Of Limited Loyalty

Chapter Thirty

26 May 1767 Antediluvian Ruins Westridge Mountains, Mystria

Owen took a quick look inside the Temple, then ducked back. “No doubt we’re being taunted.”

Nathaniel took a couple steps back and down. “I don’t know that I think that is true. Seems fair certain that the intention of getting the tablets took was to create havoc. Onliest reason to leave that one there would be to do more of the same. Rufus couldn’t be certain we’d come back this way. Heck, we’d not be but Prince Vlad said he’d backtrack us on this trail iffen we was not home quick enough.”

Kamiskwa let his pack slip from his shoulders. “You think the tablet is there so someone else will find it and fall prey to it as did Rufus?”

“Like as not. Could figure that we have one, the other would find it, and get us.” Nathaniel smiled. “Last Rufus knowed I couldn’t read. He prolly thinks this here trap could snare the Prince, which he wouldn’t mind at all.”

Owen nodded. “That being the case, to leave the tablet here would be more dangerous than getting trapped in there.”

Makepeace sighted down his rifle barrel, then thumbed a spec of dust off by the muzzle. “All your thinking don’t mean this ain’t a trap. More of them demons could spring up out the ground and you’re done.”

Nathaniel shucked off his pack and dug around, bringing out the urn full of demon broth. “Well, I gots me a plan. Being as how I is faster than any of the rest of you, I’ll just run in there, smash this over that slab goes into the ground, and be back with the tablet in no time.”

“If it doesn’t work, ‘I gots me a plan’ will make for one hell of an epitaph.”

“You have that wrong, Captain.” Kamiskwa came up with his urn. “If it doesn’t work, there won’t be enough to bury.”

“What are you proposing, brother?”

“I may not be faster than you, but I feel magick better. I make the run. You three stay here, ready to shoot anything that bothers me.”

“Cain’t argue as much as I’d like with your logic.” Nathaniel levered his rifle’s breech opened and pulled out the bullet. Using his knife, he cut a cross on the nose, then extended it toward the Steward. “I know you ain’t much on shooting and all, but I reckon a blessing might be of some comfort here.”

Ezekiel Fire laid his hand over Nathaniel’s. “Let Thy will be done.”

Owen similarly opened his rifle and got his bullet blessed, as did Makepeace. Owen saw no reddish glow, felt nothing, but also didn’t feel wholly hypocritical about asking for the blessing. What he had seen in Happy Valley and Piety had opened whole new windows in his world. He’d always known magick existed, and knew he could wield it at a strong level, but his abilities were nothing compared to what he’d seen Deacon Stone do, much less Rufus. In the face of that which he didn’t understand, asking for divine help didn’t seem to be a vice.

He loaded the bullet back into his rifle, then lay down on the stairs and steadied the rifle on the top step. Nathaniel crouched on the top of the stairs, and Makepeace sank down beside Owen. The large man mumbled a short prayer.

Kamiskwa carried a steel tomahawk in his right hand and the urn in his left. He stepped to the doors, then slipped through. He walked casually for a few paces down the middle, glancing back to see if the doors were closing, then put his head down and sprinted toward the stone altar. His body eclipsed the golden tablet.

Owen kept his rifle trained on the spot to the right of the altar where the slab had lain. At the first hint of motion he was going to shoot. He prepared himself for a cloud of demons exploding up, or Rufus rising like a ghost from the grave. He rubbed his thumb over the firestone. Come on, come on.

Kamiskwa reached the tabernacle. He smashed the urn onto the floor slab, then grabbed the tablet. Something began to grind behind him, sounding like the low rumbling of an avalanche to those who waited outside. The Tabernacle began to slide backward slowly.

A shaggy grey creature clambered up from the depths, all elbows, shoulders, and a broad head with curled ram’s horns. At least, that’s what it appeared to be to Owen, in the brief glimpse he had of it. Then Nathaniel fired. Smoke billowed, choking the entrance. Something yelped from within, but without seeing a target, and knowing Kamiskwa was running straight toward them, Owen couldn’t shoot.

Then Kamiskwa dove out though the smoke, the tablet clutched firmly in his left hand. His body drew the smoke away, revealing a hazy glimpse of a creature at least ten feet tall. Then the Temple doors began to close, and Owen and Makepeace shot in unison. They couldn’t see if they’d hit the creature, but it would have been hard to miss. Yet before the smoke could clear, the doors clanged shut.

Fire grabbed Kamiskwa’s pack, and the others retreated, reloading as they went. They moved through the ruins cautiously, then headed down into Little Elephant Valley. They’d have been happy to get further from the ruins, but daylight faded and exhaustion replaced excitement. They found an easily defended spot and set up camp, knowing full well that if the creature from the Temple or any of the demons wanted to attack during the night, they were powerless to stop them. Still, they splashed a little of the demon broth around and set up a rotation of shifts for nightwatch.

Kamiskwa woke Owen in the middle of the night. “Your watch, Owen.”

“Thanks.” Owen pulled his moccasins on. “Mind if I ask you something?”

The Altashee nodded.

“You clearly do not like whatever exists up there in the ruins.”

Kamiskwa laughed. “You are too much a civilized man to say they scare me. They do. I have heard stories since I was a child. An adult may try to pretend those stories no longer have power, but they do. And they do terrify me.”

“Then why be the one to make the run?”

“Owen, you have learned much in your time here. You have learned things of my people, but there are some lessons you do not understand.” The warrior smiled. “Norillians and Ryngians all treat fear as if it is a shameful thing. It is not. Succumbing to it might be. But fear is just telling you that you face great danger. It tells you that you must take extreme caution. Those who ignore such warnings are foolhardy and die. Those who cannot see past them are cowards. But I am a warrior. If I do not honor fear, if I fail to face it with intelligence and courage, I am nothing.”

He looked back toward the high mountain peak. “Did I run from that thing as swiftly as I could? Yes, but I did not give in to terror. I showed it I was indeed the most fleet of us. If I was wrong, if it caught me, all I would have lost is a race. I would not have lost what it is to be a man.”

“Then it was the creature that yelped.”

“No, that was me.” The Altashee laughed. “If you have Nathaniel Magehawk pointing a rifle at you and shooting, you will yelp, too.”

“I would at that.” Owen patted him on the shoulder. “Sleep well.”

The night passed without any oddness. In the morning they scouted around for signs of anything that might be following them, but found nothing. Though they did not relax their guard as they moved further from the ruins, they saw no sign of pursuit. Were they not carrying the golden tablets and demon broth-not to mention claw marks and bites-they’d have had no evidence that anything out of the ordinary had taken place.

And then, at the end of the first week of June, they returned to Plentiful. As they’d gotten close they saw ample signs of the flood that had raced down the Snake River. Riverbanks had been undermined and trees had fallen. Large rocks stood in the channel hundreds of yards from where they had been previously, or had been left high and dry on the flood plain thirty and forty yards from the river itself. Yet even these displays of the river’s titanic power did not prepare them for what they found at the settlement.

The flood had poured through the valley deep and fast. Owen imagined that Arise Faith and his people, if they had any warning at all, assumed they had angered God in some incredible way. They would have seen it as the Scriptural Deluge come again.

A tumble of trees and splintered logs lay strewn over the valley floor. Green fields had been washed away, along with most all the buildings. Three houses on the southwest hillside had been preserved, though the hillside had been nibbled away right up to the doorstep of the lowest. The only attempts at clean up, it appeared, had been half-hearted harvesting of firewood from the wooden tangle that had once been Plentiful.

They worked their way along the valley edge, approaching the houses in the open. They stood off and announced their presence.

A ragged group of people, heads hung in shame, slowly poured out of the buildings. Owen didn’t see Arise Faith among them. Half of them were children, two were old women, and the rest adults young enough to be unmarried and uncertain of what they should be doing.

Nathaniel immediately set down his pack and opened it. He pulled out a small bag of flour from Happy Valley. “Looks like you could be using this.”

One of the young men stepped forward. “We don’t want no charity nor no trouble.”

“Ain’t charity, boy, just common sense. I am plumb tired of carrying this weight. It would be a sin just to throw it away.” Nathaniel advanced a few steps, set the bag down, then retreated. “We would trouble you for word of friends who passed through-Count von Metternin and Hodge Dunsby. Prolly came through two-three weeks ago.”

One of the women came forward. “They did, and they were most generous. They said they would send help.”

“And I am sure they will. We is in from the west, so we don’t got much to share, but we’ll share it all.”

The rest of the expedition offered their supplies, too, which amounted to a pound and a half of flour and two of beans. It wasn’t much, but the old woman found scales and weighed it all. She made Owen write down an account of what they’d been given. She solemnly promised that it would be repaid a hundred fold when Plentiful got back up and going.

Owen made her a copy of the bill of lading, then signed it. “You’re going to stay here and rebuild?”

“Don’t really have a choice.” She folded the paper with skeletal hands. “When God scoured the earth with a flood, He did it so mankind could rebuild. His message for us can be no clearer. Look.”

Owen followed her quivering finger as she pointed to the survivors. It took him a moment to recognize it, then he understood. “Two by two.”

“That’s right, seven men, seven women. Most are too young yet, but they will grow into God’s plan.” She slipped the bill inside her apron. “Suffering is a terrible thing, but knowing we are doing God’s work is a comfort.”

She walked away and Owen closed his journal. He went to return it to his pack and found Ezekiel Fire standing off and alone. “Something the matter, Steward?”

“Every so often, when new people found us, they would have a letter or two for me from Arise Faith. I never met the man, but he offered me the blessings of holy fellowship-then proceeded to tell me why my followers and I were damned.” The small man stared down into the ruined valley. “My people succumbed to the whispers of an idol and were rightly consigned to Perdition. But these people, they did nothing, and the flood wiped them out-the flood that revealed the ruin that poisoned my people. The citizens of Plentiful believe they are part of God’s plan. I believe I am as well. I daresay we would be judged to hold our beliefs with equal strength, yet one of us is wrong.”

“Didn’t you suggest the mind of God is unknowable?”

He turned back toward Owen. “True. Mr. Woods objected. I find it easy to see why now.” He looked at his empty hands, then shook his head. “Do you wish to know the worst of it, Captain Strake?”

“Sure.”

Fire’s eyes blazed with an intensity Owen hadn’t seen before. “With what God has showed me, I know I could clear this valley with the wave of a hand. I could raise crops-not the false manna you saw conjured through demonic instruments, but food that would sustain both mind and soul. I could ease their pain and make life easier for them. I could grant them the prosperity that their agony has certainly entitled them to.”

Owen folded his arms across his chest. “Why don’t you?”

“Because He has not given me leave to do so.” Fire glanced at the ground again. “I do not know if it is to punish me by having me know that were I a better person He would allow me to relieve their suffering, or if it is because He has need for my gifts to be used elsewhere, to greater effect. In Scripture, the Good Lord blessed those who believed without ever seeing a miracle. Is it thus that these people who so need a miracle will be blessed? My failure to please Him pains my soul. If you will excuse me, I must pray.”

Owen nodded and left Fire in peace. He worked his way higher up the hill and found Nathaniel standing with Kamiskwa, overlooking the valley. “I can’t begin to imagine how much help these people need.”

“A fair bit of it. Our supplies won’t go far, I’m afraid, but they will do until help gets here.”

“How long do you think that will be?”

Nathaniel shrugged. “I reckon Hodge and the Count done made it back to Temperance a week ago. If Hodge got together some help and started back fast, they could be here in another week or so, ten days at the outside.”

Makepeace came trudging up the hill and slung his pack at their feet. “I reckon I’m going to stay here, help out a bit. I feel the calling to do it. Onliest things left in there is the tablets, demon broth, and the wolf pelts. Sell mine, send supplies: seed, nails.”

“You summering out here, then?”

“Most like.” He smiled easily. “When you see help coming up, tell them to go faster.”

“Will if we do, but ain’t likely.” Nathaniel stared off east. “Ain’t going back the way we came up.”

Owen frowned. “But I thought the Prince said…”

“He did, but Kamiskwa here, he’s itching to get to Saint Luke, and I can’t blame him.” Nathaniel sighed. “And given what the Shedashee might know about what’s on the other side of them mountains, I ain’t thinking the Prince is going to mind if we make a stop, and you fill a journal with notes.”