VirtualDesire Page 31

  He covered her mouth with his for a final kiss. The taste of her was sweetness itself. Her fingers entwined with his, and she brought his hand to her mouth. Each small kiss she placed on his hand pierced his insides with desire.

  The lightening of the sky told him there was no point in delaying. With a groan, he rose and pulled her to her feet.

  After a long kiss he helped her mount up, and they began the final leg of their journey. The sleepless night of following the Wartmen had taken its toll. Her horse scrambled over a fallen log and rocked her in the saddle. For a dangerous moment she hung half-on and half-off the saddle. Vad grasped her by the collar and heaved her back into place. She had to be more careful if she didn’t want to cost him more time. “I doubt Narfrom could get through that bog alone.”

  “We have left him a rather plain trail to follow, should he be behind us.”

  Gwen whipped around in her saddle. “Behind us?” She saw nothing except acres of forbidding trees, their twisted, leafless arms like hands reaching for the sky, and the hollow impressions of their horses’ hooves. Swinging back to face him, she said, “It would be a tough walk.”

  “Perhaps Narfrom has no need to walk. Perhaps he will use his magic.”

  Just as she opened her mouth to reply, an eerie howl filled the air. The hair on her nape stood up. The horses shied. Another howl joined the first. Yips followed. “Only eight hounds? It sounds like dozens.”

  Vad frowned. “The legends put the number at eight. I know not what the reality may be.”

  He dismounted and calmed Gwen’s horse, then led the two mounts to the shelter of a large tree much like an oak. Gwen climbed down and rubbed her bottom. In a moment Vad’s hands supplanted hers, massaging away the aches. How easy it would be to lean back into his gentle embrace. “Enough of that, Vad, or the treasure will never be dug up.”

  Together they walked their horses to the summit of a low hill. A glower of angry clouds filled the sky. A brisk wind lifted Vad’s hair and whipped it about his shoulders.

  “Oh, my God,” she whispered. On the broad, flat plain before them at least a dozen hounds roamed, pacing to and fro like impatient cats caged at a zoo. And they had only three arrows.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “Why did I ever braid your hair?” Gwen muttered as her fingers were rubbed almost raw from the task Vad had set her. He had cut long strips of bark from a tree and shown her the stringy inner lining. Now she was braiding the stringy lengths into long pieces of twine. No sooner had she made a reasonable length of the stuff than Vad took it, made a snare, and disappeared into the undergrowth to set it.

  Finally, after most of the morning was gone and her fingers were nearly bleeding, she was done, and so was he. A row of small creatures lay before her. But despite the growling of her stomach, she had no appetite for the raw meat Vad chopped and mixed with the potion.

  He carefully rinsed the stomachs of the creatures in the spring and then stuffed them with the mixture. Her nose wrinkled as Gwen tied up the small sacs. “Well, Vad. I’ve lost any appetite I’ve ever had for meat.”

  He patted with a certain pride the little row of sacs lying at his feet.

  “I sure hope this works. At least as well as on the Wartmen,” she said with a smile. He looked very disheveled, his white tunic grimy from setting snares in the undergrowth. She plucked a few errant leaves and twigs from his hair, then traced the livid scar on his cheek. “This is healed, now.”

  He touched his knife handle. “And this restored to good color. Your touch is healing.”

  When Vad put the meat sacs in his pack, she held it at arm’s length.

  “I am hoping it puts them soundly to sleep, or keeps them too busy to care who passes them,” Vad said. “Come.”

  Vad climbed a low hill, and she had to run to catch up with his long strides.

  “Do we have enough of the meat?” she asked.

  “It will have to be enough,” he said quietly. “Hope this wind stays in our favor, too.” He went down on his haunches and idly plucked blades of grass. “I do not want to be attacked by them all at once, so we shall have to lure them one by one away from the pack.”

  Gwen sat next to him and felt she needed to whisper. There was something eerie about the way the hounds paced. “It almost looks as if they’re guarding something, doesn’t it?” Their hair was pure white, their bodies sleek. They were larger than any dogs Gwen had ever seen, like a cross between a Great Dane and a mastiff. “If we could get to that tree, maybe we could climb it and toss the meat down from there.”

  Vad sighed. “It would be humiliating for a warrior to sit in a tree.”

  “No one will see you.” Gwen patted his arm.

  He sighed again, louder. “I wish we had more arrows.” Before Gwen could comment, he had returned to the horses. After a quick examination of the packs, he told her to sheathe her weapons, and strap on anything else worth taking. She chose the heavy cooking stand.

  Vad slung the pack and the nearly empty quiver of arrows over his shoulder. Loaded with weapons, they crept down the hill. They reached the tree with little trouble. The hard wind carried sound and smells away. But they could do little to conceal the noise they made climbing a tree only a few yards from the hounds.

  One hound swung its head in their direction and lifted its lip in a low growl.

  “Up!” Vad ordered, almost catapulting her into the air as he planted a hand on her bottom. She landed hard against a low branch and imagined the tear of fangs along her legs as she dangled over the head of a hound who rushed the trunk.

  Vad shoved her into the boughs and then followed. She scraped her knuckles and chin climbing quickly to an upper branch. When she looked down, she saw they were surrounded. “What’s the plan now?” she asked. Her branch shook with her trembling. Below, the tree was ringed by the hounds, who stood on their hind legs and growled.

  “Their plan is to wait us out. When we are sleeping and fall, they will pick our bones clean. I knew this tree was not for warriors.”

  With more anger than skill, Gwen watched Vad hack away some of the foliage to give him a better view of the hounds. He pitched one small sac of meat toward the hounds to gauge their reaction. In a ferocious mass, they fell on it, tore it to pieces, and snapped it up. Gwen felt the bile rise in her throat.

  “Too many eating it that way. It will never work.” He handed her a squishy ball of meat.

  “What if we throw it farther away? Maybe we can scatter them.”

  “Well done, Gwen.” He kissed her hard. “Toss a sac as far away as possible.”

  The ground looked very far away, the snapping jaws far too close. She climbed a bit higher and edged out on a limb. It bowed a bit, and she quickly retreated to a steadier perch. The sac of meat was sticky. She wiped her hands on her tunic and then pretended she was throwing a softball from home plate to the outfield, letting the sac of meat fly.

  One hound reached the meat first, and snapped it up in one gulp.

  “Another?” She put out her hand.

  Vad shook his head. “We wait to see what effect it has.”

  They leaned against the trunk. The hounds circled, jumping up against the trunk, snapping and snarling. She kept her eye on the one who’d taken the meat. Was it her imagination, or was the hound moving slower? No, she was right. The hound circled, whined, paced away, back and forth, then fell on its side.

  “Excellent.” Vad handed her another sac of meat while he prepared to lob one himself.

  They worked as a team, pitching and throwing the meat sacs at various distances. “We should save some for the return journey,” she said.

  “If we have them to save,” Vad said. Two sacs went astray. One broke in the air, showering the hounds with the meat.

  Finally the hounds lay in blissful sleep. Only two sacs of meat remained—not enough to get them back safely. Neither of them mentioned the fact.

  “What a team,” she said as he assisted her to the ground.

&n
bsp; “Quickly.” He broke into a run. She followed, the heavy cooking stand thudding against her back. Then he skidded to a halt. There before him, his huge head swinging back and forth, stood a hound as tall as a pony. “Stand back,” he cried.

  She froze in her tracks. The hound watched them, licked its chops, and raised its head. It howled, a wild, baying sound echoing across the distant hills.

  “Back up,” Vad said softly. His hand moved slowly to his shoulder and the quiver. With infinite patience, he pulled an arrow, then with lightning speed nocked it, drew, and let fly.

  The hound leaped as the arrow found its mark. With a shriek of unearthly pain, the hound landed on Vad. They went down together, rolling.

  Gwen screamed and ran in circles. The dog raked Vad with its fangs. Blood splattered across the ground.

  She reached for her little dagger, then shoved it back home. Hefting the cooking stand from her shoulder, she edged around them. The hound savaged Vad’s arms. She swung and connected in a sickening crunch of bone. The hound reared back and turned on her. With a low snarl, its fangs bared, it crouched, ready to pounce. Vad drew his knife. As the hound jumped at her, he thrust the blade home. It dropped instantly, its muzzle but inches from her toes.

  Gwen ran into his arms. “Oh, God,” she whispered. His face was streaked with blood, his sleeves long ribbons of red. She tore off her cloak, ripped out the lining, and wadded it against the gashes on his arms.

  Vad suffered her ministrations for only a few moments, then broke away, wiped his knife on the grass, and sheathed it. He began to sway. She put her arm under his and supported his weight.

  “It’s just a few cuts,” she said, wiping away the blood. “I don’t even think you need stitches. How lucky. Wow. That was scary.”

  Vad looked down at his arms. The hound’s bite was poison. He had told her so, but she must have forgotten. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that even now, he could feel an itch moving through his veins. The wounds would fester. Quickly.

  “Come on. Maybe there’s water up there by those trees and we can wash off your cuts.”

  He followed her. She strode determinedly up the hill. Under other circumstances, her killing blow would have saved his life.

  At the top of the hill she contemplated the grove of trees. “Well, no water here. Let me look those cuts over.” She took his arm. “Not so bad.” She ripped up more of her cloak and made makeshift bandages. “It’s not pretty, but I think the bleeding’s stopped.”

  “Gwen. We must talk.”

  She jerked away. “I told you, that’s no way to start a conversation. Now start counting branches. I thought there’d be just one tree here, but there’s at least seven or eight.”

  “Gwen.” He hooked her arm. “We have to talk about what you are going to do. Now. While I am capable of helping you.”

  Tears welled in her eyes. “No,” she whispered. “You’ll be fine. I know it.”

  He pulled her close. “We will look for the treasures. Perhaps you can use the Seat of Wishes to return home.”

  “This is my home,” she said. “Here, in your arms.”

  How could he answer that? “Perhaps you are right. I feel fine.” But for how long?

  They walked hand in hand from tree to tree. Then Gwen pointed off to a distant hill. He saw what she saw, a lone tree, its eight twisted limbs lifted to the sky.

  The tree was larger than he had expected, the distance to it greater than he had guessed. Walking took concentration. He grew lightheaded. How like his fevers in the grotto felt this poison in his system. And maybe it was the same poison, used by the Selaw, milked from hound fangs.

  He took a surreptitious glance at his knife handle. He tucked the handle inside his cloak so Gwen would not see it.

  “Eight branches. Perfect.” She knelt at the base and began to dig with her dagger. He set her aside and drew a digging tool from his pack. It took all his resources to concentrate on the task and not the poison coursing through his system. She remained kneeling at his side, her eyes on his face.

  “Nothing.” He sat back on his heels and wiped the sweat from his brow.

  “There has to be something.” She jumped into the hole and dug furiously.

  While she scattered earth in all directions, he stretched out and watched clouds race across the sky. A philosopher once said a man’s life passed before his eyes right before he died. A swirl of images, or visions, raced through his mind as the clouds raced across the sky.

  A woman—he now knew without doubt she was his mother—offered him a smile. A man climbed into one of Gwen’s “planes”. The child, Kered, held his hand. Together they jumped up and down, laughing.

  They were memories—from his life in Gwen’s place.

  He lost his doubts and knew his visions of the dark place, the enveloping mist, and the hand reaching for his were real. A curious peace fell over him.

  Gwen blew hair out of her eyes and climbed out of the hole, which was filled only with tangled roots. “What should we do next?” She turned around. “Oh, no.” Vad lay face to the sky, eyes closed. “Vad. Vad.” She embraced him, kissed him, her tears bathing his face. “Open your eyes, Vad,” she begged.

  His lashes fluttered.

  “Come on. Please. Don’t leave me.” His eyes opened, then rolled closed again. “Damn you, don’t leave me.” She slapped his cheek. Slowly he shook his head and sat up. Then he fell back again.

  “I am not quitting.”

  He had said it before—when they’d first met. “That’s right. You’ve crossed the ice fields. Now open your eyes.” Nothing. His skin was hot and slick with sweat. The hound’s poison was working through his system. She had denied the legend, dug in the hole instead of watching over him.

  His blade handle was once again a dull gray. She shook him again. “I love you. I love you. You can’t leave me.”

  He didn’t respond. She shook him harder. “Come on. Use your awareness training. You fought the fever in the grotto; you can fight it now!” His body shuddered. He opened his eyes. Such beautiful eyes. “Wake up! You can’t leave me here alone.”

  The apple? Or lovemaking? Which did it? Which cured him? She hacked an apple into small pieces.

  As she had in the dark night, she touched the juicy slivers of fruit to his lips, but he did not take it. Instead he pushed her hand away and struggled into a sitting position.

  “It was not the apple that made me well,” he said. His hand was hot in hers. “Help me to rise.”

  When he was upright, he swayed a bit. “You made love to me.”

  “Yes. Do you think…I mean…can you?” She held him about the waist and helped him to a cairn of rocks near the tree. Every nerve of her body was tense with joy that he was upright and moving.

  “As Nilrem is fond of saying, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is—” he looked at his lap, “weak.”

  She laid her head on his chest and encircled his waist. “We have the same expression in Ocean City. Please fight the poison. You’re so hot. Don’t let the fever win.”

  He set her aside. The world spun before his eyes; she grew large, then small; his breath seared his lungs. “I have failed you. Failed to find the treasures.”

  “No. No. There has to be some secret to this treasure stuff.” She knelt on the ground at his feet and drew the map in the dirt with the jeweled dagger. “Isn’t this about what the map looked like?”

  But concentration eluded him. Her words slipped and slid through his mind. “It looks…incomplete.” He licked his lips.

  Thunder murmured in the distance.

  “What was that?” she asked.

  “A storm, but it is far off.”

  She directed her attention to her drawing. “I know what’s wrong; it’s missing the compass.” She slashed two crossed lines into the dirt.

  “What is a compass?” He stared at her drawing. Something tugged at his memory, but evaded his grasp.

  “You know.” She touched the lines. “The thing th
at shows north and south, east and west.”

  He shook his head. His mouth was as dry as the Scorched Plain. “There was no direction marker on the map.”

  “Then what does this symbol represent?” Her dagger traced the radial lines she had drawn.

  “Lunar and solar feast days.”

  “Feast days?” she said. “What do feast days have to do with… Oh, my.” She bit her lip and scratched her nose.

  How beautiful she was, how innocent and sweet. He could not leave her alone here to die. The hounds would wake soon. She had nothing with which to fight them. He closed his eyes and gathered his strength. Opening them, he saw her staring up at him, her dark eyes bright with wonder.

  “Don’t you get it, Vad? The feast days must be important to finding the treasures.” She embraced him. “Think, my love. Is there a feast day coming? Is there?”

  My love. A quick burst of life, or simple desire, ran in his veins. He looked down at her drawing, then up at the heavens. Clouds filled the sky. “Where were the moons on the last clear night?” How far apart were they? Where in their journey across the sky? “One day more,” he managed to say. “Just one day more.”

  She hugged him hard. “You have to hang on. You have to.”

  How sweet was her embrace, how warm the cushion of her breasts against his chest. “I…think…my flesh is willing now.”

  Her tears wet his cheek. “Not a chance,” she whispered at his ear. “Now come rest.”

  He let her lead him to a grassy spot. She wrapped her cloak about him, held him close, whispered promises of success when the sun rose. He did not answer. He had no false hope to offer. He would not live to see the sun rise.

  During the night, Gwen filled in her hole and replaced the sod. If Narfrom came, she did not want to make it easy for him to find the treasures. Vad lay insensible beside her. She stroked his cheek, which was red-hot, dripping with sweat. There was no water to bathe his face, clean his wounds, or wet his dry lips. Her tears were the only moisture she had to offer. As they ran down her face, she wiped them away and touched his lips with them. Each time, he opened his eyes and smiled. She would see his blue eyes in her dreams.