Night Winds (16 page)

"To Night Winds and its author," toasted Kane, touching goblets.

"To the dark muse," answered Opyros.

But Kane did not attend the first reading of Night Winds, although the poet's announced presentation of his first work in over a year had attracted great interest and comment from across the land. Halbros-Serrantho had required Kane's presence in secret on the night of the reading. Kane could not deny this summons from the ambitious ruler of Enseljos, whose dreams included building an empire from the tiny states of the Northern Continent. Such plans were of no little interest to Kane as well.

So Kane was forced to miss the first reading of Night Winds.

It often moved him to wondering regret. For although he was never to hear the masterwork of Opyros, the mad poet, Kane knew that his friend had in truth found inspiration in the embrace of the dark muse. Opyros had in truth created the perfect poem of his dark genius.

For as he left the palace of Halbros-Serrantho, the first horrified tales were spreading across the city--tales of what had awaited the frightened guards when they at last broke down the locked doors of that now silent audience halt.

The child awoke at the sound of her own scream. A thin scream, imbued with the fever that parched her throat. And still a scream tight with the terror of her dream. Its echo hung on the bare-timbered walls of her narrow room as she bolted from her damp pillow.

Her fever-bright eyes stared wide with fear as they darted about the room's shadowy corners. But the phantoms of her nightmare, if nightmare it was, had receded. Klesst brushed the clinging tendrils of red hair from her moist forehead and sat up.

Through the greenish bull's-eye glass of her lattice window she could see the declining sun, impaled upon the reddened fangs of the mountains. The late autumn night would close quickly, and the darkness of her nightmare would surround her. And this was the night when the Demonlord walked the earth...

Shivering despite her heightened temperature, Klesst dropped back against the straw mattress. "Mother!" she called plaintively, wondering why her outcry had not brought someone to her side.

"Mother!" she called again. She longed to call Greshha's name, but remembered that the stout serving woman had been sent away from the inn for the night. Greshha had not wanted to leave her. Not when she was sick, not on the night of her birthday. Not on this night. It was cruel of her mother to send her away, Greshha whom she looked upon as her nurse. Smiling Greshha, Greshha of warm hands and soft bosom. Not hard and cold like Mother.

Greshha would have answered her cry. It was cruel of Mother to ignore her like this.

"What is it, Klesst?" Mother's frown regarded her warily from the doorway. She had heard no footsteps on the thick boards of the long hallway. Mother moved so silently always.

"I'm thirsty, Mother. My throat feels so hot. Please bring me some water."

How pretty Mother was... Her long black hair brushed down the sides of her face, clasped at her nape, and let fall over her shoulder and down her left breast. Under her shawl, her straight shoulders rose bare from her wide-necked blouse of bleached muslin, full-sleeved and gathered at her wrists. Her narrow waist was cinched by a wide belt of dark leather, crisscrossed with scarlet cord. Her skirt of brown wool fell in wide pleats to low on her calves, and her small feet were shad in buskins of soft leather. Klesst wore gold circlets pierced through each earlobe--just like Mother--but Greshha had helped her sew bits of embroidery on her garments, while Mother's were unadorned.

Her mother crossed the tiny room with her quick stride. She caught up the crockery pitcher from the stand beside Klesst's bed, then frowned as it sloshed. "There's water here, Klesst. Why can't you get your own drink?"

Klesst hoped she had not triggered her mother's cold anger. Not when loneliness shadowed her room, and the night was closing over the inn. "The pitcher is so heavy, and my arms feel so weak and shaky. Please, Mother. Give me some water."

Silently her mother poured water into Klesst's cup and placed the blue glazed mug in her hands. Greshha would have held it to her lips, supported her head with her strong arm...

Klesst drank thirstily, gripping the cup with both her hands--surprisingly long-fingered for a child's hands. Her great blue eyes watched her mother over the brim, searching her face for anger, impatience. Mother's face was impassive.

The child's febrile lips sucked noisily at the last swallow of water, and her mother took the empty cup from her fingers. She returned it to its place beside the pitcher, then turned to go.

"Please, Mother!" Klesst spoke quickly. "My head--it burns so. Could you place something cool on my head?"

Her mother laid her thin hand over the girl's brow. Yes, that was so cold...

"I had the bad dreams again, Mother," whispered Klesst, hoping her mother would not leave.

"You have a fever still. Fever brings bad dreams."

"It was that same nightmare."

Mother's eyes were wary. "What nightmare, Klesst?"

Would she get angry? Might she stay beside her if she knew her fear? Klesst dreaded the thought of being alone in the darkness.

"It was the dog again, Mother. The great black hound."

Her mother drew back and folded her long arms under her high breasts. "A great black hound?" she said. "Do you mean a wolf?"

"A giant hound, Mother. Bigger than the bear hounds, bigger than a wolf. I think he's even bigger than a bear. And he's black, all black, even his chops and his tongue. Just his fangs are white. And his eyes--they burn like fire. He wants me, Mother. In my dream I see him hunting along the ridges in the mist, sniffing the night winds for my scent, And I can't run, but he keeps hunting closer--until he's snuffling up to the inn. Then he sees me, and his eyes glow red and freeze me so I can't scream, and his jaws yawn open and I see smoke cutting from his fangs..."

"Hush! It's only a bad dream!" Her mother's voice was strained.

Klesst shuddered as the memory of her fear crept back again, and she wished Greshha were here to hold her. "And I can see something else walking the ridges. There's a man, all in black with a great black cloak that flaps behind him. A man who hunts with the black hound. I can't see him clear because the night hides him--but I know I mustn't look at his face!"

"Stop it!" The child gasped and looked wonderingly at her mother.

"Talking about it will only make you have the bad dream again," her mother explained tensely.

Klesst decided not to mention the other strange man who walked through her nightmare. "Why are they hunting for me?" she asked in a frightened whisper. Dared she ask Mother to stay with her? She again glanced to see if she were angry,

Her mother's face was shadowed, her lips tight and pale. She spoke in a whisper, as if thinking aloud. "Sometimes when your soul is so torn with pain and hatred... it can burn you out inside, so your spirit can never feel anything else... and you can think thoughts that are different, turn to paths that you wouldn't... before. And later maybe your soul is burned out and cold... But the fire of your hatred smoulders and waits... And you know there's a bad moon rising--but there's no way to hold it back."

A gust of wind rattled dry leaves against the panes. Outside the lattice window, night was striding over the autumnal ridges.

"How is he?"

Braddeyas shrugged. "Alive, I think, but that's about all. He'll be dead by morning if we don't stop soon."

Weed spat sourly and nudged his horse alongside the wounded man's mount. The man slumped over his horse's neck was huge, but his thick muscled frame was now nerveless, and only the ropes which held him to his saddle kept him from toppling to the mountain trail.

Knotting his fingers in the thick red hair, Weed lifted his head. "Kane! Can you hear me?"

The blood-smeared face was slack and pale, the eyes hidden under half-closed lids. His lips moved silently, but Weed could not tell whether there was recognition.

"Then again, he may not last the night even if we do stop somewhere," Braddeyas commented. "Fever's getting worse, I'd say."

"Kane!"

No response.

"He's been out of it since the fever set in," Braddeyas went on. "And he's lost a lot of blood--still losing some." Absently he scratched the dirty bandages that bound his own hairy forearm. Signs of recent and desperate combat marked each man of their small band.

"I don't like to stop," frowned Weed, assuming Kane's leadership. "They're too close on us to risk it."

Braddeyas drew his cloak tighter about his narrow shoulders. "Kane won't last till morning unless we rest."

"Pleddis won't push on through these mountains tonight," offered Darros, who had ridden back to join them. "Why won't be?" Weed demanded. "He must know we're only hours ahead of him. The bastard's probably counting his bounty money right now!"

The dark-bearded crossbowman shook his head decisively. "Then he'll be counting it beside a roaring fire. You won't find nobody riding these trails tonight. Not with this moon. A man will risk his life for gold maybe, but not his soul."

Weed glanced toward the rising moon in sudden awareness. The long-limbed bandit was from the island Pellin, and not a native of Lartroxia. Nonetheless, years of raiding along the continent's hinterlands had made him familiar with the tales and legends of the Myceum Mountains. He looked at the red moon of autumn and remembered.

"The Demonlord's Moon," he whispered.

"Pleddis will have to make camp," Darros asserted. "His men won't ride past nightfall. He'll have to wait for dawn before he takes up our trail again."

"We can risk a halt, then," Weed surmised.

"We've no choice," commented Darros, his jaw set.

The two remaining members of their band, tall Frassos and crop-eared Seth, proclaimed agreement by their grimfaced silence.

"By the red moon of autumn, the Demonlord bunts;

His black hound beside him, lie seeks along the ridges,

Hunting blood for demonhound, souls for Demonlord..."

"Shut up, Braddeyas!" growled Weed, his ragged nerves overstrung by the creeping sense of fear. "We ain't going to make camp along the trail, are we?" mumbled Seth uneasily. "Kane's just dead weight, and that's only five of us to wait through the night."

"Any other ideas?" demanded Weed. "Night's coming on fast."

Kane's head did not lift from where he slumped against his horse's neck, but his voice slurred thickly: "Raven's Eyrie."

"What'd he say?" Weed asked.

"Raven's Eyrie," answered Braddeyas, bending close to Kane. He held water to their leader's cracked lips, then shook his head. "Still unconscious. Like he's saving up what strength he has. I've seen him do this before."

"Any idea what be meant?"

"Raven's Eyrie is an inn not far, maybe two miles from here," explained Darros, who knew the region well. "It overlooks the River Cotras and the road that runs along the river gorge. Used to be a major caravanserai, before Kane raided it years back. They never rebuilt the place, and my guess is it's all in ruins now."

Weed nodded. "Yeah, I remember Kane talking about that raid. Must have been about eight years back, because it happened just before I joined Kane."

"I was there," stated Braddeyas with crusty pride. He had raided these mountains even before Kane had come to them ten years before. His hair was grey-streaked and thinning now, which said something about the man, for the mountain outlaws seldom died in bed.

All too true for the others of Kane's once powerful band--men cut to pieces by mercenary swords when Pleddis encircled their camp. This handful had slashed their way through his trap, but three days of desperate flight still found the free-captain close on their heels. Nor was he likely to quit their trail. The Combine cities of Lartroxia's coastal plain had set a high bounty on Kane, and Pleddis meant to claim it.

"If its walls are standing, the inn will give us shelter until dawn," Frassos pointed out. He coughed thinly, wincing as pain shot through cracked ribs.

"You know the way, Darros, then lead us there," Weed decided. "Daylight's just about gone."

"It is that," someone muttered.

Night was closing over the mountains on great raven's wings. Shadow lay deep beneath the blue-grey pines and frost-fired hardwoods which shouldered over the narrow trail. Darkness hungrily swallowed the valleys and hollows that spread out below them--pools of gloom from which waves of mist rose to storm the wooded slopes and poor over the limestone ridges.

A battered, gut-weary handful of hunted men--ruthless, half-wild outlaws hounded by killers as remorseless as themselves. Shivering in their dirt and blood-caked bandages, they rode on in grim determination, thoughts numb to pain and fear--although both phantoms rode beside them--intent on nothing more than the deadly necessity of flight. Flight from the hired bounty killers who followed almost on the sound of their hoofbeats.

They were well mounted; their gear was chosen from the plunder of uncounted raids. But now their horses stumbled with fatigue, their gear was worn and travel-stained, their weapons notched and dulled from hard fighting. They were the last. The last on this side of Hell of those who had ridden behind Kane, as feared and daring an outlaw pack as had ever roamed the Myceum Mountains.

No more would they set upon travellers along the lonely mountain passes, pillage merchants' camps, terrorize isolated settlements. Never again would they sweep down from the dark-pined slopes and lay waste to villages of the coastal plains, then dart back into the secret fastness of the mountains where the Combine's cavalry dared not venture. Their comrades were dead, fed ravens in a forgotten valley countless twisted miles behind their bent shoulders. Their leader, whose infamous cunning and deadly sword at last had failed them, was dying in his saddle.

They were all dead men.

And night was upon them.

"Thoem! It's dark as the inside of a tomb!" cursed Weed, trying to follow the shadow-hidden trail. He glanced uneasily at the blood-hued disk rising above the ridges of autumn. The moon cast no light this night.