. It tore a furrow through hide and meat down to bone. More in surprise than pain, the boar stopped and retreated, shaking its head. Enraged, it came again. The noise from the clashing jaws was enormous. Blood and saliva flew from its snout in a constant spatter.

  Repositioning himself, Conway lowered his point of aim, saw the tip of the murdat penetrate just below the throat. Glancing off bone, it nearly twisted out of his hand. And then it stopped. For a long instant, the two opponents were eye to eye, separated by little more than the length of the man’s arms. Conway was shocked to realize the mad racket filling his ears wasn’t just the animal. At least, not just the four-footed one. He was yelling and screaming himself, abandoned to the primal revelation of mortal combat. A searing, heady lust sang in him. Life was distilled to one moment, one test of strength and will.