Chapter Sixteen

The thick snowfall that prohibited him from sighting the leopard at a distance would also protect him in the same visual obscurity. And he ran downwind of the beast, his footsteps muffled by the snow. The leopard should not sense him until he entered striking range.

As he rounded an outcropping of rocks and trees, Tarn beheld an impossible sight. The great cat cornered a cloaked figure under a rocky overhang. The man held his spear protectively out in front of him, guarding against the dangerous sabre leopard that padded back and forth, just out of range. A second spear lay broken on the ground. Neither snow leopard nor man detected his approach. Cautiously, taking great pains toward silence, he advanced on the balls of this feet. If the cloaked figure discerned Tarn's presence, he kept it to himself. The pair's eyes were immutably locked together; each sought an opening in which to strike; every few steps the snow leopard swiped at the defensively extended spear with a clawed paw. The man pulled the spear back lest he have that one broken as well.

The leopard, easily eleven feet long, hugged the ground, inching its way closer. Muscles tight with desperation, the man jabbed at the feline's fanged face. Incredibly quick, the leopard slanted its head sideways to allow the spear to pass harmlessly by, then lunged forward and closed it toothy maw around the wooden shaft. The man saw his mistake and pulled backward. Too late!

The sound of crunching wood, like so many matchsticks, heralded the man's impending doom. At the same time as Tarn closed to within ten steps, and the man reached for his sword, the leopard's densely muscled legs bunched, preparing itself to leap. Reckoning the cat's lunge quicker than the man's ability to draw steel, Tarn issued his father's battle-cry and sprinted forward with a spear cocked above his left shoulder.

At the sound of the new threat, the leopard turned and lunged at the fur-clad man-thing who challenged his right to the kill. Tarn waited until the leopard was in mid-flight before dodging diagonally, diving under the leopard. He tucked his knees to this chest and rolled smoothly to one knee. The cat landed. It began to run. Vulcan, but the beast moved fast! He launched his first spear. His cast pierced the 650-pound cat in the hindquarters. The leopard screamed furious anguish and frantically reached back with its powerful jaws. It snapped the spear shaft like a twig, close to the entrance of the wound; the tip deeply embedded in flesh.

Adrenaline surged into Tarn's bloodstream, lighting up his senses, bringing acute clarity. The maddened snow leopard prepared itself for another launch. He moved sideways and backwards, crossing one leg over the other so as not to afford a stationary target, and drew his sword.

Hate-drenched sabre eyes tracked the man-thing. Having never been prey; retreat was unknown when instincts urged the leopard to rend and rip its foe's flesh. The big cat crouched low the ground. Waiting. Measuring. Readying itself. A staccato spoken throaty growl rumbled forth. Tarn cocked his second spear above his right shoulder. Its massive shoulder muscles bunched. He let fly his spear, and pivoted sideways, away from the lunging leopard that creamed primal defiance.

The spear pierced the leopard's right shoulder in mid-air. As the huge ochre-coloured feline passed Tarn, its razor-tipped claws raked his shoulder, opening a series of deep gashes. Howling insane rage, the crazed cat touched down and flung itself at Tarn in one effortless display or awesome agility.

Tarn dove instinctively to the side and struck out blindly with his sword, where he anticipated the cat would be, saved from certain death by his reflexes. His lucky swing sliced a furrow along the snow leopard's neck and back as it hurtled past.

The sabre cat landed clumsily, bleeding profusely from its wounds. With a gargantuan effort of will, it gained his feet and roared. Quick and wary, Tarn moved in for the kill. The wounded leopard swiped ineffectually at the descending sword and missed. Sharp steel severed the large neck vein.

At the cat's death, Tarn tilted his head skyward and loosed a barbarous bellow of triumph to aid the cat's soul heavenward. Before he tended to his wound, he wiped his blade free of blood on the spotted pelt and removed his one remaining spear from the carcass. The sound of approaching feet drew Tarn's attention.

"A thousand blessing, stranger. That hell-spawned devil-cat nearly made me dinner. My name is Torrocka," the cloaked man said amicably.

Tarn examined the cloaked and cowled olive-skinned face. It was old and leathery; weatherworn. Iron-haired eyebrow tufts curled upward. A spider web of crows' feet crinkled the corners of dark-coloured eyes set deeply into fleshy pockets. Wisps of wayward grey hair strayed across a wrinkled brow, leaving only a faint reminder of a raven-haired youth.

"I am Tarn, son of Connor, member of the White Steppe village."

A Lethean flood of memories flickered across Torrocka's face. He shook his head as if to clear it of an old man's foolishness.

"Come, Tarn, son of Connor, my dwelling is close by and thy wounds require attention ere the coming blizzard blinds us."

A painful throbbing in Tarn's shoulder had begun. He did not need to examine the venom-infected wounds―four deep hashes that would leave proud scars―to realise that he faced mortal danger. After sheathing his sword, Tarn removed the water skin from his belt. He poured a liberal amount of water into the wounds, wincing painfully. When the ragged gashes were rinsed clean, he scoo0ped up a handful of snow and held it against his shoulder. The cold snow cooled his burning flesh and helped to staunch the flow of blood that had hopefully diluted the poison infecting his flesh.

"Marta will have my ears," he muttered to himself, and then more loudly to Torrocka he said, "Aye. Ye be right on both accounts. Lead on."

He followed Torrocka's billowing cloak away from his village. Tarn did not cherish abandoning the carcass, but there wasn't time to skin the cat, nor did his weakened condition permit him to transport the meat. It would have to wait. The snowfall and dropping temperature would preserve the meat until he returned.

After nearly an hour of trailing Torrocka, Tarn grew weary and increasingly thirsty. The blood he had lost, combined with the poison that ran thick in his system, sapped his endurance. His feet ploughed furrows in the snow, and he stumbled ever more frequently, unable to steer a straight course.

"'Tis not far, now," encouraged Torrocka, discerning Tarn's damp brow and feverish eyes when the lad glanced up and grunted a dreamy, half-conscious reply.

By the time the cave's entrance came into view, Tarn laboured to place one foot in front of the other. Torrocka added his support, struggling to assist his charge to traverse the inclined path to the entrance of his home. Incoherent delirium dribbled out of Tarn's mouth. Each additional step became a monument to his will power, a battle of inconceivable stubbornness to fight the paralysing effects of the poison. No matter how stout of heart, Tarn collapsed short of the entrance. He lay on the ground huffing and puffing, no longer certain of where he was, and how he came to be here.

"Come on lad. Lend me some aid. Just a little farther," urged Torrocka dragging Tarn by his arms through the doorway.

From somewhere deep within his indomitable core, Tarn flopped onto his stomach and crawled toward the sleeping mats where he collapsed into a deep state of unconsciousness.

* * * * * * *

A fever-induced delirium wracked Tarn's supine body. He dreamt of a tsunami and clung to his father's legs as a rising wall of water engulfed them. Something warm was poured down his throat. Believing he drowned, Tarn fought for air, gasping when a cool, wet cloth blotted his brow. Tarn relived the battle with the valley raiders and cried out in anguish when his father fell, slain. Following the battle, he stood by the funeral pyre, not as a boy, but as the young man he had grown into. But for the image of his parents, they were along, surrounded by a misty void. The roaring funeral pyre masked them in a shroud of orange-yellow light.

Connor placed a heavy hand of Tarn's shoulder, "My son, forget naught thy oath, take up Kalen's sword."

"Remember thy Atlantean heritage. It will serve thee well," claimed his mother adding her hand to Connor's.

"Kalen's sword will be mine!" cried Tarn.

When the image of his parents faded, he found himself transported to a long corridor whose granite walls were adorned with swords, shields, and spears. A mountain of a man appeared at the end of the corridor. On the man's head rested a gold crown rimmed with blood-red jewels. The bloodstones set crimson laser beams dancing upon the walls. Thick waves of long blond hair, tinted by the radiance of the bloodstones, flowed out from the jewel-encrusted headpiece to rest on his shoulders. Seated majestically upon a raised throne, whose carved legs resembled lion's paws, the regal monarch leaned forward, measuring Tarn through jade-green eyes.

Under scrutiny, Tarn ventured down the corridor, stopping at the foot of the three steps leading up to the impressive figure. When the giant spoke, his voice thundered throughout the room, quaking the stones beneath Tarn's feet.

"Do thee not kneel, Tarn, son of Jayleen?"

"I am son of Connor, and I kneel before no man," he answered with stubborn pride.

For a long moment, Tarn thought the giant intended to rage at him, but instead, he threw back his head and laughed richly, his voice a robust blend of amusement and mirth.

"Aye, Tarn. Ye be right, and ye be wrong. I am not man, but ye are not all man either," announced the giant in a voice that turned suddenly serious. "Thee be the first, and the last; the beginning and the end. Thee shall be first among Guardians and last among men. Though I no longer dwell among thy kind, though Atlantis pas passed beyond the mortal realm, what was promised shall be bequeathed."

"Be thee Vulcan?" Tarn solicited carefully.

He felt a growing sense of dread for having defied a God. What entitlement justified his insolence? He recalled his father's words about Vulcan and stood up taller, mastering his fear, preparing himself to accept whatever fate the God meted out. The giant bellowed with mirth at Tarn's question and faded from sight. The last thing Tarn saw was an empty scabbard hanging on the wall behind the throne.

* * * * * * *

Torrocka stayed by Tarn's side day and night. From time to time he forced a herb potion down the stricken youth's throat. At one point he felt obligated to bind Tarn's limbs when he lashed out in delirium, striking the wall and ground. Torrocka feared Tarn might injure himself or reopen the wounds he had poultice and sewn shut.

When Tarn cried out the name of Atlantis, Torrocka's brow wrinkled curiously. He understood enough of the garbled, dissociated words to realise Tarn and Connor had survived the catastrophe that had sunk Atlantis. A puzzled expression claimed Torrocka's features when Tarn screamed Kalen's name, and then again when Tarn asked if he was Vulcan. Egad, but the lad invoked the Gods' names often. The rest was garbled bits and pieces about his mother and father, and a fight in a tree with a hut-cat.