TWENTY-NINE      

RAIN SPLASHED DOWN ON HIS FACE, CHILL AND stinging, the wind whipping the droplets of water into tiny missiles, and he was conscious again. He lay staring up at a sky that looked like the bottom of a churning cauldron, dark and wild. He turned his head, blinked away the rain, and tried to focus.

What had happened?

Then Deladion Inch remembered, and he was awake instantly. The crawler had inexplicably come apart beneath him. For no discernible reason, a two-ton monster made of iron had disintegrated. That wasn’t possible. It wasn’t even conceivable.

He felt the pain then, ratcheting through him. He took inventory of his body, a careful investigation that didn’t require him to move. His ribs, several broken. His arm, aching badly enough that it might be broken, as well. His head, of course, but when he felt along the skin there didn’t appear to be any deep wounds.

Then he remembered the girl.

He looked around, realizing for the first time that he wasn’t in the vehicle anymore. He was lying on the ground a short distance away. He had been thrown clear, sustained injuries in the process, and lost consciousness.

But where was the girl?

He sat upright, using his good arm to lever himself off the ground. He found his weapons still attached to him, all but the spray and that was lying not three feet away. The night and the rain formed a screen that turned everything around him hazy and indistinct, including the remains of the ATV, which were all over the place. But he could see the vehicle’s cabin off to one side, the doors gone and the windows smashed.

He rolled onto his knees, finding new sources of pain in his legs as he climbed gingerly to his feet. The terrain was much rougher than he remembered, which accounted for the damage he had sustained in the crash. But he couldn’t remember any explosion, any flash, nothing that would indicate the vehicle had been struck by a rocket or flash-bang. Besides, no one had those weapons other than himself. Spears and swords and even catapults wouldn’t do this kind of damage.

He blinked away the rain, wiped at his face, and took a deep breath. With slow, careful steps he made his way over to the cabin and peered inside. The girl was still strapped to the passenger’s seat, her eyes closed, head drooping. He couldn’t see any visible damage, but she appeared to be unconscious. He started to speak her name and then realized he couldn’t remember it.

“Girl,” he called to her instead. “Girl, are you all right?”

Her eyes opened. She nodded wordlessly.

“Unstrap yourself and climb out. You’re sure you’re not hurt?”

Without responding, she unbuckled the belt that held her in place and slipped down from the seat onto the ground. She brushed herself off, seemed to test her strength, and then looked at him and nodded. “I’m all right. What happened?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

He stooped down where he could study the undercarriage more closely, tracing the line of the break. Sharp, jagged edges ran all along the frame, as if someone had used a giant saw to sever the body and chassis. He found it again on the axles and gun mounts and even the door hinges.

As if something had cut the vehicle into pieces.

“Acid,” he whispered to himself, still not quite believing what his eyes were telling him. Where had the Trolls learned to make acid this strong? When had they discovered the technology?

But they were weapons makers, and they knew a great deal about chemical compounds and the forging of the materials created as a result. Either by experiment or by chance, they had found an acid that could eat right through the strongest metals. That they had used it on his crawler was a clear indication of how far out of favor he had fallen. It wouldn’t have mattered if he had come to help them or not; they had intended to be rid of him once and for all.

“Taureq Siq.” He was still whispering to himself, still not quite believing what had happened. It occurred to him that he should have given in to his impulses and killed the Maturen and his weasel son when he’d had the chance.

“We have to go,” he said to the girl. “They’ll be after us and we don’t have the advantage of speed or protection anymore. We’ll have to rely on being smarter.”

She looked at him and nodded. “We are smarter. But I’m still afraid.”

“You should be,” he said. “Fear will keep you focused on what’s needed. What’s your name again?”

“Prue.”

“Here’s the thing, Prue. We still have these.” He patted the butt ends of the spray and the flechette. “And these.” He touched the flash-bangs and the knives and all the rest. “They don’t have anything to counteract my weapons except numbers. We can still get away. Come on.”

They set out across the murky, sodden landscape, unable to see more than twenty feet in any direction, the rain and the night shrouding everything. He had thought the rain might let up eventually, but so far it was showing no signs of doing so. At least it would help wash away their trail and conceal their route of passage.

He had started out toward the mountains, intent on following the directions on the map that Sider Ament had drawn leading to the pass, but after only a few minutes he abruptly changed direction and turned south. The Drouj would be using Skaith Hounds to track them. Grosha would be in charge, no doubt, urging his murderous little pets on. The hounds would have difficulty finding their scent while the rains continued, but when they stopped it would be another matter. In the meantime, Grosha would expect him to make for the mountains and the valley within. After all, he had rescued the girl; the assumption would be that he had done so in the hope of returning her to her people, perhaps for a substantial reward. So Grosha would travel east, hoping to catch up to them or at least to pick up their trail along the way.

But he would be looking in the wrong place, and with any luck at all he wouldn’t figure that out before Inch and the girl were safely tucked away in Inch’s fortress lair. Once there, they could take time to rest up and heal and could return the girl home later.

It wasn’t a great plan, but it was the only one that made any sense.

The problem was, it relied on misdirection and luck, neither of which Deladion Inch had ever had much faith in. In this case, he would make an exception. After all, he didn’t have much choice. His ribs and his arm had reduced his ability to defend himself, let alone the girl, and they would only get one chance at escaping. The Trolls were not overly bright, but they were strong and durable, and after the disruption he had caused they would be beyond angry.

They had walked only a short distance when the girl saw him wince. “Are you hurt?” she asked.

“Broken ribs. My arm, too, I think.” He didn’t want to talk about it. He just wanted to keep moving. “I’ll be fine.”

“No you won’t,” she said, taking his good arm and pulling him about. “Let me look at you. I know something about healing.”

She left the ribs alone, presumably because she did not want to take the time and trouble to strip off his armor and because she knew his body was already as well protected as it could be. But she took a few minutes with the arm, pressing it, watching him for a reaction, asking where it hurt. When she had finished, she told him the forearm bones were cracked if not broken, and she would splint it. She found a pair of straight sticks, tore strips of cloth from the hem of her cloak, and bound up his arm so that the bones were braced. Then she pulled some leaves from within her tunic and told him to chew them. Surprisingly enough, he felt the pain begin to lessen almost immediately.

They walked on. She offered to carry something for him, but he told her he could manage better alone. He glanced over his shoulder repeatedly, searching the darkness for pursuit, but saw nothing. He took them down streambeds and across wet patches wherever he found them, doing what he could to mask all traces of their passage. He set a steady pace, even though he thought she might have trouble keeping up. She didn’t.

Finally, he asked her about it.

“I’m a Tracker, just like Panterra. We were trained to read sign, follow trails, and live out on our own for weeks at a time. We can survive anywhere. I’m very good at it; Panterra is better. The best, in fact, that I’ve ever seen.”

She seemed about to tell him something more, but then thought better of it. “I can keep up with you,” she finished.

He marveled to find that she could. A slip of a thing, no bigger than a minute, intense and determined, she was much tougher than she looked. Her red hair was soaked to a burnt umber, and her green eyes gleamed bright even in the darkness and damp. She glanced at him often, perhaps trying to read him. He smiled inwardly. Others had done so before her; none had succeeded.

By daybreak, they were miles away from the Drouj camp, off the flats and into hill country thick with deadwood and scrub and riven with gullies and deep washes. The rains had ceased, but the dampness lingered in the form of mist that snaked down off the distant heights and through the defiles. The temperature had dropped, and both Inch and Prue were chilled in their sodden clothing. It would have been nice to build a fire, but foolish beyond measure.

Even so, Deladion Inch called a halt and had them sit down on a fallen log so they could have something to eat. He could see bits and pieces of the land in the distance, but most of it remained obscured. All night, he had listened for the Trolls and their hounds, but he had heard nothing. He heard nothing now.

“Who are you?” she asked as they chewed on bits of cheese and fruit and some bread that wasn’t quite dry.

He told her his name. “I met Sider Ament weeks ago when he came through the mountains tracking an agenahl. Saved his life, matter of fact.”

“Why did you come for me?”

He shrugged. “Seemed like a good idea at the time. Sider asked me if I would. I didn’t have anything better to do.” He flashed her a quick smile. “Sider planned to come for you himself, but his plans changed and he needed to get back inside the valley right away. That Troll that was helping you? Arik whatever he called himself? He’s Taureq Siq’s older son. He tricked you so that he could get into the valley and find out how things were. Since Sider needed to try to catch up to him before he escaped, I said I would come get you in his place. Things would have gone as planned, too, if the Trolls hadn’t discovered an acid that can eat through the steel of a crawler.”

“They found that button with the red light that you attached to me,” she said. “They didn’t seem to know what it was. They argued about it after they found it, so they might not have been certain you put it there. But I think they suspected it was you. Grosha tied me up, shoved me under those rugs, and waited to see if you would come.”

He nodded. “I thought it might be something like that. I wanted to give it more time, but I couldn’t wait; I had to get you out right away. Arik was supposed to return during the night.”

“How would they know that? Can they communicate with each other from that far away?”

He shook his head. “I wouldn’t think so. They don’t have any real technology beyond ironworking.”

She looked down at her hands. “I trusted Arik,” she said.

“Don’t feel too badly about that. He’s good at making people trust him. That’s why he’s so dangerous.”

“So all that business about being one of us, a descendant of a member of the Ghosts, that was just a lie?”

Inch shook his head. “I couldn’t say. I don’t know anything of the story. The part I know is that he claimed to be the son of a Karriak Maturen given in exchange for Taureq’s eldest. I knew that was wrong because the Drouj wiped out the Karriak some years back. Tricked them into thinking they wanted an alliance, persuaded them to let down their guard, and then massacred them all.”

She was quiet then for a long time. “I hope Sider catches up to him,” she said finally.

He gave her a smile. “I wouldn’t bet against it.”

THEY SET OUT AGAIN SHORTLY AFTERWARD, still moving south through the mix of haze and gray. The rains returned in a slow, steady drizzle, and the temperature dropped further. The low ground, already swampy and slick, turned to mud covered by large stretches of surface water forming small lakes and connecting waterways. Walking was all up and down, a tiring slog that quickly sapped their energy. The footing was uncertain, resulting in constant slips and slides that cost them valuable time. Everything about them was turning into a morass.

Deladion Inch tried to take comfort in the fact that it would be just as hard on anyone tracking them, but soon grew so tired from picking himself up that he no longer found comfort in anything. His arm had begun to throb anew, pain shooting up and down it in sharp rushes, and the girl gave him some more of the leaves to chew. But his body was aching everywhere by now, not just in the places where his ribs were cracked and his arm fractured, and his misery was pretty much complete. He guessed they were still several hours’ walk from his safehold, and they might not reach it by nightfall. He regretted endlessly the loss of the crawler, a dependable rolling fortress he could never replace. He thought of countless ways he might punish Taureq Siq for his part in this, but all of them required that he first get through the day.

Not a sure thing, at all, he decided when he heard the distant baying of the Skaith Hounds.

He cursed under his breath, gave the girl a quick reassuring smile, and kept walking as if the howling didn’t matter. But they both knew that somehow, against all odds, the beasts had found their trail and were hunting them and that his efforts at misleading the Drouj had gone for naught. He began measuring their chances of reaching safety before the hounds caught up to them and decided they were slim or none. They would have to find a fresh way to throw off their pursuit or stand and fight.

He decided their best chance was to make use of the chain of waterways and lakes formed by the surface water, wading through in directions that would confuse the beasts. Leading the way, he took the girl into deeper water that covered their feet and ankles and then slogged ahead across vast stretches linked by connecting streams, careful never to step out of the water, never to touch ground that might give them away.

“We could double back on them,” Prue suggested at one point, but he quickly shook his head.

“Too dangerous. If they get between us and the fortress, we have no chance at all. We keep going ahead.”

She didn’t argue. She did not complain or ask to rest. She did not slow. She just did what she was told. He admired this girl.

“How long have you known Sider Ament?” he asked after a time, weary of the silence.

She shrugged. “A few weeks. I only knew of him before that.”

“That’s long enough, I guess. I only met him recently myself. First I knew of anyone living in those mountains. Why didn’t your people come out of there before now? What kept you in hiding?”

“It’s a long story. We couldn’t leave. We were warded by magic that locked us in. The valley was all we knew.”

“Bet you wish that was still the case, don’t you?”

“It would be easier. But the barrier’s down and it won’t come back up. We have to face life outside the valley, like it or not.” She glanced over, her green eyes unsettling. “How did you become a mercenary?”

He shrugged. “I needed a way to make a living. I didn’t have any people, no family, no anything. I’d been on my own since I was ten or twelve. I was living in a village south of here and doing what I could to stay alive. I used to scavenge for things in the ruins that I could barter or sell.” He pointed at the weapons slung over his right shoulder. “These brought in good money. I tried using them, found I could, decided to take up a new trade. It made me a valuable commodity to those in search of an edge against their enemies. I liked how that made me feel.”

“Don’t you get lonely?”

“Sometimes. Everyone does. But I like living alone, being on my own, making my own decisions. Safer that way. Did Sider tell you about what it’s like out here?”

She shook her head. “I only met him the one time. I haven’t seen him since. But I can guess what it’s like.”

He laughed softly. “No, you can’t.”

He proceeded to describe it in detail, a straightforward recitation that left nothing out. He embellished a little, but not much. It wasn’t necessary. Things were horrible enough as they were without the need to add anything. She only needed to grasp the gist of it. So he described the killings and the enslavement and the destruction, the basic elements of the savagery that had dominated everyone’s life in the aftermath of the Great Wars—or at least everyone who hadn’t found the sort of shelter from which she came.

She listened carefully and didn’t interrupt. When he was finished, she said, “You’re right. I couldn’t have guessed at most of it. I don’t know how you tolerate it.”

“I don’t think about it,” he said. “I don’t let it get too close.”

She frowned. “But it’s all around you.”

“It helps to have these,” he said, touching his weapons. “They keep everything at a distance.”

From behind them, closer now, the baying of the Skaith Hounds rose and died. Inch glanced over his shoulder. It sounded like the beasts were farther west, perhaps following a false trail. “Let’s keep moving.”

They walked on for another hour, the day winding down. He thought they were getting close to the fortress, but he couldn’t be certain in the shroud of darkness and damp. He didn’t usually come at it from this direction, in any case. Everything looked different.

A fresh round of baying rose out of the silence, deep and powerful. The girl stopped where she was and looked back. “They’ve found our trail. They’re coming for us.”

“Maybe not,” he said, not liking how certain she seemed.

“No, they’re coming. I can feel it. It’s my gift to know. My instincts warn me when I’m threatened. They’re warning me now.”

He wasn’t sure he believed her, but he didn’t see any point in taking chances. He quickened their pace, moving out of the water slicks and onto solid ground again. They needed to get out of the open, to put some walls between themselves and their pursuers. But they would have to hurry. If they failed to reach cover before dark, they would have no chance at all.

The baying rose and fell, continuous now. It was getting stronger, closer. The girl was right. The Skaith Hounds had found their trail. He gave momentary consideration to turning around and waiting for them, setting an ambush to kill them all. Without the hounds, the Drouj would have difficulty tracking anyone in this weather. But the risk was too great. If he failed to kill even one of the beasts, they would lose any advantage they might gain by staying ahead of the pursuit.

He slipped the flechette from his shoulder, released the safety, and clutched the big gun to his chest. He would be ready for them.

All of a sudden there were ruins ahead, a maze of half walls and collapsed roofs, of passageways and rubble. For just an instant he thought they had reached his fortress keep. Then he realized these were only the outbuildings. Still, any sort of protection was better than none. The walls at least gave them something to stand behind when the Trolls caught up to them. Even a piece of a wall would …

He was in midthought as the Skaith Hound launched itself at him from out of the darkness, a deadly, silent assassin. The huge beast was on him before he could bring the flechette to bear, knocking him backward off his feet and onto the ground. He only just managed to get the flechette between himself and the hound’s jaws, jamming the barrel between the rows of teeth as he fought to fling the animal off. He heard the girl scream, and a second hound appeared, racing across the open ground to join the first. The barrel of the flechette was pointed right at it, and he pulled the trigger while it was still a dozen feet away, the charge tearing into it.

Then he used all of his considerable strength to heave the first beast clear and used the weapon a second time.

He looked around quickly, the barrel of the flechette sweeping the darkness. Nothing else appeared, although he could hear more baying in the distance. There was no hiding now. They would have to stand and fight.

“Inside!” he ordered the girl, gesturing toward the ruins.

She leapt to obey and they hastened through the maze of walls, working their way deep into the cluster of buildings. They were still several hundred yards from the safety of the fortress, but they might reach it if nothing else slowed them down. He found himself laboring as he ran, which surprised him. Then he glanced down and saw the blood soaking his left leg. The first hound had managed to savage it, ripping through the leathers and body armor.

He was bleeding freely, and he could feel the muscles tightening up. He knew what that meant.

Don’t think about it!

Guttural cries rose from behind them. Trolls. They had discovered the bodies of the Skaith Hounds. Fresh baying rose and died. It was suddenly silent save for the sound of his breathing and their footfalls. The girl was keeping pace, darting this way and that through the debris, negotiating their passage effortlessly. It made him smile for just a moment. She was a keeper. He’d wondered a moment earlier why he had let himself get into this mess, but now he decided he knew.

Arrows flew past his head, and then one buried itself in his back. But the leathers and the armor stopped its penetration. He snatched at the girl, pulling her down behind a wall just ahead, and he turned, swinging up the barrel of the flechette. He fired three times, booming coughs that ruptured the stillness and ended a handful of lives in seconds. Without pausing to consider the number of dead, he was up and running anew, pulling the girl after him.

“There’s more!” she screamed, just as several bodies vaulted a low wall to their left, spears thrusting. They missed the girl, but skewered him, shoulder and leg both. He killed his attackers quickly, efficiently. He bent down and broke off the spearheads and pulled free the shafts. It cost him something to do that, but he didn’t hesitate or shy away from it.

Bleeding now from several wounds, he backed away with the girl behind him, watching the darkness. “Anything?” he asked her.

“No. They’ve fallen back. But not far.”

Of course, not far. They had him now. Her, too, if he didn’t do something about it. Then all this would have been for nothing.

He dropped behind another wall and knelt close to her. “I want you to go on ahead without me. Don’t argue. You have to reach the fortress and open the door for me. I won’t have time for that once I catch up. The locks are hidden. But I can show you how to find them. Listen carefully.”

He told her where to go and what to do. He made sure she understood. He sketched a quick map in the dirt, which showed her the route she must follow. “Go now,” he told her.

She shook her head, the first time she had questioned him. “I can stay and help …”

“You don’t have a weapon, and you don’t have fighting skills. You’ll only slow me down if I have to worry about protecting you. Here, take this.”

He handed her a Flange automatic, a twelve-shot handgun he had recovered from its hiding place about five years back and restored to working order. He showed her how to use it—how to release the safety, how to hold the weapon steady, how to fire it once or multiple times. “Just in case,” he told her.

She nodded once, and then she was off, sprinting away into the darkness. Good girl, he thought. She knew, but she wasn’t making a mistake by saying so, by staying to argue. He respected her for that. She was worth saving. Sider hadn’t made a mistake in asking his help.

He turned back to the darkness, listening for sounds of approaching Trolls. An attack was inevitable, but it might not come right away. He backed into the ruins a little farther, searching the walls and doorways for the right spot. He found it finally, a corner slot formed by adjoining walls beneath a deep overhang. They could only get at him from in front.

He braced himself against the walls once he was concealed in the shadows, reloaded the flechette, and propped the spray up next to him. Then he looped a cord around the firing pins of three of the flash-bangs and fastened them to his chest armor where they could be easily reached. He set two more of the explosive devices on a protruding stone on his left, then changed his mind and moved them to another on the right. His left arm wasn’t working well enough to do anything more than brace the stock of whatever weapon he was holding. When the attack came, he would have to move quickly.

He leaned back into the darkened corner and waited. It was a good run, he thought. I don’t like that it’s ending, but you don’t always get much of a say in that sort of thing. You just take what’s given you. He would miss seeing Sider again. But the girl would explain. What was her name? Prue, wasn’t it? It fit her.

Time stopped. The night went still, the darkness closed about, and his breath turned to frost on the cold air. He could almost make himself believe he was going to get out of this.

The attack came all at once and without warning. But he was ready, and he fired the Tyson into everything that moved until it was empty, jammed in a second clip and fired again. He was struck repeatedly by arrows and darts, but most failed to penetrate and nothing did any real damage until the Drouj came at him in waves. By then the flechette was empty and he was using the spray, riddling the bodies until they were stacked all around him, Trolls and Skaith Hounds alike.

There was a small lull, and he found himself laughing at the absurdity of it all. He was still laughing when they came at him a final time, too many for him to stop, and as they reached him he pulled the cord attached to the pins on the flash-bangs and everything disappeared in sound and fury.