And as for me, I had no defenses but a sword against the death that came on feet and wings against me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
AT THE POINT OF DEATH
There were three dozen or more of Vohanna’s hybrid guards, unholy mixtures of man and horse and ape, of ghyre and reeth and half a hundred other Taleran monsters. There were the winged ones, shrieking like banshees as they whirled above me. And there was Bryce, with foam flecking his lips in rage at being thwarted by his mistress. He’d wanted to take my life himself; it seemed he would have to share.
I gripped my sword in clenched fingers, wishing suddenly at the point of death that I could at least say goodbye to Rannon. But still my body wanted to live. I began to inch away, seeking instinctively for something to put my back against.
For a moment, Bryce turned and snarled upon the others.
“I told you he was mine!” he shouted.
And for a bare fraction of time the hybrids slowed.
I pivoted and ran.
There was a door, I remembered suddenly, almost certainly leading to a holding area for those who would fight or train in this arena. But was it an exit? Or a dead end? Either way, it was my only hope. To reach it. To get through. To flee.
Behind me I heard the bull-throated roar of the hybrid guards as they saw me run. I heard the shrieks of the winged ones as they saw the same, and heard the pitch of those shrieks alter as leather wings folded and they dived upon me. It was the change in pitch that saved me.
My boots pounded the sand. Dust rose. I heard the winged ones coming, felt them coming. At the last instant I threw myself to the ground. The umbral shadows of wings swept over me; a talon raked a gash across my scalp but didn’t tear my head off.
I rolled and came up running. The door was right there. In front of me. I prayed it wasn’t locked.
It was.
But it was made of wood and not metal.
I spun. Two of the winged devils launched themselves upon me. I slashed off a leg whose talons would have removed my face. The wounded monster screamed, swerved, crashed into its fellow. Together they pinwheeled to the ground. The others circled, looking for their opening. It wouldn’t take them long to find it.
The first of the hybrid guards reached me. Most were huge, slow enough to give me time, but this one was some sleek mixture of tiger, reeth, and man. With nothing but teeth and claws, it hurtled at me on all fours. I swayed aside, hooked one arm over its back and one under its front legs to add my own weight and momentum as I rammed it head first into the locked door. I was practically riding it as it hit and we crashed through the wooden panels in a shout of splintering wood and the cracking sound of the tiger-reeth’s skull.
I tumbled over the creature’s body, staggered up again. A thrown dagger whipped by close enough to fan my hair, and the shock of that galvanized my legs. The holding area was not a dead end. I ran.
Down a long, dimly lit corridor I raced, with the impression of wooden pens crowding close on either side of me. The roof was low enough to prevent the winged hybrids from following, and when I glanced back I could not see Bryce either. But I saw and heard the stalking, slithering, thudding of the others in pursuit.
I ran faster, then stumbled suddenly as from somewhere deep under my feet in the pyramid there came a shuddering rumble. Dust puffed from the stone walls; hanging glow globes swayed. I fired another glance over my shoulder to see that the hybrid guards were still coming, two abreast, but they themselves were slowing as the pyramid’s shaking continued.
Then the rumble intensified. The world seemed to rock. I grabbed at the wall to steady myself but a sudden jolting lurch threw me from my feet. Some of the hybrids were down too; others milled about, staggering, giving voice to plaintive cries and mewls of terror and surprise.
A stairway loomed to my left. I shoved my sword into my belt, pushed to my feet and grasped the stone railing to drag myself up the steps. I had no idea what was happening. Was it the fleet attacking? It was going on too long to be an earthquake.
Again there came a lurch that threw my boots from under me. My knee cracked on a step. A wall frieze crumbled, dropping blocks of engraved marble around me. I flung my arms over my head for protection. Dust exploded in my face, carrying the dry, worn smell of age.
Something slapped wetly around my leg and I rolled onto my side to see that one of hybrids had—somehow—managed to reach me. It had tentacles instead of arms, and the head of a woman on the body of a human male. Hag-eyes of crimson flared hate at me as its rubbery tentacles wrapped my thigh. I felt them rippling, squeezing as it tried to drag me downward.
Bile burst ripe into my mouth and I lashed out frantically with a foot, kicking, kicking. The heel of my boot pulped half the thing’s face and it released me with a shriek as it tumbled backward down the steps.
Other screaming rang now. I thought it was mine until I heard the pitch of it rise inhumanly high and realized it was the building screaming, that it was stone scraping and sliding rawly on stone. On the landing above me, a hulking obscenity of a statue rocked and fell, went bounding metallically over me down the steps. I heard the tentacled hybrid squeal as the heavy bronze crashed upon it, pinning it beneath half a ton of weight.
Then I was on my feet, hurling myself up the steps despite the shaking. At the landing there branched off corridors to left and right while the stairs unwound forever above me. I took the right corridor, hoping my enemies would follow the stairs, hoping this tunnel would lead to an outside wall—and a door away from this place before it shuddered itself into pieces.
But even as I thought of the pyramid coming apart, and even as I sighted a door at the end of the corridor that I followed, the lurching tremors died away to leave no more than an eerie whisper, as if of silk sliding on callused skin. In the quiet, I knew Vohanna’s guards would be after me again. And soon, if not already, the Nyshphalian fleet would be engaged in desperate battle outside this stone prison.
I had to escape; I hoped the door in front of me was the way. It was shaped like an oval, like a ship’s hatch, and closed off with overlapping panels of steel. I feared it was locked and knew I could not break through it, but it irised open as I slapped the latch across its center.
Beyond, I saw an emerald flash of the spring Taleran sky. With an exultant shout, I leaped through the door—and found myself teetering on the lip of a narrow ledge, with the sharp incline of the black wall beneath me and a thousand foot drop between me and the green-brown earth.
The pyramid was airborne.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
HEART OF WAR
Vertigo gripped me as I balanced on the wafer-thin edge of a fatal fall. Wind beat at my clothes. A wild open sky screamed all around. Below lay the receding jungle, a blast of green among dry, brown plains. And pouring up from among the trees were long dark lines of saddle bird riders—Vohanna’s army.
I ripped myself loose from the edge, threw myself at the open frame of the hatch through which I’d come, and grabbed hold. My heart sped like a loom-shuttle in my chest. The black pyramid was an airship, a dreadnought of the skies.
Abruptly our speed slackened. We drifted to a hovering halt. From below, the birds and their riders began to catch up, began to form phalanxes whose spears and crossbows spattered the emerald sunlight. Beyond the farthest such grouping, above the jungle, I glimpsed the forging air-fleet of Nyshphal, its flanks protected by squadrons of its own saddle bird cavalry.
Between the columns of out-fliers came the big ships, dark hulled against the bright sky, with maroon sails straining at the wind. Even at this distance I could detect the activity that beehived the decks of those ships. I could see the flags whipping and knew they bore the symbols of the Nyshphalian state and the crest of the house of Jystral—Rannon’s house. I knew that upon those flags, too, were sewn the emblems of honor gained in hard battle by the great galleons.<
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A fierce pride swept me. I shouted out, though the wind tore the words from my mouth and I know not what I said. These were my people. Whether or not they wanted me, I had chosen them. And I would fight for them now.
In the next instant, I was made to realize how desperate that fight would be, and how all the glory and honor of the ships and their crews would not hold them safe from harm. Above and below me in the pyramid walls, portals slammed open and the evil black snouts of cannon poked through.
With a start, I remembered. There were supposed to be four cannon-armed airships in Vohanna’s armada. Three I’d blown up; I’d not found the fourth. Until now. What devastation this one massive gun-ship could wreak among a packed Nyshphalian fleet armed with catapults and ballista I could only guess. And there was no one to stop that destruction but me.
A wheel-dagger caromed off the doorframe above my head, spalling off chips of stone that bit blood at my cheeks. It had been thrown from behind, from the corridor I had just exited.
I spun, dropping into a crouch, my sword seeming to jump into my hand. Three of Vohanna’s hybrids had found me. Only three. The others must have split off to follow other corridors. I was lucky the wheel-dagger had missed, though it must have been an awkward throw from within the narrow hallway.
I leaped into the corridor to meet the three within it, where they could come at me only one at a time. The first looked human except for the clacking mandibles that would have been more at home on a mantis. It was he who had thrown the dagger, and only now did he reach for his sword. I repaid that little stupidity with a foot of steel through his insect mouth.
The second...“man” had three arms on one side of his body, four tentacles on the other. He hacked at me with a saber and I blocked it on the forte of my sword. We strained there, with no room to free our blades. But his tentacles were lashing, striking like hooded cobras. I felt the burn of suckers across my face and shoulder, felt my left arm wrapped in rubbery flesh and nearly jerked from its socket as he tried to pull me forward within reach of the knife held in his third fist.
I threw myself against him. Our long blades unlocked. I butted him savagely in the face with my forehead as he started to swing his dagger. He groaned with the stunning shock of that blow, lost control of the dagger. It cut a gash through my jeans and through the thin flesh over my hip, scraped on bone and then spun free of nerveless fingers to clatter against the wall. The grip of his tentacles went momentarily loose; I tore myself away.
He knew what was coming. Even with his face bloodied and his mind surely a kaleidoscope of bright pain behind his pupils, he tried to lift his saber. It didn’t help. I stabbed him twice in the gut with my sword, then stepped back, my anger cold at being cut yet again.
The man’s body spasmed; the red in his eyes faded. He suddenly looked...scared. Then he was smashed casually aside from behind and a bellow shook dust from the corridor walls as my third foe charged upon me.
There was nothing human in the creature that came against me now. He was massive as a bull—part reptilian Klar, part leonine Nokarran, part something that I could not name. He stank. His eyes were hell-kites of vermillion. In broad hands he carried a war-hammer with a head of black iron as big as my skull.
I slashed at him, cut him shallowly across the shoulder. He shrugged it off. Those shoulders were scaled thickly enough to turn his own flesh into viridescent armor.
There was little room for the beast to swing his hammer, but the head of it was crowned with a long, wicked spike that he thrust at me like a lance. I leaped back, and he stabbed at me again. Again I retreated, leaving blood in my boot prints as it ran down my leg under my jeans. The hip wound I’d taken was not deep, had not severed any muscles or arteries. But it bled and I was already weak from previous wounds and from days of nearly constant physical and mental strain.
The door to the outside loomed behind me. I’d wanted to hold my enemies in the corridor but I couldn’t stop this one. My breathing was an echoing rasp in the narrow area. I gave ground; the beast followed in short rushes, thrusting his war-hammer ahead of him.
I parried with my sword to keep him off, then half turned and leaped through the doorway onto the ledge. He charged after and I slashed hard at him as I twisted on the narrow walkway under the open sky. He blocked with the bone-reinforced haft of his hammer, then spun the heavy weapon and drove it across his waist at me. I leaped back and the iron head of the thing slammed into the pyramid’s wall, racking away cover stone to reveal the softer rock beneath. He’d almost had me.
The creature drew his hammer up, stalked after me as I backed down the ledge. The wind was cold on my clammy skin. I spared a quick glance behind me. Just a few feet away the flat stretch of walkway ended in steps that angled up the side of the pyramid. Beyond that was another flat stretch, and then more steps in a zigzag all the way to the top.
I’d looked away too long. The hybrid launched an attack. Somehow I dodged it, struck back with my sword quickly enough to carve a narrow groove over the inside of his forearm. There was no blood, but he roared in anger and smashed his hammer sideways at me in a tremendous blow. I ducked beneath it, slashed him viciously across the belly. There, too, he was scaled, and the armored hide turned the stroke, leaving no more than a deep scratch.
In the next instant the beast snapped the haft of his war-hammer up into my left shoulder. It was like getting hit with a sledge. My arm went numb. I staggered back. My boots caught on the first step behind me and I crashed down on my hip and side. Bright pain lanced through me as the hybrid raised the hammer and brought it shocking down.
Desperately, I kicked out, met the shaft of the descending hammer with the heel of my boot and deflected it just enough to make it miss me. His blow struck the stairs instead, with a clang that seemed to jar the whole pyramid. A piece of step cracked away and went spinning off into the sky.
I got my boots and hands under me and scrambled up the steps to another flat stretch of ledge. I rose there, turning to face the beast with my sword ready. For a moment we paused. Sweat ran and stung on my body. My heart slammed. There was no time for this. Already I could hear the roar coming up from the throats of Vohanna’s bird riders as the first arrows were exchanged with the advancing Nyshphalian fleet. I dared not spare a glance.
I backed two more steps along the ledge; the hybrid started toward me, his boots stamping on the stairs. He moved in quick bursts, the war-hammer counting time like a pendulum in front of him. He was too strong. His hide was like chainmail. I’d cut him and cut him but the wounds seemed only shaving nicks on his massive frame.
The pyramid stirred, began to drift toward the approaching fleet, and the sloping face of the stone brushed my shoulder as my legs found their balance. The beast halted on the steps to catch his own equilibrium. He gloated up at me, as if sensing the growth of my fear.
But for now he was below me.
I exploded forward from my position but did not make my lunge directly at him. Two quick steps I took—up the slanting wall of the pyramid. And just as my momentum failed, I pushed off from the side, spun and lashed a kick into the hybrid’s face. The blow did not hurt him, but even as my spine crashed against the pyramid and I slid down onto the steps at his mercy, the beast took a step back to counter the imbalance caused by my kick.
Only, there was nothing to step back on.
I saw the creature’s facial expression change, saw the pupils and nostrils flare. He gave a cry that was half angry bellow, half plaintive mewl. He thrust out the hammer for balance, but it wasn’t enough. And I watched as he toppled backward into the brightly lit void of the air. I rose to my knees, chest heaving, and saw my enemy spin into a black top until finally, far below, he joined with the jungle.
But there was no time to relax. The speed of this...ship began to increase beneath me. In moments her cannon would be brought to bear on the Nyshphalian armada. I forced myself to my
feet, glanced up to the apex of the pyramid. Somewhere up there, I assumed, Vohanna would have her control room—in a place with an unobstructed view.
If I were wrong.... I shook my head. If I were wrong then all would be lost. There’d be no second chance.
The path to the top twined between cannon ports and no one could pass among them unseen. Yet, it would take too long to return inside and try to find an interior route. Besides, the rest of Vohanna’s hybrids would still be hunting me there.
Maybe there was another way.
The wall of the pyramid was sloped and not completely smooth. Here and there were incised symbols of moons, milkstones, and monsters. Elsewhere stood out bas-reliefs depicting scenes of conflict and carnage. Sorry now that I’d thrown my sword sheath away in a show of bravado when I’d faced Bryce below, I slid my blade into my belt and snapped one of the scabbard-hooks through the ornate guard. Then I wedged a boot among stone carvings of Bacchanalia and pushed myself up to lie flat against the wall.
From there my fingers found holds and I began to work my way up the side, moving as quickly as I dared with a mile-long fall behind me. With my back to the sky, I expected at any moment to feel the thud of crossbow quarrels striking me. It would take only one glance from one being among Vohanna’s bird riders to make me a target. Somehow that did not happen. I suppose their attention was focused outward on those who were coming to kill them.
Fifty feet from the pyramid’s apex I reached a ledge wider than any I’d seen before, with a balustrade of shaped and polished iron. I leaned far out from the wall where my body wanted to cling, and let the fingers of my right hand curl over the top of the ledge. The stone felt dusty and slick there. I bit at my lip, closed my eyes with my heart pounding, and tried to convince myself I could let go with my left hand and pull myself up to safety.
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