“Trouble?” queried the bearded farmer, and Griffin nodded.
“Leave your son to take the reins and join me at the head.”
Griffin swung his horse and rode back to the lead wagon. If Donna Taybard was right, his convoy was in deep trouble. He cursed, for he knew without doubt that she would be proved correct.
Madden joined him within minutes, riding a slate-gray gelding of seventeen hands. He was a tall, thin, angular man with a close-cropped black beard but no mustache; his mouth was a thin hard line, and his eyes were dark and deep-set. He carried a long rifle cradled in his left arm, and by his side was a bone-handled hunting knife.
Griffin told him about Donna’s fear.
“You think she’s right?”
“Has to be. Cardigan’s diary spoke of the blue and yellow stripes.”
“What do we do?”
“We have no choice, Jacob. The animals need grass and rest. We must go in.”
The farmer nodded. “Any idea how big a tribe?”
“No.”
“I don’t like it, but I’m with you.”
“Alert all families—tell them to prime weapons.”
The wagons moved on and by late afternoon came to the end of the lava sand. The oxen, smelling water ahead, surged into the traces, and the convoy picked up speed.
“Hold them back!” yelled Griffin, and drivers kicked hard on the brakes, but to little avail. The wagons crested a green slope and spread out as they lurched and rumbled for the river below and the wide lakes opening beside it. Griffin cantered alongside the leading wagon, scanning the long grass for movement.
As the first wagon reached the water, a blue-and-yellow-streaked body leapt to the driver’s seat, plunging a flint dagger into Aaron Phelps’ fleshy shoulder. The scholar lashed out, and the attacker lost his balance and fell. Suddenly warriors were all around them, and Griffin pulled his pistols clear and cocked them. A man ran at him carrying a club. Griffin shot into his body and kicked his horse into a run. Madden’s long rifle boomed, and a tribesman fell with a broken spine. Then the other guns opened up, and the warriors fled.
Griffin joined Madden at the rear of the convoy.
“What do you think, Jacob?”
“I think they’ll be back. Let’s fill the barrels and move on to open ground.”
Two wagoners had been injured in the brief raid. Aaron Phelps had a deep wound in his right shoulder, and Maggie Ames’ young son, Mose, had been gashed in the leg by a spear. Four tribesmen had been killed outright. Others had been wounded but had reached the sanctuary of the trees.
Griffin dismounted next to one of the corpses.
“Look at those teeth,” said Jacob Madden. They had been filed to sharp points.
Ethan Peacock came to stand beside Griffin and peered at the blue and yellow corpse.
“And idiots like Phelps expect us to agree with their theories of the Dark Age,” he said. “Can you see that creature piloting a flying machine? It’s barely human.”
“Damn you, Ethan, this is no time for debate. Get your barrels filled.”
Griffin moved on to Phelps’ wagon, where Donna Taybard was battling to stanch the bleeding. “It needs stitches, Donna,” said Griffin. “I’ll get a needle and thread.”
“I am going to die,” said Phelps. “I know it.”
“Not from that, you won’t,” Griffin told him. “But by God, it will make you wish you had.”
“Will they come back?” asked Donna.
“It depends on how big the tribe is,” answered Griffin. “I would expect them to try once more. Is Eric gathering your water?”
“Yes.”
Griffin fetched a needle and thread, passed them to Donna, then checked his pistols. He had fired all four barrels yet could remember only one. Strange, he thought, how instinct could overcome reason. He gave the pistols to Burke to load and prime. Madden had taken six men to watch the woods for any sign of the savages, and Griffin supervised the water gathering.
Toward dusk he ordered the wagons out and away from the trees to a flat meadow to the west. There the oxen were unharnessed, and a rope paddock was set up to pen the beasts.
Madden organized guards at the perimeter of the camp, and the travelers settled down to wait for the next attack.
Shannow’s dreams were bathed in blood and fire. He rode a skeleton horse across a desert of graves, coming at last to a white marble city and a gate of gold that hurt his eyes as he gazed upon it.
“Let me in,” he called.
“No beasts may enter here,” a voice told him.
“I am not a beast.”
“Then what are you?”
Shannow looked down at his hands and saw they were mottled gray and black and scaled like a serpent. His head ached, and he reached up to the wound.
“Let me in. I am hurt.”
“No beasts may enter here.”
Shannow screamed as his hand touched his brow, for horns grew there, long and sharp, and they leaked blood that hissed and boiled as it touched the ground.
“At least tell me if this is Jerusalem.”
“There are no brigands for you to slay, Shannow. Ride on.”
“I have nowhere to go.”
“You chose the path, Shannow. Follow it.”
“But I need Jerusalem.”
“Come back again when the wolf sits down with the lamb and the lion eats grass as the cattle do.”
Shannow awoke. He had been buried alive. He screamed once, and a curtain to his left moved to show light in a room beyond. An elderly man crept in to sit beside him.
“You are well; you are in the fever hole. Do not concern yourself. You are free to leave when you feel well enough.”
Shannow tried to sit, but his head ached abominably. His hand went to his brow, fearing that horns would touch his fingers, but he found only a linen bandage. He glanced around the tiny room. Apart from his pallet bed there was a fire built beneath white stones, and the heat was searing.
“You had a fever,” said the man. “I brought you out of it.”
Shannow lay back on the bed and fell asleep instantly.
When he awoke, the old man was still sitting beside him; he was dressed in a buckskin jacket free of adornments and leather trousers as soft as cloth. He was almost bald, but the white hair above his ears was thick and wavy and grew to his shoulders. The face, thought Shannow, was kindly, and his teeth were remarkably white and even.
“Who are you?” asked Shannow.
“I have long since put aside my name. Here they call me Karitas.”
“I am Shannow. What is wrong with me?”
“I think you have a cracked skull, Mr. Shannow. You have been very ill. We have all been worried about you.”
“All?”
“Young Selah brought you to me. You saved his life in the eastern woods.”
“What of the other boy?”
“He did not come home, Mr. Shannow. I fear he was recaptured.”
“My guns and saddlebags?”
“Safe. Interesting pistols, if I may say so. They are copies of the 1858 Colt; the original was a fine weapon as cap and ball pistols go.”
“They are the best pistols in the world, Mr. Karitas.”
“Just ‘Karitas,’ and yes, I expect you are right, at least until someone rediscovers the Smith and Wesson .44 Russian or indeed the 1898 Luger. I myself have always held the high-power Browning in great esteem. How are you feeling?”
“Not good,” admitted Shannow.
“You almost died, my friend. The fever was most powerful, and you were badly concussed. I am amazed that you remained conscious after being struck.”
“I don’t remember being hit.”
“That is natural. Your horse is being well looked after. Our young men have never seen a horse, yet Selah rode him like a centaur to bring you home. It makes one inclined to believe in genetic memory.”
“You are speaking in riddles.”
“Yes. And I am tiring
you. Rest now, and we will talk in the morning.”
Shannow drifted back into darkness and awoke to find a young woman by his bed. She helped him eat some broth and bathed his body with water-cooled cloths. After she had gone, Karitas returned.
“I see you are feeling better; your color is good, Mr. Shannow.” The old man called out, and two younger men ducked into the fever hole. “Help Mr. Shannow out into the sunlight. It will do him good.”
Together they lifted the naked man and carried him out of the hole, laying him on a blanket under a wide shade made from interwoven leaves. Several children were playing nearby, and they stopped to watch the stranger. Shannow glanced around; there were more than thirty huts in view, and to his right a shallow stream bubbled over pink and blue stones.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” said Karitas. “I love this place. If it wasn’t for the Carns, this would be paradise.”
“The Carns?”
“The cannibals, Mr. Shannow.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Sad, really. The Elders did it to them, polluted the land and the sea. The Carns should have died; they came here two hundred years ago when the plagues began. I wasn’t in this area then, or I could have warned them to stay clear. The stones used to gleam at night, and no animal could survive. We still suffer a high incidence of cancer, but the main effects seem to be on the brain and the glandular system. With some, they become atavistic. Others develop rare ESPer powers, while some of us just seem to live forever.”
Shannow decided the man was mad and closed his eyes against the pain in his temple.
“My dear chap,” said Karitas, “forgive me. Ella, fetch the coca.”
A young woman came forward bearing a wooden bowl in which dark liquid swirled. “Drink that, Mr. Shannow.” He did as he was told. The drink was bitter, and he almost choked, but within seconds the pain in his head dulled and disappeared.
“There, that’s the ticket. I took the liberty, Mr. Shannow, of going through your things, and I see you are a Bible-reading man.”
“Yes. You?”
“I have been while you lay ill. It’s a long time since I have seen a Bible. I’m not surprised it survived the Fall; it was a best-seller every day of every year. There were more Bibles than people, I shouldn’t wonder.”
“You are not a believer, then?”
“On the contrary, Mr. Shannow. Anyone who watches a world die is liable to be converted at rare speed.”
Shannow sat up. “Every time you speak, I almost get a grip on what you are saying, and then you soar away somewhere. Lugers, Colts, tickets … I don’t understand any of it.”
“And why should you, my boy? Does not the Bible say, ‘For behold I shall create a new heaven and a new earth and the former shall not be remembered; nor come into mind’?”
“That’s the first thing you’ve said that I have understood. What happened to the wagons?”
“What wagons, Mr. Shannow?”
“I was with a convoy.”
“I know nothing of them, but when you are well, you can find them.”
“Your name is familiar to me,” said Shannow, “but I cannot place it.”
“Karitas. Greek for love. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not karitas—charity, love … You recall?”
“My father used to use it,” said Shannow, smiling. “I remember. Faith, hope, and karitas. Yes.”
“You should smile more often, Mr. Shannow; it becomes you well. Tell me, sir: Why did you risk your life for my little ones?”
Shannow shrugged. “If that question needs an answer, then I cannot supply it. I had no choice.”
“I have decided that I like you, Mr. Shannow. The children here call you the Thundermaker and think you may be a god. They know I am. They think you are the god of death.”
“I am a man, Karitas. You know that; tell them.”
“Divinity is not a light gift to throw away, Mr. Shannow. You will feature in their legends until the end of time, hurling thunderbolts at the Carns, rescuing their princes. One day they will probably pray to you.”
“That would be blasphemy.”
“Only if you took it seriously. But then, you are no Caligula. Are you hungry?”
“Your chatter makes my head spin. How long have you been here?”
“In this camp? Eleven years, more or less. And you must forgive my chatter, Mr. Shannow. I am one of the last men of a lost race, and sometimes my loneliness is colossal. I have discovered answers here to mysteries that have baffled men for a thousand years. And there is no one I would wish to tell. All I have is this small tribe who were once Eskimos and now are merely food for the Carns. It is all too galling, Mr. Shannow.”
“Where are you from, Karitas?”
“London, Mr. Shannow.”
“Is that north, south, what?”
“By my calculations, sir, it is north and sits under a million tons of ice, waiting to be discovered in another millennium.”
Shannow gave up and lay back on the blanket, allowing sleep to wash over him.
Mad though he undoubtedly was, Karitas had organized the village with spectacular efficiency and was obviously revered by the villagers. Shannow lay on his blankets in the shade and watched the village life passing him by. The huts were all alike: rectangular and built of mud and logs with roofs slanting down and overhanging the main doors. The roofs themselves appeared to have been constructed from interwoven leaves and dried grass. They were sturdy buildings without ostentation. To the east of the village was a large log cabin, which Karitas explained held the winter stores, and beside it was the wood store, seven feet high and fifteen feet deep. The winter, Karitas told him, was particularly harsh there on the plain.
On outlying hills Shannow could see flocks of sheep and goats, and those he was told were communal property. Life seemed relaxed and without friction in Karitas’ village.
The people were friendly, and any who passed where Shannow lay would bow and smile. They were not like any people Shannow had come across so far in his wanderings; their skin was dull gold, and their eyes wide-set and almost slanted. The women were mostly taller than the men and beautifully formed; several were pregnant. There seemed few old people until Shannow realized their huts were in the western sector, nearest the stream and protected from the harsh north winds by a rising slope at the rear of the dwellings.
The men were stocky and carried weapons of curious design, bows of horn and knives of dark flint. Day by day Shannow came to know individual villagers, especially the boy Selah and a young sloe-eyed maid named Curopet, who would sit by him and gaze at his face, saying nothing. Her presence unsettled the Jerusalem Man, but he could not find the words to send her away.
Shannow’s recovery was painfully slow. The wound in his temple healed within days, but the left side of his face was numb and the strength of his left arm and leg had been halved. If he tried to walk, his foot dragged and he often stumbled. The fingers of his left hand tingled permanently, and he was unable to hold any object for more than a few seconds before the hand would spasm and the fingers would open.
Every day for a month Karitas would arrive at Shannow’s hut an hour after dawn and massage his fingers and arm. Shannow was close to despair. All his life his strength had been with him, and without it he felt defenseless and—worse—useless.
Karitas broached the painful subject at the start of the fifth week. “Mr. Shannow, you are doing yourself no good. Your strength will not return until you find the courage to seek it.”
“I can hardly lift my arm, and my leg drags like a rotting tree branch,” said Shannow. “What do you expect me to do?”
“Fight it as you fought the Carns. I am not a medical man, Mr. Shannow, but I think you have had a mild stroke—a cerebral thrombosis, I believe it used to be called. A blood clot near the brain has affected your left side.”
“How sure are you of this?”
“Reasonably certain; it happened to my father.”
>
“And he recovered?”
“No, he died. He took to his bed like the weakling he was.”
“How do I fight it?”
“Bear with me, Mr. Shannow, and I will show you.”
Each day Karitas sat for hours, pushing the Jerusalem Man through a grueling series of exercises. At first he merely forced Shannow to raise his left arm and lower it ten times. Shannow managed six, and the arm rose a bare eight inches. Then Karitas produced a ball of tightly wound hide, which he placed in Shannow’s left hand. “Squeeze this one hundred times in the morning and another hundred times before you sleep.”
“It’ll take me all day.”
“Then take all day. But do it!”
Each afternoon Karitas forced Shannow to accompany him on a walk around the village, a distance of about four hundred paces.
The weeks drifted by, and Shannow’s improvement was barely perceptible, but Karitas—noting everything—would shout for joy over an extra quarter inch on an arm raise, offering fulsome congratulations and calling in Selah or Curopet, insisting that Shannow repeat the move. This was then greeted by much applause, especially from the maiden Curopet, who had, in the words of Karitas, “taken a shine” to the invalid.
Shannow, while recognizing Karitas’ methods, was still lifted by the obvious joy the old man gained from his recovery and tried harder with each passing day.
At night, as he lay on his blankets squeezing the leather ball and counting aloud, his mind would drift to Donna and the convoy. He felt her absence but knew that with her talent she could see him every day and would know how hard he was working to be beside her once more.
One morning, as Shannow and Karitas walked around the village, the Jerusalem Man stopped and gazed at the distant hills. The trees were still green, but at the center was a golden shower that shimmered in the sunlight.
“That is wondrous beautiful,” said Shannow. “It looks for all the world like a tree of gold coins, just waiting to make a man rich.”
“There are many beautiful things to see during autumn here,” said Karitas softly.
“Autumn? Yes, I had not thought. I have been here so long.”
“Two months only.”