by Don McQuinn
“Don’t be so proud. I mean my own people. The Skan.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Then listen. A Skan fleet lies in our main harbor. I think Lorso ordered this raid to capture Jaleeta. If so, the main attack must be imminent. I intend to harm those sharkers, rob the Skan of their glory, as they robbed me of my reputation.”
Emso lowered his weapon, rubbed a jaw pensively. “Gan’s spoken of something he calls the Journey. Men salvage honor in a suicide ride into the tribe’s enemies.”
Domel waited, silent. Emso sighed. “We’re a pair of old fools.”
“Then I die as a brave fool. A revenged fool.”
Sheathing his murdat, Emso said, “I guess you have a boat ready?”
Rising, nudging Ondrat’s body with the tip of his sword, Domel said, “He did. He doesn’t need it now.” He replaced his own sword, reached to help Emso away from the wall. He nodded at the leg. “Broken?” When Emso grunted, Domel took it as an affirmative. He said, “At least the one who tricked you was young and beautiful. Mine’s ugly enough to send the salmon back downstream.”
Emso let Domel take some of his weight. “I wish we’d met in a different situation. I think we could have been friends.”
Domel was dry. “After my people finish with us, we’ll have a long, long time to get acquainted.”
Remembering the rest of his mission to Ondrat’s barony, Emso halted. Turning away, he hopped back to the hearth, as Domel watched, puzzled. Emso took the big ash shovel from its hanger, scooped coals out onto the floor, against the wooden wall. Domel added kindling and firewood from the fireplace supply. Hungry flames rose swiftly. For a fleeting moment their brightness added vibrant color to the faded, tattered banners festooning the wall. Then the ancient cloth withered, was devoured, and there was only fire.
Domel said, “Why do we burn such vermin?”
Emso looked at him, feeling weightless, as if the growing draft of the fire could suck him off the ground, consume him. He thought of a smith’s furnace, how the light lured the mindless moths from darkness, inhaled them into consuming heat. In his mind, he saw himself a single hissing spark. He said, “I must,” and as Domel helped him on his awkward passage into the night, he wondered what question he’d just answered.
Chapter 15
Gan looked up as Conway and Nalatan approached from opposite directions. When both were beside him, he asked, “Are the men all right?”
Nalatan answered, “The rear guard’s doing as well as could be expected. They’re worn out, Murdat. We should rest.”
“I agree.” Conway’s answer was hoarse with exhaustion. “The point was wobbling in his saddle like a drunken man. His tenner says they’re all like that. If we don’t get some sleep, we’ll be useless when we reach Ola.”
“The surprise of our return will outweigh that. We’re the only ones who know how weary we are.” There was no point in his saying that the Skan might already have crushed resistance in Ola. That thought drove them all from the outset. Still, what began as a dash degenerated to an endurance event. Without extra mounts, short of food, sleeping only when the lack of it tumbled them out of the saddles, they barely maintained military capability.
Gan tried to lighten the mood. “At least we’ve got relief coming. The River People volunteers aren’t far behind us.” The effort went ignored.
Conway said, “You’d think someone on these farms would have some information. I’ve got a suggestion. We’re making good time now that the moon’s finally high. It’s not far to Leclerc’s. He’ll be there, unless there’s been a real problem. Let’s pull in there. If he knows there’s trouble at the castle, we press on. If not, we sleep in the barn and the workshops and get a good start in the morning. We lose very little time, and we come into Ola fresh enough to do some good, if we have to.”
The idea wasn’t unique to Conway. Gan wondered about it before moonrise. Shelter from the enervating cold would help the men. Hot food after a few hours’ sleep would restore them. But Conway’s “little time” could prove crucial. Even catastrophic.
Then Nalatan said, “If the Skan are coming, they’re either here already, or they won’t come until tomorrow night. As Conway said, the moon’s high. They’ll time their attack to start when dark’s heaviest, so they can close on us without being seen. Once the fight’s underway, they’ll want the moonlight to coordinate the attack or withdrawal, if it’s necessary. We all know that.”
Gan was short. “What if the Skan are attacking as we ride? The sound of it wouldn’t reach Leclerc.”
“Tate would send for him.” Conway was certain. “He and Bernhardt know how to use the lightning weapons.”
Gan considered, then nodded decisively. “We turn off at Leclerc’s farm. I’ll decide what to do after I see him.”
Soon after, Gan abruptly reined in. Nalatan and Conway did the same. Gan’s sharp whistle halted the advance guard. Rising in his stirrups, as though the extra height would somehow make things clearer, Gan listened. Nalatan cupped his hands behind his ears, swiveling. Conway watched, disgusted. His senses were nothing like as sharp as his companions’, and he resented it. Finally, impatient, he spoke out. “What?” It was a demand.
“Lightning weapons. Two.” Gan looked to Nalatan for confirmation. The monk nodded. Another whistle from Gan rallied the unit around him. There were forty-two men, counting Gan himself. Still upright, he addressed them. “Louis Leclerc is being attacked. I’m taking the point. Any man whose horse falls, follow on foot. Any man who feels unable to fight, dismount now, give your horse to another.”
A young voice, resentful, rose from the slumped riders. “We may fall down. We won’t fall out. Why are we wasting time?”
Gan was grateful for the darkness that covered his first flush of anger at the insubordination, and the embarrassment that replaced it. “Excellent attitude. Bad mouth. Follow me, then. And the One in All be with all of you.”
The silence of the march disappeared, replaced by voices harshly urging dispirited, nearly blown mounts.
Shortly after that, a sinister orange glow limned trees silvered by the full moon. “Fire,” Conway said. Nalatan grunted. He unlashed the parrying bar from his saddle, checked the fit of his sword in the scabbard. Then he did the same thing with the knives in their holsters at his biceps. For his part, Conway fixed the bayonet to his wipe, jacked boop and wipe rounds into the chamber. Ahead of them, Gan already had his murdat in his hand, controlling his horse with the other.
Conway fell back behind Nalatan, then whistled his dogs in to flank him. Footsore, limping, Karda and Mikka paced beside the horse, too weary to even look up when Gan whistled in Shara and Cho.
When the column broke clear of the confining forest, it compacted, forming a shocked, dismayed mass.
Leclerc’s farmhouse was completely engulfed. Smoke pillared into the night, obscuring stars. The workshops were afire, as well. Skan war-cries carried a malicious ring of certainty, despite the distance. As the small group stared, lightning weapons blinked fire from one of the workshops. Gan wheeled his horse. “You. Ride for Ola as hard as you can. Get help. Go.”
More constrained, he told the rest, “Charge on my command. The fire will expose them. Pick your first man on the approach. I figure at least forty Skan there. Good hunting.” He moved out at a walk.
Conway wanted to scream at him to gallop. He ate the words, even if the urge continued. It was too far. The horses would collapse long before they got there. As it was, Conway could feel his mount’s legs stiffening, see the head and ears pitch forward, down. Moonlight afforded enough illumination to observe the other horses. They were as used as his. We hit them with our best shot, he told himself, and then we’re on foot. Good hunting, indeed.
Loud cheering broke into his considerations. He looked ahead, squinting, to make out a group of Skan, new arrivals, running across the field between the buildings of Leclerc’s compound and the tree line to the west. Conway ground his teeth in spee
chless frustration. Miserable odds had just multiplied.
A hand signal from Gan spread the men into a line formation. Any other time, it would have been ludicrous. Horses stumbled. Men rolled around in saddles. The line wavered like a windblown row of wheat stalks. Gan signaled a canter. The Skan were erratic silhouettes against the flames.
Another signal brought the troops to a trot. A horse stumbled into the one next to it. Both went down in a weak, flailing jumble. One Wolf rose, chased after his companions in a shambling run. Another horse dropped, quivering as if shot. The fourth crashed headfirst, pitching his rider. The man rolled upright, pressed on.
Conway shouted, an involuntary outburst of fear as Skan crashed through the workshop door. One shot followed, muted by the walls. To Conway, it had a forlorn, weak sound.
The heat from the burning house was palpable. Gan brought the Wolves to a gallop, angling to keep to the dark. Conway, abandoning discipline, flogged his horse, desperate to reach his friends. The animal tried, but it hadn’t the strength. Breathing in ragged, sucking gulps, it barely kept up with the charge.
It was the scream of a fallen, leg-broken horse that warned the nearest Skan. By then the Wolves were on them, cutting down men like cornstalks. Conway rode through to the far side of the building, reins in his lefthand, wipe in the right. Karda and Mikka raged beside him.
By the time the Wolves were beyond the burning workshop, turning to charge again, the newly arrived Skan were kneeling, firing arrows. The Skan inside the workshop streamed out. Four of them carried a body.
Only one. Conway screamed the names of his friends, slapped his horse’s rump. The spent animal managed a halfhearted leap, then played out entirely. Spraddle-legged, shaking, it simply stopped. Its nose was almost touching the ground, and frothing sweat bathed it from chest to loins.
Vaulting out of the saddle, Conway snapped a round at the group carrying the captive. They were behind the archers now, racing for cover in the forest and the sea beyond.
Nalatan, also on foot, caught Conway’s arm just as he broke into a run. When Conway tried to shake him off, Nalatan only held harder. Conway turned, shoving viciously. Nalatan stumbled back. He remained calm, even in the face of threatening growls from the excited dogs. He said, “Easy, Matt Conway. Those archers will kill you and your dogs before you can close with them. Look, to the left; Gan’s already got some of our men returning arrow fire. See there; he’s moving the rest to outflank the Skan archers.”
“They’ve got a prisoner.”
“I saw. Come. We’ll go around to the right. Keep down.” Without waiting for argument or agreement, Nalatan was gone. Crouched low, he moved with a gait that made up for its near-comical appearance with speed. Conway followed, keeping the dogs close.
Within the trees, Nalatan said, “Use the lightning and the dogs only if you must. Silence is our best weapon.”
The forest behind Leclerc’s house extended a considerable distance, ending abruptly at high, sheer bluffs. There were interruptions in that vertical face, places where landslide created steep avenues of exit inland. Part of the Skan raiding party now fought furiously to cover the escape of their captive-taking companions while the latter hurried to one of those routes. Consummate warriors, the Skan let Gan’s exhausted, clumsy men come to them. They slashed from behind trees. Some lay in small depressions or under sprawling ground cover, reaching up with swords to disembowel men too tired to search effectively.
For once, Conway’s night skills matched Nalatan’s. Necessity demanded. Between them, they were a baleful force. Skan died under thrusting bayonet and crushing parrying bar. Inexorably, however, it became clear that the Skan were succeeding. The surviving Wolves united at the mouth of a declivity leading to the beach. In the bright moonlight, four sharkers waited offshore. Amidst tumbled driftwood logs, Skan warriors screamed defiant taunts at their enemies above. Another group, much smaller, crouched at the limit of the piled timber. Between them and the sea was a broad expanse of moon-silvered beach.
Conway said, “That small bunch has to be the one with the prisoner. They’re getting ready to go. We’ve got to move.”
Somber, apologetic, Gan answered, “We’ve eleven wounded. Even with your weapon, even with the dogs, we can only kill some of them, and die.”
Helplessness threatened to destroy Conway. He squeezed the stock of the wipe so hard it felt his skin must split. “They came for Leclerc and Bernhardt because they’ve heard what they can build, the weapons they can produce. Let them get away and you’re doomed. Believe me. I’ve seen it.”
Gan said, “We can’t save them. We can hope the other of your friends survived. We’d do better to go back, search for that one, and the treasure of the Door, if it wasn’t burned.”
Sharp embarrassment touched Conway’s mind. He’d forgotten entirely about the books. Leclerc even had the red book, the one with the crèche locations, all the identities. If that was burned, the last link with the old world was gone.
So much knowledge. The final break.
Conway said, “I’m going down there. Whatever happens, it’s worth it to me.”
For the second time that night, Nalatan stopped him. “My skills are better. You and the lightning weapon will allow me to reach the ones carrying your friend. We each have our place.”
“I can’t do that. Tate…”
“…is who she is. I am who I am.” Nalatan’s interruption was without heat, but it snuffed out possible further talk. Silent, feral, he disappeared downhill.
Chapter 16
A disheveled Wolf skidded a lathered horse to a stop, shouting, “Where’s the Black Lightning! They need her.”
Supervising the last of the fire-fighting effort from the roof of the castle, Tate heard. She ran to the front of the building, calling down.
He pointed. “The Skan! They attacked Leclerc’s farm. He sent me back to get you.”
Tate understood. Jaleeta. She told the Skan—her Skan—about Leclerc and Bernhardt, the inventions, the weapons. Tate looked south, tried to deny the taint of flame-glow marring the night. It refused to go away.
Racing to her quarters, she replenished ammunition. Her mind hurtled through considerations. Jaleeta understood real power. She knew about the books, and knew that what Leclerc and Bernhardt built once, they could build again. It came to Tate that the greatest horror of the raid wasn’t the destruction of the weapons needed for defense, nor even the killing of so many young Wolves. It was the potential desecration of knowledge.
Muttering, “So what else is new?” Tate took down her hang glider in its tube, struggled outside with it. Lungs and eyes burned from smoke drifting through the building. In the open, coughing, she called for the rider. “Exactly what’s happening?” she asked.
“Leclerc told us to defend from the bluffs, then fall back. The Skan were ashore when we got there. Four sharkers. Not just crew, either. We fought back to the farm. There’s too many, Tate.”
“Is Emso hurt?”
“He didn’t ride with us.”
Shock beyond fear, beyond loss, shot through Tate. She burned with the memory of Emso calling Jaleeta.
The fool. The pitiful, treacherous fool. Tate wanted to weep, to see him dead, to hold and comfort him.
The messenger said, “Are you coming?”
Tate jerked out of her maundering. “I’ve got other work. Ride for Sunrise Gate. Go to the commander of the Wolf reserve. Tell him I said go to Leclerc’s immediately. And send a fast rider to the Wolves pursuing the rebels. Have them come back to the city. Repeat what I said.”
The man did, without error. Tate slapped his horse on the rump. “Go, man.”
Before the rider completed his turn to leave, Tate was bawling for Lanta, Carter, and Anspach. All ran to her urgency. As soon as they gathered, Tate explained, “This is a hang glider.” She ignored the stunned expressions of her two crèche friends. “I need you three to come with me and help. I don’t have time to argue with anyone who wants to cal
l me a witch or a goblin or some other Halloween ghoulie. Will you come, help me get airborne in this thing?”
“Whatever for?” Carter’s surprise was already replaced by her normal tight intensity.
“The Skan are attacking Leclerc. They’ll try to kidnap him and Bernhardt. From the air, I can shoot down at the sharkers.”
Anspach shook her head. “Not in the dark. You can’t have practiced enough. It’s crazy. Anyhow, you can get close enough to shoot from land.”
“Maybe. If I can, I will. The hang glider’s insurance.”
“It’s a death wish.” Carter nodded agreement at Anspach, continuing, “You’ll kill yourself. What if the wind’s wrong? You don’t even know where the wind’s coming from.”
Tate thought fast, remembered the smoke from the fires. “Quartering from northwest,” she said, so relieved she was smug. “We’re losing time.”
“Come on.” Lanta ran for the stables. Tate caught up quickly. Carter and Anspach hesitated long enough to exchange resigned shrugs before following.
Taking Lanta’s advice, the four rode south on the beach. Obstacles forced them inland occasionally, causing delay, but Tate’s requirement to launch from the bluff made it the most effective route. They heard the sound of the fight long before they saw anything. A little farther and the sharkers appeared, stark against the moonlit water. Deciding they were close enough, Tate led away from the sea, up one of the eroded gaps in the bluffs. Crumbling soil broke down under the horses’ hooves, and the grade was far too steep. The women dismounted, hauled the unwieldy bundle up the slope by main strength. Scrub-growth handholds ripped palms and fingers. Imbedded rocks offered treacherous footing that collapsed under full weight, leading to twisted ankles and skinned legs. But they persevered.
Unwrapping the hang glider’s components, they discovered that moonlight was unsatisfactory construction illumination for three people totally unfamiliar with the device. Again, they managed. A bull-like voice down the beach bellowed instructions. “Sharkers! Send the small boats! Stay offshore! They can’t send the lightning at us without risking the prisoner.”