by H. D. Gordon
“I know, my love. I know.”
It had been so long since she’d been here, but as soon as she felt the warm air against her skin, all the memories of the place came rushing back to her.
The smell was incredibly green, like flowers and thick grass and fresh rain. The jungle trees loomed overhead, casting millions of shadows around every curve, giving the place a late day hue, even though the sun wouldn’t set for another six hours.
Tree branches rustled, birds called, and water rushed somewhere in the distance. The Wildlands was a beautiful place, untouched by people and left to flourish under its own rules, but it was also a dangerous place, where the beasts also lived under their own rules.
Noelani and Lyonell already had their swords at the ready, their stances relaxed but alert as they took in the scene around them. Theo’s weapon was still concealed beneath his cloak, but Surah could see the tension in his shoulders no matter how much he tried to hide it. She could feel the tension in her own.
Samson moved forward first, his head raised as he tested the air. Surah moved alongside him, gesturing the others behind her, where they would watch her back. They would need to move as a unit if they hoped to pass through the jungle without loss. The place held everything from Great Serpents to Great Primates, and “wild” didn’t even begin to explain some of their temperaments. They were called beasts for a reason. Samson was the only one Surah knew of that lived peacefully outside of the jungles, and it would be a mistake to think that even he was tame.
“The nests are too high to get a scent,” Samson told her. “You’ll have to perform the spell.”
Surah had known this would probably be the case, though she was loathe to do such a thing. The spell would lead to an eagle for sure, but it would also be pissed off, especially if there were little ones nestled inside.
She hadn’t done something like this since she rescued Samson as a cub, and that had been just pure luck. Then again, she had been just a young girl then, and she was well seasoned with the magic this time. She took a deep breath.
Gripping the stone around her neck in her right hand, her left resting on Samson’s back, where the powerful muscles in his shoulders were bunched and ready, Surah recited a thread-spell to show them the way.
A golden light as small as a pinprick appeared in front of her. Then it shot out ahead in a string of light that looked very much like the golden thread it was named for, revealing the location of the nearest eagle nest. Surah let go of a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and looked around at the others.
“Stay together,” she said, and began to follow the thread, which slowly laced up and up through the canopy of green.
A tree branch cracked and rustled to their right, much too loud to be a small creature’s movement, and all five of their heads whipped in that direction.
They stopped for a moment, their bodies tense, blood flowing hot and hairs standing up on the backs of their necks. Samson let out a low growl that almost made Surah shiver. She swallowed, listened. When nothing else moved or sounded, she pushed her group onward.
Her voice came out just above a whisper. “Move quickly,” she said, and was met with four looks that said, rather plainly, “no shit.” Oddly, she had to suppress the urge to laugh at this vulgar thought.
They followed the thread, moving as quickly and quietly as they could manage, the thick growth of the jungle floor a maze of vines and roots. Several times someone tripped, but they were standing so close that someone else always caught them before they fell.
Finally, they reached a point where the thread angled directly up into the treetops. Surah craned her head back, searching for the nest, though she knew it was too high to see from the ground—even if it was probably the size of a large bedroom. Surah swallowed at the image, hoping this was the home of a young eagle that hadn’t fully grown into its size.
Removing her sais from beneath her cloak, Surah’s heart thundered against her ribs. She looked at her companions, her eyes falling on Samson last and settling there.
“Ready?” she whispered.
She took their silence as answer enough. Her fingers were tight around her weapons. She licked her lips and began another spell. In front of her, the enormous pine, its trunk the width of a wagon, began to shake and sway, its branches making a sound like pouring rain, thousands of needles falling from the tree and showering over them in a curtain of green.
A minute later, they heard it, the outraged cry of a Great Eagle from hundreds of feet above their heads. The sound was a screech and caw that was so loud they had to resist the urge to cover their ears. Surah—though she knew this had to be done—immediately found herself wishing she hadn’t done it.
She pushed the thought away. There was her father’s health to consider. She had no choice here.
She wondered briefly if she had ever had a choice.
The bird crashed through the trees as if descending from heaven, its wide wings spread out to ease its fall. Its enormous talons were outstretched and snapping branches like twigs as it made its way toward earth to investigate who had disturbed its home.
The eagle was even bigger than Surah had been expecting, its wingspan spreading some forty feet, its razor sharp talons terrifyingly large. Its eyes were huge golden orbs, its beak as menacing as Samson’s fangs. Surah had only time to breathe one short breath, see the eagle cock its head in that birdlike manner, hear it issue one more enraged screech into the air, and then the beast attacked.
Surah’s group scattered like field mice, breaking apart just in time to avoid being plucked from the ground by the bird’s enormous claws. The jungle around them grew quiet—very quiet, as the bird took to the air again. Surah knew she had to act fast. She had but seconds before the eagle swooped again. She wrapped her hand around the stone at her throat, closing her eyes and hoping like hell Samson would watch out for her.
“I’m here, love.” Samson’s voice was hardly more than a growl in her head, the sound of his pumping blood almost audible in it. I will take the eagle’s blood. I will take it take it take it!”
Surah tried to ignore the eagerness in her tiger’s tone and concentrate on the holding spell. It would take a lot of energy to subdue a creature of this size. And she could hear it coming now. Sweeping through the air in another strike. Coming.
Breathe deep. Just breathe deep and concentra—
She was ripped from the thought when something wrapped around her body in a vice grip. Her eyes flew open as her feet left the ground, and a moment of pure panic struck as she realized the eagle had seized her. For a split second, she could think of nothing to do, of no way to save herself as awful panic took control of her mind and made the blood rush in her head.
Then, she gained control of herself, as her years had taught her to do, and managed to snap her fingers, which were pinned to her side, and portal herself back to the ground and out of the bird’s death grip.
It was a clumsy transition, and she found herself tucking and rolling as she hit the ground, losing the sai still clutched in her left hand along with the other one that had flown free when the bird snatched her. Her shoulder ached where it struck the ground, but she found her feet swiftly, glad to be back on the earth, even if it was a rough landing.
Her mind was clear and focused now, and she called her weapons back to her with her magic. She caught them out of the air and spun around just in time to avoid being grabbed again by the bird. The eagle let out an enormous cry of rage, but this time, it didn’t take off again fast enough. Not fast enough to escape Samson, anyway.
The tiger leapt through the air and tackled the eagle to the ground, the two of them rolling in a heap of feathers, fur, talons, and fangs. The bird tore at his back with its sharp beak, making sounds like that of an oversized, angry rooster, somehow much scarier than one would think.
Samson snapped and ripped and clamped with his powerful jaws, roaring out at the injuries he was sustaining under the eagle’s strikes. Surah’s
heart stopped dead in her chest as she watched chunks of fur and huge feathers and red blood spray through the air. She gripped her stone, her concentration strong now for the worry over her tiger. When Samson hurt, she hurt.
She saw it when the spell worked, they all did, and her companions uttered a collective sigh as the eagle’s body went stiff, trapped in the holding spell.
It seemed to take Samson a minute to realize the bird had stopped fighting—or maybe he just wasn’t done tasting its blood yet—and for a moment, Surah felt fear for the bird. She was sure Samson was going to kill it.
He wanted to. She could read that as easily from him as if the desire were her own. The muscles in the tiger’s chest heaved and contracted as he stared down at the motionless bird, scarlet dripping from his formidable incisors.
For a long moment, the world seemed to pause, as if the earth itself were holding its breath; a moment where everything present was as unmoving as the eagle. Then, Samson’s long tongue flicked out and licked the bloodstained fur around his mouth, the sound wet and thick.
His eyes didn’t leave the great bird, but his head tilted in Surah’s direction, and she knew the moment was over, that the eagle would more than likely live through this.
But she needed to move quickly. The jungle was silent around them, eerily so, even though the battle had surely ruffled some feathers. She found herself swallowing a nervous laugh around this dry joke.
She slid her sais into the back of her cloak and removed a pint-sized vial from a pocket hidden inside the velvet folds.
Surah approached the bird, her boots snapping twigs and crunching pine needles like egg shells, moving slower than she would have liked but unable to help it. She knew her spell was working, but she couldn’t deny the caution that was pulsing in her body. She suddenly understood why everyone except her always tensed when Samson entered the room. The Great Beasts were just so damn big.
Samson didn’t leave his position over the eagle, but his eyes flicked to her as she approached. His tongue snaked out and ran over the red on his face again.
“I told you I would take his blood for you, love. I don’t know why you even worry.”
Surah raised an eyebrow at the tiger, glad that her back was to the others, because she could feel the worry creeping onto her face, though she fought to keep expressionless.
“Looks like he took some blood from you too, Sam,” she replied silently. “You’re hurt.”
Samson’s eyes went down to her arms, where deep gashes had been cut by the eagle’s talons.
“Looks like I’m not the only one. Finish this up so that we can go home and lick your wounds.”
Surah smiled as she placed the vial underneath a deep laceration on the bird’s underbelly, pushing her hand into his warm feathers to make the blood flow faster. The bottle would fill quickly, and that was good, but it also made her feel bad. The eagle was seriously hurt.
“You mean lick your wounds,” she told Samson.
He gave what could have been a toothy grin. That too.
“Princess,” Theo said, making Surah jump a little before she could stop herself, spilling some of the blood in the nearly full vial and stopping a curse just short in her throat. The others had been so quiet she had nearly forgotten they were even there.
Surah raised her eyebrows at Theo, asking why he was interrupting her, but he was glancing around cautiously, his sword still held at the ready.
“It’s time to go,” he said, his voice just above a whisper.
Surah heard what was causing the urgency in Theo’s tone just as he spoke, and her head whipped to the south. What she saw there made her heart stop dead in her chest, her eyes going wide as the scene took on a sharp focus.
A group of five Great Primates were smashing through the trees, barreling toward them like monster trucks. Their huge fists pounded the earth and shook the ground under their feet, grunts and roars issuing from their enormous mouths.
Surah capped off the vial with quick hands and shoved it back into the pocket inside her cloak, unaware that her jaw was unhinged.
“Yes,” she said, her voice incredibly small beneath the sound of the beasts thundering toward them. “I’d say so.”
Noelani and Lyonell were at Surah’s sides, gripping her hands, and Samson moved next to her in the same heartbeat. Theo was tense and ready to leave as soon as she made the move, but Surah spared one more look for the eagle, whose huge golden eyes seemed to be accusing her from their halted position, where its head lay cocked toward her. Her heart hurt a little seeing the bird so badly injured, knowing she did not have time to heal it, knowing she was leaving it in a terrible position with the primates approaching.
But the decision was clear. The eagle would have to handle its own. Her father was counting on her. Hell, a whole kingdom was counting on her.
She broke the holding spell, releasing the bird, and snapped her fingers, transporting her companions out of the Wildlands just seconds before the group of beasts reached them, wishing she could have waited long enough to make sure the eagle got away, hoping it would, and thinking it was probably the least of her worries.
It still hurt, made her feel not very good about herself, but it was the least of her worries, indeed.
Chapter 13
Surah
The tiger’s rough tongue ran over the cuts on Surah’s arms, making her clench her teeth to bite back a wince.
Samson had been literally licking her wounds since she was a child, and though she knew other people would be nervous about having a tiger do this, she wasn’t. She knew Samson would never hurt her, not even if he did like the taste of her blood, which he must.
She pulled her arm back and stood from her bed. Samson gave her an annoyed look.
“Okay,” she said, “I’ve had my bath. Now let me heal you. I have business that needs attending.”
Samson sat back on his haunches and slid to the floor, licking his paws. “I’m perfectly fine. The bird didn’t hurt me.”
Surah coughed into her hand. “Bullshit.”
He raised his head. “You really shouldn’t mumble and curse, dear. It doesn’t become you.”
Surah rolled her eyes. “You sound like the etiquette teachers of my childhood. Now, stop your nonsense and hold still.”
She wrapped her hand around the Stone at her throat and ran her free hand over Samson’s wounds, saying the healing spell over and over until the torn skin repaired itself, weaving together slowly like stitch work. The tiger narrowed his eyes to slits and let out low growls as the pain slowly left him.
When it was done, he rubbed his big soft head against Surah’s side, knocking her over a bit with his weight.
“Thank you,” he said.
Surah ran her fingers through his fur, performing a spell to clean away some of the blood clumped there. Samson gently caught her hand in between his massive jaws, the tips of his long teeth just barely pressing into her skin. She raised an eyebrow at him, and he opened his mouth to release her.
“You have work to do. That’s more than enough fussing over me.”
Surah said nothing, thinking of the bird she had left so wounded in the jungle, wondering if it had been able to fly away before the gorillas reached it. Samson nudged her with his nose, as if to knock the thoughts away.
“No time for that,” he said softly.
“Do you think it got away?” she asked, cringing at the hope in her voice, as if Samson held the definite answer to this.
He licked at some leftover blood on his blue and black paw. “It put up a hell of a fight.”
Surah released a breath, nodded. “I suppose it did,” she said, and then she spoke to him silently, her next words too revealing to be spoken aloud.
“I don’t know what to do, Sam. I’m scared. I’m not even sure if I should be, but I am. I can’t seem to organize my mind. I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be doing. Things are moving too fast.”
Samson rose to his paws, his amber eyes watc
hing Surah closely. He leaned in and ran his warm, sandpaper tongue slowly up her cheek. Surah wrapped her arms around his neck and held him tight, burying her face in his thick fur. She was beyond grateful to the universe for allowing her to keep such a great friend. At least it had left her that.
“You know what to do, love. Just one step at a time. Step one, find the Black Stone. Step two, use it to save your father. Three, see that whoever is responsible for the murders meets justice. Easy as one-two-three.”
Surah pulled back from him and gave a dry little laugh. She ran a hand though her hair and smoothed out her cloak. “That easy, huh?” she said. “What would I do without your wise guidance?”
Samson’s lips pulled up in what Surah knew to be his version of a grin.
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe get fed to baby eagles at the top of a tree in the jungle. That sounds about right.”
Surah laughed in earnest now. “I love you, Sam,” she said.
“And I you, my love. Now, summon the Warlock and let’s take that first step.”
Surah nodded, but had a strong feeling that the first steps had already been taken, and that bridges were burning behind them.
Chapter 14
Surah
It took Surah and Bassil three hours to prepare everything. By that time the sun was finally setting on what had been an incredibly long day.
Surah stared out the window in her chambers, beneath which Samson had reclaimed his position.
The lights of Zadira were just beginning to flicker on out there, the people of her father’s kingdom leaving work and heading home for dinner with their families. Down on Side Street, the bands would be striking up and beer would be flowing in the taverns. On the east side of town, mothers would be walking their children home from school. Fathers would be kicking off work boots. At times like this, Surah couldn’t help but envy these common people, though she understood well that the grass was always greener.