Phrym struggled up the steep slope, sending an avalanche of stones scattering down to the smooth plain below. When he and Jahrra finally reached the top and the sprawling pebbles finally settled, Gieaun yelled up at them, “Wait!”
The energy that the Resai girl put into her voice made Jahrra stop and turn in the saddle. Her friend was at the base of the wash, thirty feet below, and Scede was still a few dozen yards off where Jahrra had left him.
“We’re going with you!” Gieaun shouted.
Scede looked up suddenly from his brooding posture and kicked Bhun over towards Aimhe.
“We’re not following her into that canyon, Gieaun! What if we’re all killed?!” he whispered harshly, though Jahrra could hear his voice clearly from where she stood.
“Then we’re killed together,” Gieaun said rather valiantly. “We’re friends, all three of us, and no matter what happens we can’t forget that. Now, I know Jahrra lied to you Scede, and she has before. But she has lied to me just as many times.” Gieaun paused and then raised her voice as she addressed Jahrra, “And I know Scede said some horrible things to you Jahrra, but even the best of friends have to fight at some point or another.”
Gieaun raised her head and aimed her voice towards the top of the wash once again, “I think we should stick together, because all we have is each other out here. I would never want my friends to let me face the unknown alone, no matter how frightening it may be. We’ll all go into the canyon, that way if we do meet danger, we have a fighting chance. Alright? Now let’s go, and no more arguing!”
Jahrra was very surprised at Gieaun’s speech and even more surprised when she urged Aimhe up the stone embankment and right past her through the stone arch framing the canyon. Scede led Bhun slowly up the steep rubble pile a few moments later and paused beside Jahrra only for a moment.
“No more lies, alright?” he grumbled. “We have to be honest from now on; we can’t act like children forever.” And then he added bashfully, “I’m sorry about what I said. I was just so angry.”
“And I’m sorry I wasn’t truthful,” Jahrra offered, shaking hands with him and feeling her anger and fear melt away. “I’ll make it up to you someday, I promise.”
“Ladies first,” Scede said, flashing his characteristically impish smile.
The two of them encouraged their horses forward, ready to follow Gieaun into the unknown.
-Chapter Seven-
Ehnnit Canyon
Phrym stepped gingerly upon the loose stones and pebbles as he made his way towards the canyon’s entrance. Jahrra was surprised to discover that the archway itself was carved upon the face of a giant boulder that had clogged up the gully’s opening. Curious as to where Gieaun had gone, she stood up in the saddle and peered into the dark tunnel that stretched beyond the arch. Someone had bored a passageway through the solid rock, making it just wide enough to allow horses and their riders to pass through in a single file line. Jahrra was fascinated, and impressed.
“Are you two coming or not?” Gieaun’s echoing voice called from somewhere up ahead.
Jahrra swallowed and looked at Scede. With a nod, he gestured for her to follow. She took a deep breath and clicked Phrym onward.
To distract herself from the suffocating closeness of the cramped passageway, Jahrra strained her eyes against the strange semi-darkness, looking for anything that might be of interest. Her head barely cleared the rough ceiling, and as she peered down at the floor below, she noticed a dry, rocky stream bed. The only sound in the tunnel was the echoing melody of snorting horses and shuffling hooves pressing painfully against her ears. Jahrra shut her eyes tightly, hoping that this would ease the strangeness of the hollow sounds around her.
After several seconds she opened them back up again and gasped. The walls of the passage were bathed in sunlight from what must have been the other end of the tunnel. It wasn’t the bright light that drew Jahrra’s attention, however, but the pattern of markings tattooed upon the smooth granite. All around her, in no particular pattern, ancient drawings and paintings of strange creatures and primitive runes spelled out stories and battles.
Jahrra squinted carefully at some of the markings and gasped. She pulled up her sleeve and held up her wrist, comparing the rune marks on her wood charm bracelet to those on the walls. Some of the marks were identical. She quickly pulled out her journal and frantically began jotting down all that she saw. She’d become so engrossed in the surrounding wall art that she didn’t notice when Phrym’s long neck pushed out into the open air once again. She blinked repeatedly while her eyes tried to adjust to the full sun and then put her journal back into its saddle bag. She looked for Gieaun and spotted her further down the path, waiting on Aimhe.
Jahrra breathed a weary sigh of relief, glad to be out of the confining tunnel. Her enthusiasm dwindled, however, when she realized that she was once again out in the heat of the day.
Gieaun seemed to notice this and commented, “Don’t worry, we won’t be in the sun much longer.”
She nodded towards the path ahead.
Jahrra looked on and gaped in awe. What she saw ahead was something quite amazing, something she had not expected. More boulders, everywhere there were boulders, giant boulders that clogged the canyon from wall to wall. Jahrra couldn’t help but imagine that long ago these colossal stones fell to this very spot, thrown down from the mountains by the gods themselves. The massive stone they had just passed through obviously had no path leading around it, so whoever had discovered this canyon had made their own way long ago, straight through. Now, as Jahrra looked on she saw that the trail wound downward, around a house-sized boulder and then onward, underneath another.
“I scouted ahead,” said Gieaun. “The path goes right under that pile of rocks, and then I think it leads into the canyon itself.”
As the girls stood considering the scene before them, Scede emerged out of the passageway atop Bhun.
“I guess I’d better go first since you two went first last time,” he offered. “I just hope the whole pile doesn’t fall on us.”
Walking the horses through the massive rocks wasn’t as bad as it would have seemed. The space between them was much wider than that of the first tunnel and the air was fairly damp, providing a welcome relief from the outside heat. As the hoof beats of their horses echoed off the walls of this strange cavern, small animals yipped and scuttled in fright, angry for being chased out of their cool sanctuary. This course was a bit longer than the one through the archway, but the cool air caressing their skin more than made up for it.
“Interesting place,” Jahrra commented. “Regardless of the reason for coming here, we can’t say it wasn’t worth the trip.”
She smiled at her friends, hoping they’d caught the note of apology in her voice. They both smiled back, not with smiles of forgiveness but with the smiles of someone trying to make the best of a bad situation.
After several minutes of meandering down and around the curved slope of mountain-sized stones, the three friends emerged from their shady passageway into a strange new world. Jahrra sighed in wonder as the trio followed a path trailing just above the dry, rocky creek bed. Jahrra tilted her head back, searching for the top of the canyon and found that its walls appeared to curve inward as they stretched towards the sky.
The entire floor of the canyon, only seventy to eighty feet across at its widest point, was littered with thousands of smooth rocks of every shape and size. This gully obviously served as a major wash for the snowmelt and heavy rains from the mountains, and probably at some time, supplied the Oorn Plain with most of its silt and rich soil. Very little vegetation was growing near the base of the ravine; only a few wildflowers, some succulents and cacti, and every now and again some type of chaparral bush or sage.
Of all of the new sights surrounding them, Jahrra thought the color of the rock walls and the stones that peppered the creek bed were the most intriguing. She noticed two distinct types of stone: light earthy orange sandstone and a harder looki
ng blue-green rock that she had never seen before. When the group stopped for a break, she dropped down from Phrym’s back and picked up one of the large bluish pebbles.
“What type of rock is this?” She turned to Gieaun and Scede, still squatting as she held the stone out to them. “I’ve never seen it before, have you?”
“No, but I like it,” Gieaun commented.
“It doesn’t look like turquoise,” Scede added as he dismounted Bhun. “Maybe you should bring some back. The stone masons or jewelers back home in Aldehren ought to know what it is.”
“Do you think there is anywhere to camp in this place?” Scede continued, now looking around with his hands pressed to the small of his back. “It’s only three hours before sunset, I don’t want to get stuck wandering around in this canyon after dark.”
Gieaun eyed her brother nervously then glanced over at Jahrra.
“We’ll travel a little bit further, perhaps there is a dry sand bar where we can make camp,” Jahrra offered, standing up and pocketing the large blue-green stone she’d been turning over in her hands. “It would be more comfortable than sleeping on these rocks. And according to the map, I would say the end of the canyon can’t be more than an hour’s ride east.”
“You want to go all the way to the end and back again before sunset?” A note of anger peppered Scede’s response.
“No, what I’m saying is that, according to the map, there’s a spot marked out that is relatively flat and comfortable looking. Now the map may not have been right about distance, but it wasn’t wrong about landmarks. We can camp out there for the night.”
“Alright, one more hour, and that’s it,” Scede said, sounding more annoyed than before. “It’s bad enough you’re insisting we stay in this canyon over night!”
As the three friends led their horses deeper into the ravine, bypassing boulders and scraping past shrubs, Jahrra silently ticked away the minutes in her head. After half an hour they came around a bend in the gorge and noticed that the stream bed began to curve northward.
“Is it supposed to curve like this?” Scede asked with an agitated tone. “Did we miss a fork somewhere?”
“Calm down, Scede, I’m sure it’s normal for canyons to curve from time to time.” Gieaun was becoming bothered by Scede’s constant paranoid questions, but she shot Jahrra a nervous glance nonetheless.
“Let me look at the map again,” Jahrra breathed irritably.
Scede’s constant accusing questions kept forcing them to stop and look at the map, further holding them back from making good use of her hour. Luckily, she had resorted to keeping the map close at hand. Jahrra unfolded the parchment and quickly darted her eyes to the now familiar gash representing the gully.
“It looks like it’s supposed to curve to the northeast. In fact, according to this map it–”
But Jahrra never had a chance to finish what she was about to say. Phrym bolted forward under her, not enough to knock her off, but enough to jerk her backwards, forcing her to grab for the saddle horn and the reins. Jahrra, clutching the reins with one hand and pressing the map against the saddle with another, looked up to see what the commotion was about. Aimhe had darted about ten feet, carrying a whimpering Gieaun while Bhun was nervously back-stepping, tossing his head and baring his teeth.
“What just happened?” Jahrra gasped, pushing a loose strand of her hair out of her eyes while reining Phrym back around to face her friends.
“Oh, nothing,” Scede said with fresh ire. “Only my sister just almost got bitten by a snake! Luckily it struck that stupid pillow she had to bring with her!”
Scede was furious. Gieaun was white. Jahrra looked over at the sunny patch of rock just behind them and noticed that a very large rattlesnake was now slowly sliding off into the brush.
Jahrra glanced at Gieaun and with a shaky voice asked, “Are you alright? Did it get Aimhe?”
“No, I-I think it just got the pillow. Good thing I went back for it, huh?” Gieaun smiled nervously, trying to cover up the fear in her voice.
“Scede,” Jahrra began carefully, afraid to look her friend in the eye.
But Scede cut in before she could continue. “That’s it, we’re turning back. I’m not risking mine or my sister’s life on some aimless hike! We have come this far, we have come into the canyon. And look, you even have that blue rock to show for it. I’ve never seen it anywhere else. That’ll be enough evidence to prove to Denaeh that you tried. I doubt that she’d want any of us to die over this. Now come on Jahrra, think sensibly, we don’t know what else is in here besides that snake!”
Scede had a genuine look of desperation in his eyes. Jahrra knew he didn’t want to stay, but she also knew that he would never leave her here alone, even if she had deceived him. Sighing, Jahrra realized it was time to give up. She had let Denaeh down, but she couldn’t let her two best friends down a second time. She had lied to them and they still followed her into this canyon. She owed them. Jahrra shut her eyes and tried not to think about what was best for her, but what was best for all of them.
She was just about to tell them both that they were right when all of a sudden, without warning, something very large sprung from the side of the ravine wall. The beast attached itself to Aimhe, and as the mare did her best to kick it off in a panic, Gieaun went flying forward onto one of the large boulders resting on the canyon floor. At the same time, Bhun reared and kicked, but Scede was able to keep his grasp and his balance. Phrym also started, but Jahrra pulled his head around and got him under control, only they were now twenty yards further down the canyon.
Jahrra frantically grabbed for her bow and arrows, trying hard to focus on what she had learned from Yaraa and Viornen. Breathe, relax! she thought furiously. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears, blocking out the sounds of the screaming horses, the scraping of hooves against the loose stones, and the terrified shouts of her friends. She turned to face where Aimhe had been attacked and saw the great creature clawing at the ground. It was some sort of large cat, and it was now shredding the pillow that had been tied to the back of Aimhe’s saddle.
Jahrra nocked an arrow and took aim at the cat, focusing on her target despite the sweat that stung her eyes. But instead of seeing the ruthless predator that had almost killed Gieaun, she saw a strange and beautiful animal. The cat was a golden yellow color all over, except for its belly, which was a pale cream. It was tall with long legs and a small head topped with large, tufted ears. Two saber-like teeth protruded from its lower jaw, and a short, thick mane ran down the length of its back. Longer hair grew on the backs of all four of its legs and its tail was short and almost as bushy as a squirrel’s. Dark spots ran down its sides, following the line where the golden yellow fur turned to cream. The final thing Jahrra noticed as the great cat finished off with the pillow and turned its attention elsewhere, was that it had a brush of fine hair on its chin.
Suddenly, the strange, muffled silence that had engulfed Jahrra finally faded away. She heard Scede yelling, as loudly as he could, in a panicky voice, “Hey! Over here! Hey! Hey!”
He was trying to distract the large cat and was failing miserably. It appeared Gieaun had gotten the wind knocked out of her and she was writhing on the ground, unaware of the hungry gaze of her attacker. Jahrra quickly re-aligned the arrow and took aim once more. She shot and just barely missed the flank of the cat, but the arrow had been close enough to grab its attention.
The great beast darted its head in her direction and glared at her with wild, green eyes, yowling its irritation. It slowly hunkered down, like a housecat getting ready to pounce. Jahrra quickly strung another arrow and shakily took aim. Alright Jahrra, don’t panic. Calm your nerves or you might end up dead. She looked the strange cat in the eye, imagining she saw a hint of fear residing there, and faltered. She could see the ridge of its spine and she could count every one of its ribs. A pang of pity struck her as she realized she didn’t want to shoot it. She couldn’t help but feel sorry for it; the great cat was only trying to sur
vive. Who could blame it for wanting to eat? She closed her eyes as the cat settled its hind legs. She tried to imagine the beast tearing her to shreds, tearing Gieaun and Scede and Phrym to shreds, but, not knowing fully why, she withheld her deadly shot a moment longer.
Jahrra sat there atop her restless semequin, eyes shut tight and waiting for the impact. She could hear Scede, sounding as far away as the ocean, yelling at her to shoot. She could hear Aimhe whinnying in fear somewhere far ahead of her. She could feel Phrym’s muscles tensing beneath her, and she could hear her conscience telling her to save a life, to save anyone’s life.
Just then, when Jahrra thought she could wait no longer, a great shadow overtook the pleasant yellow darkness of her inner mind and a terrible screech filled the air, a screech that sounded something like a cross between that of an eagle and that of a dragon.
Gieaun screamed, Scede yelled out in surprise, and the horses snorted and stamped in terror. Phrym squealed and blew out a great breath, but he seemed to have nowhere to bolt. A blast of wind tossed Jahrra’s long braid and the dull beat of a pair of great wings buffeted her ears. She quickly opened her eyes, still aiming her arrow, but dropped her bow in shock as she caught sight of what stood before her.
A great animal, smaller than a dragon but larger than anything else she had ever seen in Oescienne, was looming no more than twenty feet away. The cat had vanished, and she could see that Scede had made his way over to Gieaun and was scrambling, unsuccessfully, to get her back onto Aimhe, the whole time looking at the great creature in naked horror. Jahrra tried to pull Phrym around to run, but they were trapped in the small corner of the canyon that began to curve northward.
At first Jahrra thought that this monster was a type of dragon Hroombra had once talked about. Its wings were definitely like that of a dragon, and from the torso down the entire length of its body, it was scaled. It also had a long reptilian tail, complete with a spiked end. The wings, too, had very long daggers at their tips and the creature’s hind feet had five toes, each equipped with a razor sharp talon. The fifth toe, when the beast stood on its hind legs, which it was doing at the moment, didn’t touch the ground and looked like it would be used mostly for gripping. Gripping victims, Jahrra thought as her blood ran cold and her skin turned clammy. The upper half of the creature, however, looked like it belonged to a giant bird of prey. The tip of its mouth ended in a hard beak and the muzzle was bald and reddish in color, like that of a vulture’s. Mottled gray and brown feathers covered its face and neck, and its front legs were yellow like an eagle’s.
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