"Do you have any magic left?" she replied.
"Well ...very little."
"Then I made the right move. And now, since there is night here after all, we need to figure out how to pass it safely."
"True enough. I suggest climbing a tree."
They did, and the ascent proved easy enough. The difficult part, Kagur soon discovered, was finding an even slightly comfortable and secure-feeling place to rest while rope bindings protected her from a fall and beasts roared and hissed in the dark.
At one point, a huge, shadowy form stalked underneath the humans, halted, and stared upward. It occurred to her that the creature might be strong enough to shove the whole tree over if it thought the prey hanging in the upper branches was worth the effort. But maybe it didn't, for eventually it moved on.
At first, she thought she wouldn't be able to sleep. But in time, she drifted off to dream of Eovath humming softly, as was his habit when attending to a chore. In real life, the sound had always given her a warm, fond feeling. In the dream, it did the same until she noticed the giant was humming while whetting his axe. Then she looked on tongue-tied and frozen in dread without remembering why.
The abrupt return of daylight woke her, the sun in the center of the sky brightening as quickly as it had faded. Blinking and yawning, she tried to roll over. Her bindings halted her and reminded her where she was.
The climb to the ground showed her the night had left her stiff. But an application of Holg's healing magic fixed that as well as the lingering aches in her knee and elbow.
"Good," she said, experimentally flexing her arm. "Now pray us up something to eat. Then ask your spirits to point to Eovath."
Holg hesitated. "My friend ...has it occurred to you you're in a little too much of a hurry?"
Kagur scowled. "Why aren't you in more of one? You're the one who stops to study everything even though you claim we're racing to stop a calamity."
"I admit, you may have a point. I've always been curious, and occasionally, it's gotten me into trouble. But other times, it's gotten me out."
"What are you trying to say?"
"That this ‘Vault' is both huge and stranger than any place I've ever been, including all the strange places we traveled through on our way down from the Earthnavel. Perhaps, instead of rushing headlong wherever the fetishes point, we should try to learn more about it. In the long run, it might improve our chances of stopping Eovath."
"How would we do that?"
"For one thing, we could take another look at the country from higher ground and really study it this time."
"You mean backtrack?"
"Well, yes."
"That's stupid!"
"Nesteruk and his people are there. Don't you think there's more they can tell us?"
"You think orcs will help us?"
"All right, perhaps not. But consider this: Nesteruk seemed surprised by things about us, like my eyes and your weapons, but not everything about us. He'd plainly seen human beings before, and likely even has some human blood. And back in the highlands, he tried to send us the opposite direction from the one he was taking."
Kagur scratched a bumped-up insect bite on her cheek. "You think he wanted to send us to our own kind."
"Yes. He wanted to thank us for saving his life."
"An orc wouldn't feel gratitude. And even if there are humans living hereabouts, they might not want to help us, either. Or might not be able to."
"That's true. We don't know anything for certain."
"Yes! We do! We know Eovath's in front of us. We know your fetishes can guide us to him. So let's finish this!"
Holg sighed. "Very well. We'll do it your way. For all I know, you could be right." He hefted his staff. "I'm glad you're at least willing to make time for breakfast."
The new day warmed swiftly as the motionless sun beat down. Insects droned and flitted among the ferns. The way forward led past enormous glimmering spider webs strung between tree trunks, as well as another sort of oversized reptile with a shell like a turtle's and a knob of bone at the end of its tail. Fortunately, this one simply looked at them briefly and then returned to munching fern fronds.
Oblong, red-speckled yellow fruit grew on a low-hanging bough. Holg murmured a prayer over a piece of it, declared it safe to eat, and took a bite that dribbled juice down his chin. The stuff turned out to be pleasantly tart, and he and Kagur carried some with them when they moved on.
Just when Kagur was beginning to think the caverns deserted except for giant reptiles, Nesteruk's people appeared. Armed with spears, javelins, and knives, half a dozen full-grown orcs appeared on a stretch of high ground while Kagur and Holg were traversing the declivity below. She drew her longsword and slashed at the air to make the steel flash in the sunlight.
The orcs retreated to the other side of the rise. She watched for them thereafter, but saw no indication that they were trailing her and Holg.
Which didn't necessarily mean they weren't. She was an expert hunter and tracker in her own sort of country, but not here in "jungle," as the old man called it. It almost made her wonder if he hadn't had a point when he'd advised against pushing onward as fast as they could.
But only almost. Her father, Dolok, Roga, and all the other Blacklions were dead, and every additional breath their murderer drew was an affront to their spirits and a shame to their only surviving kinswoman.
Eventually, she and Holg came to a place where the trees and tree-ferns thinned out. At the end of the clear space, the ground dropped away, plunging to interrupt what was, overall, a long, gentle descent from the crags at the edges of the cavern to the central lake.
From her elevated vantage point, Kagur could once again see that blue expanse of water shining on the other side of still more green jungle. And now that she was closer, she could also discern a cluster of black and purple-red stone towers on the shore, and a triangular shape rising from the center of the lake itself.
She squinted. The object was a pyramid, the sides stair-stepping up to the flat space at the top. As best she could judge, it was directly under the stationary sun where Eovath had expected to find it.
Eager for an even better look, she strode out into the open and toward the edge of the cliff. Likely sensing her excitement even if he couldn't see the reason for it, Holg hurried after her. Birds floated high overhead in the azure sky.
She reached the edge and looked down. Then she caught her breath, and the pyramid didn't matter anymore.
There was a strip of open ground at the base of the cliff, too. Eovath was down there, his yellow hair and steel axe blade gleaming in the sun.
For several moments, the frost giant was the only thing that registered, the only thing that existed in all the world. Then Kagur reflexively took a breath, and the view below widened to encompass other elements, including Eovath's companions.
Those companions were twenty or so stooped, gray-scaled reptile-men somewhat resembling Lady Ssa and her people but not exactly like them. They had ragged finlike crests running from the tops of their heads down their spines, and they didn't move with the seemingly boneless sinuosity of serpents.
The creatures were looking on as Eovath faced the jungle and flourished his axe in a way that reminded Kagur of the way Holg sometimes brandished and spun his staff when working magic. After a moment, an enormous reptile with a horn on its snout, two longer ones jutting from above its beady eyes, and a sort of protruding bony collar sweeping back from its head lumbered forth from the tree-ferns. It was like Eovath had summoned it—and maybe he really had, for despite the beast's size and natural weapons, no one within reach of the spear-like horns appeared alarmed by its arrival.
Was Rovagug teaching Eovath sorcery? Were the reptile-men? Maybe it was a combination of the two.
"Your brother's companions," said Holg, squinting.
"What about them?" Kagur replied.
"I heard tell of such creatures during my time in the southlands, but the ones my friends spoke of were th
e crudest of savages. The specimens below appear more advanced."
She grunted. She didn't care about the reptile-people and their accomplishments. She cared that they and the three-horned beast were obstacles on the path to her retribution.
Ever since waking in Holg's tent, she'd yearned to face Eovath again, this time with her father's blade in her hand. It would be the most satisfying and fitting way to kill him.
But it couldn't happen, not while he stood in the midst of his new allies. Yet if she passed up the present opportunity, she might never find her way to another.
To hell with it, then. She'd put an end to him here and now, and when he died miserably, without any warning or chance to defend himself, that too would be fitting in its way.
She readied her longbow and drew an arrow from her quiver. Despite her parsimony on the journey, she only had a few left. But even shooting over such a distance, a few would be enough.
To her dismay, as she pulled the shaft back to her ear, something shifted inside her. The hate in no way diminished. It remained implacable. But love and sorrow welled up in her, too, and though her hands did not tremble, tears blurred her sight.
How had it ever come to this? If only she'd realized how Eovath felt—
No. To hell with useless thoughts like that, too. Kill him and rejoice.
She blinked away the tears, saw Eovath had almost imperceptibly changed position, and adjusted her aim accordingly.
Then a gray-green shape hurtled down at the edge of her vision, and Holg cried out.
Chapter Nineteen
Hunted
Kagur whirled. His flowing blood vivid in the grass and the dirt, Holg sprawled on his back, beating with his staff at the creature that had plunged down on top of him.
At first glance, his attacker looked gigantic. It took Kagur an instant to see it was mostly huge, flapping leathery wings—the reptilian body at their juncture was no bigger than a child's.
Yet the creature was still plainly capable of inflicting ghastly wounds. The backswept vane on its head swinging back and forth, it jabbed and bit at Holg with a straight beak as long and pointed as a sword while its talons dug into his flesh.
No birdsong, Kagur remembered. Why would there be, when the beasts that ruled the sky of the Vault weren't truly birds after all?
Even as she was thinking that thought, she loosed her arrow. It flew straight, and should have taken the flying reptile in the body. But at that same instant, Holg tried to drag himself out from under his attacker, and the creature twisted to hang on to him. As a result, the shaft simply stabbed into its wing and dangled from the membrane. The reptile turned its head to screech at Kagur but didn't let go of its prey.
She dropped her bow beside her shield, drew out her sword, and rushed the creature. Then she heard a snapping sound at her back.
She wrenched herself around and cut at the beast that was swooping down at her. Her blade hit it somewhere, and then it slammed into her, its momentum nearly knocking her over. Talons gouged and clung.
With the reptile's body pressed against her face, it was impossible to see and almost as difficult to breathe. Its wing beats sent her stumbling off balance, its claws gripped painfully, and its beak gouged at the reinforced leather armoring her back.
She stabbed at the reptile again and again. Finally, it screeched and fell away from her, and then she saw that while blind, she'd blundered to the very crumbling edge of the cliff. With a snarl, she lunged back to safer ground, cut at her bleeding assailant as it turned to face her anew, and sheared halfway through its neck. The beast collapsed with a final spastic flailing of its wings.
As soon as its death throes subsided, she sprang over the carcass. It was the quickest way to reach Holg and the reptile tearing at him.
Yet it wasn't quick enough. The creature had time to let go of the old man and wrench itself around to face the danger. Huge wings spread and flapping as though to confuse and contain its foe, long beak alternately stabbing and snapping, it hopped forward.
Kagur met the attack with a cut that sliced the leathery hide on the creature's beak but glanced off the bone beneath. She shifted in and to the side when the next attack stabbed at her, and the beak clashed shut over her shoulder. Bellowing, she cut into the reptile's body, and like its fellow it collapsed with a frenzied lashing and rattling of wings.
Kagur rushed to Holg and threw herself down beside him. "How bad is it?" she panted.
He didn't answer. He was unconscious, and his wounds were plainly quite bad indeed. His attacker had gouged furrows in his mostly hairless head and shredded parts of his torso. His skinny body was bloody from crown to belly.
Kagur held her hand before his nose and mouth. He was still breathing. She told herself that was something.
Rasping cries sounded from the bottom of the cliff. She looked over the edge.
For the first time, she noticed that some distance off to her left, a trail of sorts ran up the cliff face. It was too narrow for the enormous three-horned creature, but Eovath and the reptile-men were running toward it.
Plainly, they'd noticed the commotion on the high ground, as they naturally would if their own winged sentry beasts had caused it. If their arts could tame a four-footed reptile, why not flying ones as well?
It occurred to Kagur that she still might be able to shoot Eovath, but she realized even as the thought enticed her that it was stupid. Hitting him at long range when he was standing still and unaware would have been one thing. Killing him now would be far more difficult.
Besides, though she would gladly have traded her own life to avenge her tribe, it would be despicable to simply let Holg die of the wounds he'd already taken or beneath the spears and claws of the reptile-people. She had to save him if she could, and every moment counted.
So did every bit of weight and bulk. She retrieved her bow but left her shield where it lay, discarded her backpack with the green crystal lantern inside it, yanked Holg's bundles off his back, and thrust his staff through his belt. Then she heaved him off the ground, draped him around her shoulders, and scurried back into the jungle.
She judged she could manage his weight for a while. At the moment, she was more concerned about the blood still dripping from his wounds. It was spoor for their enemies to follow.
"Wake up, old man," she said. "Wake and pray to your spirits to heal you."
He didn't.
So she sought to carry him as far and fast as she could without leaving an obvious trail of footprints, trampled ferns, and broken low-hanging branches. She only made it a short distance before the jungle grew quiet, the faint background noise of small, unseen animals abating. The change surely meant Eovath and his allies had made it up the cliff and entered the trees.
Sweat stinging her eyes, Kagur desperately scanned for somewhere to hide in the profusion of plant life. Lord in Iron, she even knew how to hide on the tundra, where everything was open. Yet she didn't see any blind likely to conceal her for long against a score of determined searchers, and if Eovath had observed just who was fighting the winged reptiles on top of the cliff, he was unquestionably determined.
A rasping cry sounded behind her. She looked back. A reptile man had spotted her and was alerting its companions.
In too much of a hurry to be gentle, she dumped Holg on the ground and readied her bow. The reptile man simply kept crying out, without scrambling for cover, and she realized that, like Nesteruk, it had never seen archery. It assumed that if it was out of javelin range, she couldn't possibly hurt it.
The reptile somehow sensed it was mistaken about that when she pulled the fletchings back to her ear. It lunged for the cover of the nearest tree-fern, but it was too slow. The arrow plunged between its ribs, and it collapsed.
Kagur grinned, but the satisfaction was only momentary. She hadn't dropped the reptile man in time to keep it from calling to its fellows, and now she only had four arrows left, not nearly enough to kill them all.
She wrapped Holg around her sho
ulders and strode onward. He felt heavier than he had before.
"Sister!" Eovath's bellow came from somewhere behind Kagur and off to the left. She looked but couldn't see him.
"Sister!" the giant repeated. "Give yourself up, and I promise my new allies and I won't hurt you! You know I never wanted to in the first place!"
She sneered and tried to quicken her stride. Eovath knew her too well to believe she'd ever surrender. He just wanted to provoke her into answering back and giving away her position.
"All right!" Eovath called after a time. "We'll do it your way! I understand, you have to walk your path to the end! How could I not, when we two are the same?"
The hell we are! she thought, and then, ahead and to the right, she spied a tangle of red flowers on tall stalks.
Or maybe not precisely flowers, for, ranging from hand-sized growths to those larger than her head, each consisted of just two lobe-like petals with yellow, hair-like tendrils protruding from the edges. But whatever they were, the thicket was one more patch of cover to put between her pursuers and herself. She considered swinging around it, but it looked like she should be able to push and squirm her way straight through.
Taking advantage of a narrow gap in the foliage, she started to do so. She caught a whiff of the flowers' peculiar scent, sickly sweet with a hint of rot, and then a tug brought her up short. She, or more likely Holg, had snagged on something. Scowling, she yanked and twisted to pull loose.
But afterward, she was still caught. She looked back over her shoulder, and her eyes widened. A two-lobed crimson growth had closed around Holg's dangling arm like a pair of jaws and clung with sufficient strength to keep her from yanking him free.
She reached to snap the vine-like stem to which the flower was attached away from the primary stalk. But as she gripped it, a second scarlet growth looped over and down to close around her hand.
The fleshy insides of the lobes were moist. For a moment, the dampness stung, and then her hand went numb.
With a snarl, she jerked it free. But then, as if the more she thrashed about, the more she excited them, additional scarlet flowers twisted in her direction. One closed on her shoulder, and a second strained at the very limits of its reach in an attempt to wrap around her head. Behind her, others were no doubt taking hold of Holg.
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