Oaths a progression fant.., p.14
Oaths: A Progression Fantasy Epic, page 14
“Perhaps a score, and half again that in hunters!” he cried, dropping to the earth.
“Thirty!” Her lips tightened.
She heard faint barking resound from the south.
“Kyembe.” She pointed to the print. “We have other problems too.”
He gaped and crouched over it, measuring the depth with his little finger. “Its tread sinks deep into the earth… It might be ten times my weight. And the track is fresh. A few hours old at most.” He looked to the marking in the wood. “That looks to be a territory marker.”
The pair looked at each other, then to the fog, turning in a circle as though surrounded by hidden enemies. Titanic trunks loomed from the mist, hinting at things unknown hidden behind their backs.
The barking drew closer.
Kyembe cursed. “I was foolish to miss these, but we will have to worry about them later.” He brought his ring to his lips and muttered words of power before casting his hand east, then west. Both directions were filled with sounds of running across root and earth, followed by cries that were eerily like their own voices. “That should mislead their ears and eyes. It will slow them, but we have to move quickly!” He peered at the fog. “The tracks made for the west. We will bear north. Come! We might lose our pursuers in the mist!”
The ground beneath their feet lay uneven and slick from recent rains. Muck sucked down their steps and their feet slid on wet rocks. More than once Wurhi stumbled, trying to keep pace with the long-limbed Sengezian. She was sorry she hadn’t changed. She could be scampering faster on four legs than on two.
Sounds of shaking bush and the crack of branch and twig echoed from all directions. Birds alighted from their perches and enormous branches creaked in the wind high above the earth. The Zabyallan lost track of where they were running, desperately focusing on keeping Kyembe’s starry robe in front of her. Her heart pounded in her ears. The mist thickened and the air grew colder. A river roared somewhere ahead in the fog.
The sounds of their pursuers grew clearer.
Faint barking sharpened. Shouts of men and women could be heard.
“They’re closing on us!” Wurhi cried.
Her skin shuddered as though doused in crawling vermin. She felt eyes on her from all directions and a strange buzzing filled her ears. All the while, hers and the Sengezian’s illusionary shouts continued to recede west and east.
“Why aren’t they being fooled?” she panted. “It worked on the dogs in Cas’ gardens!”
“Something walks with them!” Kyembe vaulted a giant root and landed lightly without slowing. “Can you feel it? Like a hundred eyes are on us? Their tribe’s demons are guiding them!”
The hounds bayed again. Perhaps only a hundred paces away.
“We can’t keep running!” Wurhi skidded to a halt and pointed to the closest verdant giant. “Climb up there!”
She started for the vine wrapped trunk.
Something rushed from the brush.
“Wurhi, down!” Kyembe pushed her to the ground.
A great shadow sailed over her, the air whistling in its passing.
The hound crashed into the brush and glared back with an unnatural malice. Its rumbling growl shook Wurhi to her bones, and spittle running from snarling jaws shone in the mist. Its teeth gnashed together but Kyembe was already lifting his ring, which shone with white hellfire. Burns ran up his arm as the terrible substance extracted its price. In deep concentration, his jaw tightened against the pain.
He never heard the second one.
The beast galloped from the mist, its jaws clamping on Kyembe’s forearm.
Bone crunched.
His scream filled the forest.
“Kyembe!” Wurhi shrieked.
The monster mauled his arm, pulling him from his feet with hideous strength. Another darted behind him, seeking to grasp his throat as he struggled to pull a knife from his belt.
Wurhi went for her own short sword to use against the brute but dismissed the small weapon immediately. Drastic measures. Reaching deep within, she let the animal haze consume her mind.
Then came the agony.
Her bones split and knit back together, altered. A shriek of rising pitch burst from her lips as fur erupted from her olive skin. Jaws cracked, her face lengthening into a rodent’s muzzle, her large front teeth exploding into a rodent’s shovel-like incisors. A rat-like humanoid now stood reborn where the Zabyallan once was.
The instincts of a cornered animal urged flight, but enough consciousness remained to push herself to fight instead. With a high-pitched chitter, the rat-humanoid surged toward the hound and sprung upon the beast. Wet fur, rot, and old blood stung her nostrils as she crawled over its back, the sharp claws on her fingers biting into its hide. It yelped, growled, bucked, and snapped its deadly jaws, but the transformation flooded her with savage power.
Her grip was iron on the beast’s back and her jaws latched onto its neck.
A rat’s bite was a fierce thing, made many times worse by her size. Her incisors—like twin spades—punctured the top of the beast’s powerful neck as though biting through rotten cheese. Spine parted like thread on a blade and a muffled yelp signalled its collapse. Wurhi jumped free as it fell twitching onto the forest floor.
She looked up to see Kyembe stab his dagger into the other hound’s right eye. The point skewered the beast’s brain, and its body convulsed with a choking gasp. The Sengezian rose with gritted teeth, clutching a bloody forearm torn to shreds and shattered at a grotesque angle. From his grip issued golden light, caressing his wounds and knitting the flesh. Blood-loss stemmed, but the bone remained broken. “My magic cannot mend the bone.” He looked uneasily at the trunk. “I do not know if I can—”
The sounds of the pursuers closed.
He grit his teeth. “I will have to make do with help of the vines.” He started for the tree while Wurhi bolted forth and skittered up the trunk. Kyembe struggled to follow one-handed. It was a testament to the strength of his nimble frame that he ascended at all, but his progress was agonizingly slow.
All too soon the rest of the dog pack crashed through thickets and leapt at him, their monstrous jaws snapping mere finger widths from his feet. Their fetid breath raked across his heels. The rat-thing that was Wurhi regarded him with beady eyes while he laboured after her. The dogs circled, barking and snarling while their masters crashed in after them.
“There!” A bull-voiced woman pointed at them. “Bring them down!”
Several trackers raised short-limbed bows.
Strings twanged. Missiles flew, cutting the air.
With staggering reflexes, Kyembe strained to pull himself over one of the great branches just as a stone-tipped arrow shot past. He hid there in cover, clutching his arm while projectiles cracked on the branch below.
“You five!” The leader pointed her spear at the tree. “Get up after them! You four!” She pointed to the next tree. “Get on a branch above them and pick your shots! The rest of you form a circle! Don’t let them escape!”
Kyembe cursed between breaths and resumed his climb, but he was slower than before. The agony of his arm drained his strength and withered his endurance. His belly churned and his head swam. His skin was cold.
Arrows flew at him, but he was higher up and the mist was thick, spoiling their aim.
Men in bronze helms and wrapped in hides began pulling themselves up the trunk, daggers clenched in yellowed teeth. They closed on the Sengezian. Thinking quickly, he muttered words of power to his ring and channeled magic—not hellfire to burn the tree—but another illusionist’s trick.
He screamed as he let his broken arm drop, directing the spell downward.
The air filled with that scream, echoing endlessly.
A cacophony joined it. The shouts of Wurhi. The roars of their pursuers. The barking of the hounds. All of it amplified until he was sure half the forest heard it.
Both the trackers and the hounds ignored the illusions. That confirmed his suspicions. Some demon or spirit protected them. He feverishly made for the next branch. If he could grasp it with his legs, he could draw his sword with his healthy arm and—
Too late.
The lead pursuer grasped Kyembe by the ankle to pull him to his death.
Nails skittered over bark.
Wurhi shot down with inhuman speed, claws digging into the trunk, and her incisors shining.
Bone snapped.
She clipped off the offending hand.
The man shrieked, red fountaining from his stump as he plummeted.
A body crunched; he impacted a giant root below.
His brethren halted in the face of her gnashing teeth. “Away, monster!”
Stone whistled.
An arrow burrowed into her side.
Wurhi let out a sound that was both a woman’s scream and a rat’s chitter.
“Wurhi!” Kyembe cried. The archers had scaled the other tree, taking position on higher branches to fire down upon them. The Zabyallan clambered to him, chittering in pain, and he tried his best to pour his healing energies into the wound. His hand shook. “It will be alright,” he panted. “Hold out a little more.”
Her beady animal eyes looked to him in fear.
The men below were closing in.
Arrows hissed at them. Two struck Wurhi. Her shrieks tore through the canopy like the anguished cries of a flock of gulls. Kyembe worked to heal her.
They manoeuvred themselves onto the closest high branch and the Zabyallan skittered back to lick her wounds. Kyembe drew his sword.
Steel cut the air.
He slashed away an arrow angling for him, then pointed the thin blade at the lead pursuer, gripping it with one hand and pressing on the ivory hilt with his foot.
With a push, the sword’s magic came to life.
The hilt grew, turning into the haft of a sword-staff. The length suddenly increased, shooting downward at speed.
Metal split flesh and bone.
The blade buried itself in the man’s collarbone, enchanted steel cutting through flesh and shearing bone until it found his beating heart. The corpse flew backward through the mist, and Kyembe yanked his weapon free. Without both hands, he could not retract the length. He would not get a second thrust.
Like maggots on carrion, other warriors began to swarm up the trunk.
Kyembe cursed, edging himself farther onto the branch until he reached the trembling Wurhi. The drifting fog was thick, blocking sight to the ground below, but he could hear the low rush of a river nearby.
He grit his teeth as he tried to think of a way out.
“Raaaaaaaargh!” a terrible roar bellowed through the fog.
The cries of their pursuers died in stunned silence.
Another roar shook the forest. Then another and another.
Branches snapped. Fallen logs crunched.
Immense bodies burst through the brush in the fog below.
Alarmed screams and shouting rose up.
Kyembe smiled viciously and cut the illusionary sounds with a wave of his ring. His intention with this illusion was not to confuse or frighten their pursuers. Instead, he’d sought to attract the owners of the monstrous footprints.
“Ooooogres!” the leader cried from in the mist. “Regroup! Now! Don’t let them surro—”
Meat squelched. A heavy impact splintered bone and pulped flesh, cutting off her orders. More impacts and screams soon followed.
The front half of a great hound—trailing entrails—crashed through vines and branches to plummet like an enormous fish into the river beyond.
A boulder the size of a man’s torso shot from the mist, sweeping the archers from their neighbouring tree, and shattering them to mangled, crimson pieces. One agile soul leapt free of the boulder’s path and caught a low hanging vine, but it sagged beneath his weight, his feet kicked uselessly in the air.
A giant, hairy, grey-skinned arm reached up from the fog.
The enormous hand—fingers clawed like a beast’s—wrapped around the man’s thigh and ripped him from the vine.
Canine yelping diminished southward as Avernix’s great hounds fled like suckled pups from the slaughter.
Something rushed through the mist.
Another boulder.
Kyembe and Wurhi screamed. It bore right for their branch.
Stone impacted the tree, splitting it like dried kindling.
The Sengezian gripped his sword as the branch broke and lurched sideways. Rat-woman and half-dark elf plummeted through the air, their world careening.
They clutched at small branches, desperately grabbing for giant vines to slow what seemed like unending descent. The canopy beat and raked their bodies with the enthusiasm of a driver of a donkey caravan. Abruptly, they hit the rushing water. Icy water cut to the very marrow of their bones.
To the two southlanders, the sting of fire ants would have been more welcome.
The river carried them away.
Chapter 13
Shattered Bones and Ogres
Astorm of violence had exploded in the clearing.
Red drenched the earth and gore painted the foliage. It dripped from vines to fill bloody footprints. Mutilated body parts were strewn every which way, some hanging from branches. Most were partially eaten. The more intact corpses were posed in warning.
“By the Three,” Eppon groaned, slightly sick. “I thought your magic stopped the ogres from finding us, Uncle.” He eyed the towering trees nervously despite the vast army stretching around him. Most avoided looking at the hideously scarred prince, though a sea of wrappings hid most of his maiming.
The old man sat astride a gangly black steed, his darkened eyes narrowing on Eppon. The big man baulked and looked away.
Lukotor was in no mood to be questioned. No mood at all.
“What the boy says is true.” Avernix rode up beside him, looking at his slain warriors in disdain. “What happened here, Lukotor? Did your pot learn anything for us?”
The old man grimaced. “There are two of them. One thinks in a southland language I have no knowledge of. The other’s thoughts are in Makkadian, which I understand. But her mind… it became muddled with the instinct of an animal, and I could put no sense to it. A shapeshifter, perhaps. I gathered some thoughts from our hunters before they were felled. It seems the wizard used some illusionist’s trick to create great noise. That called the ogres.” He sniffed. “Cunning bastard. He will not fool us again. I will see that the Three know to guard for his tricks next time.”
“No sign of any other bodies but what’s left of our own, overlord!” one of the men searching the clearing called back.
“Damn them!” Avernix’s teeth ground.
“They’re slippery, Father,” Eppon growled. “Sneaks and workers of treacherous magic. Cowards!”
Lukotor could not resist glancing toward the word carved into the large man’s chest, covered by bandages. “I also gathered from the trackers’ minds that the thieves fell into the river and washed westward.” Lukotor tapped the Vessel of Altak-Tur. “The Makkadian thoughts stayed in chaos, frantic like a frightened beast when they hit the water. I gleaned brief snippets, but could not keep my grasp on their minds.” He looked to the north. “My overlord, it would be wise if we continued toward Gergorix’s city. The river runs somewhat toward our destination. If the thieves survived, they could get ahead of us.”
“Lukotor.” Avernix gripped the reins on his warhorse. “I’ll not have some oafish ogre or forest beast taking my sons’ revenge while we chase your egg. The deaths of those two worms must come by my order.”
“Then give me the chance, Father.” Eppon turned to him, his face half-smothered by his dressings. “Give me two score… no, half a hundred warriors. A-and our remaining hounds. I’ll avenge my brother. I swear. I will deal with those two. I will hear them beg for death and watch them long for escape. This I swear on Agisil’s name: any escape they find will be in hells of their own worst nightmares! Then, when they are broken, I will rejoin you!”
Avernix gave him a long look. “Alright, we will go on ahead. Search for them downriver. Find them. Kill them if you must but try to capture them alive if you can.”
“Yes, Father.” Eppon glanced furtively to the river. His eyes narrowed. “I’ll not fail you.”
The overlord clapped his hand to his son’s shoulder, eyeing his wounds and broken arm. “Take no more risks yourself. Use your warriors wisely and return to us, understand? This is my command.”
“It will be done, Father.”
As the Bear-Breaker led his expedition along the river, thoughts of vengeance and regaining his honour consumed him. A part of him longed for the moment when Lukotor would seize the egg and could heal his skin. He did not fancy the idea of hunting down that Traemean knight while looking as he did.
He shook the thoughts from his head.
Spoils would come later, he told himself.
For now, he had a red-eyed bastard to castrate.
A rodent-like humanoid pulled herself onto the riverbank.
She coughed onto the rocky shore, sneezing, and shaking herself. Water sprayed off her grey fur. With beady eyes, she examined the shore, snout twitching. The mist had cleared, but an unfamiliar, acrid scent was heavy in the air. The rat-thing chittered and bared her teeth, snuffling monstrously. Sharply, it looked down at a nearby spot on the bank. There was another scent there. A human had been close by here, bearing something that smelled strongly of sweetness and vitriol.
She looked again to the trees; beady eyes narrowed.
Something splashed in the river.
Sputtering and groaning, Kyembe of Sengezi dragged himself onto the shore using the haft of his sword-staff as a crutch. His broken arm dangled, and he favoured it with every movement. His fine, star patterned robe was drenched and torn.
The rat-creature hunched over, writhing in agony as her skeleton broke, shortened, and reset. Sickening popping and cracking filled the air. Flesh rippled as skin replaced fur, and claws, snout, and tail disappeared. Animal cries grew more human until they were the pained moans of a young woman.
