The Sword of the South - eARC (61 page)

Noise echoed ahead of him, and his skin crawled at the sound. It wasn’t loud, but the soft, throbbing snarl struck a chill in his heart. Another lost memory warned without identifying, and he drew a deep breath and eased forward.

The snarl came again, louder, and he shuffled on. He must be near the end of the narrow stretch by now, for cool air swirled about him, promising a wider way, and torchlight oozed past him. Strange musk drifted on the breeze blowing into his face, and his stomach knotted in rebellion as he smelled it. Why did—

Black and ivory flashed at his face.

He hurled himself back as a taloned paw wider than his chest whipped out of the darkness and smashed into the wall. Stone flakes flew, one chip gashing his cheek, and he recoiled from the strength which could shatter fused stone. The paw came at him again on the backswing, and he hammered it with his sword. The blow jarred his shoulder as if he’d driven steel into the tunnel wall, and rage caterwauled from the darkness, yet the flashing paw darted at him yet again, unharmed and undeterred.

He ducked the hissing claws and hurled himself forward. They dared not be pinned down while the gods knew what gathered behind them. Their only path lay ahead, and he couldn’t clear the way hacking at an invulnerable limb. He had to face its owner and hope to find a vulnerable spot…somewhere.

He crashed into something as solid as a mountain, and his head rang as he bounced. He clung to his sword, shaking his head as claws raked at him. He squirmed away from the worst of the blow, but those claws caught in his hauberk, ripping, and metal rings jangled as they bounced away.

Chernion leapt through the narrow opening, sword bare in her hand, and more light followed her to show their nightmare enemy. Its enormous bulk clogged the tunnel, cat fangs glistened in an apelike head covered with dinner-plate scales, and white claws flashed, long as short swords. The rest was hidden, stretching down the tunnel, but the broad chest rippled with muscle and venom oozed from its fangs and hissed on the floor.

Chernion threw herself forward in a long, lunging thrust and her blade smashed into the massive throat…without effect. The ape head simply shook itself and darted at her, fangs agape. She eluded the teeth and brought her sword crashing down between the blazing eyes in an overhand blow. The head recoiled, but the forelimbs darted out to seize her.

She was too close for its claws, but the monster locked its forelegs behind her and crushed her mailed the body to its chest. The terrible grip threatened to snap her spine, and the head darted at her again. Her sword arm was trapped, but her dagger flashed as she drove it desperately against one pinning limb. The blade snapped, and the creature gripped tighter.

Kenhodan hurled himself at the monster and keen steel whined against the scaled body, only to rebound in baffled rage. He struck again, aiming for the shoulder joint, but his blade only bounced once more. Chernion choked and dropped her sword, stabbing more weakly at the creature’s limbs with the stub of her dagger and coughing as the limbs crushed the breath from her. She couldn’t live long in that embrace, and Kenhodan cursed in frustration as he gripped his hilt in both hands and swung with the full power of his arms and back. He hammered the monster’s neck murderously, scales rang like an anvil…and his blade shattered.

He hurled the broken sword aside. His left hand snatched Gwynna’s dagger from his belt and his right dug into the harsh edged armor as he pulled himself up, climbing his foe as if it were a cliff. The fanged head swept around, striking at him instead of Chernion, but the dagger flashed. One huge eye exploded in hot, stinking fluids and the creature jerked back with a hoarse scream.

Kenhodan hooked a knee over a forelimb and dragged himself onto the ledge of scales. He hammered his slender blade at the gap between two plates, but underlying scale deflected it. He heaved to his feet on the bent limb and his arm darted out to encircle half the huge neck.

Chernion gasped a half-scream as bone crunched and blood frothed suddenly in her nostrils. The dagger fell from a suddenly slack hand and the monster dropped her limp body to claw at Kenhodan, but the narrow tunnel and his closeness to its body blocked the blows. The head whipped from side to side, battering him against the wall, but he clung grimly and kicked the toes of his boots into crevices between the outer plates. He refused to be thrown off and dragged himself higher, and its efforts redoubled, hammering his body brutally on an anvil of stone. Ribs broke under the pounding and a shattering thunderbolt of anguish burst against his right knee, but he ignored the blows, absorbed the pain, and hauled himself still higher, his total being focused on reaching the only vulnerable point he’d found.

Fetid breath choked him as the creature hissed. A flying talon ripped the heel from his right boot, but he dug his fingers between two scales and leaned back. Fangs hurtled at him, able to strike at last, and his hand snapped forward as he buried the dagger in its remaining eye.

Agony screamed in the tunnel as the steel pierced, and Kenhodan drove the blade inward grimly. Fluids gushed over his hand in a hot tide and he set his teeth in his lip and forced the dagger still deeper into the socket, feeling for the deathblow. Steel grated on bone, turned, and slid into the brainpan. The monster shrieked, and its head bludgeoned the stone in madness. The power of its agony hurled Kenhodan from his stubborn grip at last and a clawed paw lashed in a glancing blow that smashed him into the wall. The blinded, dying creature’s braced forelimbs shoved it up from the floor, its head battering the roof madly, and Kenhodan passed out gratefully.

* * *

Wulfra gasped as death broke her link with the graumau and blanked her crystal. She hadn’t believed anything short of wizardry could slay it, but Kenhodan had done it with a
dagger?!
She shook her head in shock, yet at least she’d done for the assassin, and possibly Kenhodan, too. She hoped so. She had too few such defenders to wear her enemies down one at a time!

* * *

Kenhodan opened his eyes and blinked up at a roof of reflected torchlight. Bahzell knelt beside him, one hand on his chest. The hradani’s sword was in his other hand, reversed, and as Kenhodan’s eyes tried to focus it pulsed with one last flare of blue brilliance.

He felt no desire to sit up, for every inch of his body reported its own pains, yet he seemed remarkably in one piece given what had just happened. He raised his head and saw Wencit standing, sword in hand, gazing alertly back down the tunnel along which they’d come.

“Easy, Kenhodan,” Bahzell rumbled. “It’s my best I’ve done, but that’s not to be saying as how you’re after being right as rain.”

“Easy?!” Kenhodan chuckled weakly. “There was nothing
easy
about it. What in Fiendark’s name
was
that thing?”

“A graumau,” Wencit said over his shoulder, never looking away from the tunnel. “Many a Kontovaran soldier died of them.”

“Died of—?
Elrytha!
”

“Easy, I said!” Bahzell held him motionless. “It’s not such very good shape she’s in, but I’m thinking she’ll live.”

“If any of us do,” Chernion said for herself in a hoarse voice.

“Can you walk?” Kenhodan asked her, then gasped at an incautious movement of his own.

“Take it easy and give her a minute, too,” Wencit said tartly. “She was hurt far worse than
you
were, Kenhodan. Without Bahzell, we’d be the poorer for one border warden at the moment!”

Kenhodan’s jaw tightened as memory replayed that crackling crunch of bone and the blood suddenly bursting from Chernion’s nostrils. He’d been certain then she was dead, and he reached up to grip Bahzell’s forearm as he realized why she wasn’t.

“You’ve been busy,” he said.

“Aye?” Bahzell sat back on his heels. “As to that, I’m thinking as the two of you were after being just a mite busier than me.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Mountain,” Wencit said, and spared a moment to glance over Bahzell’s shoulder at Kenhodan. “The Border Warden’s ribs were crushed like a straw basket, Kenhodan, and I’m pretty sure her spine was broken, as well. Believe me, putting her back together again was a challenge, even for a champion of Tomanāk—especially under
these
conditions.”

“Maybe so,” Bahzell said, “but I’m thinking as she’s after feeling none too spry just at the moment, lad, and it’s not so very surprised I’d be if you were after feeling a mite less than fit as a fiddle your own self.”

“Six broken ribs, a broken collarbone, and a shattered right kneecap would do that to just about anyone, Bahzell,” Wencit said dryly. “At least you got all the bits and pieces glued back together again! I imagine Kenhodan will forgive you for the odd lingering bruise or sprain.”

“He’s right about that, Bahzell!” Kenhodan gripped the hradani’s forearm again, then shoved himself into a sitting position with a suppressed—mostly—groan of pain. Given the wizard’s gruesome catalog of his own and Chernion’s injuries, he felt far better—or in one piece, at least—than he had any right to feel. From the weariness which seemed to have sapped—momentarily, at any rate—even Bahzell’s elemental vitality, it was clear the repairs hadn’t come easy.

“Take it easy, I said!” Wencit’s voice was far tarter than it had been. “All three of you need at least a little rest before we move on. What did you and Elrytha think you were doing, Kenhodan? Mountain climbing?!”

“Yes—and the mountain fell on us.” Kenhodan chuckled again, a bit more strongly. “It was all I could think of.” He shook his head cautiously, making certain nothing rattled. “A graumau, eh?”

“Not a pretty beast,” Wencit said.

“No argument there.”

Kenhodan shoved himself up and nearly fell as he discovered his missing bootheel. He bit off a curse and kicked out of both boots. The stone was cold underfoot, but at least he could stand without falling, and he limped over to kneel beside Chernion.

“Greetings, Border Warden.”

“Greetings, yourself,” she replied.

He reached down to clasp forearms with her, and she winced as she reached up in response. Her face was drawn and haggard, entirely too pale for Kenhodan’s comfort, and a dried trail of the blood which had flowed from her nostrils still streaked one cheek.

“Thanks for distracting it,” he said.

“You’re welcome.” She managed a lopsided smile. “Next time,
you
get to do the distracting!”

“It’s a bargain,” he said with a smile of his own, and Wencit snorted.

“You two make a matched pair of idiots,” he grumbled.

“Aye,” Bahzell agreed. “And a pretty mess the graumau’s been and made of our advanced guard and reserve, too. I’m thinking as how the Border Warden’s not likely to be fit for aught more than walking—and that none too quickly—until I’ve time and opportunity to be seeing to her hurts completely. And I’m not so very sure about
you
, Kenhodan, come to that!”

“I can fight if I have to,” Kenhodan assured him. “I’m more or less intact, thanks to you. I’m afraid that’s more than I can say for Brandark’s sword, though.”

“Ah, well! It happens. Here.” Bahzell handed him Gwynna’s dagger. “It was after throwing it clear in its death struggle.”

“Thanks.” Kenhodan wiped the sticky hilt and then cleaned the blade and remembered Gwynna’s awful contempt for handkerchiefs. “That’s three or four times this has saved my life, Bahzell. Remind me to think Gwynna when we get home.”

“Never fear, lad.”

“Still,” Chernion said, her lips tight as she pushed herself into a sitting position, “it’s no substitute for a sword.”

“Don’t worry, Border Warden.” Wencit’s eyes flared in the torch lit darkness as he smiled. “We’ll find another one somewhere.”

“Use this until you do,” Chernion suggested pointedly, passing Kenhodan her sword left-handed. “It’s light for you but longer than that bit of steel. And as the Bloody Hand just suggested, I—” she grimaced wryly “—won’t need it for a while.

“Thanks.” Kenhodan tried its weight and smiled. “I prefer having a little distance between me and the enemy.”

“Speaking of which,” Wencit said, “I think it might be best if we were moving on. I don’t want to sound alarmist, but something large and unpleasant is headed through the Eye of the Needle behind us.”

“Then let’s be going,” Kenhodan said.

Chernion’s sword was loose in his scabbard, but it freed his hands for climbing. He clambered over the graumau on bare feet and leaned back down to give Chernion a hand, but it wasn’t needed. Bahzell boosted the assassin effortlessly up beside him as if she weighed no more than a child.

The dead monster was even larger than Kenhodan had thought. Its armored bulk stretched almost twenty feet, nearly filling the passage. No wonder it had waited here! It could never have squeezed through the Eye of the Needle. In fact, as he scrambled over the catlike hindquarters, he wondered how it had gotten into the maze in the first place. A naked, ratlike tail stretched another thirty feet down the tunnel, thick as his thigh and stinger-tipped. He drew Chernion’s sword once more and stood straddling that tail’s tree-trunk thickness with the sword in one hand and a torch in the other, gazing ahead as far as the spill of light allowed while he waited for the others to join him.

Chernion slid down behind him and leaned back against the graumau’s body for support while Wencit clambered past her to join him.

“What now, Wencit?”

“Now we pick a route,” the wizard said. “There are four, separated widely enough to prevent the same guards from watching more than one. Wulfra should have to stretch her creatures thin to cover all of them.”

“Could she have another of these?” Kenhodan kicked the inert flesh.

“I doubt it. There aren’t many left—thank the gods!—and I was under the impression all of them had been left behind in Kontovar. I haven’t encountered one of them since the Fall, at least. Of course, that leads to the interesting question of how she got her hands on
this
one, doesn’t it?”

“I’m sure it does, and I’m sure you’ll eventually get to the bottom of it. For right now, though, I’ll spend my time being grateful she doesn’t have any more of them…assuming, of course, that it turns out that way in the end!”