Dreams That Burn In The Night (4 page)

An old man dressed in ragged skins moved into
the fire-blasted clearing. Uhlat raised his weapon in front of him, acknowledging the presence of
the enemy.

Natina saw the old one clearly. The wind seemed
to dance around his head; a swirl of leaves and dust spun around him. She had seen the old one
before. He was the strange one who came to the village day after day, the demon-touched
one.

Uhlat's face darkened with anger and fear. His
chanting grew louder, becoming almost a shriek. A bolt of lightning struck the ground at his
feet. Natina screamed, feeling a wave of intense heat wash across her. Uhlat stepped forward over
her body, mov­ing toward the old one. Natina pushed herself flat against the ground. She wanted
to get up and run, but she couldn't make her muscles obey her.

Uhlat invoked his gods and spirits. His voice
soared upward. The air turned fire red around his head. Smoke, black as night, rose from the
ground at his feet.

Uhlat raised his fox-skull medicine stick over
his head. The human skull and fox skull on either end glowed in the new-grown dark, pulsing with
a power that was not of earth.

The old one marched calmly toward Uhlat. There
was a smile on his face and a look of peace. He was dressed in tattered skins, torn and much
worn. He had no medicine bags, no amulets of protection. In his hands he held no weapons. There
was only the smile and the wind that spun as if at his command all around him.

The old one spoke, and his words were like
summer lightning that made the night into day.

"My heart is filled with anger when I see you
here, eater of flesh. I heard of your coming when I was many sleeps away. I know that you come to
do evil to me and my people. I look for this evil, which would last forever, and so my face is a
storm as I look upon you. I do not wish your evil upon my land. Leave now and return to the
north, and I will not harm you. I want no blood upon my land to stain the goodness of the grass.
I want it clean and pure, and I wish it so that all who go among my people may find peace when
they come in and leave in peace when they go out."

Uhlat waved his glowing medicine stick
defiantly. "Do not challenge me, old one. I will bring lasting sorrow into your land. I will rip
the heart from you. Such is my power!" cried Uhlat.

"Your power is that of the flies that eat the
eyes of dead horses. Your life is under my fingernails. Leave this place," said the old
one.

"So strong am I that my breath would tear your
flesh from your bones," said Uhlat.

The old one shook his head. "Go. Go while your
legs are still under you and your bones still white with life in your body."

For an answer, Uhlat raised his tomahawk as if
to throw it.

"You are far from your lands, child-stealer,"
said the old one, standing very still in the clearing. He stood behind the blackened hulk of a
felled tree, plainly visible, unafraid. "You are not wel­come in my lands, eater of
flesh."

"I do not fear you, shaman. I will pick your
bones!" said Uhlat, and he stretched forth his glowing medicine stick. A tongue of white-hot
flame shot from the center of the stick, straight for the old one's heart.

The old one laughed and waved his hand before
his body. A great wind whirled out of the forest at his back. It roared between the old one's
legs, ripping the felled tree up from the ground and flinging it headlong at the flame from
Uhlat's medicine stick.

The flame bent back on itself, and Uhlat cried
out as its heat came back at him, flames touching his clothes, singeing him in many places. The
wind tore at him, fierce and burning, like a giant fist.

Uhlat bent against the force of the wind. The
blackened stump sped through the air. Uhlat threw out his medicine stick, spinning it in his
hand. The great dead log crashed against it, only inches from his body. There was a great flash
of fire and smoke, and the great log broke against the stick and crashed at Uhlat's feet. A drop
of blood appeared below each of Uhlat's eyes. His hair and clothes were singed. The old one was
unharmed.

Natina was terrified. She tried to crawl away,
willing herself to get to her feet. The hawk shrilled defiance from her shoulder. She stumbled,
rose to her knees, and then fell again. She could not rise. She hugged the ground, trying to
shelter the hawk with her hands against the great magic and forces of the shamans.

The old man turned his head slightly, looking
down. Natina raised her eyes up to his, and she saw a deep cool river of melted snow flowing out
of his eyes. It was a river that ran cold and clear from the heart of the high
mountains.

The hard edge of terror in her subsided, as if
washed smooth in the river. She felt something seize her, like a sudden tidal surge pulling at
her. Her body slid across the ground back away from Uhlat toward the edge of the clearing. It was
like riding a giant wave. The hawk shrilled.

Uhlat turned and saw her moving across the
ground. He threw a hand out toward her, palm open, and then closed it, fingers closing into a
fist.

Natina shrieked, flattened against the ground.
Something, a hand cold as ice, grabbed her by the hair, and dragged her roughly across the ground
until she bumped into Uhlat's legs.

Uhlat laughed and turned to glare at the old
one. "Do not try to rob me of my pretty thing, old one. I have her life in my hands. She is
mine."

"She does not belong to you," said the old
one.

Uhlat glared his hatred at the old one. His
mouth flew open, and a high piercing chant of summoning rang in the air. The air above his head
burned with green and yellow flames. Black smoke boiled in a tall cloud above his head. Out of
this blackness, a black thing swooped, a creature of wings and night and fire red teeth. Its body
had no shape, night black, its form changing as it flew like mist upon the river.

Only its great vicious head had shape, the blood
red eyes, mur­derous beak, and wickedly sharp teeth.

The great black thing circled above Uhlat's head
and a foul stench, an odor from the grave, came down out of the sky from the thing, a demon
smell.

The old man smiled calmly at Uhlat. "You are too
far from the lands that hold your black heart. Your power is dew upon the grass. I am the rains
of spring. I wash the land of all evil. Leave while you still have breath in your body,
flesh-eater." Above, the thing circled like death on the wing. "I will crush you. I will tear
your bones out of your still live flesh," cursed Uhlat. "Who are you that dares to challenge
Uhlat? I have the power of night. None can stand in my way!"

The black thing clicked its fire red teeth, and
its eyes gleamed with evil. It flew close to the old one, but he paid no attention to it, did not
even look up at it.

"Let the child go free," said the old one,
moving closer, taking two steps closer to Uhlat.

The icy hand that held her hair suddenly
disappeared, and Na-tina fell back, away from the shaman's legs. She felt strength flowing
through her legs and arms. On her shoulder the white-head hawk seemed to glow with warmth and
light. "She is mine. I have taken her. What I take, I keep." Freed from Uhlat's power, Natina got
slowly to her feet, still unsteady. Holding the hawk safely against her with one protective hand,
she took a step and then another.

She moved away from Uhlat for the safety of the
forest beyond. Out of the corner of his eye, Uhlat saw the movement and turned his head. He
gasped in pain, and the hand that had seized her by the hair, writhed at the end of his arm. A
drop of blood fell from each finger of the hand.

Uhlat spun quickly on his heel, leaping forward
toward Natina. He seized her roughly by the shoulder. The white-head hawk struck, his fierce beak
stabbing into the shaman's arm. With a cry of pain, the shaman lost his grip on Natina. The old
one laughed. The sound of his laughter was as cold as the snows of winter.

"Even a small hawk can hurt you, child-stealer.
You should heed this omen. Flee into the woods like brother rabbit with the foxes after
you."

Uhlat grabbed Natina by the arm, jerking her to
his side, keep­ing well away from the angry hawk on her shoulder.

"Use your magic on me and I kill the child,"
spat Uhlat. "I kill you, old one." Uhlat flung his medicine stick forward, spinning it in a
glowing circle. The great black thing, from the grave and the world beyond this one, came
swooping with a rush of deathwings down at the old one.

The old one raised his arms wide, as if about to
take wing. Behind the old man, the rain came, the great spring rain of life. It fell upon the old
one, and he was like a small child in a storm. He turned up his face to the rain, opening his
mouth, letting the rain splash upon his face and into his mouth.

The grass, brown and dead at his feet, burst
into new life, send­ing up rushing green shoots of new life. From the ruined stumps of dead
trees, new shoots sprang up, rushing into the air, into the sun and life.

"As death kills life, so does life kill death,"
said the old one. The great black demon thing came down at the old man, re­lentlessly falling
like an arrow of death into the rain. Its mouth was agape with wicked teeth, hungry for the taste
of human flesh.

Natina turned her head, sure that the old one
could not escape. She did not want to see her mysterious protector, her last hope for escape,
die.

But the raindrops were like drops of fire. The
black one's wings, like great shifting leaves, were burned through and through. The demon spawn,
writhed in agony in the rain of life, burning in the cold fire of spring. It lost control, wings
burned and burning, and came plummeting to the ground, melting, shrieking as it died. It lay
before the old one's feet, shriveling, eroding, the rain tearing it into tiny pieces with each
gentle drop.

Uhlat screamed in fury. He dragged Natina in
front of him, shielding himself with her slender body. His hand closed around her
throat.

Natina struggled against his grip, but she could
not break away. The hawk stabbed at Uhlat, but he held Natina far enough away from his body so
that the hawk could not reach him. The hawk screamed in rage and frustration.

Natina's eyes were wide open with
terror.

"Before you can breathe the next breath, I shall
end this child's life. Her tiny life is in my fingers." Uhlat's rage burned in bis eyes like the
sun.

"To he who holds a child's yen to grow life as
the dust beneath his feet, death itself is too swift, too gentle."

The old man's face was alive with anger. For the
first time, the things that moved him, the great beliefs that moved in his blood and being, were
upon his face. His eyes became the sun on the water, and great pain turned his face into a
mask.

He spoke one word. It was of a language not of
this world. The word hung in the air like a dragonfly. The air shimmered as if heated by the
force of this strange word.

Thunder crashed, the earth shook, and then the
ground opened at the old one's feet. A ball of fire rose out of the hole. Flames as hot as lava
rose from the center of the hole. The ball of fire shot straight into the air and then came
arcing down, back into the hole.

A lizard, green as the grass of summer, arose
out of the flames. It was longer than a deer in its body and had a great armored tail yet as long
again. It had neither mouth nor eyes, yet it moved out of the hole with grace and speed. It raced
across the ground as quick as thought, a green blur, a relentless reptilian wave that swept like
green fire across the ground.

Its claws rasped against the broken log at
Uhlat's feet, the log broken by magic against Uhlat's medicine stick. Uhlat screamed once and
tried to tighten his grip around Natina's throat, to squeeze the life from her body, but the
lizard, as quick as breath, leaped for the arm that held her.

Its fierce claws raked the top of his hand, and
Uhlat screamed in mortal agony.

Natina stumbled and fell away from Uhlat's
injured hand. He could not hold her. His hand, ceremonially painted black, glowed with green
fire. He screamed in pain.

His hand writhed and distended, clenching and
unclenching without control. The faceless one crouched at the log at Uhlat's feet. Waiting.
Waiting.

Uhlat held the hand away from his body, as if it
were no longer a part of him.

The finger bones pushed through his skin, came
leaping out to tumble down on the ground.

Uhlat screamed and fell to his knees, the skin
collapsing around what once had been his hand. The green reptile shud­dered in anticipation, its
tail lashing across the ground. It lunged forward. It gathered the fallen finger bones up in its
sharp foreclaws.

The faceless one scuttled back across the ruined
ground with its prize. The flames still roared from the hole in the ground. As quick as green
lightning, the lizard shot back into the flames with its treasure.

With a mighty shaking of the ground, the hole
closed over the lizard as he disappeared deep into the flames.

"Come to me, child," said the old one. "I will
not hurt you."

Natina stood up slowly, the hawk now resting
silently on her shoulder. She moved away from Uhlat with caution. His pain was such that he did
not even seem aware of her presence.