James Axler – Demons of Eden

Suddenly Felicity cried out sharply, a confusing jumble of words. ” Okiya nitakola !”

From ahead and above them came the unmistakable sound of thrumming bowstrings vibrating through the air, as well as the solid chocking of arrowheads finding hard and soft targets.

Behind them the night erupted in an animal roar of outraged frustration. Ryan looked over his shoulder, catching a brief glimpse of the wind wags sluggishly changing course, one barely avoiding a collision with another. The wooden hulls of all four craft bristled with feathered shafts. The wags of the Red Cadre were barely twenty yards away. A discordant noise bleated from the center craft, the notes of a frantically blown bugle, sounding a retreat.

“Come on!” Felicity gasped.

They followed her flashing nude figure as she picked a path between low rock tumbles and emerged into a narrow pass, the sides of the two hills rising on either side.

There were men in the pass, and when Felicity stopped running, so did everyone else. Ryan and his people stood and swayed, panting, trying to regain their breath and slow the rapid hammering of their hearts.

Though the light was uncertain, Ryan saw a half-dozen men, and an odd collection they were. Some of them were Amerindians, their long dark hair bedecked with feathers. They wore a combination of deerskin tunics, breechclouts and jeans. The other men, though white, were similarly dressed. All of them were armed with bows and quivers of arrows. The only blaster was a long-barreled muzzle loader, and it was in the hands of a stocky, black-bearded white man who wore boot moccasins and a long-billed cap bearing the faded insignia of some predark sports team.

Felicity rushed up to this man and spoke quickly to him. Ryan couldn’t catch much of what she said, since his blood pounded in his ears and his lungs were noisily laboring to suck in oxygen.

The man kept watchful eyes on Ryan and his friends as the woman spoke. When she was done, he gave her a quick hug and strode toward Ryan, extending a hand. “My name is Mose Autry. Welcome to Amicus.”

Ryan shook the hand and between deep breaths made introductions all around. Autry nodded politely to each person in turn.

“Thank you for bringing Felicity back to us. She and Spotted Hawk were valuable members of our community. His loss will be mourned.”

Jerking a thumb behind him, J.B. coughed and asked, “What about those sons of bitches? They may take his body.”

Autry smiled sadly. “They may. Unfortunately all forms of banditry are endemic to this region, including defilement of the dead. However, the Cadre won’t dare the pass at night. Now, if you all will follow me”

The man turned and said a few words to the other men in the same language Felicity had spoken. Ryan recognized it as Lakota, a dialect of the Sioux language. Arm around Felicity’s shoulders, Autry started walking down the dark gorge.

Ryan hesitated, exchanging quizzical glances with his friends, then they fell into step behind the man. The pass sliced through the narrow hills. It curved this way and that, and all of them had trouble with its navigation. They were feeling weary and wanted to rest.

The hair at Ryan’s nape suddenly tingled and lifted. He looked quickly at Krysty and saw that her sentient hair was lying loose and relaxed across her shoulders. Then he scanned the perpendicular sides of the gorge. They reared only a hundred feet above the pass, and the sky was clear and dark beyond them.

Something shifted soundlessly atop the crest of the right-hand ridge. Ryan’s hand made a reflexive move to his blaster.

Limned by the moonlight, the shifting shape resolved into a shaggy, four-legged figure. Though it was only in his field of vision for a fraction of a second, Ryan realized it was a coyote or a wolf.

When it vanished, Ryan didn’t relax. An eerie aura hung over the pass, as if the lupine shadow had been a symbol of savage events yet to come.

The pass turned west, then opened up. Amicus lay before them in the moonlight. At first glance, even on the second, Amicus looked typical of thousands of frontier pesthole villes he had passed through. A big lake spread like a rain cloud in the center of the ville. On its shores was a jumble of tarpaper shacks and tepees, as well as a couple of old predark structures, probably outbuildings of a long-ago farm. Three or four huge fires sputtered redly.