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

by Don McQuinn

  Nalatan watched them walk off toward the fire, scratching his head.

  * * *

  They were a fugitive-looking group. Nalatan insisted they be under way before first light and so it was they began the descent toward the Dry with much sleepy stumbling and muttering. Jessak slept through all the packing and loading of horses. The women barely had time to remark on it before they were in the saddle. Under the dim touch of starlight, the narrow game trail was a thread of lighter colored earth, barely distinguishable. Nevertheless, Nalatan followed it unhesitatingly.

  The first soft rose of dawn found them in a new landscape. The trees, smaller in all dimensions, had a spare, constrained look. The leaves of shrubs, even blades of grass, faced the day with tough, grim determination. Sylah thought of patients whose bodies lost fluid faster than it could be replaced; they acquired the same strained appearance. Later, she caught her first glimpse of camels. They blended perfectly with sere landscape. Four of them watched the train of humans as intently as she watched them, their lower jaws working up and down, side to side, in almost perfect unison. Then, magically, there was only one. Somehow, the other three had melted into the scrub. When Sylah saw how ungainly the last one was as it walked away, she was even more amazed by the disappearance of its mates. The unimaginable hump flopped like an understuffed pillow.

  The experience put Sylah in a very thoughtful mood. It came to her that this was a country where adaptation was paramount. In her experience, men used the forests and rivers, they used the prairies and harbors. The Dry would not be used. What it had, it would share, but only as a partner. Man, like everything else, adapted or perished. For a moment, that struck her as unswervingly hostile. On reflection, however, she decided that was too harsh a judgment. The Dry was independent. Eternally so. Whatever survived in its embrace would be the same.

  By late afternoon they were on the bank of a small, deliciously cold stream. Dismounting, drinking, washing off the dust of the trail, the women and Dodoy exclaimed happily over it. Nalatan said, “Enjoy it to the fullest. By this time tomorrow we’ll be entering the real Dry. I know where to find water, but we’ll see none like this until we’re near Church Home.”

  Tate said, “You mean there are no streams, no springs, in all those mountains ahead?”

  “There are a few. What you must understand about the Dry is that no one drinks without permission.”

  “Whose permission?” It was Lanta, worried.

  “Whoever has the rights to that particular water.”

  Tate snorted disgust. “How do we know who to ask? What if we drink without permission? They make us spit it back?”

  “It’s a killing offense.” Nalatan was grim. “The people of the Dry live in very loosely organized tribes, made up of large family groups. Most are strong Church believers.” He stopped, looked to Sylah guiltily, then plunged ahead. “The family I bought our horses and equipment from supports the Harvester. They told me most of their tribe does. They believe she’s the strong leader the times require.”

  Lanta was indignant. “The woman’s the exact opposite of what Church is supposed to be. We must tell them the truth.”

  Nalatan pushed pebbles around with a finger. “I told them we were the Harvester’s advance, returning from Kos to make things ready for her.”

  Sylah spoke over Lanta’s furious sputterings. “The situation’s so bad as that?”

  “They’re ordered to capture the Flower, to hold her for the Harvester.”

  “They believed you?”

  Nalatan grinned. “They believed I had coin to pay for what I wanted. More than that?” He shrugged eloquently.

  Sylah nodded. “Two nights, and we have a full moon. We can travel.”

  Nalatan beamed approval. “It’s cooler at night, too.”

  “Cool. An important word.” Sylah rose smoothly. “I intend to bathe while I can. Lanta? Tate?” The other women got to their feet. Sylah reached for Jessak and his bottle, transferred the two smoothly from Lanta to Nalatan. Smiling sweetly, Sylah said, “You haven’t had a chance to hold him all day. We’ll take him when we get back. Thank you.”

  She couldn’t help thinking his jaw worked almost exactly like the camel’s.

  In the softness of dusk, grass swayed gracefully on the banks of the stream where the women chose to bathe. Far away, coyotes sang of the night’s hunt. Swallows and bats wove across a muted sunset.

  The water was startlingly cold, and barely rose above the navel when they lowered themselves, gasping and exclaiming, to sitting positions.

  Tate was first to immerse herself, leaning back, testing the injured left arm. It satisfied her. Arching back in a spine-cracking stretch of sheer exuberance, she settled onto her elbows until only her head, breasts, and kneecaps were exposed. Water swirled and eddied around her in mock rapids.

  Sylah followed Tate’s example, facing upstream, letting the current tug her hair in a rippling cloak behind her. Lanta paddled about, pretending to swim. Her waves washed across Tate’s face, who burlesqued drowning, then slapped water at Lanta. Sylah, showing no favoritism, doused them both. Splashing and giggling like children, they gave themselves to the moment, rejecting the world as it was for life as it should be.

  Later, clothed, clean, and dry, they scurried about in the fading light, harvesting the soft furry leaves of a plant Lanta called “mull.” She explained it was excellent diaper material for Jessak. That done, they all lay on the stream bank, watching the first stars.

  Tate sat up, positioned herself to face her friends. She said, “Can I ask you all a question? You won’t think I’m crazy?”

  Sylah laughed. “That depends on the question.” When Tate failed to smile, Sylah sobered. “What’s bothering you?”

  “I had a dream. Often. The same one.”

  Lanta said, “Many believe dreams bring us into other times, places. I do.” She glanced at Sylah. “Church says we mustn’t, but Church claims all Seers, and some of us dream.”

  Sylah said, “I agree. We shouldn’t be afraid of something just because we don’t understand it. You fear?”

  Tate nodded, face pressed in a confused frown. “I don’t know why; it’s not that scary. It’s a burning hot day, and I’m in the cool shade of a tree, with a horse. It’s thin, skin and bones. That makes me terribly sad. The tree grows a face, then, says I should feed its leaves to the horse. I gather what I think are the very best, but when I offer them, the animal hits me with its muzzle, sends the leaves flying. Then I look around, and all kinds of horses are running to get them. They love them. Then the tree talks to me again.”

  She stopped, moving close in the failing light to peer suspiciously at her audience. “You two aren’t laughing?”

  Reassuring her, the others urged her to continue.

  “Well, anyhow, the tree says, ‘You must cut me down, burn me. Only that way can I serve.’ At first, that makes sense. Then I step back—one step, but it takes me far, faraway—and I see the whole tree, how pretty it is. I say, ‘The horse will eat now. I understand it. It trusts me. I don’t need firewood.’ Then I have to say something else. Have to. I say, ‘The comfort you give will last forever, like the shade of trees cools the summer.’ And that’s when I wake up, so sad I want to cry, and so frightened I’m shaking.”

  Lanta hugged herself, rocked back and forth. “It’s a powerful dream.”

  Sylah said, “Neither of us interpret dreams, but in yours, you’re alone. Here, you’re not. Never will be.”

  Softly, musing, Lanta said, “It’s more than that. I feel it. The dream speaks of mistakes. I feel the sorrow. It frightens me, too.” She refused to look at her friends.

  Chapter 4

  The raid came the second day during the midday halt.

  As usual, the packhorses were hobbled downwind. There seemed to be nothing to offer cover to anyone approaching them. Nevertheless, when Sylah looked up from her meal, the three of them were moving off through the brush, single file. She yelled alarm. Nalat
an and Tate were mounted and after them instantly.

  Tate and Tanno bowled straight ahead until Nalatan overtook her, physically forcing her to the side. Tate’s Dog war-horse reacted angrily, biting at Nalatan and his horse. Confused, but deferring to Nalatan, Tate wheeled sharply away, calling Tanno to follow.

  Almost immediately, Nalatan’s reason became clear. To the left, four men draped in camouflaging branches rose, bows bent, arrows drawn to the head. Tate’s straight-line pursuit of the pack animals would have sent her directly in front of them. Beyond them, four more men appeared, distance softening their leaf-mottled outlines. Nalatan had shouldered her away from a deadly tunnel.

  The arrows from the nearest four darted past harmlessly. Tate, in her excitement, flipped the wipe to automatic. A quick burst of six rounds dropped one ambusher. Bemoaning the waste of ammunition, she repositioned the switch. By then, the other men were gone, shaking brush betraying their departure.

  Ahead of Tate, Nalatan was about to ride over the top of a low ridge where the pack animals had disappeared. Inexplicably, he piled to a stone-spraying, skidding stop, reversing his field, thundering back toward camp. He’d covered no more than twenty yards when the first camel’s head poked over the crest. The animal and its rider, with at least twenty more flanking them, came with startling speed. Arrows flew after Nalatan.

  Tate sighted carefully. It was the easiest sort of shot, straight ahead at an advancing target. A flechette lifted a rider off his high perch on the camel’s back; he plowed into the ground in a rolling, dusty heap. The remainder wheeled about and retreated as fast as they’d come. The riderless camel slowed to a walk. It clumped about with an air of offended superiority for a few paces, then ambled after its fellows.

  Nalatan stopped beside Tate. Dust roiled in the wake of the retreat. Nalatan’s face was scarred with concern. “That leaves us with one waterskin.”

  Tate continued to scan around them, despite Tanno’s gradual relaxation. She said, “Are we that far from water?”

  “We can reach the next waterhole I had in mind. The problem is, they’ll know that’s where we’re going.”

  “Is there someplace else? In a different direction, maybe. We can do that, go a different way.”

  “I’ll have to dream.”

  Before the dumbfounded Tate could respond, Nalatan was on his way back to camp. She followed, frown darkening with every passing yard. By the time they arrived, she was a breaking storm. She kept quiet while Nalatan described what had happened. He finished by saying, “Twenty to thirty men is a very large, very unusual number for the people of the Dry to concentrate. The Harvester wants you very badly, Sylah.”

  Sylah accepted his evaluation with a quiet, “Will they attack? What do you suggest we do?” She was unprepared for Tate’s explosive sarcasm.

  “He says he’s going to dream a waterhole.”

  Nalatan flinched angrily, coloring. Then, as quickly, he laughed aloud. “We won’t be attacked as long as we appear ready. They know about Tate’s weapons. Their style is more surprise than assault, anyhow. As for the waterhole, yes, I’m going to dream it, as Donnacee puts it.”

  He stepped away from them, sat in the best of the mottled shade available. Cross-legged, hands in his lap, he looked up at Tate with a grin. “No man can know the entire Dry. The brotherhoods know it, however. All routes, all sources of water. One who knows sits before a student as I sit here. They sing the knowing song. The one who knows has a piece of obsidian on a chain. The other one watches the shining stone swing back and forth. When he sleeps, the knowledge is sung. Soon, both sleep and sing. The best dreaming makes the one who is to know see everything the one who knows has seen. Three men dreamed with me. Now I’ll dream, and we’ll know where to go.”

  Tate’s head roared with words like hypnotism and thought transference. In a time and place where people were tortured and killed for learning simple addition, Nalatan’s warrior monks dabbled in a psychic information exchange. Worse, Sylah and Lanta smiled and nodded like he was discussing the price of beans. Tate gave it up. She settled to watch.

  The Priestesses edged back from Nalatan when he closed his eyes. His fingers curled. His body remained erect, although Tate noted how the visible muscles lost definition, flowed to repose under the skin. The unexpected onset of sound startled her; the quality of it raised the fine hairs on her arms and the back of her neck. Deep, throbbing, it emanated from him, as if his closemouthed body were a sounding board. Pulse-rhythmic, it slowed. And slowed.

  Tate wiped sweat from her brow, sweat that ran into her eyes and burned. There was none on Nalatan. His skin looked cool, comfortable.

  The chant slowed more. Faded.

  Grabbing Sylah’s arm, Tate said, “Is he all right? We ought to wake him. He’s scaring me.”

  Sylah nodded. “Me, too, Donnacee. We chant, use the trance. I’ve never seen one go so deep. If we wake him, though, it may be even more dangerous. Trust him. It’s all we can do.”

  Tate blurted, “Trust him? Sylah, I love him.”

  Sylah covered the hand on her arm with her own. Lanta’s smile was bittersweet. Sylah said, “Now that you’ve told me, think of the joy of telling him. Tell him. Be honest. For both your sakes.”

  “I can’t. I never spoke, Sylah. Please. But don’t let him die.”

  Lanta said, “You’re making a mistake.” Her following subdued “Believe me” raked at Tate almost as much as her own denial.

  “I can’t watch.” Tate turned away. “I’m going upon that knoll, stand guard. Call me when he’s normal.”

  Keeping below the growth height of the scrub, Tate scuttled up the nearby hillock with Tanno beside her. Prior to the crest, she broke to the flank. Crawling, she made her way to a good observation point on the forward slope. From there she could see much farther. The only sign of life soared overhead. Buzzards: black, drifting reminders of the Dry’s ferocious patience. Death birds, Nalatan called them.

  There were too many. Two, sometimes three, were normally visible. Tate counted five. A sixth swept into view from behind her, homing on the others.

  Something had died out there. The buzzards knew. Nalatan said that what they didn’t see, they smelled. They watched each other, too. Bright, single purposed eyes saw across incredible distances. One dropped to feed, and another read the spiral. They brought each other from all directions.

  Tate didn’t mind them. She had no particular fear of death. She’d been a professional soldier in one world, and the one she inhabited now allowed no romantic notions about old age. What frightened her was the prospect of wasting her life.

  So why did Donnacee Tate fall in love with Nalatan? Why did everything have to be so complicated?

  Tanno perked up her ears and watched uncertainly as Tate slammed her fist into the ground, over and over.

  A short while later, Sylah’s sharp whistle called Tate to camp. The indecision and concern remained in her mind, but safely caged, so it could merely nag.

  Nalatan was on his feet. Sweating. Tate touched his arm, assuring herself the flesh was warm again. She said, “Which way do we go?”

  He pointed. “That way, I’m afraid. There’s a good spring, about a day’s ride. The trouble is, the Dry warriors know that’s where we have to go. The water we have won’t last more than a day, and they’ll make it very hard for us to get there that fast.”

  Sylah said, “There’s nothing else?”

  “West of the spring. A waterhole. Bad water.” He shrugged. “We’ll have to take a chance on the good one.”

  Sylah sorted through her baggage, took out a fat leather bag. She held it up. “These crystals form on the side of wine barrels. Helstar got it for us. Tell me: this waterhole is the normal bad water of the Dry? It’s not poisonous?”

  Nalatan shook his head, watching Sylah with undisguised skepticism. Sylah grinned back. “We can use it, then. It won’t taste very good, but it’ll do. This makes it drinkable. A few drops of awakener makes it quite stimulating
. So I’m told.”

  Skirting the edge of condescension, Nalatan said, “My brotherhood’s been here for generations. We know the Dry’s secrets. Whoever told you to drink bad water isn’t your friend.”

  “Church has been here longer than your brotherhood, crossing the Dry every time they left or returned to Church Home. Everyone knows their own secrets, it appears.” Sylah opened the bag, displayed the yellowish crystals. “This is how we fool the Dry people. We’re not as restricted as they think.”

  Lanta said, “They may not even be following us. Maybe they only wanted our horses and belongings.”

  Nalatan said, “I wish that were so. They’ll ride around us, try to catch us off guard up ahead. They’ll leave two or three men to trail us, to report if we take a trail they don’t expect. I’ll have to try to eliminate the followers. I don’t want to have to fight through an ambush just to get at some bad water. Not that I don’t trust your medicine, Sylah.” He grinned, mischievous. She sniffed at him, replaced the bag.

  Tate looked at Jessak, tiny and pink in his pannier crib, his awning stretched over him. He looked past his bottle at her, the incredibly dark blue eyes wide and trusting.

  Chapter 5

  Sylah gripped the pommel of her saddle. It was burning hot. She welcomed the pain. Anything that took her mind off the cruel, bitter words that had to be said. “Nalatan goes alone, Tate.” Seeing anger and betrayal flare in her friend’s face, Sylah hurried on. “He’s right. We can’t allow anyone to report which way we travel. Lanta and I dare not travel alone. That leaves you to escort us, Nalatan to handle the back trail and free us of the trailers.”

  Furious, Tate said, “They won’t just run away, Sylah. They’ll fight. He’ll need help. No less than you do.”

  Inwardly, Sylah winced at the criticism. There was no choice, though. Nalatan was a warrior, and he understood he must take chances. Tate was no less a warrior; she had yet to learn that success of the mission was paramount. Sylah despised being the one to provide that instruction. She pulled back her shoulders, hardened her gaze. “There’s no time for discussion. Nalatan, are you ready?”