The Sea Peoples(100)

He took off the armored gauntlet and laid down the knife they’d seized from the madman in the ancient city. Alan Thurston stepped forward and took both.

“Figure this will work better than my saber,” he said.

Deor nodded. “Though be careful of it, my friend.”

Then he produced a drum . . .

Where from? John thought. Then: Probably better not to ask.

. . . and began to tap on it. As he did, John heard something beneath that rhythmic throbbing; hooves on stone. Slow, and dragging and irregular; a counter-music to the pattern and purpose of the drum. Deor’s face went pale beneath his weathered tan and the not-light of the cindered black stars above them.

“The Hell Horse,” Pip said, her face whey-white under the sun-kissed gold.

Deor drummed and chanted, thick drops of sweat rolling down his face. After a moment he paused:

“I must go first, to bring the rest of you through, as I came here first,” he said.

A meadowlark flitted past and was gone, but the thutter of the drum persisted . . . or was that only the beat of his heart.

John stiffened and raised his shield. “That’s right,” he said. “Then Pip and Thora, then Toa, then—”

“Then you, and then me,” Alan Thurston said.

Pip looked mutinous for a second, but Thora nodded.

“He’s right, sister,” she said. “It’s got to be that way.”

She looked at him. “You’re a brave man, John. May your White Christ be with you.”

“But—” Pip began.

“No time to argue. Go!” John said.

No! No! Get me out of this awful place! he gibbered inwardly.

“Johnnie—” Pip began, and the lioness snarled and took a soaring leap and was gone.

The she-bear roared, and was gone.

“Look after Pip,” John said tightly. “She’s tough as nails herself, but she’s going to need help with the baby.”

Toa nodded soberly. “Promised her mum I would, long ago,” he said. “Don’t like scarpering on you, mate, but—”

“A man lives by his oaths,” John said. “You . . .”

The big man was gone. John looked at Alan. “Well, it’s just the two of us again,” he said; they shook hands. “Bare is brotherless back, as your uncle is fond of saying.”

The other man’s handsome face split in a smile. “It’s a good saying. Would I like him, my uncle?”

John nodded. “He’s . . . solid. My father said that about him—that his oath was his bond, and you couldn’t want a better comrade or better friend.”

He grinned. “Including a better friend when you’re trying to keep a fire going in a blizzard and down to your last stick of jerky—they went through some rough times together, when they were our age and on their Quest.”

“Rough as this?” Alan said, trying to see through the gathering trails of mist.

“I don’t think so.”

The thought was oddly cheering. He’d grown up in that towering shadow, and this last little time lived with the grief of its massive absence.

“I think he’d be proud of you,” John added. Softly: “And Father would be of me. Yes, I think he would.”

It didn’t make him less afraid, but it did make it easier to control that twisting feeling under his breastbone. The clopping sounded louder, even as the pulse of the drum continued. He crossed himself, kissed his crucifix and spoke softly:

“O God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins because I dread the loss of Heaven and the pains of Hell; but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, Who art all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace . . . Lady pierced with sorrows . . . intercede for me, Lady, now and at the hour of my death. And as You are also a mother, intercede for Thora and Pip. Throw Your mantle about them and the innocent lives they bear.”

The slow, dragging beat of the hooves came closer and closer, thudding on dirt, clattering hard on stone among the graves. Alan whipped the glyph-graven knife through the air, wrist-loosening circles until the cloven air hissed.

“Come on, you ambling glue pot!” he shouted. “This’ll work on you!”

Then, sotto voice: “Come on, Deor, get us out!”

The brush between them and the graveyard rustled.

“Haro, Portland! Holy Mary for Portland!” John said, bringing his cross-blazoned shield up just under his eyes and his sword overhead hilt-forward.

Something came out of the brush towards them. John thought it was a horse—but it was accompanied by a wave of feeling. A sick tiredness, a weariness that made his very bones ache and seem as if they were about to crumble. He might have lain down, if it had been worth the trouble, but it wasn’t. Nothing was.

The blunt point at the bottom of his teardrop-shaped shield thumped into the dried mud of the roadway. He couldn’t be bothered to bring it up. Why? It didn’t matter. Nothing did, in a life that was just a futile struggle against the day when—

Alan clanged the steel rim of his shield into John’s shoulder.

“Not today!” John snarled, pulling his own shield back up again. “Thanks, buddy!”