“I’ll come with you,” Orick whispered.
“No, thank you.” Gallen sighed. “With my cloak covering my scent, they won’t smell me coming, and with my mantle, I can fight in the dark, so I won’t alert them that way. I’d prefer to keep those advantages.”
Orick’s heart was sore to follow Gallen, but he knew it would not be wise, so he took the lesser course of action, and he hurried Maggie and Ceravanne up the road a couple of kilometers, where it turned around a wide bend, then had them hide in some bushes.
Gallen waited till they were set, then crept back to the huge entrance of the mine. It seemed he had hardly stepped in when they heard the bloodcurdling roar of Derrits.
Gallen staggered back out the door as if he’d been knocked backward, and he had his sword up in one hand, the glow globe blaring in the other. A huge yellow Derrit lunged through the narrow doorway after him, a stream of red blood at its throat, raking the air with its claws.
Gallen ducked beneath its grasp, slashed at its belly, then turned and ran. The Derrit careened around drunkenly for a second, then fell to the ground, and Gallen did not stop to watch it, for four other Derrits were lunging through the doors.
One of them stopped in the sunlight, raised his long snout skyward and roared his contempt, while three of the smaller Derrits gave chase to Gallen.
They were so swift, he could not hope to outrun them. Gallen sprinted for a hundred yards, pocketed his glow globe, then reached back and drew his incendiary rifle, whirled and fired.
A meteor of white plasma struck the first Derrit full in the face, and bits of plasma splashed backward, where they dropped and burned into the stone road and into the Derrits behind. The fire of it was bright as the sun, and even the Derrits inside the tunnel shrieked and grabbed their eyes, wailing like the damned.
The single shot managed to fry two of the Derrits and bum the leg of a third. Those monsters who were still alive stayed back in the mine.
Moments later, Gallen hurried up to Orick and the others, sweat dripping from his face, fresh blood spattered all across his robes. Behind him, the plasma fires from his rifle were still burning.
“They had a guard,” Gallen said, shaking his head, stopping to catch his breath. He glanced back. “They sure don’t like the incendiary rifle. Too bad we have only one shot left.”
“Maybe this little display will have them thinking better about following our trail,” Orick said hopefully.
Ceravanne shook her head. “Derrits are not easily dismayed, and they are a cunning people. They will try to outwit us.”
Gallen merely grunted. “They will have to catch us first,” he said and set off at a run.
That afternoon their trail took them through a land of broken hills, a wild land, with little game in it. They did see some rabbits from time to time, and once they saw three dark wolves fading away into the shadows under some trees.
Gallen and the women were wilting from lack of food and from the fast pace, so Orick made it his job to find something edible. Often that day, he imagined himself in Gallen’s shoes, playing the hero. But he wasn’t Gallen, he realized, and food is what they were lacking now.
While Gallen watched for wingmen and Derrits, Orick watched for mushrooms and pine cones, wild onions and berries. So it was that he managed to scrounge some snacks on the run, and near sunset, as he crossed a large stone bridge over the river, he smelled wild blackberries, and led the others upriver a hundred yards to a patch of berries that hung thick from the vines.
They picked what they could, stuffing as many berries as possible into their mouths, and when they set off again a few minutes later, it was with renewed vigor.
At dusk the road left the riverbanks and began to meander up through some dark hills, thick with scrub and the stone ruins of old buildings.
Gallen kept them running till well after dark. Clouds were blowing in, and it looked as if it would rain.
An hour after sundown, they topped a rise and found themselves once again on a high canyon wall. Gallen called the others together for a council.
“If I guess right,” he said, “the Derrits cannot be far behind us. We can either leave the road now and try to hide, or we can hope that the bridge is down at Farra Kuur, and try to fend them off there. Either plan may fail, so I ask you, which do you prefer?”
Orick looked down the cliff toward the river, then looked up at the sky. Their trail was still fresh, and the rains had not come yet, and might not come for hours. To run in hopes that the Derrits would lose their scent seemed foolhardy. Yet the path ahead was unknown. What if the bridge wasn’t down, or what if it had been destroyed over the centuries? What if Derrits also lived in this fortress? There seemed to be no easy solution.
“The river here is not as wide as it was last night in the woods, and there are fewer places to hide,” Ceravanne said. “You still have one shot for your rifle, and the Derrits will be loath to charge us so long as you wield that weapon. I think we should go ahead.”
“I’m not sure,” Orick grumbled. “How long could the bridges last at Farra Kuur before they weather away? At least if we leave the road now, we know what kind of a mess we’ve gotten ourselves into!”
Gallen looked at Maggie, who just shrugged.
“Farra Kuur, I vote, then,” Gallen said. “Even if we get backed into a corner, the road behind us offers little room for the Derrits to maneuver. I think that up there, I might be able to hold them off until morning.”
He nodded ahead, and Orick worried. Gallen had slept only lightly the night before. He was in no shape for battle. Still, Gallen had six thousand years of experience on this world, and Orick had but a few weeks. Orick had to bow to Gallen’s wisdom.
They ran then. Blackberry vines crossed the road under their feet, attesting to the fact that even the game did not use this road as a trail, and as they ran, a burrow owl glided ahead before them, watching for any mice that they might disturb.
The moons were up enough so that they shed some wan light, and the four of them ran with their hearts, until at last they rounded a bend and saw a huge cliff face jutting out from the arm of the mountains, with broken towers crumbling along its rim, and all of the towers were riddled with dark holes that once had been windows. It was difficult at first to see much else, for the moonlight shone only on the upper towers, while the valley before them was in shadow, but the towers looked almost like living things, like giants tall and ready for battle, and Orick realized that indeed the whole face of the cliff was sculpted with their images. Four giants, their eyes hollowed out by age, their great beards hanging down to their belts, stood ready with huge axes in their hands, ever vigilant, ever ready for battle. Orick’s eyes focused on those images.
As they ran, Gallen shouted in triumph, “The bridge is down! Hurry across!”
Behind them Orick heard the roar of Derrits.
Gallen spun about and shouted at Maggie, “Take the light. I’ll hold them off!” He passed her the globe from his pocket.
Maggie squeezed the glow globe, and its bright white light flooded over the ridge. Then Ceravanne and Maggie rushed headlong, running faster than before, their stained cloaks flapping in the breeze, carrying a piece of the sun in their hand as they raced toward the dark tower.
Orick stayed beside Gallen. It was dark, with a thin blanket of clouds above, but not too dark for a bear to see by.
The Derrits were rushing uphill toward them in a disorganized pack, growling and hissing. They moved at a loping pace, sometimes lurching forward on their knuckles more than their feet, yet they moved at an incredible speed, so that a span of road that had taken Orick twenty minutes to cross took the giants only two. In the darkness, the Derrits’ crude gait reminded Orick of nothing so much as that of an otter, with its head bobbing down and up as it ran. He counted seventeen of the brutes.
Yet when they were a hundred yards away, Gallen shouted at them. “Siisum, gasht! Gasht!”
The Derrits stopped, and stood gazing
at Gallen and Orick. The ones in front would not move forward, but those in the back came inching up, shoving the others aside to get a look at the prey.
“Siisum s gasht! Ooongu s gasht!” Gallen shouted, and his voice was a snarling roar that mimicked that of the Derrits.
One of the Derrits called out to Gallen quizzically, a sound of grunts and snarls, yet Orick was sure that he heard words mingled in that growling.
“I told them to stop or die,” Gallen said. “But their leader says that we are warriors of great power, and they want to eat us, to gain our power, so that even in our deaths our power will live on in them. He says that he will not be hungry for me, however, if I only give him you and a woman to eat.”
Orick snarled and stood up on his hind feet. “Siisum a gasht!” he growled.
The Derrits lurched forward a step, as if angered, and Gallen fired his last shot into the pack. The plasma arced up into the night, then dropped in a spray. The whole side of the cliff lit up like noonday, and some of the Derrits screamed and toppled off the road in their haste to escape while others roared and lurched, trying to brush the flaming magma from them. In the light, their yellow hides were suddenly revealed, the white flashing of their fangs.
“Gasht!” Gallen roared, and he held his rifle up menacingly.
Those Derrits who could rushed backward down the hill at full speed, but four of the tribe were either killed outright by the blast, or were burning slowly, or had already toppled over the cliff.
Orick and Gallen turned and headed back toward Farra Kuur, and by the wavering light of the plasma fires, Orick could now see the great stone bridge spanning the chasm ahead, with its ancient guard posts still intact.
Orick started to hurry up the road, but Gallen whispered savagely, “Don’t run! Don’t let the Derrits see you run, or they’ll know we’re afraid, and they’ll try to hunt us again.”
And so they walked slowly up the road, and Orick felt as if a great weight had been lifted. With so many of the Derrits in flames, Gallen seemed confident that the others would not dare to attack again.
They could see the light up ahead, shining from within the walls of Farra Kuur on the far side of the bridge. Maggie and Ceravanne had gone deeper into the fortress, and the light shone from an archway far back along the northern wall.
As Orick approached the bridge, he could hear the sound of water rushing over rocks in the gorge below, could smell the faint vapors of water—and he caught a strange scent, something smoky and oily, a scent he recognized just barely. He was about to shout a warning, when suddenly a dark shadow detached from a comer and stood on the far side of the bridge, a man dressed in the dark, hooded robes of the Tekkar, which went down almost to his knees. And he wore tall black boots.
He held out a strange metallic device pointed at Gallen, and Gallen drew a startled breath at the sight of it. Orick could only guess that it was some type of gun, but it had an odd stock, one that required its user to hold the weapon forward with one hand on a trigger, the other on the stock.
“Well done, Lord Protector.” The Tekkar’s voice was soft, almost a hiss. In the dim light, Orick could see that the man’s face was all a tattoo—of a pale yellow skull. “We’ve been waiting. You’ve saved us from an inconvenience with the Derrits, and for that, we owe you. Now, throw down your weapons, or we’ll execute the women.”
Orick’s heart pounded in his chest, and he considered what to do. He wanted desperately to rush forward and tear off this man’s limbs.
But the Tekkar nodded, and from the archway where the lights shone, seven more Tekkar came out in a tight knot, holding Ceravanne and Maggie. One of the Tekkar held a gun to Maggie’s head.
* * *
Chapter 28
Orick growled and paced back and forth, as if at any moment he would lunge ahead, and Maggie stood with the gun to her temple, her head cocked painfully to one side under the Tekkar’s rough grip, unable to move. She remembered some of the basic kicks and punches that Gallen’s mantle had taught her two nights before, but three of the Tekkar had her. She knew nothing that could help her now.
“Don’t,” Gallen warned Orick, to keep the bear from charging, and Maggie’s heart went out to poor Orick. “Those are dronon pulp pistols, made to pierce a dronon’s exoskeleton. You don’t want to see what kind of damage they do.”
Orick stood up on his hind legs and bawled, his claws raking the air, obviously confused. Maggie could see how much he wanted to save her, and she feared he would charge now to his own death.
“Please, Orick, stay back!” she called, and the bear roared loudly, got back down on all fours.
“Quite sensible,” the Lord of the Tekkar hissed. “Now, Lord Protector, take off your mantle and throw it at my feet. Then drop your rifle belt, sword, and knives.”
Gallen looked up once to the towering images of giants overhead, and he stood with eyes closed, as if meditating for a long moment, considering his chances if he should choose to fight, but at last he did not resist, simply threw his mantle down.
Maggie realized that the Tekkar couldn’t know that Gallen’s rifle was empty. If she fled now, the Tekkar might not chase her, since they wouldn’t want to turn their backs on Gallen. She wondered if she could twist away, run through the dark tunnels of Farra Kuur to escape, but she knew that the Tekkar were terribly fast and Gallen had said that they could see in the dark, that to their eyes the heat from her own body glowed. She could not hope to escape them.
Gallen unbuckled his sword belt and knife sheaths, put them down on the ground, then kicked them forward with his foot and backed away. For one final second, Maggie almost hoped he would pull his sword and fight, but she knew that resistance would be futile. He was outgunned.
Gallen raised his hand out to the Tekkar’s Lord, made a pulling gesture, as if summoning him, and Maggie recognized it as the same gesture he’d made days ago to Zell’a Cree. But the Tekkar ignored the Inhuman hand signal, kept their weapons trained on Gallen.
Only when Gallen had backed well away did the Tekkar Lord stride forward, watching Gallen as he carefully picked up the mantle.
Once he had it in hand, his men came to his side, and one held a dronon pulp gun and kept Gallen and Orick covered while their Lord placed Gallen’s mantle into the pocket of his robe.
The Tekkar Lord ordered Gallen to turn around, and two of his men went forward, pulled back Gallen’s hands and began to bind him.
“What is this, my brothers?” Gallen said, addressing the Tekkar. “This isn’t necessary. I was bringing the Tharrin to Moree—a goal that both she and the Harvester shared, though with different ends. I planned to deliver her into the Inhuman’s hands.”
And in the farthest recesses of her mind, Maggie worried that Gallen might be telling the Tekkar the truth. Perhaps in all of this journey he had been the unwitting accomplice of the Inhuman. At the very least, Maggie had felt his distance during the past week. The Inhuman had formed a barrier between them.
“And for bringing them here, I thank you,” the Tekkar Lord answered Gallen.
When Gallen’s bands were tight, one of the Tekkar reached up, pulled the hair back from Gallen’s neck, and said, “My brothers, he does bear the mark of the Word!”
Ceravanne had the presence of mind to gasp and to look around in astonishment. “No!” she cried, as if horrified at the news. And because Ceravanne had been studying how to manipulate humans for nearly four thousand years, her performance carried a sense of conviction that few others could match.
All faces turned toward her, though the Tekkar Lord just glanced at her with a flicker of his eyes, but it gave time for Maggie and Orick to manage similar exclamations of horror and surprise.
The Tekkar Lord studied them, then addressed Gallen. “If you were delivering them to Moree, then why the subterfuge? You could have taken a more direct route.”
Gallen looked up at him steadily. “I wanted to bring them in alone. It was to be my first and noblest act of service to the
Inhuman. We all serve it in our own way, and I prefer to use deceit rather than force.”
The Tekkar Lord reached into a pocket, pulled out a small ball. Maggie recognized it as a dronon message pod. Like the dronon weapons the Tekkar bore, it was an odd piece of work, an artifact that the dronon must have left behind. The Tekkar hissed, “We have the Lord Protector and his company in custody at Farra Kuur. We are bringing four of them in. Request air transport for twelve to Moree.”
He threw the ball in the air, and it flew with a hissing noise high up, heading southwest toward Moree. Maggie had seen the dronon message pods before, even had some broken ones of her own, but she’d never seen a working model at such close range, and she longed to tear it apart to see how its miniature antigrav unit functioned.
“Perhaps you are indeed Inhuman,” the Tekkar Lord said to Gallen, “and if so, we welcome you. But if you are Inhuman, then you will not fight your fetters, and you will rejoice with us as we introduce your friends to the mysteries of the Word.”
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a small silver insect that struggled in his gloved hand. The Tekkar held it up, walked over to Ceravanne, and looked her in the eyes. Maggie could see from the way that his lips were gently parted, from the anxious breaths he took, that he enjoyed torturing others, but Ceravanne did not flinch away from him, did not let him see her fear, and thus denied him his pleasure.
“Hold!” Orick called out, still standing on the bridge. “You can’t be doing that to her. This is the Swallow, come back to rebuild the Accord!” Obviously the bear hoped that his words would have some kind of influence on the Tekkar. Perhaps he even hoped that they would fall to their knees as the worthy Im giants had done.
But the Lord of the Tekkar only laughed at Orick. “Have you not heard? The Swallow is already in Moree, and she has gathered her armies. She is set to harvest this world, and the stars beyond.”
He spread his hands, waving toward the stars shining above the fortress, above the dark canyon walls, then turned to Maggie.
Beyond the Gate (The Golden Queen) (Volume 2) Page 38