Kahless - Michael Jan Friedman [45]
Suspecting that Worf and his brother might have several things to say to each other, the captain fell in behind Kahless. After all, Picard had a brother too. He knew how exasperating they could be.
The Heroic Age Snow was falling in great, hissing dollops, making it difficult to see the trees even thirty meters in front of them. But it wasn’t failing so heavily Kahless couldn’t see the hoofprints between the drifts, or catch the scent of the wild minnhor herd that had made them.
“We’re gaining on them,” Porus observed with some enthusiasm, his ample beard rimed with frost.
“Slowly,” Shurin added. He snorted. “Too slowly.”
Kahless turned to the one-eyed man. Like the rest of them, his cheeks were sunken from not having eaten in a while.
“We’re in no hurry, Shurin. It’s only the middle of the day. Why push the s’tarahkmey if we don’t have to?”
Morath said nothing. That wasn’t unusual. He only spoke if he really had something to say.
As the outlaw chief negotiated a path through the forest, he became aware of the jinaq amulet pressed against his chest by the weight of his tunic. And that made him think about Kellein.
Around her father’s village, it would be Growing season in another month or so-time to pursue the promise he had made to her by the riverbank. And pursue it he would.
It was madness, of course. Though he wanted Kellein as he’d never wanted anything or anyone in his life, all he could give her was the life of an outlaw. And he had learned how hard that life could be.
All Cold long, he and his band had been on the move, always looking back over their shoulders, always wondering when Molor would swoop down on them like a hunting bird. Hell, Kahless hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep since he killed the tyrant’s son-except for the night he’d spent by Vathraq’s keep.
If he stayed in this realm, Molor would track him down. If not in Cold, then in Growing; if not during the day, then at night. Kahless had no illusions about that.
That was why he had to reach the southern continent.
True, it was a harsh and backward place, largely untouched by civilization. Life there would be punishing, and rewards few.
But at least he and Kellein would be safe from the tyrant’s hatred. With luck, they might find some measure of happiness together. And if they were truly lucky, if the ancient gods smiled on them, their children would never have to know the name Molor.
All Kahless had to do was make his way into one of the tyrant’s port towns. And hire a vessel with a greedy captain, who knew his way across the sea. And when he had done that, he wouldSuddenly, the outlaw realized how absurd it all sounded. How impossible. Chuckling to himself, he shook his snow-covered head.
How would he pay for their passage? And what seafarer would defy the all-powerful Molor to help a scraggly renegade?
it was an illusion, a pipedream. And yet, it was one he would wrestle into truth. Somehow. For Kellein’s sake.
“Kahless!” a voice hissed at him.
it was Shurin. The one-eyed man pointed through the sheeting snowfall at a wide brown smudge in the distance.
Kahless sniffed the air.
It was the herd, all right. Perhaps a dozen of the beasts, enough to keep them fed for a week or more. Nodding at Shurin to acknowledge the sighting, Kahless reached for the bow he’d made, which was secured to the back of his saddle.
He could hear the flapping of leather as the others did the same. Of course, they didn’t have to worry about the minnhormey hearing them. They were still a good distance from the herd and the thick, falling snow dampened all sounds.
As long as Kahless and his men remained downwind of the beasts, they wouldn’t have any trouble picking them off. An easy kill, he thought-though small compensation for the scarcity of such herds, or the painstaking time it took to find them.
Raising his hand, the outlaw gave the signal for his men to urge their mounts forward. Then he himself dug his heels into the flanks of his s’tarahk. The animal picked up its pace, gradually