“What is it?” Alronna asked, following his gaze. Then she made a gulping sound deep in her throat.
Lakhoni slipped forward, making sure his footing was secure before moving on. He picked his way across the canyon floor. He found a shallow spot in the river that flowed west through the deep fissure and crossed without getting wet at all.
“Those are homes.” Simra was right behind Lakhoni. “How did people make their homes down here? And why?”
Lakhoni shook his head and put his hand to his mouth. Simra nodded and pressed her lips closed.
Despite the rough footing, the rocky canyon floor was easy enough to cross. The stones didn’t shift—they had clearly been there for years. Generations at least, Lakhoni thought. Could the rocks have partially come from the digging of the stone tunnel they had just come down?
It didn’t matter. And they were unlikely to find out. The homes were strangely shaped—square rather than round like the huts he had known all his life—and built out of rocks and wood. They were also completely empty. Only dead silence greeted them as they passed near the first hut. But it was bigger than any hut he’d known.
Then the smell hit him.
No.
He looked around, clinging to his calm center and seeking the eyes of his family. Lamorun caught his gaze and nodded, cupping his hand over his nose to show he smelled it too. All five exchanged a quiet communication and broke into two groups, Hilana and Lamorun angling around to the right while Lakhoni, Simra, and Alronna took the left. They ringed the village, which was bigger than it seemed. The homes were of all sizes and designs and some were even built around trees, or had stout, tall trees as a corner that had been built off of. They went far into the trees that clustered on this side of the canyon floor.
After making a circuit around the village and meeting Lamorun and Hilana, all five turned to the middle of the village. There was a large space and several rings of stones with shallow fire pits inside them. And at least six bodies lay in disarray in the common space between the homes.
“They look exactly like that boy’s family and village,” Simra said, scrubbing her eyes and putting one arm to her nose and mouth.
Fury replaced the dread that had been pushing on Lakhoni’s chest. Always more murder. The man had to be stopped. “Gadnar was here.”
The companions warily approached the first body. A weight seemed to be bearing down on Lakhoni’s shoulders and head, pressing and squeezing. He clenched his jaw and forced himself to straighten and focus. He must have made a noise without realizing, because Simra turned. Her eyes widened. “Lakhoni. What is it?”
“I don’t know.” The pressure was so heavy that he began to shake.
“I feel it too.” Alronna’s voice was strained. “What—” her question cut off as she grabbed the Sword of Nubal and drew it, spinning in place, her eyes darting in all directions. “It’s gone.”
The unseen force pressed Lakhoni down as if trying to flatten him against the earth. His breath came fast. His heart skipped and flapped in his chest, terror at the invisible power tasting sour against his tongue. Lakhoni dropped to a knee. “Not for me.” It felt like the heavy dread he’d experienced in the cliff tunnel, but heavier and… The thought slipped from him as he fell to all fours. He dug his hands into the rough dirt and forced his next breath to come slower. The earth between his fingers was cool and comforting.
Voices shouted, but he couldn’t understand them. He sensed movement all around.
Lakhoni gathered his will and shoved all the fear and confusion to the back of his mind. He focused on the earth and the connection between his hands, knees, and the unwavering ground. He breathed again, then opened his eyes. To the left. Something to the left. From the middle of the canyon. Near the river.
The pressure disappeared. He sprang to his feet. “To the left!” He spun and drew his dagger. He felt lighter than he had before the pressure had arrived. As if his muscles had strengthened all in one moment.
Simra stood at his side, her expression still one of concern and fear. “Lakhoni, what’s going on?”
Alronna faced the same direction as Lakhoni, Lamorun and Hilana arrayed out to her right. “Something’s coming!” Alronna tossed a glance over her shoulder at Lakhoni. “Are you all right?”
“I don’t know!” But he did. His mind and body seemed cleaned, cleared. As if something had been pressed through him, scouring away doubts and concerns and questions. “I feel it too!”
“Lakhoni, answer me!” Simra grabbed his wrist that held the dagger. “What is happening?”
He met her deep brown eyes. She was perfect. “I don’t know. But get behind me.” He rolled his shoulders.
They heard the skittering first. It sounded like someone scraping an old, dead tree branch across rocks.
Then the lizards appeared. There were at least ten of them, running low to the ground, darting back and forth and practically floating over rocks and old fallen trees. But these were bigger than any lizard Lakhoni had seen. Their heads, with tongues that flicked out and tasted the air every second or two, quivered nearly two feet off the ground. Their legs were muscled in knots, especially where the legs met their tough, writhing bodies. Long, curving claws made the skittering noise on the rocks as the creatures ran. And their eyes glowed a red he had seen only once before—in the eyes of the strange boar that had shredded him weeks ago.
“How are they so big?” Hilana’s voice was a screech as fear lent it volume. She had her dagger in one hand and her katte in the other.
“Just kill them!” Lamorun bellowed and charged the oncoming creatures.
“Stay behind me,” Lakhoni called back to Simra. She didn’t have a weapon. If one of these got past him and reached Simra, she had no way to defend herself. He gauged the speed of the lizards and prayed his dagger would be able to damage them. If they were like the boar—
He cut that thought off and crouched, ready to destroy any lizard that tried to harm Simra.
Lamorun’s loud bellow continued as he slammed his massive cudgel down on a passing lizard. The thing bent in half, a guttural squeak exploding from its razor-toothed maw. It fell to the ground, its front legs scrabbling desperately, the entire back half of its body completely inert.
“They can be hurt!” Hilana kicked at the nearest lizard, then twisted to dodge another that leapt off the ground to bite at her. She brought her wicked katte around and cut a hand’s length of its mouth right off.
“Then hurt them!” Alronna slashed and kicked, swinging the Sword of Nubal in wild arcs, trying to score a deadly hit on the lizards that leapt at her and skittered all around her.
A lizard darted past Alronna and launched itself at Lakhoni. He tracked its flight, planted his feet, and then dropped to a knee. He slammed his dagger upward at the exact moment that its gaping mouth opened to try to tear his face off. His obsidian blade slid through the soft skin under its jaw and pinned the mouth closed, impaling its brain. The lizard was dead before it hit the ground, the glow in its eyes fading immediately. Lakhoni moved with the falling creature, turning fast and jerking his dagger free to fend off the next lizard.
It was too fast.
Teeth scratched across Lakhoni’s left arm as the lizard barreled into him, knocking him backward. Curved, serrated claws scrabbled at him as he fell, trying to tear open his stomach and chest. He twisted and heaved, but the thing got a claw into his chest and pain erupted where it sliced.
Jaws snapped and darted at his face. Lakhoni rolled violently, throwing the thing off balance. The pain in his chest lent furious strength as he screamed and smashed his dagger blade directly into the lizard’s head. He felt more movement coming his way and tugged at his knife. It was caught in the bone of the lizard’s skull.
Lakhoni spun and caught sight of a lizard leaping toward Simra, who was swinging her dagger upward. He desperately flung himself at the lizard and slammed it out of the air, wrapping his arms around its body and bearing it to the hard ground. It wr
ithed and clawed and fire erupted along one of his arms. The lizard slipped free, but twisted suddenly and came right back at Lakhoni. He backpedaled on all fours and kicked the thing under its mouth. It squealed and snapped at his foot, then darted to the left, then right back at Lakhoni.
Lakhoni doubted he could kill this thing with his bare hands. “Simra! Your dagger!”
Simra had been chasing him and the lizard coming at him. She shouted back. “Use your katte!”
He was an utter fool. He’d forgotten the blade on his back. Aiming a kick at the lizard, he reached for the flat blade he’d used to cut through the thick vegetation only a few days before. His kick missed and the lizard, moving much faster than Lakhoni could, darted forward. Its claws jabbed into his legs and midsection as it sought his throat with its pointed mouth. Lakhoni jerked his katte free and swung at the creature’s head. He cut a chunk out of it, but it didn’t slow down. And where was its blood? The teeth clamped onto his arm with such violence that the katte fell from suddenly limp fingers.
Lakhoni screamed in pain and punched at the thing’s eye with his free hand. It felt like it was chewing right to the bone. It would take his entire forearm off in seconds. He bucked and smashed at the lizard, but it wouldn’t let go. He twisted and at least got the lizard’s writhing body off his so its claws couldn’t shred him anymore.
A bone shattering scream cut through the air and something dark flashed past Lakhoni’s eyes. The lizard twitched violently, then went still. Or at least its head did. The rest of its body flopped away as the thing’s jaw stayed clamped on Lakhoni’s arm. A moment later, the jaw loosened and fell, leaving two crescents of teeth marks in his arm. Blood welled and Lakhoni sat back, clearing sweat from his eyes and telling the pain all over his body it had to wait.
Simra fell to her knees, Lakhoni’s katte dropping from her fingers. Several paces away, Alronna pulled the Sword of Nubal from the body of a slain lizard. Just beyond her, Hilana and Lamorun stood back to back. Each fought a lizard, with several slain or mortally wounded lizards strewn around them.
“Die, you spawn of darkness!” Lamorun swung his katte at the lizard he fought. The thing skittered around only to have Hilana’s katte slice it down the middle of its head as she and Lamorun spun. Lamorun’s wickedly spiked cudgel hit the other lizard with such force that it flew several paces, its head lolling wildly. It hit a hut wall and fell lifeless to the ground.
For a moment, all was still, but for a few giant lizards twitching their last moments of life. Lamorun, Alronna, and Hilana dispatched the creatures.
Simra spread a paste over Lakhoni’s arm. She had already examined his stomach and chest and the wounds on his legs. “Their teeth might have something poisonous on them.” The paste smelled foul. Of course. “This should keep any infection away.”
Lakhoni eyed the dead lizards all around them. “Thank you.” Alronna, Lamorun, and Hilana joined Lakhoni and Simra. “But where is their blood?”
Alronna nodded grimly. “I saw none. It’s as if they’re not really lizards.”
“I have never seen lizards of this size,” Hilana said. “They’re the size of dogs.”
Lamorun spat and examined the three long slashes on his bare chest. “I have also never seen lizards with glowing red eyes.” The slashes went across one side of his chest all the way down to just above his navel. “And one of them nearly cut me open.”
Simra finished bandaging Lakhoni’s arm. Lakhoni looked from Lamorun to Alronna, then to Hilana. Alronna’s legs dripped blood from several cuts and her non-sword arm had a long wound from the elbow to the wrist. Hilana also bled from a few wounds, but nothing serious. Her dagger hand bled the worst from what looked like a bite. “Why am I always the one who gets it the worst?”
“I was crushed by a boulder,” Lamorun said.
“I was enslaved,” Alronna said.
Hilana raised an eyebrow. “I am a better warrior than you.”
It felt as if there were slashes all over Lakhoni’s body. As Simra treated the cuts to his stomach, he pointed at his dagger, which still protruded from one of the slain lizards. “Will one of you please get my blade?”
Lamorun retrieved the obsidian dagger. It was completely clean. “None of them bleed. They are not natural creatures.”
Silence fell, broken only by Lakhoni wincing at Simra’s prodding. The lizard creatures made no sense. Nor did the strange sensation he and Alronna had felt before they arrived. He met his sister’s gaze, breathing carefully to try and set his pains aside. “You felt something too, right?”
Alronna nodded as she wrapped a long bandage Simra had given her around her injured arm. The bandage was a length of the vine that Simra had been working a few days earlier. “It was a pressure. Really heavy. It was pushing me down until I touched the Sword.” She bounced a hip, making the Sword of Nubal swing slightly in its scabbard.
“The same,” Lakhoni said. “It only went away when I centered.”
Alronna cocked her head. “When you what?”
Lakhoni shook his head. It would take too long to explain. “Just, when I cleared my head and got my wits about me, it went away and I felt those things coming.”
“Me too.” Alronna handed the end of her bandage to Hilana, who tied it off firmly. “I don’t understand it, but I knew they were coming from that side.” Her fingers slid across the Sword’s pommel. “How did we do that?”
“I have no idea.” Lakhoni held still as Simra applied some salve to the cuts in his chest and stomach.
“The important thing,” Lamorun said, “is that they could be killed. And that they are now dead.”
“It would be nice to know why giant lizards attacked us,” Hilana said. Alronna helped her wrap a vine bandage around her hand.
“And where giant lizards came from,” Simra said. She pressed perhaps a little too hard on the wounds on Lakhoni’s legs. He winced but bit his tongue to keep from crying out. “And why that one didn’t bleed when I cut off its head.”
“None of them had any blood in them.” Hilana nudged the lizard’s detached head. “But they could still be killed.”
“Which, again, is really all that matters.” Lamorun pulled part of a lizard head from the jagged spikes at the end of his cudgel. “So let’s find out where Gadnar has gone and go after him. Because we are finished here.”
“But that’s not all that matters.” Lakhoni glanced at Simra and pushed to his feet. “I would really like to understand what in Creation is happening to us.”
“I would too,” Simra said. She turned from Lakhoni and examined the slashes on Lamorun’s chest. “There must be an explanation for all of this.”
“Do you know it?” Lamorun asked. Towering over Simra, his hard gaze locked on Lakhoni’s, then Alronna and Hilana. “Do any of you know the explanation?”
Lakhoni shrugged and immediately regretted the movement. A new wave of pain flared across his body. He closed his eyes and wished he could simply sit in a cold creek for a day to let the fresh, clean water clean all the injuries in him and freeze them so he could spend a day without pain for once. “I don’t know.”
Nobody else responded to Lamorun. “Then there is nothing to be gained by standing here asking the same thing over and over.” Lamorun let out a noisy breath. “All will become clear at some point as long as we keep going. I am certain of it.”
Alronna nodded. “Lamorun’s right.” She gestured around them at the slain lizard creatures, and not far beyond them the slaughter in the abandoned village. “We need to learn what we can here and keep moving.”
Lakhoni forced his confusion at all the unanswered questions away. This seemed easier than he expected and he remembered the brief moment of clarity that had come to him once the pressure had disappeared before the lizards came. What was happening to him? He clenched his fists, forcing the resurgent questions to retreat. “All right.” He took a careful step forward. “Let’s see what we can find here while there’s still light.”
; “They’ve been like this for a few days.” Simra straightened and turned away from the torn and mutilated body.
“But where is everyone else?” Alronna asked. “We found only eight bodies and all the homes are empty. It’s impossible that these were the only people who lived here.”
Lakhoni gave Gadnar’s latest victims a final look. He and the others had searched the village and the area completely and had laid all the bodies in a neat row in the center. This had been unpleasant and his injuries ached and stung as he worked up a sweat. But it was what Gadnar’s victims deserved. As they worked, all five kept their thoughts to themselves. Lakhoni couldn’t stop trying to put together where the strange, bloodless lizards had come from. Or how they were even possible. Maybe they should burn the strange creatures’ bodies before they moved on.
Lamorun and Hilana had found two more dead thirty paces downstream from the village. All of the killed had some kind of weapon in their hands or near their bodies, mostly thick sticks. No blades of any kind had been found.
“How does he kill so much? Why can nobody stand against him?” Lakhoni forced himself to burn the faces of Gadnar’s victims into his memory, then turned away.
“He is more than he seems,” Alronna said. “No normal man could have survived that arrow.” She shrugged and her shoulders slumped. “But I don’t know what that means.”
“We found a cache of dry wood under the lean-to near the biggest house,” Hilana said as she and Lamorun emerged from the shadows of the thick trees. She held a large armful of branches thick and thin.
“We can build a fire and Dance for them, then go after Gadnar.” Lamorun also carried a load of wood. His jaw clenched, the muscles in his face and neck moving like snakes. “However, I surely would like to stop cleaning up after him and simply destroy him.”
Lakhoni shook his head, grief at the loss of more people to Gadnar’s evil warring with the urgent need to find the man and slide a blade in his heart. “We have to leave them. Gadnar is at least three days ahead of us. We have to catch him before he does more of this.”
Red Prince Page 13