by Richard Due
Running, listening to her breath labor, she found that she had, for the first time since vanishing from her bedroom, time to think. She knew all about the moon she was on. The Rinn reigned over all the valleys, mountains, forests, and even the open seas of Barreth. Sea Denn was its capital, and inside would be real Rinn. Larger than the largest draft horses on Earth, they were shaped more like lions with wider heads and eyes as big as dinner-plates. Surely they would help her.
Half a mile into her run, the lines of birds connecting Fangdelve and the top of the Ridgegate, which had been neat and orderly, suddenly scattered, as if on some signal. Lily couldn’t imagine Rinnjinn, the real Rinnjinn, cutting his lines of communications to Fangdelve unless the tower was truly lost. Lily pictured Rinnjinn pacing the top of the Ridgegate, looking down at the valley of the Rinn, his generals and advisors close at hand, as he planned his defense of Sea Denn. The little rider couldn’t have been right about this day being lost. Surely Rinnjinn would retake Fangdelve, and vanquish this army.
Several times, off in the distance, Lily thought she could hear the clanging of armaments. Each time, she corrected her course, always to the right, to lead her farther from the engagement. But always she would return to her course for Sea Denn, for the Ridgegate, toward her only chance of safety.
She was thirsty but told herself she had been through worse. So she hunkered down, ignoring her thirst, and maintained her long-distance pace. As the gentle grade leveled, the terrain changed. The occasional dry gullies she’d encountered were growing wider, and there were more of them. Crossing became more difficult, requiring small jumps, then leaps. Eventually, the gullies grew so wide she had to run through them. She had taken the first of these slowly, fearing mud at the bottom. But they were dry and sandy, so much so that she had to run hard and use her momentum to gain the opposite embankment.
Lily wondered if maybe running down the middle of the gullies could work to her advantage but decided they were just too twisty to be of any use. She dashed down into another one to cross it and found it swarming with scaramann. Her speed was far too great to consider stopping, so she planted her foot firmly on the back of one and hurtled over it. It clicked and hissed at her. A dozen others raised their heads. They weren’t wearing helmets. They weren’t men. What she had mistaken for helmets were large carapaces, like giant beetles’ heads. Long, sharp spikes ringed their edges, and intricate green lines shone upon them. Their eyes were bugs’ eyes, and their mouths were surrounded by flexing finger-sized mandibles.
“Seize it!” she heard in her head.
But before they could do anything, Lily was through the gully and up the other side. The wild grasses were taller and thicker here. Their roots gave a firmness to the ground that allowed Lily to risk accelerating her pace. Now clear of the dreadful scaramann, Lily felt a sudden wave of prickly revulsion wash over her. She wondered how fast could they run, stealing glances over her shoulder when she felt she could afford to. But the bug-men didn’t follow. Why didn’t they follow? Did they know something about the terrain she didn’t? Had they deemed her unimportant? Were they on a more pressing mission?
Having no desire to run into another gully, Lily made instead for a small rise, where the grass was even taller, and the higher ground gave a better view. From here she could see that she had reached a middle ground of sorts. Behind her the land rose in a gentle grade back to the hill where she had started. Ahead, toward the Ridgegate, the land rose more steeply, becoming rockier. But in this in-between, where the rainfall gathered, the gullies snaked through everywhere. And in the bottoms of all those gullies—they were everywhere, too.
Beetle-green and black, the scaramann scurried through the gullies, surging toward her from every direction.
Lily dropped to the ground, her stomach flip-flopping as she imagined what would happen after her capture. Far too many of those scenarios ended with her being lunch. Lily fought down the tears and panic welling up inside. Never had she been more frightened in all her life. Panting, waiting for the courage to run again, she heard them clicking and snapping. There were so many! And they were getting louder.
Suddenly, she recognized the sound of powerful wings beating hard on the air. A flash of green darted overhead as a great plumed bird cut a tight arc over her. As it passed, she caught—if only for the briefest second—its intelligent eye tracking her. Several bolts whizzed toward the bird’s great wings, but all flew shy of their mark.
The bird soared upward and screamed in a high pitch that carried far on the still air. In her head, Lily heard the words.
“Here, Roan! She is here, just below me!”
A rumbling began, but not a far off one, like she had heard earlier in the valley. This one was increasing in intensity—and rapidly.
Lily took the moon coin into her grasp. This brought me here, she thought. This can take me away!
The face of the coin, with its moons and odd designs, began to shake and blur as the ground below her quaked and rocked. She released the fob. With the tip of her finger, she spun the inner circle of moons. As it spun, she could hear in her head the faint clicking sounds as each moon passed by the fob’s pointer. Picking a moon at random, she centered the pointer and snapped the pincers closed, just as she had done in her bedroom. But unlike the time in her room, the little moons remained gold, and she went nowhere.
The ground was now shaking so much that Lily had begun to lightly bounce, as if she were kneeling on a trampoline. What could make the earth shake so? Several times she tried to brace herself, as she was sure that whatever was coming must be upon her, but each time the shaking only increased.
Lily looked up at the dead moon.
Now what? thought Lily.
Chapter Five
Roan’s Charge
There were more scaramann within the ring than Witcoil had realized. He regretted leaving the Dain cub behind, but what else could he have done? Fought by her side until they were overrun by the scaramann? Accompanied her? No. The sound of his wirtle would have attracted their attention even faster. The cub’s only chance was to remain undetected for as long as possible. But would it be long enough?
Witcoil jumped his wirtle over a pile of boulders, and several poorly aimed arrows whizzed past. Once firmly back on the ground, he leaned forward, every part of his body fluttering and shaking like a flag in a hurricane. From the moment he’d seen the necklace around the Dain cub’s neck, he’d had only one thought: Roan. Only a few minutes before, on his way to see Fangdelve and the valley for himself, he’d passed Roan and his clutter. They’d been making their way cautiously back toward the switchbacks while trying to avoid the scaramann. But where was Roan now? Had he changed his course? Increased his speed? Then, just up ahead, Witcoil saw dust. A clutter of Rinn wouldn’t leave a cloud of dust that big, unless they were really moving.
Witcoil leaned even lower and whispered a racing word in his wirtle’s ear—a word he normally reserved for the home stretch of the Royal wirtle races—and held on for dear life. The boulders and shrub flew past, but Witcoil kept his nerve, guiding his mount through the rough terrain with a grace that would have made a rodeo star swallow his plug of tobacco without even realizing what he’d done.
“Roan!” cried Witcoil, expertly jumping a patch of dense scrub. “There’s a Dain cub! Within the ring!”
Roan was certain he’d misheard, although his ears didn’t usually play tricks. But with his clutter thundering in tight formation, surely he’d misheard at least two of the words.
“A Dain cub?”
“Yes, a female Dain cub.”
A boulder too high to jump appeared out of nowhere. Witcoil swung his left leg off the saddle just as the boulder grazed the side of his mount. Jumping back into the saddle, he speared his foot into the jangling stirrup, gave the wirtle a kick of his spurs, and shot though a small opening in the Rinn format
ion.
“Roan!” he shouted. Roan flicked an ear back, and Witcoil leaned dangerously far out of his saddle, cupping one furry paw to his mouth. “She carries Ebbram’s necklace!”
Roan misplaced a step and nearly fell, recovering just in time. He knew Witcoil. The wyfling was well-regarded by his wyfling commanders and brave to the point of being foolish. And Roan had seen Witcoil in the company of Ebbram the Wanderer more than once.
“She’s all alone,” said Witcoil. “In the gullies, where the rain gathers.”
Without another thought, Roan radically altered his course, scattering his clutter and leaving them in utter confusion. Extending his claws for better leverage, Roan ripped out great clods of earth as he hurtled toward the gullies. Witcoil shadowed him expertly. But Witcoil had never run with a Rinn who had seemingly abandoned all caution in favor of speed.
“Are you . . . absolutely . . . certain?” grunted Roan.
Buzzing around like a hummingbird pursuing an eagle, Witcoil worked hard to keep his wirtle out of harm’s way while remaining as close as possible to the charging Rinn.
“I have talked to her myself, while on the ring, not ten minutes ago.”
Roan fought to increase his pace, hoping that sheer speed would carry the day.
“The scaramann . . . are everywhere,” gasped Roan. “It will be . . . a miracle . . . to find her.”
An enormous green bird dove down from the sky, barely evading a volley of arrows. “Save your miracles for another day,” said Witcoil. “Follow Grygrack. She knows the way. I will inform Her Majesty of this news. She will want you to bring the cub to the Great Hall. Good luck, my friend.” Witcoil peeled off, heading back toward the switchbacks.
Grygrack swooped lower, screaming over the heads of unsuspecting scaramann and vanishing from sight before they could react. She beat her great wings and began to outdistance Roan. “This way! Faster!” she screeched in the common tongue.
Roan caught his first clear glimpse of Lily while leaping across a small gully blackened by belly-crawling scaramann. She ran quickly for her kind, Roan thought, but she might as well have been moving in slow motion, given the danger she was in. He judged her either fearless or completely unaware of the enemy surrounding her.
Ebbram had always made it clear that if he failed in his task, he would send another in his stead, and the emissary would be known by the necklace. But a cub? At a time like this? Ebbram, though mysterious, had always made cautious plans—too cautious, by Roan’s reckoning. This was no cautious plan.
Roan watched Lily dash into a gully full of scaramann.
“No!” he roared.
Amazed, Roan watched the cub plant its foot atop one of the scaramann and vault over it, running up the other side of the gully and making for high ground in a small field of grass. The scaramann had her surrounded now—they were ready to swarm. And then Roan heard them: the thundering feet of his clutter, running and leaping over the gullies. He would not be alone. Springing into the air, Roan roared the battle cry of the Rinn, and for a brief instant, the bugs cowered in surprise.
As Lily looked up, a new image obscured the sky: two outstretched paws thick as telephone poles sailed into view, followed by an enormous face lit by the two largest and most brilliant emerald green eyes that Lily had ever seen. The dead world was eclipsed by two massive shoulders, covered in long fur. A long underbelly came next, then rear haunches, followed at last by a long, thick tail.
Lily tracked the enormous creature’s passage as it sailed over her. When it landed, the ground shook still more, and Lily fell forward. When she looked up again at the Rinn (for it could be nothing else), it was already on the move, reeling about with a cat-like grace that seemed impossible for an animal so large. And all the while, as it reeled and then closed in on her, more Rinn appeared, landing on all sides.
“Surround her!” roared Roan. “Surround her! Do not allow a single arrow through!” He dove toward Lily and lashed out his paw in a violent stroke toward her head.
Before she could even scream, Roan’s massive paw flicked scant inches from her face, the wind of it ruffling her hair. The Rinn had swatted down an arrow that just a moment before was hurtling toward her.
“Brace yourselves!” he roared. “They are upon us!”
An instant later, the horizon vanished as a dark mass of the terrible bugs swarmed up from all sides. The Rinn rose to meet them, the big cats’ powerful claws a blur as they furiously repelled the scaramann attack. The sound was horrific. A terrible crunching mixed with the snarling screams of the Rinn. The dismembered limbs of bugs flew in all directions. Goo splattered and soaked the Rinn’s long-furred coats. But not a single live bug breached their protective circle. With each new wave of surging bugs, the Rinn reared up, tightening their circle, protecting Lily. Their twisting tails, as thick as fire hoses, made it difficult for her to stand, but she fought to remain upright to avoid being stepped on by their giant paws.
Roan turned to face Lily, his eyes alighting for an instant on the moon coin dangling about her neck.
“Come, little one,” he said. “We must be off. Their numbers will only increase, and we are already overtaken. Keep that necklace from sight.”
The memory of standing on the earth mound, seeing the enormous Rinn falling to the swarming black masses, flashed through Lily’s mind. She knew this Rinn was right, that they needed to move. She knew, too, that she should try to speak, and she did try to speak. She tried to move, too, but mostly she just cringed.
An arrow streaked past and thudded into the loose soil, buried to its fletching.
“Roan!” roared a Rinn. “Swarm!”
The enormous Rinn spun away from Lily just in time to meet another wave of the bugs. This surge lasted much longer, and when it was over, she heard one of the Rinn behind her say, “We will not last long here!”
Lily watched with awe as the Rinn swatted away another incoming volley of arrows and then fought off another rising swarm of bugs. She shuddered, as the roar of the Rinn’s battle cries mixed with the sound of the bugs being rendered into bits. She felt frozen with fear. It was too ghastly to bear.
“We will call down the darkness,” said Roan. “We have just enough of us to cover this field. It will buy us time. Sheen, Wizcurs, Keenscent, Shadopads, protect us as best you can. You others, join me in the calling.”
Half the Rinn in the circle lowered their huge heads, and a moment later, a rumbling sound began to emanate from deep inside their throats. The remaining Rinn, with heads high and eyes alert, kept a lookout for the telltale streaks of incoming arrows. After a while, Lily realized that the rumbling had a chant-like quality to it, but what few bits and pieces of words the moon coin translated meant nothing to her.
The incoming arrows kept the defending Rinn busy, and they couldn’t reach a paw to every arrow. When the volleys were heavy, Lily watched the Rinn purposely lean into the arrows’ paths in order to shield those who were chanting.
Suddenly, Lily noticed something strange in the air, like a dark string, thickening not two feet from where she stood. And then, next to it, another appeared. A black string formed right in front of her face. She tried to touch it, but her hand passed through it as if through thin air. The dark strings widened, sucking in all the light around them, growing thicker and blacker as they did. Finally, all at once, like a wave across a seashore, the day gave way to deep night. Lily looked up at the dead moon just as it faded into inky blackness.
Lily found the false night so complete that she could no longer see her hands before her face, and certainly not the Rinn whose tails she was trying to avoid. The whistling sound of the crossbow bolts stopped.
“It will not be enough,” muttered one of the Rinn. “They will soon have numbers to swarm over us, darkness or no.” And from the lilt of the translated voice, Lily was surprised she could dis
cern a feminine quality.
Lily groped around her neck, suddenly afraid of losing the coin a second time. Clutching it tightly in her hand, she thought, More darkness! Wouldn’t that be good!
And then, feeling with all her being that no need could be greater, she thought the words again. Only this time, in addition to just thinking them, she uttered the words out loud. . . .
Chapter Six
The Ridgegate
High atop the Ridgegate, Greydor, Pride of the Rinn, paced the gate’s edge anxiously as he and his generals watched the developing battle below. Greydor had led Rinn into battle well beyond his prime, but it had been decades now since he had personally taken to the field. His long black fur was shot through with streaks of silver, yet there was still a sleekness in his step and a look of great strength to his limbs.
“We will lose this day,” he growled, more to himself than to those about him. “And when we do, they will take our valley. They will destroy everything that lives in it.” Greydor paced to the end of his line, turned. “They will cut off our food supply for the coming winter. They will wait us out as we weaken and starve. And at every crossing, they will bring new forces to bear down upon us. The fields and pastures will become a roiling, twitching sea of bugs. In the spring, they will spread into the mountain footholds, to the forests, the deserts, the marshlands. They will take our whole world—just as they did the moon Dain!”
Greydor lifted his eyes to the dead moon that filled the skies above, wondering which of Barreth’s moons were close enough to see this invasion. Would the people of Dain watch the destruction of Barreth, just as the Rinn had watched the destruction of Dain all those years ago?