Stars Across Time (13 page)

Marisa nudged Andie. “Did you hear me? I just want to go back to Cle Elum. I want to go home.”

“I do too,” Ruth Marie whispered. “I’m afraid to spend another night here. And I’m afraid—” Her voice tightened, and she looked very much like the sixteen-year-old girl she was. She was far too young to be in this situation. Not that there would ever be an age where it wouldn’t be terrifying.

“I don’t think Cle Elum is there anymore,” Andie said. “You didn’t notice where we are? Snoqualmie Pass? The ski area—or what was once the ski area. Min-ji can explain it.” She nodded, because her friend was coming over. “And maybe she can explain those tin packets too.”

Min-ji was carrying foil-wrapped packages. “They’re smoke bombs. I found sugar and saltpeter.”

“I had no idea astrophysicists could make explosives,” Andie said.

“They don’t explode. They just smoke. But if you find me a ping pong ball, I can make you a cherry bomb.”

“Too bad I haven’t seen a toilet to flush one down yet.”

Thus far, calls of nature had involved squatting behind bushes, with their captors uncomfortably close.

“Are you two sisters?” Barbara asked.

“No, Min-ji is my aerothermodynamics and fluid mechanics tutor.”

“Aero-what?”

“That’s what I said when I saw the course catalogue.”

“I’m also the one who talked her into going camping,” Min-ji said. “I had never been before. I thought it would be fun.” Her face crumpled. “I’m sorry, Andie.”

“Sh, it’s not your fault.” Andie hugged her friend, though the men were moving around outside, so they didn’t have long to embrace their emotions. They would probably be coming for the women soon. “And I did get to see that comet.”

Min-ji snorted softly, her eyes brimming with moisture. Voices sounded close to the door, and she sniffed and collected herself. “Here, Andie. Take the smoke packets. You’re the one with the matches. I’ll trust you to find a time to use them.”

Though Andie wasn’t sure how many more things she could tie away beneath her shirt before someone noticed the bulges, she accepted them. Then she moved closer to the door while Min-ji explained the situation to the others. She had already heard the unlikely story, and now she wanted to know what the men were up to. She hadn’t heard Theron’s voice for several minutes and was afraid he had, indeed, been sent away, off to deal with men who sounded about as fuzzy and nice as serial killers.

She had no sooner than leaned her ear against the door than Bedene opened it. He frowned at her, or perhaps at the fact that her hands were not tied and nobody else had noticed.

“Get the women in the truck,” Bedene told his men, “and make sure they’re tied again.”

“Truck?” From what Andie had heard of the conversation between him and Theron, Bedene had wanted horses. He couldn’t have a real truck stashed here, could he? Andie had yet to see or hear a motor vehicle.

Bedene pushed past her without answering, heading straight to his gear and grabbing it. Another man gripped Andie’s arm, pulling her into the damp grass outside. She went along with him, not wanting to get into a fight, lest the twine tying her weapons to her legs fall down, leaving a condemning pile at her feet. Min-ji and the others filed out after her.

As she had feared from the conversation, Theron wasn’t anywhere around. He had been sent to get horses, horses they didn’t need if they had a vehicle. Andie swallowed as the implications battered her, one after the other. Bedene meant to leave Theron behind to face deadly enemies alone. Bedene meant to deprive the women of their sole protector. Bedene meant to ensure that Theron would never see the marketplace or find out where Andie and the others were to be sold.

As she was pushed around the corner of the cabin, she stumbled, barely recovering. Her feet were as stunned as her mind. She didn’t know how Theron had come to mean something to her so quickly, but it was more than the idea of being left without a protector that bothered her. She wanted to see him again.

Yeah? To what end? More kissing?

Andie frowned at the all-too-frank voice in her head, even if it was correct. What did she think would happen with Theron? That they would have some romance here in Let’s-Kidnap-Women-for-Breeding Land? That she could go home, and maybe he could pop back through the time machine on the weekends to visit her? Sure, that could happen.

“Wait here,” her captor said.

Four other men had followed them through dewy, waist-high grass to an old barn behind the stables. It didn’t look like anyone had been inside for a long time—a slender tree had grown up in front of the doors, and it had to be several years old. The kidnapper jogged around a corner and disappeared. The others all held rifles and were watching the woods. More than one looked nervous after Theron’s talk of raiders. Or maybe it had been the dead comrade they had found on the doorstep that morning.

The rest of the kidnappers had remained behind, grabbing their packs and waiting in front of the cabin. It occurred to Andie that nobody was paying an inordinate amount of attention to the women’s group right now. Their four guards were close, but looking in the other direction. She touched the bulge that represented the matches and tried to catch Min-ji’s eye. This might be the time to throw up some smoke, make some noise, and try to disappear into the woods. She definitely did not want to spend another night alone with these brutes, not if Theron wasn’t there to scare off their advances.

Min-ji was watching her, and she nodded. The teenagers were watching her too. Andie touched Barbara’s arm, drawing her eye. She tapped her thigh and tilted her chin toward the nearest set of trees. The fact that the men wouldn’t—or at least
shouldn’t
—shoot them made her braver than she might have been otherwise, especially given her meager firepower.

Barbara glanced at their guards, then nodded shakily.

An engine started up near the back end of the barn. Andie reached for the matches.

Before she could pull one out, two men charged into view from the direction of the cabin. One was Bedene, and he was waving over his shoulder for the others to follow.

“Riders,” he barked. “A lot of them. Where’s the damned truck?”

“Coming, boss,” came a call from the barn.

Wood cracked, then shattered. Andie lifted her long shirt, touching the smoke packets and the matches. She bit her lip, looking to the tree line, tempted to run now, while the men around her had turned their weapons—and their focus—toward the cabin. But the thunder of hooves was audible now, and she would be running from a known evil into an unknown one. That unknown one could be much worse. As much as she hated to do so, she lowered her hands. If she had been alone, she might have taken the risk, but she couldn’t lead others to potential doom.

A gunshot cracked near her ear—one of her guards firing at a figure on horseback that had charged past the cabin. A blood-curdling cry pierced the air as more riders came into view. They were male, their chests bare and painted, and leather masks covered their faces. Their long, matted hair bounced around their shoulders as they rode, pieces of fur tied into the snarls. They steered their mounts with their knees and used both hands to hold bows or rifles.

Andie had been backing away as soon as they appeared, figuring she could find cover behind the barn, but someone spun her around and shoved her. “Go. Get in.”

A big truck with a covered cargo bed was rolling toward the women, the doors mismatched, the frame made more of rust than metal. But in that moment, it represented salvation, an escape from those riders with their savage cries.

An arrow speared the ground a foot to Andie’s side. She veered, zigzagging her route as she ran for the back of the truck, waving and pushing Min-ji and the other girls ahead of her. From what Theron had said, she had assumed these raiders wanted to collect stray women, as well, but if they were shooting indiscriminately, she would be more in danger of death than she was of being kidnapped.

Bullets clanged off the truck, but aside from the rust, the sturdy frame reminded her of the military vehicles back home. So long as the driver wasn’t hit, it should keep running—she hoped.

She reached the back and gave Barbara a hand up into the high cargo bed. Nobody had bothered dropping the tailgate. More screeching whoops echoed through the clearing, the riders not daunted by Bedene’s men, even though the kidnappers were firing back and striking raiders.

Next to her, Min-ji tripped and tumbled into the grass. Andie grabbed her, helping her up, then giving her a boost. She was the last of the women, aside from Andie herself. The men could worry about themselves.

As she put her foot on the fender and was about to climb up, a horseman made it to the back of the truck with a scream that made every hair on Andie’s arms stand up. The horse reared, and the man waved his sword, bloodlust in his eyes as he stared down at Andie. She grabbed her knife, afraid she would be too late and that it would be too puny of a weapon to do anything. But while he was staring down at her, his sword poised to strike, his horse’s legs pawing at the air a foot from her head, a bullet slammed into his chest. He tumbled off the creature’s back. Andie leaped into the truck, not waiting to see if he rose again.

Several more of Bedene’s men flung themselves in after her. One was still straddling the tailgate when the vehicle lurched into motion. If not for a quick grab from a comrade, he would have fallen out as the truck drove away, bumping and tilting as it rolled through the high grass.

That wasn’t the end of the attack. More rifles fired, bullets clanging off the truck and tearing through the thinner metal of the cargo cover. Andie had never climbed into one of the seats, and she was glad. She lay flat on the bottom of the bed with the others. One of the kidnappers had collapsed onto her back, ducking his head to avoid being hit, and for once, she didn’t care that one of the dirty brutes wanted to be on top of her. He was welcome to be her shield.

Horse hooves continued to thunder in the grass, the riders keeping up with the truck.

“Stay down back there,” Bedene yelled from the cab.

“Not like we were going to be tearing off our clothes and dancing on the seats,” Andie muttered.

The man on top of her snorted in what might have been agreement.

The truck lurched, tires finding pavement, or the lumpy, cracked surface that passed for it. The vehicle bounced and jerked, picking up speed. Andie’s rattling teeth felt like they were in danger of falling out of her mouth.

At first, the hooves pounded all around the truck, and rifles continued to fire, but finally, the horses grew tired and fell behind. The weapons ceased firing. Andie risked wriggling out from underneath her human shield and rising to her knees. She peered out the back, watching the riders fall farther behind. As the trees blurred past on either side of the old highway, a lump formed in her throat. They were leaving Theron behind to deal with all of those crazies on his own. She might never see him again.

A
s soon as Theron reached the raider camp, the entire horde raced for their improvised corral. His first thought was that he had been spotted, but he caught a few intelligible words slipping out around their heavy slang that he could decipher. They were leaving for a raid.

Theron’s stomach twisted—who else could the targets be but Bedene’s team and the women?

He scooted into a hollow between two bushes, glad for the cloudy sky that dimmed the light of the sun rising over the mountains. Even so, he worried he would be spotted as no fewer than forty men raced past him, sometimes less than five feet from his spot, the finger bones tied in their ropes of hair clacking as they ran. Even with his mace and rifle, he would be helpless against so many.

The masked warriors vaulted onto their horses. It was surprising that the animals didn’t bolt at the noisy, wild approach of their riders, but they must have been trained to accept this. Within seconds, the raiders were pouring out of the corral, heading toward the broken highway.

Even though Theron knew he had to get back to the cabin to help the others—he cringed at the thought of Andie and her friends being captured by these beasts—the raiders had not taken all of the mounts, and he would make it back more quickly on horseback. Besides, with their enemies mounted, the kidnappers would be at an extreme disadvantage when they ran. Theron hoped Bedene had already taken everyone down the trail. The night before, he hadn’t seemed concerned enough about the raiders, and if he was dawdling this morning, everyone could end up dead before noon.

Two raiders remained behind, one man with an arm in a sling and another with a wrapped ankle, so Theron left his hiding place carefully. Using the trees for cover, he crept closer to the remaining horses. He hoped they hadn’t been left behind because they, too, were injured. He spotted familiar CA brands on the animals’ haunches and wasn’t surprised. At least some of these horses had been stolen from the army.

He paused at the edge of the corral, a clearing fenced off with rope. Aside from the cover the horses themselves offered, he would be out in the open once he entered. The two raiders spoke to each other over a fire and didn’t appear that alert, but they would perk up if someone rode out of their camp on their horses.

Theron tapped his rifle. It was loaded, and the men were about twenty meters away. He could strike them easily while they sat there, making their breakfast. But he wasn’t an assassin, and he struggled with the notion of shooting men in cold blood. This morning, it had been different. Those two raiders outside of the cabin had already killed one of Bedene’s men. Enemies or not, these people were simply sitting and eating.

Reminding himself that their cohorts were descending on his camp at that very second, Theron lifted his rifle and aimed. Oblivious, one raider pulled something out of his pack. Theron recognized it instantly. A blue wool army cap. The raider pinned something to it. A patch of fur. No, that was a scalp. Theron glared, his hands tightening about the rifle. He had run into raiders often enough that he knew of their habit of wearing grisly souvenirs from campaigns. The sight helped him harden his heart. He fired, catching the man in the back. Before the second spun toward him, he chambered a second round and shot again. Both raiders dropped to the ground.