Jerrik cocked the musket and sat back, resting his elbow on his knee. The gun was leveled at the seated figure …
Something cold touched Jerrik’s temple.
And his head exploded.
At the sound of the shot Pearson loosed his crossbow bolt. It flashed across the clearing, slicing through Shannow’s coat and the bush inside it. Swallow ran up, hurdling the campfire, and his knife followed Pearson’s bolt. The coat fell from the bush, the hat toppling with it, and Swallow’s mouth fell open. Something hit him a wicked blow in the back, and a hole the size of a man’s fist appeared in his chest. He was dead before he hit the ground.
Pearson backed away from the carnage and sprinted to his pony. Loosing the hobble, he leapt to the saddle and booted the animal into a run. The boom of Jerrik’s musket came just as Pearson’s pony had reached a gallop; the animal fell headlong, and Pearson flew over its neck to land on his back against a tree. He rolled and came up with a knife in his hand.
“Show yourself!” he screamed.
The Jerusalem Man stepped from the screen of trees and moved into Pearson’s view. In his hand was the ivory-handled percussion pistol.
“You don’t have to kill me,” said Pearson, eyes locked on the pistol. “I won’t come back. I’ll just ride away.”
“Who sent you?”
“Fletcher.”
“How many others has he sent?”
“None. We didn’t think we’d need any more.”
“What is your name?”
“Why?”
“So that I can mark your grave. It would be unseemly otherwise.”
The knife fell from his fingers. “My name is Pearson. Alan Pearson.”
“And the others?”
“Al Jerrik and Zephus Swallow.”
“Turn around, Mr. Pearson.”
Pearson closed his eyes and began to turn.
He did not even hear the shot that killed him.
Jon Shannow rode into the yard as the moon broke clear of the screen of clouds. He was leading two ponies, and he carried a long rifle across his saddle. Donna stood in the doorway wearing a white blouse of fine wool and a homespun skirt dyed red. Her hair was freshly brushed and glowed almost white in the moonlight. Shannow waved as he rode past and led the ponies into the pen. He unsaddled the gelding and brushed him down.
Donna walked across the yard and took Shannow’s arm. He leaned down and kissed her lightly.
“Are you well, Jon?”
“Aye.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I was thinking that when I am with you, I understand something that has long escaped me.” He lifted her hand and kissed it gently, reverently.
“What? What do you understand?”
“It is a quotation from the book.”
“Tell me.”
“ ‘Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
“ ‘And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing.’ There is more, but I would need the Book to read it.”
“It is beautiful, Jon. Who wrote it?”
“A man named Paul.”
“Did he write it for a woman?”
“No, he wrote it for everyone. How is Eric?”
“He got upset when he heard the guns.”
“There was no danger, Donna,” he said softly. “And we have several days together before anyone realizes they have failed.”
“You look tired, Jon. Come in and rest.”
“Each death lessens me, lady. But still they come.”
She led him into the house and trimmed the wicks in the oil lamp. He sat in the comfort chair, and his head dropped back. Gently she removed his boots and covered him with a heavy blanket.
“Sleep well, Jon. Sweet dreams.” She kissed him and moved toward her room. Eric’s door opened, and he stood there rubbing sleep from his eyes. “Is he back, Mother?” he whispered.
“Yes. He is all right.”
“Did he kill all the men?”
“I expect so, Eric. Go to bed.”
“Will you come in with me?”
She smiled and led him back to the narrow bed, where she lay beside him. Within minutes he was asleep. But Donna Taybard could not sleep. Outside was a man who in the space of a few days had killed five others, a man living on the edge of sanity, chasing the impossible. He was seeking a city that no longer existed in a land no one could find, in search of a god few believed in—a relic of a world that had passed into myth.
And he loved her, or thought that he did, which was the same thing to a man, Donna knew. And now he was trapped, forced to remain like a magnet drawing death to him, unable to run or hide. And he would lose. There would be no Jerusalem for Jon Shannow and no home with Donna Taybard. The Committee would hunt him down, and Donna would be Fletcher’s woman—until he tired of her. Yet even knowing this, Donna could not send Jon Shannow away. She closed her eyes, and his face came unbidden to her mind. She found herself staring at him as he slept in the comfort chair, his face so peaceful now and almost boyish in the lamplight.
Donna opened her eyes back in Eric’s room and wished, not for the first time, that the Prester were alive. He always seemed to know what to do. And before advancing years had sapped his judgment he could read men—and women. But he was gone, and there was no one to turn to. She thought of Shannow’s fierce god and, remembering Ash Burry’s gentle, loving lord, found it incomprehensible that both men worshiped the same deity.
The two men were fleece and flint, and so was their god.
“Are you there, Shannow’s god?” she whispered. “Can you hear me? What are you doing to the man? Why do you drive him so hard? Help him. Please help him.”
Eric stirred and mumbled in his sleep, and she kissed him, lifting the blanket around his chin. His eyes opened dreamily.
“I love you, Mother. Truly.”
“And I love you, Eric. More than anything.”
“Daddy never loved me.”
“Of course he did,” whispered Donna, but Eric was asleep once more.
* * *
Shannow awoke in the hour before dawn and opened the door to Donna’s room. The bed was still made, and he smiled ruefully. He moved to the pump room and found himself staring once more at his reflection.
“Quo vadis, Shannow?” he asked the grim gray man in the mirror.
The sound of horses in the yard made him stiffen, and he checked his pistols and slipped out of the back door, keeping in the moon shadows until he reached the front of the house. Five long wagons drawn by oxen stretched in a line back to the meadow, and a tall man on a dark horse was dismounting by the water trough.
“Good morning,” said Shannow, sheathing his pistol.
“Do you mind if we water our animals?” asked the man.
The sun was just clearing the eastern peaks, and Shannow saw that he was in his thirties and strongly built. He wore a black leather riding jacket cut high at the waist and a hat sporting a single peacock feather.
“As long as you replenish it from the well yonder,” Shannow told him. “Where are you journeying?”
“Northwest, through the mountains.”
“The Plague Lands?” asked Shannow. “No one goes there. I saw a man once who had come from there. His hair fell out, and his body was a mass of weeping sores that would not mend.”
“We do not believe it is the land. All sicknesses pass,” said the man.
“The man I knew said that the rocks gleamed in the night and that no animals could be found there.”
“My friend, I have heard tales of giant lizards, flying pillars, and castles in clouds. I have yet to see any of them. Land is land, and I am sick of brigands. Daniel Cade is raiding once more, and I have a yen for the far mountains where even brigands will not go. Now, I myself have met a man who journeye
d there—or said he did. He said that the grass grows green and the deer are plentiful and much larger than elsewhere. He says he saw apples as big as melons and in the distance a city the like of which he had never seen. Now, I am a man who needs to travel, and I mean to see that city.”
Shannow’s mouth was suddenly dry. “I, too, would like to see that city,” he said.
“Then find yourself a wagon and travel with us, man! I take it those pistols are not mere ornaments.”
“I have no wagon, sir, nor enough Barta coin to raise one. And I have commitments here that must be fulfilled.”
The man nodded and then grinned. “That’s why I want you. I’d take no footloose rider straight from the Outlands, and I won’t import brigands into Avalon. You are a sturdy soul by the look of you. Do you have a family?”
“Yes.”
“Then sell your farm and follow after us. There’ll be land waiting.”
Shannow left him watering the oxen and walked inside, where Donna was awake and standing by the open door.
“You heard that?” asked Shannow.
“Yes. The Plague Lands.”
“What do you feel?”
“I do not want you to go. But if you do, we will go with you if you’ll have us.”
He opened his arms and drew her to him, too full of wild joy to speak. Behind him the tall man from the yard politely cleared his throat, and Shannow turned.
“My name is Cornelius Griffin, and I may have a proposition for you.”
“Come in, Mr. Griffin,” said Donna. “I am Donna Taybard, and this is my husband, Jon.”
“A pleasure, Fray Taybard.”
“You spoke of a proposition,” said Shannow.
“Indeed I did. We have a family with us who are not desirous of a risky journey, and it would be that they will part with their wagon and goods in return for your farm. Of course, there will be an extra amount in Barta coin, should the prospect interest you.”
* * *
Jon Shannow rode his steeldust gelding down the main street of Rivervale settlement, his long leather coat flapping against the horse’s flanks, his wide-brimmed hat shading his eyes. The houses were mostly timber near the roadside, early dwellings of some three or four decades. On outlying hills above the shallow coal mine rose new homes of stone and polished wood. Shannow rode past the mill and across the humpback bridge, ignoring the stares of the workmen and loafers who peered at him from the shadows. Several children were playing in a dusty side street, and a barking dog caused his horse to jump sideways. Shannow sat unmoving in the saddle and rode on, reining in his mount at the steps to the alehouse.
He dismounted and tied the reins to a hitching rail, mounted the steps, and entered the drinking hall. There were some twenty men sitting or standing at the long bar, among them the giant Bard, his head bandaged. Beside him was Fletcher, and both men gaped as Shannow moved toward them.
A stillness settled on the room.
“I am come to tell you, Mr. Fletcher, that Fray Taybard has sold her farm to a young family from Ferns Crossing, a settlement some two months journey to the south. She has given them a bond of sale that should satisfy the Committee.”
“Why tell me?” said Fletcher, aware of the spectators, many of whom were known landsmen of integrity.
“Because you are a murderous savage and a brigand, sir, who would lief as not kill the family and pretend they were usurpers.”
“How dare you?”
“I dare because it is the truth, and that will always be a bitter enemy to you, sir. I do not know how long the people of Rivervale will put up with you, but if they have sense, it will not be long.”
“You cannot think to leave here alive, Shannow,” said Fletcher. “You are a named brigand.”
“Named by you! Jerrik, Swallow, and Pearson are dead, Mr. Fletcher. Before he died, Pearson told me you had offered him a place on your Committee. Strange that you now have places for known woman killers!”
“Kill him!” screamed Fletcher, and Shannow dived to his right as a crossbow bolt flashed from the doorway. His pistol boomed, and a man staggered back from sight to fall down the steps beyond.
A pistol flamed in Fletcher’s hand, and something tugged at the collar of Shannow’s coat. The right-hand pistol flowered in flame and smoke, and Fletcher pitched back, clutching his belly. A second shot tore through his heart. Bard was running for the rear door, and Shannow let him go, but the man twisted and fired a small pistol, which hammered a shell into the wood beside Shannow’s face. Splinters tore into his cheek, and he pumped two bullets into the big man’s throat; Bard collapsed in a fountain of blood.
Shannow climbed slowly to his feet and scanned the room and the men lying facedown and motionless.
“I am Jon Shannow and have never been a brigand.”
Turning his back, he walked into the street. A shell whistled past his head, and he turned and fired. A man reared up from behind the water trough, clutching his shoulder; in his hand was a brass-mounted percussion pistol. Then Shannow shot him again, and he fell without a sound. A musket boomed from a window across the street, snatching Shannow’s hat from his head; he returned the fire but hit nothing. Climbing into the saddle, he kicked the gelding into a run.
Several men raced to cut him off. One fired a pistol, but the gelding cannoned into the group and sent them sprawling to the dust, and Shannow was clear and over the humpback bridge, heading west to join Donna and Eric …
… and the road to Jerusalem.
3
CON GRIFFIN SWUNG in the saddle and watched the oxen toiling up the steep slope. The first of the seventeen wagons had reached the lava ridge, and the others were strung out like vast wooden beads on the black slope.
Griffin was tired, and the swirling lava dust burned his eyes. He swung his horse and studied the terrain ahead. As far as the eye could see, which from that height was a considerable distance, the black lava sand stretched from jagged peak to jagged peak.
They had been traveling for five weeks, having linked with Jacob Madden’s twelve wagons north of Rivervale. In that time they had seen no riders or any evidence of brigands on the move, yet Griffin was wary. He had in his saddlebags many maps of the area, sketched by men who claimed to have traveled the lands in their youth. It was rare for any of the maps to correspond, but one thing all agreed on was that beyond the lava stretch lived a brigand band of the worst kind: eaters of human flesh.
Griffin had done his best to prepare his wagoners for the worst. No family had been allowed to join the convoy unless it owned at least one working rifle or handgun. As things stood there were over twenty guns in the convoy, enough to deter all but the largest brigand party.
Con Griffin was a careful man and, as he often said, a damned fine wagoner. This was his third convoy in eleven years, and he had survived drought, plague, brigand raids, vicious storms, and even a flash flood. Men said Con Griffin was lucky, and he accepted that without comment. Yet he knew that luck was merely the residue of hard thinking and harder work. Each of the twenty-two-foot wagons carried one spare wheel and axle suspended beneath the tailboards, plus sixty pounds of flour, three sacks of salt, eighty pounds of dried meat, thirty pounds of dried fruit, and six barrels of water. His own two wagons were packed with trade goods and spares: hammers, nails, axes, knives, saw blades, picks, blankets, and woven garments. Griffin liked to believe he left nothing to luck.
The people who traveled under his command were tough and hardy, and Griffin, for all his outward gruffness, loved them all. They reflected all that was good in people: strength, courage, loyalty, and a stubborn willingness to risk all they had for the dream of a better tomorrow.
Griffin sat back in the saddle and watched the Taybard wagon begin the long haul up the lava slope. The woman, Donna, intrigued him. Leather-tough and satin-soft, she was a beautiful contradiction. The wagon master rarely involved himself in matters of the heart, but had Donna Taybard been available, he would have broken his rule. The boy, Eri
c, was running alongside the oxen, urging them on with a switch. He was a quiet boy, but Griffin liked him; he was quick and bright and learned fast. The man was another matter …
Griffin had always been a good judge of character, an attribute vital to a leader, yet he could make nothing of Jon Taybard except that he was riding under an assumed name. The relationship between Taybard and Eric was strained, the boy avoiding the man at all but mealtimes. Still, Taybard was a good man with a horse, and he never complained or shirked from the tasks Griffin set him.
The Taybard wagon reached the top of the rise and was followed by the elderly scholar Peacock. The man had no coordination, and the wagon stopped halfway up the slope. Griffin cantered down and climbed up to the driving seat, allowing his horse to run free.
“Will you never learn, Ethan?” he said, taking the reins and whip from the balding Peacock.
He cracked the thirty-foot whip above the ear of the leading ox, and the animal lurched forward into the traces. Slowly the lumbering wagon moved up the hill.
“Are you sure you can’t read, Con?” asked Peacock.
“Would I lie to you, scholar?”
“It is just that that fool Phelps can be tremendously annoying. I think he only reads sections that prove his case.”
“I have seen Taybard with a Bible—ask him,” said Griffin. The wagon moved onto the ridge, and he stepped to the running board and whistled for his horse. The chestnut stallion came at once, and Griffin climbed back into the saddle.
Maggie Ames’ wagon was the next to be stopped on the slope, a rear wheel lodged against a lava rock. Griffin dismounted and manhandled it clear, to be rewarded with a dazzling smile. He tipped his hat and rode away. Maggie was a young widow, and that made her dangerous indeed.
Throughout the long hot afternoon the wagon convoy moved on over the dusty ridge. The oxen were weary, and Griffin rode ahead looking for a campsite.
There was no water to be found, and he ordered the wagons stopped on the high ground above the plain, in the lee of a soaring rock face. Griffin unsaddled the chestnut and rubbed him down, then filled his leather hat with water and allowed the horse to drink.
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