Stormrider (30 page)

It was all there, in her mind, a presence, a touch, a sharing of souls, and then it was gone, fading into blackness. And in its place was an emptiness so vast it felt like it encompassed the world. Stormrider’s chest constricted, her heart clenched and the pain in the back of her throat from holding back the deluge of tears nearly choked her as One Eye’s magnificent heart ceased beating.

Silent as a wraith, Littlefoot slipped up on them. Stormrider raised her eyes and met the she-wolf’s steady regard, sensing her tenderness within the bond attempting to skate at the edges of Stormrider’s terrible void even while she grappled with her own grief mirrored so plainly in her eloquent eyes.

You have not known the power of the bond before this
. Littlefoot counseled.
The pain is deep, but it will soften and pass. One-Eye saw fit to leave you a small part of himself. You will grieve, then you will put it aside. That is the way of life.

Stormrider struggled with a sob as Strongheart lunged up the slope followed by Raptor clawing his way up dragging a battered and trussed, but still struggling, Jarrel. Song Dog swam back into her range of focus and she realized he had been standing there the whole time, respectfully silent, gripped by the loss and pain which possessed her. Raptor, battered himself, was more abrupt.

“We caught him. What are we going to do with him?”

Raptor’s gaze fell to One Eye cradled in Stormrider’s lap. A few seconds passed before the realization of the wolf’s utter stillness sank in. The raw agony emanating from her tore into his heart.
 

Stormrider turned her head slowly to meet his eyes directly with her own. She lifted her chin, her flawless beauty taking on a searing chill. Her face was a rigid mask of the Goddess of destruction. Then she looked right into Jarrel’s eyes.

“Kill him!” Her voice was fire and ice in deadly calm. Her words crisp and clear, held no mercy. “
Now
.”

Starwalker touched Raptor.
Be cautious. Her pain is great.

Raptor threw a hard glance at the pony. He didn’t need to be cautioned against his usually glib tongue.

“No,” he replied softly to Stormrider’s command, for it had been nothing less than a command, and the two remaining wolves stood stiffly at the ready to carry it out.

“The Dinh Dinh are going to be desperate to get him back,” he went on quietly, reasonably. “They know the legends of The Amulet of The Suonetar and what its acceptance means in Antaris—what its acceptance of Jarrel means—with him and The Amulet in tow when we return we should be able to head off your civil war . . .”

“Do it! Now! Kill
him
and it will end!”

“It is not I who will die, bounty hunter,” Jarrel snarled the promise, barely able to stand up against the steepness of the slope. “It is you! I already have more men than you could count searching for you.”

Before Raptor could frame another reply Jarrel flung himself back, tumbling again down the slope, but this time he simply disappeared before their eyes; vapor upon the wind, husky laughter trailing behind him like a victory banner.

Raptor cursed as one flier came in close, turned swiftly and then, its human cargo on board, departed with breathtaking speed.

Stormrider screamed her fury. And screamed again. The wolves chorused her pain with their howls.

Chapter 24

“He’s gone,” Raptor said it but he still couldn’t quite believe it. “But how? The Dinh Dinh don’t have—?”

“Any such capabilities,” Stormrider, her hand still wrapped tightly in One Eye’s pelt, finished in a choked tone of such utter defeat that it tore at his heart. “But the sciences of Antaris have come a long way. And he, worth no more than spit in the ocean, is Imperitor of Antaris.” Her words were soft, her tone flat, her throat raw and constricted, but she was regaining control, mastering her emotions for the present. “They hid him, blanketed him from our sight. With his specific readings on board the flier they could single him out. A11 he had to do was to get in range and one of their beams locking on could complete the transference from ground to flier. Like a high-speed elevator. They offer much to each other, the Dinh Dinh and our Imperitor. It is the most unholy alliance.”

Raptor stared at Stormrider. Her face was so flat, so devoid of any emotion since her scream of anguish that he wanted to weep himself. Starwalker hovered at the fringes of his thoughts, hesitant, but there. Suddenly Raptor wondered what it would be like to have that ripped away from him. The emptiness yawning before him was appalling.

With a gentle hand he touched Stormrider, cupping her face and stroking her cheek. There was so much to say, but nothing to be said. The platitudes would do no good. For those left behind death was an ending. The pain was a personal thing to be suffered and endured. When the time was right, she would have to put it behind.

“I am sorry,” Raptor mouthed the empty phrase feeling bereft as he spoke it.

“No,” the young girl of The People had negotiated the precarious slope, scooting and slipping her way along until she reached Stormrider, “it is I who am sorry.” She met Stormrider’s pained gaze with a strength beyond her years. “It is I who brought death among you. I was afraid and I ran. I came here because our legends tell of the home of the Gods among the mists. There are tales of those who came before me seeking safety and finding it. I sought sanctuary. Instead I have brought you misery, pain and death.”

She seeks the protection of the Ancient Ones
. Strongheart. Level-headed. Shaken by One Eye’s loss, but in control again.
We must leave this place. The ones we fought will be back. The one who took One Eye’s life will not give up.

Stormrider nodded vaguely to both Strongheart’s statements, but made no move to rise. She smiled faintly at the slender willow of a girl, as she slowly regained her own composure slowly, finding the lost equilibrium so sorely needed by them all now. For past minutes, she had been lost and caring had been too difficult. But now there was the girl.

“There is no blame,” Stormrider responded to her guilt. “What is your name?”

“The People call me Silvercat.”

“You must stay with us for now, Silvercat,” Stormrider’s words were a bit vague as was her manner. She was still marshaling her reserves, but she was centered now in the present. “Your legends were correct. This is the land of the Gods of Nashira, or at least those your people call the Ancient Ones. But we cannot take you back to them now and you would never find your way through the mists and caves to the Kadlu alone.”

Silvercat sucked her lips into a tight little rosette and looked first amazed at Stormrider’s revelation of the reality of the legends, then worried at the idea of which direction they were heading.

“The ground levels off a little further on,” Raptor said softly to Stormrider, squeezing her shoulder with tender strength. “I’ll carry One Eye. We have to leave before the Dinh Dinh decide we’re not the threat they now believe us to be and return.”

Numbly, Stormrider nodded.

“We will bury one Eye with great honor,” Song Dog promised solemnly. “And I will compose a song for him which The People will sing forever in their camps and at their yearly assemblage for many seasons to come.”

In a rustling shower of pebbles and sticks, Starwalker edged nearer, thrusting his velvet muzzle close to Stormrider, brushing her cheek while he cast the thought toward Raptor
. I will be proud to carry One Eye. I am not so likely to fall in the descent.

Raptor nodded, gently collecting the golden wolf’s body from Stormrider’s arms, lifting him to lay across the pony’s back.

Then he turned to Stormrider, extending his hand to pull her to her feet close beside him. Before she could stiffen or protest, he drew her in a gentle, unrelenting tug into the curve of his arm holding her tightly against him, a gesture of friendship and support.

Stormrider, her eyes glassy and filled with pain, looked up at him with a distant gaze but did not pull away. There would be a time, later, to grieve, but not now. For a moment she allowed the embrace, then drew away, straightened and made her way down the slope.

Song Dog walked close beside Starwalker, a respectful hand always at the ready to make sure One Eye did not slide from the pony’s back as they picked their way down. The wolves, Strongheart and Littlefoot, ranged ahead, scouting, finding level footing first, then led the way to a small copse of trees huddled at the base of the nearly perpendicular promontory of their descent.

It was a somber group who gathered as Raptor utilized the confiscated Dinh Dinh laser weapon to gouge a hole in the soft soil for One Eye’s grave. There was little to do but move swiftly, which they did, closing the earth and covering it much as Stormrider and Strongheart had done that day not so long ago when they had buried Raptor’s attacker in the deep woods.

Song Dog sang a soft chant to guide the wolf into the next world, Silvercat joining him out of respect though she had not known One Eye. Their soft, youthful voices rose in a melodic, melancholy tribute to the courage and valor of the wolf, marking his life upon this world, then fading off into silence.

Into the silence they walked away, leaving the grave behind. Stormrider could not look back. She left a little bit of herself behind in that clutch of trees at the foot of the promontory.

* * *

The land opened into a rolling plain dotted with plenty of low scrubby growth of a pale grayish-green and marked by occasional clumps of taller trees where water apparently flowed beneath the surface in copious amounts. The land provided shelter in many deep folds and valleys.

At first Stormrider mused at how far the young girl, Silvercat, had come on her own, but it did not take long for her to realize she was not the child she had first taken her for. Silvercat was close to age with Song Dog, entering the first bloom of young-womanhood. And she had pride to match his, erect of carriage, flashing brown eyes full of fire and fight. She rode Starwalker at intervals, at his invitation, sitting astride with all the grace and dignity of a princess.

“A terrible evil has come to the place where The People are to hold the assembly this turning of the year. Many had already come to the gathering place to celebrate the circle of time passing and the sharing of Nashira’s bounty.” Nervousness quickened Silvercat’s words as they hurried back to the place of gathering. With each step Starwalker took her nervousness grew, though she tried valiantly to conceal it.

“Many were killed when the warriors fought. The men who came were like the ones you battled on the mountain. They had weapons like the one Raptor Simic carries. They are invincible!”

“Raptor took that weapon from them,” Stormrider reminded the young woman. “They are men just as the warriors of The People are men. There must be new strategy to face new weapons.”

Silvercat elevated her chin at what she interpreted as a gentle rebuke. “You were not there. You did not see those who died. You did not have your own father force you to run because those who came threatened to use me until he did as they commanded. He knew he would die when I was gone and they had no hope of success, but still he made me go because to remain I was an even greater threat. I was the weapon they could have used to defeat him and steal his honor as well as his life.”

“No, I was not there,” Stormrider agreed softly, “but I have seen much the same in other places. You must tell us everything you saw or heard if we are to help. Who is your father that they would be so determined to bend him to their will?”

“Blue Thunder. Keeper of the Moon-blessed Amulet of the Goddess. It came to his keeping by the power of his warrior skills and his strength as a leader of The People. He took it from those like the ones now laying siege at the gathering one turning ago, braving their weapons and killing several of their number during the fight. The fame of the Amulet is legend now among The People. It glows like the light of sunset, rose and gold, but it is more than mere metal. It bestows upon Blue Thunder great power.”

“Blue Thunder,” Song Dog echoed, respect filling his voice. “He is a great warrior among The People. A great seer as well. He is known throughout the tribes.”

“Does Blue Thunder wear this Amulet about his throat?”

Raptor interjected the question.

“It is too great! It bestows power, but it is power!” Silvercat spoke in a startled gasp before she realized what she was saying, then continued a little more subdued at the idea of presenting an Amulet as more powerful than her father. “It is kept safe and he is never far from it. When there is a ceremony in which it must be seen, it is worn in a great headdress. It is not meant to be placed about a neck,” she finished with great awe.

Raptor glanced at Stormrider. That certainly wasn’t the story in Antaris. The Amulet was to be placed nowhere else but about a throat—a very deserving throat.

“If your father were to die without revealing the location of The Amulet, is there someone else who would know of it?” Stormrider asked.

Silvercat stared down at her from her position on Starwalker’s back, large brown eyes shimmering with tears. She swallowed hard and looked away as if considering her answer from every angle. “I do,” she admitted finally in a bare croak. “It is the other reason he sent me away.”

Song Dog frowned at the expression on Stormrider’s face as much as at Silvercat’s admission. “She seeks to take the Amulet from Nashira,” the young warrior abruptly informed the princess of The People.