Dreamweaver by C.S. Friedman

Author:C.S. Friedman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: DAW
Published: 2016-10-26T16:32:52+00:00

19

BADLANDS

TERRA PRIME

JESSE

FOR AN ENDLESS MOMENT no one moved. The three of us crouched on the ground, waiting to see if they were going to shoot us, while the men with the skull masks remained on their horses, not shooting us. I told myself that delay was a good thing, and that every moment that passed without them killing us increased the odds that we were going to make it out of this situation alive. Whether that was true or not I didn’t know, but it sounded good.

Suddenly Isaac broke the silence. “Jacob’s not here.” He looked back the way we had come. “He didn’t make it through!”

As he began to scramble to his feet, one of the horsemen took aim at him. I grabbed Isaac by the arm to try to stop him, but he shook me off. “I’m not leaving Jacob in there!” Without looking at the mounted men, he limped toward El Malo. From the way he clutched one hand to his side it was clear his fall had hurt him pretty badly, but there was an air of defiance about him that seemed to say, Shoot me if you have to, but nothing short of that will stop me.

I held my breath, braced for the worst, but no one fired at him.

He staggered a few yards toward El Malo, and for a moment I was afraid he would try to go back into that death zone. If he did, I doubted either Sebastian or I was strong enough to rescue him, and I was pretty sure the horsemen weren’t going to help. But then he stopped and spread his arms as if embracing the sandstorm, and he yelled into the howling winds, “Jacob! Can you hear me? Jacob!” He waited a moment and then yelled it again, this time with an edge of despair in his voice. I saw his body stiffen, and I guessed that he was trying to invoke the Gift that allowed him to speak to the dead. His fingers sketched patterns in the air. “Follow my voice!” he yelled. “Come to me!” The sand wave in front of him seemed to loom even higher and darker than before, and I wondered if there might not be spirits in there that were unhappy about necromantic rituals being performed on their doorstep.

After holding his rigid pose for several endless minutes, Isaac suddenly staggered back a few steps, as if he’d been struck. Then he found his balance again, and cried out in a voice hoarse from desperation, “Come to me!” Then he collapsed backward. Without a thought for the masked men I ran to him, Sebastian right behind me. Isaac lay face up on the ground, his pupils dilated, whispering words I couldn’t hear. “Jesus,” I said, “are you okay?” I put a hand on his chest; beneath my palm his heart was pounding wildly. I didn’t know what else to do. Sebastian was on the other side of him, but he didn’t seem to know what to do either.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.