He passed an empty outer corral and reached the stone fence that led into the village. Shadows held no color in the gloom, but Talon saw these things clearly. When the first of his riders reached the outermost circle of buildings, he ripped his torch from its breakaway straps. The chemicals mixed with the quiescent spores, and the dried material sparked. Flame spouted. The fungi flashed. The sharp chemicals bit at his nose. He thrust the torch up to be seen.
In the midst of the thundering hooves, light flared up from the hands of the other riders. Four men veered away: two right, two left. Talon felt them go. He saw the looming wall of a workshop, smelled fresh-cut wood, and threw his torch with a vengeance. His aim was good—it hit with a thunk in the scrap pile. The flames would be quick, add fear, and distract the villagers’ eyes from the riders who raced through the shadows.
Four more sets of riders broke away toward the four target homes. Wakje flanked Talon as he made for one of the common stables. Sojourn and Ki were behind him, and he whistled a short burst of orders: Grab only the dnu. With his men split like peas, they would be lucky to get more than six extra mounts.
He cornered sharply, and his dnu grunted at the speed. It was dry, he noted—the dew had been light, and the homes in the town would burn quickly. Living wood would bleed, then shriek as fibers crisped and snapped. Living flesh . . . There were already screams in the houses they had passed. But the fires would draw the villagers away from the target homes. The small warning bells on the outermost homes began ringing to beat the dawn.
Something whapped past Talon’s shoulder, and a half-dressed man rushed toward them from a doorway. Wolfsong tightened in Talon’s mind. With lupine instinct, he saw everything—angles, shadows, movement. His human mind judged trajectories and training. Instantly he turned his dnu to half collide with Sojourn’s beast. Sojourn cursed, half-unseated, but the villager’s second arrow missed, and Ki, coming up behind the man, cut the townsman down.
Cries were going up, and one street over, a woman screamed. Talon stiffened at the tone. His dnu sensed the change and faltered. Sojourn glanced back, and Ki shouted a question. But a Gray One howled in Talon’s head. On, they urged him. Find her.
He kicked his dnu hard in the flanks. The segmented belly heaved, and the six-legged beast jumped a short gate with a grunt. Its middle legs were not drawn up in time, and it knocked the slats out like straws. Wakje shouted after Talon, but he ignored the other man. Instead, he veered toward an alley. The night was already split with the clarity of the bells. Two stables, four homes . . . With fewer riders, Sojourn and Wakje would have to give up one of the stables. He whistled this at the other men before the alley ate him.
The darkness was narrow and closed-in. Find her. The gray voice rang inside his head.
He broke out of the alley, burst across an open street, and disappeared again into another narrow passage between two craft buildings. Two men were running down the street, one holding up his pants with one hand, a short sword in the right, and the other young enough that he kept looking back at the other as he drew ahead, slowed, and drew ahead again. Others began to appear in the distance. “Fire in the woodshop,” Talon shouted, hunching in the saddle and deliberately making his voice rough as if with fear. He gestured wildly toward the outer homes, and the older man veered off, taking the younger man with him. It would be precious seconds—if ever—before they realized that Talon was a raider.
Hurry, the wolves sent, feeding his urgency.
He jumped his dnu over a hedge that still offered withered blooms to the sky. Like a hammer pounding chaff, he shattered their faded dryness. The Gray Ones were close—he could feel them just as he had on the ridge. The hot scent of blood rushed in his nostrils along with that of the dead summer buds, and he knew it was the wolves’ hunt, not just his own urgency, that swamped his guts with eagerness. Like an eel, he slid from the saddle before the beast had halted.
Two riders staggered away from the lamp-lit house as he jumped the flowerbed. “Biekin?” he shouted.
“Inside,” Liatuad shouted back as he thrust Mal up on his dnu.
Talon vaulted the porch railing and automatically cut down the house bell as he passed it. It fell with a muffled clang. There was a shout inside the home; something hit the floor. Talon burst through the open doorway only to jerk back as Biekin staggered backward into his arms. The rider was saturated with blood—not his own; Biekin’s blade was half buried in the villager’s gut. Biekin pulled out and jabbed forward again, unnecessarily. The two men went down with the villager’s weight. Biekin cursed and yanked himself and his sword free, then stooped to wipe his blade on the villager’s shirt above the opened torso. He glanced up at Talon coldly. “Townsman surprised us, gashed Mal on the head when he blocked for me. I sent him out with Liatuad.”
Talon nodded, his jaw tight. “We have three minutes. Maybe four.”
Biekin did not bother to nod. “I’ll take the side rooms. You take the back.”
Talon did not move. He stared down at the dead villager. His body was tense as if he needed to lash out, to fight, to feel the blood hot on his hands, but his feet were rooted in place. In the kitchen, Biekin ripped at the cupboards and kicked at the shelves, shoved a worktable aside as he looked for hidden doors. Talon could hear the dull thuds of cured meats and goods as they were automatically thrown into his sack. They would be dumped out in an instant if Biekin found access to the underground lab they suspected. He heard the screams from outside, heard the fire take hold in the roof overhead, heard the cry of the living wood.
The shuddering took him suddenly, and he bent, then dropped to his knees. Wolves howled. His guts rebelled. Vile acids splatted on the floor and mixed with the blood of the dead. He stared at the spew, then at the clean steel of his unused sword. The blade dropped with a clang. His fists—they were pressed against his head. The pain was blinding. Wolves snarled. He staggered up, fell against the table, then stumbled over a chair, breaking its back legs as he hit the floor on top of it.
Panicked, he groped for his sword. Only when his hand closed over the hilt did his heartbeat calm. Biekin’s sounds were muffled, and it took Talon a second to realize that it was not his hearing that had also dulled. Biekin was in the drying room, thrusting aside the well-stuffed shelves in his hasty search of the floor.
Talon forced himself up and stumbled toward the rear doorway, but when he put his hands on the latch, the cold metal brought some clarity to his vision. The howling in his head pulsed with the pain that swept in as red-black waves.
Find her, the Gray Ones snarled. Protect.
He shook his head and pressed a fist against his temple. “Not now,” he forced out at the pain through clenched teeth. “I refuse, you moonwormed, piss-soaked—” His fingers crushed his own fist. The hammer in his head deafened his voice. “—dag-chewing, spit-trimmed, lepa-spawned son of a worlag—”
Protect, the wolves howled beneath the pain.
Leave me! The words he sent back were more of a cry than an answer.
But the wolves snapped in return. They gathered, then leaped at his consciousness, sweeping in like a flood of gray. This time, it was dull and merciful. The lancing agony faded.
Talon blinked. There were tears on his cheeks. His lip was bleeding where he had bitten it to stifle his cry. A thunder of hooves faded past the window, but it was a herd of riderless dnu on a lead line behind a raider. Individual shouts and screams made a sporadic din.
Someone—a woman—was in the room beyond. He could almost feel her fear with his pulse. Outside, three more riders crashed by. Fire flickered down one of the window frames and began to eat at the wall. Smoke sharpened his nostrils. The gray voices snarled. Hurry.
He rattled the door latch, cursed it silently, stepped back, and kicked, then kicked again. The soft hinges tore. The door smashed into the narrow room beyond, breaking the canning jars on the shelves before crashing down on the floor. For a moment, Talon simply hung in the doorway, his mind clouded with the ho
wling that held his pain at bay. Automatically, he noted the almost dusty taste of the room, the faint, sanitized odors of a workspace, the scent of a woman and child. His lips tightened. His hard face was all angles, and the light cast his high cheekbones into harsh, demonic relief.
“Please . . .” The woman had scrambled back into a corner. She cringed now, her face shadowed by the hood of the cloak she had hurriedly cast around her, and her arms encircled a child whom she half hid within the cloth. Her voice was barely a breath. “Please . . .”
Something gray flickered at the edge of his sight. It was strong, and he welcomed it like a mate. For a moment, he was whole, and the wolves were thick in his skull. Balance and strength flowed into his limbs. His hand tightened on his hilt.
He kicked aside the shattered timbers and like a cat, stepped through the debris. The floor felt strangely hollow. Sloppy . . . The thought brought a tightness to his anger. And there were others below—he could sense them breathing. Quick breaths. Children and one, maybe two young adults. His icy eyes gleamed with an almost yellow light, and the woman who had hidden her family whimpered. With a fury born of pain and blood, he kicked the remains of the broken door so that it jammed into the shelves as he stomped it, wedging the trapdoor down. He didn’t look at the wolf-deafened corner of his mind that had hidden the trapdoor seams.
Biekin cursed in the outer room as he discovered the fire, and Talon raised his sword. The woman bit down on her own forearm to stifle her half scream. She shrank back. Talon hesitated. Almost without volition, he stretched out his other, weakened hand. The boy’s dark eyes followed the movement as if hypnotized, but the woman sucked in a ragged breath. Time seemed to stiffen. Then he gripped and ripped back her hood. The woman clutched the child; her brown eyes stared—
Brown eyes. A pale face ugly with terror and lined with years of indoor work. Brown eyes, light brown hair . . . He clenched her cloak and did not realize that she writhed within his grip. Nor did he truly hear the steps that approached behind him.
It was a lupine instinct that made him thrust the woman away; yellow-tinged eyes that sensed the man from behind. He whipped around, sword up. For a moment, Biekin was framed by the doorway. Then the other man caught sight of the woman, gestured with his blade hand. “Bring her along if you want her.”
Talon stared at him.
Biekin grinned. “I’ll take her, then. You carry the goods.” He started to thrust the doubled cloth at Talon, but the tall man jerked back with the wariness of a wolf.
“What about the boy?” Talon forced himself to speak.
Biekin stepped forward, the crude bag of food tossed aside. “We’ll give him vertal and sell him in Helten.”
Talon leaned some of his weight on the hilt and took a ragged breath. Vertal burned out the voice, and it wasn’t a pleasant burning, but a mute slave couldn’t contest his sale, and once the sale papers were signed and filed, no protest would save the boy’s future. Wolves howled, and Talon clenched his fist. Slaves—they were all slaves to the gray.
Biekin’s eyes narrowed. “The fires are barely spreading, Talon. The townsmen will be pushing back past Oroan’s line before we can finish the job. If you want the woman, bring her along. If you don’t, leave her to me.”
“No,” he managed.
Biekin misunderstood and stepped forward.
Talon’s grip tightened on his sword. “No,” he said more sharply.
“Like hell.” Biekin gestured with his own blade. “They have eyes. They have seen us. It’s vertal or the sword. Even you know that.” In the growing light, the steel glinted. The woman stared at Biekin’s face as the raider stepped toward her, then screamed with such terror that she made no sound except that of a harsher breathing. The sound slashed through Talon’s skull. He could not help his response. Like light on glass, his own blade flashed up.
And bit deeply into the door frame.
Biekin jerked back. The shaped plank splintered; the sharp thunk of steel froze them both. Biekin stared. The living frame bled whitely. Biekin, blocked by the blade, sucked in his breath. Then he spoke, his voice soft as dusk. “Your wounds have sapped your judgment, Talon, not just your strength and speed.”
Talon found his strength in the wolves and stared into the other man’s eyes. His own gaze was like chips of slate. “There is no one here.”
A muscle in Biekin’s jaw jumped. “They have eyes. Take them or kill them—it’s your choice.” His lips twisted. “Do it yourself, or stand aside, and I’ll do the job that your own father suspected you might not have the guts to complete.”
Talon’s fingers seemed to be blackened lupine claws, not human fingers, and he flexed his grip almost imperceptibly to rid himself of that feeling. His voice was hard. “We found no one here.” He yanked the point of his sword out of the wall. “No one,” he repeated. The point of his sword rested against the other man’s gut for an instant before being withdrawn.
The sound of riding beasts racing outside cluttered the air. Thin smoke began to fill the outer room. Talon’s gaze flickered as the fire finally caught on a sofa and flared up like a summer sun. In the flash, Biekin moved like a snake. The man’s thick forearm snapped up and struck Talon’s weak right wrist, shoving the taller man back. Talon staggered, and Biekin slammed a fist into his gut, propelling him back into the shelves. His spine hit an edge with a blast of pain. His knees started to buckle.
And a blizzard of fury engulfed him. He blocked a blow to his weakened ribs. He feinted left. Biekin parried, but Talon stepped in and slammed up with his hilt so that it jammed into the other man’s gut. The man grunted harshly, caught for a moment without air. Talon kicked out and caught Biekin in the inner thigh, then stomped down onto the other man’s foot, but Biekin rolled with the kick and Talon missed the man’s boot, hitting door debris instead. Biekin staggered back to get distance. Like a wolf, Talon followed. Speed. The flash of paw . . . He struck the man’s shoulder, and the force of it slammed Biekin against the wall. The other man put his weight behind the uppercut he threw in return as Talon’s arm extended, but Talon half dropped, got under it, jerked up, and the other man’s left guard was open. Instinctively, Biekin twisted as Talon drove his own right punch home. His fist was clenched around the hilt of his sword—he was too close for stabbing, and the blade caught in the shelves, robbing the blow of its full force. He missed the solar plexus, cracked two ribs instead. Floor dust and fangs. The sharpness of snapping bone. Biekin staggered back a half step, coming up short as he hit the door frame. But he snapped up a brutally fast kick that hit Talon square in the guts. Talon felt it coming in and rode the kick back. He almost tripped over the woman, who scrambled frantically out of his way. The other man’s sword flashed up. Faster, the gray surged. Catch flesh in the teeth and tear. Talon beat-attacked, then dropped point and lunged. Biekin turned the blow but barely, and Talon didn’t bother to stop his momentum. He hit Biekin full-body on. They went through the doorway like tacklers, slammed into the floor, tangled, lost their swords, scrambled up, broke apart, and lunged back toward each other like worlags. Smoke blinded them, and they fought viciously by feel. Biekin’s meaty fist caught Talon on the side of his head and half threw him to the floor. For an instant, he was dazed, but gray instinct put his long knife in his hand, and it met Biekin like a wicked thought as the other man stomped down. Like a fork through veal, the blade stabbed deep into the other man’s thigh bone. Biekin’s scream was harsh. Blood. Hot tang and sweet scent. Tear down, snap. Talon lunged to his feet, wrenching out the blade as Biekin’s furious backhand caught him on the side of his head. Fire licked at the inner walls. The wolves in Talon stiffened as Biekin’s knife flicked up for the kill. Talon parried and shifted aside to reattack, but stepped on the dead townsman instead. Felt the shift and, falling, kicked up while he struck a side block with both hands. Biekin’s knife went flying. Talon staggered up, choked on smoke, and felt Biekin grab his jerkin. Smoke or wolves—he could not see. He struck out by instinct. The knif
e hit bone and cracked another rib like an egg, slip-slashing through the muscle. Biekin grunted hoarsely. His boot caught Talon’s thigh. Talon buckled, but, falling, stabbed again. He shattered smoke and what was left of the broken chair. Heat washed his face. He could not see for the burning and tearing of his eyes. But suddenly there were only the burbling breaths of the other man and the scuffling of his own hands and feet as he tried to regain his balance.
Run! the wolves cried out in his head. Flee the hunters.
There were men out front, in the streets. His men. Talon slipped in a mass of guts, staggered up, doubled over from the smoke, and then, blindly and automatically, wiped his knife on the other man’s jerkin. He groped around for his sword, found it, and wiped that as quickly. Then he crouch-ran, not for the door, but for the back room.
The woman cried out as he burst back through. He braced himself against the door frame. The nausea was beginning to build as smoke and pain mixed. His blade drooped to the floor, and he bit back a moan. “Get out,” he managed.
The woman stared at him, her fear deafening her to his words.
Thin smoke crawled into the tiny room. He half straightened. In the fire’s glow, his face was a mask of rage. “Run,” he snarled. “Now. Get out!”
She cringed at his gesture, and he staggered toward her. She screamed and screamed again as he brought up his bloody sword, but he struck the wood beside her. Stabbed the thin wall again as the wolves howled in his head. Hurry. Steps on the wood, steps on the stairs. Hunters. The woman, they howled. Hurry!
Silver Moons, Black Steel Page 4