Wanderer: The Moondark Saga, Books 4-6 (The Moondark Saga Boxed Sets Book 2)

by Don McQuinn

  Tate gave him her name, asking, “Who’re you? How old are you?”

  “Tarabel,” the boy said, tapping his forehead with two fingers. “I’m twelve.” He blinked again, swallowed loudly. “There aren’t any parents.”

  Noise interrupted. Conway and Tate turned to see children filing out of the forest; seven, including an infant. None appeared to be as old as Tarabel. The girls were dressed in crude smocks, the boys in leather trousers and homespun shirts. Some wore raccoon-skin capes that hung past the knees. Innocent faces watched Conway and Tate, full of confusion. And accusation.

  Tate’s voice was uncertain. “No adults?”

  “Some of us had time to hide. Aunt Minlee went with us. Now she… Everybody else…” He looked away. “Raiders came. Looking for you.”

  “Us? Who’s looking for us?” Tate asked. A little blond girl reached up and took her hand, inspecting it solemnly. Tate started at the touch. She smiled absently at the child and returned her attention to Tarabel, who said, “The raiders. The ones who… who took away the others.” He looked to the other children, then sent silent appeal to the adults.

  Tate understood. “Come on, back to the village. We need to get food into you all. Washing wouldn’t hurt, either.”

  The little blond girl smiled, gripping Tate’s hand purposefully.

  Tate smiled back at her, welcoming this time. Tapping her forehead with two fingers as Tarabel had, the girl said, “My name’s Nandameer. Who’re you? What happened to all your skin?”

  “I’m Tate. And I’m this color because I’m magic. Come on, I’ll tell you all about it.”

  They turned to go as Conway reached for Tarabel. The boy shrank back. Smiling assurance, Conway said, “Hey, I won’t hurt you. Come on.”

  Tarabel said, “I’ll do it myself.” The last word was practically a grunt. He levered himself forward with his elbows, pushing against the tree. His knees buckled. He pitched forward on his face.

  Tate gasped. “Oh, no, Matt. Look at his leg.”

  The right thigh stretched the material of the trousers. A foul smell rose from wetness on the back of the boy’s leg. Conway scooped him up, ignoring the pathetic, dropped sword. “Karda,” he said, “get Sylah. Go.”

  Karda hurtled off through the trees. Conway hurried after him, Tarabel in his arms.

  Nandameer brushed blond bangs out of the way. “Tarabel’s going to be dead,” she said. Tate was dumbstruck. She stared at the tiny child and shook her head, gently at first, then almost violently.

  “Yes he is,” Nandameer insisted. “Just like the others. He thinks we don’t know, but we do. Everybody got dead. Now the bad men’ll come back. We’ll get dead, too. Tarabel says sometimes it hurts. Please, Tate, when they do it to me, will you make it not hurt?”

  Chapter 38

  Conway sat in the doorway of one of the houses and marveled as the children wrestled rags free from between jaws that could have taken the tugging arms off at the shoulder. Other children pulled on abused ears or wrapped themselves around legs. And all the while, Karda and Mikka rolled their eyes toward their master, tongues lolling foolishly.

  “Killers. Terror of the battlefield.” He snorted scornfully, reaching down to extricate Karda’s tail from a toddler. As long as the child merely considered it an aid to walking, Conway foresaw no problem. Now, however, it was about to be tested for edibility.

  Karda wagged the tail. Toddler sprawled backward, sat down hard. He scrambled back onto his feet with animal-like quickness. He poised, tense, searching in all directions. The reaction lasted but a moment. Then he was laughing and after the tail again.

  The vignette bared the dark underside of the surface gaiety. Conway’s heart clenched like a fist at the memory of other times, other children. Dead for centuries now, they also had acquired the identical habit of suddenly checking around them with too-old, too-fearful eyes.

  Blond Nandameer lobbed a stick for Mikka. The dog who’d been too proud to perform for her master leaped to snatch it out of the air. The child’s squeal of delight almost drowned out Tarabel’s tormented cry. Conway looked to the house where the three women were inside with the boy.

  Lanta came out, gestured him over. Calling the dogs, he left the children chorusing complaints. Lanta extended him a goatskin waterbag. “Fill this, please. Hurry.”

  He ran for the village stream.

  The water was crystal clear. Small fish and water striders scattered when he plunged the container to the bottom of a handmade rock-rimmed pool. Downstream, watercress mounded the creek bank and shallows with emerald. Conway jiggled the sack impatiently to force air out the open neck.

  On the far side of the pool, something out of place plucked at his vision. Through the tangled growth, he identified a tiny house structure, perhaps the size of a man’s torso, open at the front. A shrine—knocked down and kicked aside. Three stream-polished agates set into an eave suggested Church. The broken figure inside was a crudely made Sister in typical black robe. The wooden neck was splintered where the head had been snapped off. One arm was missing.

  Back inside the house, he poured water from the goatskin into a pot hung on a swing arm at the fireplace. Lanta added cotton rags. He commented that she was ripping up a perfectly good blouse. She shook her head. “There’s no one to wear it.” Then, “We’ll need many bandages. We have to open the wound. Dirt creatures have invaded.”

  Conway moved to the boy’s bed. It was a crude rectangular frame, the suspension a netting of leather straps. The mattress rustled when Tarabel turned his head to look up. “They want to make me sleep. We’re the only men here, and even me and Dodoy are just boys. When the raiders come back, you’ll need help.”

  Off in a dark corner, Dodoy stirred. Conway told Tarabel, “You have to get well enough to travel. Let the Healers help.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You’ve already been brave enough, Tarabel.”

  “I wasn’t brave. I told Aunt Minlee we should stay hidden. She wanted to go look for the adults. I couldn’t let her go alone. We found—everybody. The raiders caught us. They said she had to tell when you came here and how long you stayed. They wouldn’t believe you never did. She died.”

  Tarabel licked his lips. The dry tongue seemed to scrape. His eyes wandered, and his voice took on a dreamlike tone. “The man holding me wasn’t careful. I bit him. I ran. They shot me with an arrow. When they couldn’t find me, they laughed. Said I’d burn in the Land Under, ‘cause I helped the false Church. What’s that mean? Is that why they kill us?”

  Sylah appeared at Conway’s elbow. “Church heals, Tarabel. Please, let us heal you.”

  Tarabel’s eyelids slid downward. His breathing leveled off. Conway turned a smile to Sylah, but the boy picked that moment to jerk and come fully alert. Seeing the young eyes brighten, then start to lose their luster nearly undid Conway. It was like watching a fire burn itself out. Tarabel said, “You’ll wake me if they come?”

  “I promise.”

  Tarabel raised his head, frowning at the effort. “I’ll do what you say,” he said. The calculated gruffness in the childish voice made Conway’s throat close painfully.

  Sylah extended a potion in a wooden cup. It passed under Conway’s nose. Dark brown, it had a greasy cast on the surface and a dank, organic smell. Conway’s mind flashed to deep shade, where furtive insects rustled under decaying leaves and the soil was forever damp.

  Lanta came to dab at Tarabel’s lips and brow with a damp cloth. The boy sighed into heavy slumber. Conway asked her, “What did you give him?”

  “The easing mushrooms. Very strong. Dangerous.”

  “Dangerous?”

  “We only use it when there’s no choice.”

  “He’s that bad?”

  Lanta looked away. Conway reached to give her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. Her swift recoil startled him. He excused himself to put more wood on the fire.

  Sylah returned to the bedside with her healer’s kit. Lanta replaced th
e large pot on the fire, adding more strips of cotton homespun to the boiling water. When she stirred the cloth, Conway saw the small knives at the bottom. Looking up from that unpleasantness, he caught Lanta putting in a saw blade.

  She colored. For a moment, he thought she was leaning toward him, but dismissed the idea. She said, “If it’s necessary to save the life, we’ll sacrifice the leg. Surely you do the same in your land?”

  He nodded.

  She prepared a pad of clean cloth on clean straw under the boy’s wounded leg. Sylah took a large obsidian rock from her bag. A sharp blow with the back of her shortknife dislodged a thin leaf-shaped piece of stone. To Tate and Conway, she said, “Will you help us?”

  “What do we do?” Tate spoke for both.

  “Gather the children outside. When we start the Prayer for Protection Against Unseens, I want them to join.”

  “Leave that to me.” Tate gestured to Dodoy. He hurried to follow.

  Sylah and Lanta washed. Then Sylah offered up the razor obsidian in both hands, chanting the prayer. Lanta joined her.

  Tate knelt just outside the door. She strained to hear, repeating Sylah’s words a half beat behind. Sweating with effort, her unexpected aura of mingled spiritualism and hard-edged concentration surprised Conway. He would have sworn he’d seen all of Tate’s manifestations, and here was a woman he never suspected.

  The rising volume of Sylah’s chant distracted him. Outside, the children’s bright voices rose and fell in innocent awe and hope under Tate’s direction.

  Sylah’s precise strokes exposed corruption. Evil stench billowed through the room. Lanta shoved rags at Conway to wipe with as she worked free the stub of arrow shaft and its steel head. Tossed into the fire, it sizzled and sputtered nastily. Tate heard it, and made the children chant louder.

  Sylah curtly demanded a knife that lay glowing in the coals. She pressed it to blood vessels. More stinking and sizzling followed, but the bleeding subsided.

  Tarabel paled. A pulse at his temple throbbed, then suddenly faded to mere vibration.

  Lanta’s hands darted into her bag, reappeared with a smaller one of soft leather. Unwrapping the drawstring closure, she took out a pottery tube with wooden plugs at each end. Holding it vertical, she unplugged one end, keeping it carefully upright. Reaching back in the bag, she drew out a small box, sealed with wax. Stripping off the cover, she opened it to produce a short stick with one end leather wrapped. It was a snug fit for the original tube. The other article in the box was a wooden plug that exactly fit the open end of the tube. A hollow feather quill protruded from its center. Conway stifled an amazed exclamation. The device was for injections.

  Bending to the boy, Lanta jabbed the quill through an exposed artery wall. She pushed the plunger. Liquid, already in the tube, rushed into Tarabel’s bloodstream. Color replenished his cheeks. The thready pulse strengthened.

  Bandaging and final cleanup were over quickly, with everything flammable burned. When the three of them stepped outside, Tate waited with the children. The priestesses explained patiently that Tarabel needed quiet. Tate led them off to play. Sylah excused herself.

  Alone, Conway asked Lanta about the injection. He called the tool a needle. She corrected him; it was called a hipe. The contents were surm. “I can tell you this surm is made of a plant called foxglove. All surms are Church secrets. I don’t always believe keeping such secrets is right, but it helps Church keep her position. Without that, she loses her ability to influence men. You understand?”

  “Completely,” he said. “And now I’m going to take my dogs and scout the area. I’ll be back by midmorning tomorrow, at the latest.”

  “Stop.” The word was out before she realized it.

  He was already halfway through the door. He turned, more amused than obedient.

  “Is it really necessary? Can’t you just send the dogs? What if you find the raiders? Or they see you? It’s not safe.” She heard herself chattering and bit off further questions. Her face was warm, and she turned back to Tarabel, needlessly cleaning.

  When she looked at Conway again his good humor was gone. Her heart lurched at his narrowed eyes, sullen mouth. He said, “I appreciate your concern, Priestess. I’m not one of your super-warriors, but I’m not completely incompetent.” He spun out the door.

  Why? she asked herself. Why can’t he understand? Am I witched, that everything I do or speak must come backward? He touches me, and I flinch, because the wanting for that touch is so strong it frightens me. And he hates me for it, doesn’t understand anything.

  If I can look inside my heart and admit a love that I didn’t want—don’t want—why can’t he see what that heart tries to tell him every time I look his way.

  I know the others look at me and see. Yet he, of all, is blind.

  Will he never see me?

  Chapter 39

  Listen to the music of the ride, Conway told himself. The high, soft friction of leather on leather, the jingle of metal, the regularity of the horse’s easy breathing, underscored the steady plod of hoofbeats. Rather than that, however, he heard Lanta’s concern. In the flowing movements of branches, he saw the grace of her worried gestures.

  He was as good as he needed to be. Regardless of what any of them thought.

  Shadows stretched long when he came across the juncture of his trail and another. A sharp whistle brought the dogs running, and together they all explored the new find for a while. It led south, then angled off to the east, opposite the direction Sylah wanted them to take.

  He retraced his steps to the junction and proceeded on the other fork. He went only a hundred yards or so before the appearance of a small stream convinced him to rest a while before returning to the village. Uphill, just visible from the trail, a tiny waterfall splattered down a rock outcrop.

  After bringing in the dogs, he led Stormracer a short distance beyond the waterfall. Settling against a huge old fir, he complimented his choice. A gap in the trees exposed a sweeping view. Thin, wisping clouds drifted toward him from the west. In the valley, a small river crashed across jagged rocks before entering onto a wider, slower stretch. Massive spring-run salmon prowled the quiet depths like dark ghosts. Cobbled banks kept the forest and a belt of pale green brush at a distance. Gray bleached driftwood, including some logs as thick as a tall man, littered the rough surface.

  Conway looped the feedbag strap over Stormracer’s ears and fed him a measure of grain. For himself and the dogs there was dried venison. They gulped their share greedily, catching the tossed strips with a noise almost as loud as handclapping.

  They watched Conway’s more-leisurely meal hopefully. Only when he licked his fingers and showed them his hands were empty did they give up. Karda heaved himself onto his feet long enough to reach Conway’s side, then collapsed, pressing against his master. Mikka was content to lie on her stomach, chin on forepaws, facing him.

  The animals warned him, all three suddenly alert, testing the wind. Then he heard it. A poignant low trumpeting. There seemed to be no point of origin.

  Chickadees continued to skip and whir and flutter in the branches above. The trees sighed on, unaffected.

  By disappearing, the sound emphasized everything remaining.

  And then it came again, from down by the river. The tone lacked the basso thrum of a war horn, but had a similar urgency. It made him think of the murdered Tender, and the women waiting back at the village with the children.

  The raiders said they’d be back.

  Karda and Mikka faced north moments before he, too, heard the hoofbeats racing toward them. Conway ordered the dogs to silence.

  The rider thundered by so swiftly only small details registered. A war mask, the laces undone so that the flaps weren’t closed across his face. Cropped black beard. Leather jacket; vertical metal bars. Narrow scarflike banner flapping behind him in the wind of his passage.

  Something familiar. Something Conway knew he should be able to identify. He pounded his fist against a tree trunk an
d cursed himself. There was something there, something important.

  The hoofbeats receded in the distance.

  He mounted and hurried to the trail junction, relieved to establish that the stranger had traveled the secondary trail, not the one leading back to the village. He was sure there was a connection between the rider and the lowing horn. Cautiously, he returned to the viewpoint.

  A running figure broke out of the wavelike sway of the windblown brush belt that marked the transition from rocky river beach to forest. Conway thought he saw a limp, but the range made it impossible to be sure. A glint of light beside the figure proved to be an arrow. It flashed by to plunge harmlessly into the river.

  The man made his way to a huge weathered log that was stranded on the beach just below the rapids. Perpendicular to the flow, its tangled web of roots was almost in the water. The man sheltered behind them. Conway silently cheered the clever tactic. Reasonably shielded from arrows, he could only be approached on foot; even someone on the log itself would have trouble getting to him.

  Twelve pursuers appeared. Arrows from the brush indicated more hidden there. Running, dodging, losing arrows at their quarry, the attackers closed inexorably.

  One of the defender’s arrows struck home. Then another. The horn sounded again. Moments later, a man on horseback forged through the scrub growth. Conway recognized the rider who’d thundered past his hiding place. A sword glittered at the end of his gesticulating arm.

  The men on foot rushed forward. One dropped, the victim of a last arrow before they swept around the end of the log. Back against his gnarled wall, the lone defender made a ferocious stand. Distance silenced shouts, the clash of blade on blade, yet in Conway’s imagination those things rose triumphantly, then crashed to moans. Two attackers stumbled away, doubled over. Another fell, writhing. A pair went backward into the river to be carried downstream. Their peaceful, heedless drift contrasted cruelly with the frantic action that cost them their lives.

  And then the lone man was down. A knot of men pummeled him mercilessly. A signal from the rider stopped that. He gestured with the sword. Yanked upright, the prisoner walked with the slack legs of semiconsciousness. Nevertheless, one man held each of his arms while a third kept a swordpoint at his back. They marched him to the horseman. Everyone was motionless until a soldier stepped forward and drove a fist into the prisoner’s face. The victim’s head snapped back. He slumped, then straightened.