The Archivist (13 page)

We ride the rest of the way back to Entiak in silence.

The faint orange glow of dawn appears on the mountainous horizon by the time we reach the outskirts of Entiak. The whole way back, when I am not half-asleep in the saddle, I have an eerie sense of being watched. I cannot shake the feeling that there is indeed some ghostly presence in the hills around us. I am pretty sure I know what it is, and that makes me even more nervous.

Hell, it would make any sane person nervous.

We come out of the last of the wooded foothills. The remaining land between us and the distant town wall is mostly farmland. Walls are now a universal feature of human enclaves. When Intellinet took down the global infrastructure, those remaining settlements which did not fortify themselves right away became the graveyards of civilization. Which I suppose makes me a gravedigger, in a way.

Little Crow pulls up next to me, and wants to know what details I can provide. I give him the short version, because it is the only one I have. Danae was taken, I have no idea by whom or in which direction, and I cannot even say whether she is on foot, horseback or in a wagon.

I am sure he can hear an edge of frustration in my voice as I tell him that all I have to work with is some of her clothing. That is when he stops laughing at me.

He dismounts quickly and directs me to get down as well.

“Unless you want to walk the rest of the way, boss, hold onto those reins as if your life depends on it,” he says. Then he cups his mouth and gives a loud, trilling call. A few moments later, I catch movement in the corner of my eye and start to turn, but Little Crow snags my arm. “Here she comes, so don’t move. Don’t say anything. Just do exactly what I tell you to do.”

I hear a faint sound like wind blowing through the grass as something approaches behind me. Both horses whinny and jump, trying to pull free.

Saffron prances with fear in front of me. I have never seen such abject terror in the eyes of an animal before. Her mouth froths and her scream sounds like a monkey howl. I am afraid she will rip her mouth on the bit. Then she submits, finally reduced to trembling, just before I hear the slightest whisper of movement behind me.

I feel a deep, primal fear when something snuffles next to my ear, and a moist puff of air hits the back of my head. The snuffling repeats several times, and I hear a deep-throated rumbling.

“Slowly turn,” Little Crow instructs me, “but keep your hands down.”

Maintaining a firm grip on my horse’s reins, I twist, and my face is inches away from the tawny head of a massive lioness—as in its-eye-level-is-even-with-mine massive. The cat’s huge nostrils almost touch my nose, and it stares at me with enormous, unblinking yellow eyes. Then Little Crow gives a light trill, and the beast turns with surprising agility to bound toward him with a rumbling purr.

After it circles around him, the beast sits back on its haunches in front of Little Crow. Then it wraps paws as big as the man’s head around Little Crow’s neck and shoulders, pulling him toward its mouth. He hands me the reins to his own horse and I think I am about to witness a decapitation, but the lioness licks Little Crow’s face and engulfs him in a full embrace. Little Crow scratches its ears and rubs under its chin, and when he holds out his hand, the lioness licks it.

Then he tells it to stay and it sits back on its haunches again. “Now come over here and hold out your hand,” Little Crow tells me.

“The hell I will! I’m quite fond of this hand.”

“This will be easier if I establish you as a member of the pack. Get your hand over here.”

Filled with a healthy sense of dread, I step over and extend a hand, while holding onto both sets of reins tightly with the other hand.

The lioness stands at least four feet tall at the shoulder, and must be as long as two men from nose to the end of its tail. Its fur is thicker than an African lion’s, and tawny, but with light stripes similar to a tiger’s along its flanks. I would guess it weighs as much as a light riding horse.

“It’s alright, Malsum, this is my friend,” Little Crow says as he puts his arm around my shoulders, and then, the lioness licks my hand with a sand-papery tongue. After several scrapes, my hand starts to feel raw. When Little Crow grunts his satisfaction, I retrieve my shaking hand and start breathing again.

“I just need to play with her for a few minutes, then we can get started,” Little Crow says as he steps over to his horse to retrieve a small dead branch which he picked up along the way.

Now I know why, as he hurls it as far down the road as he can. In the dim morning light I can barely see where it lands, but Malsum chases and pounces on it.

I have seen obscure references to leo-dogs over the years, and did some considerable research at the Archives during the summer, after spending part of the winter at Little Crow’s village. Little Crow did not introduce me to Malsum when he guided me the year before, or even talk about her, because his people do not want to advertise the cats’ existence.

I knew he had an animal companion trailing us, but got just one quick look, and then only from a distance, under low-light conditions. The other people of his village were just as secretive about their lions while I stayed with them.

As I read about leo-dogs, it began to make sense to me why a military research lab used genetically-modified cave lion DNA, in the years leading up to the collapse.

When they realized that the resurrected beasts had noses second only to those of bloodhounds, and that nothing would complement a Special Forces commando better than the ultimate killing machine, they spliced in the loyalty and obedience genes from a German Shepherd. Who knows what else they threw into the mix?

So on an abstract level, I understand all that. But there is just something wrong about watching a cat the size of a compact car playing fetch.

After Little Crow has spent a few minutes bonding with Malsum, I start to feel more relaxed, and the fear that I am about to be consumed fades. He commands his companion to sit, and I could almost swear that I hear a dog-like whine.

“Okay, now let’s have your lady’s clothing,” Little Crow says, holding out his hand. When I retrieve Danae’s shirt from the side pocket of my pack he chuckles. “I’ll bet you personally took this off of her.”

Then Little Crow’s demeanor becomes all business as he holds it up to the cat’s nostrils. Malsum’s nose wrinkles as she takes several deep whiffs of the garment, and then Little Crow grips the animal’s jaw, looking into her eyes.

“Find, Malsum. Find. Go find her,” he says, and then he makes a complicated gesture while he points toward the south. In one fluid leap, the feline bounds away and races across the farmland. Taking back the reins to his horse, he mounts it, and turns toward the nearest stand of trees.

“Let’s get as much rest as we can before she returns,” Little Crow says, when I ride up alongside him. “When she latches onto a track she can be relentless.”

“Will your lioness know where to find us?” I ask as we head into the pines.

“Seriously? Do you think we could hide from her, even if we wanted to?”

We find a small stream, where the horses drink, and then we tie them up in a spot where they can graze on some grass.

Hopefully Malsum will pick up Danae’s trail, but at this point I am so utterly exhausted that I cannot find the emotion to worry. I scoop together a bed of pine needles that I cover with my duster, and my head barely settles on my pack before I am asleep.

* * *

The sun is near midday when I hear some rustling, and turn over to find Malsum looming over Little Crow. The big cat purrs with a deep rumble as she rubs her head on him, and continues to nudge him until he reaches up to scratch her ears. Then Malsum shakes her head with a sort of low-pitched trill, walks toward the west and stops to look back at us expectantly. Pacing in a circle while making soft chirps, the lioness is clearly impatient to lead us onward.

“Looks like she found the scent,” Little Crow groans as he sits up and stretches. “The chase is on. Let’s go get those sons of bitches.”

We do not really have a camp to speak of, so it just takes us a few minutes to ready the horses. My friend seems to perk up at the prospect of embarking on a hunt, so we are both eager to get underway. The horses are still a bit skittish around the lioness, but there is also something about her that they seem to accept, so that they want to follow her as well.

A mix of anticipation and anxiety builds in me as we mount up and follow Malsum out of the woods. Her tufted tail floats behind her like a kite as she leads us at a fast trot straight east, across the small plain toward some distant foothills. Despite her size, the bounding animal soars gracefully over wooden fences as she cuts across the fields.

There are a few farmers out working their fields, who stop and gape at us from a distance while we pass. One farmer happens to be directly in our path, plowing with his back to us as we approach. When he turns at the end of the furrow, he sees the lioness heading straight for him and starts running. Then he stops, dashes back to quickly cut his horse loose, and again races away. We fly past his rig as the man dives behind a low stone wall, and we continue on.

I reckon it takes an hour to traverse the wide valley, so it is early afternoon when we reach the forested foothills, and Malsum slows down. She noses the ground several times and I am nervous that she has lost the scent, but then she turns onto a little-used trail which winds along a valley between the hills and she takes off in a casual, loping gait. It looks like whoever took Danae is heading southeast toward Disciple territory, which is no surprise.

Fortunately, the Disciple capital of Wolfengarde is not exactly a tourist destination nor a popular trading center, so we are unlikely to encounter many travelers. The horses cannot maintain a full trot all day, so Little Crow signals Malsum with a sharp whistle and we slow down to an ambling pace, which is faster than a walk, but much smoother than trotting.

We maintain that pace for several miles up the trail, which runs alongside a small river, and then we come across the remnants of an encampment next to the water. Malsum circles the perimeter of the campsite, obviously agitated, and Little Crow slips off his mount. Aside from the remains of a campfire, it just looks like dirt to me.

Little Crow walks over to the fire pit and squats down, poking at the ground. Circling around, he pauses near some vegetation and then goes back and forth between the trail and the fire pit several times, as if unraveling some sort of puzzle.

Grunting to himself, he moves toward the stream and examines some grass, twigs and leaves, then stands up, apparently satisfied. He obviously sees something, and I get concerned as he walks back to me and points to the bare earth near the dead campfire.

“They stayed here last night, probably left around dawn. I’d say there are four, maybe five men bearing full packs, plus your woman.” He points to the ground leading away from the camp. “They’re traveling on foot, and it looks like she’s limping. That should slow them down, so we’ll probably catch up to them by nightfall.”

Where he sees a story all I see is dirt, but I take Little Crow’s word for it. When he tells me that Danae is limping, my heart leaps, both from anxiety about her physical state and rejoicing that she is still alive. The fact that she was here only hours ago gives me a surge of energy which washes away my fatigue and rekindles that white-hot fire inside of me to take apart the bastards.

We linger just long enough for the horses to drink some water, and then Little Crow swings back onto his mount and we continue to follow Malsum. She pads along the path silently, pausing to gather a whiff every now and then. The cat moves like a ghost. I am certain the Tucker Realm livestock will sleep easy tonight.

A high, thin layer of clouds moves in throughout the afternoon as the trail continues to climb gradually. Little Crow and I do not chat much, as we stay alert for any sign of our quarry. Temperatures have dropped and the light is fading when we pass over the crest of a ridge.

On the other side the trail drops down to a high plateau, and we pause to look at the land ahead and below us. A group of figures appears in the distance, glowing as they walk through a nearly horizontal shaft of sunlight for a moment. Then they re-enter the lengthening mountain shadows and vanish. My pulse quickens as I spur my horse forward.

It is almost pitch black by the time we descend to level ground. I can barely make out any shapes in the darkness, but Malsum keeps moving forward, as if it is daylight for her. A few minutes later, Little Crow pulls up to a stop ahead of me, and steps down off his horse.

“I just saw their campfire,” he says quietly. “They’re maybe half a mile ahead of us, so this is a good place for us to stop.”

“Why not go after them now?” I ask, my exhaustion swept away by a wave of energy that makes me tremble. Now that I know Danae is near, I feel the urge to turn a growing swell of anger and rage loose on these guys. This resolution to wreak justice frightens me, and yet draws me forward as inexorably as the force of gravity.

“No.” He shakes his head, and starts removing tack from his horse. “We’ll rest here, and then hit them at dawn while they’re still half asleep.” He senses my need, and stops to put his hand on my shoulder. “Brother, pursue with your heart, but strike with your head. The signs that I have read so far do not show that they have done anything to her yet, so she’ll be alright for another night. We will be rested and they will be relaxed. Better for us, safer for her.”

I nod my assent. Every fiber within me wants to free Danae right now, but I trust Little Crow. After we tie off the horses and settle down, Malsum stretches out and curls around us. She folds us within her paws, and Little Crow and I lean up against her warm belly.

Her purring lulls me to sleep. As I surrender to my exhaustion, I realize that never in the wilderness, in any human habitation or even in the Archives, have I ever felt safer.

* * *

Little Crow nudges me awake. I twitch as I reach for my knife, but then I recall where we are. It is just light enough for me to see his face hovering above me.