They all gathered around Tarc’s lamp in the front room of the little house with Nyssa.
Nyssa almost didn’t notice when Tarc and Daussie slipped outside into the darkness.
Horrified by all the killing, Daussie reached out with her ghost to find Tarc. She went to him and touched his arm. Tremulously, she said, “This killing… it’s awful! I don’t know if I can keep doing it.”
Somehow, she’d been thinking that Tarc would chuckle and tell her not to worry—he would kill the men in the barn himself. She had an uncertain belief that men liked killing. Instead, she realized Tarc’s arm was trembling. He bent and threw up. Not much, he’d only had a little bit of jerky to eat after all.
He stood and wiped his mouth. After a long pause, he said, “I know what you mean.” For a long period he said nothing more and Daussie began to wonder if he would. Then, somehow sounding like he was speaking from a long distance away, he said, “But it would be wrong to leave the ones there in the barn with the rest of the women…” He stopped and her ghost showed his face turning toward her. Querulously he asked, “Wouldn’t it? Nyssa’s daughter is in there.”
Daussie turned her face towards the barn, even though she could sense it plainly with her ghost without looking that direction. The woman or girl tied spread-eagle in an animal’s stall tore at her heartstrings. After a moment she sighed, “Yes… but do we have to kill them?”
Tarc stood silent for a very long time. Then he said, “If we found a way to incapacitate them and left them here… do you think they’d stop doing this? Or would they simply do the same thing to other families?”
Daussie said, “Oh gods, that’d be a terrible thing to have on our consciences,” she said in a depressed tone. Then, “Couldn’t we tie them up and leave them for the authorities?”
“And if we could find authorities out here? What should they do with those men?”
“Hang them,” Daussie said with conviction.
Tarc put an arm around Daussie’s shoulder and pulled her to him for a brief side-hug of reassurance. “If they need to be killed, it’s better we do it now, Sis. It’s safer for us and they don’t have to live in agony waiting for their trial and hanging.”
With a sigh, Daussie said with some disgust, “And we won’t have to worry that the authorities might decide to let them go.” She focused her ghost back on the barn, “How are we going to do it though? Only two of them are very close to the walls of the barn.”
“Maybe we could scare them out?”
“How? I don’t want to set the barn on fire with the women in there… I don’t know if you’ve noticed…” Daussie said uncomfortably, “but I think one of the women is tied down in a stall.” Daussie didn’t say that the woman was tied in the spread-eagle position, but she didn’t have to.
Tarc said, “I’m not sure if you know I can throw my voice? Or other sounds?”
Slowly, Daussie said, “Back in the square, it was you that frightened Krait’s men with voices, wasn’t it?”
Tarc nodded, Daussie couldn’t see the nod, but she could sense it.
“So, you’ll do what, whisper in their ears and somehow that will frighten them?” With a hysterical sounding little snicker, “Tell them scary stories?”
“Tarc shrugged, “These guys were in Walterston you know. I could whisper in their ears, ‘You’re going to die, with a hole in your eye.’ That’s the kind of thing I did at the square and it really freaked them out then.”
“And if they hold a knife to the women’s throats?”
After another long pause, Tarc said, “I don’t know.” He sighed, “Alternatively, we could take out the two by the walls, then I could go inside and start throwing knives. There’d be eight of them, and I have eight knives. It’s going to be really dark in the barn so I’d have a big advantage.”
“Your knives make a really gross sound when they… hit someone’s head. They’re gonna know something’s up as soon as you hit the first one.”
Tarc shrugged, “So the first one I take out is that guy who’s got his arm around one of the girls. Do you have a better idea?”
After a bit, Daussie said, “No. What do we tell Nyssa is going on?”
“We ask her to stay with the younger girls for a while so we can ‘scout it out.’”
Daussie snorted, “Those ‘younger girls’ are about my age.”
“I know,” Tarc sighed sadly.
Behind them, the door of the farmhouse creaked open and the lamp appeared in it. Tarc stepped towards it and saw Nyssa lighted in its glow. Quietly he said “I’d rather you didn’t come out here with the light. If the guys in the barn are peering out through the cracks, we don’t want them to see it.”
“I just want to see if the guy I killed was Johnson,” she said turning the flame down.
“Johnson?”
“The head asshole,” She said with loathing. “Called himself ‘Captain.’ I swore over and over that I was going to kill him if I got the chance.” Sounding hopeful, she said, “Maybe I really did? He isn’t one of the ones inside the farmhouse.” She paused and frowned up at Tarc, “You know, two of those guys inside weren’t dead? Leastwise, they were still breathing.”
“Oh,” Tarc said, wondering if she’d noticed that they didn’t have any wounds.
Nyssa looked away and a muscle jumped in her jaw. “They’re dead now,” she said in a tone full of steely anger. “Really, I swore I’d kill all of them.” She looked back up at Tarc, “Death was too good for those bastards!”
Not knowing what else to say, Tarc said. “Let’s see if this is Johnson then.” He led the way over to the body.
Nyssa crouched, holding the dimly lit lamp next to his face. “That’s him,” she said in a disgusted tone. She spat. “Those guys weren’t even human,” she said with loathing.
Tarc said, “Daussie and I are going to go scout out the barn. Can you stay here with the girls and keep them calm?”
“Evelyn’s got them in control.” Nyssa hefted a big knife that she’d presumably taken off one of the men, “I’ll watch the door of the barn for you. Make sure none of them escapes this time either.”
Tarc snorted, “Okay, but let’s give that lamp back to Evelyn. I don’t want you carrying it around over by the barn and alerting the men there.”
Daussie crept around the barn to squat near the man who was sleeping with his back to the rear door of the barn. Presumably, he was serving as some kind of a guard or at least early warning against an attack through that door. She pulled out a pinecone seed and placed it up against the wall right behind the man’s neck. Sensing his carotid, she began trying to push the seed through the wall and into his artery. Once the seed made the jump, she turned to Tarc and nodded.
They headed around to the front door of the building. Daussie leaned down next to the wall where the guard at the front door slept. Another pine cone seed disappeared out of her fingers.
Having dealt with the guards, they briefly examined the big door. Daussie whispered, “That’s going to make a lot of noise when it swings. How are you going to do it without waking up everyone in the barn?”
Tarc chewed his lip, “I don’t know. Maybe we should go back to trying to scare them enough that they leave the barn on their own?”
“What if they try to go out the back door?”
Tarc sighed in frustration, “I don’t know! Maybe you and Nyssa could try to hold that door closed?”
“We could wedge it with some sticks before you started making the noises. And you could start making the noises back towards the back of the barn…” Daussie broke off as their ghosts told them that the girl who’d been lying stiffly under the arm of one of the men was slowly moving.
She wasn’t moving like she was shifting to another position. Daussie could tell the girl was trying to get out from under the man’s arm. Daussie focused her ghost on the girl wishing her luck. Suddenly, she whispered to Tarc, “She’s got his knife!”
Tarc and Daussie moved quickly
back to the door of the barn. Daussie’s ghost checked the door as she got ready to help open it. She turned to Tarc, “They’ve got it barred!”
Tarc pushed on the door a little bit and leaned down.
Daussie said, “That bar’s too heavy for you to break…” She broke off when her ghost showed her the bar lifting out of its slot. “Woo, nice trick,” she whispered as she realized that putting his head so close had enabled Tarc to lift the bar with his talent.
Daussie’s ghost returned to the girl inside the barn. The girl now knelt beside the man.
Tarc crouched and Daussie realized he was pulling the knives out of his boots. Her ghost showed her that he held three knives in his left hand and one in his right, ready to throw.
In her estimation, Iris had been lying stiffly under Salzer’s arm for about an hour now. It was cold, lying naked on a bed of straw with only Salzer’s arm and his thin blanket to keep her warm. She could have huddled up against him for warmth if she hadn’t detested him so fiercely that she’d rather freeze. She might rather freeze than be near Salzer, but she also wanted desperately to put her clothes back on. Just as urgently, she didn’t want to wake Salzer. She’d found that the glowing, raging hate she had for Salzer did nothing to protect her from his anger when she irritated or resisted him.
That afternoon, Iris had decided that she would rather be dead than suffer Salzer’s disgusting attentions one more time. She had attacked him, thinking that he would kill her and put her out of her misery. Instead, he had merely laughed, pinned her down, and abused her some more. Iris had longed for a weapon! If she attacked him with a weapon she might really hurt him, and if she didn’t, he would probably put her out of her misery.
Iris scooted slightly to the side, hoping to get out from under Salzer’s arm without waking him. Perhaps then she could at least put on her clothes and huddle with some of the other girls. Just being away from Salzer would…
As she’d wriggled, her hand had touched what felt like the hilt of Salzer’s knife. She froze in position, her heart suddenly pounding. She’d sworn to herself that if she had a weapon she’d attack Salzer with it. Could she really do it?
Keeping her body still, Iris slid her fingers back to where she thought the knife was. She felt it again. It did feel like the hilt of a knife. But why was it inches away from Salzer? Normally, he kept it on his belt.
Oh, Iris realized, he’d had his belt undone when he attacked me.
Her fingers tugged at the knife handle and it slid out of its sheath.
Iris wiggled a little farther away from Salzer and his hand slid off of her. She paused, would that wake him?
No.
Iris rose to her knees, leaving the knife in the straw. Crouching over it, she studied the knife in the dim light of the single turned down lantern that hung there in the barn. It was a large fighting knife, with a long, wicked-looking blade.
Iris took a long deep breath. So far she hadn’t done anything she couldn’t explain away. If Salzer awoke and looked for his knife, she could claim it must’ve fallen out while he was attacking her earlier.
Once she picked it up though…
Her mind went back to how she’d felt earlier. She remembered the horror and how she’d thought she would rather be dead. She remembered how much she wanted Salzer to be dead as well.
Of course, if she attacked Salzer with the knife it might not kill him. What she could be certain of was that, if she attacked Salzer with a knife, whether he died or not his buddies would kill her.
Salzer rolled onto his back.
A bleak feeling came over Iris.
With the absolute certainty that she was committing suicide she gripped the knife.
She lifted it into the air.
With a cathartic spasm, Iris suddenly plunged the knife into Salzer’s chest. The man spasmed and heaved up into a partially sitting position. Iris had thought that he would die immediately if she struck his heart so she decided she had missed. She jerked the knife back out and up into the air, then plunged it in again. This time it stuck on a rib.
The big barn door heaved open behind her.
Iris rose up and plunged her knife into the man’s chest again. This time it went in. She twisted it around inside Salzer’s chest. He sank back as if he were deflating.
Iris turned to see what had happened behind her at the barn door. The door was open and two shadowy figures had come in. Iris assumed they were more of the raiders from the farmhouse, but was surprised to see that the raider who’d been sleeping beside the barn door still lay there. The commotion of the two people opening the door and coming in had attracted the attention of the rest of the raiders who were beginning to wake.
With some bemusement, Iris realized that because they had focused on the big door, none of the raiders knew she’d attacked Salzer yet.
They’d figure it out pretty soon though.
Iris turned her attention to the two men who’d come in the barn door. They seemed more slender than any of the raiders who were sleeping in the farmhouse. Around her, the raiders were rubbing their eyes and trying to figure out what was going on in the dim lighting. Lawson grabbed the girl next to him and pulled her in front of him. He shouted “Hey, who the hell…”
Even in the dim light, Iris could see the hand of the stranger who’d entered the barn flick toward Lawson. Something flew from the stranger’s hand. Lawson flopped over backwards. The stranger’s hand flashed back, then forward, then back, then forward again. Each time Iris thought something flew from his hand toward one of the raiders.
Raiders’ shouts and girls’ screams rent the air.
One by one, though in very rapid succession, the raiders flopped over, sometimes, like they were convulsing, sometimes like they’d been knocked unconscious.
In what seemed like moments, the raiders had all fallen silent. They lay on the ground, some in contorted positions, some still quivering, but Iris thought that they might all be dead or dying!
The girls were still screaming and Iris realized that the noise would bring the rest of the raiders over from the farmhouse any moment.
The two strangers stood silently motionless for a moment. Then they put their heads together as if conferring. The larger of the two quickly stepped around the room, stopping by each of the raiders who’d been in the barn as if he were collecting something.
The man didn’t come near Iris and Salzer. Once he’d gone around the room, he headed towards the back door of the barn.
The remaining stranger seemed to take a deep breath, then said, “Girls!”
It was a woman’s voice! Whoever it was spoke in a fairly loud voice which cut though the panic. Even though she spoke forcefully, she seemed to be trying to sound calmly reassuring. “You’re safe now.” After a moment, she went on, “The men who’ve been holding you are all dead.” The woman picked up the lantern and said, “I’m going to turn up the light so you can see.” By this point, the other girls had stopped screaming, but most were still cowering and several were sobbing.
Amazed that she wasn’t screaming, cowering, or sobbing herself, Iris looked around the room in the better light to be sure none of the raiders were going to rise and threaten her. They all still lay where they’d fallen.
The two that Iris could see best seemed to have something wrong with one of their eyes. Like a bloody wound?
Suddenly, in the better light, Iris felt self-conscious about her nakedness. She looked down at Salzer.
He looked dead. Iris kicked him a couple of times to make sure he wasn’t about to come back to life, then bent down to pick up her pants.
As Iris was putting on her shirt she saw someone coming from the back of the barn. She presumed it was the stranger returning.
Mom!
As Daussie turned up the wick in the lantern she saw the girls staring about themselves at the dead raiders. Daussie could hardly blame them, she’d seen Tarc throwing those knives with her ghost, yet the gruesome and bloody scene the light revealed to her
eyes still turned her stomach.
The girl who’d precipitated the action with the knife she’d taken from a raider stared down at the man she’d stabbed. Daussie feared she’d be upset to have killed him, but the girl kicked his body several times, then bent and picked up her pants. Not sorry to find out he’s dead I guess, Daussie thought.
Pants on, the girl started to put on her shirt, then she saw Nyssa coming in from where Tarc had let her in the back door of the barn. With a squeak, the girl shouted “Mom” and ran to Nyssa, throwing her arms around her.
I guess that’s Iris, Daussie thought. The other girls all looked excited to see Nyssa as well. Nyssa had said she was the oldest of the women the raiders had kept alive, and it looked like many of the young women and girls looked up to her. Nyssa began speaking calmly to the girls and gathering them around her.
Daussie went in to the horse stall to cut loose the girl who’d been tied up in there. When Daussie opened the gate to the stall, the girl looked up with wildly hateful eyes.
Daussie said, “I’ve come to release you.”
The girl’s eyes softened when she heard the voice of a woman.
The girl said “Who are you? Are those bastards really dead?” Her teeth chattered in the cold. “And why are you dressed like a boy?”
Daussie had been expecting that a girl who’d been tied spread eagled in a horse stall and subjected to who knows what horrors would be nearly insane with terror. To Daussie’s surprise, the girl seemed to be in control of herself. As she knelt and cut the girl’s bonds, Daussie wondered whether someone who’d been so traumatized would be able to stay in control of herself. Quietly she said, “Yes, they’re all dead. I’m Daussie, from a caravan that’s passing through.” After a pause, she finished, “I dress this way to keep men like them from getting ideas.”
Teleporter (a Hyllis family story #2) Page 23