Wolf in Shadow

A shimmering light grew before him, coalescing into the form of Ruth. At first she was translucent, then her flesh became solid and she sat beside him.

'I have searched for you for hours,' she said. 'You are a tough man.'

'Are the others all right?'

'Yes, they are sheltering in a cave twelve miles from here.

‘The Zealots fled after you went over the ledge. I think their main purpose was to kill you; Batik is a much lesser prize.'

'Well, they failed, but not by much,' said Shannow, shivering as he added wood to the blaze. 'My horse is dead, poor beast. Best I ever had. He could run from yesterday into tomorrow. And he had heart — if he could have turned, he would have driven the lions away with his hooves.'

'What will you do now?'

‘I’ll find the Ark, and then Abaddon.'

'And you will try to kill him?'

'Yes, God willing.'

'How can you mention God in the same breath as murder?'

'Don't preach at me, woman,' he snapped. This is not Sanctuary, where your magic fills a man's mind with flowers and love. This is the world, the real world. Violent and uncertain. Abaddon is an obscenity to both God and Man. Murder? You cannot murder vermin, Ruth, he has forsaken all rights to mercy.'

'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord? '

'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life,' countered Shannow. 'Do not seek to debate with me. He has chosen to visit death and destruction upon the woman I loved. He taunted me with it. I cannot stop him, Ruth; a nation separates us. But, if the Lord is with me, I shall rid the world of him.'

'Who are you to judge when a man's life is forfeit?'

'What are you to judge when it is not? There is not this debate when a mad dog kills a child. You kill the dog. But when a man commits the blackest sins, why must we sermonize and rationalize?

I am sick of it, Ruth. I've lost count of the number of towns and settlements that have called for me to rid them of Brigands. And when I do, what do I hear? "Did you have to kill them, Mr Shannow?" "Was there a need for so much violence, Mr Shannow?" It is a question of balance, Ruth. If a man throws his food on the fire, who will have pity on him when he runs around shouting, "I'm starving"? So it is with the Brigand. He deals in violence and death, theft and pillage. And I give them no pity. I don't blame you, woman; you're arguing for your husband. But I'm not listening.'

'Do not patronize me, Mr Shannow,' said Ruth, without anger. 'Your arguments are simplistic, but they carry weight. I am not, however, arguing for my husband. I have not seen him in two and a half centuries and he does not know I am alive, nor would he care greatly if he did. I am more concerned with you. I am not a prophet, yet I feel some terrible catastrophe looms and I sense you should not pursue this current course.'

Shannow leaned back. 'If I am not mad, Ruth, and it was not just a dream, then I can tell you the danger that waits. The world is about to fall again.'

He told of his dream of Pendarric, and the doom the Blood Stones carried. She listened in silence, her face set; when he had finished, she looked away and remained silent for some minutes.

'I am not omnipotent, Mr Shannow, but there is something missing. The catastrophe fits with my fears. But the Blood Stones of the Hellborn? Small fragments of minuscule power. To tear the fabric of the universe would require a mountain of Sipstrassi and a colossal evil.'

'Do not seek to fit the facts to your theories, Ruth. Examine the facts as they stand. Pendarric says blood and death unleashed the power of the Stones. Abaddon has sent his armies into the south.

Where else can the evil lie?'

She shrugged. 'I don't know, I only know I feel very old. I was married eighteen years before the Fall, and I was not a young bride. I had such dreams, such romantic dreams. And Lawrence was not evil then.

'He was an occultist, but he was witty and urbane and very welcome at select parties. We had a daughter, Sarah. Oh Shannow, she was a lovely child.' She lapsed into a silence Shannow did not disturb. 'She was killed at the age of five in an accident and it broke Lawrence — cut him so deeply no one could see the scar. I just cried out my pain, and learned to live with it. He delved more deeply into occult matters, finding Satanism just before the Fall.

'When the earth toppled we survived with some three hundred others and before long, in the sea of mud that was the new world, people started dying. It was Lawrence who bound the survivors together — he was wonderful, charismatic, understanding, strong and caring.

'For three years we were almost happy and then the dreams began — the visions of Satan talking to him, making him promises. He left us for a while to go into the wilderness. Then he returned with a Daniel Stone and the Hellborn age began.

'I stayed for another eightNyears, but one day when Lawrence was away on some blood-filled raid, I walked from the settlement with eight other women. We never looked back. From time to time I heard of the new nation, and the madman who called himself Abaddon. But the real disaster came eighty years ago when Abaddon met a man who gave him the key to conquest. He was another survivor from before the Fall, and though his early years had been spent in another career his abiding hobby had been weapons — pistols and rifles. Together he and Abaddon reconstructed the science of gun-making.'

'What happened to the gun-maker?'

'Sixty years ago he rivalled Abaddon in evil. But he repented, Mr Shannow, and fled the vileness he had helped to create. He became Karitas, and tried to build a new life among a peaceful people.'

'And you think I should spare Abaddon in case he suffers just such a repentance? I think not.'

'Why do you mock? You think God cannot change a man's heart? You think his power so limited?'

'I never question his power, or his actions,' said Shannow. 'It is not my place. I don't care that he wiped out men, women and children in Canaan, or that he caused Armageddon. It is his world and he is free to do as he likes without criticism from me. But I cannot see Abaddon walking the Damascus road, Ruth.'

'What about Daniel Cade?'

'What about him?'

'Can you see him walking the Damascus road?'

'Speak plainly, Ruth; this is no time for games.'

The Brigand chief is now leading the people of the south against the Hellborn. He says he is being led by God, and he is performing miracles. People are flocking to him. What do you think of that?'

'Of all the things you could have told me, Lady, that gives me the most joy. But then you do not know, do you? Daniel Cade is my elder brother. And believe me, he will not be preaching forgiveness, he'll smite the Hellborn hip and thigh, as the Good Book says. By Heaven, Ruth, they'll find him harder to kill than me!'

'It seems I am preaching a lost cause,’ said Ruth sadly. 'But then throughout history love has taken second place. We will talk again, Mr Shannow.'

Ruth turned away from him. .

And vanished.

Daniel Cade received a number of shocks in that early Spring campaign, the first being that he became a man apart. People would approach him with disquieting deference, even men he had known for years. When he approached camp-fires, bawdy tales would die in an instant and the tellers would look away embarrassed. When men swore in his presence, an apology would be instantaneous. At first he had been amused, thinking that such displays would cease after a few days, or perhaps a week. But far from it.