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

by Don McQuinn

  “Prisoner.” Anspach voiced their fear. “Just one.”

  Tate said, “We can save whoever it is down there. Quickly, quickly.”

  They lifted the triangular airfoil. Tate hurriedly inspected lashings, condition of the cloth, the underslung bar. Wind caught the material. It pulled eagerly. Carter said, “It’s like a huge bird, ruffling its feathers.” Then, after a momentary pause, “You can do it, Donnacee. I know you can.”

  Lanta and Anspach echoed her encouragement.

  Between the edge of the forest and the bluff was a narrow strip of weedy growth. It was just wide enough for the hang glider to pass. Tate said, “I have to run north, into the wind to launch. Here goes.”

  Gunfire stopped her first step. She stumbled to a halt, turned to look south with the others. Hidden in the trees of the bluff, revealed only by a faint flash of muzzle blast, someone fired at the beach.

  A fierce, throat-ripping war cry split the night.

  Tate stiffened, fists at her sides. “No. No, Nalatan, don’t. No.” It was full of resignation and guilt and plea.

  Furious shouting boiled up in the night. Metal clashed, the unmistakable impact of sword on sword. A man screamed. Through his agony came the ring and scrape of steel battering steel again, another man shouting. The initial screaming faded to weak cries for help. Then the sword duel stopped.

  Nalatan’s voice pierced awesome silence. “Where is the coward, Lorso? Run away so soon?”

  The wipe cracked.

  Nalatan called again, “Lorso. My friend of the lightning weapon just took another of your men skulking in their driftwood fort. They can’t help you. Come, show them what sort of man you are. If you are.”

  Tate ran, raising the point of the hang glider. Turned. Off the edge.

  Fell. Fell.

  With the sound of shuttering collapse, the black wedge was a diminishing scar across moonlight-gleaming beach. Carter gasped. Anspach clutched her. Lanta spoke. “Up.” She barked the word, amazingly deep and demanding from the tiny frame. “Get up, you bewitched rag. Don’t you fail her. Don’t you dare.”

  Wind gusted. Caught the hang glider as Tate twisted into a southern turn. The material fluttered loudly. Anspach whispered, “She’s coming back this way. Steady.”

  Carter said, “You’re breaking my ribs. Yes, she’s going to do it. She is.”

  Now Lanta was silent. Only she knew that if she opened her mouth, it would be to cry for happiness.

  Tate pulled and pushed and jerked herself around under the noisy, swooping wing. The providential increased wind gave her lift when she needed it most. From behind, it gave her speed she was hard-pressed to handle. She strained to discover exactly what the situation was on the beach. Where Nalatan was.

  Everything was shadows. Moonlight made varied blacknesses, cast a weird shimmer over wet beach and sea. The world was a shifting ambiguity.

  Small boats headed for the sharkers. One was turned back. From above, Tate heard conversation with magical clarity. “Slavetaker is not insulted by landscum. Slavetaker’s men are not forced to die like pigs in a pen.”

  “It’s a trap, Lorso. They’ll send the lightning at us.”

  “We’ve seen the lightning thing miss. They won’t chance killing their friend.” The small boat was almost on the beach. A man leaped out. Another man rushed to meet him in the water. Nalatan.

  From Tate’s view point, the match was a hideous uncertainty, a conspiracy of light and movement that revealed only peril. She saw, and did not—could not—see.

  She dropped the nose of the hang glider. It closed on the struggling pair.

  Tate brought the wipe to bear. The men were too close. Hand-to-hand, knee-deep in the surging, glistening water. Grunting, panting exertion came to Tate as the straining of beasts.

  Too fast. Tate plummeted. Too steep. She let the wipe hang by its sling, hauled up the nose of the hang glider, circled out to sea. Low, fast, she skimmed toward the sharkers. Terrified shouts marked her approach. Her passage overhead left a howling chorus in is wake. She banked so low individual rocks glinted at her, beaconlike. She swept down the beach, suddenly filled with a joyous power. From the corner of her eye, she was aware of ore muzzle flashes. The alternating sounds of wipe and boop seemed an exotic, arrhythmic music sent to celebrate her strength. Away from Nalatan and his foe, men ran and screamed. Some charged headlong into the sea. The men in the last small boat paddled furiously toward shore, calling a name.

  One of the pair struggling in the water staggered, retreated toward land. He dropped to his knees.

  Nalatan. Nalatan.

  Tate was sure.

  The enemy raised his sword. The small boat was almost on them.

  The murdat was in Tate’s grip. She screamed, a primal, hating challenge. The man attempting to kill Nalatan turned at the sound. Tate had time to marvel at his ferocity; he moved to strike, not avoid, the apparition streaking at him.

  Leaning out and down, Tate slashed. The murdat bit hard. She almost dropped it. The hang glider shuddered, seemed to hesitate.

  She was past, falling to her right, looking at the black, reaching sea. For a sickening instant she had a sense of demand from that expressionless void, as though she’d taken something from it, and payment must be made.

  Fear generated overcompensation. The hang glider whipped sharply landward. She crashed into the piled driftwood. Laminated bamboo absorbed enough impact to prevent her serious injury. She tumbled free, running, calling Nalatan’s name.

  He answered. It was the finest, bravest, most wonderful of sounds. Only then did she acknowledge the battle continuing around her. Up ahead, Gan roared orders, exhorted. Wolf howls echoed from the bluffs; they were shabby, exhausted squalls, but they carried victory. From the sea, frightened voices called names and shouted querulous orders. A wipe blasted. Tate wondered who fired. And who was the prisoner. And if that prisoner still lived.

  A small group retreated shoreward, splashing through water almost to the waist. Whoever fired the wipe covered the retreat. The last of the small boats was almost to the sharkers. Three of the latter, oars sculling lightly, were already turned north. One drifted, abandoned. Fire in her bowels illuminated the sail.

  Closer now, Tate saw a figure supported in the midst of the shore-bound group. Calling Nalatan, she ran faster. Someone broke into an answering run, answering shouts. Nalatan. Calling her name. Coming to her.

  The indomitable warrior and daredevil fell into the needed, needing embrace of her husband and cried like a child.

  Those nearby, some wounded, all bone-weary, each battle-tested, saw that Nalatan, that deadly man, wept as well. Conway, whose own throat was unaccountably restricted all of a sudden, noted how no one found it opportune to laugh at this deplorable unmasculinity.

  * * *

  Dawn came gray-cold under sodden cover that left no horizon. At the foot of the bluff, the remains of a driftwood pyre marked the resting place of the dead, foes no longer.

  A smaller fire blazed in the center of the gathering on the high ground. Men sprawled, sleeping where they fell. Carter and Anspach drifted among the wounded, murmuring encouragement, assurance. With most of the human damage under control, they insisted Lanta join her husband. The three couples huddled close to the flames with Gan, finally able to review the night’s events.

  Gan spoke across weariness, the words almost slurred. “If the Three Territories survives, we owe any success to Louis Leclerc. And you, Kate Bernhardt. I’ll forever thank the One in All for your survival.”

  Bernhardt blushed, inclined her head toward Leclerc. “He’s the one. He made us store everything in his bunker, made me stay in there with it. I’m sorry we lost some catapults. But without Emso’s warning, we’d have been completely surprised. The Wolves he sent bought us the time to save the other weapons.”

  Leclerc wore a large bandage on his head. He smiled wanly. “It’s been a night of heroes. You can’t imagine what it was like, lying in that boat, knowing I
was about to be a slave. Even after Nalatan killed their leader, I was a goner if the rest of you hadn’t dragged me free. I’ll never be able to thank you enough.” Despite heavy robes and the fire, he shivered violently. Bernhardt pressed closer to him. He smiled appreciation, managing to look sheepish at the same time.

  Tightly, Conway said, “The books, man. You saved them, too?”

  The question offended Bernhardt. She answered tartly, “They’re buried under the floor of the bunker, even safe from fire. Louis insisted.”

  Conway continued. “The red one, as well?”

  That brought Leclerc’s head up sharply. “With the others. Why so interested in that one?”

  In truth, Conway’s response was the product of fear. That book’s lists of dead people and places was almost a talisman. It symbolized a self Conway barely remembered and missed as one mourns an alienated brother. He mouthed phrases to dismiss the matter.

  While that was going on, Tate turned within her husband’s encircling arm to whisper up to him. She deliberately sat on his right. His left eye was a mere slit. Looking like a poisonous flower, a swollen red centered bruise disfigured that whole half of his face. She said, “See Kate and Louis sitting so close? The way they look at each other? They learned something, ‘Tan. We’ve got a romance on our hands.”

  His smile was perfunctory. His speech was odd, altered by the battered jaw. “There are things we have to talk about. Rumors. Accusations. When there’s time.”

  She squeezed his hand. “I know what’s been said. I love you. That’s all that counts.”

  Nalatan shook his head. “Of all the answers you could have made, that’s the one I was afraid to hope for. I don’t deserve you.”

  “I know.”

  He didn’t even bother to look surprised. Sighing resignation, he addressed Conway, now that the latter was finished talking to Leclerc. “Lorso’s not dead. At least, he wasn’t. If his men hadn’t struggled so hard to get him in the boat, they could have kept us from getting Louis out.”

  “You didn’t kill him?” Tate straightened. “I thought I hit him. I thought you…” Nalatan’s manner stopped her. He looked away. She would have sworn she saw sympathy. “What happened, then?”

  “His hand.” Nalatan held out his own right arm. “It’s severed. For such a man, it’s worse than dying.”

  “Good.” Surprise greeted Lanta’s comment. She met it boldly. “‘Slavetaker,’ they call him. A hundred lives, ten hundred hands—he can never experience as much pain as he’s given. If he comes to Church, I must forgive him. Not before. His kind of cruelty lives in the eyes of all my orphaned Chosens.”

  Leclerc laughed softly. “I understand. Oh, do I.”

  Gan rose. Knees cracked loudly. When he stretched, a shoulder did the same. The group was laughing when a man called from the forest. A young Wolf, practically sleepwalking, escorted another man, almost as tired. The Wolf said, “He says he’s a River. Been to Ola. They sent him here.” He swayed.

  Gan told the Wolf, “You’re off watch. Sleep,” and turned his attention to the stranger.

  The River was blunt. “Moonpriest comes. Windband began crossing the river three—no, four—days ago. Moonpriest made a promise: ‘Moon dark after next, the man called Moondark is no more.’”

  Conway watched the faces of his friends go flat. Gan said, “Even if he and his Skan allies take my head, they lose. My heart will live on in the breasts of my friends, as theirs does in mine. Now, let’s get to Ola, pull that old wolf Emso off the trail of those rebels. He’ll be sorry he missed the fight here.”

  Within his enfolding arm, Conway thought he felt Lanta flinch. He was certain of one thing; Tate refused to look in Gan’s direction.

  Chapter 17

  Tears of Jade stood on her accustomed rise, waiting. Leaning on her ceremonial staff, she hugged it in a transport of delight.

  Everything was perfect.

  Everyone knew of Lorso’s clandestine recruitment of volunteers for his raid. Shaking with laughter, Tears of Jade struck the ground with the base of the staff. The silver bells chimed warning. She muttered a quick apology to the god. His cunning—expressed through his spirit woman—was no object of levity.

  Shuffling painfully, she moved to where the collected sharkers were visible. Nestled in line, one against the other. Pointed bows, sharp, like rows of teeth. She saw them rending a leaderless land. Slaves in masses. Loot.

  Perhaps she needn’t be quite so stern with Lorso. Punishment must be inflicted, of course. No one, not even Lorso, deceived Sosolassa’s spirit woman, and deceit was in Lorso’s heart.

  As Tears of Jade always intended.

  She smiled, savoring the terror of the slave sent to inform her that Lorso had secretly sailed to destroy Sylah and Gan. An unusually clever touch, for Lorso. He assumed her rage would be so great she’d have the messenger sent to the god.

  Lorso could be quite perceptive. Sometimes.

  Jaleeta. Tears of Jade preened, still lost in memory. Jaleeta. What a masterstroke. Poison that men fought to taste, would kill others for. Then kill themselves.

  Now Jaleeta was the victim. If Lorso did as he’d been told. A twinge of doubt, not even a fully realized thought, fluttered across Tears of Jade’s consciousness. Impossible. Today was good. If Lorso’s unapproved raid succeeded in eliminating Gan Moondark and Rose Priestess Sylah, the danger warned of by Sosolassa so long ago was eliminated. The child of sun brightness and the child of dark brightness, the twin threats to Skan domination, were destroyed.

  And Slavetaker was a hero to the Skan forever. Acting without the blessing of Sosolassa’s spirit woman would prove to the tribe that Lorso was the darling of the god.

  Only Tears of Jade knew how she and the god manipulated all of them. So the Skan would rule all shores of Sosolassa’s fateful sea.

  Straightening, Tears of Jade reminded herself that she didn’t know if Gan and Sylah lived or died. Still, if Lorso’s raid failed, the alliance with Windband would crush the Three Territories. The problem with that was the need to share the glory. The even greater danger was that Moonpriest might make some accommodation with Gan and Sylah. They must die at the hands of the Skan, the true heirs to all power.

  If Lorso’s raid failed, punishment must be severe. The Skan must never think Sosolassa weak.

  She forced that from her mind. The raiders’ successful return would be a mighty celebration. Sosolassa would forgive the impiety of an unblessed raid. Everyone would hear it from her own lips. Lorso, favored of the god. Tears of Jade would name Lorso ruler of the Skan.

  There might not be a better time. Despite the whispers, she wasn’t born before the beginning, wouldn’t live forever. Her lips moved, made a slash of a smile. She still thought of him as a youngster, a living, breathing vessel, waiting for knowledge and belief to be poured into him. So childishly brave, even now, sneaking off to rescue his toy, incapable of imagining the years of preparation devoted to that goal. Sailing home, he must picture himself the holy warrior, servant of the god’s most dire command. Poor precious fool.

  She envisioned him stepping ashore, red-faced, earnest. How does a man explain that he set out to rescue the woman he thought he loved, only to be divinely commanded to kill her? He would beg for understanding. Consolation.

  Tears of Jade, ever-gracious, would grant it all. And demand Slavetaker be king.

  If Gan and Sylah died, as well.

  The dim image of Domel crossed her mind. A gnarled thumb rubbed the dry, dead-leaf skin of an index finger. Domel was almost a mistake. His blood, the blood of his blood, paid the god for his sin.

  But today was beautiful, to favor great events. In bright, crisp sunlight, the curling surf was living green translucence. Its blowing spume was sometimes thick and heavy, like finest cream. At another view, it was delicate, the pale glisten of first breath on a freezing morning. Stark rocks of the headland trembled under the winter’s sun. The light plunged obliquely into the wet, jagged surface, striking d
arks and lights that worked intricate, unceasing changes.

  Lorso’s sharkers sailed into view. Shielding her eyes with a hand, Tears of Jade excitedly counted. One missing. How many dead, then? How many more crippled, useless?

  Turning away, she gestured. At the bottom of the rise, her team waited with the sedan chair. Her new driver positioned the slaves and drove them up the hill. He was charming on his little perch atop the chair’s box, bright as a squirrel in oiled leather jacket and trousers. The boy showed flair, tricking out his rakish cap with bits of iridescent shell. He got full effort out of the lazy slugs on the team, too.

  Tears of Jade saw it the day she’d let the young rascal drive the team to the stables; he was one who understood stock. With a proper whip in hand, he had them jumping like fleas, but far more eager to please. The boy had a future.

  All the way to the harbor Tears of Jade was plagued by fleeting images of the man-boat that was Lorso. Always, the image carried foreboding. She shouted for speed. The whistle and crack of the whip provided some relief, even if the clumsy oaf at lead right front did stumble at every paltry stripe across his back.

  From inside her sedan chair, she watched the boats maneuver. Lorso commanded from the bow, but he was pale, grim. He leaned heavily against the figurehead. Tensing, Tears of Jade examined the crew and the warriors gathered at the base of the mast. All, even the men busily making ready to beach, watched Lorso, their faces bright with awe. As the vision showed. Trickling ice ran down her spine.

  There was something else. Something nailed to the mast. A leather bag?

  Slumping back in the chair, she said, “Driver. My cabin. Gallop.”

  Aspects of her vision had been manifested in fact. The god was testing her. She must—must—discover the meaning hidden in those signs.

  Impatience drew her to the cabin window soon after she dismissed her sedan chair. A crabbed finger lifted an edge of the hide covering. She peered out. And hissed alarm. Lorso was practically at the door. Hurrying, scraping across the room, she flung herself into the chair by the fire. Sharp old bones stabbed into sparse flesh. She glared balefully at Lorso as he stepped inside. “Ask permission to enter the house of the spirit woman.” She growled the words.