The Warrior. Dinah McCall

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СКАЧАТЬ burning pain from the thorny limbs ripping at his flesh, nor the blood and rain pouring down his body. Even though he couldn’t hear her, White Fawn’s face was before him, her name echoing within his heart. He felt her panic, knew something terrible was happening to her—and that he was not going to be fast enough to save her.

      When he finally burst out of the forest into the clearing, it was to a scene of horror. What he saw was worse than his nightmares, bloodier than his visions.

      The enemy had come, and the enemy had killed.

      Everyone.

      The only signs of life were the strangers, ripping clothing from the People’s bodies, yanking totems and medicine bags from around their necks. Laughing as if their greatest joy in life was desecration.

      When Night Walker saw a tall man with a hairy face reach down and rip the sky stone from around White Fawn’s neck, shock rolled through him. Her head lolled lifelessly as the man shoved her limp body aside with his foot. Night Walker saw the rain pouring down into her dark, unseeing eyes, flooding her nostrils, washing the blood from her face.

      He screamed—first in horror, then in rage.

      With the bodies of his people strewn about like maize husks tossed by the wind, he pulled the first arrow from his quiver, notched it and took aim. The arrow cut through the downpour in a blur, piercing the throat of the nearest man, who dropped the booty he’d been carrying and grabbed at both sides of the shaft. His eyes bulged as a bubble of blood popped on his lips. He was dead before he hit the ground.

      Night Walker notched another arrow, took aim and let fly, watching with grim satisfaction as, one by one, the unsuspecting invaders dropped where they stood. Their cries of pain or shock went unnoticed by the others, drowned out by the sound of the storm. He fired off another arrow, then another and another, until he’d emptied his quiver, leaving them with a band of far fewer men than when they’d landed.

      It wasn’t until he grabbed a club and a spear from a nearby hut and began running toward them, screaming an endless war cry, that the others realized he was there.

      

      A man named Miguelito Colon saw the crazed savage coming toward them and shouted at Vargas over the storm.

      Vargas spun just in time to see the attacker run Colon through with a spear. Even though he was accustomed to hand-to-hand combat, he flinched as Colon’s guts spilled out on the ground, the spear still quivering in his belly.

      Vargas roared in anger, surprised by both the savage’s sudden appearance as well as the shocking number of his crew who now lay dead. As the rain blurred his vision, a cold wind whipped through the village, suddenly chilling him to the bone.

      At that moment, it crossed his mind that he should have waited until the storm passed before coming ashore. But nothing could change what was, and the savage was only one man—little more than a lingering nuisance.

      “Get him!” he shouted, waving his men toward the tall, nearly naked man coming at them on the run.

      Arturo Medajine grabbed for his handgun, took aim and fired. But the powder was soaked, and by the time he dropped the gun to reach for his sword, the savage was upon him.

      The savage swung his wooden club as he passed, cracking Medajine’s skull. The man never knew what hit him.

      

      Night Walker’s gaze was still fixed on the man who’d killed White Fawn. As he passed her grandfather’s corpse, he grabbed the spear from Brown Owl’s lifeless hands then leaped a small child’s body.

      The next man to come at him did so with a broadsword. Night Walker dodged, then speared him in the gut. The man was still screaming as Night Walker took the sword out of his hands and decapitated him where he stood.

      

      Vargas was shocked. The savage was still alive and downing his men one after the other. Compared to the others they’d encountered, this one was extremely tall—as tall as Vargas himself. Before he could react, thunder rattled the ground on which they stood. The lightning bolt that followed struck nearby, so close that they were all momentarily blinded. By the time Vargas could see clearly again, the savage was less than a hundred feet away and another of his men was dead.

      His fingers tightened around the hasp of his scimitar as a storm gust staggered him.

      “Damnation,” he cursed, and then swung his blade in the air. “Peron! The savage! Stop him!”

      Luis Peron was at home on the deck of a ship, but, weakened from dysentery and slogging around in the mud with the armload of furs he’d just dragged out of a hut, he was at a huge disadvantage. Still, Vargas was his captain, and orders were to be obeyed. He dropped the furs and was reaching for the knife in his belt when a blow from the savage’s broadsword split his breastbone.

      He dropped where he stood.

      Vargas’s heart ricocheted against his rib cage. This wasn’t happening. He’d fought the most heinous of men—in seaports, on the sea, in the dark, beneath the subtle glow of a full moon, even in the alleyways of London, England, in full daylight. So why had killing one savage become such a difficult feat?

      Nervous now that his men were too few, and knowing he was dangerously out of his element, Vargas began to retreat, taking the remaining men with him.

      “Back to the boats!” he yelled, and then, without waiting to see who followed, he started running, now facing the full fury of the storm.

      The few surviving sailors gladly obeyed and headed for the boats, following Vargas’s retreat. But for every two steps Vargas took, the storm slowed him by one. Afraid to look over his shoulder—afraid to slow down—all he could do was keep putting one foot in front of the other.

      

      Even though the intruders were falling one by one beneath Night Walker’s hand, he felt no satisfaction. Revenge would not be done until he had spilled the blood of the man who’d cut White Fawn’s throat and ripped away her medicine pouch. Not until he watched the tall, hairy-faced thief draw his last breath would the fire in his gut cease to burn.

      When the invaders suddenly turned away and began running back to their canoes, Night Walker panicked. They couldn’t escape! They had to pay for what they’d done.

      He caught up with the slowest of them within seconds, grabbed him by the hair hanging out from under his water-sodden hat and yanked.

      The man’s white-rimmed eyes had one last glance of the sky before Night Walker’s flint knife sliced across his jugular and an arterial spray of red shot across his line of vision and everything went dark.

      Night Walker only grunted as the body fell at his feet. He was nothing but one less man between him and the one who’d killed White Fawn.

      Another flash of lightning shot out of the clouds, striking the bluff on which Night Walker had been standing only a short time ago, momentarily blinding him. Even as he kept running, there was a subconscious part of him that wished he’d still been on that bluff when the fire had come down. Then he wouldn’t be feeling this horrible, rending pain. Then he wouldn’t have to face burying every person he’d ever known and loved.

      By the time his vision cleared, the strangers СКАЧАТЬ