Guardians of the Portals (30 page)

Eirik brightened. But, of course, they would be outside shoveling, so that would account for the missing coats and boots. The driveway approached the rear of the cabin, invisible to his line-of-sight, leaving the front devoted to pristine wilderness views. Satisfied that his charges fruitfully engaged in a useful activity, he wandered back into the living room and added more logs to the stove. Settling into his favorite easy chair and staring at the flames, he allowed his mind to blank. He vaguely recalled they had a satnav system if he should need to summon help. That had been his contribution to provisioning their sanctuary—he was not so committed to self-sufficiency as his captain who relied on his wits, strength and cunning.

Before drifting off he wondered how Wolf, as Petruchio, would go about taming his Katherina. Kate. Caitlin. Could a 'shrew' be any better named? He doubted his captain capable of the reverse psychology necessary to win her over, and to win the day. And
their
Caitlin would no longer fall for such misogynistic subterfuge. Her experience with Trey had hardened her resolve and hardened her heart. But still, it promised to be high theater indeed.

****

W
olf shouldered aside low-hanging pine boughs and entered a small clearing. He'd been climbing for more than an hour, the going tough as the sleet switched to freezing rain and back to snow. It was going to get worse before it got better, for sure. He'd lost her tracks as darkness closed in and even the night scope proved useless in the periodic deluges. The best he could do was follow disturbances in the snow pack, on branches and low lying limbs, though with the wind picking up that was no longer a reliable indicator that someone, something, had passed that way.

Frustrated, he cursed her stupidity for putting both of them at risk. What was she thinking for gods' sakes? For all he knew, she could have circled back without him knowing it. And right now she might be back at the cabin having a hot chocolate and chatting with Eirik about the good old days. He wanted to hold onto that thought and allow it to fester until he had a good frenzy going—anything other than the freakish churning and anxiety he'd suffered ever since their little episode in the kitchen would do. He still didn't understand what had happened or what it meant. All he knew was that he had to find her, no matter the cost. His entire existence now linked with hers. He would find no peace, no solace, until he owned her body and soul.

That thought gave him pause. He'd never thought about 'owning' anything—not his men, not even his few personal possessions. The closest he came were his carvings—and those ties were temporary at best—the figures created for the sole function of bestowing them on others. No, he wanted Caitlin. He needed her the way he needed water, food and air. She was an essence, a part of him, inseparable. He'd shared his energy with her and awakened a demon-devil who had laid claim to something frightening and perverse, needs and desires unimagined, unknowable. Unfulfilled until that moment.

"Caitlin!" he bellowed uselessly, the gush of air from tortured lungs dissipating quickly in the wind as high-pitched banshees wailed a fearsome melody of frustration and despair.

Wolf adjusted the shotgun onto his left shoulder, giving his aching right side a break from the weight. Once he was done with this hellish assignment he was spending a month in Gymnasium, retraining his damned weakened body. How Eirik could overlook basic exercise equipment when he set up their hidey-hole escaped him. The man had once been a warrior of some renown but now he was nothing more than a politician, more concerned with gamesmanship with Greyfalcon and Gunnarr than seeing to the well-being of the warriors in his care.

Wolf pulled out his night scope and peered off to the left. He'd sensed that the trail skirted a ledge or drop off. The scope gave him enough details to determine that no tracks led that direction. She had to be smart enough to remember that the road lay off to the right. The trail petered out ahead, leaving her, and him, only one choice. He turned right, allowing instinct to guide him, still climbing. The stand of trees opened up. Low lying brush had been cleared away and piled helter-skelter on both sides of the clearing. He was no arborist but he recognized them as maples. A network of sluiceways ran from one tree to another, leading eventually to a single aqueduct that had to lead to the road. Someone had come in not long ago and tapped the trees. The construction looked to be recent, the wood hardly weathered, and the boxes had been swept clean of leaves, though at that time of year the sap wouldn't be running. Whoever maintained the system took care to check his construction.

With a start Wolf thought,
why should it be free of leaves ... and snow?

Caitlin. She'd been working her way along the aqueduct and had inadvertently dislodged whatever the box-like run held. All he needed to do was follow that as it likely led directly to the road. He set off at a trot, lunging through the knee-deep snow, until his thighs burned like they'd been dipped in flaming tar. She was close. He could almost feel her, his gut unreeling an energy probe in every direction.

When his lungs threatened to burst, he stopped to cover his nose and mouth with the heavy wool sweater and drew in air warmed by his overheated torso. He burned from ice and he flamed with heat—the combination sent his senses reeling, leaving him light-headed and slightly nauseous. He'd never pushed this hard through such conditions, even back home when he and his men had engaged in biathlons competitively. He was starting to appreciate when his father complained he was 'getting too old for this shit'.

The sluiceway ended abruptly several yards to his right. He removed the shotgun and set it against an upright Y-shaped strut supporting the conduit and removed his wool cap to blow off heat. The snow had finally eased back to flurries though with the wind ramping up it was hard to tell what was coming from the sky and what was kicked up off the ground. The road had to be nearby. She would have found it by now, being an hour or more ahead of him, if she kept moving at a steady pace. He had no reason to assume otherwise. Maybe she'd be there when he got back to the cabin. He closed his eyes and imagined what he would say to her, how he'd chew her out for being so foolish, but he couldn't get past the image of scooping her in his arms and carrying her up to his room and locking the door. Then he'd give her a dressing down they would both long remember. He grinned with feral delight.

Wolf braced his hands against the sluice box. The gloves were wool, lined with silk, thin to allow for flexibility. It took a few moments before the vibration registered, followed by the whine of Arctic Cats coming downhill, fast.

Grabbing his Mossberg, he rolled under the sluiceway into a thick area of brush. He needed to stay out of sight until he determined who they were and what their intentions might be. To his knowledge this side of the mountain had mostly summer cottages, with the inhabitants long gone for the season. Even the Owens place at the top of the mountain sat vacant for the winter as the older couple did the Snowbird run to Florida. He couldn't speak to whoever might live on the opposite face. Snowmobiles were common up here so it was likely just a couple of teens out joy riding.

He slithered through the brush and drifts until he came to the edge of the woods, with a ten foot span of what would be a grassy or rocky area that dipped into a culvert. The road was a lane and a half in width, domed, with another ditch on the opposite bank. The plows hadn't been through so he had no snow bank to hide behind. He'd need to stay back in the trees to avoid the headlights when the Cats crested the small rise uphill of his position. They were close enough he could see the lights spiking at crazy angles as the Cats bounced their way along the rough road.

Wolf pulled his wool gloves off with his teeth and dropped them onto the ground. He felt in his Goretex jacket for a handful of shotgun shells and chambered rounds while listening for the snowmobiles. They seemed to stop at irregular intervals, for whatever reason. If it were just kids they'd be roaring down the road with no thought to looking right or left, just going for speed. It's what
he
would have done.

The vibe he was getting said search party. Unless somebody else had gone walkabout in a raging blizzard, that left only him and Caitlin requiring a rescue, but that didn't feel right. He could not discount Eirik having called in the cavalry when he found Caitlin, and him, missing. But for any of their men to find snowmobiles, load them up, then drive all the way north from South Woodstock in the time available simply wasn't reasonable. Plus they wouldn't be coming from the northwest, so it didn't make any sense. As the Cats crested the hill, Wolf extended his shield and vanished from sight.

Two Bearcat four-stroke utility models skittered on either side of the domed road, shooting rooster tails in the fresh powder. They roared past Wolf's position before coming to a halt on the curve just past a drainage cover. Though he could see through the shields if the target was close, wave motion from the energy field seriously distorted his vision. He needed to get a look at the riders.

Keeping to the tree line, he crept cautiously from one trunk to another until he caught a bead on the rear Bearcat. The driver pointed to someone across the road but downhill from his position. The other Cat sat just out of sight. He needed to get closer but the woods thinned to light brush and afforded no cover from whoever was on foot. They weren't using torches to scan the woods but seemed intent on searching the road surface on either side, near the culverts.

Wolf's gut clenched when he recognized the M&P 15T rifle carried loosely as the man walked alongside the ditch. These were no kids out on a lark. What the hell were they looking for?

The man on the ground quickly mounted behind the driver who flagged the team ahead to move forward. Wolf stood carefully and waited until the sound receded down the mountain. He jumped across the ditch and trotted in the torn up track left by the Cats. It felt good to move freely instead of the lunging, plunging motion that had his back and thighs in a screaming fit. He followed the rough track, searching the ground for answers. Then it occurred to him why they were stopping so frequently. They were looking for footprints.

Caitlin. Being careful. Keeping to the edge of the woods. But where the going got tough, she had jumped onto the road and waded through the drifts. She must have heard the Cats and deduced that they came from the wrong direction. The tracks on the road indicated the teams had already made several runs up and down the road. At some point somebody had picked up her tracks and come back for another look. Now they were on the hunt.

Who the hell were they?

Wolf moved the Mossberg to his right shoulder, adjusted the strap and put on his gloves. He took off at a lope, praying she'd made it back to the cabin and locked it up tight. If not, then it was only a matter of time before they found her. There was no hiding the tracks in the snow.

The invisible energy, the umbilical cord stretching from him to the woman, vibrated in his gut and chest, setting his innards on fire. She was in trouble. Her terror echoed on the wind as he broke into a flat-out race down the mountain, following her moans.

Wolf!

––––––––

T
rey struggled awake, limbless, suspended in space, his innards pressed tight against his spine, a formless mass. He wanted it gone, retching with the need to dispel the pressure. He gagged as the bile rose in a tide, sweeping to the back of his throat and lodging with acid sweetness. He fought the maniacal, searing pain as if it were a living thing eating its way out, ingesting and disgorging, tunneling to freedom.

He flexed a shoulder, angling for a clear path but failed. The foul taste coated his mouth and dribbled toward his left ear though he could only guess the path. The vile stuff coated his face, masking all sensation.

Stasis had taken over at some point, pummeling him into submission, blanking him to all stimuli. It hadn't helped. He was still stone-deaf and feared he might remain so forever. Hands, rough fingered, textured to knife-edge sharpness, prodded though he could only guess where as he had no feeling in his arms and legs. That was a mercy from his gods, but he knew he would pay for their kindness once his captors released him to the brutal wash of blood and nerves on full alert.

He had no perception of elapsed time. It seemed a perpetual dusk, long-shadowed and rimed with golden hues that echoed across the stiff stalks, standing at attention in muted rows of tans and blond-tipped feathery heads. He sensed movement, then realized it was his body dropping with a crushing thud onto sharp gravel. Why was it that all these gods-damned worlds landscaped to jagged knife-edges, inhospitable and insufferable? He longed for the soft caress of newly fallen snow and the bitter bite of sleet against his chin. His world was clean, ever birthing new promises. Not like these worlds of never-ending heat and grit that rubbed raw, punishing with the sting of sweat and demanding retreat.

The indigenes moved about easily, with no hesitation, the reverberation against his skull translating into numbers and dispersal about his position. The rumble, rocking in waves against his spine and hip, slowly dissipated as they moved the wheeled device away. At first he thought he imagined the cracking of bamboo-like stalks, the effect dopplering to his left before fading completely. He was hearing, at least on some level. Perhaps it would come back once the blood began to flow. He had no control over that, not now, with his metabolism and auditory sensors so badly compromised. He needed water.

A small figure advanced into his line of sight—slight, the size of a child but sporting a full beard and long straggly brown hair dreadlocked with beads and shells. What should have been a symphony of flat-toned chimes instead winked off and on, as his right ear gradually awoke to the stimulus. The creature worked with intense efficiency though Trey could not follow his progress without turning his torso and driving his aching shoulder further into the rocky ground. At some point they'd removed his shirt but left him his cargo pants and boots. He took small comfort in that. When he bolted, he didn't want to fight through the unyielding wall of reeds without some protection.