He examined Andrew Jackson Decker again, but there was no change. He was still lying in the same position, with the same tubes running into and out of his body. His eyes were still closed, although Kurst could see rapid movement beneath the lids. And the rune staves were still in place, sucking away life and possibility energy to feed the Gaunt Man's machine half a world away.
The staves had been fashioned from the scales of the Carredon, the runes carved by the great dragon's own talons. They were the runes of never life and never death, for that was the condition they left their host in. As far as the hunter knew, there was no way to remove the staves without killing the host — but to leave them in place was to condemn the host to an even worse fate. For the sixth time this night, Kurst contemplated murdering the congressman. And for the sixth time, he held his claws in check.
The Gaunt Man, leader of the invasion of Earth, had sent Kurst to find the stormers named Mara and Tolwyn. He was to bring them back to Orrorsh realm, in what was once Indonesia. The two women were in the company of other stormers — Decker, the priest Bryce, Rick Alder and his edeinos partner Tal Tu, and the two youths Coyote and Rat. They were in search of a stone, and Kurst had decided to accompany them on that
search. It sounded as though they knew the location of an eternity shard, and to bring such a powerful artifact back with the women would be a definite bonus for his master. But then the Gaunt Man changed the rules.
Without informing Kurst, the Gaunt Man sent others after the group. An Earther named Malcolm Kane led a band of hunters into the Grand Canyon, but their mission was very different from Kurst's. They were to kill the group. Obviously, they had not succeeded, and Kane and his companions were dead. At least, they assumed Kane was dead. His body fell into the raging river at the bottom of the canyon and was whisked from sight.
But those were not the only hunters the Gaunt Man had sent. He also sent the Carredon.
The great dragon had come to kill the stormers, and Kurst had fought beside them although he knew that nothing could stop the monster. But something did stop it — Tolwyn and the eternity shard called the Heart of Coyote.
Alder was dead now, and Decker was as near to death as one could be and still be called alive. Kurst had gone against the obvious orders of the Gaunt Man, and he did not know what that meant. He told himself it was because of the words that Thratchen had said. The demon from Tharkold had said that the Gaunt Man was only reacting to a few minor setbacks when he ordered the stormers' deaths. He would be better served, Thratchen had said, if we kept them alive for study. And Kurst said he would do what he could. But was it because he believed the demon, or was it because of some inner purpose of his own that he had yet to understand? The confusion ate at him like the Gaunt Man and the other High Lords ate at this world.
Now they were at the medical facility of a military base called T wentynine Palms, in the portion of America called California. It was where the army copter had taken them when they left the Grand Canyon.
The door to the room opened and Kurst's senses were filled with the odor of flowers and sunshine. It was the nurse, Julie Boot, making her rounds. She did not say a word to Kurst. She simply checked the machines attached to Decker and dabbed at his forehead with a cool sponge. She kept her eyes down, trying not to meet Kurst's gaze. I frighten her, he thought. Tonight, that thought bothered him.
The nurse cleared her throat, but her voice was still a whisper when it emerged from her lips. "Why have you been sitting here all night?" she asked.
"I have been watching Decker," Kurst replied, his own voice low and deep.
"Why?"
"He is... my friend," Kurst said, and he could almost believe it was true.
Then the door opened again, and the smell of thought, learning, and renewed faith assaulted the hunter's senses. Father Christopher Bryce was standing in the doorway.
"Have you been here all night, Mr. Kurst?" the priest asked cautiously. They still did not trust Kurst.
"I have," Kurst replied, looking into the nurse's eyes, keeping his back to Bryce.
"You really should have slept. You're still not a hundred percent yourself."
"Have you come for a reason, Father Bryce?"
"Yes. Yes I have," the priest stammered, taken aback by Kurst's lack of comradery. "Tolwyn has asked us to gather in the rec area. She wants to talk to us."
"Of course." But Kurst did not move from Decker's side until Bryce shut the door and was well on his way.
Then he turned away, leaving Decker to his own troubled dreams and the ministrations of Nurse Boot.
2
It was most definitely not a day like any other in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
For one thing, it was hotter than hell — far hotter than Mark Hope could remember. Hot ash sifted down out of the mud-gray sky like pepper from God's shaker, hissing as it fell and turning the city a dirty shade of black. Heat rippled up from the streets, belly-dancing into the sky.
It was also quiet, except for the hissing of the ash and a low rumbling coming from somewhere to the northeast, rolling through the air like angry thunder. There were few cars on the road, and fewer animals in yards to bark or call out to the day. Machinery was silent in factories and on construction sites. People weren't out today — a day that was already thirty-five hours old — for fear of the growing heat. Night, which last showed itself thirty- five eternal hours ago, had been a long period of darkness and record-setting cold. Now, beneath the ash covering that offered some protection, the two-day sun was baking the city into oblivion. The only people still moving about the city were looters, a few loyal policemen, the stubborn who tried to keep their businesses going, and Mark Hope.
Out on Route 30, Mark urged a little more speed out of the once-shiny Chevy truck, and prayed that the air- conditioning wouldn't quit before he reached his family. His wife, daughter, and parents were waiting for Mark to arrive so they could head north, to the rumored safe lands in Canada. Sure, the President had called for Americans to unite against the invasion. Mark had heard the speech over the radio. But as far as Mark was
concerned, flight to Canada was a time-honored tradition for his family. His Uncle Josh, a draft dodger from the Vietnam days, would welcome them to his home in Yellowknife without political comment. They hadn't heard from Josh in a while, but it was a destination, a goal in these troubled times.
Mark thought about recent events, and tears threatened to explode from his eyes. No, he told himself. Calm down. If he fell apart now, he'd never reach his family. And if he didn't arrive, they might not make it to safer climes. Still, images of the last few weeks flashed through his mind, and Mark was forced to examine them. First there were the mysterious reports concerning New York and the east coast. It was like a blackout as communications ceased. Then rumors of some kind of war started to make the rounds, igniting the first stages of panic. Then the refugees appeared, bringing with them tales of dinosaurs and lizard men called edeinos. When the rest of the country finally realized the United States had been attacked, the edeinos invaders appeared on the west coast. Then the planet itself started to slow down; days lasted longer and longer until the heat became unbearable, nights went on until it seemed dawn would never break and the cold would remain forever.
It was like the end of the world.
Mark slowed down through a winding curve, looking for a fuel sign and wondering if anyone still had working pumps, or if they had all been bled dry during the first few days of the panic when survivalists and cowardly hoarders had looted and taken what they claimed they needed without regard for the law. Mark himself had once been forced to take gas at gunpoint, from a garage owner who didn't want cash anymore. The owner
c laimed it was no good now that the government was gone. That was a dirty rotten lie, as anyone who listened to the radio knew, but Mark had paid him fair and square. He dropped the money right there on the ground where the man could take it as soon as Mark stopped pointing the shotgun at him. He winced at the memory
.
Mark spotted a Sunoco sign and veered toward the exit. A particularly dense cloud of cinders was falling from the sky as the Chevy pulled off the highway, making the going slow and treacherous, but Mark thanked God that when the Earth slowed down the volcanoes had all gone off at once. He heard the report, how scientists claimed that such a series of eruptions was impossible, but then he thought about everything else that he had heard about over the last month. Nothing would ever seem impossible again.
He pulled the Chevy out of a skid. Driving on ash was similar to driving on snow, he thought. Once he cursed snow, but he was unwilling to curse the ash. Without the ash the volcanoes had sent into the sky to block out the sun, they'd all have roasted or frozen to death by now. As it was, who knew what was going to happen if the planet continued to slow? A reflex glance in the rear- view mirror showed a towering thunderhead moving in from the northeast. It was blacker than the gray-ash sky, moving across the expanse of gray with almost definite purpose. It was unnatural for a storm to move from east to west, but with the Earth turning so slowly, the storms had a tendency to move wherever they pleased. He almost hoped it would catch him with its cooling rain, and he slowed the truck a bit more. After all, caution was more prudent than speed as he traveled over the fallen ash.
Slow and cautious would not bring safety and cool
rain this time, though. This time it would bring death.
3
Within the tower of cloud and darkness that rumbled across the ash-gray sky, the Horn Master flew. He was an imposing specter, cloaked in swirling storm and raging thunder. Lightning crackled from his shoulders, an electric cape flaring in his wake. Monstrous in size, he rode atop a monstrous, foam-spattered stag. His muscled arms and naked chest were stained wet with crimson, and on his head he wore an antlered helmet that hid his face in shadow. But his eyes glared out of the shadow, two points of fire in the night.
Lightning flashed, illuminating the Horn Master as the bolt slashed across the sky. And for those brief seconds, the Horn Master's form changed.
In the light of the bolt, flesh became transparent and the specter was revealed. Gigantic skeleton arms held the reins of his mount, crimson running wet down white bone instead of knotted sinew. His powerful chest faded to expose rib cage, which housed chittering shadow forms that reached through the bone bars with long, sharp claws. His head was not helmeted. The lightning revealed a human skull with flaming eyes and antlers that rose in cruel curves. The stag itself became a black, misshapen thing that ran on four cloven-hooved appendages. Its shadow skin rippled and shifted constantly in the glare of the bolt, as though trying to retain some semblance of form before the shadows dispersed.
When the bolt expended itself, flesh flowed back into place and muscle re-formed. Horn Master and stag galloped on through the tower of cloud and darkness, the waiting storm riding fast beside them.
18
J
High above the city, the Horn Master pulled the stag to a halt. He looked down at the man-structures and laughed. The sound was like distant thunder. These tall hu ts of metal and wood had not slowed the Horn Master in any of the previous cities he had plundered — cities named Boston, Chicago, Lincoln. They would not slow him now.
He raised a bone horn to his lips and blew the long cry of a wild beast. It was time to gather the Wild Hunt! He sounded the horn a second time, and the storm itself took up the cry. The Horn Master sat atop his stag, his own anticipation building in time with the growing call.
As the noise built, pieces of storm dislodged to swirl about the Horn Master. At first they were bits of cloud and dark mist, but they took on shape as they swirled faster. Flittering night-black forms spouted wings and flowed until they became a flock of night-black ravens. Crawling shadows took on definition and became wolfhounds of enormous size. Cawing and baying joined the wild cry, and the city below shivered with fear and dread.
Still, the hunt was not complete, and the Horn Master blared his horn again. New forms emerged from the clouds, galloping shadows mounted by skeletal riders that became night-black horses and armored hunters as they rode forth. The horn blared a final time, and the slithering shades that flowed behind the riders added their cry to the cacophony as they formed into running squires and men-at-arms.
The Horn Master surveyed the crowd swirling about him; the mounted hunters, the squires, the ravens, and the wolfhounds. He saw beyond the flesh, and reveled in the shadows and bone and demon creatures that truly made up his troop. With a triumphant shout, the Horn
Master led the Wild Hunt down to plunder and destroy in a bone rattle of power and frenzy, riding the clouds of darkness like thunder in a storm.
4
Mark Hope hit the off ramp at a respectable twenty miles per hour, hoping to find an open gas station. The ash was still falling, a perpetual cloud that turned the long day into a pseudo twilight. But when he rounded the bend of the ramp, he saw more than ash in his headlight beams. Dark clouds of flying insects swarmed around a stream of animals that flowed across the road and rushed toward some unknown destination.
Or rushed from something.
He swerved his truck to avoid hitting the animals, an odd mix of dogs, cats and rodents turned into ash- covered replicas of themselves. He almost laughed at the sight, but he was too busy fighting to control the vehicle. He failed miserably as the wheels lost contact with the blacktop and spun freely in the blanket of ash. The truck skidded, spinning completely around, before he was able to regain control and stop the vehicle as the engine stalled. He took a deep breath to settle his racing heart, then looked through the insect-spattered windshield. He missed the animals, but the clouds of bugs were unavoidable.
The scene reminded Mark of an article he read in a magazine once, about animals fleeing en masse from an earthquake or forest fire. They stampeded blindly, in utter terror, just like the animals running past his truck.
He rested his forehead on the padded steering wheel and closed his eyes. Mark still had such a long drive ahead of him, and he was already feeling the effects of navigating through the ash blizzard. His nerves were frazzled, his eyes ached, and the tension in his shoulders knotted his muscles into a tight coil. God! He needed a warm bath and two aspirin!
Mark slowly rotated his head to work out some of the kinks, then reached for the ignition to restart the engine. His fingers found the cool metal of the key ring and lingered for a moment. He was about to turn the key when a loud noise from outside the truck caught his attention.
Crashing out of the brush on the side of the road were sword-wielding horsemen straight out of the Middle Ages. One of the riders locked eyes with Mark and directed his mount straight for the truck. The horseman wore furs and leathers over a tanned, muscled frame. A horned skull cap rested atop his long, grime-caked hair. The rider shouted harsh, guttural words that Mark did not understand and rode for the truck.
Mark turned the key, pumped the gas pedal, and waited for the familiar sound of the engine turning over. It sputtered, caught, and coughed, sending a rumble through the truck but not starting. He cursed, then turned the key again. This time the engine started, but Mark never got the opportunity to shift into gear. The heavy metal of the rider's sword smashed through the windshield and sliced into Mark Hope, cleaving his head from his torso.
The rider did not stop the inspect his work. Instead, a dark shape scampered out of the brush, through the broken glass, and reached into Mark's dying body with long, black claws. When the claws were pulled back, they held the glowing essence of Mark's soul. The dark shape protectively cupped the glow to its chest, then scampered back into the brush to add its spoils to that of the rest of the Hunt.
Captain Adam Burke scrambled his F-15 Eagle air- superiority fighter when the first distress call came out of Warren Air Force Base. Lowry, the closest base with aircraft, answered the call. Burke's squadron had only recently been assigned to Lowry from its original home at Holloman in New Mexico, and he had hoped they'd see som
e action. The war status had units moving and relocating all over the country, trying to anticipate where forces would be needed most. If the call had any basis, Burke thought, then his Eagle was going to get a workout. And that suited him just fine.
The swirling ash made visuals difficult, so Burke constantly scanned his instruments, knowing they were his senses in this storm of volcanic dust. The familiar chatter of his wingmen spilled through his radio, and Burke's chest swelled with confidence. They were fifty miles out of Cheyenne. Forty. Thirty. His instruments still hadn't picked up any in-air threats. Could Warren be wrong? He hoped not. Burke was definitely looking forward to blasting the pseudo-dinosaurs he had heard so much about.
"We're getting close, boys," Burke said over his radio. "Let's stay alert. The first one to bag a lizard gets the President's undying gratitude."
"I'd rather have a three-day pass," said Zahn, flying in the fighter on Burke's left wing.
torg 02 - The Dark Realm Page 2
