Hereafter

by C. K. Crigger

  “Action, hell! The folks. They’ve been overrun.” Anguish marked his pale face. The kid was one of the light-skinned side of the clan, like Nate.

  In trying to soothe the dancing Nog, Lily’s spirits soared when she discovered Bannion had left a spare sword hanging from a saddle sheath. She jerked it from the scabbard, hearing the metal sing as it slid from the leather. It was, she thought, modeled after an old cavalry saber. So how did one use a saber? Chop and hew, or poke and jab? Only one cutting edge, she saw. Which probably meant chop and hew. If only the cursed thing weren’t so heavy.

  “Miz!” Fanta shrieked. “Look.” She pointed into the woods behind them where a couple of skinny guys wearing saicler type duds darted from tree to tree.

  Fanta’s bow hung slackly from her arm.

  “Shoot’em,” Lily ordered crisply.

  “Ma’am,” Rory said, his voice cracking. “Ahead of us. Here they come.”

  The saiclers were on foot, as Lily had imagined they would be, the coulee’s floor an unsuitable surface for bicycles. She saw a half dozen, then a couple more. At least one was wounded and dripping blood from a gash in his arm. At the edge of the little meadow they paused, another three joining them. Sloppy. Evidently without an officer to direct them, they slowly formed into an advancing line. Some laughed, making lewd suggestions when they saw Lily and Fanta.

  “Get ready to turn the horses loose,” Lily said.

  Rory stared at her. “What? Ma’am, we can’t…”

  “Sure we can. We are three, they’ve got a dozen that we can see. But if you add in twenty-four horses, and a dog, we’ve got them nicely outnumbered. We’ll use the horses to break through and join the O’Quinn warriors. They’ll be wanting their horses.” If any were still alive to want anything except a decent burial. Nate. Jacob. No. She wouldn’t think of them.

  Light dawned in Rory’s eyes. “Whoee, ma’am. That’s smart.”

  She hoped so. She’d copped the idea from one of her grandpa’s old western novels. “When I say go, turn the horses loose and run’em over the top of those bastards. If they’re like most city guys they’ll be petrified by a half ton of horseflesh running toward them. Keep the horses moving. They must not stop. Don’t let anyone stopyou. Rory, keep an eye on Fanta. We don’t want her to fall into their hands.”

  “No, ma’am,” Rory said emphatically.

  No more time for talk. The saiclers were reaching into quivers for arrows.

  “Let’em go!” she cried, and the kids dropped the leads, allowing the rope holding the horses together to slide through rings under their chin straps. Before they could break apart, Lily gouged Nog hard with her heels, using him to prod the horses into motion. “Go,” she screamed. “Go, go, go.”

  Rory yelling, Fanta with her high-pitched shriek, and the black-and-white dog barking at their heels, the horse stampeded.

  Chapter 20

  “Loudmouthed little bastard, isn’t he? You know what they say?” Bannion injected a trace of amusement into his voice and pitched it so the nearest patrollers to hear.

  Nate raised his eyebrows.

  “Man who talks loudest has...” the rest of it faded away.

  A small, though nervous, chuckle rewarded the boss’ efforts.

  “Guess we’ll see,” Nate muttered.

  “Yes, we will, cousin.” Bannion turned, checking the placement of the patrollers for the fourth time in a single minute before gesturing one boy and one girl drawn too far apart to close up ranks. Too scattered and they could get cut off. Too crowded and they’d get in each other’s way. “Wish I didn’t believe Lily Turnbow has him pegged, but I imagine she does.”

  “Yep,” Nate said. “He scares her plenty bad. You can put your money on it, boss. She won’t be joining up with the saiclers. Not by choice.”

  Bannion snorted. “Money? What do you think I am, one of these newborn city boys?”

  “Bet your favorite horse on it, then.”

  “You better be right.” Bannion checked his bow string and loosened the sword in his hip scabbard. He whistled, a piercing four note sequence that meant “get ready to attack.”

  He hadn’t expected a Tech force of the numbers gathered against his people. Fewer than twenty of the clan, more than forty of the Techs—plus Screenmaster. And one of the O’Quinns dead already and two more cut almost to pieces. Made him madder than hell and hurt his heart at the same time. Beautiful Kira, her smooth skin cut to ribbons, her straight white teeth…Godbedamned Cross-ups, anyhow. Made a man wonder what he and his people had done to deserve this.

  The Tech’s big drum, its thud amplified and reverberating in his chest, ended on a roll like thunder. In the sudden silence, the Screenmaster’s bellow carried all too well in a orgy of blood lust. “Kill, kill,” he screeched. “I want the woman. Give me the woman. Kill them all, but bring me the woman.”

  Seemed certain he meant Lily Turnbow. No wonder Nate said she was afraid of him.

  Bannion heard that peculiar singing sound again, and Screenmaster’s diatribe became muffled. Aha, he thought. That’s what that sound is. He’s put up his famous screen. Which means…

  “Arrows ready,” he roared in a voice cultivated to carry over a battleground and the screams of the dying. He stood up, his bow already drawn. “Fire. Fire. Fire.” He loosed the first arrow, ignoring what he knew would be the futility of aiming for Screenmaster, and going for the saicler’s leader.

  His flatbow, crafted last winter of seasoned hickory with reinforced tips and sporting an elk horn hand hold, drew at one hundred and twenty pounds. Supposing good razored steel tips, he could drive an arrow clean through an elk or penetrate plate armor. Which was a good thing, because now he knew what was in those heavy carts the saiclers had been guarding so carefully. Chain mail torso covers and iron helmets.

  The head saicler dropped, dead before he hit the ground, Bannion’s arrow buried all the way to its red and white fletching in his heart. Had he mentioned razor-sharp tips?

  “Better get theirmoney back if they paid much for those vests,” he muttered to Nate.

  Nate took on the man to the leader’s left. That one screamed, dropped his bow, and clutched the arrow protruding from his gut, a few inches below his short mail cuirass.

  “I’d say so,” he agreed.

  Behind them, a saicler crawled away with one of Sergeant Zelnor’s yellow painted arrows stuck through his jaw.

  One of the clan girls, drawing a bow of no more than seventy-five pounds, had her arrow turn as it hit the metalwork under her target’s shirt and skitter down his arm, slicing through tendons and arteries. Assuredly dead in the near future, Bannion thought, but not just yet, and if a man wasn’t dead, he was dangerous.

  “Put him away,” he ordered.

  She obeyed.

  The saicler casualties helped, but it wasn’t enough. More crowded to the fore as those few dropped.

  “Aim low, below their breastplates,” he called between shots. Ripped guts wouldn’t be pretty, but they did tend to stop a man.

  Beside him, Nate drew and released, drew and released, his face calm, his aim steady. There were plenty of targets, but the O’Quinns weren’t going to have time to take full advantage.

  Secure behind his transparent singing screen, Screenmaster’s face was fiendish as he bounced on his wagon seat. Then he did something with his hands and the screen expanded, ballooning into a barrier between the saiclers and the O’Quinn arrows.

  Some of the patrollers shot in futile anger, the arrows recoiling uselessly off what looked like a thickening of the air.

  Bannion had expected no less. “Hold fire. Shields up,” he bellowed. “Watch their arrows.”

  The words barely left his mouth before a hail of missiles dropped out of the sky, proving the screen worked only one way. The enemy could shoot through it while blocking the O’Quinns. Saicler arrows thudded into the clan’s heavy bullhide shields held like umbrellas over their heads. Some points penetrated, and though none we
nt all the way through, some slipped between the shield edges. Several of his fighters went down, one dead instantly when chance sent a ricocheted arrow into his jugular. Two others were seriously hurt, one sobbing in agony with an arrow through his thigh. Another, a girl with her hand nearly severed at the wrist, stared at the open bone in silent shock. Three or four fighters had minor wounds. Bannion himself was unscathed. Nate bled a little from a notch cut between his neck and his shoulder.

  Over the clank and roar of battle, he heard Screenmaster laughing, urging the saiclers to advance. “More blood, I want more blood,” the dwarf shouted.

  “Shit,” Bannion whispered to himself. This was a fight his patrollers had no chance of winning. “Nate, Josh, Black Pete,” he called. “Flank those suckers. You gotta buy us some time.”

  Nate, he could see, realized the futility of staying here and dying. His cousin’s face was grim as the three whose names he called dove into cover along the road, Nate on one side, Black Pete and Josh taking the other.

  When he saw them safely away, Bannion motioned to his sergeant. “Get ready to pull back, Rondo.” He took a breath. “Leave the two seriously wounded.” It was a wrench, contrary to both his personal and clan code. He’d come back for them, he promised himself, the question being if they’d still be alive.

  Grimly, Rondo nodded, yelping as another flight of arrows descended, one cutting a furrow across his forearm when his shield canted to the side. Another man, a Bell, went down. When the wave eased to a trickle, he ran along the scattered line of patrollers hunkered in the road block’s inadequate shelter. Nods, along with some protests, acknowledged the order.

  Another kid, one of the Shandys, died in the next hail of arrows. Screenmaster’s voice never quit, the “kill, blood, kill,” of his exhortation becoming monotonous, meaningless. When the last arrow either hit the ground or thudded into the raised shields, Bannion gestured the clan’s walking wounded to retreat and make their way up the coulee toward the horses. Knowing their efforts were ineffectual, the remaining patrollers set up a covering fire, arrows bouncing off the screen. He tried the saicler’s trick, shooting high for the arrow to drop, but Screenmaster had prepared for that.

  Made them duck, anyway, Bannion thought with grim humor. Then finally, Screenmaster dropped the overextended, wavering shield behind the fleeing patrollers, and loosed the war dogs in pursuit. Saicler fighters swarmed forward, shouting hoarsely, swords swinging, pikes thrusting.

  Bannion and Rondo stayed where they were. Calling four men to him, Bannion set them as rear guard. His people were horsemen, a little lost without their mounts. Lacking the strength of their trained war horses, this might not be a battle they could win.

  Meeting the saicler front, Bannion wielded his sword in great swooping cuts. Horse or no horse, he could take a few of the enemy with him into the land of the dead, by God. His bloody sword cut the legs out from under a thin saicler whose attention was on one of the O’Quinn girls, and finished him off with a blow to head. Sweat ran into his eyes, his hand became slick with the enemy’s blood. The muscles in his arms and shoulders strained.

  ***

  Nate forced his mind to blank out the action spreading around Wolf Point crossing. His heart beat fast, and although the clouds had blown in and it was spitting snow, the cold never touched him.

  It wasn’t difficult getting around the saiclers. O’Quinns on the run kept them fully occupied. Barking dogs, battle cries, and the clink of sword blade against sword blade covered any slight noise he made working his way into the woods at the rear.

  He came to one of the mounds that dotted the roadside and climbed to the top, its five-foot elevation giving him a clear line of sight. Taking a handful of arrows from his quiver, he stabbed them into the ground in front of him, close at hand. A mild ping told him the tip had touched the metal roof of an abandoned vehicle, grown over the last century to become more a thing of the earth than a man-made object.

  Forcing all thought from his mind, he picked his first target as the saiclers surged down the road. A big, muscular man bent over the O’Quinn girl with the severed hand. Nate’s bowstring twanged, sending an arrow into the man’s back. Another thudded into him before he could fall, and across the way, Nate caught sight of Black Pete, already nocking another arrow. Pete nodded.

  With their leader dead, the bewildered saicler fighters scattered, seeming unaware of the danger at their rear. But they ran forward when Screenmaster ordered them on. He, surrounded by his conjured shield, remained impervious to danger atop his wagon as he lumbered past. The dwarf, as far as Nate could tell, had no weapon except his magic. And that, gods rot it, was enough to protect him.

  Nate couldn’t figure the Cross-up. The little creep must be aware of his own men dying in the crossfire, but he just laughed and urged them on, ignoring him and Black Pete as if they weren’t even there. If they couldn’t hurt him, and they couldn’t, they didn’t matter.

  Able to draw, aim, and release a shaft every three seconds, between him and Black Pete, the pair of them managed a lot of damage—until their arrows ran out. Nate jumped from his mound down to the road, drew his sword and prepared to follow the running fight. Just then a bushy-tailed squirrel ran from somewhere inside the mound and darted away. Dodging the horses’ hooves and the big wooden wheels, it passed safely to the opposite verge where it sat chattering at him.

  It took a moment for what that vision meant to sink into Nate’s brain.

  “Pete,” he yelled, careless of who might hear, but the saiclers were too intent on their prey to pay attention, and Screenmaster didn’t care. Well, he’d see if he could change that attitude. “Pete.”

  Black Pete ran across the road behind Screenmaster’s wagon. Together, they stood in the open as though out for a Sunday stroll.

  “You got any arrows left?” Nate asked.

  “Not a one. Why?”

  Nate told him.

  “No shit? Why… Well, hell. Where’s Josh? I ain’t seen him in a while. Maybe he’s got arrows.”

  But Josh was not to be found. Either he’d been killed, or he was on the saicler’s right, following the crowd and trying to get in a few more licks. Either way, Nate’s frustration boiled. He needed a weapon. The right kind of weapon, he amended, if only he knew just what that would be. Which is when the sound of twenty-four horses’ pounding hooves running flat out reached his ears.

  ***

  “Hi, hi,” Fanta screamed, her high-pitched voice carrying over the noise of horse’s hooves thudding and clicking on rocks. The herd grunted with effort, a few neighed. Rory bellowed, deeper, calmer. Lily just slapped at the nearest beast, the loose stirrups of the saddle on its back flapping wildly. Scared it into running, all right, the chore being to keep it pointed in the right direction.

  Going at a flat-out run, they swept from the gully’s mouth into the wider part of the coulee. Just at the turning, Lily saw people on foot, limping toward them. More specifically, she saw bloodied patrollers helping each other along as they retreated. And not an orderly retreat, either, but a full rout.

  “Get out of the way,” she yelled, and when Fanta would’ve slowed the horses to help her kin, Lily hollered “hi, hiya,” and whipped her now battered mullein stalk all the harder. They couldn’t stop until they reached those still able to ride and mount a cavalry charge. If there were any.

  A hundred yards farther on she found the remaining O’Quinns fighting a rearguard action in which they were sorely outnumbered. They were pretty good, she admitted, even though the swords in their hands horrified her. There was just something about a blade. The gaping wound of sliced open flesh. Guns, now. Guns were pretty clean compared to the slash and stab of edged weapons.

  But it was time, and she took Bannion’s sword from the scabbard, its weight dragging at her arm. She set herself to stabbing and slashing, knowing herself awkward and as much a danger to friend as to foe.

  Meanwhile, the horses, no longer being chased, slowed and milled, allowi
ng O’Quinns to find a mount and spring into the saddle. Saiclers, unaccustomed to the snorting beasts, were trampled underfoot.

  Lily, whacking about wildly with the heavy blade, searched the area, trying to see everything at once. No Bannion. No Nate. No Rondo, no Jake.

  No Nate. Cold settled around her heart.

  She jabbed at a saicler trying to grab her leg and poked him in the cheek with the sword point. A cut opened up like a tear in a pair of pants. Jesus! Bannion’s sword was sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel. Permanently discouraged the leg grabber, for sure, as he dropped his weapon and ran away, screaming and holding his bloody face.

  But there were so many of them, stinking and sweating, cursing and bleeding. The horses gave the O’Quinns an incalculable advantage. Enough to allow her a second’s breathing room, in which she became aware of arrows and swordsmen dispensing cold death from behind the saiclers as the invaders were caught in a crossfire. She lifted her voice, yelling encouragement to the O’Quinns.

  From the superior vantage being on horseback gave her, Lily saw that one of the archers was Bannion. His face set in cold fury, he drew his bow and shot arrows like an automaton, quick, quick, quick. A man fell for every arrow. She counted four in the space of seconds as she rode Nog toward him. The other man, the sergeant called Rondo, bled from several wounds, but he held the ground around Bannion so the sheriff had room to shoot.

  Her admiration for the O’Quinns shot up.

  Knowing their war leader survived, full of fight and no give to him, provided the clan with new life. Enough they fought with renewed vigor.

  Lily saw Fanta unhorsed, but as she headed toward the girl, one of the older warriors reached down and swooped the girl up where they stood back-to-back, slashing out with sword and long knife against three young saiclers. In a blink, two of the three faltered beneath clan blades and the last one ran.

  And then Lily reached Bannion and hauled on the reins. Nog slid on his haunches, stopping beside the war leader. Unceremoniously, Bannion yanked Lily from the saddle and threw himself into it in her place.