The SteelMaster of Indwallin, Book 2 of The Gods Within (38 page)

“What is that thing?” Morgin asked as they pitched the lean-tos.

Harriok winked at him. “Just wait and see. And watch your ankles.”

Morgin frowned, looked down at his feet, noticed only that a light mist had begun to form just off the surface of the sand. But by the time camp was fully set the mist was knee deep and as thick as a heavy fog, and Morgin had difficulty seeing through it to set the last trap. Then the sun rose, and the mist dissipated.

“Quickly now,” Harriok barked, taking up a nearly empty water skin, he stood over his strange contraption. “Come here and help me.”

As Morgin approached he looked down into the bowl of the little inverted tent, and in it he saw that the small rock Harriok had placed there to weight down the center now lay beneath the surface of a good-sized puddle of water. “It’s a mist still,” Harriok told him.

He pulled the stopper on the water skin, handed it to Morgin, bent down, took hold of one edge of the oiled cloth to support it as he pulled one of the stakes. Morgin didn’t need to be told what to do. He carefully held the water skin in place while Harriok lowered that edge of the cloth and let the water drain into the skin. And with that done they quickly disassembled the mist still, repacked it, and retired to the lean-to.

They traveled for two more nights like that, though not again did the mist come to yield its bounty of life-sustaining water. Harriok had them on a careful ration and freely admitted he was concerned. But two days later in the middle of the heat of the day he sat up suddenly in the lean-to, cocked his head to one side and appeared to be listening for something. Morgin had been dozing lightly, drifting in and out of sleep, but Harriok’s sudden motion brought him fully awake, and the look on the young Benesh’ere’s face frightened him. “What is it?” he asked.

“Silence,” Harriok hissed at him.

Morgin obeyed without question while Harriok listened further. But then suddenly the young Benesh’ere reached for his hooded robe and snapped out, “Get dressed.”

In minutes they were out in the stifling heat of the midday sun tearing down their small lean-to. “There’s a storm coming,” Harriok said fearfully, “and we don’t have much time.”

Harriok pulled his horse out into the sun to get it out of the way, then led them down into a deep valley between two dunes. They scooped out a depression in the sand there, then combined the two lean-to’s to make a fully enclosed tent. But Harriok pressed the already short tent poles deeper into the sand, giving the tent a very low profile. “Start tossing sand on top of the tent,” he ordered. “We need at least a full hand’s depth.”

Harriok climbed into the tent itself, began scooping out more sand. Morgin could now hear a faint roar in the distance, and a dark cloud appeared on the horizon. One moment the storm appeared to be far on the horizon, and the next it hit them with a fury Morgin would never have believed possible. But by that time he and Harriok and the horse were safely sealed within the tent. And in relative comfort the storm raged above them, howling out its hatred as if it were a living thing. Harriok lit a small candle, for though the midday sun burned in the sky above them, in the tent beneath the sand it was pitch dark. In the flickering light of the candle the young Benesh’ere paused and looked curiously up at the roof of the tent. “The Munjarro is angry this day. Let us hope it is not angry at us, eh slave?”

They carefully arranged their provisions in the tent, then Harriok extinguished the candle and they settled down to an uneasy sleep.

~~~

Morgin awoke to the blackness of the tent. Outside he could still hear the storm blowing out its fury, while inside he sensed a tension in the air that could only be coming from his companion. “What’s wrong?” he whispered into the darkness.

Harriok shifted his position. “Night is approaching, and there’s no sign that the storm is letting up.”

“So?” Morgin asked. “We seem to be safe.”

“So we’ll miss travel time, and we’re short enough on water as it is.”

Morgin could almost see Harriok through the darkness, and he wondered if some small part of his lost sense of shadow might have returned. But more than seeing him he could hear the tension in his voice. “There’s something else, isn’t there?”

Harriok nodded. “The big cats. They hunt at night, though they’re loners so ordinarily they’ll stay away from men, especially if there’s more than one of us. But they become quite brave during a storm like this because we’re so helpless.”

Morgin didn’t mention his dream of the big sand cat. “Aren’t they helpless too?”

“No. Where the blowing sand would cut the flesh from our bones their thick fur protects them. And where we’re blinded by the grit and the dust, they have a transparent membrane that protects their eyes. But we should be safe. We’re dug in nicely, so it’s unlikely one’ll find us.”

Remembering his dream Morgin asked, “Do they kill with their venom?”

Morgin remembered from his dreams how it had been to move within the body of the Benesh’ere warrior Morddon, but to experience the lightning speed as an ordinary man, and to be its target, was another thing completely. Almost before he’d finished speaking Harriok pressed the cold steel of a knife to his throat. “What did you mean by that, slave? The cats have no venom.”

Morgin glanced down at the blade. “I dreamt of a big cat with one venomous claw.”

Harriok released him, shook his head and muttered, “We’re doomed.”

“What do you mean we’re doomed? I’m not giving up that easily.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Harriok groaned. “If you dreamed of the demon-cat then she is coming for us.”

“And why is this cat so special?”

Harriok curled up in a corner of the tent. “Her soul is haunted by the spirit of a demon, and her venom is the darkest magic of death. Once it has touched you your soul is hers until she dies.”

Morgin argued, “Then we’ll have to kill her.”

Harriok shook his head. “How can you kill something that is already dead? The storm itself is probably her doing.”

As the hours passed the fury of the storm abated somewhat, though not enough, Harriok assured him, for them to travel. The howling of the wind outside often sounded like the cry of a large animal, and with increasing frequency Morgin found it difficult to convince himself it was only his imagination. Eventually he drifted off into a fitful sleep where he dreamt of the storm and the sand and Harriok and himself and the cat.

She was a hot spark of life in the blackness of the wind and the sand and the night, a soul filled with hatred and desire and madness. He needed not the vision of his eyes to see her, for in his soul he watched her stalking them, darting from one dune to the next, uncaring of the fury of the storm.
Just a dream,
he tried to tell himself, but knowing all too well the connection between dream and reality, that thought brought him no peace at all.

But then another spark of life appeared in his dream, a hint of netherlife with a strange familiarity to it, a netherbeing whose identity was just at the edge of Morgin’s thoughts. The spark that was Shebasha changed course, intent on intercepting the other spark, whatever it might be. But it darted from one dune to the next, popping in and out of reality as if reality and dream were stepping stones across a path of fear.

Somehow the little netherbeing crossed the terrain of Morgin’s dream and slipped into the tent. It crouched within a shadow in the confined space and said, “You forgot this.” It dragged forth Morgin’s sword and dropped it in the sand before him.

Morgin awoke to the howl of the wind, his fingers wrapped about the hilt of his sword, memories of Rat haunting his dreams. Shebasha’s scream rose above the cry of the wind, an anguished shriek Morgin knew must come from the demon haunting her soul. And with the sound of tearing cloth the tent opened up to admit the night, and the fury of the storm, and the spark of hatred that haunted the great cat’s soul.

The sand cut painfully at Morgin’s cheeks so he folded the hood of his robe across his face to protect it. Harriok rose beside him, sword in hand, probably unaware Morgin now had a sword of his own. Harriok gripped Morgin’s tunic, pulled him close and screamed in his ear above the howl of the wind, “Stay low, or the blowing sand will shred your skin.”

Morgin sensed the spark of Shebasha’s hatred tracing a zigzag charge through the sand toward them. He wrapped his arms about Harriok then let his own knees fold. They landed in the sand just as the cat leapt. Arcing over them she missed them and plowed into the horse. The horse screamed, went down with the cat on top of it, and Morgin caught a momentary glimpse of a massive, clawed paw tearing out its throat. As the horse kicked out its last moments of life something took hold of it and dragged it off into the storm.

Morgin screamed into Harriok’s ear, “Get up. We have to fight.” But the young Benesh’ere remained unmoving and lifeless. Morgin held on to his sword with one hand and with the other gathered the tattered remnants of the tent about them, tried to wrap them both within its folds to protect them from the storm. But he sensed Shebasha coming back for them, and tangled in the cloth and sand he feared there was little he could do to defend them.

Shebasha hesitated in the distance, then, apparently reassured, she began another zigzag approach across the dunes toward them. Morgin concentrated on his only chance: the sword. He sought out its magic, searched for it, opened his soul to it, and Shebasha, sensing his tactic, turned her approach into a straight charge, intent on reaching him before he found the power hidden within the blade.

Something growled in Morgin’s ear, and for a moment he thought the cat was upon him. But then the metallic scent of magic touched his nose and he realized the sword had come to life, and as its power came forth it literally lifted him off the sand, stood him straight up in the heart of the storm just as Shebasha leapt for the kill. The force of the impact sent him and the great cat tumbling down the side of a dune, and at the bottom she landed on top of him and unconsciousness took him.

Other books available by J. L. Doty:

A Choice of Treasons
(hard science fiction)

To save himself, he first had to save two empires . . . but when he tried, his options were limited to a choice of treasons.

As a lifer in the Imperial Navy, York Ballin’s only hope at an honorable discharge is the grave. Matters only get worse when he finds himself deep behind enemy lines on a commandeered imperial cruiser without a trained crew, commanded by an incompetent nobleman, with the empress and 200 civilians as passengers, and everyone hell-bent on turning them into a cloud of radioactive vapor.

The Thirteenth Man
(hard science fiction)

Beware the curse of the thirteenth man, for should he not fall, all may fall before him.

Charlie Cass returns from five years in a squalid POW camp to find the nine Dukes and the King conspiring against each other, and plotting with Charlie’s old enemies. As interstellar war looms, he’s forced to assume the mantle of the thirteenth Duke de Lunis, who, according to legend, is destined to fall beneath the headsman’s ax. But if he can survive the headsman, all may fall before him.

When Dead Ain’t Dead Enough
(contemporary fantasy)

The dead should ever rest in peace, but when dead ain’t dead enough,

the living should fear for their mortal souls.

Paul Conklin is a rather ordinary, thirtyish fellow, sharing his ordinary, present-day San Francisco apartment with the ghosts of his dead wife and daughter. Suzanna’s cooking for him again, and Cloe’s bouncing around the apartment in her school uniform, and things are almost back to normal. But a piece of Paul realizes he’s really bug-fuck nuts, or at least that’s what he thinks. He has no idea that a Primus caste demon from the Netherworld covets his soul, and that he’s going to have to take a crash course in killing big, bad hoodoo demons, or lose his soul for all eternity.

Child of the Sword
(epic fantasy)

When gods and wizards go to war . . . it’s best to just find a good shadow and hide.

Rat is no ordinary thief. A feral, filthy and malnourished child; he survives on what he can steal. But he creates his own shadows and hides within them, though he’s completely unaware of his use of magic. When a clan of powerful wizards see his shadowmagic they adopt him, because they want such magic in the clan. Perhaps that’s a good thing for Rat, as long as they don’t kill him in the process.

About the Author

Jim was born in Seattle, but he’s lived most of his life in California, though he did live on the east coast and in Europe for a while. From a very early age he made up stories in his head, but he never considered writing. In his family you went to college, got a degree in something useful and got a real job. So he got a Ph.D. in optical engineering, and went to work as a research scientist. But he was still making up those stories in his head, so he wrote the first draft of
A Choice of Treasons
, and as he says, “It was 250,000 words of pure, unmitigated crap. It was terrible: poorly written, poorly plotted, shallow characters that no reader could come to care about. It was the hardest decision I ever made, but I literally threw it away and turned to other projects.” He spent more than a year writing the first draft of
Child of the Sword
. Then he went back to
A Choice of Treasons
and started again, from scratch, a complete rewrite from the get-go. He worked on it for several years before releasing it, and also spent some years putting
Child of the Sword
through a number of rewrites to insure quality.

Science has always been a passion of Jim’s, but writing is an addiction. He’s finished five books now, with three more that are in various stages of completion.
Still Not Dead Enough
, book 2 in
The Dead Among Us
, is scheduled for a March 2013 release.

Jim has a big pet peeve regarding lasers as weapons in science fiction. He spent decades working in the laser and electro-optics industry, even did some research on laser weapons in the 80’s. And when writers use a laser as a weapon in a story, they invariably get it wrong, usually by violating some basic law of physics.

Jim intends to keep on writing and producing more stories, but no laser weapons.

Visit the author’s website at
http://www.jldoty.com

Contact the author at
[email protected]

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http://www.twitter.com/@JL_Doty