Heartless A Shieldmaiden's Voice: A Covenant Keeper Novel

by S. R. Karfelt

  “No, I won’t let her. Get Rutak.”

  DOES PAIN REALLY have no limits? Unbearable is a mythical word. You will bear what you must, there is no choice. A droning chant wove through the pain, chasing dark philosophical thoughts. Carole’s heartbeat steadied, and impossibly the pain increased. The world was pain, chanting, and her slow steady heartbeat. Peaceful, pain-free darkness hovered near, but when it approached, Carole willed herself closer to the pain. The voices criticized, even in death.

  “Do not fight! Accept the inevitable. Let go.”

  “Grandfather? Can you help her?” That voice sounded familiar. Refusing to obey the voices, Carole tried to place it.

  “You have seen me heal worse.”

  “Will you be all right?”

  The whispery chuckle that followed touched someplace deep inside Carole’s slowly beating heart. Familiar longing ached there.

  “I have been all right for a very long time, Fastest, too long. I am tired of all right.” Fastest?

  An unfamiliar voice objected. “No, Grandfather! Do not do this! What is she to us? A killer!”

  “Cahrul is one of my people, and a warrior. It is my duty to help her.”

  “We are your tribe. You will choose her over us?”

  “Cahrul is flesh of the woman I will always love. I have given my all to the tribe. I will give my last as I wish.” A door slammed. It echoed through Carole as pain, shattering her into pieces, and she was gone.

  CHILDREN’S LAUGHTER SOUNDED muffled through thick clay walls. Inside her head Carole could see through walls to youngsters running nearby, could sense a native village of small terraced huts sloping around her. Opening her eyes, a square adobe ceiling greeted, and just below it narrow rectangular openings ringed the walls. Columns of light filtered through those high windows, and dust motes hovered in the air. Several wooden beds were crammed into the small earthen house. Carole sat up too quickly. Ignoring a wave of dizziness, she cautiously touched her chest. There was no pain. Tugging off a neon green concert T-shirt that had certainly not been in her suitcase, she examined her naked body. A small red scar marred her right breast. Reaching over her shoulder, she found much larger creases on her back. The exit wound. Healed. Taking a deep breath, clean desert air painlessly filled her lungs. A twisted rope mattress swayed beneath her, jostling a bowl of clean water against her hip. Lifting it to her lips, she drank thirstily. Although warm, it tasted fresh, and she gulped half of it before it hit her. Her heart lurched and she nearly dropped the bowl. Carole knew exactly where she was.

  It’s the veil. Where Rutak Tural and Fastest live.

  This wasn’t a hallucination, this was real. The taste of the desert air had never been so clean, water so pure. This means it has always been real! Tucking the bowl beside her, Carole searched as far as her mind could go, wallowing in the touch of clean land. Since this is real, that means—!

  A man entered the low adobe doorway, bent forward. Long hair hid his face while he shifted past the bright fabric serving as a door. Carole immediately tugged the Ramones T-shirt back over her head. The man moved lithe and graceful, seemingly unaware of her brief nakedness. Shining dark hair brushed bare dusky shoulders, and he pushed his hair aside and tilted his face up to meet her eyes. She recognized him as the man from the picture of her hit. This was the man she’d been sent to kill. Carole’s breath caught and her fingers threaded through the rope mattress beneath her, holding on. Though time had altered his features from boy to man, she knew him.

  “Fastest,” she gasped, sudden tears burning her eyes.

  Fastest took a seat on a bed next to her, so close his knees touched her rope mattress. His dark eyes red rimmed, his face sad, he said, “We have a bit of a problem, don’t we, Cahrul?”

  He knew. She opened her mouth and then shut it, unable to find words. Fastest smiled faintly.

  “We both know I can’t outrun you, so perhaps we can talk before you get down to business?”

  “I didn’t know it was you.” So many thoughts crowded Carole’s mind, she couldn’t focus. This is real! The veil is real!

  Fastest crossed strong arms over his naked chest. “Such a relief, Cahrul. Would it have mattered?”

  Would it? She didn’t know. If he was guilty, did it even matter now? Yes! The fact that he really exists changes everything. Doesn’t it?

  Clever dark eyes watched her. “How do you feel?” He nodded towards her chest.

  Pressing hands against it, she remembered and glanced down. “I got shot.”

  “You sure did.”

  “How long have I been here? What day is it?”

  “You were shot yesterday.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  He smiled faintly. “Oh, we’re both pretty familiar with impossible, aren’t we?” Then the smile faded. “What happened to you? That you would come after any man with a gun?”

  A sob almost choked her, catching her by surprise, but anger flared in her heart. “Does it matter what happened to me? I used to come back here—every night—I scoured the desert for you—for your Grandfather! In the end I thought I’d imagined this place. I thought you and Rutak were a hallucination! I thought I was crazy!”

  Fastest leaned forward, placing dusty desert hands over hers. “I know you came, I saw you, and I’m sorry we hurt you. Remember what Grandfather told you that night? We couldn’t be what you needed. You had to find your own tribe.” Carole yanked her hands away.

  “Then you have your answer, don’t you? I found my tribe!” The words were bitter. They didn’t want me! The truth was worse than a hallucination!

  Fastest folded his arms across his brown chest again. Dark eyes studied her intently. “Did your tribe tell you why they wanted me dead? Or do you not require reasons to murder a man?”

  Carole flinched. Despite everything, those words hurt. Fastest’s hand immediately found her shoulder and squeezed gently, as though to soothe his would-be assassin.

  “I’m sorry. Grandfather said you will have your reasons. Of course he also told me if they are justified, I’m not to resist!” Fastest pulled his hand away again, crossing his arms, but Carole felt certain his anger wasn’t at her right now.

  “Rutak told you to let me kill you?”

  “If it is justified.” The words were measured. “But I do not plan to cooperate no matter what your reasons are.”

  Carole bit back a sudden inappropriate smile. Surely Rutak couldn’t expect that type of cooperation from his grandson! Fastest’s dark gaze turned cold and Carole’s amusement faded. Had Fastest become a foe? She needed to know she wasn’t duty bound to kill him.

  “You run the casino as a front to launder drug money.”

  Fastest’s mouth dropped open. “I do not!” He glared. “That’s what they think? Is that why they’re so determined to off me?”

  Carole shifted. The rope mattress swayed. “Have others come after you?”

  “You’re the third. Karl is quite astute at spotting assassins.”

  “He killed them?” Carole remembered the man’s expression. Yes, he’d killed before.

  Fastest frowned. “You’ll judge Karl? For protecting me from killers and old friends?”

  “Drug money buys guns over the border. It costs innocent lives there and here. When you don’t see the consequences it’s easy to kill. Does that make you less guilty?”

  “If you cannot bring yourself to believe me, do you think Grandfather would have allowed my tribe to have any part in drugs? Or money laundering?”

  “Where did the money come from for that casino, then?”

  Scowling, Fastest stood and reached into the pocket of his jeans, digging. He dropped a handful of small rocks in her lap. Several scattered and dropped onto the dirt floor. She picked one off her lap, still warm from Fastest’s pocket.

  “Silver? Silver hasn’t been mined in New Mexico since—oh, it’s here inside the veil.”

  “Why do your people assume everything my people do is illegal?”
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  Carole looked up at him. “There are photographs of you at a drop. I saw them, but I didn’t recognize you. Never even thought of you, why would I? I thought you were a figment of my imagination! You looked angry in them, different. Your hair was short.”

  Gathering his long hair in his hands, he pushed it over his shoulders. “My hair has never been short.” Suddenly he sucked in his breath, and muttered in his native tongue. It sounded like swearing to Carole, and her brain struggled to make sense of the words. The word Kiyag stuck out, it sounded like a name.

  “You know who it is?”

  “I might know who it is.”

  “Who is Kiyag? Is he here?” Carole shifted weakly on the rope mattress, knowing she would be unable to do anything about Kiyag even if he walked into the hut right now.

  Fastest chewed his lip, eyeing her. “He is my foolish young cousin, and I don’t know that he’s done anything illegal. Unless stupid is a crime.”

  “People die because of stupid choices, and someone who looks very much like you is costing lives every day.”

  “Well, we all look alike to your kind don’t we? If you have to kill someone, it may as well be me or my stupid cousin?”

  “I don’t have a kind. And even if I do just walk away, someone else will come. You have to go public about the silver, Fastest. It would explain how you have money. They would know to look elsewhere.”

  “Do you think I will be safe if I go public about that? It’s not like I can show them the mine.”

  Carole knew he was right. “I’ll find your cousin Kiyag. Guilty or not he might know enough so I can find out who is. I’ll kill them.”

  “Good God, Cahrul. You say that so easily.”

  “It’ll buy you time. Find a way to justify the casino.”

  “Don’t do me any favors, especially ones that involve killing anyone. Karl has my back.”

  “Why do you want a casino anyway? You have this veil to live in. Why leave it?”

  “Why leave the reservation? Well, I’d like my people to have choices outside this veil. It’s not big enough for all of us, and some of us want a life in the real world. The casino seemed a better money making option than what Kiyag might have done.” Running a thumb over his bottom lip, he grimaced faintly. “But there are some who find drugs and gambling equal vices. Grandfather never approved of the casino. I should have suspected something when he suddenly wanted to come see it. The rocks must have told him that you were coming.”

  “I didn’t imagine that either. The rocks really do talk to him?”

  “They must have told him you would need him last night.”

  Carole pressed her fingers against her chest again and breathed deeply, painlessly. “He saved my life. I think I heard him chanting—”

  “Praying.”

  “Then I woke up here. Can I see him?”

  Fastest stood quickly and wove between the cots to a sideboard along the far wall.

  “It’s late. You need to stay in that bed for now, and you need to eat. Grandfather said you lost too much blood, to force you to rest if need be. If you promise not to kill me today, I’ll feed you.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t joke about it.”

  “What makes you think I’m joking?” He filled a plate with beans from a crock, and grabbed a handful of tortillas. Returning to her side, he handed her the plate and sat facing her. “Eat. We all obey Grandfather around here.”

  Scooping some beans onto a tortilla, Carole argued before taking a bite. “You don’t. You said you weren’t going to listen to your Grandfather about letting me kill you.”

  “Was that supposed to be funny? You don’t have much knack for humor.”

  Shoving a huge bite into her mouth, she spoke around the food. “Did you ever stop going to rock concerts like he told you to?”

  The ultra-white teeth she remembered flashed in his dusky face.

  “You do remember the details, don’t you?”

  Forcing a swallow, she sat the plate in her lap. “I remember all of it. Every word. Rutak is the only one of my kind I’ve ever met. After that night I thought he’d explain everything to me. Instead I ended up thinking I was completely crazy.”

  Fastest moved smoothly to sit beside her. “We were afraid you would think that.” He smelled like desert and his clean hair hung nearly to his waist, it brushed against her arm, and he tapped his chest. “There is great love in you. I don’t understand how you can kill people. I don’t judge desert predators for being what they are, but it is much more difficult to see a human being like that.” Fastest stood and for some reason she wished he hadn’t. Am I a predator?

  “Yes,” the voices answered.

  Carole picked up the sloshing bowl of water at her side and sipped it. A wave of dizziness washed over her, and she leaned forward, splashing water onto her plate. Unable to focus, she closed her eyes shutting out the bright light. To keep from passing out, she dropped flat, swaying slightly on the rope mattress. Fastest bent over her and took the plate from her. She sensed him deposit them carelessly on the next bed.

  Not meaning to she whispered her thoughts out loud, “You are real. This place is real. It changes everything. I’m not crazy.”

  “We’ll debate the sanity of assassins later, Cahrul. Rest.” She heard the splash of water as he refilled the water bowl against her hip. He moved her hand to rest beside it. Fastest’s touch was gentle, kind, surely the result of caring for Rutak all these years. Carole tried to force her eyes open. What if I fall asleep and it all disappears again? Questions flitted through her mind. She needed answers.

  The ropes on the bed next to hers creaked and she sensed Fastest sink onto it, and heard him sigh, a long sad sound. Then his hand was back, stretched across the short gap, spreading a woolen blanket over her. She didn’t protest when he tucked the ends beneath her. Maybe he wouldn’t vanish if he was touching her.

  “I’ll stay with you for a while. Please rest.”

  “I used to think, when I searched the desert for this place, that you and I would be friends,” she whispered, unable to believe she’d voice the thought. “That’s sad isn’t it? I saw you once, and anyway, I don’t have friends.”

  “Perhaps if you did not try to kill them,” he whispered back, “you would have friends.”

  “Don’t. Don’t tease.”

  “I’m not. You might want to think about it.”

  Carole didn’t answer him. They hadn’t wanted her. She wished she hadn’t said so much. After long minutes of scrambled thoughts, exhaustion won out and she slept.

  CAROLE WOKE, SWEATING despite the cold desert night, and for one terrifying moment thought she’d imagined Fastest. Alone on the rope mattress, she groped for her blanket and sat up, her mind searching through the night for him. Wrapping the thin woolen blanket over her shoulders, Carole made her way to the sideboard for food. Shoveling cold beans onto a tortilla with her fingers, she tried to locate Fastest among the sleeping tribe. The small terraced village sloped around her, and her mind skimmed over unfamiliar families as she ate the clean food.

  She almost missed him. The hollow space of a kiva had been dug just yards east of the houses. Carole could sense a wooden ladder jutting from the underground structure, surrounded by a ring of stones. Finishing the last of the food, she revisited the spot with her mind. Moving downward, always an unpleasant task, instead of sensing earth she found open space. Fastest lay sprawled on the ground inside the kiva. She tensed until she felt his heartbeat, his breathing, the tears on his face. A horrible suspicion entered her mind. Wiping her mouth, she closed her eyes and focused. The ground beneath Fastest had been disturbed recently, and she forced her reluctant mind beneath it.

  “No!” she whispered into the night, knocking a clay pot from the shelf. It rolled across the dirt floor. Though the life that had been Rutak Tural was gone, she sensed the shell that had housed him, his body buried in the ground. Carole ran into the night.

  A WOMAN SAT huddled on the groun
d at the top of the kiva, swaddled in cloth, just a dim figure in the night. Carole ignored her, heading for the opening.

  “Don’t,” the woman warned. “Jonathan needs to mourn. When he needs comfort, the tribe will see to him, not you.”

  Ignoring her, Carole headed for the ladder. A beam of light flashed directly into her eyes and then blinked off. The old woman stood, slapping the flashlight against her hand. The light blinked back on.

  “I think the batteries are going. Don’t you dare ignore me, young lady. Turn right around and march back to your hut. Rutak Tural did not give his last for you to waste it. You never did follow the rules very well, did you? Not when it didn’t suit you. Do you have a problem with your hearing? I said march!”

  For some reason Carole responded to the command, turning towards the huts. The old woman shuffled behind her with a heavyset gait, rocking from side to side as she moved. The flashlight blinked in and out with an occasional thwack. Inside the hut, Carole slid weakly onto the nearest bed, exhausted, wondering if she’d have managed the climb down the ladder into the kiva. The woman’s flashlight finally died, and she lit a lantern, casting a glow of warm light inside the hut.

  “Aw, Carole! Your hair! All that beautiful hair gone, that’s a sin.”

  Blinking through the light, Carole caught the dark outline of the woman and her mouth fell open. She sat straight up in the bed so fast that it felt like her brain slid forward inside her skull. She could feel her heartbeat inside her head. The woman was a nun, and not just any nun.

  “Sister Mary Josephine?” How on earth?

  “Oh she remembers the name, but not the manners?”

  “Good evening, Sister Mary Josephine,” Carole intoned automatically, childhood memories flooding her mind.

  “Good evening, Carole. Would you like a drink of water?”

  “No thank you, Sister Mary Josephine,” she whispered. It’s not possible. I have lost my mind, completely and utterly lost my mind. Carole lay back on the bed and closed her eyes. Overwhelmed and exhausted, she couldn’t process it, and dove into unconsciousness without even trying to fight it.