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

by Don McQuinn

  There were people below him. He had no idea how many. Panic speared his guts at the thought that Nalatan and Tate might already have been eliminated. The notion passed quickly. He couldn’t believe anyone could so overwhelm that pair, as well as Tate’s war dogs, so quickly that no warning would reach him.

  Even so, he determined to open fire on the people below him at the first sure sighting.

  Under Conway’s hand, Karda’s rough coat bristled as the dog’s skin tightened. Biting ammonia scent rose from the animal. It picked at Conway’s nostrils, made his own skin crawl, touched off another terrifying swirl of dizziness.

  He gagged.

  And then they were coming. So many figures yelled and charged out of the nearby brush he had the frightening image of the whole hillside rushing at him. He responded with the boop. It’s hollow, full-throated launch was followed almost immediately by the cutting crack of the bursting round. He would have sworn the red-orange of the explosion still lingered in the air when the first screams scarred the night. He only had time for one more boop round. The attackers were fewer by then, and he blasted at them with the wipe, not troubling to aim. Honed steel gleamed in his weapon’s flash.

  Released, the dogs were devastating. Cloaked in darkness, so close and so fast the attackers had only an impression of their presence before they struck, the huge hounds crashed into the nearest men. Conway heard the roaring ferocity. Shrieks of terror mingled with cries of pain.

  Leaping sideways, Conway drew his sword. As he expected, his enemies continued to attack the now-unoccupied bush. Conway’s first sword stroke eliminated a man. Slashing, stabbing, Conway retreated. Adversaries seemed to materialize. He blocked blows, struck back. Called for Nalatan. Unable to see the dogs, Conway still knew exactly what they were doing. Karda was trained to select the victim, charging in. Mikka drove at whatever opening the male created. If they failed to kill, they savaged. Leaping away to avoid any counterstroke or support from another man, they ran. And turned to select another target.

  Cries told Conway they were being effective. Yet the mob pressed ahead.

  Lightning exploded in Conway’s stomach. He dropped the wipe, fell to his knees, pitched forward as nausea emptied him. A blade whistled through the air where his head had been. Sheer terror whipped him up off his fists. He drew his sword, literally fell forward in a lunge. A man tumbled away, calling out for help. Karda responded. The plea disappeared under horrible crushing, tearing noises.

  “We’ve got him!” The yell came from up the hill.

  There were more. Charging from behind.

  Tate’s voice came to him. “Matt! We’re here. We’re with you.” Her wipe’s hard crack hurt his ears.

  Another man struck at Conway, who warded it off with his sword. The blade sang as it flew out of his hand, a weird, off-key song of defeat. Falling sideways, too weak to resist any longer, Conway felt the peace of night’s cool earth hurrying to ease his pain.

  The grass was soft. Sweet.

  He clawed fingers into the roots, holding to all the life he could find. A sudden, blinding dazzle told him his fight was over.

  The soil dribbled away from his senseless grasp.

  Chapter 13

  Tate stood looking down at the still, pale features of her closest friend. Firelight swirling across his features created a cruel semblance of animation. Blurring tears added to the confusion of her vision, so that several times she thought he moved. Each time, she’d bent forward, speaking his name in hope. The great dogs lying next to him watched with trusting, begging eyes. They’d allowed her to treat their wounds, but their mute loyalty kept them bound to Conway’s side.

  There were other men present. Gathered in a semicircle, they stood well outside the firelight, as silent and brooding as the trees of the grove. Black clothes blended with the shroud of night.

  Beside Tate, Nalatan forced cheerfulness. “His breathing’s steadier. The blood beats stronger at neck and wrist, too.”

  When Tate failed to respond, Nalatan tried another tack. “Did you see the honor he gained? Not just with the lighting weapons: blade at blade, he killed two. Two more will never fight again. The dogs—I knew they were ferocious, but you have to see what they can do—they slew four more. All together, lightning weapons, sword, and dogs, eleven men went to the Land Beyond to tell them of our Matt Conway. A great warrior, Donnacee Tate. A man to bring pride to you and all your people.”

  Without taking her gaze from the man at her feet, Tate said, “I don’t care about any of that. I want my friend to sit up and talk to me.” When she turned to Nalatan, she looked out from a face gone ugly with worry. Returning her attention to Conway, Tate was oblivious to Nalatan’s offended hurt. As he left, his lips moved in muttered lament: “How can you not know what I’d do to hear you say half as much of me?”

  Dodoy crept forward as Nalatan stalked away. The small, bony figure appeared awkward, but he made no sound as he came. Once beside Tate, he leaned against her. Automatically, she reached to put an arm around the thin shoulders. Watching Conway, Dodoy said, “If those men came sooner, they’d have saved him.”

  “They didn’t know we’d be attacked. They came as fast as they could.”

  “Who are they?”

  “I don’t know. Nalatan heard them coming and challenged them. By the time they got everything settled, Matt was almost killed.”

  “Nalatan made a big mistake.”

  “He did the right thing, I think. Everything was confused.”

  “We should go back to that castle. We were safe there. Comfortable. It’s cold out here. I don’t like it. Those men scare me.”

  “They helped us save Matt, honey. Maybe even saved all of us.”

  Conway twitched, his hands and fingers jerking in small, tight movements. His eyelids trembled. He mumbled gibberish. Suddenly, he was completely coherent. The words were soft, confiding, shaped for a child’s ears. “It’s the way the wings curve, sweetheart. The air going across the top goes faster, see?” He smiled, a ghastly parody of devotion. “When you’re a big girl, we’ll go for a ride in a sailplane. You’ll fly like all the other pretty birds. Would you like that?”

  Tate was horrified. Should she answer? Quiet him? For a moment, the problem appeared solved. Conway sagged. Then, without warning, he thrashed upright to a sitting position, screaming warning. “Bacteria! The tester says it was a bacteria war head! Clear the area, get to decon! Hurry!”

  Tate wrestled with him, tried to force him down. He threw her aside, amazingly strong. Then he collapsed.

  Wiping away cottony spittle clinging to Conway’s lips, Tate kept her voice calm. “Dodoy, get me some water in that bowl over there, please.”

  The boy was back quickly. Putting down the bowl, he extended the other hand. It clutched a wad of leaves. “I know this plant,” he said. “The sailors used it. They put it in a pipe and ate the smoke, like this.” He mimicked drawing through pursed lips, then held his breath, finally exhaling in a thin hiss.

  Tate squinted suspicion, took the leaves. She sniffed at them. “That’s marijuana,” she said, hardly believing it. “Where’d you get this?”

  Troubled by her tone, he was evasive. “Over there. It won’t hurt him, if he uses it just once.” He glanced around, and when he met her gaze again, his expression was slyly confident. “The sailors ate the smoke and said they felt good. I saw how hard you and the others worked to keep Gatro and his warmen from learning that Matt Conway’s sick. If these new people find out he’s not just hurt…” He let the sentence die.

  When Tate spun around, Dodoy was almost quick enough to hide a malevolent grin. She saw only part of it, and quickly convinced herself it was a nervous grimace. Still, she decided, it wouldn’t hurt to warn the boy. “He’s not the only one who’ll suffer. They’d shun all of us, maybe kill us. There’s nothing funny about it.”

  Stung, Dodoy returned to the darkness.

  Lacking a pipe, Tate used another bowl to hold a coal from the fire, t
hen dropped the leaves over it. Acrid smoke curled out of the small pile. Lifting Conway’s head, she gently blew the tendrils toward him, and was rewarded to see it bend to his shallow inhalations. After a while, he seemed to sleep a bit more easily.

  Nalatan, having stopped to watch Tate talk to Dodoy and minister to Conway, now made his way to the men. A sturdy figure with a thick black beard stepped forward. He asked Nalatan, “Is he dying? Now he’s in the firelight and we can see, his wounds appear very light.” The man pushed his face closer to Nalatan’s. “He’s not sick, is he?”

  “He’s well. Controlling the lightning strains him sometimes.”

  The bearded man struggled with uncertainty. Finally, he asked, “You told the woman who we are?”

  Nalatan shook his head. “There’s been no chance. You say you know them?”

  “Back in Ola. How come you’re with them?”

  “I’m sworn to help the Flower find the Door.”

  “Rose Priestess Sylah,” the man interrupted. “I know her, too. And little Lanta. I have to talk to Tate.” He moved to pass Nalatan. The warrior monk shifted to block him. The bearded man stiffened, then smiled reassurance. “Would we have come to warn you about these raiders, or help you, if we weren’t friends?”

  The sincerity was unmistakable, but Nalatan was compelled to point out the flawed logic. “You got here too late to warn us of anything. Conway practically destroyed the attack before we chased them off. If you’re willing to test Tate’s temper right now, I won’t stop you, because you say you’re an old friend. I’ll be behind you, though. I mean no offense, but you’re not my old friend. Do we understand each other?”

  Laughing softly and moving past Nalatan, the man said, “We do.” He was still smiling when he stopped across the fire from Tate. The flame picked bright spots on his beard. He said, “I know you, Donnacee Tate.”

  Tate’s head tilted to the side, as if she’d heard something far away. Uncertainly, her gaze pulled away from Conway. Seeing the newcomer, she exclaimed wordlessly, her hands flew to her breast. “Wal? Wal. Here? How? Why?” She rushed around the fire to hug him.

  Nalatan was trying to look stoic and failing badly when she pulled Wal to him. “Look who it is, Nalatan,” she said, holding up Wal’s hand as if it would help the monk place this stranger. “We helped Wal and Gan Moondark overthrow King Altanar.” To Wal, she said, “What’re you doing here? How’d you know we were here? I had no idea it was you who came tonight.”

  “We were coming to warn you that sailors were coming for you.”

  “Not the villagers?”

  Wal waved as if aggravated by flies. “The attack was set up by the sailors. Pirates, to be accurate. Villagers may have joined in; I don’t know. You can’t trust any of them. It takes four men to say hello in this place—two to talk and two to watch their backs. Anyhow, the Trader I deal with said you’d be coming here today, and told us to be prepared to help.”

  The three of them sat down. Tate positioned herself so she could see any movement by Conway. To Wal, she said, “Poor Sylah. She must feel really awful about all of this. Have you seen her, talked to her?”

  “No chance of that. But I do know that if you hadn’t accepted Gatro’s offer, you were headed directly into nomad patrols. The Kossiar warmen report skirmishes with them every day. And the renegades from Ola had permission from the Chair to take you, if they could. The Harvester had already sent a Messenger to Church Home saying you’d rejected the Chair’s hospitality and offer of escorted passage.”

  “At least now they know she’s a liar.”

  Wal laughed, a sharp, hacking sound. “As soon as she saw you, she sent another Messenger to explain that she’d been misinformed. She doesn’t get caught out that easily.”

  Tate brushed some damp hair back from Conway’s forehead. She said, “How’s a sailor come by so much information?”

  “Borbor, my Trader, is one of my tribe. A For, from the Whale Coast. All the Traders have spies.” He spat into the fire. It made a short-lived black spot on the glowing coals, hissing and crackling. “Ola was cruel, Tate; worse than here, I think. Altanar hurt people because he enjoyed seeing them suffer. There’s plenty of hurt and misery here, too. But Kos is evil. There’s no truth at all in this place.”

  Again, the threesome fell silent. Wal broke it with a transparent attempt at enthusiasm. “That’s enough of that. You’re in good hands now. Dawn’ll break soon, and we’ll get our friend Conway back to the Trader’s, where we can heal his wounds. He must have been hit in the head, don’t you think?”

  Tate heard the suspicion, knew that Wal was probing to see if Conway was sick. She barely avoided a telltale glance at Nalatan. She said, “There’s a bad bruise behind his ear.”

  Wal visibly relaxed. “I’ve been hit there. I walked around for days listening to music no one else could hear. He’ll be all right. She’ll take good care of him.”

  Tate straightened. “The Chair sent the others over here? Where are they?”

  “I’m not talking about Sylah and Lanta. I’m talking about my cousin, Tee. She’s out to sea on a fishing boat, but she’ll be back soon.”

  “She’s here?” Tate tried to muffle the dismay that surfaced in spite of herself.

  “That’s right, the one he fell in love with, the one who ran away from him. She still can’t believe that after what Altanar and his protectors did to her, any man would want her. Foolish. Female stuff. No matter. He’s here, she’s here. They’ll work it out between them. Just when you think something’s too complicated to ever make sense, something happens, and it’s all perfectly simple.”

  In her mind, Tate saw Conway, Tee, and Lanta, whirling like dust motes in a sunbeam. “Simple.” It sounded as if she were cursing. “Oh, my friend Wal, I would give my teeth to tell you about simple.”

  Nalatan’s sudden coughing fit interrupted. Before she could continue, he pointed out that morning wasn’t far off, and the day would require clear heads. Wal agreed.

  Tate remained with Conway while the others drew away to sleep or mount watch. Dabbing at her friend’s superficial wounds with a damp cloth, she whispered to him. “So what’re we going to do about poor Lanta, buddy? As soon as you see this old flame, you’re going to catch fire all over again, aren’t you? And won’t that warm things up?”

  * * *

  Morning brushed the island with rags of fog. Sleepily, rubbing bloodshot eyes, Tate tucked in loose edges of the tent fly that protected Conway from the damp cold. He lay motionless on the rough stretcher Wal’s men had fashioned from saplings and the other tent fly.

  Downhill, the heavy chunk of an axe echoed from a grove where Wal’s crew prepared the ceremonial pyre for the men who’d died the previous night.

  Tate’s gaze went to Karda and Mikka. She’d been horrified the night before to discover them licking off bloodstains. Not their own blood. She’d scrubbed them with an almost-compulsive vigor. Now when she looked at them, she could have sworn they looked back in a different manner. Something new, something knowing, glinted in the dark, deep eyes. Reason told her it was imagination. Nevertheless, a quick thrill skittered across her shoulders. The dogs broke off the unintended staring match with the slow dignity of accommodation. They still wagged tails when she stroked the massive heads.

  She decided Oshu and Tanno still had an immature look, an innocence she suddenly treasured. When the time came for them to respond, as it had come for Karda and Mikka, they’d do exactly the same things. It was more than training. It was breeding. “In the blood.” Nasty phrase.

  Nalatan was saying, “The pyre’s burning well. We’ve done our duty. It’s time to leave. Possibly past time.”

  His tone warned her. “Past time for what?” she asked.

  For answer, he pointed. Men carrying bows skulked on the next hill. Once they realized Nalatan had spotted them, they dodged into the cover of some brush. “Sailors,” he scoffed.

  Wal came up in time to overhear. His smile was tight.
“You won’t talk like that if they ever catch you at sea, monk. That’s where we fight our way.”

  Tate snapped at both of them. “We’ve got a si—wounded man here. Argue about how brave you are after we get him taken care of.”

  Both men winced. Wal bawled for litter bearers.

  The balancebar was held in place offshore by a stern anchor and a pair of mooring lines running from two widely separated trees to the bow. Tate reluctantly relinquished her horse to Nalatan. Her dogs plunged into the water with every sign of disgust, following her as she waded out to the harness lift dangling from the cargo boom. The water was calm, but cold. Almost waist-deep for Tate, it rose up the dogs’ sides. They stood in it, rocking with the slap of each small wave, their expressive faces dripping equal amounts of saltwater and accusation. First Oshu, then Tanno, were swiftly plucked from the sea and deposited on the deck. Mikka and Karda followed the men carrying Conway, but when another sailor attempted to help Tate harness Mikka, the frightened dog made him understand his error. Tate took over the task of preparing the sling, and Mikka, legs pumping furiously, was hoisted aboard.

  Karda refused to leave Conway’s side. When Tate reached for him, he braced, hackles up, teeth bared.

  “All right, big fella,” Tate said, dropping the rig. It drifted back toward the boat. Still using the same placating tone, she said, “Hook up Conway’s stretcher. Get him aboard. Move it! If this dog figures out what’s going on, you’re going to have to swim for your lives.”

  As soon as the cargo line went taut, Karda understood. With a noise that was roar and whine, he bolted past Tate, breasting the water in lunges. The last one lifted him within a hand’s breadth of the dangling stretcher. His teeth clashed on empty air, and he tumbled backward, submerging ignominiously. Surfacing, he attacked the hull, biting, pawing, howling and barking distractedly.

  Tate forced her way to his side, calling his name. For a few moments, the tumult continued as he ignored her. Then he backed away from the boat. He watched her. She could almost feel his confusion, his fear and anger. When she extended a hand, he growled. Then whined.