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

by Don McQuinn

  This man’s face brought to mind the eager, locked features of a stalking leopard.

  The intensity of hunting cats frightens humans; they attribute it to implacable ferocity. Humans misjudge the animals. In Conway’s case, the assumption harbored wisdom.

  His chain mail had a patch in the center of the chest where the linked rings were clumsily hammered back into approximate flatness. The work surrounded a jagged hole where the wipe flechette had ripped loose four rings. What that amount of energized metal had done as it traveled through the warman who was wearing the chain mail at the time was as impressive as it was messy. Several links in the back of the shirt were stressed, warped, but remained unbroken.

  Conway had hunted down a second warman to acquire an unruined padded undershirt. As an afterthought, Conway took that man’s armored skirt, as well. He retained his old sword, the one from Ola. Additionally, he wore the original knife he carried out of the crèche. It rode in a scabbard at his left bicep, a style copied from Nalatan.

  Constantly scanning the forest, Conway absently drew the knife. He stroked his thumb across the edge rhythmically, counted to fifteen.

  Fifteen days since Tee was killed. Betrayed.

  Matt Conway was the blade that would avenge her.

  The rider ahead slowed. Conway took cover off the trail. Stormracer picked his way carefully through the undergrowth, well aware that stealth was necessary.

  Conway worried that the dogs had been seen.

  The leather-clad man shouted something. Conway couldn’t catch the words, but the voice pitched upward, questioning.

  More shouting answered from farther up the mountain. Then there were hoofbeats, running, and a yell of alarm from the man Conway followed. Moments later, a riderless mount thundered past Conway.

  A nudge sent Stormracer moving quickly through the trees. Conway drew the wipe. Muting the clatter of working parts, he eased a round into the wipe chamber and thumbed off the safety.

  Conway spotted the ambush site from a distance. A tumble of rocks uphill overlooked the wide swath scoured by an avalanche some years past. Reclaiming growth was generally only chest-high, affording an unusually long view for this country. By moving farther downhill, Conway was able to cross the avalanche path below the line of vision of the two riders heading downhill to meet the leather-clad third man. Conway moved swiftly, picking his way along the back side of the rock formation, then dismounting to scramble up to a vantage point only a few yards from the trio.

  The two men had triggered the ambush far too early. All three stared at an object on the ground. One was afoot. He was tall, dressed in brown homespun. He poked at the thing with his bow. The other two remained mounted. The one in leather fumed.

  “Otraz, I told you to give him a chance to surrender. You shot without warning. You ambushed corn.”

  The mounted one, wearing rooster feathers, looked sick. He said, “It looked like a man, Lolal. It’s even got a face. With a nose.”

  Almost absently, Lolal lashed out with the back of his hand The smaller man reeled in his saddle. When he straightened, he aimed an arrow, drawn to the head. Trembling at the strain of holding the bow poised, he breathed in tight, rasping gulps.

  “I doubt you could hit me.” Only Lolal’s lips moved. “That dummy full of corn didn’t come up this trail by itself. Someone’s following it. Get back down the trail. Find him.”

  Otraz, still on foot, said, “Kill him, Nar. No man hits one of us.”

  Lolal remained unflustered. “Put that thing down. The man who tricked you could be watching us already.”

  “Nar, he’s trying to frighten you, like some milk-mouthed boy. Are you going to let him do it?”

  Nar pulled the arrow to full draw again. Lolal ignored him. “That’s it, Otraz. When we get back, I settle with you. Out beyond the tents. Or you can whine for the scout group leader, if you’d rather. Up to you. Nar, stop fooling around before someone jumps on all of us.”

  Conway almost missed Otraz’s treacherous stroke. The tall man moved forward as if to mount, then looked down the trail. He jerked fully erect, pointed. Like Lolal, Conway looked to see the cause of alarm. Otraz’s movement stopped him. A quick step put the tall man uphill of Lolal. With his left hand, Otraz lifted the skirt of Lolal’s jacket. The knife in Otraz’s righthand glittered up and into the exposed side. Conway had time to think of a shining dragonfly’s wing cutting the sunlight before Lolal twisted away. His shocked agony echoed through the trees. Yanking the reins, he spurred his horse. Startled, it reared. Lolal tumbled off its rump. Something cracked, loud. After some sharp spasms, the man was still. The only sound was the nervous stamping of the horse that threw him.

  Disbelief tightened Nar’s voice to a boyish tremolo. “You killed him. What if someone’s coming? What’ll we do?”

  Otraz blustered, unnaturally loud. His face was red. “Whoever sent this ahead is way back, or we’d have heard by now. Help me move Lolal. We’ll be ready when they get here.”

  Nar continued to stare at the sprawled figure. “You killed him. You move him. I’ll get the dummy.”

  Scornfully, Otraz said, “No, you didn’t kill him. Barely brave enough to kill that slave’s old woman, weren’t you? Give me a hand, boy.”

  Nar turned red, then white. He raised his bow, drew the arrow.

  Otraz backed up a step. “All right, I got excited. You get the dummy. I’ll get Lolal. But hurry up.”

  Nar turned to put away his weapon, and Otraz was on him instantly. The knife flashed again as Otraz hauled the smaller man out of the saddle. Nar struggled to break free. Otraz struck and struck long after Nar was still. One last, vindictive slash cut the smaller man’s throat. Nar dropped on his face. The rooster feathers fluttered gaily in the sunshine.

  Otraz wiped the blade clean on Nar’s leg and replaced it in its sheath.

  A tremendous racket broke out back down the trail. Otraz leapt into his saddle. He hesitated, making tentative moves toward the packhorse, just now trotting into view. More loud roaring decided Otraz. He spurred his horse away.

  Moments later, Conway’s dogs appeared. They came hurriedly, looking back, heads and tails down. A bear appeared at the edge of the brush, rose on her hind legs, and squalled threats. Her cubs crept up to watch in silent awe.

  Conway assured the crestfallen dogs no harm was done. The bear, in apparent agreement, dropped to all fours and huffed her offspring back into the trees.

  Two nomad horses thrashed and crashed about in the brush, snagged by dragging reins. Conway got them and the packhorse under control. Ignoring the bodies, he tied off the dummy’s punctured shirt, then scooped up the spilled corn and repacked it. Half smiling, he discarded the smashed round basket that had been the figure’s head. Slinging the bundle across one of the nomad horses, he was preparing to lead them to Stormracer when a sound checked him.

  Lolal was watching.

  Conway leapt. “I thought you were dead.”

  Lolal winced. “Not yet. You saw? Otraz? Nar?” He fought for the words, but delivered them with surprising clarity.

  “Otraz ran. The boy’s dead.”

  “Moonpriest says we die for him, we go to the moon, wait for him there. Hope so. Want to see Otraz again.” He closed his eyes, then, “You not Kossiar.”

  Conway started to tell him he was nothing, a man alone.

  Dreamily, Lolal opened his eyes. He managed a half smile. “Con Way. White Thunder. They said you lived.”

  “Who said that?”

  Lolal ignored him. “Dummy. Decoy. You behind. Smart. Moonpriest said.”

  “We heard there was a new siah.”

  “The Siah. Make us strong. Many peoples. Moondance siah. Knew you. Other life. Told us. You go. North. He forgive. Be one us. Kill. Kill all.”

  “Knew me?” Conway sat down beside the man. There were only two men alive who knew him in an “other life.” “Jones? His name is Jones?”

  “Moonpriest.” It was a rasping exhalation
/>   “He has a scar. Big. Over his ear.”

  “Tur-ban.”

  Conway said, “It’s him.”

  Lolal sighed. His muscles loosened. Ropey tendons in his neck relaxed, his cheeks drooped. Slowly, gently, he smiled. A wonder of happiness flooded the cruel, hard features. “Moondance conquers. Live forever.”

  It was a long time before Conway moved again, so long that his knees cracked angrily when he rose. Even so, he finished the conversation with his dead companion. “I’ve already lived forever, you fool, and I’m sick of it. North’s as good a direction as any. As long as it’s away from Church.”

  Chapter 39

  Conway sat with his back to the cliff wall and watched the broken line of dismounted nomad warriors advance up the hill. Dust billowed softly in their wake, smoking up from the sun-mottled floor of the thick forest. Below them, a mountain stream crashed through a narrow gorge in a jumble of ever-changing greens spangled with silver and diamonds. Where the water shattered into spray, miniature rainbows dazzled and collapsed almost before the eye registered them.

  The men themselves—Conway counted twenty—added color of their own. Dressed for war, they flaunted bright headbands, multicolored shields garishly painted faces. Some wore monstrous masks designed to protect the wearer from the weapons of any opponent not terrified into fleeing.

  Working a round into the boop, Conway couldn’t help admiring the savage beauty of the scene. The sheen of exposed arrowheads and bared swords, plus knowing he was the quarry, added immediacy.

  When the line was about a hundred yards distant, Conway rose. He raised both hands in a sun sign, thumbs and forefingers joined at the tip, fingers splayed. After he was sure all had seen him, he cupped his hands to his mouth to shout, “I come in peace! To meet Moonpriest.”

  One man ran downhill toward the party’s tethered horses. Riding one, leading two, he returned. Only then did Conway realize the nomad search line was gone. Of the twenty men he’d counted earlier, only three were still visible, including the man bringing the horses. The trio mounted made sun signs, and advanced at a walk.

  Conway whistled to the dogs to remain hidden, then called Stormracer to him. If then nomad wanted to speak from horseback, Conway wasn’t going to be afoot. The pinto packhorse, firmly hobbled, made a halfhearted effort to follow Stormracer, then stopped, hipshot, resigned to being left.

  Watching the advancing warriors, Conway’s mind flew back to western movies, films that were antique long before he was born. This was a cowboy flick gone mad. The lone rider watched the war party coming to parley; with that, all similarity ended. One of this war party wore a hammered brass breastplate, golden in the sun. Another carried a curved sword that looked like something from the even-more-ancient Arabian Nights. The center man, leader of the trio, wore a black and white spotted skunk hat and leather body armor. He also sported elaborately beaded leather forearm covers that extended from wrist to elbow. Polished steel bands ribbed their length. A painted eye glared in the middle of his forehead.

  The leader stopped a few feet in front of Conway. “Who are you? What are you doing on the Windband’s land?”

  “I come to see Moonpriest. I am Matt Conway.”

  The two subordinates rose in their stirrups, exclaiming wordlessly. The leader’s eyes widened. Conway went on, “I circled your camp last night, then came up here to wait for you. I knew you’d find my tracks and follow. What are your names?”

  “They call me Copper Shirt. The man on my right is Watches Clouds. The other is Stonethrower. We are Buffalo Eaters. Moonpriest says you have turned against him.”

  “I’m his friend.”

  “Moonpriest has no friends. Moonpriest is holy.”

  Conway gave a minute shrug. “Whatever makes you comfortable. Take me to him.”

  Watches Clouds spurred his horse forward, leaned over to speak in Copper Shirt’s ear. The leader spoke to Conway. “Moonpriest has said that if the White Thunder or the Black Lightning will come, he will talk. You must give us your weapons.”

  Smiling crookedly, Conway said, “I can’t do that.”

  “You must.” Copper Shirt’s hand dropped to the handle of his sword.

  Conway aimed the wipe at the nomad’s chest. He said, “Are you so ready to die?”

  Copper Shirt looked from the black hole of the muzzle to Conway’s eyes. “No.”

  Conway was shocked by the equanimity of the answer. Copper Shirt clearly believed Conway could and would kill him. The man simply accepted dying as inevitable, natural, no more than light or darkness. Given that power over death, a man was free to dismiss it.

  Conway remembered how Lolal died praising Moondance, sure of going to a better place to await reunion with his master. Copper Shirt believed. So must hundreds of Windband warriors.

  Something stirred in the back of Conway’s consciousness, a swirl of reaction too tentative for him to grasp. It could have been respect. Or revulsion. Envy. Hope?

  Copper Shirt said, “No one has to die over the weapons. Now Moonpriest will decide. Another thing must be talked about. You come from the south. Three of our scouts are late returning from there. Did you see them?”

  Conway said, “The Otraz one killed Lolal and Nar. He left them.”

  Copper Shirt looked Conway in the eye, not challenging, but clearly warning. “I see Lolal’s horse. I wondered how you got it. You say Otraz lives?”

  “Yes.”

  Copper Shirt nodded. “Otraz is a Salt. Bad people.” He smiled suddenly. “We’ll see him again, I think.” Conway thought he detected something covert in Copper Shirt’s manner, as if there was a joke being played on the stranger. It was very irritating.

  The silver whistle’s silent signal brought Karda and Mikka in a sprint. Skidding to a stop, they stood looking at Copper Shirt. It was an impressive entry, and Conway bared a knowing smile of his own at the way Copper Shirt’s knuckles whitened on the reins.

  * * *

  Moonpriest stood on the lowest copper step of the moon altar. His white robe was actually several layers of diaphanous material. Webbed with a random silver thread that caught the blazing sun, it glowed when the breeze made it stir and billow. The white turban featured a polished silver moon disk centered in front.

  Katallon had carefully formed the mass of people in a semicircle that flanked and backed their siah. Fox and a group of his Mountain warriors patrolled to hold back any overenthusiastic spectators. It was an easy task; the Mountains, despite being the smallest tribal group making up Windband, were universally deferred to. They brought Moonpriest to Katallon’s Windband. They helped Moonpriest build the whirling, shining altar that snapped lives away in a flash of blue fire. They also fought exceedingly well.

  Windband’s people were drawn up in quartermoon configuration on a flat plain in the foothills of the Enemy Mountains. Behind the crowd, the heart-colored tent of Katallon dominated the haphazard scatter of smaller shelters. Moonpriest’s tent was subordinate to Katallon’s massiveIy symbolic construction. Nevertheless, the eye sought the white material.

  Conway first glimpsed that snowy brilliance on the descent from the mountains. His first thought was pure. He imagined whispers of cool shade and mysteries of things seen and not understood, of things believed and yet unseen.

  When Conway looked away, it pulled him back. A pricking nervousness made him squirm in his saddle.

  Another word sprang to his mind. Seductive.

  Now Conway had arrived on a slight rise within a quarter-mile of the camp’s edges. In the farther distance, other camps scattered separately along the wide valley’s green grasslands.

  Boys flanked Conway’s escorting Buffalo Eater scouts. When the youngsters got too close, a warrior would chase after them, using his lance as a club, belaboring his victim about the head and shoulders. Bloodied, half-dazed, the wounded fled to rejoin their less-foolhardy comrades and brag of their exploit.

  As the escorting Buffalo Eaters reached the horns of the formation, t
hey halted and remained in place. The patrolling Mountains joined them. The high-spirited boys and their eye-rolling, excited mounts raced all the way around the crowd to watch events from the back side. Soon Conway was advancing alone. When he was ten yards from Moonpriest, an unseen signal initiated a ceremonial greeting. The entire mass of people hummed. High, low, middle notes flowed together. The curvature of the formation focused the sound at the point where Conway, Stormracer, the dogs, and Moonpriest stood alone. Conway’s insides tightened under the pressure of so much life-force channeled directly at him.

  Stormracer pranced, ears back, angry and frightened. Karda and Mikka stood with legs braced, heads swaying in confused search for a source of danger. They settled on Moonpriest. Staring, lips trembling with repressed snarls, they challenged him to move.

  Moonpriest ignored them, beaming a smile of welcoming pleasure at Conway.

  The chorus faded to silence.

  Karda and Mikka threw back their heads and howled. Proud, powerful, the voices swelled to the distant hills and echoed. Moonpriest bent backward, away from the raised muzzles.

  Like the people, the animals stopped without warning or flourish. They seemed to expect praise, and Conway lavished it on them, telling them what fine singers they were, and how wonderfully they’d greeted their host.

  Irritation washed across Moonpriest’s face. Still, he greeted Conway affably. “It’s been quite a while, old friend. I’ve missed you.”

  Conway said, “Thank you for the welcome. It’s good to see you again. You look well.”

  “Getting by, Matt; getting by. One does what one can. These are my people. My scouts told you I’m their siah? I’m a god.”

  Plain, ordinary tone notwithstanding, madness cloaked this strange, altered man so palpably that Conway had the sensation that if he reached to touch him, his hand would mire in gelatinous, clinging ooze.