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

by Don McQuinn

  Conway put an arm around her. “Don’t talk like that. We’ll get out of this. Look! Over there. A fire. And there, another one! What’s going on?”

  Tee pulled herself upright. Conway noted she used a hand on the pommel, as if she lacked strength in her torso. Still, there was excitement in her voice. “It’s started, Matt. The slaves are rebelling. It wasn’t for nothing. I didn’t fail. Not entirely.”

  “Don’t talk about failure. You made them realize they have to fight to be free. The way you fought, Tee, they’ll win, too. The way you won.”

  Conway looked toward Trader Island. He shouted surprise. “Harbor’s burning, Tee. Look, the island’s a perfect silhouette. The whole town must be blazing. Signal lights blinking, too; everywhere you look.”

  She moved to turn, dipped, almost fell. Clutching at him with her right hand, she said, “Take the reins, please. Turn the horse for me. I want to see.”

  Backing Stormracer, Conway brought both animals around. As he finished the maneuver, fires blossomed to the north. A bell rang hysterical alarm, and a drum boomed urgent call. Conway said, “That must be the barracks town the gang spoke of. That’s why they’re not chasing us. They’re trying to save the town and whatever else is under attack.”

  Tee barely gave the new fires a glance. Her attention was riveted on the fiery sky beyond Trader Island. “It’s the end. A beginning for some, an end for some. The wheel never stops.” She took his hand from the reins, pressed it between her own. Lifting it, her eyes on his, she kissed it, held it to her cheek. In the starlight, in the faint glow of ever-more fires, her eyes glittered abnormally. She leaned so heavily against the hand she held, Conway had to brace his elbow against his ribs. Head bowed, she said, “I wanted to love you, Matt Conway. I wanted to be your wife, bear your children. Did you know you made me dream? Of fireplaces, of meals that made you fat and lazy, of long walks where neither of us said a word to the other and we were both too happy to notice? Did you know I could dream like that? I didn’t.”

  “We’re going to be all right.” Conway reached to tilt her chin up so he could look into her eyes. “We’ll ride for Church Home, meet the others there. It’s all going to be fine.”

  Tee twisted in the saddle. She coughed, a huge spasm. He almost lost her when she slumped. He reached around her neck with his left hand, clutched her near shoulder with his right.

  She gasped when his left hand struck the arrow in her shoulder and pushed it sideways.

  Conway echoed her when he realized what the blood-slick thing under his hand was. Two-thirds of it were driven vertically into her body. For several crashing heartbeats, he couldn’t move. When he could, he gripped her horse’s reins again, led it off. “We’ll find help,” he said. “There’s got to be a farmhouse or something nearby. You can rest. I’ll get a boat. I’ll go for… for… Sylah. I’ll go for Sylah.”

  “Slower, Matt, please. It hurts to bounce so. There’s no reason to hurry. It’s my arrow, the one sent for me. I don’t mind, really. But find me a place to rest, please. It hurts, and I’m too tired.” She made an effort to straighten. “I have to tell you. Lanta. Me and Lanta.”

  She coughed again, and Conway said, “I don’t want to hear about her. Not now. Never. This is all her fault. It’s all her fault.”

  Tee shook her head, too seized by choking to answer. She gestured that she wanted down. Hurriedly, he guided the animals to a stone outcropping. In a moment he had her on the ground, propped to look seaward. Left and right, fires pockmarked the dark. The Kossiar boats sped for Harbor.

  After a lip-moistening touch of water from Conway’s canteen, Tee closed her eyes. Afraid to speak, he knelt beside her, holding her hand, feeling it weak and cold.

  Tee said, “I could never be what either of us wanted. I was never what you saw, never what I hoped to be. But I made a difference. I can say that, can’t I?”

  “Tee, don’t talk like that. I’m going to get you through this.”

  She smiled up at him. “You won’t see the most obvious things. Exasperating man.” She coughed. “Two dreamers. Different dreams. Wrong dreams. Listen. Lanta. Good woman. Told her. Fight. You. She happy now.”

  “Don’t do this. Tee, I love you. Don’t leave me. I’m begging you.”

  Softly, wearily, she sagged against the rock. Conway carefully avoided looking at the obscenity projecting from her shoulder, concentrated on the serenity in her features.

  Swiftly, terribly, a grimace tore apart her repose, twisted her face mercilessly. She gave a soft cry, tried to rise, lifted her hands to him. He clutched at them as if he could pull her back from the thing that was claiming her. She opened her eyes, gazed her entire soul into his. “Oh, Matt, why does everything have to hurt so much? Why wasn’t I the one? I love you. I… Kiss me. Hold me. Tight. Please.”

  He covered her last word with his mouth.

  Chapter 33

  Sylah looked up in confusion as her door flew open and Lanta ushered in her soaking-wet companions. At the sight of the lumbering Helstar, Sylah pointed, and in almost desperate appeal said, “What?”

  Helstar’s teeth gleamed through the dripping beard. “It’s kind of you to ask, Rose Priestess, but I’d rather ‘who’ than ‘what.’ I’m Helstar. A smith.” The shrewd eyes were watchful then, and the smile was fixed. A quick change, and subtle. Warning stirred in Sylah’s mind. This was no muscular bully, as the clothes, rough voice, and general bearing trumpeted. Behind the coarse facade prowled complex cunning.

  Lanta and Dodoy disappeared behind partitions to change. Throughout Lanta’s narration of her evening’s events, Sylah watched Helstar study her with the same intensity she was applying to him. It made her think of being stalked by a tiger. A benevolent tiger, perhaps, but a predatory animal that made itself part of its background all too easily. A leap of intuition called to mind the Harvester. She had no idea what triggered it, but in that instant, her interest in Helstar took on a far deeper urgency.

  Lanta reappeared from behind a partition, wearing dry clothes. She was saying, “I tried to explain to Tee and Conway about the escaped slaves. If they go after them, they’ll be taking a great risk.”

  Dodoy came out as she finished. “The Conway one wouldn’t believe her. He’s stupid.”

  With a consoling look for Lanta, Helstar said, “I wouldn’t tell you before, Priestess. I ordered the boy to keep quiet, too. When Nalatan and I finished with the Kossiar spy-servants, he went to the house to report. Tee and Conway were already gone after the escapers. She insisted. They took three gang men and five extra horses on a cargo boat big enough to carry everyone. The Kossiar boats carrying warmen up the coast are probably to block any seaward escape. Still, your friends have a chance.”

  “What can we do?” Sylah asked.

  Melancholy deadened Helstar’s voice. “It has nothing to do with you, Priestess. Nalatan and I learned some very hard news tonight. The slave leadership’s betrayed. In desperation, the revolt will start immediately. They cannot win. The vengeance of the Chair will be demonic.” He paused. His knuckles whitened, cracked ominously in the silence. “The uprising may interfere with the plans to trap your friends. There’ll be fires, widespread attacks on slave owners and their property. Panic will consume Kos as flame consumes straw. Which brings me to my purpose here.”

  “I wondered about that,” Sylah said, and Helstar acknowledged her irony with a wryly apologetic smile. She went on, “If it’s anything to do with the castle slaves, you’re too late. All but a few girls, personal slaves, were moved out, chained.”

  Helstar nodded briefly. He turned to Dodoy. “Guard the door. I’ll be checking to see if you’re eavesdropping.”

  Dodoy threw out his narrow chest. “You can’t tell me what to do.”

  Helstar’s thick, gnarled hand reached out. Dodoy backed up a step, although the man was a full body-length away. Before Helstar spoke, bravado crumbled to sulk. Dodoy hurried to obey.

  With the door closed, Helstar beckoned th
e women to the farthest end of the room. He said, “Since the first siahs, even before the Teachers, certain men have worked for Church.”

  Sylah snapped upright. “Nonsense. Church is womankind. Church heals what men damage. It is the way.”

  “There is more than one path, more than one servant on every path. Not all smiths are Church’s men. Once it was hereditary. That system failed. As it did with our brothers, the Peddlers.”

  Lanta gasped surprise, clapped a hand to her mouth.

  “Yes, small Priestess, smiths and peddlers. What the Seer of Seers cannot discover, we seek to learn for her. Not even the Harvester knows of us. Once more, each of you is chosen.”

  “It can’t be,” Sylah said. She shook her head, physically reinforcing the need to deny. Helstar’s revelations were rocking the very foundation of her beliefs.

  Helstar was adamant. “Perhaps, Rose Priestess Sylah, you recall your old traveling companion, the Bilsten one? Of a matter of some dead roses on a door in the house of a Baron Jalail? You were fleeing then, and needed to be warned. My hand is to help you now. Your danger is greater than ever.”

  Speechless, Sylah gawked. Helstar said, “I am instructed to tell you what I have said, and no more, save this: You will continue the search for the Door. My mission is to help you. Your friends have already escaped Trader Island.”

  “I can’t leave.”

  Lanta paled.

  Coloring above his beard, Helstar said, “It’s nothing to me if you believe what I’ve told you. If you must have it, I swear by the story of the cross denied women that it’s all true. You are the Flower, and you must be saved. We must go.”

  “Yasmaleeya.” Sylah fluttered uncharacteristically, aimless starts and retreats. “She’s already in labor. Started four inches ago. I just came here for equipment.”

  Helstar spit out words. “Your responsibility is to Church, not to the pampered pet of the monster who sired her child.”

  The language brought Sylah up short. She glared. “Pampered. You’d say so. She’ll deliver her child tonight.”

  “So early? The gossip said later.”

  Risking a quick look at Lanta, Sylah answered. “It’s assured.” She saw Helstar’s canny change of expression, the instant understanding that a secret had been expressed. He said, “Well. The Flower is truly a rose—thorns and all. Do what you must. Understand, we have few hours of darkness. If this child comes late, it brings us into a sunshine that must kill us as surely as it burns off the fog. How can I help?”

  Instead of answering, Sylah picked up her saddlebags, indicating Lanta should do the same. At the door, she called softly to Dodoy, who swaggered out of the darkness. “I didn’t listen,” he said, and Sylah cut him off with a snap of the fingers. “Get your things. We’re not coming back here.”

  Holding to dark corners, slinking from shadow to shadow, the foursome made their way to Yasmaleeya’s second-story apartments.

  They saw no warmen on guard. Knocking on Yasmaleeya’s door, Sylah identified herself. A frightened girl in slave yellow admitted them, sliding back against the wall. Yasmaleeya sprawled prone on a large bed, dressed in a voluminous robe of pale blue. The spread under her was an underwater scene, fishes and dolphins in rainbow colors embroidered on a sea green background. Without turning her head toward the door, Yasmaleeya berated the slave for her sluggishness, switching over to complain’s of Sylah’s absence.

  Sylah said, “You should have sent the girl for me. What progress?”

  “You’re the Healer,” Yasmaleeya said. “You should have known… Ow! See? A pain! They’re coming faster now. Harder, too. Who’s that old man? Go away, you. I’m having the Chair’s son. You’re not allowed here. I’ll have you flogged. Get out.”

  Sylah pulled Lanta to the side. “Light the fire. Put on the water for boiling the cloths. Prepare many. I swear she’s gotten bigger since yesterday. There’s going to be blood. And trouble.”

  She left Lanta, went to Helstar. “I have two missions for you. First, find one of the Messengers hanging about here in the castle. Tell him he must ride to Clas na Bale of the Dog People. Tell Clas I am going to Church Home because of the revolt in Kos. Clas should send warriors to meet me there.”

  Helstar’s smile was hard. “Assuming I can reach a Messenger and talk to him without a guard taking my head, how do I pay for his services?”

  “Clas na Bale is my husband. He’ll pay very well for news of me.”

  “Your faith in husbands and Messengers is an inspiration to us all, Priestess. I’ll try. What other wonders would you ask of me?”

  “Take Dodoy with you. Find the castle winery.”

  “Wine?” Helstar blinked.

  “Listen.” Sylah’s order crackled. “Open the vats. You’ll find crystals on the sides. Get all you can. It’s important. When you’ve done that, hide in the room next to this one. Most of the interior guard and the Crew are off after slaves, but someone may come if she starts screaming.”

  “If?” Helstar tugged his beard. His eyes nervously flicked to Yasmaleeya and away, then back again. “She’ll shout down these walls. Can you save her? Or the child?”

  “Not if you keep babbling. Can your man-soft knees carry you away? Good.” Helstar swallowed a retort. He clamped a hand on Dodoy’s shoulder and stalked out.

  Yasmaleeya groaned and panted constantly by the time Sylah reached Lanta. The fire in the tripod brazier already licked the sides of a copper cauldron, and the first wisps of steam slicked across the surface of the water in it. To the slave girl, Sylah said, “You’re released. Go to the barracks.”

  Yasmaleeya elbowed her upper body off the bed and rolled partially onto her side. A pendulous breast slid free of the robe’s covering. Uncaring, Yasmaleeya went on. “I want her here.”

  Sylah tried to reason. “She’ll only be in the way, Yasmaleeya. Let her go.”

  Petulance and craftiness fought to dominate Yasmaleeya’s already pain-honed features. “You think I’m a complete fool. You think I haven’t heard the stories, that you’re a witch, that you have magic to save me from something that’s wrong with my baby? I know he’s big, and now he’s coming early, but there’s nothing wrong with him. Or me. That’s why that old Harvester wouldn’t help me. She’s afraid. At least you’ve been nice, even if it is only because you like my husband. See? I see more than you think.”

  Her speech was punctuated by grimaces and short grunts, reaction to her contractions. She took a deep breath before continuing. The vindictive tone softened, acquired a musing sadness. “I heard the other thing, too. That he doesn’t like me, doesn’t want this child. Mother says he’s evil. She says you’re a good person, but an idiot like all Church women. She hates the Chair. She says if there’s something wrong with me or the baby, you’re the one he’ll blame, you and your friends.” She groaned, long and loud, reaching for Sylah’s hand, grinding the knuckles with unexpected strength. “All I wanted was to live well. That doesn’t make me a bad person. But I’m afraid, Sylah. There’s too much I don’t understand. I want to live. I want to raise my baby. I don’t care if it’s a girl. Just make it be healthy, please? Promise me, Sylah. Promise.”

  Sylah smiled gently. “I promise. Now you’ve got to let me go. I have to examine you, prepare our equipment.”

  Disengaging herself, Sylah moved away. Not as easily dismissed were Yasmaleeya’s frightened revelations. Sylah remembered the night on the roof, the heat of the Chair’s presence. She felt the irresolution of her body, the unacknowledgeable yearning.

  Guilt swept her.

  The rumors were malicious. Nothing happened that night. Or any other time. If the rumors were untrue about her friendship with the Chair, they were equally untrue about his reputation. People didn’t understand. He was alone. Unsupported. Why couldn’t anyone see that he was authoritative, not maliciously cruel?

  No man could want to raise his children in a world that despised and feared the father.

  It was in her grasp to make t
hem all understand, prove to them that he was a good man in his heart. A healthy child, a loving mother; those would be the beacons to reveal his true self.

  He’d be her friend. Church’s friend. Rose Priestess Sylah would bring him to his rightful place.

  It was a proud feeling.

  Chapter 34

  Moving to Lanta, Sylah spoke quietly, “I think it’s time. I’ll examine her as soon as we’ve got everything ready.”

  Practically on cue, Yasmaleeya scrambled to a kneeling position on the bed. Her features tightened. Sharp cries pressed out between thinned lips. “Can’t you make it stop hurting? It goes on forever.”

  Murmuring assurances, Sylah worked Yasmaleeya free of the flowing blue robe and got her to lie down, covered with a cotton sheet. Lanta dropped folded linen cloths into the boiling water. With a roll of twine and a trio of chairs, she made a drying rack on three sides of the brazier.

  Sylah caught Yasmaleeya’s sudden inhalation, saw her face grow frenzied. She stopped the incipient scream automatically, stuffing a clean cloth in Yasmaleeya’s opening mouth. Leaning over the startled woman, Sylah said, “This is the child of the strongest man in Kos. Don’t force me to tell him you were weak. Such a beginning for the boy would be a dreadful omen. Bring him bravely, quietly. In time, he’ll sing your praises for it. So will the world.” Removing the makeshift gag, backing away, Sylah spoke quietly to Lanta. “There are still some guards here. We can’t have her yelling and bringing them down on us. The poppy sleep. Quickly.”

  Rummaging in Sylah’s bag, Lanta asked, “Are you sure, Sylah? You had her eat the blackness, the purge?”

  “Yes. Inches ago. I used the flour to make cakes. They were sweet, so she was happy to get them. Of course.” Despite the scornful tone of the last words, her glance at the figure on the bed was agonized. “I’ve never used it before, didn’t even have time to build up the dose slowly. I fear, Lanta.”