Tallea’s side ached from her recent wound, and though the sun warmed her a bit, she found that it didn’t warm the wound. Instead, it burned like ice all along its length.
Still, they ran for hours, passing through more tunnels. Gallen took the lead, and twice he warned the others of Derrit traps—deep pits overlaid with a framework of twigs, then covered with hides and dust.
Tallea was glad for Gallen’s sharp eyes, for she herself spent her time watching the skies for sign of wingmen, and secretly she felt relieved each time they were forced to make their way through a tunnel.
Thus, they spent the day running, and camped in a tunnel by dark. Tallea’s wound throbbed through the night, and it heated up, as if it had become infected. She slept poorly, but was forced to run again at dawn.
That day, the road took a long, steady climb, higher into the bleak, gray mountains, so that the air was frigid, and they ran along a ridge that was incredibly steep and long. The mountain rose on their left like a wall, and dropped for five hundred meters below them. In places along the road, they found the splayed prints of mountain sheep, but no other sign of use.
That day they passed two ancient outposts, high stone citadels along Tower Road, and on one crenellated tower, twigs and leaves stuck out like a great nest, three meters across. Only a wingman could have carried such large sticks so far from the valley below.
Gallen called a halt, then crept up the crumbling stone stairs to the tower himself, with Tallea and Orick behind. The nest was old, the twigs whitened by age and rotted so that they could hold no weight, proving that the nest had been abandoned for years. But among the yellowed bones of sheep and deer was a human arm and skull, with tatters from a bloody wool tunic.
They climbed back down, hurried on their way, watching the skies. Gallen rounded one long arm of the mountain ridge, then dropped to the ground, warning the others with a wave of his hand to stay back.
Tallea dropped and crawled forward, and together they looked over the bluff. A wild white river churned through a gorge far below, and pines climbed halfway up the mountains in a green haze.
Sweeping over the canyon in wide, lazy circles, a lone wingman hunted on leather wings. Tallea watched the creature. Its underbelly was pale blue in color, so that it was hard to spot from below, but its back was a mottled gray and green. If it had been sitting high in a tree, with its wings folded, it would have been hard to spot from the ground. But from above, while in flight, it was easily discernible.
“It’s watching the valley,” Gallen said, “hunting for deer or wolves. We’re lucky that it’s below us.”
“Not much eat up here,” Tallea agreed. The wingman would not bother hunting this high road through the barren, gray mountains. She watched the creature, and wondered. According to common wisdom, all of the races on Tremonthin had been adapted from human stock to live on other worlds. But of all the peoples in Babel, she found the wingmen to be the strangest. They did not look humanoid at all. The creature was large, perhaps ten meters from wing tip to wing tip—much larger than scouts. It had a broad tail that it used as a rudder as it flew, and fierce, razor-sharp hooks of a bloody red were attached to its wings. Its long flat head was filled with great teeth that Tallea could see even from this far distance, and its scaly hide was nearly proof against a blade. And it was said that the wingmen saw other peoples not as kin, but only as food. One could sometimes reason with a Derrit, but never with a wingman.
They watched the creature circling the valley. It did not move farther west or east, nor did it seem inclined to climb higher. “I think,” Gallen whispered, “that it must have seen some prey down there in the trees. It’s probably waiting for it to come back into the open. It could keep circling like this all day.”
“Agreed,” Tallea said.
“We’ll keep low, crawl on our bellies if we must. We’re only eight kilometers from the gate down into the city of Indallian.”
Tallea looked ahead, feeling exultant. They had traveled far and fast in the past two days. The road snaked along the ridge, vertical cliffs above and below, following a U-shaped bend in the mountain. But Gallen was right—in the distance the road met with a great iron door in the rock, a door that stood closed.
“This foolish,” Tallea said. “We don’t even have bow.”
“There is only one wingman,” Gallen said, “not a flock. And I have my incendiary rifle.” Tallea had seen how much damage that weapon had caused on the ship, and she didn’t doubt that it would send a wingman tumbling in flames.
“How many fire arrows have?” Tallea asked.
“Six,” Gallen whispered. “And I may need to save two of those—one to slay the Harvester, one for the Inhuman.”
Tallea nodded grimly. Only one wingman—as far as she could see. But there might be dozens more around the next ridge, out of sight, or others roosting in trees below. It was autumn, when the wingmen often flocked together to head south.
“What of door?” Tallea asked, nodding toward the iron door in the distance. “What if is locked?”
Gallen bit his lip and did not answer.
Tallea’s wound was icy as it rubbed against the cold stone, and she felt deeply troubled. She recalled how the cold blade of the giant had pierced her aboard ship, and it almost felt to her as if the wound were alive, calling out for her demise.
She looked up the road ahead. The thin afternoon sun shone all along its length. There were few shadows thrown from rocks to hide in. Gallen’s robe had turned slate-gray, the color of the stones, and Tallea wished that all of them wore such robes to hide them.
“All right,” she agreed. “We go on bellies.”
Gallen signaled the others to come forward and drop low, and he crawled to the far edge of the road, inching along the stone wall.
The others followed. Tallea took up the rear guard, and the arduous journey began. The stones here had a peculiar, powdery scent, and they were cold and sharp, cutting into Tallea’s hands and knees, and the coldness of the stone was peculiar. Tallea calculated by the angle of the suns that light had been shining on the road for hours, yet it had not warmed. Apparently, the cold in the rocks went too deep for that.
Orick took the journey easily enough, inching forward, his big rump in the air.
After two kilometers, Tallea began to notice blood on the trail. Maggie had cut her hand on sharp rocks. It was rumored that the wingmen could smell blood at great distances, but it was only a small amount. Still, Tallea felt uneasy.
Another kilometer down the road, Derrit spoor was on the ledge, the first Tallea had seen in nearly two days, and it was fresh.
Normally the sight would not have left her feeling so uncomfortable, but at the moment, Tallea was struggling to hug the rock wall as closely as possible, afraid that the wingman might spot them. She couldn’t bear the thought of fighting a Derrit.
She could do nothing but crawl ahead. A croaking sound echoed up from the valley below, one wingman calling to another. Gallen waved his hand, called a stop. He inched forward to the edge of the cliff, and alarm became evident on his face.
He inched back, held up three fingers. Three wingmen now. Tallea looked up at Maggie’s hand. Fresh blood was dripping from the deep wound in her palm. Tallea gestured at her, pointed to her nose and mouthed the words, “Smell your blood. They smell blood.”
Maggie’s face paled, and she clenched her other hand over the wound. Ceravanne brought out a small piece of white cloth from her pack, gave it to Maggie to use as a bandage.
In a moment, they were on their knees again, scurrying ever faster along the road. They made it past the bend in the road, almost five kilometers, when Gallen suddenly stopped. A lone wingman rose, riding the thermal updrafts from the valley below.
Tallea and the others froze, crouched against the stone wall, and the wingman rose on up. Like many animals, the wingman looked mostly for signs of movement, and at the moment, the creature was in full sunlight, while they were in shadows.
&nbs
p; Tallea’s heart pounded, and she tried to still her breathing, tried to stop the pounding, as the wingman flew along the ridge, then swept up over the mountain, sniffing loudly for the scent of blood.
Then Gallen was on his feet, motioning to them. “Run!” Orick raced ahead of Gallen, running toward the door faster than any human could, while Maggie and Ceravanne hurried forward.
Tallea jumped up so quickly that one of her mending muscles must have ripped, for she felt a searing pain in her side. Still, she managed to run forward for nearly two minutes.
Suddenly Gallen shouted, turned toward Tallea and fired near her head. A searing ball of flame shot three meters over her, hotter than any oven, and a croaking scream sounded. She turned to see a wingman, mouth open, swooping toward her, the white flames from Gallen’s rifle billowing in its mouth. The wingman crashed into the road not five meters behind her, bounced, and flopped over the cliff.
They were nearly to the door. Tallea lurched forward, and saw more wingmen rising up from the valley floor, searching for the cause of the commotion. Five of them.
Gallen leapt over a smattering of fallen rocks, but Ceravanne tripped on one, fell onto others. Maggie grabbed her arm and nearly carried her, and Ceravanne was weeping from the pain.
Orick reached the iron door and stood looking at it.
Tallea felt a shadow, ducked and pulled her sword, swinging. A wingman was diving straight down from the precipice above, swooping over her, and it had extended the long red claw on its wing tip, hoping to snag her and sweep her off the road, over the bluff.
She twisted her sword inward, hoping to strike through flesh and bone instead of just claw. Her sword tip struck the scaly leather of its wing, and she was surprised at the fierce jolt, for it cut the beast but also tore the sword from her hand.
The wingman screamed in pain and swept past her, careening onto the road. Her sword clattered over the cliff, and Tallea drew her dagger, leapt past the wingman as it tried to get up.
She looked back, and the wingman screamed in anger, a roar that seemed to shake the very stone, and then it was after her, loping on clumsy feet, dragging its shattered wing.
Ahead of her, Gallen and Orick were at the iron door. They both pulled at its enormous handles to no avail. And then Maggie was with them, and Ceravanne, and they all stood in a tight knot.
A wingman swooped up from the valley in front of Tallea, trying to cut her off from the rest of the group, but she ducked under it, and suddenly all of them stood together outside the iron door.
Gallen held his incendiary rifle, looked back down the road. The wounded wingman was eight meters away, and when Gallen confronted it with his weapon, the wingman hissed and stopped.
“You don’t want to die,” Gallen shouted at the creature, aiming his weapon at it. The wingman shrieked, raising its long neck into the air, teeth flashing. It watched Gallen with intelligent eyes, bright red, gleaming like rubies.
“Leave now, or die!” Gallen shouted.
The wingman watched him a second, its eyes filled with rage, then leapt over the side of the road, flapping clumsily toward the valley below.
“Who says you can’t reason with a wingman?” Gallen asked, smiling toward Ceravanne. Then a huge stone fell and shattered at his feet.
Tallea looked up. A wingman was in the air, two hundred meters above them, and another swept over the ridge and dropped a large stone.
“Get under cover!” Gallen cried. And Tallea went to the door, pulled at it.
“It’s locked!” Ceravanne said. “We need the key.”
“But who would have locked it?” Maggie asked.
Tallea looked at the door. The lock was a mess of rust. Above the door was fancy scrollwork all along the lintel, images of twin suns rising above fields of wheat. At one time, gems might have adorned the centerpiece of each sun, but the gems had long ago been pried free.
Gallen studied the door for half a second. “Everyone grab the handles and pull,” he said. “This lock can’t hold us.”
But despite their efforts, the door would not open.
“Watch out!” Ceravanne called, and she pushed Tallea backward. Tallea looked up, saw a wingman swooping toward them, a rock tumbling in the air, and she marveled to see such a deadly rain fall from such beautiful blue skies.
She dodged, and the stone hit the lintel of the door with a clang, then split and bounced to the ground. Rust drifted off the door in a thin sheet.
“Hey,” Orick grumbled. “I’m not handy at pulling doors open, but I’m pretty good at knocking them down!”
The bear ran back to the ledge, then charged the door, slamming all of his weight against it.
The door creaked, and there was a snapping, and when Orick dizzily backed away from it, the door had cracked open a finger’s width.
Three wingmen slid overhead, dropping stones in rapid succession, and Gallen stared up at them, raised his weapon as if trying to decide whether to use the last of his ammunition. Orick backed up and roared as he charged the door again.
The lock snapped, and one half of the door buckled under his weight. The bear climbed up onto all fours groggily and shook himself.
And then a wingman swept over the cliff top and shrieked, a long wail of alarm. Tallea was not certain, but she could almost distinguish words in that scream. Out above the valley, all of the remaining wingmen veered toward them and flapped their wings, gaining speed. They knew that this would be their last chance.
“Inside!” Gallen shouted, and several people ran for the door. But Gallen went to the edge of the road, his rifle in hand.
Tallea rushed up beside him. “Take my sword,” he yelled, and she drew the weapon from his sheath. She felt it quivering in her hand, as if it were alive, and it emitted a soft and eager humming.
Tallea glanced back. Ceravanne and Maggie were already inside the iron door, but Orick was trying to squeeze his own bulk through the narrow passage, shoving mightily with his back feet, leaving claw marks in the stone.
Gallen fired at the four wingmen who flew forward in a loose formation, and it seemed that the sun blazed from his weapon. A fierce wall of heat struck Tallea’s face, and the light burst out over the canyon sky, catching the foremost of the wingmen so that he tumbled downward in flames.
Two of them veered off, to avoid colliding with their dying kin, but the third came on.
Gallen fired once more, and the wingman tried to drop beneath his shot. The flames surged past the creature, but they had come too close. Even in passing, the heat was so great that it left a huge black smoking blemish on the creature’s back.
The wingman screamed out in pain, diving toward the ribbon of blue river that shone in the forest far below.
Tallea looked back to the door. Orick was still trying to push through. Gallen shouted, “Get in!”
He raced to the door and charged into Orick, hitting him at full speed. Gallen bounced back, but Orick slid through the opening. Two more wingmen were sweeping from the ridge above, and Tallea ran to Gallen’s side, leapt through the opening.
A huge stone hit the door and shattered, then Gallen leapt through.
The group sat inside the door for a moment, panting, looking at one another. Maggie’s hand was bleeding, and Orick had lost a tuft of hair. Ceravanne may have suffered a sprained ankle, but Immortals healed so quickly that it would cause her no grief. A rock chip bad struck Gallen in the chin, and he was bleeding.
Outside, the wingmen screamed in frustration, hurling rocks against the doors, but none dared land for the hunt.
Gallen sat panting for a moment, and Ceravanne held aloft the light globe. “Welcome to the city of Indallian,” she said, and her voice was tight with emotion. “It has been long since I’ve given such a greeting.”
Tallea looked up. The room flashed and reflected Ceravanne’s light. They were in an incredibly large chamber, where gracefully carved stone rose high. In the distant past, the room had been painted cream or ivory, and stonework floral
patterns had been painted in their own bright hues. High up, three magnificent silver chandeliers graced the ceiling, each with hundreds of sconces. Bright crystals at their base reflected back the light, throwing prismatic colors sparkling across the walls.
Beneath each chandelier was a high, arching passage that led deeper into the mountain.
The place smelled of dust and earth, and for once Tallea almost rejoiced at the cold, in spite of the tearing pain in her side, for at least they had escaped the wingmen. Yet there was more here than barren passages. Unlike the tunnels they had wandered before, this place still carried the faint scent of people, of ancient sweat and food, of tapestries moldering in distant halls.
“Hey,” Orick said. “Are you certain that no one lives here?”
“Great is the lure of the city of Indallian,” Ceravanne whispered. “I suppose that many people may live here yet. Miners may have ventured here in hopes of finding riches … other beings.”
“That lock was rusted,” Orick said, “but the door hasn’t been closed for hundreds of years. Thirty or fifty maybe.”
“Then whoever closed the city is surely dead and gone,” Maggie said hopefully.
“Do not be so certain,” Ceravanne said. “Many peoples are fashioned to live long. Even a Derrit, with its thick hide, is likely to live three or four centuries.”
“But would a Derrit be smart enough to lock a door?” Maggie asked.
“Don’t be deceived,” Ceravanne whispered. “Derrits are not dumb animals. They are foul, and live in their own filth, and they may eat you. But they are also clever and cunning. They were made to be workers on a brutal world, where conditions are harsh.”
“But why would you make them that way?” Orick asked.
“I cannot speak for their makers, for the Derrits were formed long before I was born,” Ceravanne said. “But I believe that it was not the creator’s intent to form such foul beings. Often, peoples who have been created fail as a species. Their love for one another is too fragile. Their passions too untamable. Such peoples usually die out. But while the Derrits are a failure as a species, either unwilling or unable to lift their own kind by sharing their culture, they are successful as individuals.”
Beyond the Gate (The Golden Queen) (Volume 2) Page 34