Lone Star 04 (23 page)

“You believed what you were taught to believe.” Feodor grasped his shoulder. “All of us have, Gustolf. For too long now.”

Jessie spotted something at the edge of the common, and fired. A shadow moved swiftly away. Ki led them to the end of the cabin. The next was only a few yards away, but the darkness between them seemed to stretch out for miles. Ki looked warily around the corner and turned to the others.

“I would like very much to be inside, but I see no reason to risk going further. If we can't put a door behind us, we are as well off here as anyplace else.”

“Funny, I don't
feel
well off,” muttered Jessie. The night seemed filled with ghostly shapes. Everywhere she looked, something moved—shadow against shadow. The butt of the Colt felt reassuring in her hand. It was hard to keep from firing into the dark, spraying lead to bolster her courage. If we don't get out of this fast, that'll happen, she told herself grimly. We'll be facing those creatures with a couple of empty guns ...

“The two that showed up by the creek have moved in closer,” Feodor whispered. “They're behind those cabins across the common.”

“That only leaves three, if Torgler's right.”

“Only?”

Jessie forced a grin. “Doesn't sound right, does it? Look, if they come we‘ll—God, what's that!”

A high-pitched wail cut through the night. Ki froze in his tracks. “That wasn't a wolf!”

“No...” Jessie's heart leaped up in her throat. “Oh, Lord, Ki, look—it's a
child!”

“That can't be!” said Feodor.

“There!” Jessie gripped his arm and pointed. “Past that second cottage.”

“You're jumping at shadows,” he told her. “I don't see a—
Jessie,
no!”

Jessie didn't let herself think. She held the Colt loosely in her hand and ran low, keeping one eye on the small white figure, the other on the darkness closing in from every side. The child saw her, and looked up with frightened eyes.

“Jessie, look out!”

Feodor and Ki shouted at once. Jessie heard the throaty growl at her heels, and scooped up the child without stopping. A Winchester exploded behind her. Jessie risked a look over her shoulder. The wolf snarled and bit at the air, dancing in the hail of lead. She had a second or two, maybe—no more than that. She hefted the child in her arms and tossed it at the low, sod-covered roof, then hoisted herself up behind. The child fell past her, screaming as it rolled back toward the edge. Jessie caught it by the leg, turned on her back, and saw the wolf leap off the ground straight for her. She brought the Colt up fast, and fired three quick shots at the animal's chest. The wolf howled and clawed past her, snapping its jaws to try and kill her as it died. Jessie cried out and jerked away, clutching the child to her. She felt herself slipping, tried to dig her heels through the roof, and tumbled to the ground. Jessie took the blow herself, holding the child up high. The pistol flew out of her hand. Sucking in air to fill her lungs, she sat up shakily and scrambled for the Colt, brushing the ground frantically in the dark.

The sound brought her around and froze the blood in her veins. The creature came at her, head low to the ground, white teeth bared in a deathly grin. There was no time left, and she knew it. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Ki running toward her, and knew he'd never reach her. The wolf tossed its head, tensed its hard body, and leaped—

Yellow fire blossomed. Twin peals of thunder roared across the common. The wolf's head exploded, spattering Jessie with blood. She turned in disbelief and saw the young woman in the doorway, the shotgun cradled in her arms. Very calmly she broke open the weapon, digging in her apron for new shells.

“Jessie—you all right?”

“I—guess so.” Ki helped her up. Jessie searched for her Colt and found it. A woman cried out, ran toward them, and drew the bawling child into her arms. Tears filled her eyes. Her thanks rushed out in words Jessie couldn't understand, but the meaning was clear enough.

“Is the one I got—dead?” asked Jessie. “I got it, didn't I?”

“Yes. You got it,” Ki said dryly. He felt as if he'd aged a hundred years in the last two minutes. “It came very close to getting
you.”

“Yeah, I noticed.”

“Good. Next time, Jessie—”

Feodor bellowed across the common, pointing frantically to his left. Ki saw them at once, and raised a hand to hold Jessie back. Two gray shadows bounded into the clearing, fur raised high on their backs. Jessie checked her Colt, stepped to the right, and saw Feodor back off slowly, bringing the Winchester to his shoulder.

“Don't move,” Ki said beside her. “Stay perfectly still.”

A door jerked open behind Jessie. She nearly jumped out of her skin. A stout settler walked out, hesitated a moment, and took a bold step forward, a large piece of firewood clutched in a callused hand. A woman in a long gown came up behind him, gripping a poker from the fire. A door past Feodor added its own pool of light to the common. A gaunt, gray-haired man as old as Gustolf walked over his doorstep, brandishing a wicked, three-pronged pitchfork.

Jessie gripped Ki's arm. A chill touched the back of her neck. Feodor's people appeared like ghosts, grimly filling the common until they ringed the beasts in a circle. The two wolves backed cautiously away, cold eyes sweeping the crowd. One pawed the ground, snarled, and snapped at the air. They were wary, bewildered. Whatever was happening here was outside their experience. Every instinct told them to spring, but something held them back ...

The crowd moved in. Several men had torches, and now they held them high, waving the licking flames at the wolves. Light banished shadow and made the animals real ...

Jessie saw that there were few guns among the villagers. For the most part, they clutched the tools they worked with—forks, picks, axes, and sharp-bladed scythes. She knew it mattered little what they carried. Anger and pride were their real weapons, and they were learning how to use them. Her eyes swept the circle and stopped. It was the woman with the shotgun who'd saved her life, and Jessie realized with a start who she was—the young widow of Michael Antonescu, the man who'd been killed the night she arrived.

Across the circle, she saw Feodor step up to Gustolf and press the Winchester into his hands. The old man looked at him a long moment, then a grim smile crossed his features. More had passed between them than a rifle, Jessie knew. Gustolf levered a shell into the chamber and glanced proudly at Sonia by his side. Then he raised the rifle quickly and fired, worked the lever, and fired once more. A shotgun roared, and an old pistol boomed. A pitchfork flashed in the light and plunged into the center of the circle. An ax caught the glint of a torch. Gustolf bellowed, and the crowd took up his cry. Jessie turned away from the sight. The wolves didn't need more killing—but Gustolf's people did.

Feodor caught Jessie's eye, took a dozen long strides, and swept her into his arms.

“It is over,” he grinned. “All but one. And we'll get him too, by God. And his crazy keeper as well!”

“You can be proud of them,” said Jessie.

“Ah, I am, I am! Better than that, they are proud of themselves.” A shadow crossed his face, and he clutched her shoulders tightly. “That was a brave thing you did. No one here will forget it. For a minute I thought you were—” Feodor clamped his jaws and didn't finish.

Jessie laughed and pulled away. “So did Ki, but I'm not. I think I scared him more than I've ever—” She stopped, suddenly turned away, and frantically searched the common. “Ki. Oh, my God, Feodor!” A tremor coursed through her body as she clutched a hand to her breast. “He's out there. He went out after that wild man by himself!”

Chapter 18

The night was far different from that other, when he had first followed Gustolf into the fields. Then he'd found it hard to wear the skin of his enemy, to become the wolf itself. The beast had nearly fooled him, cunningly shifting its fury to the hapless old man.

He no longer searched for sign, a faint hint of odor on the wind. Now the
kime
of the beast was all around him. It was a thickness in the air, a heavy, brutal presence that assaulted his senses. So many wolves had prowled the high wheat, he was blind to the one he sought.

He was far from the village now, deep into the endless sea of wheat. The field murmured and sighed. Dark clouds swept so low to the earth, he could almost hear them whisper.

He stopped and stood perfectly still, projecting his senses into the night, casting the delicate web and waiting to see where it touched. They were bearing to the left, out of the fields, toward the trees that masked the creek. The man and the wolf were together, moving steadily away from his path.

Ki came suddenly alert. Something he couldn't name pricked the edge of his senses.

He pictured where he was in his mind, and drew a mental arrow toward the creek along the path of the wolf and its keeper. Then he drew a second line, slightly below and to the left. With luck and a fast pace, it would take him to the creek before the others...

Ki slid quietly down the bank of the creek, exactly as he had done earlier that night, some miles farther upstream. Moving slowly through the water, he brought his breath under control, slowed the beat of his heart, and buried his fears under a curtain of serenity and peace.

The man and the wolf were up there. They were searching for him now along the banks, and back the way they'd come through the fields. The keeper kept to the trees and sent the wolf ranging ahead. Ki could sense its presence, almost see it in his mind as it loped silently through the dark, muzzle low to the ground, fiery red eyes searching every leaf and stone in its path. It had missed him so far because the high banks and the water masked his scent. Soon, though, it would discover where he'd entered the water and return with this news to its master. When that happened, Ki knew he had to be gone. The creek was a useful passage and nothing more. It was not a fighting ground. He didn't dare let them catch him there...

Ki froze, trying to become one with the night. The wolf was close—close
—close!
So near he could almost hear the beast's soft pads upon the earth, smell the wild odor of its fur.

He knew he could wait no longer. The wolf had told the man. The man knew, and he was coming—bounding through the woods with a terrible rage in his heart.

Ki scrambled up the bank and flattened himself against a tall tree. He gripped one of the razor-edged
shuriken
in each hand. The star-shaped disks of steel felt as natural to his touch as the flesh of his body. In a sense, they truly were extensions of himself. Ki had spent a great part of his life learning to kill. Now the weapons he used were merely hands with other shapes.

Silently he moved away from the tree and searched the dark. Clouds still covered the moon. No light at all filtered through the branches above...

Suddenly it was there, a gray shadow loping through the brush, moving toward him like a specter without a sound. Ki bent his knees, let the breath sigh out of his lungs. The fear was still with him, bound like a prisoner behind the paper-thin wall of his thoughts.

A moment ... a small moment more ... now!

Ki controlled his fear no longer. It welled up within him, surging through his veins and chilling his blood ... It sought him out to bring him to his knees, but Ki embraced it like a brother, gripped it in his hands like a sword.

The wolf instinctively sensed the sudden change in its victim ... it smelled the stink of terror unleashed by the man-thing ... its primitive heart sang out with murderous joy, and even as it bounded off the ground, stretched to rip the man-thing's throat, its dark brain whispered that this was no danger at all, no more than a hare in the fields ...

“Heeeeeee-hai!”
The sharp cry burst from Ki's lungs.

The razored metal stars left his hands in a blur, hummed across the night, and tore the flesh of the wolf. The animal howled and jerked its head in pain. Ki stepped deftly aside, felt the wolf's foul breath on his shoulder, heard its body snap branches and tumble into the creek.

Quickly he dismissed the wolf from his mind. He knew where the
shuriken
had struck, for he knew where his hands had sent them—one to the throat, the other between the eyes. The second missile had sliced through bone and cut well into the brain.

He had no time for a dead foe now—there was another enemy somewhere about, this one likely as dangerous as the first. Two more stars were already in his hands. He sprang off to the right, moving as far from the scene as he could. The wolf-keeper knew where he was—Ki had told him that. He'd be coming right for him, following the—