Doom's Break

by Christopher Rowley

  "Something inside him snapped that day. He was already slipping into evil, but that day sent him over the cliff. His hate consumed him, Thru."

  And now, Thru thought, Pern was one of the men, in spirit if not in the flesh.

  "Then he must answer to the Spirit when the time comes. But it is not for us to say what shall be done with him, unless I come upon him in battle, in which case I will do my best to slay him. As I know he will me."

  Iallia's eyes glistened in the dark. He felt her hand find his. Though he was reluctant, he allowed the contact, and she was comforted.

  "Rest now. We will move again when it is dark."

  While the others slept, Thru sat with his back against the tree listening carefully to the sounds of dusk, mulling over their options. He heard deer moving down into the valley some ways off. Geese called as they headed over Garspike Ridge for the lakes beyond.

  To go down into the valley like the deer would only slow them down in the dense thickets. He decided they had to climb again. Upslope there came a point where the trees petered out beneath a stone cliff. If they could get up there, they could proceed westward no matter how dark it was, and when the moon came up there would be light enough to see where they were going.

  After an hour, he woke the others and helped the oldest back onto their feet.

  "Hold the hand of the person in front of you. Try not to get separated."

  "We can't see five feet under these trees," said old Gefeeler.

  "Nor can the pyluk."

  The moon had not yet risen, so they stumbled forward, following Thru, who wove a path through the trees. He moved slowly, allowing everyone behind him plenty of time to plant their feet as quietly as possible. Still they made noise. If the pyluk were listening, they would hear them. Thru gambled that the pyluk were asleep. Creatures of the daylight, pyluk rarely hunted at night.

  Thru called halts every few minutes while he carefully listened to their surroundings. Apart from an occasional call by either owl or wolf, the forest was almost silent. Once two mice, fighting under a log, gave them all a start with their sudden fierce chittering, but that was all.

  After a while, the moon rose and bathed the woods in gentle light. Thru could move more quickly, and they quickened their pace.

  The trees thinned out, and they emerged onto a zone of broken rock mounded along the base of the cliff. Nothing grew here, and the moon's light sent jagged shadows across the fallen stone.

  Thru studied the terrain ahead before he pulled his charges out of the trees and hurried them along at the margin, where the ground was easier to walk on than on the stone. A few clumps of trees struggled to survive here.

  Thru grew uneasy. Something was stalking them, he was certain. He settled his small band in the trees while he turned back to scout.

  He'd gone only twenty paces when a slight sound froze him in place. The sound was repeated, and he heard a stealthy tread above him somewhere, thirty feet up.

  The pyluk were directly above them.

  He heard more steps, and soon there were at least a dozen of the brutes up there, sniffing the air. Thru barely dared to breathe. A long half minute or so passed and then he heard a guttural mutter and the pyluk withdrew.

  He waited for several minutes before returning to the others. They had also heard those growls. They knew how close the pyluk had been. They were crouched together, frozen with terror, and he had to cajole them to get them moving again. By the time the sun rose. Thru wanted to be as far west, and as far away from the pyluk, as possible. So, with persuasion and even some shoving he got them going forward once more.

  They crossed the scree field at the base of the cliff and gradually came around to the western face of the ridge. They began to hear the thunder of Angel Falls to the north. Thru needed to start looking for a way down. While the moon was up, they would try to descend into the valley and under the cover of trees.

  Looking out into the western valley, limned with silver moonlight, they were all struck by the sinister beauty of the scene. Thru thought he detected a way down, through a gap in the thickets below. They started toward it, negotiating their way over rocks and boulders.

  Alas, after perhaps thirty yards, old Gefeeler tripped on a loose stone. With a sharp cry of fright, she slid down into a gully. Thru jumped down beside her to press his hand over her mouth.

  But it was too late. Nearby he heard the sound of heavy bodies running their way. Upon on the cliff top he could see the tips of pyluk spears approaching the western end.

  Harsh baying calls rang out into the night and, to his horror, they were answered by other pyluk coming up from the valley below.

  "Trapped!" said Iallia.

  Thru looked around them in desperation while pulling Gefeeler back to her feet.

  "Can you run?" he asked her.

  "No, I am spent."

  "You must run, or the pyluk will have you."

  "Then," she sobbed, "I will run."

  And so they ran, along the scree-strewn slope, heading north. The roar of the falls grew louder each time they came around another bend in the cliff. The pyluk on the cliff top easily kept pace with them, calling to their brethren in the forest below. The air had grown damp with the mist of the falls, and trees grew right up to the very edge of the vertical cliff face.

  Thru tried to think of a way out. Should they hide in the forest? The pyluk would winkle them out in no time. Should they double back? How could that work, with pyluk above observing their every movement?

  A stone whistled past his head, cast by a pyluk bull up above. There was no likelihood of escape.

  With a roar of triumph, another pyluk sprang from a tree behind them. Turning, Thru drew an arrow, took aim, and released. The pyluk gave a sharp cough of dismay as the arrow suddenly sprouted from his shoulder. Yet another green-skinned monster appeared behind the first, and more were coming.

  The mots ran, but they had nowhere to go. Another hundred steps brought them to the cool cloud that edged the ridge above Angel Falls. The rock was slippery and wet, cold to the touch. The river, here about fifteen feet wide and five feet deep, arched out into nothingness and then fell to the bottom of the gorge far below.

  "Jump," said Thru. "We have no choice."

  The mots stared at him, eyes drained of hope.

  "It is death to jump," whispered Gefeeler.

  "Maybe. But it is a worse death to stay here."

  A spear flew forth from the trees and flashed over Thru's head.

  The mots and mors jumped, launching themselves out into the curving waters.

  They fell for what seemed like an eternity, plummeting down past glistening black rock. Thru did his best to lock into a dive, hands outstretched to break the water's surface. He toppled but recovered and then struck the water hard. The shock was terrible, and after that he plunged into cold and dark. He touched bottom and looked up to a shining surface that seemed impossibly far away. A profound sense of regret overtook him. There was so much to do, but it would have to be done by others now. Then blackness closed over him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The Emperor Aeswiren had brought his army to the North. Once again, Admiral Heuze's fleet hung off the shores of Dronned, sails glittering in the sun. The flagship Anvil was third in the line of the first echelon. There were three echelons, all told, each of six great vessels, with the frigates farther out, upon the seaward flank.

  This time, however, they came not as enemies of the folk of Dronned but as allies in time of war. The irony of this was not lost on the admiral, or the Emperor either.

  Aeswiren had studied the shoreline with the spyglass and now stood with the admiral over the chart.

  "The best landing place would appear to be right there, at the mouth of the river." Aeswiren brushed the chart.

  "Aye, Your Majesty, that is exactly where we attempted to force a landing in the first year."

  "And that was where General Uisbank was taken captive."

  "That is correct."r />
  "A ridiculous plan. What was the man thinking?"

  "Begging your pardon, Lord, but Uisbank was not the most thoughtful of men, if you see what I mean."

  "Mmmm, perhaps I do, Admiral, perhaps I do. And now Uisbank has refused my personal request that he return to duty. He's quite free to return, you know. But he claims he has important work to do where he is and has declined my request that he report to me in person."

  "Well, Lord, deplorable as that is, I might suggest that it is quite understandable. He probably expects to be put to death if he does."

  Aeswiren nodded, accepting that this was not an unreasonable concern for General Uisbank. "Yes, I expect you're right. In his shoes, we'd probably feel the same." Aeswiren sighed and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, oppressed by the lack of trust shown by his missing general.

  "But, Lord, I should point out that there is a difficulty in using that site to land the army."

  "We will not be opposed by the mots."

  "No, but the enemy fleet is capable of sailing down on us to give battle at any time. It would make the operation of landing the army hazardous."

  Aeswiren pondered this a moment, then agreed.

  "Very well then. We will have to march farther on foot. Put us ashore as close to the city as possible."

  "A day's march, Emperor, that is the best I can do without risking the fleet."

  They exchanged a look, and Aeswiren gave a slow nod. He was not inclined to risk the fleet, not yet, not when the battle had not even taken shape. But he did want to get his men ashore. Their supplies were running low and could only be augmented by joining up with General Toshak and the mot army.

  And in the back of his mind, Aeswiren was also concerned about getting his men to cooperate with the mots. There would be friction, inevitably, and it would take a little while for the two armies to work out methods of operating together.

  Aeswiren had heard enough reports of the prowess of General Toshak's army to be confident in the mots' abilities. His own men were battle-hardened veterans, and he was confident that the two armies together would be strong enough to shatter any host the Old One might land from his fleet.

  But first he had to get ashore.

  "All right, Admiral, a day's march will do. The enemy is waiting for something, some portent, some sign from his god, I know not, but while he waits we will act."

  "Could it be that he awaits another fleet?" said Heuze, deeply uneasy.

  "Very unlikely, Admiral. Just to produce the fleet they have, the shipyards must have been working flat-out since I left Shasht. There's very little that I don't know about our shipyards; there just isn't the capacity to build more than that. Our enemy must have gutted the treasury to build this second fleet so quickly."

  Admiral Heuze still had questions. "Begging your pardon, Your Majesty, but what the hell is he doing? It makes no sense. Why does he wait there, idling his ships, while we have the time to sail up here and join forces with the monkeys?"

  Aeswiren sighed and unrolled the chart farther. Inland, the terrain rose slowly, through hills and dales up into higher hills and then to the great sweep of the high mountains.

  "I wish I knew."

  —|—

  When his eyes opened once again, Thru felt like part of a miracle unfolding. He was alive! Not only that, he was warm, indeed almost hot, and he wasn't wearing a stitch of clothing. All around him was softness, warm and dry and carrying a smell that was familiar from childhood. A dim light came from somewhere above.

  He shifted position and gave a groan of pain from the soreness along his left side. As he reached around himself, his hand brushed against a solid mass of woven twigs. His other hand brushed against someone's arm. Ignoring the pain, he pulled himself to a sitting position, causing his head to graze a woven ceiling of more twigs.

  In the dimness he could just make out the legs and torso of another mot lying beside him. He leaned closer. It was Iallia.

  His nearness awoke her.

  "Thru?"

  Her eyes gleamed, a sign of life in this strange netherplace.

  "Are we dead? Is this the afterlife?"

  Thru considered the question. Could it be? Could this be the realm of the dead? The Assenzi said that after death one's spirit returned to the Great Spirit that breathed throughout the world, but perhaps they were wrong.

  Then he laughed. The sound seemed strangely loud and yet hushed by the soft down that they lay upon. The source of the slightly sweet, almost nutty smell had come back to him at last.

  "No, we're not dead. We're in a chook nest."

  Iallia's eyes blinked, an effect that was almost comical in those conditions. "Chooks? But how? We're miles from any village."

  Thru had no idea, but he squeezed past her and crawled across the floor of the nest until he found an opening to the outside world. There was dim light, filtered by the enormous mass of twigs set atop the nest. He found an opening and wormed his way upward until he could get his head out into the open air, at once colder and filled with evening light.

  It was just as he'd thought. They were in a wild chook nest, built in the low fork of a big oak tree about six feet from the ground. The nest was a huge mass of branches and twigs, woven together into an immense basket and lined with dry leaves and chook down for warmth.

  After examining his side as best he could and determining that he had no broken bones, Thru clambered out of the nest and stood on the low branch that it rested on. He noted that, placed as it was, the nest was relatively safe from wolves, who would have a hard time scrambling up to get to the lower branches. Long before wolves could do that, the wily chooks would have scrambled higher, out of reach.

  Before him was a narrow glade set among oaks of magnificent girth. He saw no sign of the builders of the nest but plenty of evidence of their coming and going. The ground was heavily marked by their tracks.

  Iallia popped her head out of the top of the nest.

  "Where are they?"

  "Good question. There must be several of them living here, judging by the tracks they've left."

  "Not to mention moving us here from the river."

  Thru shook his head slowly in wonderment. Chooks had no arms, no hands to grasp with, but they did have strong beaks and neck muscles.

  "It must have been quite a job."

  "And what about the others?"

  Only then did Thru realize that he and Iallia were alone.

  "I don't know."

  "And where are our clothes?" said Iallia, who clearly didn't relish emerging naked from the nest.

  Before Thru could answer, he heard a sudden disturbance in the undergrowth close by. He whirled around, prepared to defend himself. However, nothing more threatening than a pair of big yellow chooks emerged from the brush.

  "Hello!" they chorused in cheerful chook voices. "We are Chenk and Mukka, and there are also Pikka and Dunni, but they are behind, bringing food."

  The big birds came bouncing forward to stand on either side of Thru. They examined him with their big, black eyes.

  "You will be wanting your clothes, we know. But they are still drying out. You were very wet when we found you."

  "We give thanks that you did, friends. I am Thru, this is Iallia, and we are from the coast. But tell me, did you see any others? There were more of us."

  The chooks exchanged looks and bobbed their heads several times in unison, a sure sign that they were uncomfortable. "Yes, we found others. All dead. We have been burying them. Would you like to see?"

  Thru closed his eyes. His attempt to rescue the old mots and mors had failed.

  "Yes. I am sorry for that news."

  "You fell from the top of the mountain, very far, too far for them, almost too far for you."

  "Yes, we fled from the pyluk. There are many pyluk up there."

  The chooks stared at them with big eyes. "Will they come down here?"

  "Soon, I think they will. It would be best if we were all a long way from here by then."
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  "Can you travel?"

  Thru hesitated. He could feel bruises and soreness all down one side, probably from the impact with the water. "I think so. We don't have much choice in the matter, not if we want to live."

  The two chooks looked at each other again and bobbed their heads.

  "If pyluk come here, we cannot stay."

  "True. We must all go down the valley. You will not be safe here."

  "We came here when everyone fled from our village, Chumsley."

  Two other chooks emerged from the woods, each bearing strings of berries in their beaks.

  "Look, here are Dunni and Pikka, with vine berries for you."

  Pausing only to eat some of the berries, which were very red and sweet, Thru accompanied Chenk and Mukka down the path to another clearing where the chooks had laboriously scraped shallow graves and placed the bodies therein.

  Thru knelt beside the graves and offered up a prayer for the oldsters who had been torn from their lives, driven into flight, and then caught up in the nightmare of capture by men and abduction into these mountains.

  When he was finished, Chenk and Mukka reappeared, carrying Thru's and Iallia's clothing. "They are almost dry. The coat is still damp, but it is close enough."

  "Thank you, friends. You have saved our lives, and in so doing you have helped to save the Land, because I have very important information that must be brought to General Toshak."

  The chooks, already solemn in the light of all that had happened, grew round-eyed at these words. "We hear you, and we are ready to do our part."

  "Yes," chimed in Mukka, "you have big information. We help."

  Thru put his clothes back on, thankful that his boots were still wearable. "You must help, friends. And in case something happens to me, you must go to the general yourself."

  Chenk and Mukka blinked. "But we are only chooks!" they said in unison.

  "Chooks are people, too."

  "But the general is a mighty person. He will not have time to listen to a couple of chooks," protested Chenk.

  "Not so, my friends, not when you tell them you have a message from Thru Gillo."