Widows of the Sun-Moon

by Barbara Ann Wright

  “Were you able to help them?” Dillon asked.

  Simon’s temper spiked. “Want to make sure there’s more of them to kill?”

  Dillon had the decency to look sheepish. “I thought they were massing to attack.”

  “You didn’t think to maybe, I don’t know, ask! You had to have been spying on them, why not just keep doing that! Then maybe you would have asked the important questions like, would they bring their kids to war!”

  “Hey, I haven’t had it easy, you know! There’s some kind of assassin group trying to kill me in Gale right now. I can’t be too careful.”

  Simon took a deep breath. “Before you make this any worse, please just get the hell out of here.”

  “Are you going to stay? Going to keep helping them with their disease?”

  “Yes, so keep your bullets to yourself.”

  He looked at the ground and kicked at it like a child. “Do you think…do you think you could visit, or I could visit, or…” Sincerity flowed from him in waves.

  And even though they’d known each other for hundreds of years, it seemed Dillon could still surprise him. “Maybe. I don’t know. Probably. If you behave.”

  *

  So far, so good, Dillon thought. It didn’t seem to be Naos standing in front of him. By all the nagging, he knew it was definitely Laz, and by the little bit he’d said, the brief frozen look on his face, he was holding something back, and Dillon knew it had to be the return of his powers. Why else would the plains dwellers want him?

  “Caroline,” Dillon thought as loudly as he could. “Am I right?”

  “If I scan him, he’ll know,” she said in Dillon’s mind, “but I can feel his shields from here.”

  And he wouldn’t have those without powers. Dillon wanted to do a little dance but was afraid Lazlo would see through his glee. He was happy to see Laz. When they’d first clapped eyes on each other, there’d been a significant tug in his chest. He’d even nudged a little rainstorm closer without meaning to. It rumbled in the distance, its energy traveling up and down his spine.

  “It’s good to have you back, Laz.”

  A smile started on Lazlo’s face before it faded. “I am not back. I’m just…”

  Dillon tuned him out as he prattled on about what he was doing. He was back; he just didn’t know it yet, and this time, he was going to stay. “When I say,” Dillon thought to Caroline, “you and the rest of the telepaths give him a burst, knock him out.”

  “He’s very strong—”

  “He’ll be off guard.” He couldn’t keep the glee off his face and put his hands on Lazlo’s shoulders, letting all his affection shine through.

  This time, it seemed Lazlo couldn’t help a smile. “What?”

  Dillon punched him in the face, lightning quick, as he said, “Now!” Even his scalp tingled as Caroline and the yafanai attacked with all their might. Lazlo dropped like a stone. While his friends gawked, Dillon sent two short bursts of power their way, knocking them flat but not stopping their hearts.

  The whole thing had taken under a second. Brown’s gun hadn’t even cleared its holster.

  “What the hell?” she asked. “Storm Lord?”

  “Cover our retreat, Captain,” Dillon said as he lifted Lazlo and hung him over one shoulder.

  “Retreat, sir?” She jerked her chin toward where the renegades had gathered.

  “We’ve got more than we bargained for. It’s enough for today.” And if his newly forming plans for Lazlo didn’t go well, Laz would take it better if his friends were still alive. Dillon laid him in a cart beside Caroline, and the armored paladins began towing it back to Gale.

  “It’s going to take a lot to keep him asleep,” Caroline said. “His powers keep trying to heal him even without him using them.”

  “Not for long,” Dillon said. “Not after you’re done with him.”

  Chapter Ten

  Cordelia thought she’d have to take the kids all the way to Pool, but she spotted Wuran in the distance just as Pool sent a message to the drushka that he was coming. Cordelia shivered as the hazy pictures formed in her mind, as if she was trying to play a vid on the wrong device or at the wrong speed.

  The children cried out and broke into a run when they saw Wuran. He sprinted forward, his leather hat flying from his head. Two little girls headed for him like a shot, and he caught them up and kissed them, all of them laughing and crying and speaking over one another. It was a happy scene, the kind Cordelia knew would stay with her in dark times.

  The children spread around Wuran, asking questions about their parents; others raced to the adults scattered around him. Cordelia tried not to focus on those who’d never see their parents again. That had been her once, though she’d still had Uncle Paul. She couldn’t help wondering if the orphans would forget their anger or if it would stay with them as it had with her.

  Wuran stepped toward her, wiping his eyes. “I can’t believe it.”

  “Sorry it took so long.”

  He threw his arms around her, and she laughed, slapping him on the back. He pushed her to arm’s length and clasped her shoulders. “Thank you.”

  “Just remember this when we’re quibbling over prices.”

  He only laughed and hugged the little girls again. Cordelia turned to leave, and he called, “The Svenal?”

  With a sigh, she stopped. “Can you let us handle them?”

  “What of the dead?”

  Yes, there were always the dead, more and more of them. Before she had to answer, a boom echoed from Meeting Rock, and the breeze carried the sounds of screams across the rolling plains.

  “Run!” she shouted.

  Wuran grabbed every child within reach and sprinted back the way he’d come, those around him doing the same. Cordelia ran toward the screams, sliding to a halt as she came within sight of the Svenal encampment. Pieces of the rock had rained down among them, but most people looked to be up and moving. Cordelia ran for Horace.

  “What happened?”

  He bent over a bloody man and didn’t answer.

  Onin ran over, carrying a wounded person to lay at Horace’s feet. “They say it was your old god. His wrath.”

  Cordelia curled her hands into fists. “He’s not a god, just a man with some fancy tricks.” Liam had been right. The Storm Lord had come for them, but she hadn’t been there to greet him. “He’s gone?”

  Onin waved into the distance. “Your strange friends have gone to see. Do you think he knows of the One-Eye, the old god?”

  Cordelia shuddered, though she didn’t know why. “Who?”

  “My father once spoke of strangers who wandered the plains claiming they spoke to a goddess.” He stared at the carnage instead of her; no matter what she said, he wouldn’t hear. “They say she knows all, sees all.”

  The sounds of crying, wounded people slipped out of her mind, pushed by the memory of the power that had shown her the universe when she’d floated above Calamity and through the whole of existence, pulled by an infinite hand.

  A tingle passed over her scalp, and a voice inside her mind whispered, “I remember you.”

  She gasped and came back to the present. Onin still wasn’t looking at her, but Horace glanced up. “These are healed enough to survive. I’m going to look for Simon.”

  She grabbed his arm as he started to the west. “Hold on.”

  “The drushka followed him.” He pulled against her, as deaf as Onin.

  “So we wait for them. We can’t go blundering around.”

  When Nettle finally jogged back to meet them, Horace pulled away so hard, Cordelia had to either let him go or rip his sleeve off, maybe his arm.

  “The Storm Lord has retreated,” Nettle said, “carrying shawness Simon with him.”

  Horace ran. Cordelia cursed and followed, Nettle with her, and Reach broke off from the crowd to join them.

  “Is he hurt?” Reach called.

  Cordelia didn’t bother to answer. She could tackle Horace, but she didn’t wan
t to hurt him. And if the Storm Lord was gone, Horace couldn’t get himself into too much trouble, and he would tire long before he got close to Gale.

  “We did not see what became of Samira and young Mamet,” Nettle said. “I did not wish to be too close.”

  Horace stumbled and cried, “Samira!” as he angled off to the side.

  Cordelia followed to where Samira and Mamet lay in the grass, hidden. Horace put his hands on both of them, but by the charred, ozone scent, Cordelia guessed they’d earned the Storm Lord’s personal attention.

  Nettle lifted her face to the wind, nose up.

  “What is it?” Cordelia looked toward Gale, trying to see if the Storm Lord had left any surprises behind.

  “Oily,” Nettle said, frowning, “and acrid.”

  “A gun?”

  Nettle sucked her teeth. “I do not—”

  “Simon!” Samira cried as she bolted upright. “Where…” She glanced at all of them before whipping her head around, looking wildly. “Where is he?”

  Reach knelt at her side. “You must calm yourself.”

  “The Storm Lord hit him!” Samira struggled to her feet as Mamet did the same. “He hit him, and then…” She rubbed her chest.

  “He’s gone. Taken.” Tears hovered in Horace’s eyes before he took a deep breath that seemed to banish them.

  “By the Storm Lord?” Reach asked.

  Samira started toward Gale without another word.

  “Stop!” Cordelia said, resisting the urge to ask if going off half-cocked was part of yafanai training. “What can you do?”

  She whirled, frowning and sneering, and Cordelia could almost sense her gathering her power.

  “He defeated you easily,” Nettle said. “How will you help shawness Simon if you are dead?”

  She opened her mouth but couldn’t seem to think of anything to say. Finally, she nodded. “So, we’ll sneak in, Mamet and me.”

  “My…my sword and heart are yours,” Mamet said.

  Cordelia fought the urge to yell at all of them and the woman she’d been a short time ago, who would’ve been thinking the same thing. “With all his tech and the yafanai? We need a plan.”

  “The plan is to rescue Simon. I’m sure the rest—”

  An arrow thudded to the ground in their midst. Cordelia whipped her sword out as a woman with large, teardrop tattoos stood from the grass. Several stood with her, all dressed in the robes of the Sun-Moon. Several had bows, and she sported a long bone sword.

  “Everyone will stop,” she said, her accent heavy.

  “Ah,” Nettle said softly, “the ones I smelled before.”

  *

  Horace froze as he stared at the strangers’ tattooed faces. The day just kept getting weirder.

  “The healer and the Engali vermin are coming with us,” the lead stranger said.

  Samira responded in a different language, similar to the plains dweller tongue, but by the way she sneered and the way the lead stranger frowned, it seemed an insult. He would’ve preferred to talk, but an insult would have to do. He needed this over so they could get back to rescuing Simon. He didn’t care what these people’s problem was, though calling Mamet a vermin wasn’t a good start.

  Samira took a step as Cordelia called out a warning. One of the tattooed people fired an arrow, and Samira shoved him with her power. Cordelia cried, “Down!” as more bowmen took aim, and Horace dived into the long grass.

  The battlefield went quiet, and Horace sent his senses out, trying to find out who was where, but it was hard to sort one body from another unless he already knew them well, like the other healers from Gale, maybe Natalya.

  And Simon.

  Horace clenched down on worry. He located one of the drushka, either Nettle or Reach, and tried to crawl silently. He reached out with telepathy, hoping surface thoughts might direct him, but he pulled back when he sensed massive power. One of the tattooed people might be a yafanai, but this felt as if it came from farther away, watching the tattooed people, maybe communicating with them.

  One of the drushka was on the move, and Horace sensed a spike of fear. A deeper probe told him one of the humans had been paralyzed, drushkan poison coursing through her veins. He crawled closer, hearing nothing but wind sighing through the grass. A push of psychokinetic power caught his attention, and one of the tattooed people flew upward, crying out before landing with a thud.

  “Samira?” Horace sent.

  “Stay hidden!” she thought back, and he got flashes from her mind as she let him in: looking for attackers in the grass and feeling around with her power but not daring to use it wildly lest she hit someone she cared about.

  With “cared about,” he got a flash of Mamet’s face and a little trill of worry and embarrassment. She cared about Mamet and didn’t want to? “Be careful,” he thought. “Someone is using telepathy, massive power.”

  “The Sun-Moon. These are widows, worshipers of theirs.”

  His senses picked up movement. “Someone’s coming toward you. Human. Can’t tell who.”

  “I’ve got them.”

  He sensed it as she tried to unleash her macro powers again, but telepathy poured from her attacker like a hammer, and her mind voice cried out as loudly as her real one before both fell silent, smothered by a telepathic attack.

  Horace put a hand over his own mouth and pulled away. The Sun-Moon, more of Calamity’s gods. Why couldn’t they just leave people alone?

  Something tickled his micro powers, and he sent out again hesitantly, sensing a new wound in Samira’s abdomen. She’d bleed to death if he didn’t see to it. He gritted his teeth and repressed the need to call the widows cowards for attacking someone who couldn’t hurt them anymore, but if he gave away his position…

  He’d killed a boggin once with his powers; how was this any different?

  Because they were people! Incapacitate them? How, with his power still so soggy and weak?

  “Cordelia?” he thought loudly, trying to zero in on her. “Samira’s hurt!”

  No one responded, but he felt weak signals nearby. “I’m going to help her,” he thought.

  He crawled toward Samira, his senses wide open, but her attacker had fled. He tried to mend her wound across the distance, but he needed to get his hands on her. He inched forward again, listening.

  He parted the grass and saw her outstretched hand. He reached forward when his senses prickled again. He turned, trying to bring his powers to bear as he saw a tattooed face, but a telepathic burst battered his mind, and as his vision dimmed and voices exploded in his head, he realized that such a power could hide from him whenever it wanted.

  *

  Cordelia frowned hard as tingles passed this way and that over her scalp. Someone was using telepathy nearby, but damned if she could hear any of it. Maybe being so close to the drushka had robbed her of her ability to hear human telepaths? Or maybe someone was talking and didn’t want her to hear.

  She heard a grunt, though. Ever since Samira had stopped throwing people around, the battlefield was like a tomb. “Fuck it,” she whispered.

  Sword drawn, she peeked over the top of the grass and saw the tattooed leader lifting an unconscious Horace and dragging him away.

  “No you don’t!” She leapt to her feet.

  The tattooed woman held her sword under Horace’s chin. “Do not move!”

  “Or you’ll what?” Cordelia said as she stopped. “You want him. You won’t hurt him.” Cordelia heard the twang of a bowstring and dropped again, but she couldn’t afford to get distracted. She jumped up as Mamet rushed the tattooed woman from the side, but another of the tattooed crew leapt on Mamet’s back, bashing her in the head with a sword pommel.

  “The healer we may care about,” the leader said, “but the vermin can die here.”

  Two people lifted Mamet, using her as a shield for the leader, and when Cordelia tried to see a way around them, one of them nicked Mamet’s cheek, showing they were serious. Cordelia halted, and they gathered th
eir wounded and watched each other’s backs as they crested a hill. A line of whipping grass followed them, and Cordelia knew Nettle was on the move.

  Reach stood from where she hid. “I smell Samira’s blood.”

  Cordelia followed her to where Samira lay in the grass again. Reach rolled her over and loosened her clothing, looking for the wound. “Somewhat healed,” she said when she found it. “Shawness Horace’s last gift to us.”

  Cordelia left her to her healing songs and followed in Nettle’s footsteps, but Nettle jogged back to meet her before she got far.

  “They rode those insects,” Nettle said. “The ossors Wuran told us about. Too fast for me to follow.”

  “Shit!” Cordelia yelled. “We lost two healers in under an hour!”

  “We must regroup,” Nettle said. “If the Svenal decide to attack again…”

  She nodded. There were still enough Svenal to do some damage if they decided all this was Cordelia’s fault. She felt Nettle call to Pool, and they carried Samira in her direction.

  “I’m going to get Liam,” Cordelia said. “And the rest of the humans. We need to find out what the Svenal are going to do now.”

  Nettle laid a hand on her arm. “I will go with you.”

  They both looked to Reach, who waved them on. “Ahya, you will always be a creature of action, Sa. Go, but be safe.”

  Cordelia ran back to where the wounded were gathering, but so far, there didn’t appear to be any dead. Cordelia went to where Liam and Onin stood in conversation. Liam turned to her and told Onin to stay a moment, but he trailed in Liam’s wake.

  Cordelia didn’t have time to worry about diplomacy. “You’re going to be pissed,” she said in Galean, “and you’ve got the right to tell me that you told me so, but the Storm Lord kidnapped Simon Lazlo, and then this group of tattooed people carried off Horace, and if we’re going to do anything about one of them, we have to do it quickly.”

  He didn’t yell but did turn several shades of red. “You know what I want.”