Warstalker's Track

by Tom Deitz

  “Greetings, Lord,” David coughed, because no one else seemed inclined to speak. “You’ve, uh…found us.”

  “Not without difficulty!” Lugh laughed. “It seems the maps hereabout have…altered.”

  “We had no choice,” David protested. “If it’s caused you trouble, I’m sorry. But a man’s gotta defend his own place.”

  “A fact that is not unknown to me,” Lugh replied neutrally. “And a situation I can certainly understand.”

  David nodded. Waiting. Clearly Lugh had his own agenda. “I doubt we will meet face-to-face after this,” the Faery said eventually with an air of genuine regret. “We have gone far together, you and I and these others. We have fought and lost and fought again and won. We have learned from each other as well, though I doubt I need to tell you that! But what you have done here—it was…is…unthinkable! Yet you have done it. Had I considered such a thing, I would have investigated it. That you did consider it brands you a wiser man than I.”

  David puffed his cheeks and asked the question he knew he had to ask or regret it the rest of his life. “So, are you pissed at us, or what?”

  Lugh’s brows twitched. “A man does not like his property put at risk; I have therefore some right to be angry. A man does, however, like his property protected, and you have done that as well. So let us call the payment even.”

  A deep breath and one final question. “What about your plan? You still gonna flood the Cove if they start buildin’ that resort there?”

  Lugh countered with a cryptic smile. “That place is no longer a threat.”

  “Not to you!” David muttered, and would’ve said more had Liz not elbowed him in the ribs.

  To David’s surprise, Lugh rose from his throne and bowed, though his hand never left the arm. “I thought it right we exchange farewells,” Lugh told him. “So in my name and Nuada’s and everyone else you know here: farewell!”

  David bowed in turn. His eyes were misting. “Farewell,” he whispered, and turned away, hearing the others likewise call “Farewell.”

  Eventually they all made that final formal parting, even Alec, though it cost him dear. Fionchadd alone spoke more than a few words, but David never heard them, for they were in Faery speech. Still, his Faery friend looked the better for that encounter.

  Sunrise was threatening the sky when a tight-faced Liz returned the quiescent ulunsuti to Alec. The fog beyond the ledge shimmered with pink and gold and orange. David had just decided he might possibly be able to snare a moment’s shut-eye when he heard someone running—staggering, rather—up the trail, virtually out of breath. “Cal,” he warned, hand on the Beretta. “There!”

  “Got ’im!” Kirkwood laughed from the entrance to the trail, flourishing a kicking and twisting Little Billy, whom he’d corralled by the collar. “This belong to you?” he asked David with an evil smirk that turned to an agonized grimace when the kid’s heel caught him smartly in the crotch. Kirkwood slumped backward. Little Billy sprawled on all fours, but picked himself up at once, full of outraged dignity. Which washed from his face as soon as he saw David, to be replaced with anguish mixed with tears.

  “Fuckin’ fog!” the boy sobbed as he flung himself onto his brother. “Slowed me down like hell—sorry, like heck. Oh, dammit, Dave, who gives a fuck about…about words, when—” He broke off, tried to compose himself, swallowed hard, then tried again. “I…don’t know what you guys are doin’ up here, but you…you gotta come home right now, Davy! It’s Pa!”

  David’s heart nearly leapt from his body as he stared his brother (not much shorter than him now) straight in the eye. “What about him?”

  Little Billy gaped, wide-eyed. “He’s—Davy, I think…think he’s gonna die!”

  “Aik!” David yelled. “Liz. Somebody! Car keys! Now!”

  “No need for haste,” a voice purred from the forest. David nearly jumped out of his skin. Calvin and Liz (but not the groaning Kirkwood) went instantly on guard.

  David searched the forest frantically, but even so, it took a moment to make out the shape slipping silently from among the trees. Female (but he’d known that by the voice), smallish, oddly dressed, and eerily familiar.

  Calvin recognized her first. “Okacha!”

  David’s tension dispersed so quickly he almost collapsed. “’Kacha—what? I mean, I don’t want to be rude, but my pa—”

  “Will be fine if you do not spill this,” Okacha replied, extending a narrow-necked pottery phial sealed with wax. She held another in reserve.

  Little Billy looked seriously suspicious. “Huh?”

  Okacha’s eyes danced with an amusement David didn’t appreciate, a fact she soon keyed in on. “Sorry,” she murmured. “Sometimes I forget how fear can screw you up, and that not everybody’s gonna chill just ’cause I know it’s okay for them to. Anyway, the message I have is this: Uki and the others saw everything and applaud your actions and your courage and your wits. And they know, as you didn’t until your brother got here, that your father lies in peril of his life from a shard of Faery metal that won’t let his wound heal. They’d prefer this didn’t happen, however, so they send you that phial, with another for yourselves, if you need it.”

  David regarded it dubiously. “What—?”

  “Water from the Lake Atagahi,” Okacha replied. “Healing water. If it can’t save your father, nothing can. In any event, it’ll certainly be useful.”

  “Thanks,” David breathed, at once relieved, excited, and frightened. “And if you don’t mind, we’d better get to it. Feel free to come along, as soon as somebody gets me some keys.”

  “You hang on to that,” Aikin told him roughly. “I’ll drive.”

  Epilogue: Spoiling the View

  (Sullivan Cove, Georgia—Tuesday, July 1—sunrise)

  David held his breath. So did Little Billy. So did their mother and most of the other people crammed into the Sullivans’ den. Was it enough? That tiny trickle of healing Atagahi water Sandy and Kirkwood, who between them almost constituted an EMT, had finally managed to get down Big Billy’s throat.

  How much was enough, anyway? And how long did it take to have any effect? He didn’t know—couldn’t remember—was too wired to focus. The bottom line was they’d done the last thing they could to save his father. Might work; might not.

  No one spoke. David held tight to Liz’s hand and squeezed his mother’s reassuringly with the other. She looked tired. Worried. Dubious. Angry. And put out.

  In serious need, David thought, of some coffee-an’-’shine—without the coffee.

  Big Billy’s lips worked. Every head in the room craned forward, but nothing followed. No response. A nod from Kirkwood, and Sandy pressed the phial once more to his mouth. It was still half full, David noted: good stuff to have around in light of their other injured, the most serious of whom was LaWanda, who was probably good for a whole phial herself.

  A noisy slurp, and Big Billy swallowed. But that was all. Or had his breathing eased?

  Silence.

  Footsteps on the porch. Dale promptly sauntered off to see who it was, to return a moment later with a bleary-eyed Alec in tow. Alec eased up behind David and leaned forward to knead his shoulders and whisper in his ear. “Aife can wait. This can’t.”

  “Thanks,” David murmured, patting his hand.

  The clock ticked. People began to stir. David wanted away from there so bad he could taste it, not because he didn’t care about his father but because he cared too much and had been through more than anyone should have to lately and just couldn’t stand not knowing. “Gotta—” he began. And froze.

  Big Billy’s lips had moved again. His breathing was stronger, and his eyelids were stirring. “Pa!” David called, easing closer. “C’mon, Pa, you can do it! I’m not finished with you yet!”

  “…boy…” Big Billy mumbled. “Boy.”

  “Right,” David acknowledged, nodding vigorously. “It’s your boy.”

  “Two boys…” Big Billy slurred, “…got two boys.
”

  “Right,” David repeated. “Other one’s right here. You wanta talk to him?”

  “I want,” Big Billy announced clearly, opening his eyes, “some coffee-an’-’shine.”

  “You do not!” JoAnne squawked in outrage. “Why, Bill, you—why, Bill—!” She didn’t finish because she was on her knees sobbing, burying her face in her husband’s rough red hands.

  David grinned at his pa over his mother’s head. Bill grinned back, lopsided. “Feel real funny inside,” he rumbled. “Feel like some kinda clot’s dissolvin’, or something—an’ like something’s—I dunno, kinda pullin’ together. Weird.”

  “’Course it’s weird,” David retorted. “One of my friends did it.”

  “’Preciate it,” Big Billy yawned. “Now, if you folks don’t mind, I reckon bed’d look pretty good.” And with that, he levered himself to his feet and lurched toward the door. David’s friends—everyone who’d been on the mountain, plus Darrell and Gary, whom Myra had summoned and debriefed—parted before him as though he were a king. David started to follow him, but JoAnne shook her head. “See to these folks, you and Dale. Get ’em fed and bathed and whatever they want. I gotta spend some time with my man.”

  David started to protest, then thought better of it, then changed his mind again. He was still waffling when he heard the throaty macho rumble of a big-bore motorcycle crunching up the drive. By the time he’d made it to the back door, the rider was striding through the yard.

  “John!” he yelled joyfully. “John Devlin! Get in here!”

  The Ranger looked a little crispy around the eyes, David noted, wondering what kind of night he’d had, and cursing himself for not checking in. “Well,” he offered through an uncertain grin, “welcome to chaos.”

  Devlin’s brows quirked upward. “Looks like a lot of company, but not chaos.”

  “Yeah, well,” David sighed, “it’s a long story.”

  “Which reminds me,” Scott sighed in turn, “I gotta scoot. Don’t mean to be rude or anything, but I need to check on some dudes. Don’t want to, but—you know.”

  David slapped himself on the head. “Oh, bloody hell! I forgot about the blessed developers! Shit, here I thought this was all over, and we’ve still gotta deal with that!”

  “That,” Liz reminded him pertly, “is why we got into this.”

  “Developers?” Devlin echoed casually. “What’s the deal?”

  David scowled at him. “Didn’t we tell you? Hell, John, I don’t know who knows what anymore, but if we didn’t—”

  “Quick and dirty,” John broke in. “What’s the deal?”

  “The deal,” David growled, “is that an outfit called Mystic Mountain Properties took one look at Bloody Bald and decided to build a resort on top of it, with a marina in the Cove.”

  “Bloody Bald…” Devlin repeated carefully.

  “Right.”

  “That would be a…mountain?”

  David rolled his eyes. “You could say that. Mountain here, mountain in Faerie too. Heart of the trouble, ’cause the Sidhe decided it was sacred, or whatever.”

  “Mountain,” Devlin repeated, eyes twinkling.

  David’s eyes narrowed. “There something you’re not tellin’ me?”

  “Maybe,” Devlin grinned, “you oughta pay more attention to what’s goin’ on around you. Man oughtn’t to take his local landscape for granted.”

  “What—?” David began, then broke off and pushed past the smirking Ranger onto the porch, thence down the steps and into the yard. It was the first time he’d been outside since daylight arrived and with it the lifting of what had seemed to be a quite normal fog. Thus, he’d had no reason to peruse the local landscape. He did now—and gasped.

  There had never been a really good view of Bloody Bald this far out the Cove, and most of it had always been masked by trees so that only its white quartzite peak showed.

  Now, however, that peak showed no longer.

  “Oh, my God!” David breathed. “The whole damned mountain’s gone!”

  “Gonna be some pissed-off boys over at Mystic Mountain,” Scott chuckled, stepping up behind them, vanguard of a horde that had likewise come to gawk. “Gonna be some pissed-off money men down in Atlanta, too, ’cause that mountain was the whole damned draw.”

  “No marina?” David mused. “I mean, won’t they want to cut their losses?”

  “Maybe,” Scott replied. “But I wouldn’t worry about it.”

  “Nor would I,” Liz giggled right behind him. “Besides, after last night, you can always buy ’em off with Faery gold.”

  “Right now,” David laughed, his tummy rumbling, “I’d rather just buy breakfast!”

  Scott Gresham’s Journal

  (Tuesday, July 1)

  Well, it’s over. I think it is, anyway, though we shall see. Still, I feel pretty good about it. Mostly, frankly, I’m just tired and sleepy. I don’t remember the last time I got any shut-eye. Not last night, that’s for sure, with that nice little mountainside pool all of a sudden turned into a war zone, and me having to play soldier, which actually made me feel pretty decent, because it let me actually do something active, something I could see and that everybody else could also see. (Yeah, I know that sounds like ego, but as messy as this all is headspace-wise, I need for folks to know I did something too.) And shooting let me vent a helluva lot of anger.

  I also killed some folks—or shot at ’em, anyway—and I’m not sure how I feel about that at all. (And of course I won’t be able to see a shrink about it either, but what else is new?) I’ve rationalized it by saying I mostly shot at Faeries, and shot to wound, and that those folks probably weren’t real sterling examples of humanity anyway. But still, I wonder. Something tells me we’re all gonna spend a lot of time deconstructing this. Oh, well!

  Anyway, I think I’ve done the right thing. I stayed on the side of the good guys, which was harder than folks might think, especially when what’s good in terms of your own best interests may not be good in terms of the big picture.

  As for Mystic Mountain: who knows? Their big stake in all this was Bloody Bald, and there is no Bloody Bald anymore (and I don’t have to explain why either, because I obviously didn’t do it, nor see it done; but if they bug me about it, I’ll just quit). The marina was supposed to be mostly to support the ferry out to the lodge in the mountain, so I don’t know if they’ll build it or not. They might, to cut their losses; and the Sullivans may have to live with that. But nobody’s gonna flood the Cove now, and that’s what we were really fighting for.

  As for me. I can probably get my old job back at the newsstand. Plus Finno’s said he’d help me find some gold and jewels and stuff on my own, which is what I really want to do, because I’d rather be my own man and not be beholding to anyone.

  Bottom line, when all is said and done: I’ve passed through the fire and come out on the other side, tempered, or harder, but better made (wonder where that came from?). I think I’ve done the right thing. I think things are gonna work out for most of my friends. I think I’m gonna be happy.

  I think things are gonna be okay.