Witch: The Moondark Saga, Books 7-9 (The Moondark Saga Boxed Sets Book 3)

by Don McQuinn

  “All the ammunition. Not a happy thought, exactly. When it runs out, the Black Lightning and the White Thunder are just a couple of bozos lost in the wrong world.”

  Tate laughed, shook a warning finger. “Speak for yourself. This world or that, nobody calls Donnacee bozo. Now let’s get busy. That torch’s getting low. We better find a hidey-hole for this stuff.”

  The westering sun was low when they stepped outside. Near-dusk softened the rolling lands stretching eastward, suffused late fall’s cool gray with a blue that suggested iron and steel. Unspeaking, Conway and Tate reached out to each other. Hands gripped, withdrew. Conway’s dogs trotted to rejoin him.

  Lost in thought, Conway and Tate moved downhill in companionable silence. Suddenly, Tate stopped. Her head went up, alert. Incongruously, Conway’s surprise at her manner was blunted by a sudden incongruous awareness of her attractiveness. Curiously tilted eyes swept the forest, bright, lively. High cheekbones accented the full mouth, now downcurved with stern intent. Her hair was an ebon frame for features done in rich, dark tones. Beauty and grace surmounted the blunt, ugly wipe in her hands.

  “Did you hear it?” She continued to seek, turning. Conway looked to the dogs. They were alert, disturbed. He listened with more purpose.

  Music. The flute, melodic; haunting delicacy drifted through the forest.

  “Where’s it coming from?” Hair prickled on Conway’s neck.

  Tate set off down the hill again. “I don’t know. But it complicates the problem of hiding anything, doesn’t it?”

  The music stopped in midphrase. The abrupt silence stung like scornful laughter.

  Chapter 26

  Lanta was pleased to be distant from the others and their secretive muttering. She felt a certain resentment at being so completely left out, but consoled herself that the discussion was probably religious.

  Her mood darkened as evening’s cold seeped into her bones. The memory of the Seeing crowded into her consciousness. Twice now the Seeing warned her about Matt Conway. It told her she and Conway could be one. That should have been joy. Instead, the message carried menace.

  The return of the dogs from a routine patrol of the area underscored the melancholy thread of her thoughts. They came in slowly, almost reluctantly. Both animals flopped down and curled up right away, pretending sleep. Twitching ears and bright nervous eyes betrayed them. Lanta sympathized, even as she smiled at them. She wondered if she was so obvious.

  Tate’s voice ended Lanta’s self-involvement. “I apologize for the way we’ve been excluding you. I hate it, but we don’t have any choice. Please understand.”

  “We’ve talked about it before. All tribes have their secrets. Church teaches us to accept what we can.”

  “What if you can’t accept something?”

  Worry tainted the question, made it more than intellectual curiosity. Lanta was careful to disguise her awareness of the fact. “Custom that causes no harm can be accepted. Pain of any kind cannot. We try to show it can be avoided.” She rose, and the two women walked together in the night. Tantalizingly close stars glittered overhead. The dogs lay back-to-back just outside the shelter entrance. Both great heads rose briefly, then settled, wreathed in a white fog of chilled breath. A horse snorted, creating another small cloud, this one swift and boiling, dissipating so quickly the eye wondered if it truly saw.

  Lanta felt Tate’s controlled inner pressures. Intuition told her that whatever was troubling Tate, it was something to be shared between them. Alone. And it likely had nothing to do with religion.

  Tate’s words confirmed the insight. False unconcern beribboned the words. “We always end up trying to show them the right way, don’t we? Men, I mean. Women do. Oh, you know.”

  “It’s always been that way. And it’s never worked.” Lanta was surprised by Tate’s hastily hidden look of dismay. She laughed nervously and hurried to cover the potential awkwardness. “I’ve always admired how frankly you speak to men. The people of your culture treat women with more respect than any I know, even the Dog People.”

  “Independence isn’t always easy. Or helpful.”

  “And I complicated yours by insisting on accompanying Matt Conway while you left Nalatan in Ola.”

  “Never think that.” Tate stopped, faced Lanta. “I was upset when you showed up, that’s for sure, but what happens between Nalatan and me is entirely our doing.”

  “I want to be part of what happens to Nalatan and you. I’d like to be one of the friends who helps make you both happy.”

  White breath added poignancy to Tate’s resigned sigh. “It’s the stupid honor thing again. I know Nalatan trusts me with Conway, but I’m afraid someone back there’ll say something stupid. He could get hurt.”

  “I’d worry about who offends him. He’ll be fine.”

  Lanta resumed walking. Tate fell in beside. Although the forest was parklike, with very little undergrowth, it was so dark that trees had a disconcerting ability to materialize directly in one’s path. Tate said, “I can’t imagine ever coming back here again.”

  Shocked, Lanta said nothing. Holy sites demanded attention, repeated rites. Foreboding scratched across Lanta’s surprise. Was Tate really trying to say the trip, the site, was a ruse? If so, what of Leclerc and the mysterious, wonderful things he made? He never spoke of religion. Even the alien women who joined Church accepted ritual, participated in observances—and said nothing more than required.

  Magic avoided religion.

  Tate said, “I’m ashamed for being so nasty when we found you, back there. You did the right thing. I should have said so then.”

  “You think so?” Lanta seized the change of subject gladly, yet puzzled as to where it was leading. “Has Matt said so?”

  “He’d tell you long before he’d tell me, honey,” Tate said dryly. “The thing is, I hear what he means and I hear what he says. They’re not the same, exactly.”

  “I don’t see…”

  “Men have their own language. Should, too. They think they think. It’s like Nalatan; he’s not as worried about his own honor as he is mine. He won’t want to walk away from someone who insults him, but he can do it. If someone insults me, he’ll take it a lot harder. Same thing with Conway. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I know he feels he hurt you, and he knows you’re unsure of him. He can’t let himself push himself on you. In his mind you have to come to him.”

  Lanta leaned against a tree trunk. “If he loved me, he’d ask me how I feel, tell me how he feels. We’d talk.”

  Tate laughed softly, the warm sympathy gentle against the unhappy tenor of the conversation and the growing cold of the night. “You and Conway are like you and me, right now—bumbling around in the dark. None of these trees is going to reach out and whack us, and even if we bang into one, we’re not going to do ourselves serious damage. So we make progress, but we’re walking very, very carefully. Maybe you and Matt are being too careful, Lanta. You two hit a tree. You’ve got to get past that. How can I help?”

  “Just be Donnacee. Be my friend.”

  “You drive a hard bargain.” Tate chuckled, then, “Maybe you can help me when I have to deal with Nalatan. That’s going to be one fast dance.”

  “I’m not sure I understand what you mean about dancing, but I’ll do whatever I can.”

  “I hurt him a lot.”

  “Remember what you told me. It’s going to be all right.”

  “Long as we stick together.” Tate extended an arm, gave her small friend a quick hug. They were back at the shelter by then. “We better get inside. Conway’ll think we’re out here talking about him.”

  Sleep came surprisingly easy for Lanta. She woke with a start, however, eliciting fuzzy complaint from Tate, whose eyes remained firmly closed. Lanta made her way outside where Conway was on watch. In the intense predawn darkness he blended with the rock he sat against, differentiated only by the thin wisps of condensed breath. The dogs lay beside him. Noses buried in harsh fur, they gave off no t
elltale clouds.

  Conway gestured her forward. In deference to Tate, he whispered. “Early as always. Go back in. I’ll wake you.”

  “I’m awake. I have morning prayers. Anyhow, I enjoy sunrise.”

  He laughed. “Me too. I just hate getting up.”

  “You’d make a poor Chosen. Our Abbess would have switched you until you were glad to get up.”

  “Switched? All you little girls?”

  “Of course. It was the way. Sylah won’t allow it in the Iris Abbey. The Violet Abbess says that’s another of her sins.”

  “And that’s why you wake up before dawn every morning? Because someone whipped you into it as a child?”

  “Because I greet the rise of the sun. Because I believe in why I greet the sun. Perhaps the threat of punishment made it nature for me to wake early. I don’t know. But my prayers are not a trick to deceive the Abbess. You insult.” Lanta felt she should be able to see the cruel silence between them, ugly and raw.

  Conway apologized. “I’m sorry. The thought of someone striking you angered me.”

  “The memory angers me still. I blame the Abbess and the Chosen system, however, not the One in All. Surely you understand. Your religion makes you do things that trouble me. You say you came here in the face of great danger, to perform a deed to help Sylah and Church. You say it’s a religious matter and I accept that, but there’s more. I feel it.”

  “I want to tell you.” He started so urgently, then stopped so abruptly it frightened Lanta. She held her breath. When he spoke again, his whisper was just audible. “You know so much about me, and understand so little. You understand so much, and know so little. How do I balance those things? How do I explain me?”

  “Why do you feel you must?” Lanta got to her feet. Cold muscles and tendons ground against each other like dry rope. Once erect, she felt better. She made her way uphill to her prayer vantage.

  The rest of the morning’s preparations went smoothly. Neither Conway nor Lanta referred to their exchange. In fact, she found him unusually cheerful. He joked easily with Tate, wrestled with the dogs. He talked eagerly of finishing their “chore” as he put it, and getting started for Ola.

  It pleased Conway that no one asked him why he felt particularly chipper. Lanta’s question still chimed in his ears: “Why do you feel you must?” It had the simplicity of genius. Why, indeed? And if there was no need to explain himself in the present, why should he even think about explaining his past? True, Lanta’s Seeing made her aware of some of the horrors of the world he’d escaped, but he was part of this one now. The new Matt Conway was a better man. Flawed, but a good man. One who deserved a good life.

  He was whistling to himself, a thin, tuneless noise as he and Tate started for the cave.

  Tate said, “You never told Lanta we heard more flute music yesterday. Why not?”

  “Why trouble her?”

  “Because she ought to know.”

  Conway pursed his lips judiciously, then, “The watcher was by the crèche, not the shelter. Close, in spite of Karda and Mikka. If whoever it is wanted to harm us, we’d know. Anyhow, you could have told her yourself.”

  Tate considered that retort, visibly irritated. Then, “What about the equipment?”

  “I’ll have the dogs keep our flute player away long enough to do the job. Then we collapse the cave. If we hustle, we can make it to the valley by dark.”

  When they arrived, the forbidding aura of the cave was unchanged. Tate complained, “Is it me, or is the air in here worse? It’s like inhaling mud.”

  “I’m puffing, too. I thought it was from the climb up here, but now I think it’s this dust we’re stirring up.”

  Tate lifted a wipe, brandished it. “It can’t be dust. The place has gotten clammy since we left. I think we’re just out of shape.”

  In spite of himself, Conway snapped response. “I must be in really bad condition, then, because my eyes hurt, too.”

  “Don’t yell at me.”

  Conway knew he should break off the staring match, knew his infantile petulance was wrong. Dangerous. She spun away, snatching up an armload of wipes. Embarrassment flooded over him. Perversely, he remained silent.

  It was all very confusing. Even his coordination seemed to work against him. Clumsiness was a function of the miserable light conditions, he decided. He gathered up a load of weapons and followed Tate outside. Dense clouds, barely clearing the mountaintops, made the day gray and dull. Even so, it was so much more welcoming than the cave that something like euphoria lifted him. Then, crushingly, depression weighed in, made him want to abandon the entire project. It took a strong exercise of will to continue.

  On reaching the narrow crevice where they meant to stow the weapons, Tate dumped hers with a careless clatter. “This is really dumb; Moonpriest’s never coming back here. What’s it to us if he does? Who cares, anyhow?”

  “Me. You, too. How do you know what Moonpriest’ll do? Come on, we’ve got work to do.”

  Tate glared. Her concentration failed quickly. The angry gaze wandered off.

  The remainder of the morning passed in similar fashion, but the biting exchanges grew fewer. Much later, Conway wiped a film of greasy, unpleasant sweat from his upper lip as he deposited the last load of wipes. Simultaneously, he noted how heavily Tate perspired. They were ridiculously tired. Extracting the bolts from the weapons in order to hide them separately should have been nothing. Instead, it was demanding.

  Outside, the dogs worked hard, practically running away to obey every search command. Conway berated them anyhow. He couldn’t remember them ever looking so nervous. Hangdog, he thought; they look hangdog. He yelled at them to search. Shouting at their departing forms, he told them to get some spirit. The effort made him cough. That, in turn, made him even angrier.

  Removing the ammunition and the bulk of the Hy-Pex dragged. Setting the remainder of the explosive and the Aunt Sallys to collapse the cave became a comedy of errors, albeit one that garnered no laughter. Tate confessed her schooling in demolition was rudimentary. Conway’s was nonexistent. Bickering constantly, fumbling sensitive blasting caps with the intense ineptitude of drunks, they finally determined the burning time of the fuse and actually attached it to a blasting cap without blowing themselves apart. By the time they inserted the cap into a block of Hy-Pex and stacked the supply of Aunt Sallys on top of the demolition charge, both ran rivers of sweat. Conway found himself rubbing burning, watering eyes constantly. Carelessly, he dropped the waning torch to the floor of the cave. It bounced, rolled toward the mound of explosives and rockets. He leaped for it, startled by his uncoordinated floundering. Tate’s best drill-field expletives soared. He picked up the coil of fuse, unwinding it as he walked toward daylight.

  They ignited it with a torch. The irony of that primitive tool initiating an irreversible closure of his connection with the world of his birth hammered Conway. Tate seemed to feel the same. Tears welled in dark, troubled eyes as the sizzling flame sputtered down the length of the shiny orange cord.

  The dogs loped into view. Conway yelled at them to come running. He directed them to shelter and made them lie down. Ashamed of careless neglect that could have killed them, he avoided looking to see Tate’s reaction.

  The blast was anticlimactic. The ground heaved. A fierce storm of dirt and dust shot from the entry, followed very quickly by a hard, brittle crack. Then came a deep, resonant rumble. A billowing, tumbling wall of dirty gray smoke and debris rolled out. As if cut by a knife, it was reduced to nothing by the collapse of the roof at the entrance. Deep inside the mountain thundered the muffled boom of ongoing destruction.

  “It’s collapsed,” Tate said. “It’s over. All gone. Everything’s gone.” She wept facedown on the ground. Clawed fingers dug into the gritty soil. Conway thought of a mourner, sprawled across the body of a lost loved one. He wanted to join her. To rest. His stomach rolled menacingly.

  “Get up.” He spoke roughly. “We have work. Then you can cry.” Rath
er than the poisonous anger he anticipated, Tate merely pulled herself to her knees. Unsteady but determined, she rose, put one dogged foot ahead of the other.

  Conway couldn’t remember working so hard. His joints ached, his muscles were like molasses. Covering the smaller cache of working parts was challenge. Hiding the larger crevice holding wipes and Hy-Pex was devastating. It required large boulders to close and disguise the gap. Piled up small rocks would literally shout for investigation.

  Twice, both had to stop and seek privacy, where they were violently ill. Speculation about what could be the cause was listless, as if they spoke of strangers.

  A massive slab to cover everything was the finishing touch. Blood and sweat from barked knuckles, torn palms, and stressed bodies stained it. At last, it balanced delicately, ready to be lowered into place. Conway said, “Hold what you’ve got, right there. I’m changing my grip; I’ll lower it when you’re clear.”

  Shuffling around, Conway positioned himself. “Let go.” Tate stepped away, brushing her forehead with the back of her hand. Conway thought he saw her sway. “Another step,” he said. The slab pulled at him. “If it gets away from me, it might break off splinters. Stand clear.” Tate did as ordered, expressionless.

  Conway edged the stone forward. It had to set just right or rain and snowmelt would get past it, ruining the weapons. The weight of it drew his strength, sucked the wind out of his lungs.

  “Watch! It’s slipping this way.” Tate reached to redirect the weight. Missed.

  The stone’s momentum overwhelmed Conway. It dropped onto Tate’s outstretched hands. She screamed, a thin lance of sound, drenched with pain.

  The stone tilted. The crushing edge rose. Tate fell backward, sat down. Moaning, rocking, she folded her body over the mangled hands. Conway rushed to her.

  Crooning a rising, falling melody of hurt, she held out her injury. The skin was badly ripped. No bone showed. When he reached to touch her, however, she hissed and jerked away. “Lanta. Get me to Lanta. She’ll know.”

  “I’ll help you up.”