Stormrider (33 page)

Instantly Stormrider signaled the wolves.
Stay back. Do not show yourselves.

Strongheart, an immediate response.
We see. Stormrider. We will wait.

They saw? They were that near? Stormrider glanced around for some sign of the wolves, but saw none. Strongheart was an excellent tactician. He understood the danger of the laser guns now. He would wait. He would find an opening.

With the brilliant blue moon rising the light was raising as well. A shimmering pale blue light washed across the encampment of The People.

It flowed across Jarrel, flanked by his minions, a cruel smile twisting his handsome face; across Song Dog, straight and defiant; across Silvercat, terrified and awed all at once; and across Raptor on his knees in the dirt, dazed, hands bound behind him. By the Goddess she hated to see him like that!

“You make it all so easy,” Jarrel said gently.

“Do I?” Stormrider returned, enclosed by the gold and red aura of the Amulet.

Her spine felt stiff, her hands cramped. She bent gracefully to place Blue Thunder on the ground and rose again, The Amulet’s aura flickering and dancing about her.

“Well, The People certainly. They are such children. Bear Dreamer told us of your proximity,” his long, slender hand flicked a negligent wave in the powerful warrior’s direction as Bear Dreamer joined the group. Jarrel’s sensuous lips curved up into a deadly smile. “Ah, but you seem to be the prize,” he said to Stormrider. “Bear Dreamer wants only you. The Maven wants you too you know. I told him where you were only moments ago, but alas you are no longer there.” A short laugh, raw and lifeless. “I guess then that I shall have to keep my promise and give you to Bear Dreamer.”

“Will you?” Stormrider looked from one to another.

She was aware of the surge of The Amulet’s power through her body, tracing the path of the pumping of her blood. Power raising its head. She looked out at the world through a golden haze. She felt the stirring of more to come. What had she done when she had placed The Amulet about her own throat? Acceptance, it warned her, no more. Yet the power surged, sought, radiated. Pushed at the limits of perceived confinement. Swelled. She felt too small to contain it. Acceptance, no more.

Stormrider met Silvercat’s wide-eyed gaze, then turned to Bear Dreamer. She condemned him with her regard and the red in the amulet’s aura leapt like flames. He stepped back, eyes widening.

The Amulet touched her more intimately than a lover. Seeking. Needing. Acceptance, it warned again, warm against her throat. A vessel. A conduit. No more. One it could fill, perhaps possess, but not meld with. No joining. Only acceptance.

“I’ll have the torque now,” Jarrel’s tone, cool and brittle, brooked no defiance.

Stormrider smiled. That smile was also cool and promised defiance. “You will? And if I say no? If The Amulet says no? Have you ever seen The Amulet like this, Jarrel? When your father wore it? Your grandfather? Yet it doesn’t want me, Jarrel, it only accepts me. What if it won’t accept you?”

Jarrel’s gray eyes widened slightly, gleaming ghost-like in the pale blue light cast by the moon. He had no doubt the astute Stormrider read hesitation, but now was not the time to allow the Dinh Dinh to see it. Crazed for power, they believed they needed the keeper of the Amulet. If that was not Jarrel, he was worthless to them. More of the Dinh Dinh were gathering, attracted by the flickering light of the Amulet’s aura.

“The Amulet,” Jarrel demanded harshly, brushing aside hesitation. “Now, or they will all die.” A wave of his hand took in Raptor, Song Dog, Silvercat and more, The People of the camp. “I will worry about its acceptance. I am of the House of the Imperitor. It has rejected none of our line in memory. It will not reject me. Give it to me now or I’ll cut this bounty hunter’s throat first. A disgusting way to die, I’m told, and it gives the victim just enough time to know it’s over before he drops face-first in the dirt.” He jerked Raptor’s head back by the hair, exposing his throat for the knife one of the Dinh Dinh produced.

When Raptor’s head was pulled back, his eyes met Stormrider’s. Fox-eyes gleamed and snapped. They spoke to her most eloquently, but the message was not clear. What had he done? There had been time when he left her if they had not found him immediately. What had he done during that time?

Raptor stared at Stormrider. He didn’t much care for the idea of having his throat slit, but if they could manage to stall Jarrel long enough there were alternatives. The
Jaiqi
were on their way to the encampment. He had seen to that with the communicator he had stolen before one of Jarrel’s Dinh Dinh had surprised him. They were an unlikely rescue force, but that was what the use to which he intended to put them. He glanced at the would-be Imperitor.

“The Amulet!” Jarrel prodded, gleaming knife point pressed against Raptor’s jugular.

The aura around Stormrider crackled; gold and red spitting. Consciousness, but barely that. The Amulet shifted uneasily. Wrong. Acceptance, but needing more. Power undirected. Contained. Aching for release. Seeking. Wanting. Needing. Reaching out. Writhing for full cognition.

Stormrider felt the burning, twisting quest within The Amulet. She smiled. It knew that it did not know! It had reached a level of understanding where it sought to understand much more. It sought desperately its catalyst. It sought just as desperately to bestow more than acceptance. It reached out. Touched, recoiled. Reached out again. It touched her thoughts, her emotions, her being. It compared. The golden aura reached out, touched, flamed red, receded. She felt the struggle and knew in that moment the answer. The Disir had given it to them in their benevolent but cryptic way. Like a child making its way through life it may kick and scream, but the amulet, child of Nashira, would find its own way.

Her eyes on Raptor, Stormrider slid the Torque from her neck and held it out to Jarrel. “It seeks more than it has had. It has grown. It is yours, Jarrel, if it will have you.”

Jarrel laughed a bitter laugh, dropping the knife from Raptor’s throat to snatch The Amulet of The Suonetar from Stormrider’s fingers.

At her feet Blue Thunder stirred. Stormrider heard him groan, crying out against what she did, but it was done.

The Amulet’s aura died in Jarrel’s grasp. It blackened in warning against the palm of his hand. Pearly, stormy black, the red stone lay as dried blood against the darkened metal. Motionless, it nonetheless appeared to writhe there in his palm.

Jarrel did not heed the warning.

With a cry of triumph he wrapped darkened metal about his throat. Silence. The blackened gold of the Amulet’s torque rested against his neck in acquiescence. The Dinh Dinh around him began to smile. Jarrel’s powerful presence seemed to swell with the acceptance of The Amulet and those around him fawning at their success.

But Stormrider noted the exact second when the clouds passed across the back of his gray eyes; the instant when it all began to change. No aura streamed from The Amulet, no light, yet its very absence created an envelope around Jarrel darker than the moon-lit night. The Amulet had made its decision.

What was it communicating to him?
 

Stormrider could only guess as the vibrating drone of the
Jaiqi
fliers rose on the air providing a thunderous backdrop to Jarrel’s thin, blood-curdling cry. And suddenly Jarrel, Imperitor of Antaris, was clutching at his throat, tearing at the Torque, scratching at The Amulet where it appeared fused with flesh where it lay, trying to rip it from about his neck.

But The Amulet of The Suonetar would not budge.

It tightened, constricted, smoldering blackly against the pale skin of Jarrel’s neck. It reached out, brushed against the blackness of Jarrel’s soul and recoiled. Power surged and sought, shuddered and rejected.

Jarrel screamed with the pain which brought him to his knees.

The Dinh Dinh looked on in horror.
 

“Kill them! Kill them all!” Jarrel choked. “They have perverted The Amulet! Twisted its power! Kill them!”

The gagging stench of burning flesh rose from Jarrel as he clutched at his throat. The Amulet seethed, searched for freedom—sought its match—rejected dominance.

Jarrel screamed an animal shriek of rage, pain and terror. A thin trickle of blood flowed crimson against the blackened, burned flesh of his neck as fingers clawed at The Torque, suddenly tearing it free in a bloody rending of scorched flesh.

Stormrider remained where she was, steadfast, as Raptor fell and rolled, jerking bound hands beneath hips and legs to bring them up before him. Jarrel’s attendants stared at him in shock, but he regained enough of his senses to grab for one of his attendants’ laser guns.

The
Jaiqi
passed over the encampment discharging an indiscriminate volley of fire which sent The People scurrying from their huts, too terrified to fear the lesser weapons of the Dinh Dinh, scattering in all directions.

The Dinh Dinh retaliated and abruptly Raptor had cause to wonder just how wise his message to the
Jaiqi
had been.

Song Dog pushed Silvercat back and leapt for The Amulet glowing softly now in the dirt beside Jarrel. A new aura burst forth at his touch. Gold and flaming, it spiked around the young warrior of The People sending forth bursts of hurricane force wind and light more blinding than sunshine.

Stormrider saw and understood. Child of Nashira. Honorable leader of his people which he was to be, Song Dog was the one. He was indeed the chosen.

Strongheart, racing through the camp under fire saw what she saw as he bore down upon them, Littlefoot pounded at his heels.
It is for the young warrior to save his people! He must don The Amulet!

“Put it on!” Stormrider called to Song Dog above the din of the attacking
Jaiqi
ships and the shouts of the Dinh Dinh and the unleashed wind-bursts.

Song Dog clutched the Amulet in his upraised fist, then fearlessly slid it about his own throat. The Torque wrapped his neck as it had Stormrider’s, dragon writhing across the smooth metal. Brilliant white light flew outward with Song Dog as its core and he lifted his hand high above him, unleashing the power of its life force long contained.

The Amulet of The Suonetar exulted. Acceptance. Freedom. The one it had sought had been found. Strength. Power. Opening to realization of what was. What
it
was. Where it was. Honor. Kindness. All the things which made up Song Dog flowed through The Amulet and The Amulet returned in kind. Power. Strength. Boundless confidence. Recoiling only slightly from the dark thoughts of the meaning of such power. It embraced and welcomed. All that it had sought. All that it had sought and more. More to power than joy and freedom. So much more.

The whirlwind grew and the darkness was lit up in all directions as far as they could see with the brightness of day. The
Jaiqi
fliers veered off in the face of the maelstrom.

Raptor tripped Jarrel when the man tried to run, tumbling him into the dirt, delivering a blow with his doubled hands that stole consciousness from the would-be Imperitor before he rolled. This time Raptor slammed into a Dinh Dinh in the process of making a sweep with the laser gun. The man toppled.

People screamed and Stormrider yelled to Song Dog to be heard above the noise and the shriek of the rising wind. “Song Dog, join with it! Don’t try to control it! Give it direction!”

The Amulet had connected with the darker side of what it was. More to power than joy and freedom. Much more. Control. Mastery. Domination. Omnipotence!

It shivered and changed. Song Dog felt it even as the light shifted. Horrified he drew back. The Amulet urged him on. Stormrider’s voice touched him, tugged at him and he recoiled more from The Amulet and its power.

Uncertain The Amulet wavered. Not good? Not acceptable? Then why the feelings within the one it chose? Why that burst of glory when they had first bound and those thoughts had passed through the young one’s mind?

Song Dog tried to clarify while Silvercat sat at his feet, shielding her eyes against the power of the blinding light and rising wind.
Enemy.
He directed The Amulet.
Enemy. Those who would destroy, Those who would enslave all. Those who would twist others, even you, to their will. Enemy must be Stopped.

The wind shifted, the light moved and heat rose up to join it.

“Hela take it!” Raptor bellowed, “he can’t control it!”

“No one can! Control isn’t the answer!” Stormrider yelled back, no longer able to stay on her feet against the wind, driven to the ground beside Blue Thunder.

I would control. I am power.
The Amulet throbbed the message through Song Dog and the young warrior retreated again.

Lead. Not control. Those who would control are enemy. Enemy must be stopped.
Song Dog returned firmly.

The wind surged. The heat redoubled. It was like a blast out of a volcano; hot, acrid, stealing breath and moisture.

Bear Dreamer shrieked and danced backwards into a hut, driven onto the pointed branches. Dinh Dinh all around them screamed as weapons exploded in their hands, spewing death to all corners of the camp.

“It doesn’t understand,” Song Dog cried out to Stormrider. “It has waited so long—.”

Starwalker galloped at the edge of the camp, powerless against the wind to go on.
It has grown too strong! The Amulet will consume itself!
The thoughts rammed their way into Raptor’s mind and he stared aghast at Song Dog.