Storm runner, p.6
Storm Runner, page 6
“Stop!” she cried out. “Not that way!”
He did not hear. His ears were closed in terror. He stumbled, sobbing as he landed in a clump of redbrush. When he staggered out of it again, he cried out and threw himself back from the Gray One who tried to block his path.
Dion sprinted forward. She was gaining, but so, too, were the worlags. She could almost see them now, shadows in the Gray Ones’ minds. Their acrid scent clogged the wolves’ nostrils. Their chittering filled her ears.
The boy disappeared behind a thick stand of trees, and a cloud of spotted birds rose up screaming, fleeing to another roost.
Hishn dodged to her right. This way—it is clear this way—
Within the stand, the trail petered out, and the boy thrashed into the brush, rodents and reptiles alike scurrying away from his clumsy feet. The Gray Ones swept around the trees. Dion and Hishn skirted the bushes. He would come out there—where it was thinnest. Dion could see the branches snapping and jerking with his panicked run. She dodged one of the wolves who cut across her path, and skidded to a halt. The boy lunged out almost at her feet.
“Stop! Stop now—”
At her words, the boy froze, then cried out and flung himself back at the brush.
Dion lunged at his arm. “No—there are worlags—”
The boy shrieked and yanked back, jerking Dion off balance.
“Stop—stop fighting me!” Dion pulled him against her, but his feet kicked wildly against her shins and legs. “There are worlags—dammit!—do you hear? You are running right into them—”
”Raider-rat!” he shrieked. “I’ll die before I give in to you!”
Dion grabbed his arms in a pressure hold and the boy screamed again until she forced him to the ground, helpless. “I am not a raider,” she said urgently. “I am a wolfwalker—”
“Raider-rat—” he sobbed again.
“Listen!” she shouted. “We will both die if you do not get up and run with me. I am not a raider. I am from Ariye. I am here to help you and the others. I will answer your questions later—do you understand? There is no time now. The worlags are almost on us.”
The boy stopped struggling, the terror on his face unrelieved.
Dion’s heart tore at his expression.
“Worlags?” he stammered.
“On your trail. They are almost here. We’ve got to run—now.” She dragged him back to his feet.
“But the wolves…”
“They were trying to guide you away from the worlags.” Dion shook him. “You must trust me. Do you?” She did not wait. “Hurry. Follow the Gray One in front of you.” She shoved him after Hishn, but he balked. “I will run behind you.” She tried to reassure him, but her voice was sharp with fear as she coiled her cloak around her arm again. “Do not stop, no matter what. The Gray Ones will protect you as best they can. Go. Now! Oh, dear moons—”
He hesitated again, looking back, and she screamed, “Go!”
The gray voices tightened suddenly in her head, their song hardening into the hunt. As the surge of it hit her, the worlags threaded through the trees like a tapestry of blackness. Hishn lunged away, the boy stumbling after, then running as Dion shoved him again. “Faster,” she snapped. “Fast as you can! Don’t look back!”
Behind them, the worlags’ chittering broke into the shrill singsong of their hunt. The Gray Ones scattered. Even the wolves could not face the razor-sharp pincers of the beetle-creatures.
Dion’s heart was in her throat. The boy’s fear, sharp in her nostrils through the Gray Ones, was as nothing compared to hers. The boy knew only the tales of the worlags. Dion knew their reality. “Faster!” she screamed as he staggered up the rise. She grabbed his arm and flung him before her until he regained his feet. She did not look back. The three Gray Ones, racing in front of the beetle-creatures, sent their urgency to Dion as if they shouted it in her ears.
Where do we go? There is no den here… Hishn’s question was almost desperate. The battle fever in her blood all but overwhelmed her desire to commit to Dion’s command.
The river—there was a boulder. Beyond the clearing. Behind her, a Gray One snarled and a worlag screeched. The old female dodged the worlag’s claws, and the beetle-beast came on, wanting soft, hot human, not lupine, flesh.
Hishn veered right, taking them toward the meadow Dion had skidded through earlier. There had been a boulder—its image was still clear in her head—and it was high on one side. If they could climb the other, the boy might be safe, and Dion could defend their position until help came. Worlags could not climb rock as well as they could climb trees.
“The boulder—up ahead,” she managed. She loosened the thong on her sword and yanked her long knife from its sheath. She did not draw the sword while running—its weight would exhaust her arm even before she swung it. The chittering behind her grew more excited. Through the Gray Ones’ eyes, she could see the worlags closing. First on six legs, then on two, the worlags scuttled, then rose up and sprinted as they found Dion and the boy in their sight. They ran like men now, their hairy forearms swinging through the brush like machetes, their scrawny middle arms tucked in against their bodies. Forty meters. Thirty-five. The boy was flying ahead of her, fear making his feet into wings. His hoarse breathing matched her own. “To the right,” she gasped. “There, where the rocks come together—”
He did not answer, but pelted after the wolf toward the cliff. The thunder of the roiling water below drowned the sound of their breathing, and Dion shouted, “Climb! Hurry!” He reached the boulder and struggled to get a handhold in the smooth stone until Dion caught his knees and roughly threw him up. He slid backward, and Dion screamed. “Climb!”
She whirled, her back to the rock. The worlags, their red-black eyes on her, fanned out, charging the stone.
Chapter 4
Stoke the fire in the heavens,
Because the moons are rising fast.
The wind is blowing, boiling down;
The hunters run at last.
Where you seek your haven,
Where you find your den,
There face you the hunters dark,
There face you your fear
With blade bright silver;
Blade dull red
Till there is left
Just this:
The tremor in your hands;
The beating of your heart;
The wildness in your eyes;
The light that breaks the dark.
Hishn,” she shouted. “Get away. Get Aranur! Go! Now!” The gray wolf howled, and Dion whirled back, shoving her hand under the boy’s scrabbling foot. She flung him toward the rounded top of the boulder as he hauled himself up. She glanced back at the worlags and, jamming her long knife in her belt, leapt after him, the hilt stabbing into her gut as she scrambled. Hishn howled at her, but Dion could not take the wolf onto the boulder. “Go!” she screamed at the wolf. “Get to safety!”
… bloodlust, hunger that grips my belly and bunches my legs to sharp motion… Blood, bitter in my teeth. Hishn circled, leaping in front of the lead worlag, snapping at the creature’s leg. Lunge—tear the joint, tear the haunch… The beetle-beast dodged deftly, unwrapping one of its middle arms and raking claws across Hishn’s flank. Dion clutched her own side as if burned. “Hishn!” Fire, the wolf yelped. The burning in my side! The image dulled to a searing ache, and Hishn pivoted, lunging back toward the boulder. The rest of the Gray Ones swept into the clearing, onto the flanks of the worlags. The worlags chittered, hesitating, and Hishn skirted their pincers like a twisting snake. The wolf pack snapped and lunged at the worlags. Irritated, the beetle-creatures circled. They wanted the soft, warm prey on the stone, not these wolves with their hairy pelts, gleaming teeth, and hard, black claws. The worlags dropped back to all sixes, scuttling toward the rock. The hard leather of their arms was dull under their sparse, purple-black hair. Their thick, leather carapaces stretched back in a short arc from their faces to the back of their necks. Now on six legs, now on two, they turned and swiped at the Gray Ones who thwarted their path.
Dion knelt on the top of the boulder. She felt the burning of the raw gash in Hishn’s side as if her own ribs had been laid open. She tore off her cloak and thrust it back at the boy. Stringing her bow tight, she grabbed an arrow from her quiver and took aim. Luck of the first shot, she thanked the moons: the bolt sank true. The injured worlag screamed and snapped the bolt off at its neck. Dion aimed again—at the same worlag. It would take more than one shot to drop it, and she had but one quiver of arrows. But the wolves lunged in, and the worlag twisted—and Dion’s shot bounced off its back. The worlag closest to the stone rose up against the rock and stared at her with its bulbous, red-black eyes. She took an involuntary step back. Its forearms stretched along the boulder. Thick-skinned jaws opened, its inner jaw pincers clacked together, and its thin, middle arms scratched for purchase in the stone.
“Moons damn you to the darkest hell!” she snarled. Its jaws gnashed. She held her aim. It turned its head slightly as it eyed a lower spot on the stones. There—the purple-black leather was thin, soft inside the joint, where the heavy, leather neck met the head. She held her breath. The worlag looked back, then shifted to climb up, and Dion sank her bolt into its neck. It screeched, yanking its head and jerking it up and down against the shaft. Black ichorlike blood seeped out of the wound, then gushed suddenly as the worlag clipped off the arrow, jerking the shaft within its jugular. Dion plunged another arrow into its left eye at point-blank range. The beetle-beast fell back, thrashing as it tried to tear the second bolt out of its skull.
Behind her, the boy cried out. Dion turned to see a black pincer-hand reaching over the boulder. With her bow still in her left hand, she drew her sword and hacked in one movement. Her sword jarred against stone, and she drew back, trembling. But the limb had sliced through cleanly, leaving only threads to connect the pincer in a grotesque dangling dance. Ichor flushed across the stone as the worlag’s other foreleg jerked up.
“Here!” Dion flung her bow across her shoulder and grabbed her long knife, thrusting it at the boy. Then she kicked the bow back into her hands, slashing with her sword at the second limb that crept over the edge of the boulder. The worlag dropped back, cluttering angrily.”Keep them from the edge!” She wiped her sword swiftly on her leather jerkin, then jammed it back in its sheath, turned, and grabbed another arrow. “We have a good chance of holding them off until Aranur arrives.”
The boy gripped the knife between his fists, unheeding of Dion’s words. A knife, he thought blankly. He had a knife. He touched its edge. Sharp. Not dull like Gered’s, or broken like Luter’s blade. Sharp, he thought, stunned. Sharp enough for any raider’s hide. Sharp enough to—to avenge the death of his father. Sharp enough… He stared at the blade, then at Dion, then at the worlags circling the stone.
Dion did not see his expression. She was searching the beetle pack with her eyes. Where was the wounded one? The one she had already shot? Dead, it could not harm her. Injured, it would climb through the second hell to kill her. There—it was over there. She judged the wind, then, as the breeze calmed for a second, she drew back and loosed the shot. The worlag screeled and stumbled, twisting, then finally fell on its side. Its legs thrashed like a spider. Dion sank another bolt into its carapace before thrusting the bow at the boy to hold and grabbing her sword again. He was still standing where she had left him. He took the bow automatically, as if he did not really see it. She had no time to wonder. “Give it back—throw it if necessary— when I call for it,” she ordered sharply. He nodded, but his eyes were still on the knife. “Do you understand?” she said urgently. ”You must not hesitate.”
“I understand,” he said in a choked voice. He looked at her then, and his face went suddenly calm. Dion nodded curtly.
Surrounding the boulder, the worlags circled. There were eight now. Two were down, and one of the eight was without its foreclaw, but there were still too many by far. Their claws clicked ominously on the stone as they tapped its sides, looking for holds. They would be climbing even now. Hishn, limping, licking her ribs, looked toward the boulder and howled in frustration.
Hishn, Dion sent urgently, find Aranur and lead him here.
The gray beast made a limping run toward one of the worlags. He cannot hear the Gray Ones as you do. He cannot hear me as you do.
“No,” Dion returned out loud, knowing that Hishn could read her words as images, “but he can hear you well enough, Hishn, if you meet his eyes with your own.” Dion glanced at the boy’s puzzled expression and pointed with her sword at the wolves, indicating that she spoke to them, not him. “We cannot hold the worlags off forever,” she admitted to the wolves, “and I am not sure I can kill them all even from up here. It takes two, sometimes three arrows for each one. I have only ten bolts left. Even if I did not miss—and with the wind, I am sure to—I can take only three, maybe four of them down by bow. That leaves at least four—maybe five for the blade. And if they come more than one at a time, it might be more than I can handle.”
Then I will not go. Hishn’s voice was stubborn. It faded suddenly as she twisted and dodged a worlag’s irritated swipe. She jumped back and circled with the other wolves, gazing toward the boulder.
Dion crouched, turning, twisting constantly in a circle as she eyed the rim of the rock. “We can hold them off for a time,” she argued. “Long enough for you to find Aranur. He should be on his way to meet me—you should pick him up four, maybe five kilometers to the north.” She stabbed at an eager arm. “Look, Hishn,” she said firmly, “the worlags are not certain of us yet. They are still trying to come up one at a time, and I can hold them off for now. But not forever. I need Aranur.”
Dion yanked the boy suddenly from the rim, cutting at the pincer-hands that snapped against the boulder where his foot had been. She noted with a narrowing of her eyes that his ankles were bloody and the rags around his feet were red. The stick-grass, she remembered. They had run through the meadow on the way back to the rocks.
Wolfwalker— Hishn howled, and the rest of the pack took up her frustration in its song. The streak of pain in Hishn’s side made Dion wince.
“Hishn, go. Let the other Gray Ones help here. You cannot dodge the worlags forever with that wound. If they tire of taunting us, they will turn on you.”
It is a shallow wound, the wolf sent angrily. It will not keep my teeth from your hunters.
Dion glared across the distance at the gray creature. “Go,” she ordered abruptly, no longer asking in her urgency. Go now! And, hurry, she added, softening the command. We cannot hold them off forever, and your fangs, sharp as they are, cannot pierce the thickness of their leather. You cannot keep the beasts from our throats.
Hishn gave a strange, yelping howl, then turned and raced into the forest. Dion sent her a shaft of approval. Gray Yoshi circled after his mate, splitting from the others so that two remained, and two fled. Hishn and her gray shadow were gone before Dion could blink.
“Will they—will they be back?” the boy asked.
“They have gone for help.”
The expression in the boy’s eyes shuttered suddenly. She shook her head. “Ariyens. Not raiders.” Her face changed, and she lunged at him, snapping, “Get down!” She swung, but her sword glanced off the slick leather casing on the worlag’s leg. The creature jerked, but reached back for the boy’s arm. As he stabbed awkwardly with the knife, Dion slashed again, over him, cutting into the joint. The pincer-hand rattled across the stone. Grunting with the force of it, Dion swung her sword like a wooden bat against the worlag’s carapace, flinging the beast off. Twisting and falling, it landed on its five limbs, cluttering in a deafening fury. She turned back to find the boy staring at her. It was her warcap he was staring at—or the silver healer’s band that peeked out from under it. Dion tucked the silver circlet back under the cap and tugged the cap in place.
“Yes, I’m a healer, too,” she muttered, wondering what he was thinking. Who in their right mind would trust a healer to wield a sword for protection? He was probably thanking the moons that she had given him her knife. She began again her crouching circle of the boulder’s top. “What is your name?” she asked abruptly over her shoulder.
The boy regarded her warily. “Tomi.”
“I’m Dion.” She slashed at another creeping pincer. “Use both hands on that knife. Stab into the joints. The knife won’t cut through the casing on their arms or head.” Gamon, Aranur’s uncle, had told her that once. Gamon, she prayed silently, if you were only here right now… As she crouched on the boulder, his words came back to her, and she repeated them to the boy: “Aim for the joints or eyes. If you can puncture the throat, that’s best. If not, go for the shoulder and elbow joints. Severing the body joint doesn’t stop the arms from moving right away, and their wrists are too strong to break.”
In front of her, Tomi clutched the blade. His eyes blazed as he regarded the rim of stone, and this time Dion saw the expression. But then he scrambled to his feet, his eyes hidden again as he widened his stance and rocked onto the balls of his feet in a crude imitation of Dion’s feather balance. She nodded grimly in approval.
Below, the worlags clacked their inner jaws in frustration, scrabbling at the stone. They were wary now, cautious of the blade at the top. While they chittered, the severed claw lay on the boulder, opening and closing mindlessly in rhythm to their sounds. Tomi, watching it in fascination, finally used the tip of Dion’s bow to shove it off the rock.
Dion examined their retreat with narrowed eyes. The boulder on which they crouched was rounded, with an upward slant behind the boy. It flattened briefly before curving down. On two sides it dropped clear to the ground. On the other side, a small flat stone butted up against the boulder, and next to it squatted the other rounded stones by which Dion and Tomi had clambered up. When the worlags attacked, they would come, as Dion and Tomi had, over those stones. They followed the scent of their prey—Gamon had told her that also. They followed and, like ants, left their own musk behind to lead other worlags to the food. Dion shivered. She would have to listen for them now; the boulder was too steep on its sides for her to look over the edge without putting her feet within reach of the beetle-beasts.
