"You say you admire `more human' gods," Athena continued. "But I fear you admire yourself too much. Perhaps you cannot imagine anything more noble than man, but Orick here has just revealed it to me."
"So you will become a Christ worshiper?" Felph said. "You'll let this bear turn you against me!"
In answer, Athena stood, turned her back, and walked to Gallen, prepared to wake him so he could take his watch. Orick stared in wonder, his heart swelling with joy.
He glanced from the comer of his eye to see Tallea's reaction. Something huge and black, like a giant spider, landed atop Tallea with a whump, and Orick cried out, startled. It was only there for a moment, moving rapidly. Yet for a fraction of a second he saw it: the creature had six enormous long hairy legs all spreading out from a compact, round body. Its face was something from a nightmare. The face was generally doglike in shape, but it had no ears that Orick could see, and it had no hair. Instead, the slate gray skin looked as if it had burned away. Its dark eyes were horribly large.
The creature bit Tallea's neck, and Orick shouted, "Here now!" and leapt to his paws, thinking to kill the creature. But at that moment, something heavy landed on Orick's back, knocking the breath from him. The big bear dropped with a groan. Everything went black.
For a moment, Orick did not know if he'd been knocked unconscious, or if the lights had simply gone out. Then--he remembered that the darkfriends would quit shining when they sensed enemies. And for some reason, Gallen's warning devices hadn't worked.
Lord Felph shouted, "Sfuz!" Orick was vaguely aware of screaming--Athena shrieking for help, mingled with a sudden whistling, a sound like dozens of birds twittering loudly. He heard scuffling feet as Felph scrambled away. He felt something pierce his back, a sharp talon. Something was tearing him open, yet Orick seemed paralyzed, unable to react. In this darkness, if he bit and clawed blindly, he night accidentally kill Felph.
He had to be cautious.
A terrible light exploded, a blinding white. The creature attacking Orick shrieked and roiled away.
Orick swatted in the direction the creature had rolled. He felt a thud as he raked his claws through flesh, snapped bones.
Tallea roared. In a moment Orick was beside her. The brilliant light had blinded him, but now another dim light shone. Athena must have got out a glow globe. His sight began to clear. The huge spiderlike being that had attacked Tallea shrieked in pain and rolled on the ground, kicking its legs in the air. The light devastated the sfuz. All around, Orick could hear the nasty creatures shrieking.
Orick pounced on it, bit its throat; gooey blood spurted into his mouth. He leapt on the thing once, twice. It did not die all the way--merely slowed in its movements.
Orick was growling at the top of his voice, and thus did not hear Gallen and Athena shout. Instead, he heard the concussions of Gallen's pulp gun as he fired twelve shots, heard the hum of Gallen's vibro-blade.
All around was whistling, and Orick found that his right shoulder was suddenly covered with a sticky web. He couldn't get his front paw off the ground--it felt as if it were glued. Tallea shouted for help, and Orick suddenly realized that dozens of sfuz were dropping from above on sticky webs. He blinked fiercely, trying to get the tears from his eyes, trying to see well enough to defend himself. As Orick's vision began to clear, another web landed across his face, gluing him more firmly to the ground.
He drew his head back, trying to break free. As enormous as Orick was, he could not budge the web. He uttered a hopeless prayer, wishing for the strength of Samson. "God help us."
A second brilliant strobe went off. Everywhere, sfuz shrieked in pain. Gallen was tossing photon grenades--small weapons intended to blind an enemy at night. The grenades were small enough so Gallen could easily hold a dozen in his pack. Perhaps more than anything else at hand, the grenades affected the sfuz, for they were born to the magnificent blackness that reigned here beneath the tangle.
As suddenly as the fight had begun, sfuz leapt away, whistling frantically. Orick's eyes adjusted. He pulled at the web that pinned his head. He bit its strands, chewing free. Tallea grunted, doing the same.
Lord Felph seemed miraculously unaffected by this whole thing. He'd somehow rushed from Orick, over to Gallen and Athena. No sfuz had leapt on his back or captured him in its web. It seemed oddly miraculous. The old man chuckled merrily. "Well-done, Gallen! Well done! My, what one can accomplish with a Lord Protector. Why, if it weren't for you, we'd be stuffed in their guts like sausages in casings!"
Orick stopped chewing, yanked himself free. Felph stood in his robes, grinning. All around them were signs of a massacre. Gallen stood, a dozen dead sfuz sprawled at his feet. In the fray, Athena had taken his vibro-blade. Now she crouched, at his feet, poised, the silver-blue blade shimmering in the darkness, humming like some living thing.
Yet it was not the others who held Orick's attention. It was Gallen. Orick had never seen the boy look so pale, so panicked.
"They came out of thin air!" Gallen said, shuddering. "Just out of the air. I've never seen anything move so fast!"
"Let's get back to the ship," Athena said. "This isn't over. Some got away. They'll be back with reinforcements."
"There were no scouts ..." Gallen said. "None came looking for us. My mantle would have seen them."
Orick's hair stood on end. He hadn't seen the sfuz till they dropped from above. He looked up. The air above them stood open for at least sixty meters.
"Well, Gallen, you reacted admirably," Felph said, grunting in satisfaction.
Gallen still crouched, trying to look all directions at once. "You said they trained other animals. Could they have used one against us?
"How do you mean?" Tallea asked.
"The sfuz must have had help setting the ambush," Gallen said. He looked all about. "Insects?" he asked, shaking his head. "Something larger-like a crow-flew overhead an hour ago, but I thought it was just hunting insects."
"Maybe," Athena agreed. "They train such creatures to hunt, the way our ancestors trained dogs."
"Let's get out of here," Gallen said.
Athena grabbed the darkfriends, stuffed them into the net on her hip.
Orick stared at the corpse of a sfuz. Its face, he saw now was more purplish than gray; its teeth were unnaturally long and sharp. He'd thought it had large eyes before, but now he saw that each large dark eye was actually two eyeballs, separated by a thin membrane. One eye aimed up, while the other aimed down. It made sense that such a creature would always seek to attack from above or below.
Its fur, which started just behind the ears, was shorter and thicker than a bear's, bristling. He saw now that each sfuz had four legs and two arms. The creature’s legs had four or five claws, or hooks on them, all in a row along the length of the leg, so the sfuz could crawl upside down or sideways among the trees simply by hugging the limbs. The foreclaws were more like hands, each with a thumb and two fingers, all or which had saberlike claws.
Orick moved his shoulder experimentally. He'd been clawed on the back, and he could smell blood. Yet he felt little pain. Months before, in order to save Orick's life Gallen had fed the bear some nanodocs, tiny machines that went about repairing injuries to Orick's body. They worked so quickly that even now, Orick could feel some heat in his back where the machines had hurriedly mended his torn shoulder.
“Are you alright Tallea?” Orick asked. He smelled blood on her.
"A scratch," the she-bear said. Orick looked into the wound on the back of her neck, saw dark blood pooling. He licked the wound, then licked her muzzle affectionately.
Gallen and Felph had readied their packs. They hurried ahead. Orick did not want to be left behind.
The journey back up was arduous. Orick hadn't realized how rapidly they'd descended-walking down limbs, climbing from one drop to the next. It had seemed a fairly.level journey as they came down, but where possible, when the path had taken a downward turn, Athena had led them lower.
They ran for an hour,
then Gallen suddenly raised his pulp gun and fired into the air.
Something large and black dropped. Gallen went to the thing. It was a bird, a hairy red bird, with a ratlike face filled with rows of sharp teeth. Gallen's weapon had ripped away most of its innards.
Gallen bent to study the creature. "It's the same one that flew over us earlier. My mantle says it has the same infrared register. It came flying ahead of us, and was just turning back.”
"It's called a blood rat," Athena said. She turned the creature on its side. Just behind its head, she found a thinning in its hair. "This one has been wearing a collar."
Lord Felph grunted.
"They didn't just train this one," Gallen said. "They had to have communicated to it, somehow."
Athena shook her head. "I can't see how. It's just a dumb animal." Indeed, it looked like a rat with wings. Its head was no larger than acat's; Orick thought it odd that such a creature could communicate with the sfuz. The sfuz were as large as humans, though not as massive.
The group began hiking, almost running up the trail. Orick watched Tallea. The she-bear had been more sorely wounded than she wanted to tell, and she lagged behind, dragging her right front paw. Orick kept urging her to hurry, to keep up.
They were still a good hour's march from the ship when Orick detected a distant whistling. In the deep foliage of the tangle, with a thousand branches crowding around, it was impossible to tell where the sound came from. That it was the whistle of a sfuz, Orick had no doubt. Once having heard that high, keening, almost hysterical pitch, he would never forget it. The sound reminded him of laughter, of whistling laughter, yet more frantic, more intense.
Gallen stopped. "They're behind us," he said with certainty. He leapt away.
Orick and the others followed with renewed, strength, though Orick was sweating from exertion.
A moment later, Gallen stopped. Ahead, perhaps not a hundred meters, they heard whistling. Yet at this moment, they were running along the track of a worm vine that wound a precarious way among the immense boles of dew trees, each many meters in diameter. Orick could not see around that path, but the sfuz announced itself.
The ululating noise stopped. Almost simultaneously, another whistling seemed to come far above and behind them.
"That's the same sfuz," Gallen whispered in awe.. "My mantle says it has the exact same voiceprint."
"It's teasing us," Felph guessed. "It must know where we are, so it's running along limbs above us, whistling. Because it went into a different chamber, it sounds as if it is moving around us."
"No," Athena whispered, "that is a hunter's whistle. That sfuz is hunting us. I think ... I've heard that sound when a pair of sfuz attack, and I manage to kill one's mate. That sfuz is furious."
The fur at the base of Orick's neck rose again.
"Quietly then." Gallen whispered. They ran. They climbed a wide tree, up through some thick spongy fungus, till they found the trail they'd come down, then they hurried through a narrow defile where ancient withered roots, like long gray fingers, hung from above.
As they passed this, Orick heard heavy whistling behind him. He brought up the rear of the group, so he pivoted instantly, lashed with one claw.
The sfuz was charging, but as quickly as it had appeared, it turned aside, scurried around the trunk of a tree. Orick's claw raked empty air. He stood befuddled, unable to find his quarry.
"They've found us!" Tallea shouted. "Run."
Gallen burst ahead at full speed.
They ran for twenty minutes, Orick expecting an attack at any second. The sfuz went for reinforcements, Orick realized. Or it hoped to organize an ambush ahead.
Lord Felph kept lagging behind, stumbling from exertion. Orick heard whistling again, far below it seemed, so far he thought he might be imagining it. Yet it was not one voice that resounded through the tangle now, it was a thousand voices, united.
Felph fell to the ground, panting for breath, forcing everyone to stop. Gallen reached to pull him to his feet. "Hurry!"
Felph shook his head. "It's no use. We're too far from the ship. We'll never make it!"
"You can't know that!" Gallen said. "You have to try." Felph laughed. "No, no I don't. You have to try!"
Orick understood. Felph was giving up. He didn't need to make a grand dash for escape. He would be reborn. Felph was right. He merely slowed the others down. Leaving him was their only hope for escape.
"I can do you a small service," Felph grunted. "Give me the darkfriends. Gallen, give me a weapon. When the sfuz attack, I'll hold them off a few moments, buy you some time."
"You certain?" Gallen asked.
Felph chuckled. "Really, boy, one way or another, this body will get eaten today. I might as well."
"Fine," Gallen said, unceremoniously. He tossed a pulp gun on the ground beside Felph. Athena unsnapped the webbing that held the darkfriends. The grubs tumbled out.
As one, Athena and Gallen turned and ran, with Tallea close behind, but Orick could not leave Felph so easily. "Are you sure you won't come with us?"
"I'll .follow as I can," Felph said, then laughed. " 'No greater love hath a man than this: that he lay down his life for his friends!' You see Crick, I'm just like your Christ. I'll be your messiah today."
Orick did not laugh. It seemed sacrilegious to do so. Still Felph continued. "I lay my life down, but I shall take it--up again!" He staggered to his feet, grabbed a darkfriend in one hand to use as a light, and said, "Hide not your light under a bushel, Orick. Let your light so shine, that others will see your good works and glorify your father in heaven!"
Four thousand years old, Orick realized, and in all that time, all Felph had learned from the Scriptures was to mock them.
Orick turned and ran, following the fading light that Athena carried. Felph cackled and shouted epithets as he ran. Once he looked back, saw Felph struggling up the trail. Orick was a fast bear, and strong. He caught up to his friends shortly. In a moment, the sound of Felph's cackling died away. A moment later, he heard a dull thud that might have been a distant explosion.
Had Felph fired his weapon?
Orick held his breath, but did not stop. His blood so pounded in his veins he could not be certain, but he fancied that another shot followed, then a wailing scream.
Perhaps. Perhaps he imagined it. Orick ran for his life.
Chapter Eighteen
Thomas Flynn regarded himself as pragmatic. He wanted little from life--a woman to keep him warm at night, decent food in his belly, a fine instrument to play. And he wanted to live forever.
But now, as a slave with Lord Karthenor's Guide directing his every action, Thomas's hopes grew cold.
The morning after he'd killed the shepherd's wife for Lord Karthenor, Thomas Flynn conjured an escape plan. He did not know how to remove the Guide Karthenor had affixed to his skull. He could not run or fight.
But he could plot. Karthenor himself had given Thomas the key, the night he'd ordered Thomas to play and sing.
In the morning, Thomas found that his Guide would not let him speak, but as Thomas set the fire and began frying up fresh eggs and ham for Karthenor's men and the shepherd's toddler, a tune came to mind. Thomas found himself humming. It took him several moments to realize that though his Guide would not let him speak, it would let him sing. Thomas had long known that with a song he could melt the heart of most young maidens, and lighten the heart of the sourest codger.
So all morning he pondered the message he would send, then, when his plan felt complete, he composed a song. It was not a perfect song--in fact, Thomas found it damned bad by any standard, but Karthenor had ordered him to sing a sweet tune, and Thomas composed a sweet tune for the words. They let him say what he needed to say, so as Karthenor sat spooning eggs to the orphaned child, Thomas got down the lute and sang,
"You say All lives have meaning,
Like you, I want to live in the sky,
But I am bound,
By you I'm bound.
In
these chains I slowly die. "
Karthenor stopped feeding the boy, who immediately began grabbing for the spoon. Karthenor glanced up at Thomas in surprise. "You have something to say? Speak, Thomas."
Thomas tried to infuse his words with charm and sincerity. "This Guide is a damned nuisance, man! I'm an artist. Even if you think me only a drudge, thumping my lute strings as if I were beating a rug, I'll be needing use of my fingers to practice."
Karthenor laughed. "Fine, you may practice your instrument and sing--so long as you don't grow tedious. Anything else?"
"Yes," Thomas said, and found his heart thumping, voice tight. He wasn't sure if the lie would come off. "You told me last night something of your philosophy, and I've been thinking. I agree with you. I came from a backward world, and when I saw the chance to get out, I jumped. And as for recognizing the worth of man, well, a man's only worth comes from what he makes of himself, sure. So I want to know, how do I join you?"
Karthenor smiled, a clever, intimidating smile. His gold mask gleamed brightly, half-reflecting the sun that shone in through the window by the rocking chair, where Karthenor sat.
"I've seen potential in you," Karthenor said. "When I questioned you, I saw that you could be one of us, perhaps.
"But l must ask: do you expect me to believe you would help us hunt and destroy your niece, your only kin? On your world, family bonds are important."
Thomas dared not lie, but his Guide allowed him some freedom in answering. He skirted the truth, choosing his words carefully, "Maggie is my only kin. But that didn't stop me from leaving her to grow up alone. Facing trials in life builds strength, and I'd rather have a strong niece than some weepy cow. I tracked her down when I heard she had an inheritance coming. I wouldn't have stolen it. I planned only to use it as seed money, to make a little profit for myself, then leave her with what she owned."
"But would you fight her?" Karthenor asked.
"For the right cause," Thomas said, recognizing that he could hide behind half-truths, evade answering all night. "Yes, I'd fight her."
Lords of the Seventh Swarm, Book 3 of the Golden Queen Series Page 18