The Crimson Sky

by Joel Rosenberg

  If he had time, he would draw the revolver from his left-hand coat pocket—but he could not do that until he was sure of his target, and it was unlikely that he would be sure of his target until the Son was upon him. Guns had no loyalty to you, no essence to them—and if bullets had an attitude toward their targets, it had always been a desire to avoid them.

  It would be worth a try.

  But the Son would hardly have gone to this much trouble only to be shot down just out of reach of its prey.

  Lights flickered in the windows of the houses on the hill that cupped the east side of the lake, and off in the distance there was that strange deep booming sound—thumpa thumpa thumpa, thumpa thumpa thumpa—that Maggie had identified as a “boom car,” whatever that might be. She had said it was annoying but not actually dangerous, and as long as it was this far off the sound was actually somewhat pleasant, in much the same way that the distant smell of skunk on a summer night was pleasant, as long as it kept its distance. He quickened his pace to keep time with the thumpa of the boom car, but forced himself to slow down. If his own breathing was loud enough for him to hear, and it was, then how could he possibly get warning of the Son?

  He likely had only his sense of sight to rely upon, although if the Son was more of a fool than Thorian thought, there might be a moment of sound, right before the Son leaped. If he heard the clicking of nails against the icy tarmac, he might even have time enough to draw the pistol.

  The smells and sounds of the city gave no clue. At home—and even back in the Dominions—the sounds at night of insects and birds and animals gave you a dim map, and silences gave you a loud warning that somebody, perhaps even you, was being loud and clumsy. You could tell that the Thompsons were having a pot roast for dinner, or that Inga Svenson’s old Ford Pinto was burning oil, or that a new tomcat, at least half feral, had marked your back fence as one of the boundaries of his territory. In the fall, you could find deer scrapings by the musky smell as quickly as you could by the rub marks. In the Dominions, the acrid smell of its piss would have announced that there was a Son in the area.

  Perhaps, given a few years, he could have sorted out all the strange and exotic smells of the city, but right now it was all he could do to tell from the wood smoke on the wind that somebody was foolishly burning pine that was far too green, far too heavy with creosote, and that same foolish somebody would surely find themselves with a chimney fire sooner than later. It was wasteful to burn green wood; much of the heat of the fire would spend itself on drying the wood—and didn’t their apothecaries have any use for creosote?

  Any advance warning from the sounds was impossible. Every few moments there was a roar overhead, as one of the lights lined up in the sky passed: airplanes, seeking the airport. Perhaps that was the strange gasoline-like smell in the air? And then there was the rush of cars on the roadways, and every so often the plaintive wail of a siren—how could these people ever sleep?

  Well, you could get used to anything, eventually, perhaps.

  If he had had it to do all over again, he would have thought it through better. If young Thorian was to go to school in this city—and he was—then Thorian should have spent enough time here to make it familiar, just as he had always made it a point to acquaint himself with the arena in which a duel would take place before any duel. A loose tile in the Moor was only a problem if you didn’t know about it, and an advantage if you did and your opponent didn’t.

  Or if you did, and he did, but he didn’t know that you did. He had won a memorable point off the Duelmaster himself with just such a tangled advantage.

  He had completed a circuit of the lake, and there was no Son, no sign of such. There had been opportunities for somebody or something to spring out at him—at least six opportunities, by his count, assuming that the Son wanted to do this privately, discreetly.

  Could it be that this was a diversion? That the real attack was to come against young Thorian and Maggie?

  No, that didn’t make sense.

  Then what was it?

  One lone jogger was circling the lake, but other than that, they were alone. Even the ice fishermen had closed up their ice houses for the night. As a recreation, ice fishing in the cold was silly enough, for what little such a small lake could provide—but even the city people were not so strange as to do it in the dark, as well.

  Am I supposed to walk around in the dark until I freeze to death?

  That would take some time. His cheeks were cold, but the warming band kept his ears just this side of numb, and he had automatically unzipped his parka to let some heat and moisture out when the exertion threatened to make him sweat.

  It was on his third circuit of the lake, well past midnight, when he noticed the chalk diagram on the tarmac. It hadn’t been there on his first turn around the lake—he had been watching the ground, memorizing the icy spot on the path—but it could have been there on his second.

  It was a rough outline of a pistol, with a large X through it.

  Had it calculated that he would have a pistol? Or could it smell it? There were probably gun oils that had no distinctive odor, but he had always used Hoppes oil, just as Mr. Roelke had taught him.

  He shook his head. No guns.

  Did it know? Or was it just guessing? Would it believe him if he spread his hands and proclaimed that he had nothing of the sort, that it had not occurred to him to bring a pistol to this affair?

  But if that was so, why had he noticed the drawing? Why was he standing here looking at it?

  He had been outmaneuvered yet again.

  Very well: no gun.

  He could take the cartridges out and just fling the pistol away, but that idea bothered him. What would happen if some child found it? An empty gun wasn’t dangerous, in and of itself, but it just seemed wrong to go to his death with such an irresponsible gesture.

  He could smash the gun to pieces—but how was he going to destroy a piece of metal while walking around the lake? If it was summer, he might have been able to find a piece of rock to use as a hammer, to try to bash it out of shape. Or, for that matter, all it would take would be a screwdriver to disassemble it. Throw the springs one way, the cylinder another, and then he could pitch the rest into the lake.

  Pity he couldn’t throw it in the lake …

  … but, of course, he could, and he would.

  “Perhaps then you’ll face me?” he asked, quietly.

  The only answer was the sound of a car, off in the distance, whining its refusal to start in the cold. Chka-chka-chka-chka-chka. Chka-chka-chka-chka-chka-chka-chka-chka-chka-chka.

  He made his way down the shallow embankment and onto the rough ice. It really wasn’t as slippery as it looked. Hard-driven snow and days of cold had made the surface rough enough that it really wasn’t much different than walking on snow would have been. He hadn’t expected that, but, then again, walking out on a frozen lake was something that it had never occurred to him to do before.

  He had learned to skate because Karin enjoyed skating, but that was done at the hockey rink down at the high school, which was made every winter simply by spraying water on the football field after the ground was fully frozen. That was slippery ice, although it was most slippery not on the coldest days but on the warmest.

  His thoughts and steps had taken him to the nearest of the holes in the ice, now covered with a square of plywood.

  Somebody with more optimism than sense had cut a hole big enough to step into, and probably somebody else—somebody with more sense—had covered it over so that blowing snow wouldn’t turn it into a trap for the unwary and unlucky.

  Ice had formed in the hole, but it broke easily with the heel of his boot. He slowly drew the pistol out of his jacket, and held it by the barrel over his head, then carefully, deliberately, dropped it into the dark water with a solid plunk.

  He wouldn’t have been surprised if a dark form had leaped out of the shadows of one of the nearby ice houses and run across the ice toward him, but there was no movem
ent, save for that of the lights of the cars on Lake Street, at the far end of the lake.

  Well? I’m waiting.

  He started to walk back to the shore, but stopped himself. That was the obvious thing to do, and perhaps the Son was expecting the obvious—why make it easy on him?

  He turned and headed toward the shiny skating area just off the south shore.

  It seemed that the Son wanted a fair fight: Thorian heard the growl as it stalked out of the shadows under the pier. It walked, stiff-legged, out onto the ice for a few paces, then broke into a deceptively easy lope that would quickly eat up the space between them.

  He turned to run and yanked at his zipper as he did so, pulling the sheathed knife from under his armpit. A flick of his gloved thumb released the leather tie across the sheath, and a snap of his wrist sent the sheath tumbling end-over-end away in the dark.

  The three pillars supporting the tripod of strategy were balance, timing, and space. Under most circumstances, two legs couldn’t balance as well as four, but if he could reach the patch of slick ice, that might not be so.

  He would have one chance, although it wasn’t much of a chance: the Son would get to within springing range, and then it would leap. If he could ruin its timing, control the space between them so that they met at the top of its leap, he just might be able to strike at it, at least once. It was even possible that the Son wouldn’t see the knife’s blade—he had coated it with lampblack.

  Thorian del Thorian ran with short, choppy strides, his legs pumping hard. Too long a stretch, and he ran the risk, of falling, and then it would be all over in a second.

  Which probably would be best, all in all, but that wasn’t the way Thorian del Thorian had been raised, and that wasn’t the way he was going to die.

  You fought every duel, every affair for real, using all your strength, all your capabilities. Duelists would fortify themselves with herbs and prayers, asking that the justice of their cause aid your arm, your legs, your balance, and your eyes in support of their right. You were supposed to hope that if you were in the wrong, the other duelist would prevail, but Thorian del Thorian had never been able to feel that in his heart: no matter what the justice, he always wanted to win.

  Knife held reversed, blade parallel to his forearm, Thorian del Thorian pumped his arms and ran ahead of the thudding footsteps behind him. He wanted to look over his shoulder, to gauge the distance, but with the rough ground ahead of him, that was too risky.

  Too risky? He had to force himself not to laugh out loud. Too risky? He was about to be killed by the kirdamled Son of Fenris—what more risk was there for him here?

  He reached the outer rim of the shiny ice of the skating area and leaped the last few feet onto it, sliding like a skater until he could break into a half-skating sort of running that he had tried once with Karin, the inner edge of his soles biting hard enough to send him leaping onto the other foot, then kicking himself along with the other foot.

  It wouldn’t have worked with good skating ice, but for reasons he had never quite understood, when it got this cold the surface wasn’t quite as slick as it was when it was warmer.

  He knew his running looked as clumsy as it felt, but when he heard the skittering sounds of the Son’s claws against the hard ice start to recede behind him, he thought he might actually be able to reach the shoreline before the wolf was upon him, and that would give every advantage back to his enemy. He was considering how to fake a fall and recovery when the skittering became a fast, rhythmic click-clicking.

  Not only was there going to be no need for that but it wouldn’t work. He finally risked throwing a quick glance over his shoulder to see the Son loping toward him, devouring distance between them with every bound.

  His timing was, he decided, just this side of perfect. Assuming it maintained this speed on the smooth ice—and assuming he could keep up his pace—the Son should catch up with him at about the middle of the skating area, at the point where his boots gave him the maximum advantage in control over its clawed paws.

  The ice was scored with the scratches of skates, most heavily in the large circle he had already crossed, but there were lines and divots everywhere.

  He spun himself around, sliding backwards, then kicked hard, once, against the ice with the edge of his foot, digging in as hard as he could. Which was hard enough: it jerked-him to a stop so quickly that his teeth chattered.

  He had seen larger Sons, but not often: this one would have stood chest-high, and probably outweighed him by twenty or more pounds.

  Even in the dim green light of the distant streetlights, it was a magnificent beast in its way: head broad and handsome, although the skull underneath it was thick, while the limbs were more slender than he would have thought they should be.

  Its chest was deep but surprisingly narrow, and its eyes seemed to pick up a distant red glow.

  It reared back as it slipped into a skid, front paws stretched out in front of it as though to push the ice away; Thorian del Thorian turned to the side and launched himself into a kick-started leap.

  If he could get on its back and slip the knife between its ribs, one twist and he could try to keep it away with his feet until it died.

  But the wolf was as fast as he was, if not faster: instead of trying to regain its balance, it simply flopped over on its side, so that instead of leaping onto its back, Thorsen came belly-to-belly with it.

  One front paw batted his knife arm aside, while the jaws snapped shut, just missing his left arm; he was barely able to rip his parka away.

  The two rear legs curled up and slashed out; hard nails raked fire down his chest and belly, and its warm, fetid breath was nauseatingly foul in his nostrils for just a moment, until its body spasmed, once, flipping him away to land hard on the ice.

  Reflexes and decades of practice saved him from having his breath knocked out; he broke his fall with a slap of his left arm against the ice, then somehow got his legs underneath him and rose to his feet in a crouch just as the Son did.

  His parka was ripped down the front; cold agony had scratched itself down his belly to the beltline. If the Son’s claws hadn’t caught on his thick belt, unintentionally helping him to escape for the moment as it pushed him away, it would have emasculated him with its hind legs.

  There was a low growling in his ears, and he realized that it was coming from his own throat, so he stopped it.

  But the growling didn’t stop, the roar didn’t diminish—if anything, it got louder.

  What—

  Oh. It was the sound of a plane flying low overhead, coming in for a landing at the airport. Young Thorian would have been able to identify it by the sound.

  His right arm was almost numb, so he held it, the knife still clutched in it, out in front of him, holding the wolf’s gaze with his own while his left hand fumbled for the knife that young Thorian had lent him.

  “Come get me, dog,” he said in Bersmal, in which the word was an insult that carried enough weight to turn a first-blood affair into a death duel. “I’m waiting for you.” His words were slurred and clumsy in his ears, and he realized he had bitten his tongue badly enough to fill his mouth with warm, thick blood.

  A wolf wasn’t the only thing that could die with blood in its mouth, eh?

  Snarling, hunched down, it approached him slowly, circling off to the left, just as his trembling fingers found young Thorian’s knife.

  Yes, to the left, he thought. Circle off to my weak side, and avoid the knife that’s out in front of you, and I’ll let you grab hold of my right arm. If he could push its head up for even a moment with his arm to expose the neck, he could slash into it. Open the jugular vein, and then let the Son drain its lifeblood out on the ice.

  He took a step forward as it settled its haunches in for the spring, but instead of leaping into the air, it took an almost comically small hop to close the distance, then came up at him from the ice, knocking him back, sending his fighting knife flying off somewhere into the dark.

&n
bsp; He forced his right arm between the teeth, his long knife falling from his fingers, and then reached his hand back, back into the wolf’s mouth, trying to get his bare fingers to close around the slippery tongue.

  But his fingers went limp and useless as the jaws clamped down on his wrist, the absence of pain from his fingers more frightening than the pain itself had been. He flicked the knife in his left hand open, and stabbed for the nearest eye, but a paw batted it aside.

  The wolf shuddered against him as a shock rocked his body, and then another.

  It was only then that he barely heard the distant twin cracks over the roar of the jet, and it was only then that the jaws started to loosen, and the acrid smell of the Son’s piss filled his nostrils while his right leg grew wet and warm.

  His knees buckled under him, and his right hand was useless, but he still had a knife in his left hand, and an enemy’s throat in front of him. Thorian del Thorian slashed hard, twice, across the Son’s throat, and then twice again, until warm blood flowed down his arm and onto the ice.

  A dark shape was making its way across the ice with more grace than Thorian had had, and in a moment Billy Olson was at his side, helping him to his feet. He had a small plastic case of some sort in his hand—no, it was one of those small cell phones.

  “Hurry up,” he said. “I’ll get your dad out of here, but, shit, you’re on your own for the cleanup, and if I haven’t heard from you by the time I’ve got him cleaned up, we’re out of here.” He snapped the phone shut and dropped it carefully into an inner pocket of his coat, then got an arm under Thorsen and helped him to his feet. “