by Don McQuinn
Nalatan nodded agreement, nostrils flaring. “Not just wood. Leather. Meat.”
Distancing themselves from each other, they trailed a wary Mikka. She led them to Karda, lying flat on the bank of a fairly wide stream.
Then they heard the screaming. Animallike yelps.
Conway said, “I’ll take the dogs, circle to the right. You two parallel the trail straight ahead.”
Conway reached the burning cabin first. The fire was confined to the interior. A woman lay sprawled outside the back door. Smoke streamed past her, coming out of the one visible window, as well. At the far rear corner of the building, two mounted men laughingly struggled over a length of bright cloth stretched between them. One shouted, the words indistinguishable. Other men answered from in front of the building.
The scream rose again.
Conway fired twice. The horses bolted, the shattered riders bouncing out of the saddles.
Calling the dogs, Conway charged. Racing around the nearside of the cabin, he broke upon a knot of confused, dismounted warriors. They stared after the stampeding horses.
Two more shots accounted for another man. There was something white and red on the ground in the midst of the group. Conway avoided looking at it. He managed another shot. Leather torso armor collapsed inward as another figure tumbled away. Exiting, the now-misshapen, high-velocity, flechette shrieked insanely.
The most aggressive of the surprised warriors spun to slash at Conway with a long, bloodied sword. Without breaking stride, Karda launched himself at the exposed throat. Momentum and Karda’s crushing hold combined to lock warrior and animal in a snarling, choking crash. Then Karda was up, bounding after his master.
An onrushing Tate and Nalatan appeared. Tate was already firing. Nalatan bellowed a war cry. His parrying bar, the peculiar iron rod with its round, convex shield at its center and the heavy ball at each end, was in his left hand. The right hand spun his sword in a silver, hissing circle. Riding into the group as it tried to react to this whirlwind attack, his horse sent two men sprawling while the sword dropped another.
Beside him, Tate killed two more.
When they turned to ride back through, the sole man on his feet threw away his sword and raced into the forest. Nalatan dashed in pursuit. There was a shriek. It ended with a shocking, abrupt closure. Returning, Nalatan hung out of his saddle, sweeping the parrying ball through the forest litter to clean it.
Conway found it hard to believe the incident was over. So brutally quickly. His neck was stiff in the grip of nervous reaction. Nalatan rode to him. Tate bent to examine the small naked figure in front of the house, surrounded by the bodies of its torturers.
One of the downed warriors stirred. Another groaned, moved a hand. Conway sent the dogs to watch them.
Tate rose. At a look from Nalatan, she shook her head. “Too late. Just a little boy.”
Sylah and Lanta galloped up. Barely glancing at the fallen warriors, they hurried to the house. The fire was progressing; flame darted out the left window, but the door was still clear. Conway looked in. Through flame and smoke, he discovered two more bodies. A man, still holding a shovel. Another boy. A pitiful little knife lay nearby. Conway moved with Nalatan to the side of the cabin that was shielded from Conway’s first view. They found a young woman, nude. Conway remembered the men playing with bright cloth.
The Priestesses turned to the two surviving warriors. Conway said, “You see what they did.”
Lanta answered, “Sylah’s a War Healer. I’m a Healer. You’ve done your duty. Now we do ours.” The small back turned to him was complete dismissal.
The warrior Lanta treated was a dog’s victim, right arm torn from elbow to wrist. Conway said, “What people are you?”
Groaning, the man said, “We’re Kwa.” He sagged, cried out pain.
Sylah reacted with alarm. “Kwa? But you’re from so far north…”
Conway’s own stomach knotted. “You attack Ola? You came south through Harbundai?”
A hint of triumph touched the pain in the Kwa’s features. “We allied with the northern Mountain People. Plague keeps the Dog People in their camps, so they can’t help. We take Ola today.”
“How many Kwa? What’s happening in Ola?”
The man swallowed. His silence told his captors Ola’s situation was bad. Nalatan bent to almost touch noses with him. “Looters. Cowards. Left to raid poor folk like these.”
The man squealed, backed away.
Sylah pushed Nalatan back with gentle determination. To Lanta, she said, “Bandage him as best you can. I bound the other’s leg.” She addressed the Kwa. “We’ll leave you food and water.”
Alarmed, Lanta’s patient struggled to rise. “Sharp Rock can’t use a weapon. I can’t walk alone. Our horses are gone. Someone’ll find us.” His eyes rolled, trying to see the fiery cabin without turning his head.
Conway said, “Few people live in this area. It’s more likely a tiger or wolves will find you. They’ll be kinder than you were to this family.” Helping Lanta to her feet, he smiled at the Kwa, relishing the acid of it.
Sylah and Lanta insisted on proper disposition of the dead. Nalatan helped Conway stack cordwood for a pyre in a small shed. Nalatan looked speculatively at his friend. “You seem in a great hurry. These Kwa worry you?”
“Plenty. If they’re in Ola, Gan’s in trouble. Our friends are in trouble.”
“They need us?”
Conway smiled at Nalatan’s automatic self-inclusion. “I’m afraid so. We have to hurry.”
The fire was roaring, billowing black smoke, as they left. Drooping branches of nearby firs rose and fell erratically in the heat. Conway was reminded of the helpless gestures of graveside mourners. The Kwa pair huddled together against the fiery backdrop.
On the trail, Lanta rode ahead of Sylah to be with Conway. He attempted to scold her for joining him on point, but she hushed him. “I want to help you.”
“Help me what?”
“With the pain. I can see it.”
Conway smiled crookedly, continuing to scan the forest ahead and beside them. “As long as you’re seeing with your eyes and not using your power to See my future or past, I can’t complain, can I? But you needn’t worry; I’m all right.”
She shook her head, the tiny features set. “You’re a fine man, Matt Conway. I fear for you, though. A thing like those raiders becomes completely personal to you. Caring for those people was right and good, but you mustn’t hate so. It’ll destroy you.”
“Would it be better if I just killed them, like swatting flies?”
“I’d almost prefer that. What frightens me is that you blame yourself. You were too late to stop those men. In your heart, you’re angry with yourself, as well as them. Men like that are everywhere, all the time. You can’t stop them all. You can’t blame yourself if you don’t.”
“I’m already blamed by others for a crime I didn’t commit. What’s more blame to me?”
Lanta blanched. Conway averted his gaze. Had he pushed her too far?
Gently, confiding, Lanta put her hand on his. “We’re two lives entwined, you and me. Between us, we must untie the knots, put together an honest, seamless weave. I think I can help you. I know I need your patient understanding. Please—be with me.”
Conway swallowed hard, then, “I don’t want to be anywhere else.”
They crested a ridge. Several lower intervening ridges rose between them and where the embattled walls of Ola gleamed distantly in the midmorning sun. Tongues of flame wavered among the clustered buildings. Smoke caught the offshore breeze and flattened to a trailing, mournful pall. Horns and drums carried across the distance.
Nalatan, with his almost-hawklike perception, said, “There’s a lull. No ladders against the wall.”
“Red and yellow.” Sylah interrupted anxiously, clutching at the back of Nalatan’s blouse. Her fingernails left scuffs where they gathered the leather. “Gan’s colors are red and yellow.”
Squinting, leanin
g forward as though the reduced distance would make a difference, Nalatan concentrated. He straightened abruptly, smiling. “In the center, by that gleaming gate.”
“Then we’re in time,” Tate said, shifting the wipe on her shoulder. “Lock and load, troopers. Semper Fi.”
Nalatan looked puzzled. “You’ve said that before; Sem-per Fi. When you expect trouble. It’s a prayer?”
“Whoo!” Tate clapped her hands together, laughed aloud. “Not hardly a prayer, sweetheart, not hardly. Next best thing, maybe.” She laughed again. Nalatan turned to Conway, who shrugged helplessly.
Conway said, “Weapons and surprise can give us advantage. We can come on from the rear, tear these people apart before they even know we’re there. What d’you think, Donnacee?”
“The sooner the better. All we have to worry about are the ridges. Crossing them will skyline us, if we’re not careful.”
Nalatan pointed. “There and there. Trees and brush. We go that way. It brings us in on the rear flank, not directly behind. We shouldn’t be directly behind, anyhow. When they retreat, we don’t want them running over us.”
Conway signaled the dogs forward. Streaking across the fields, they disappeared into the first copse. A moment later Mikka was looking back.
When Nalatan and Conway pointedly closed together and rode ahead of her, Tate followed without comment. She was careful to hide a smug smile. Of the trio, she knew she was the best trained, best equipped, to deal with the situation at hand. Either man was stronger, and thus advantaged in hand-to-hand combat. Conway had some tactical experience, gathered during his service with Windband. Nevertheless, neither man had her understanding of firepower and its application. So she let them ride in front, leading and protecting.
They reached the last ridge before the approach to the city without incident. Just beyond, howling, shield-bashing warriors worked themselves into a fury.
Nalatan ducked to lower his silhouette. The simple precaution changed everything for Tate. Ahead were enemies. They wanted to hurt Nalatan. Kill him.
Sharp, nipping bites of fear worried at her resolve.
She loved him. He mustn’t be hurt.
He would fight. Combat was the core of his existence. He was the core of hers.
A small voice protested that life was tentative, death ever ready. Tate dismissed it. She and her man were warriors. Born for each other, born for this moment.
No one would hurt Nalatan. She would prevent it.
The rhythmic shouting of the Kwa broke in a crescendo of hoarse voices. Discordant horns brayed.
Tate took the chaos as her own, absorbed it. Sweat bathed her face. She held the ugly, black wipe in a grip that made her knuckles crack. Nervous fingers complicated lashing her horse to a sapling.
The Kwa flank guard was a mere three men. Carelessly, they’d abandoned their post on the south side of the hill. They were fascinated, watching the spectacle of massed warriors streaming past a stone’s throw away. Nalatan and Conway were on them, swords flashing.
Tate’s voice was metallic. “Nalatan. Good cover for you there. They’ll come at us. You keep them off. Conway, we concentrate on the main body. Your sector is from that warhorn north; use your boop. I take the south. When they rush us, I cover the retreat; my horse is the fastest.”
Conway nodded, grinning. “Negative your last sweetheart.” He was already prone, elbowing up into a firing position. “You take Nalatan and go first. Without you, he’ll never leave this ridge, and you know it.” A hard gesture cut off her argument. “Shut up and shoot. They’re at the wall.”
The crack of wipes and the deeper reports of defending boops on the wall split the din of battle before Tate and Conway joined the firing. Kwa warriors spun and fell.
Tate saw a flash of gold. A helmet. The wearer waved his sword. Tate’s boop round opened a hole in the crowd, short of her target. The gap closed immediately. The leader searched for the source of this new threat. At the flash of Conway’s next round, the helmeted one grabbed a man and pointed toward the ridge. The messenger ran south, dodging the warriors heading for the wall.
Tate fired at the helmet again. Reloading, she saw Conway arcing rounds at maximum range. He’d done massive damage. The northern wing of the Kwa effort was visibly slowed, staggering forward. Small knots of men were sheltering together under shields, edging rearward.
Cavalry charged toward the trio from a hidden reserve to the east. Some angled to cross the ridge and deny retreat. Simultaneously, warriors on foot peeled off the extreme southern flank of the Kwa force to advance on the newly identified threat.
Nalatan’s arrows took their toll unheeded. The running warriors came on, screaming, threatening, dodging from cover to cover. Tate shouted, “Matt! Take the infantry.” She joined Nalatan’s defense against the cavalry coming up the slope.
She saw the lance strike Nalatan. His pain, his shock, registered in her. She felt the long, triangular lance head plunge into his right side, felt his disbelief and the swift, organic taste of death.
She ran to him.
For her, the battle field fell silent. Arrows drifted past, slow, trivial things. Nalatan wrenched the missile free of his armor, flung it down. Sweat sluiced his features. He braced to meet the continuing charge of the rider who threw it. A death-masked Mountain warrior leveled the long sword called a sodal at him.
Tate had no shot. Nalatan blocked her. She screamed. The point of the sodal flew across space. At the last instant, Nalatan leaped sideways to put himself on the side of the horse opposite the Mountain’s aimed sword. For the Mountain to use it as a lance, the sodal’s sharp edge would cross under the horse’s throat.
The Mountain was expert. He whipped the sword over, slashed downward. Nalatan’s parrying bar deflected the blow. The Mountain’s speed carried him past. Smoothly, Nalatan dropped the bar and snatched up bow and arrow. When the Mountain turned to resume his attack, the arrow was already on its way. It struck just above his mouth. He flipped backward out of the saddle.
Then the rest of the cavalry was on them. Bayonet slashing, wipe firing, Tate stood side by side with Nalatan, backed against a tree trunk. Frenzied Kwa neglected their bows and arrows, charging individually with bare steel, screaming.
From the corner of her eye, Tate saw Conway being forced back. The dogs charged and retreated, savaging attackers. An incredibly tall warrior suddenly appeared, rushing at Conway. He wore a bronze helmet hammered in a bear design, as if the animal held the man’s head in its mouth.
The other warriors stepped aside, hearing their champion’s roaring war cry as he came in a rush. Conway raised the wipe.
At the report, the brazen helmet exploded off the man’s head, flying high into the air. It spun lazily, like an obscene toy. The warrior sprawled on his back. His sword, the point stabbed into the earth, swayed back and forth as gently as a reed.
And it was over. A few shots at shadowy, fleeing foot warriors and headlong cavalry. Disbelief escalating to nausea at the full realization of the carnage. Tate struggled to calm herself. Before she could turn, Sylah was at Nalatan’s side, tending to his wound. He smiled at both women. The incredible brightness of his widened eyes revealed what effort his control cost.
Lanta rushed to Conway. “Are you hurt? Did they hurt you?”
Distant, still on the tendered edge of madness, Conway said, “Not a mark. Lucky. The dogs—small cuts. Look at them. Lying there. Another job done. That’s all.”
“Done, indeed.” She pointed toward Ola. “Look. The Kwa are beaten.”
* * *
Grimy, blood-spattered, face drawn into planes and angles that spoke of years lived in hours, Gan spoke to Emso. “Cavalry. Through Sunrise Gate. Give them no rest, Emso, no chance to reorganize. Kill any carrying loot or looting. No mercy. Nonlooters who surrender, treat well. See that War Healers tend them. Compassion for any who’ll allow it, Emso. Kill the rest.”
Fist to ear in Wolf salute, Emso turned and ran.
Huddled a
few feet away, resting against Bernhardt, Leclerc watched. His throat worked convulsively. He said, “Did you hear that? ‘Kill the rest.’ How do we deal with this place, Kate? I thought I wanted action, excitement. This… this nonstop butchery isn’t what I expected. I don’t know…”
Bernhardt put an arm around him, consoling. He slumped into the embrace. The side of her face was hugely swollen, the right eye a useless slit. When she spoke, distorted muscles gave the gentle words a mushy sound. “You did more than your share, Louis. No one was braver. But your skills are the real future for all of us. You’re our key.”
Leclerc knew it was true. He felt much better. Personal risk wasn’t warfare. Gan—men like Gan—could never learn that. Intellect. True command required true intellect.
* * *
Wounds and weariness were forgotten in the reunion. Wolves on the walls joined the inhabitants and refugees crammed into the city in a tumult that was part celebration of victory, part welcome to returning heroes, part thanksgiving for near-miraculous intercession. It was the latter that Gan addressed first. “You timed it perfectly, Sylah. How did you know we were under attack?”
Sylah put an arm across Tate’s shoulder, pointed at Conway and Nalatan with the other hand. “These three discovered Kwa raiders at a farmhouse, and the survivors told us. They’re the ones who got us to Ola in time to join the battle. Lanta and I were simply there when it happened.”
Lanta said, “If not for the raiders, we’d never have known of the attack, never hurried to help. It’s well to consider that good can come of evil.”
Gan thought it strange she should look at Conway when she spoke, and even more strange that Conway should react as if hearing welcome news. There was a story there, Gan told himself, and wondered if he’d ever hear it. Oddly, Emso’s words of signs and omens plucked at his mind.
Neela started a different conversation. “The Door, Sylah. Tell us. The quest was successful?” Grimy, still perspiring from the exertions on the wall, Neela’s face shone with the certainty that her friend won through.