D. A. Houdek

Deb Houdek Rule

Web designer - Science Fiction author - Civil War historian - Genealogy researcher

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Of All the Western Stars

by Deb Houdek Rule

Chapter 35

Ashur had been angry with her when she refused to remain behind. It was for her that he sought out these dangerous men, rather than running away from them, or taking them on under better conditions. Perhaps she should stay behind. It was not a woman’s place to be a warrior. She might distract him, prove a weakness.

No. She wouldn’t let Ashur face this alone. Nor could she bear the thought of waiting here alone in the glade, worrying about the man she loved… or about the husband she didn’t.

While Ashur saddled the stallion and put the bridle back on the mare, Lisette checked on Geraint’s clothes. The wool and cottons weren’t dry yet. Her silk chemise was dried, but that was little enough help. She sighed.

"Let me help," Ashur said. She turned toward him. He aimed his magic killing device at the clothes but instead of the ruby beam a broader, softer light shone out. After a moment he turned it off. Lisette reached out and felt the clothing. They were dry.

"More magic," she said wryly.

"Let’s hope we’ve enough to counter two better-equipped wizards."

Once dressed and mounted, Lisette realized how poorly equipped and vulnerable they truly were. She had naught but the slender dagger at her waist, Ashur his pocket weapon that, powerful as it was, was certain to be no match for the weapons of the Capellans. Odd, it was, to think of people coming from a point of light in the sky.

Her head swam and she coughed. The wondrous tablets weren’t lasting as long. Quickly she pulled out another and swallowed it. Ashur was right, it was no cure. They needed Baby’s knowledge. The leather saddlebags were full of the contents of Ashur’s medical kit, but without the knowledge of how to use them they were more dangerous then beneficial. Dangerous…

Lisette looked up at Ashur as they guided the horses out of the glade and back into the open of the Salisbury Plain. She nudged the mare up close to Ashur on the stallion. The two horses touched noses in a way that would have made her smile had not such grave matters filled her mind.

"Ashur, do you know what any of these medicines do?"

He glanced at her. "Yes, certainly."

"Tell me."

He shrugged and described those he knew and what they did. Many were for things that didn’t exist on earth, and most ailments Lisette knew, like typhus, no longer existed so there was no common treatment. Still, she listened intently and questioned him in detail as they rode slowly and cautiously toward the south.

"And this ‘injection’ is done by, what did you call it, an osmosis transfer through any point on the skin?" she asked intently.

"Yes, it’s a completely painless process developed sometime in the twenty-second century. And with the genetic restructuring of the drugs themselves, the treatment targets the specific area of need."

Lisette was silent as Ashur went on, only half-listening to his description of the development of medical science through the abandoned nano-robot phase and into his century. She’d read some of this during her sleepless nights immersed in Baby’s wonders, but she was trying to think of it all in a new way. The answer she sought now wasn’t found in these miraculous cures from the future, they were in something she’d learned before, something from her time…

The mare snorted in surprise as Lisette jerked back on the reins. Prancing impatiently, the stallion let Ashur turn him to face them. Lisette stared toward the forest verge, squinting to see. She smiled and relaxed.

"What is it?"

"Ashur… when you look upon me now, what do you see?"

His mouth twitched and he hid a grin by rapidly rubbing his upper lip. "I dare not say."

She grinned quickly. "No, I mean, if you were a stranger to see me, what would you see?"

He stared at her. "A man, I suppose. Or younger. A boy."

Lisette nodded. "Indeed. The problem lies in strength and surprise. We have not the strength, but we may have the surprise."

"What do you mean?"

"See yonder, at the edge of the trees? Belladonna. My lady Cicely, the Lady Stafford, taught me about it. In small doses it’s a medicine, though your time may not think it so, but now it is. But in larger doses…"

"…It’s a poison."

"…And with one of your medicines to carry it quickly to the target within the body…"

He shook his head. "No. I forbid it. I know what you’re thinking and it’s too dangerous."

She nudged the mare up close to his side and took his hand. Squeezing it between her smaller hands she raised it to her lips and kissed it. "You know it’s our best chance."

With his other hand he reached to gently stroke the line of her jaw. His eyes gleamed with pride as he looked at her. "You’re the finest woman I’ve met, in a dozen worlds and over a millennia of time, my fair Lisette. And Geraint’s the greatest fool in all those worlds if he doesn’t realize that."

Releasing his hand, Lisette blushed and looked down. "Best we be about it then. Once prepared, I’ll ride ahead of you, with you protecting me from behind."

"No. They’re killers, Lisette. I’ll not let you be a decoy."

"I think they’ll not harm me at once, whereas you they might." She gave him a reassuring smile. "I’ve played many a good game of chess. Sometimes a risk must be made in the course of the play. I am depending on you to protect me."

With her potion prepared, during which Ashur had retroactively cringed more than once recalling the Lady Stafford and her noxious gruels and potions, Lisette rode forth. Reluctantly, Ashur agreed that Lisette’s plan was better than just riding blindly forward together.

Still, as he watched her small, brave shape shrinking in the distance as she and the roan rode out ahead of him his heart demanded that he race after her, stop her. Oh, how he wanted to hold her and keep her safe.

It was not to be. Even if they succeeded it only meant she’d return to that husband and her life here. He could only leave her quietly and pray that what history had ordained for her would be kind.

Across the same rolling plain that they’d both traversed last night in the darkness and rain, they now rode through bright sunlight. Curses to that blazing light that revealed rather than concealed them. Casting continuously about, Ashur strove to see first whatever or whomever might see them. His anxiety grew as they passed the place where he’d encountered Lisette. Somewhere beyond this point a tiny, innocuous machine was luring their enemies.

Ahead of him, Lisette crested a rise in the rolling landscape and he saw her suddenly halt. She didn’t look back at him, lest she give some slight clue he was there. After a moment she nudged her horse again and started down the rise. Ashur halted the stallion, praying again that the beast would remain quiet. He pinioned one of the reins to the ground with a knife. It wouldn’t hold if the animal reared or struggled, but it was the best he could do.

Grasping his weapon in a hand that was moist with nervous sweat, Ashur climbed the rise. As he neared the crest he dropped to the ground, creeping cautiously forward taking care not to let himself be seen by anyone on the other side of the hill. His heart froze as he peered between the blades of grass down the incline. Two men, oddly dressed for fifteen eighteen but perfectly in order for members of the Capellan SS, stood by a small stream staring down at it.

In the hands of the shorter one Ashur could see a device that he guessed was a tracker. They must be triangulating between that and their ship. No wonder they had been so far behind him. With a weak source and only two sources for direction finding, on top of the obvious hindrance of dealing with this era’s slow and cumbersome means of transportation, it must have been a formidable task.

The tall one shifted a weapon from one hand to the other and knelt by the stream. He plunged his hands into the water and pulled out the unmistakable, and still happily chattering, shape of Baby. Angry words seemed to pass between the two and the tall one flung Baby aside.

"Hey ho!" A call came to him, softened and distorted by the wind. It was Lisette. She rode easily toward them, no trace of fear apparent in either her voice or her stance. Both men spun toward her, training their weapons upon her. While they were distracted, Ashur hurriedly crept forward. He was too far away for a certain shot.

The drug was wearing off again, Lisette realized dully as the throbbing in her head began to return. It didn’t matter. It would all be settled in a moment. She rode steadily toward the strange men, concentrating hard on being a bold young man, one of the gentry. They looked up at her at her hail and a moment of fear passed over her. Stop it, she told herself. A boy from her time would not know those were the most deadly of weapons they had aimed at her. She could show no recognition, and no fear.

"Hail, fellows," she called out, trying to lower her voice. The growing sore throat made that easier. "And well met," she concluded, stopping the horse by them. How dare they toss Baby aside that way! She vowed they’d pay for their insolence. Hmmph. They had much for which to pay.

Bowing low she smiled affably into the sour, suspicious faces. She slid off the roan and stepped forward. Beneath her coat her left hand curled tightly around the injector device. She only needed to get close enough…

"Greetings boy," the one said that in her mind she tagged as The Gnome. "Where are you going to."

Lisette gestured vaguely toward the south. "You sound like foreign men," she said, reasoning that it was a thing any Englishman would be bound to notice. "Have you goods to trade? My father might be of a mind to barter with you."

"No," the taller one said. Lisette didn’t like the way he stared at her. Even beneath her disguise it was a stare that made her feel naked, but not like a woman beneath a man’s lustful stare. Instead, she felt like a doe cornered by the hounds.

"We’re not merchants or traders," the man continued. "But perhaps you can help us with that which we do seek. Have you seen a man hereabouts? He is taller than most, but not as tall as me. With dark hair. Long, I think, or so it was the last I’d heard."

Lisette moved nearer, down by the mare’s muzzle. She glanced at the small stream. She stood on one side of it, they on the other. It would take but a single leap to cross it, but for a casual moving forward it was a tremendous barrier.

She coughed hoarsely. "Aye. I think I know of that one of whom you speak. That would be the Lord Ashur, would it not?" Lisette noted their reactions, the narrowing of the eyes, the pure venomous hatred that burned in their eyes. Silently, she prayed Ashur was moving closer, moving into position.

Releasing the mare’s reins, Lisette edged even closer to them. One good leap, she thought, again surveying the stream. One good leap…

"Where is he?" The question came out as a snarl.

Lowering her voice confidentially, Lisette spoke in a harsh whisper. "He was the Duchess’s retainer for a time. But then it came to be known he’s a wizard, calling upon evil spirits. He fled before the wrath of the good Christian folk in the village, vanished into the night. It’s said he turned himself into a black cat that no man could grasp or touch."

The Gnome sighed in exasperation. The tall one sighed and demanded, "But where did he go? Tell me what you know or I’ll beat it out of you, boy."

Lisette couldn’t help but recoil at his threat, especially as she knew full well of just what evil they were capable. At her involuntary jerk the mare shied, tossing her head and prancing away a few steps. Their heads turned and Lisette leaped.

Ashur knew the moment the instant it came. He was sighted on the short one, knowing Lisette would go for the one nearest her. That brave, bold, wondrous woman… His finger tightened on the trigger and a microsecond later, just as he was about to fire, the mare spooked and blocked his shot. The shot went wild, flaring a patch of grass a good meter away from his target.

The short one spun and fired in his direction as the sizzling grass sent up a wisp of smoke. Ashur rolled to the side, wishing for better cover but finding none. As he did he caught a glimpse of Lisette landing by the taller one, the injector raised in her fist and coming down toward his chest. The man was quicker, blocking her and deflecting the injector away from him. A wide, swinging blow of his arm sent Lisette tumbling away.

In an instant the man seized Lisette by her left arm, trapping the poison-loaded device, and pulled her in front of him as a shield. Using sheer force he bent her arm back toward her own exposed neck until it was poised scant centimeters from her throat. He knocked her hat off her head and the long brown hair cascaded down.

"Ashur!" he called, scanning the grassy slope. "I know you’re out there. I’ve got your woman. Only a coward would send his woman to do his fighting for him."

He tightened his grip and bent Lisette’s arm further. She yelped. Ashur gritted his teeth but remained motionless.

"What’s in this injector? Should I find out on your girl here? Or should I just break her neck? Either way, surrender yourself at once or she dies."

Ashur took a deep, ragged breath. He knew them well enough to know this was no idle bluff, no mere threat. Even with a perfect shot he couldn’t get them both before they killed Lisette. Ashur closed his eyes for a moment, imploring Lisette’s God for help. Then, holding his weapon up in an attitude of surrender, he stood up.