Visions (19 page)

“You don’t think it was set?”

“Don’t see how, unless they were right there when it went up. Anyone down there now is dead, I can tell you. Come on, let’s get at those burns.”

The shelf had blessedly ended at a ridge, and the walking was suddenly easy. Pete’s house was directly below them, bunkhouse and barn even closer, and Pete looked back at him with a grin, but an instant later the grin was gone. The big man stopped so fast Jake ran into him. Jake followed his gaze, and saw a line of men running down from a knoll by the mouth of the canyon, crouched over, wearing tattered rags for clothing and carrying spears and axes. They moved in organized fashion, splitting into two groups heading separately towards the bunkhouse and the main house.

It was not Ned and the other men he saw.

It was the critters.

“Pete—,” he started to say, but then his friend let out a scream that sent a shiver throughout his body. It started deep in Pete’s chest, as a growl, and came out as a shriek, primal and terrifying. Pete charged away from him and down the ridge, massive arms flailing the air while Jake twisted painfully to unsling his rifle and stumble along after him.

In the rush of adrenalin that followed, pain was quickly forgotten.

WAR

Bernie saw the fire from the kitchen window, and went out the back door for a better look. At first it was a bright glow in the canyon, without smoke, and then quite suddenly there were flames leaping above the trees. Her houseguests had gone back to the bunkhouse, but now a few of them came outside to watch, pointing and chattering animatedly among themselves. She saw Baela race towards the barn, blonde hair streaming behind her. A moment later she appeared in the hayloft doorway, pointing towards the canyon and shouting to the others, but Bernie couldn’t understand anything. At first she didn’t understand when Baela suddenly pointed again in a different direction, screaming shrilly, driving the others into a panic. Some raced towards the house, while others ran inside the bunkhouse, slamming the door shut. Diana and two other women pounded towards Bernie, pointing towards their left and shouting at her. Her head turned, in slow motion it seemed, and suddenly she understood.

Trotting towards her across the fields from the direction of the burning canyon was the filthiest group of men she had ever seen in her life.

Instantly she recognized the danger, but never before had she felt so vulnerable. Never before had she felt so slow—so pregnant, and the baby was kicking madly. The other women stormed past her and scrambled into the house. She watched the attacking men, stooped over, splitting into two groups, one heading straight for her, and finally she seemed able to move. She rushed inside and locked the back door, then shut a window and locked it too. While the other women cowered in the kitchen by the windowless back door Bernie walked briskly to the front door and bolted it, then glanced at the line of white men coming towards the porch: filthy, clothes hanging in rags, primitive spears and clubs in their hands, long hair hanging in brutish faces and over shoulders.
Jake’s critters
, she thought.
These are Jake’s critters. But they’re men. White men.

The big window was the soft spot of the house; they would come through there. Bernie opened a closet by the front door, pulled out a twelve-gauge shotgun, stretched to reach a box of shells on a shelf. She crossed the front room when the first of the attackers was already on the front porch, face pressed against the window, grinning evilly. She stood in the kitchen doorway, loaded two shells into the weapon and snapped it shut. Four men were on the porch, now. The front door rattled.

Bernie stepped backwards into the kitchen, yanked open a drawer by the sink and took out all the carving knives she could find. She put them on the counter, looking sternly at the frightened women, and pointing. No translation necessary, the women grabbed knives with both hands and retreated again to a corner. Bernie stood in the doorway, leveling the shotgun as the men outside began pounding on the window with their hands, pressing their faces close to look inside. They seemed hesitant, unsure. Out of a corner of her eye she saw someone move past the kitchen window, and then there was a pounding on the thick back door, bolted shut. A heartbeat later the window of the kitchen burst inwards, followed by a massive, hairy arm groping around the corner, reaching past the sink and towards the door. Diana growled, raised a butcher knife in both hands and struck four times in rapid succession.

Blood sprayed over the sink. The man outside howled, and the arm retreated. The women were not whimpering, now, but angry. Their eyes flashed, and they screamed at the men outside in a language unlike anything Bernie had heard before. Guttural, fast. Now they stood their ground, but they were only four women with knives—and a shotgun.

A crowd was on the porch, at least seven men still hesitating, feeling the glass with their hands. Perhaps they would decide it was too dangerous, and go away. Bernie’s finger curled around one trigger of the shotgun as a new face appeared at the window. A tall man with chiseled features, less brutish than the others.

“Hidaig,” said Diana, and Bernie wondered fleetingly what that meant, but there was no time to dwell on it for the new man had stepped back and was swinging an axe towards the big window. His knees were bent, and he swung horizontally, head down. The glass tried to bend, but was not given time; it shattered into several large pieces falling onto the living room floor, a spray of smaller slivers sticking in furniture along the opposite wall.

Bernie took two steps into the room, and aimed the shotgun.

Two men scrambled over the windowsill.

Bernie fired at point-blank range.

The explosions were deafening, and the women screamed. The first shot blew away the face of one attacker, the second nearly cutting a man in half at the waist as Bernie reloaded. Blood sprayed over the attackers and the porch, but on they came, another three men, and Bernie cut them down like grass blades, slamming their bodies back over the windowsill.

She backed towards the kitchen, grasping for the box of shells on a counter. Three more men came across the sill, eyes wide with fear, but the taller one on the porch, the one who had broken the window, was screaming at them, driving them on. For an instant she realized they didn’t understand the gun, didn’t understand it wasn’t loaded yet, and could do no harm. She reached behind her, and found the box, scrabbling with her fingers for a shell and loading it as the attackers edged forward, but then there was no more time to even aim. One man sprang at Bernie, she thrust the shotgun into his mouth and jerked the trigger.

A human head bounced into one corner of the room.

They had their filthy hands on her, now, grappling for the weapon. She threw her weight into them, and at first they seemed surprised by her strength, but then reinforcements came and suddenly she was struggling with four men. As they pushed her into the kitchen, the back door burst open, flooding the room with light as the other women fled from the house to whatever fate awaited them outside.

A fist struck her face once—twice, and then in her stomach.
Oh God, the pain!
The baby’s feet pounded inside her.
They’re killing my baby
, she thought.
They’re going to kill both of us.
She struck back with the shotgun butt and felt bone break, but them a fist hammered into her ribs and she cried out, loosening her grip. The weapon was ripped from her hands as they pushed her against the sink and again there was a hard blow to her stomach. Tears streaming, she clawed at their faces as they struck her repeatedly in the face and ribs as she covered up to protect her child, dropping to her knees under the rain of blows.

Her head snapped back. A hand was snarled in her long hair, and she was being dragged across the floor, arms crossed over her stomach. Pieces of glass drove into her back and buttocks and she screamed in pain, vaguely aware of the front door slamming open and then the porch was beneath her, rough splinters tearing at her clothes.

Shouting. The ground was now beneath her, for they had dragged her off the porch. Her hair was released, and her head hit a rock. Barely conscious, she looked up to see a blurred figure standing over her. More shouting, and then a gunshot! The figure above her turned, and then from far away came an animal scream that sent a chill through her broken body. She closed her eyes, and waited for death to come.

* * * * * * *

From her perch in the hayloft, Baela screamed at the others to lock themselves inside. Hidaig and his gang were attacking; they would kill all but the females, but for Baela this was not reassuring. She knew what the outcast gang leader thought of Hanken, and she would surely die if they captured her. The attackers came in two lines, one veering towards the main house, and she thought of Bernie: alone, pregnant, and Hinchai. They would slit her open and leave her to die slowly, or crush her skull with an axe if she was lucky. She screamed Bernie’s name, but there was no movement in the house. Below her, Tenanken ran to the bunkhouse, some females to the main house, and one male towards her in the barn. Moug. Her father had seen her.

No
, she thought,
don’t come here. Stay with mother.

Moug raced silently towards her, motioning her with a sweep of his arm to get out of sight, but it was already too late. The first line of attackers had reached the bunkhouse, were pounding on walls and the door, and Baela could hear the screams of those trapped inside. But three attackers had split from the group, and were chasing her father. One she recognized as Maki, and she flushed with anger. The traitor was now in the open with his conspirators, and she wished that somehow he would not live to see darkness.

As the warriors gained ground on Moug, Baela searched the loft for a weapon and found one, a long, metal fork with needle-sharp tines that could run through the muscle of even a Tenanken warrior. She hefted it, gratified by the light weight, stepped up to the edge of the loft and kicked at the wooden ladder leading up to it from the barn floor. It was nailed solidly to the loft, would not come loose even when she kicked with all her strength. She was still kicking when Moug appeared in the entrance to the barn. Stepping to one side of the doorway in half-gloom, he looked around desperately for something to fight with, eyes wide like those of a cornered, frightened animal. Baela tensed, starting to throw the fork down to her father, but it was too late to react at any speed for the attackers had nearly caught up to him when he reached the barn.

A warrior she had never seen before appeared in the entrance, spear in hand, looking up and seeing her, moving forward, and then Moug stepped from the shadows and kicked him hard in the crotch.

The warrior dropped his spear and fell to both knees, clutching at himself. Moug pounced, grabbing for the throat and rolling his intended victim over, squeezing hard. The warrior’s feet beat a crazy rhythm on the floor, hands clawing at Moug’s face, but then a shadow fell over both of them. A huge warrior appeared in the doorway, war club in hand, and the biggest spear Baela had ever seen in the other. He swung the club in a high arc over his head as Baela screamed. Moug saw motion out of the corner of an eye, shrinking from the blow, but there was a loud snap and crunch as the heavy stone club struck first shoulder and then head.

Moug rolled over on his side, and lay still.

Baela screamed again, tears streaming down her face as Maki entered the barn, looking from her to the figures on the ground: one still as death, the other writhing angrily now, scrambling to his feet in terrible fury.

The one who had struck down Baela’s father now moved towards the ladder to the loft, but Maki screamed at him, “Leave her! She’s mine!”

The huge one fixed amber eyes on Baela, amused, then turned to his companion who had just risen, still holding his crotch. “So we will take her,” he said in a deep voice, “and throw her scrawny body down to the point of my spear.” He slammed the spear shaft into the ground near the ladder, grinned as his comrade pushed past him unarmed and began to climb up to the loft.

Baela stepped back two paces from the ladder, and leveled the big, metal fork, gripping with tiny hands.

The warrior’s head appeared above the loft floor. He grinned, showing rotten teeth.

His shoulders and thick body appeared; he grasped the top of the ladder and started to step up onto the loft floor.

Baela lowered her head, and charged.

The fork struck in the hard chest of the warrior, burying itself deeply.

The attacker let out a gasp, blood spurting with air. His hands groped at the wooden shaft sticking out of him and he toppled over backwards, ripping the weapon out of Baela’s hands and slamming hard to the floor below.

Baela’s heart pounded, her weapon gone. Nothing but straw remained in the loft, not even a stone. The giant below her looked up and chuckled, then pushed the shaft of his spear even deeper into the ground. He smiled at Baela, and began to climb the ladder.

“Why kill her, Kretan?” asked Maki calmly from the doorway.

“I will take her to Hidaig on my spear. He will be pleased.” Slowly, patiently, Kretan slithered up the ladder.

“Very well,” said Maki, and he bent over to pick up the spear of the warrior killed by Baela.

Her only chance now was quickness and speed and light, flexible bones like those of a bird. Once she had briefly experienced flight by leaping from her hidey tree, executing a forward roll when her feet touched the ground, and taking up much of the shock in her back and one shoulder. The height had been what she now faced, perhaps three times her own length. If she landed wrong it would all be over. Even done properly she must come up on her feet in a sprint to get past Maki and out of the barn. And what then?

Baela thought of the great hunting bird, and stretched out her arms like wings as she backed along the edge of the loft away from the ladder. Kretan’s head appeared above the edge of the loft, grinning in anticipation of touching her, saliva glistening on his chin. Her foot slipped on the edge of the loft, and she teetered a little, gasping in surprise at what she saw below: Maki, arm drawn far back with the spear, running forward to gain momentum, eyes fixed not on her but on the back of the huge warrior named Kretan, releasing the spear with a grunt, and then the strangled cry.

Kretan’s eyes bulged as he screamed in pain and fury, four inches of the stone spearhead protruding out from his chest, blood spurting. Pump, pump, pump, the life drained from him in an instant. He collapsed over the top of the ladder in a red pool, and was still.

Baela looked down as Maki kicked over the big spear that had been waiting to receive her, and he saw the question in her face.

“It was a private vengeance,” he said, “but I did it for you, too. Jump down, now, and I will catch you. I promise, Hidaig will not harm you, because it is my will that you go unharmed. He needs my support to consolidate the band, and you can help, Baela. You can make life better for your parents and friends if you stand by my side in this, because they all have affection for you.”

“You try to trick me,” said Baela sharply. “You hate all Hanken; I’ve heard you say it. You think we all should have died at birth.”