Annabelle and Mark are kidnapped! his mind raged. Quit standing around looking like a dunce. Do something, John Calvin Black!
Without a word, John swung up on his horse and galloped west out of town.
“John, where are you going?” yelled Ethan Smith. “What are we to do here?”
John found the trail of blood from Wiggin’s house and kicked his horse into a canter into the forest. He still had his musket, ammunition, wadding, and powder. He’d eaten all his food, but he knew how to live off the land. Navigating on pure instinct, John rode into the falling night.
Six
J
ohn awoke knowing something was wrong. After losing the trail of blood in the darkness, he’d bedded down long after midnight between the roots of a great tree. The forest was far too quiet. The nocturnal foragers and hunters were silent.
He pushed himself into a crouch, his back pressing against the rough bark of the tree. He reached for his musket, keeping his movement slow and steady. He pulled the musket to him with his fingertips and when it was close enough, swept it up and socked the butt of the musket into the hollow of his shoulder. He eased the hammer back, but he had nothing to aim or fire at. Everything was still around him. Not even the wind blew.
Keeping his voice just above a whisper, he asked, “Is someone there?”
“What do you do here, lost Isir?” It was the husky contralto voice of a woman. She spoke in Onondowaga.
“Who is that? Are you the man who spoke to me near my home?”
“Man? Hardly. You may call me Awenhai. That’s what the Onondowaga used to call me.”
“Sky Woman?”
A guttural laugh was her only response.
“Where is your…”
“My what? My next meal?” Harsh, cawing laughter rang through the night.
“Where is the other one? The one who spoke to me. The one who attacked Ganundasaga.”
“He is…about. Why? Do you want to see him again so soon?” More laughter echoed through the forest. “Would you like to meet my other suitor?”
A savage howl split the air. It was far too close. John swung the musket back and forth, scanning the shadows of the forest for a moving shape.
“Oh, put that toy down. It is at best annoying. You can’t hurt us with that.”
“Us.” John kept the musket at the ready. “How many are you?”
“Here? Three. Elsewhere? Many.”
“Three,” breathed John, recalling how just one of them had bested an entire village of Onondowaga, even with the support of ten muskets from Geneva. His palms began to sweat.
“I’m curious. Why have you come deep into my domain alone?”
John opened his mouth to speak, but he didn’t know the answer to her question. Yes, his sister-in-law and nephew were abducted, as was Martin Wiggin, but a sane response to that information would have been to ride in the morning, bringing half the militia with him. Riding out alone was tantamount to suicide.
Finally, John spoke. “The man who visited my cabin, the wendigo who attacked Ganundasaga—”
“Tawiskaron,” she snapped. “The Onondowaga call him Tawiskaron.”
“Thank you. Tawiskaron said he wanted me and me alone. He said he’d bring more death to my village if I refused him—and I did refuse him.”
“And did death pay a call to your little village?” She was amused, mocking.
“You know it did. You were there, were you not? My neighbors said two wendigos and a witch attacked the village.”
“Another village named me witch once.” Her laughter pealed through the night, accompanied by the harsh, chuffing barks of a wendigo’s laughter.
“Is that Tawiskaron? The one with you?”
“No. The Onondowaga call him Otentonnia.”
“How did you inculcate yourselves into the Iroquois beliefs?”
“Ha!” she cried. “We just arrived, and they named us thus.”
“Did you fall from a hole in the sky as they say?”
“Maybe I did. Can you say different?” Her tone was testy, and a low, warning growl sounded from behind John. “At the time, your people were not present in this land. You were certainly not yet born.”
“No offense meant,” he said. “I was curious.”
“You should be more careful, lest your curiosity lead you into a bear’s den.” She sighed. “Put the musket down. Now!”
The growl came again, sounding closer.
“If I do, then you will kill me.”
She stepped out of the shadows across the small glade from him. “I could kill you now, with or without your silly weapon.” She lifted a graceful arm and snapped her fingers.
A heavy hand came down on top of John’s head. Long, sharp talons pricked the skin of his cheeks and the back of his head. John lowered the musket.
“Otentonnia will not look kindly on you if you fire that toy at me.”
The wendigo behind John loosed a savage, deafening bark.
“I won’t,” said John. “Do my family members still live?”
The wendigo made the chuffing-barking sound as Awenhai strode closer.
She was beautiful—or she would have been, had she not been starving to death. Her long blonde hair shone in the moonlight. She wore a buckskin dress like a squaw would and went barefoot.
“I can see why the Onondowaga thought you were a goddess.”
“Are you saying that I am not?” Her voice was glacial, and her eyes narrowed with threat. The wendigo snarled in John’s ear.
“I meant it as a compliment to your beauty,” said John. He should have been terrified but to his surprise, he wasn’t.
She laughed. It sounded harsh, broken. “You may give Otentonnia and Tawiskaron stiff competition.” She cocked her head to the side. “Tell me, John Black. Do you come to accept Tawiskaron’s terms?”
“I’ve come to secure the release of my kin. One way or the other.”
She laughed again. “Can you believe this one, Otentonnia? He threatens with one hand and flatters with the other.”
The wendigo snorted. Something heavy slammed into the back of John’s neck, and the world went black.
Seven
W
hen John came to, the wendigo was dragging him by the collar over the wild floor of the forest. He jounced from tree root to rock to fern, his back aching from the impacts, his face burning from the vegetation whipping his cheeks.
Awenhai ran behind him, a smirk on her lips. Though the wendigo’s speed was great, she didn’t seem winded or even to be exerting herself. Her long blonde hair bounced with each step.
“Where are you taking me?” he wheezed.
She looked down at him and sneered.
John threw his arms out to the side and tried to grab on to a bush or tree branch—anything to slow or stop himself. When that didn’t work, he reached behind him and tried to pry the wendigo’s fingers away from his collar, but the beast’s grip was like iron.
“Do not struggle so,” said Awenhai. “Escape is not possible, except through death. You are mine now. One way or another.” Her face twisted in a mocking smile.
“Why would you do this?”
She smiled crookedly. “Your blood.”
“Tawiskaron talked of it. You could kill me at any time to get my blood. Why—”
The wendigo leaped over a log, slamming John into it, driving his breath from his body.
Awenhai laughed. “True. But we haven’t killed you. So what does that suggest?”
John gulped like a landed fish, unable to draw air. His body left the ground as the wendigo leaped from a small ridge. When he came back to earth, John bit his tongue as his head slammed into the stony ground, and then lost consciousness again.
Eight
H
e awoke in a dark place. The inky blackness that surrounded him felt cold, bitter. His tongue ached, and the metallic yet salty taste of blood inundated his mouth. “Where am I?” he muttered.
Silence was h
is only answer. He felt around in the darkness. The floor he rested on was cold stone. More stone made the walls. Underground? he wondered. He stopped moving and listened. In the distance, water dripped into water.
His belongings were gone.
He climbed to his feet and, with one hand against the wall, began to explore the cave of his captivity. He chose a direction at random and walked until the rough cave wall fell away beneath his fingers.
His eyes struggled to adapt to the darkness, but the lack of light was complete. He put both hands up in front of him and took small steps forward, to the left, and to the right. Soon, he stood in an intersection of tunnels, each stretching away to infinity for all he knew. When he moved to the right, it seemed like he was going uphill, so he chose to follow that passageway.
He walked for what seemed to him to be a very long time before coming to another intersection of tunnels. This time, he felt air moving to the left and took that passageway.
After what felt like hours of stumbling down one pitch-black passageway or another, he came to a large room. At the opposite end of the room, the darkness seemed brighter. He crept along toward the light, arms out in front of him, feet sliding forward in short, timid steps.
Why did they bring me here and leave me unguarded in the darkness? As he baby-stepped through the cavern, Awenhai’s words came back to him. What does it suggest that they didn’t kill me and drink my blood outright? Maybe they want me to provide sustenance for some kind of journey. He shook his head. He didn’t think they ever had trouble finding nourishment.
The first wendigo had said something about his blood, too. There is something in your blood that pleases me, he’d said. At the time, John had thought he meant a scent, but now he wondered.
He stumbled over something in the darkness. He bent down and discovered a body in front of him. It was cold with death. A man, a young man. He peered at the head and face of the man, hoping there was enough light to make out some detail. He leaned in close.
The man was an Indian, and he’d been dead for a long time. Chunks of flesh had been cut away with a sharp implement. In other places, his body bore ragged gashes made by lupine teeth.
An abattoir? John wondered with a shudder. Picking his way forward, he slid his foot along the ground, feeling for other bodies. Soon, he recognized a path between the corpses and hurried down the path to the end of the room. The spot between his shoulder blades itched and crawled when he thought of the dead behind him.
A footfall sounded behind him, but when he whirled toward it, no one was there. Something brushed his arm, but again, there was no one. His mind, playing tricks.
At the end of the room, light played along the edge of a short, earthen tunnel. John stooped and crawled through it. He emerged into a small chamber, the roof riddled with tree roots. Across the chamber, a circle of bright, white light dazzled his dark-adapted eyes. From the sound of it, a brutal battle waged outside.
He crawled outside into the light, eyes burning. At first, he was blind in the sudden brightness, but soon his eyes began to adjust.
The two wendigos ran back and forth across a clearing filled with braves from the Iroquois League. They slashed, bit, and kicked at the warriors, each beast taking enough damage to kill ten men. Scores of Indians littered the ground helter-skelter, dead or dying.
Donehogawa led the war party. A war club in each hand, he stood at the center of the Indian force. Eyes roaming the battlefield, he shouted commands. When his eyes drifted to John, a smile broke on his face. Pointing at John with one club, he shouted and started forward.
One of the wendigos followed Donehogawa’s gaze and howled. Both beasts turned and sprinted toward John.
Awenhai’s head poked through the opening beside John. “Why can’t you do as you are bid?” she snapped. She crawled out into the clearing and glanced around, eyes haughty and blazing. She pointed at Donehogawa. “Your friend?” she asked.
John just stared at her. No matter what he answered, it might lead her to kill Donehogawa.
Her face knotted with anger. “Answer me or he dies!” she hissed.
John nodded. “I am proud to call him a friend.”
“How sweet,” she hissed. “Tell your friend to stop, to draw his braves away. They can’t win, and if they persist, we will kill them to the last man. If they leave, we will let them.”
“Why are you doing this?”
She shouted something in a language he didn’t recognize, and one of the wendigos leaped to Donehogawa with a single bound.
The brave attacked, swinging both clubs at the beast’s neck. The wendigo barked, stepped inside the reach of the clubs, and batted Donehogawa to the ground as if throwing away a child’s toy.
“You see?” demanded Awenhai.
The wendigo squatted and took Donehogawa by the hair. With two swift, savage swings, he smashed the Indian’s head into his bony knee. There was a sound like a tree branch splitting down the middle. Blood poured from Donehogawa’s nose. He turned his head this way and that, like a drunk looking for another drink.
“Do you see?”
“Okay!” yelled John. “Make this stop.”
Awenhai smiled at him. It wasn’t a pleasant smile. “Shall I?”
“Please. Do what you want with me.”
She held out her palm toward Donehogawa and made an insistent, impatient gesture.
“Donehogawa!” cried John. “Withdraw from this place! Leave now, and they will not pursue you.”
The brave’s bleary eyes drifted toward John. He shook his head.
“Do it, Donehogawa. You can’t save me from them. All you will do is get everyone killed.”
The wendigo still held Donehogawa by the hair. He picked him up by it and shook him back and forth in sharp, vicious arcs, and then flung him to the ground. Donehogawa tried to sit up, but his arms gave out, and he fell in a heap.
“Tell them, Donehogawa! It’s your only choice! Your only chance!”
Donehogawa shook his head.
“Enough!” snapped Awenhai. She raised a long, graceful arm to point at Donehogawa. “Predna!” she screamed.
Emerald green fire lanced from her finger like a tear in the fabric of reality.
“No!” screamed John.
The stream of fire passed Donehogawa close enough to singe his hair and splashed into a brave standing at the edge of the clearing. When it touched his skin, the fire leaped and danced across his flesh. The brave screamed, and the fire raced into his mouth and down his throat like a living thing. He ran in a tight circle, mouth open but no longer screaming. The emerald green flames danced around his head, burning his hair, crisping his ears. His eyes smoked and hissed.
Donehogawa watched in horror as the brave burned from within and without. John turned away.
After a short time, a silence fell, broken only by the crackle of the dying emerald fire.
“Stop this!” Awenhai yelled. “For too long, we have allowed you—allowed, mind—to persevere in this silly belief that you have a choice when it comes to Awenhai, Otentonnia, and Tawiskaron. You have none. None!”
The tribesmen looked at her. Their faces were impassive, but John saw fear dancing in their eyes.
“Leave this place!” she barked, and both wendigos growled. “When we eat from your tribe, consider it repayment for years of our mercy!” She glowered at Donehogawa. “Now, withdraw from this place or die here.”
Donehogawa cut his eyes away and looked at John. His eyes were wet.
“Go, friend,” said John. “I don’t want your death on my conscience.”
Musket fire exploded from the forest. Lead ball rounds peppered the wendigos.
Awenhai shouted in frustration. “Kill them all!” She swept her arm in an arc at the first trees of the forest. “Predna!” she shrieked. The trees erupted in emerald flames that splashed and splattered like liquid. Men screamed as the fire found them.
The two wendigos roared and charged at the native tribesmen, rending them lim
b from limb, tearing out organs, ripping out throats.
John watched, helpless and despairing.
“They will not have all the fun. Stand and watch, lost Isir. See what is possible with the right teaching.” Awenhai looked at him through narrowed, angry eyes. “Byarnteer,” she said and started to grow. She was already taller than most men, and she grew taller at a rapid pace. Her skull twisted and lurched beneath her skin, and her lustrous blonde hair fell out in sheaves. Eyes blazing, her face stretched into the snout of a bear and fangs pushed out of her gums. Her buckskin dress split down the center and fell away. Short, coarse black hair sprang from the skin of her upper body.
With a tremendous roar, she ran among the tribesman, flinging bodies in her wake. She was even more savage than the other two. Blood dripped from her maw and splattered the ground.
“A…a bear,” John murmured, his mind reeling. He looked at the other two wendigos. “Wolves and a bear.”
The man in the Ganundasaga battle had shouted some nonsense word before he metamorphosed. Awenhai said another word that sounded like barndeer. Their transformations were wrought by magic, of that there was no doubt, but it bore none of the trappings prescribed to witches and warlocks. Where were the incantations, the spells, the familiars? Where was the worship of the devil?
Musket fire trickled to a stop as the green flames built a wall between the clearing and the forest. John ran to Donehogawa. The brave sat with his head turned to the side, vomiting. John reached him and put his hand on his friend’s shoulders.
The brave turned to him, clear fluid pouring from his nose and ears. He tried to grip John’s arm, but he was weak, clumsy. John looked into his eyes, fearing the worst. The man’s pupils were mismatched—one huge, one small.
“Is the game won?” he asked John, words slurred and almost unintelligible. “The game…”
John closed his own eyes and murmured a prayer.
The battle behind him ended and he glanced over his shoulder. Awenhai was striding toward him, eyes blazing out of her bear-like visage.
Blood of the Isir Omnibus Page 53
