Crucible

by Mercedes Lackey

  “Quick!” Winterwind dropped to the ground, barely making a sound. “There’s a rock outcropping not far from here. It looks like there’s a small cave. We can fight them off from there.”

  Roli still had a hard time believing that three of anything was much of a threat, but the anxiety—no, the fear—radiating from both Winterwind and Medran made him break out in a sweat. He tightened the straps on his knapsack, picked up his bow, and turned to follow the Hawkbrother.

  Winterwind looked at the bow as if it had just turned into a giant grasshopper. “That’s going to be about as effective against a wyrsa as a hair comb.”

  “I’m the best shot in the hollow,” Roli said, grinding his teeth and trying not to say anything more. It wasn’t good to brag about oneself. Stating a fact was fine. Anything else was considered beneath a hertasi’s dignity.

  Winterwind rolled his eyes. “I’m not belittling your skills, little brother. When you see the wyrsa, you’ll understand that this is one of those cases where size does matter.”

  Roli frowned, not sure what the Hawkbrother was getting at.

  “Wyrsa are as big as a horse and meaner than an angry snake,” Winterwind said. “I’m not even sure how effective these . . .” he reached beneath the bush again and pulled out a handful of arrows as long as his arm along with a bow almost as tall as he was, “are going to be.”

  Roli gulped, but before he could say anything, Medran spoke, “Neither bow nor arrow have to be large to pierce an eye and enter the wyrsa’s brain. Let us reach safety first and then, if we’re lucky enough to have time, we can argue the pros and cons of our different weapons.”

  Winterwind nodded and jogged off in the direction Medran and Roli had been headed when they’d found the Hawkbrother. Medran laid a pebble-scaled hand on Roli’s arm. “We can do this,” he said, holding Roli’s gaze with his own.

  Roli took a deep breath and nodded. Then they both jogged after the Hawkbrother.

  He kept an eye on the hertasi as they moved. Medran was older than any of the others living in the hollow, though Roli had never been able to find out just how old his friend and mentor was . . .

  A shriek split the air, and the Bondbird swooped down at the Hawkbrother as if to drive him away. Winterwind spun around, his eyes wide and searching. “We’re out of time. Get up in the tree—”

  Roli caught sight of something large, black, and sinuous at the far end of the path.

  “Go!” Medran hissed. The hertasi’s shove made Roli stumble into the giant stump. A sound halfway between a howl and a hiss followed him as he veered around the stump, scrambled through brush that tore at his face, and finally reached a tree. He struggled to climb the impossibly wide trunk, his feet fighting to find purchase on the rough bark that somehow managed to be slippery in spite of the fact that it was also tearing up his hands. The sound came again, making his ears hurt, and he found himself gasping without really being winded.

  He found he could actually grab hold of the bark, and inch-by-inch, he climbed up the tree without looking back. After what seemed like an eternity, he finally reached a branch wide enough to stand on. Ignoring the yawning distance to the ground, he forced himself to his feet. Then he braced his back against the wall-like trunk, grabbed his bow firmly in hand, and reached for an arrow.

  That’s when he realized Medran was gone.

  In his place at the base of the tree stood three nightmares that could only be the wyrsa.

  About a year ago, Medran had woken him early and led him out to the stream. Roli hadn’t been allowed to speak, not even to ask where they were going or why. The hertasi had moved so silently, Roli wouldn’t have known he was there if he hadn’t been following right behind him.

  Roli hadn’t been nearly as quiet, and the wolverine Medran finally showed him knew they were there, even though they were on the opposite side of the stream and a screen of thornbush leaves hid them from the creature’s view. The wolverine stared right through the leaves and branches at them, leaving him feeling exposed and helpless.

  The wyrsa reminded him of that wolverine, though they really didn’t look anything alike. The wyrsa’s heads were shaped in the same basic way, but the muzzles were longer, and overall the skulls were four or five times bigger.

  But that’s where all resemblance stopped. The wyrsa’s long, sinuous bodies seemed more fitting to a snake than a four-legged creature, and their thick, black hides looked like velvet shadows in the growing dusk. Saliva dripped from razor-sharp canines that looked longer than his own fingers, and eyes the color of dead eggshells gleamed up at him.

  The Hawkbrother hadn’t exaggerated their size—the beasts were enormous. If Medran climbed on Roli’s shoulders, the hertasi’s head would barely come to the top of the smallest wyrsa’s shoulder.

  “Looks like our friend decided to play hero,” Winterwind said from somewhere over Roli’s head. “He’s leading them away.”

  Roli looked around, frantically trying to find Medran. The hertasi’s blue, scaled head popped out of a bush about fifty paces away and then disappeared.

  Just long enough for the wyrsa to spot him.

  The smallest one loped toward the bush where Medran had just been. The other two stayed at the base of the tree.

  Roli rocked back and forth, torn between going to help Medran—to lure that single wyrsa away from the hertasi who’d cared for him as if Roli was his own—and being relieved that these monsters didn’t climb trees.

  Just as the thought flashed into his mind, Winterwind cried, “Climb!” as one of the wyrsa stopped weaving and leaped.

  Roli’s heart leaped at the same time, threatening to stick in his throat and suffocate him with terror as he watched the beast hit the tree a yard or so below him. Dead-white eyes seemed to bore through him as the wyrsa’s sharp claws scrabbled against the bark, unable to find purchase.

  With a sound that was half-hiss, half-growl, the beast dropped to the ground.

  “Move!” Winterwind shouted.

  Roli turned back to the tree, grabbed hold of the rough bark, and climbed. He focused on finding a handhold, finding a foothold, then hauling himself up. Over and over, until his hands burned and sweat dripped into his eyes.

  He reached the next branch and swung around so he could sit and rest for a moment.

  “Watch out!”

  A black shadow rushed at him and once again Roli found himself staring into a pair of dead-white eyes—coming straight toward him.

  Roli leaned backward and twisted, scrambling to get out of the wyrsa’s way. The beast’s sharp canines tore into his right thigh as the beast sailed past him as if it had been on flat ground. Foul breath blasted him with a stench that came directly from a graveyard, part rotting flesh and part rotten duck eggs.

  Then the wyrsa was crouched on a branch at least three paces wide, a branch at almost the same level as the one Roli stood on.

  Its tail lashed from side to side, spraying bark and needles in all directions. The wyrsa swayed rhythmically, staring at him with those dead-white eyes. Roli stared back in horror, unable to move, unable to breathe.

  His thigh burned where the creature had bit him, and for a moment he wondered if the beast was poisonous. The pain in his leg was worse than anything he’d ever felt, but it seemed to be happening at a distance, as if someone else was experiencing it . . .

  Move! a voice screamed inside his mind. Stop staring like a hertasi fresh out of the egg and do something!

  Another cry sounded nearby, and the Hawkbrother’s hooked staff sliced through the air. The barbed end caught the wyrsa’s neck and then Winterwind swung past, coming out of nowhere and using the monster’s neck as a swing. It looked like he was aiming for a branch on the other side—

  There was a loud shriek, and both wyrsa and Hawkbrother tumbled into the thornbushes far below.

  Roli stared at the hole the two
had torn in the foliage. Pain washed over him in waves. His vision darkened and he shoved himself back into a sitting position, fighting against pain and panic.

  The air filled with bird cries as Winterwind’s Bondbird swooped past, with a host of smaller, similarly colored birds following it. They dove on the lone wyrsa still pacing beneath the tree, striking with bill and claw. It howled and snapped at them, snatching a bird from the air and dispatching it in a spray of black and white feathers.

  Saire screamed and dove at the wyrsa, the Bondbird’s deadly beak striking at its eyes. The wyrsa’s slavering jaws snapped again, catching a tail feather. Saire beat his wings and rose a stone’s throw above the beast, then pulled in his wings and plummeted.

  The other birds darted in, striking and then darting away. The wyrsa shriek-howled once more, then turned, slithering away through the trees as silently as it had arrived.

  Roli squinted through the pain-haze blurring his vision. He grabbed the wide cloth belt from his waist and wrapped it around his wounded thigh.

  “Here.” Gentle hands took the ends of the belt and secured them. Roli stared blearily up at Winterwind. The Hawkbrother looked as bad as Roli felt. New sticks had been added to the arrangement in his hair. A streak of dried blood mingled with the mud on his cheek, and a bandage of sorts was wrapped around his right hand.

  “How did . . . I thought . . .” Roli swallowed hard, the rest of the sentence dying on his lips.

  “It launched itself off the big stump,” Winterwind said. “I’ve never seen anything leap as far. I thought for sure it was going to get you.”

  Roli nodded. “Medran?”

  “Saire said your friend has gone to ground in the outcropping. He’s safe. For now.” Winterwind pressed something hard and sticky into Roli’s good hand. “Try and eat some of this. You’ll need whatever strength you can muster. Unfortunately, once they’re on your trail, the only way to get rid of a wyrsa is to kill it or let it kill you. I’m not ready to become wyrsa fodder, and I assume you aren’t ready either.”

  Roli shook his head. He took a small bite of what looked to be a bar of grain and nuts. The mixture was both sweet and salty. Winterwind handed him a narrow-necked leather bag. “Drink.”

  Once again, Roli obeyed, tipping the bottom of the bag up. Water streamed out, cold and sweet. He drank greedily for a moment, then forced himself to stop. He handed the bag back to the Hawkbrother, nodding his thanks.

  “We need to move,” Winterwind started, but Roli was already struggling to his feet. His leg burned, but it still worked. Sort of. Roli took a deep breath, shrugged his knapsack back down into position, and picked up his bow from where it had fallen.

  Winterwind led the way up—not down, as Roli had expected. The Hawkbrother showed Roli how to sidle around the tree trunk to a branch that rose at a slight angle, then took off at a slow jog. Roli followed as best he could, trying to ignore the fire burning in his thigh, trying to ignore the fact that he was running—in growing darkness—along a tree branch a dozen yards or so above the ground.

  Another branch interlaced with the one they were running along. Winterwind gracefully leaped to the new branch and continued in the direction they’d been headed. After a moment’s hesitation, Roli followed, gritting his teeth against the pain.

  Medran needed him now. Needed him to be strong.

  I can do this, Roli told himself over and over. I can do this.

  Before long, he’d settled into a rhythm. Though he still limped, the fire in his leg had dulled. Whether that was good or bad, he didn’t know, but at least he could still move.

  The sharp resin smell of pine was stronger up here. Dark green needles interlaced like long, thin fingers in some spots, spread wide in others. From this height he could see the layers of branches forming the forest canopy . . .

  “Hold,” Winterwind whispered.

  Roli stopped behind the Hawkbrother and struggled to catch his breath. He peered around Winterwind, relieved to see a jagged ridge of rocks rising abruptly before them, some steep and jagged, others rounded and smooth. The outcropping was almost close enough to jump to, but still he was surprised to find he could see the rocks so clearly in the dark. The moon was already up, three-quarters full, lending an eerie glow to the rock that almost matched the dead-white of the wyrsa’s eyes.

  “There.” Winterwind pointed at a flat overhang jutting over a dark shadow about halfway up the outcropping. “Saire says he’s in that cave.”

  Roli turned away, intending to find a way down . . .

  “No.”

  The authority in Winterwind’s voice stopped Roli cold. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something move through the rocks. Something huge and black and sinuous.

  Wyrsa.

  Two of them.

  They swarmed up the outcropping, moving faster than anything he’d ever seen before.

  “No!” Roli screamed as the first wyrsa reached the spit of sand outside Medran’s cave. He grabbed an arrow from the quiver on his knapsack, nocked it, and aimed at the monster pacing back and forth in front of the small opening. He took a slow, deep breath . . . and released.

  The arrow flew true, hitting its target—and bouncing off.

  He quickly fit another arrow to the bowstring, aimed, and released.

  Once again, the arrow bounced harmlessly off the tough wyrsa hide.

  Winterwind sent an arrow of his own at the beasts.

  His arrow bounced free.

  Roli glanced around, frantic. There had to be some other weapon he could use besides the bow. There was no way he’d get an arrow into one of their eyes. Not at this distance.

  He stared at the rocks piled at the base of the outcropping, picked out a stone that looked to be about the size of his head, and struggled to lift it with his mind. The stone rose into the air . . .

  And flew straight back at the tree, thudding into the trunk about a yard below his feet. Bark sprayed and the sharp sting of resin drifted through the air.

  “Maybe you should adjust your aim,” Winterwind said.

  Anger flamed in Roli’s chest. He spun a tight circle toward the Hawkbrother, bow raised like a club.

  Winterwind grabbed his arm. “Hold on, little brother. I’m not the enemy here. They are.” The Hawkbrother’s face—crowned with leaves and needles and smeared with black clay—looked almost demonic in the moonlight. Winterwind pointed down at the rocks. “And since you were able to pull off such a display, I’m going to assume your skill is more like healing than stronger magic. Wyrsa consume magic the way a small child consumes dewdrops mixed with honey.”

  “What are you talking about? I don’t know anything about magic. I can just . . . do . . . things.” Roli let go of his anger and concentrated on another rock. This time he managed to mentally fling the heavy stone into the boulders near the first wyrsa’s head. The wyrsa whipped around, looking for an attacker.

  “Looks like you’ve got their attention,” Winterwind said.

  Roli gritted his teeth until they hurt. This time a small boulder almost the size of his chest rose into the air and smacked into the second wyrsa. The beast gave a funny half-hiss, half-yelp and spun around to glare into the tree where Roli was standing.

  His head started to ache, but he didn’t feel . . . bad. He felt like he was finally doing what he was supposed to be doing, though fighting wyrsa was not high on his list of want-to-do’s.

  “I’m going—” Winterwind started. Roli couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  “You run if you want,” he growled, rubbing his right temple. “Go ahead. Fly away, like your bird.”

  Winterwind’s face turned to ice. He raised his chin, looking like he wanted to strike. Then he took a deep breath. “One of us needs to lead the wyrsa away from the cave. You seem to have a knack for throwing things bigger than a hertasi skull, so it looks like I get to play b
ait.”

  Roli winced.

  “I only have these arrows.” Winterwind laid his bow carefully against the tree trunk, then set his arrows alongside it. “But I am faster than the wind, and twice as sly.” He gave a quick wink and took off at a run back along the branch, then stopped and turned back to Roli. “I’ll draw them closer and you smash them to bits, yes? Maybe send the whole hillside crashing down on them.”

  Winterwind didn’t wait for his okay. The Hawkbrother was down on the ground, running toward the wyrsa before Roli could wish him luck.

  He watched as Winterwind climbed the left side of the outcropping. Winterwind kept low until he was about halfway to where the beasts had Medran trapped. Then the Hawkbrother climbed on a boulder and started yelling.

  The beasts were after him faster than flies on fresh meat.

  Winterwind skipped down the rocks, leading the wyrsa away from the cave as Roli hurled rock after rock—big rocks, little rocks, black, white, and gray rocks—at the wyrsa like iron anvils. Sweat stung his eyes and trickled down his sides even though he was standing still.

  And the wyrsa kept on coming.

  Roli frantically tried pulling down a huge stack of rock like Winterwind had suggested, but his head felt as though a thousand hertasi were beating drums inside his skull, and he could only manage a small landslide that the creatures easily avoided.

  Winterwind looked as though he was getting winded. He turned back toward the trees . . .

  Twenty paces away from the tree line, he stumbled.

  The world faded, then sharpened until Roli could see the rough surface of the stones. He found the biggest one he could move and hurled it at the smaller of the two wyrsa with everything he had.

  It dropped in its tracks, head buried under the man-size boulder. Its legs twitched once, and then went still.

  An ear-splitting shriek startled Roli. He jerked backward, losing his balance, and caught his weight with his injured leg. Pain exploded in his thigh and darkness closed around the edges of his vision like fog rolling in on the hollow. His head hurt so bad he could hardly breathe.