Cyril beat him to it. Spinning around and seeing his grandson rushing toward him with unbridled fear, he set himself and struck Frank with the palm of his hand in the center of the chest right where the ribs meet the stomach, paralyzing his diaphragm and stunning him into instant submission. Then he followed through, knocking Frank backward with his shoulder and laying him down against the upward side of the path. He stepped over him and raced to Ben.
He said nothing, instead holding Ben’s eyes for a moment and nodding to himself with a quiet sigh of relief. He stood abruptly, drawing his sword and motioning back the way they’d come. Hound unslung Bertha with a grim smile and brought the weapon to his shoulder. Ben tracked the direction of the barrel and his fear spiked again.
The stalker, a big grey wolf with black eyes and patches of mangy fur all over its body, was loping up the trail toward them, a single-minded need to kill seeming to radiate from its very presence.
But then it stopped, well out of range of Hound’s shotgun—a fact that only served to heighten its frightfulness. It barked a few times, savagely and intensely. Each time, a sharp crack filled the air, and each time, fear flooded into Ben’s stomach. Each bark, a statement of horrible intent.
It tipped its head back and howled, tearing into the calm air and into Ben’s sanity, sending birds scattering and silencing the rest of the forest inhabitants.
“Why doesn’t it attack?” Hound said, even his voice a bit unsteady.
“Because it knows that you’ll kill it if it does,” Cyril said.
“How can a wolf be that smart?” Imogen asked, her voice trembling.
“It’s not a wolf—at least not anymore,” Cyril said.
“You hit me,” Frank croaked, still struggling to regain his breath.
“You panicked,” Cyril said, without turning away from the stalker.
“And you almost knocked me off the edge,” Ben said, shooting his brother a look.
“I didn’t have any choice,” Frank said, without looking up.
Ben ignored him, dropping his pack and drawing his sword.
“I don’t like that thing,” Homer said, from behind Ben. “It smells like it’s dead. Dead things shouldn’t be running around.”
“Can’t argue with that.”
The twang of a bowstring announced John’s attack. The arrow sailed true, hitting the creature in the haunch, driving deeply through it, the bladed head emerging just next to its tail, the feathered shaft jutting at an angle from its rump. The stalker snarled and barked, not in pain or fear, but with rage and unsatisfied bloodlust—but these barks didn’t send shockwaves of fear through Ben like the others had. He frowned to himself, filing yet another question away for later reflection.
“Don’t waste your arrows,” Cyril said.
Hound slung Bertha and snatched up a rock the size of an apple, tossing it a foot into the air to gauge its weight before hurling it at the stalker with surprising accuracy. It bounced off the thing’s head and elicited a growling snarl that brought every hair on Ben’s body to rigid attention.
Hound picked up another rock and started toward the creature.
“Rufus!” Cyril snapped, but Hound ignored him.
Cyril followed, sword raised and at the ready.
The stalker came quickly, bounding toward Rufus with alarming speed. He threw the rock, a direct strike to the eye, sending a spray of blood onto the nearby rocks … but the impact didn’t even slow the beast down. Ben was mesmerized by its speed. It closed the distance before Hound could bring Bertha up and around, leaping at him with jaws snapping, crashing into him and knocking him back onto the trail. When the stalker landed on top of him, Hound managed to save himself from a quick death by jamming the stock of his shotgun into the beast’s mouth.
As Rufus fell backward, Cyril danced lightly out of the way, whipping his sword around and stabbing the creature through the ribs and out the other side of the chest, pulling his blade out a moment later as he braced his foot against the beast’s neck. It didn’t seem to notice the grievous wound. Its single-minded focus was directed at Hound. A man of lesser strength wouldn’t have been able to resist such a ferocious attack, but Hound matched the creature with a rage of his own, holding Bertha’s stock in its mouth as he struggled to heave the beast off of him.
It began clawing at Hound’s chest like a dog digging for a bone, tearing long gouges into his hardened leather breastplate until blood seeped through. Rufus shouted out in pain, his determination faltering with a slip of his focus. As the stalker bore down on Bertha, her stock began to crush and splinter, the creature’s jaws coming dangerously close to Hound’s face.
Ben reached the thing, half unaware of what he was doing, driven by a frantic need to protect his grandfather and Hound, half terrified by his own actions, and wholly propelled by his training and instinct. He stabbed the beast in the eye, a clean, hard thrust that drove the blade into its head and out the back of its skull. When the creature flinched away from the attack, Ben’s sword slipped from his grasp. Cyril kicked the stalker in the side, forcing it to lose its balance and teeter over the edge of the trail. Hound rolled, using the shotgun to leverage the beast, and sent it tumbling down the boulder-strewn slope several hundred feet to the bottom, taking Ben’s sword with it.
“Holy shit,” Hound said, flopping onto his back. “Next time you tell me to stop, I think I might actually listen.”
Cyril held out his hand and helped him to his feet.
Hound stood there, inspecting Bertha and shaking his head in disgust. “Look what that thing did to you, Girl,” he muttered, blood trickling from the deep scratches on his chest.
“Never mind your shotgun,” Cyril said. “Take off your armor. Your wounds need tending. There’s no telling what kind of filth a beast like that has under its nails.”
Frowning, Hound gently set his shotgun down and unbuckled his leather armor. The gouges were just deep enough to bleed. Cyril opened his pack and went to work cleaning and bandaging the wounds. Hound didn’t flinch or complain, though Ben could tell from the tension in his face that it hurt.
“Can you walk?” Cyril asked when he’d finished.
Hound just smirked and got to his feet, albeit a bit unsteadily. He inspected his shotgun again, shaking his head sadly.
“Frank, I’m going to need that hatchet of yours.”
“What for?”
Hound glared at him until he reluctantly handed over the axe. Several strokes later, Bertha’s stock was gone, a crude, but serviceable pistol grip in its place. He handed Frank the axe and went to work restringing Bertha’s strap.
“We should be going,” John said, pointing down the slope.
Ben wasn’t sure what he was seeing until John handed him a monocular. He put it to his eye and felt his heartbeat accelerate as he watched the stalker lope into the woods, headed in the direction that they were going. It still had his sword sticking clear through its head.
“How is that possible?” Ben asked, handing Cyril the small telescope.
“It isn’t alive,” Cyril said.
“Then how can we possibly kill it?” Frank asked.
“First, you don’t run away like a pussy,” Hound said.
Frank clenched his jaw. “What was I supposed to do?”
“You almost knocked your brother off the edge,” Cyril said. “You have to control your fear better than that.”
“Look, I’m sorry Ben was in the way, but I had to get away from that thing.”
Homer whined, subtle mockery in the tone.
“Time to go,” John said. “The Dragon Guard are probably close.”
“Good,” Hound said. “Something I can kill that’ll actually die.”
“I’d rather not get lit on fire if we can help it,” Cyril said. “Also, this isn’t the best battlefield.”
“Maybe it is,” Ben said, pointing toward a section of the upward slope littered with scree and lots of large rocks. “If we go a ways farther, we can circle back a
long that ridge and ambush them with a rockslide.”
“I like it,” Hound said. “Much rather make a stand than run headlong into that stalker.”
“And what’s your contingency?” Cyril asked.
Ben frowned.
“If the rockslide fails, then what?”
“We’d have the high ground,” John said.
“True enough,” Cyril said. “But they have superior weapons.”
“Bertha’s still got some fight left in her,” Hound said.
“I don’t doubt that, but John’s arrows won’t penetrate their armor and Ben is without a sword. Also, we don’t know how close they are, if they’re even following us at all. Perhaps a better course would be to trigger a rockslide and be on our way. If we’re lucky, the debris will make the trail too treacherous to traverse.”
“Either way, we should get off this slope,” Imogen said.
“Can’t argue with that,” Hound said.
Chapter 9
John set out again, moving at a brisk pace. Ben found that he had to focus on walking lest he step on an errant stone and twist his ankle. He was glad for the distraction, given recent events.
He felt naked without his sword, vulnerable. Admittedly, it hadn’t done him much good, but it did make him feel like he had a fighting chance. Without it, he was at the enemy’s mercy.
When they reached the far side of the scree field and came to a small stand of trees, Ben eyed a sapling. It was a small straight tree with a set of branches forking away at the same knot.
“Frank, let me borrow your axe,” he said.
Frank frowned, hesitating for a moment before handing over his hatchet.
Ben quickly began cutting away at the tree until he had the rough outline of a boar spear—a long spear with a crossbeam that would stop a boar from pushing its way up the shaft.
He handed his brother the axe and then went to work with his knife, stripping away the twigs and sharpening the center branch and the two smaller branches, which were now only six inches long and formed a stop point at the eighteen-inch mark of the stout spike.
Hound nodded approvingly after Ben had finished creating his makeshift weapon. “Not bad for a kid,” he said with a mocking smile.
Ben ignored him.
“Looks like we can get to the ridgeline right there,” John said, pointing up the trail.
Cyril looked at the sky and then scanned the path to the top of the scree field. “If we do this, we won’t make much more distance today.”
“Not sure we have a choice,” John said, handing Cyril his monocular and pointing across the expanse.
After a quick look, Cyril returned the monocular and let out a long sigh. “We have to hurry,” he said. “That patch of rocks is our best bet.” He pointed to a collection of a dozen or so large boulders all piled in a jumble jutting up from the steep slope. “We’ll move up the ridgeline and then come straight down behind those rocks. John, you lead.”
Durt set out without a word. It was a harsh pace, especially considering the elevation gain. Each step forward seemed to take them only half a step up. Ben found himself struggling to overcome the burn in his legs and the difficulty he was having keeping his lungs filled with air.
Cyril stopped, breathing heavily as well. Everyone else took the opportunity to put their hands on their knees and regain control over their breathing.
“We have to hurry,” John said, pointing back the way they’d come. A string of six men were now clearly visible, their black armor standing out in stark relief to the whitish-grey of the rocky slope in sunlight.
They reached the base of the spur and the terrain shifted from a steep climb over grassy dirt into a more gradual ascent up the rocky ridgeline. As they gained altitude, they had to slow down to ensure they didn’t take a bad step. A fall down one side would send them sliding to the trail and into the approaching enemy. A fall down the other side would drop them off a cliff into a narrow ravine fifty feet below.
Ben watched his footing while he tried to master his labored breathing. Before he knew it, Cyril and John had stopped, first scanning the enemy and then the slope they would have to descend to reach the boulders.
“I doubt they can see us here, but they’ll probably notice if we disturb the scree,” John said.
“Say we make it down there, then what?” Frank said. “Even if we can wipe them out with a rockslide, how are we going to get down afterwards?”
“I’m not sure we have a choice,” Ben said. “If we wait here, they’ll probably see us, but if we all go at once, then they’ll just a see a rockslide on an unstable slope.”
“He’s right,” Cyril said. “Together then?” He put out his hands to Imogen and Frank.
“This is crazy,” Frank muttered.
Ben took Imogen’s free hand.
“You ready?” he said to Homer.
“Would it matter?”
“Not really,” Ben said, and then they went, stepping onto the scree slope and sliding on a wave of loose stone. It happened fast, much more quickly than Ben imagined it would, with one of the consequences being a painful crash at the bottom when they came to an abrupt halt against the cluster of boulders amid a shower of clattering stones.
“Anyone hurt?” Cyril asked before standing.
Ben checked his extremities and found that he was pretty beat up, but unbroken.
He looked to Homer. “You okay?”
“My feet hurt,” his dog said.
Ben chuckled to himself as he stumbled to his feet on the loose and uneven debris. He was happy to see that the stone formation completely shielded them from view.
“Goddamn it, that hurt!” Frank said.
“Not so loud,” Cyril said.
“You all right?” John asked Imogen as he helped her to her feet.
She nodded with a pained and somewhat forced smile. A trickle of blood ran down her forehead and around her eye.
Ben slipped up to the top of a boulder and looked for the Dragon Guard. Finding them a few minutes away, he started looking at the stability of the big rocks, hoping to find one he thought they might be able to dislodge. On the side closest to the approaching enemy, he found nothing promising, but the far side yielded better results.
A menhir stood like a statue, separated from the nearby stones by a foot of daylight. It was at least twenty feet tall and looked to be about twelve feet around at the top. It was balanced on a stone a couple of feet across, worn away by ages of wind and water. Below the small monolith lay a field of smaller stones and then the path.
Ben looked at Hound and pointed to a shelf eight or ten feet up the sheer stone wall. “Help me get up there,” he said.
Hound eyed the shelf and shrugged, getting into place and offering his hands, fingers interlaced together. Ben steadied himself with a hand on Hound’s shoulder, then put his foot into his hands. As he stepped up, Hound nearly launched him into the air, propelling him to the shelf in a blink. He struggled for a moment to gain a handhold, and then another. Once he’d swung his legs up onto solid ground, he reached down and took his spear from Cyril and braced himself to help his grandfather up. They made their way to the top of the stone outcropping along a precarious but relatively clear path of steps and shelves, crouching low as they moved carefully across the top boulder to the trigger stone. It was completely separated from the rest of the stones on all sides, its only solid connection with the world at the single point where it balanced on the small stone underneath it.
“It’s perfect,” Cyril said, assessing the progress of the Dragon Guard. “If we trigger now, they might just turn back.”
“Or we might lose our best chance to end their pursuit,” Ben said.
Cyril grimaced and looked down, nodding ever so slightly to himself.
“I don’t understand,” Ben said. “You trained me to be ruthless in battle, to strike fast and hard, to never let up once I have the enemy wounded. Ever since I can remember, I’ve learned about war and violence from you
. Now that I’m faced with a real enemy in a real battle, you hesitate to kill at every turn. Why?”
Cyril shrugged helplessly. “Because killing is so final. I don’t want that stain on your conscience.”
“Why not? They deserve it.”
“‘Deserve’ is a judgment. Killing someone because you deem that they deserve it places you in an untenable moral position.”
“They’re not going to stop,” Ben said.
“No, they’re not. That’s why I’m up here with you. Killing for defense, especially defense against evil, is morally justifiable. These Dragon Guard are the enemy, they’re evil, and they intend to kill or enslave us.” He stopped, holding Ben with his eyes. “Always be absolutely certain you know why someone needs to die before you kill them. Killing in defense, you can live with. But kill an innocent and you’ll discover the true meaning of the word ‘hell.’”
Cyril sat down and put his feet against the trigger stone. Gentle pressure didn’t budge it. Firmer pressure caused a few pebbles to come free, showering the cliff face with a clattering rain of stone.
“I think we can topple it if I push and you use your spear as a lever,” Cyril said. “Stay low until they’re right where we want them.”
The Dragon Guard moved torturously slow, crawling across the expansive scar in the side of Mount McLaughlin. Ben saw sunlight flash on a golden braid of hair. Nash was the last person in the file.
He started to feel anxious, anticipating the outcome, fearing a thousand possible disasters, catching himself in the futile and distracting practice and then chiding himself for losing focus. He looked over at Cyril. His grandfather was calm and steady, his eyes locked on the enemy, his breathing slow and easy.
Ben glanced down toward the Dragon Guard as they entered the slide area. He held his breath, waiting for Cyril to give the order … but it didn’t come.
Instead, his grandfather braced himself and gave a heaving shove with both legs against the precariously balanced stone. It swayed, sending another shower of pebbles down the slope and drawing Nash’s attention. A moment later, a sharp cracking noise reverberated away from the mountain and the trigger stone began to topple.
The Dragon's Egg (Dragonfall Book 1) Page 8