Spear of Destiny by James Baldwin (little bear else holmelund minarik .TXT) 📕

A thin scream wailed from outside. Then more of them: high, keening cries raw with agony, interspersed with short bursts of wind. I felt my pulse jump. It was the wind, driving through the cracks between the doorframes and leather walls. As the yurts outside shook in the gale, it sounded almost like the distant snapping rapport of semi-auto fire. The combination of noises made the world zero in in: my vision narrowed; my heart kicked to life. All of a sudden, I really missed the comforting, solid weight of a rifle over my shoulder.

“Fuck.” Vash drew another steadying breath, rolled his shoulders, and cracked his neck. “I fear I have led us into a trap from which we will not escape. Come, Dragozin. If I am not mistaken, it is time we meet my sister.”

Chapter 52

The color began to drain from the brightly painted chest of drawers, the trunks and the quilt and the rugs on the ground. As we headed for the door, a subtle force, like soft hands, tried to push us back. Each step forward seemed to require more effort than the last.

“... Go back...”

“...Get away from me!”

“… You can’t stop me here, this isn’t a checkpoint...”

“Please, please, please...”

“NO! Stop staring at me!”

Small, whispering voices peeled from the air as Vash struggled to the door and opened it inwards. I gripped the Spear tightly and followed him out into the cold.

The lights of the camp were gone, the camp now nothing but a smoky void beyond a single ring of firelight. The snow swirled in gusts, blasting at us on the bitter winter wind. I could still hear the doors of the yurts, popping and rattling like distant gunfire.

“I tried to send you away, brother.” The voices condensed into one—young, sweet as a flute, piping around us from every direction. “I told you, I work in Intelligence... it’s dangerous for you to be here, in no-man’s-land. The demons are here.”

“Tsunda... there are no demons,” Vash said tiredly, as if he’d repeated the same words a thousand times before. “The only demons here are the ones in your mind.”

“No, I don’t think you understand what I’m saying.” Tsunda’s ghostly voice turned patient, like she was trying to explain something to a very young child. “I was going home with my father and two other people when our sled turned over, and then they caught me. I was caught and tied up and arrested for going AWOL, which is a lie, of course, because I always stopped for the checkpoints and let them search me. But they arrested me and took me here under escort anyway. Don’t you see? They were afraid of me, Vash.”

I frowned. “AWOL? That’s-”

“One of her favorite words when she is in the grip of her delusions,” Vash sighed.

“No.” Shaking my head, I advanced against a gust as the wind tried to drive me back. “That’s a modern word. From my world.”

Vash shot me a penetrating look as I struggled against the supernatural inertia radiating from the centerpiece of the camp: The Mother’s Tent, the largest yurt, home of the matriarch and her parents. The yurt’s door was missing. There was nothing but a rectangular void gaping against the white leather.

“Tsunda, I’m a friend of your brother’s,” I said. “I know what AWOL means. It means ‘Away without leave’. Who arrested you?”

“The beetle-headed men, of course.” The ghost’s voice seemed to hiss against the edge of my ear. “They had every reason to want to punish me. I’m a known killer, for one thing. I killed hundreds of people. Murderers, rapists, pointing holes in each other’s faces, throwing eggs that turn into flowers tearing people apart... but they didn’t know I could hear their thoughts. That’s the main reason they wanted to stop me. They didn’t want me warning people about the metal demons. Look!”

An invisible hand forced my chin up, and before I could jerk away, I glanced into the empty doorway. It was darker than black, sucking away the weak light from the campfire.

“Ss! Oww!” I hissed and jerked back as a flash of pain stabbed through my left shoulder and into my chest. The Mark of Matir was pounding on the back of my right hand.

“Why aren’t you turning back? You should have listened to the dogs. You should have gone with Temu.” Tsunda’s voice was becoming fearful as Vash waded toward the unseen door, heading around the guttering fire toward the tent. “I’m the only one who can hear the metal demons, brother. They want to ruin this place. They’ll hurt you with their seeds. They point a hole toward you and fill you with seeds, but the seeds are bees, and they sting you all the way through and come out the other side.”

“Tsunda, sister, be at peace.” Vash lifted his hands, fingers loose, palms up. “You have suffered enough. I hear you, I see you-”

“Liar.” The girl’s voice settled over us like a clinging wet cloth, and my skin crawled under my armor. “Brother. Mother. Sister. Always LYING! I see your metal fingers. I see the holes where the seeds come out. Gods help me. You’re one of them. Saaba put that metal in you. All those holes.”

“I am not a metal demon. We are here to soothe you-”

“LIAR!” The wind snapped like a whip, lashing Vash in his artificed shoulder so hard it twisted him at the waist. “Metal roaring, metal screaming, filling people with black seeds! Killing them! Destroying the trees! DESTROYING EVERYTHING!”

Tsunda’s voice built to a roar of pure rage as the ground rumbled, the surrounding yurts tore, and a familiar double rapport cracked through the camp: a sound like ripping canvas dialed up to max volume, then an ear-splitting BRRRRT that vibrated through my teeth.

“DOWN!” I