Talon (The Astor Chronicles Book 1) (33 page)

‘Talon… get… get an arrow out of my qu… quiver,’ Sarlice said, gasping for breath. ‘I’ll cut your bonds.’

‘There’s a knife in my boot,’ I said.

‘The arrows of my To… Tolite-kin will be sharper,’ she argued.

After much fidgeting I grabbed hold of an arrow and pressed it into my guide’s hand. She wriggled and squirmed until she could reach my foot. Her body shook with pain and I wondered just how bad that wound in her shoulder was—the fact that she was still conscious was a good sign, but I wished we had some parn for her pain. She braced herself against the wall so she could saw against the bonds around my feet. Lira shrieked and the sound of a struggle and cloth tearing spurred us on.

Lira was sobbing by the time Sarlice severed all the ropes. I morphed instantly into rat form and scurried up the wall, but without much purchase for my claws, it was difficult. Before I reached the top, one of the demon dogs lunged for me. I let go of the wall just in time, dropping to the ground with a light thud. The wind was thumped out of my tiny body and Lira continued screaming. I resumed human form and was on my knees in the muck at the bottom of the pit, wishing I had learned bird form.

‘We can’t go that way,’ Sarlice hissed furiously.

‘They’ll kill her,’ I nearly shouted.

‘Those dogs will kill you if you try that again.’

I fretted and scrambled at the base of the pit, racking my brains for a form that would facilitate escape. I could take off my clothes, tear them into strips and knot them into a rope, but the dogs would tear me to pieces the second I got close to the top. In my frenzy, I morphed into the forms of several different animals—bear form did little to deter the demon dogs and it was too heavy to climb out. The hole was too narrow and deep for me to leap out of, even in mountain lion form.

‘We ca… can dig our way out,’ Sarlice suggested. ‘Hurry!’

‘That will take too long,’ I protested, but there was not much else we could do.

‘Get this out of me,’ she said, gesturing angrily at the arrow.

‘You’ll bleed too much,’ I replied. ‘And we don’t want any of this filth getting into the wound. You could die. You stay here. I’ll dig the tunnel.’

Sarlice nodded regrettably. ‘Come back if you hear me calling.’

I closed my eyes, allowing my body to shift into the form of a brownish hare. When my senses had cleared, I engaged the rocky wall. It was all I could do to keep my concentration on the new form and not on what the Zeikas were doing to Lira. Once inside the tunnel a loss of concentration would be fatal.

Sarlice didn’t make any noise for a long time so I set my mind and claws to the task and burrowed outwards and upwards for what felt like at least an hour. The light behind me faded, though the stench of waste was still strong. The sounds of the earth ahead of me changed from a solid wall to something like an echo. Perhaps I was near the surface. I heard a desperate wail and fear gripped me. The coursing of my blood rumbled painfully in my head. A sense of confusion came upon me, followed by the disorientation of being in another form for so long.
Did Rekala feel this way when she was taken by the Zeikas and kept in horse form?
I couldn’t risk reaching out for her now, not when I was so close to losing my concentration. Another shout echoed down the tunnel—Sarlice needed me!

I raced back down the tunnel, ears flat against my skull. I emerged into the light, resumed human form and sat so that I covered the tunnel opening. The dizziness in my head made feigning sleep easy as I almost passed out. A few minutes later, the lower ranking Zeika looked over the edge of the tunnel. He scratched himself, looked around the stinking pit and spat on Sarlice’s still form.

‘She’s no good,’ he said to the Zeika some distance behind him. ‘Half dead already.’

‘That never stopped you before,’ the other Zeika guffawed.

He moved away, muttering. I crawled to Sarlice’s side, fearing the worst. She grimaced when I touched her.

‘
That would needs treatment fast,’
I thought, wishing for the herbs and salves I had in my pack.

‘Sarlice,’ I whispered. ‘Sarlice, do you hear me?’

My guide stirred, blinking through tear-filled eyes.

‘It hurts,’ she complained.

‘I know, my friend, but I’m going to have to make it hurt a little bit more. We need to pull it out after all,’ I said. ‘It needs to bleed and clean the wound out. Once we’ve staunched the bleeding do you suppose you’ll be able to concentrate long enough to morph and follow me down the tunnel? I think I’m nearly through to the surface.’

She nodded weakly. ‘Have to. Cannot morph with it in there anyway.’

She was right. From what I’d learned in Jaria, morphing with a foreign object like that embedded in her flesh wouldn’t make it vanish into the waves. Instead, it would remain and the damage caused by an arrow through the shoulder of a hare would be far worse than one through a human. It might even pierce her heart and kill her.

I took my shirt and surcoat off, noticing how cool the night air was against my warm, sweaty skin. The smell of a campfire and roasting meat wafted down from above, so I felt confident the Zeikas were occupied for the time being. I wrapped a piece of the surcoat around the shaft of the arrow, hating what I was about to do. I gripped the arrow and pulled. Sarlice responded with several loud wails, her pain bringing tears to my eyes. The Zeikas only laughed and made more jokes from out of sight above. My muscles strained against the arrow, but it still wouldn’t budge. I yanked twice more, with all my strength and it came out with a slow slurping noise. Sarlice gasped, slid to one side and lay there, shaking. Redness soaked her chest and side.

I grabbed her by the waist and pulled her back up gently. She cried into my shoulder, bringing back memories of our time in Tasset.

What her uncle had done to Sarlice was truly inexcusable, yet she had moved on from those days and developed into a strong, independent woman. It seemed like I had been in a bit of a daze since we left Tasset, distracted from my friendship with Sarlice by the presence of Lira.

Witnessing Sarlice’s bravery right then, I wondered what had appealed to me so much about the Jesathian noble woman. Her attempts to beguile me in the forest only reminded me how different we were. While a part of me longed for those cool, pale arms to be around me once again, another part told me it was wrong. I barely even knew her.

Sarlice drew in shuddering breaths, fighting to keep her eyes from closing.

‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered, stuffing a swab of my shirt against her wound. I tore the rest of the shirt into strips and knotted the ends together to fashion a makeshift bandage.

‘Can you concentrate for long enough to get through the tunnel?’ I asked.

‘I will try.’

After she had transformed shakily into rabbit form, I wrapped the makeshift bandage tightly around her wounded shoulder and under the opposite arm. When the blood kept coming, I realised the wound might not stop bleeding without proper medical care and bedrest.

I shifted into rabbit form with painstaking effort, shivering slightly. We moved slowly into the tunnel. Hearing the dogs bark louder than ever, I doubled back. One of the Zeikas had discovered our escape and was shouting about letting the hounds off.

I heard a woman’s voice clearly with my keen rabbit hearing.

‘You can’t!’ she said. ‘They will kill him. This has been a mess right from the beginning.’

I recognised it as somebody I’d heard but not seen. My blood went cold as I realised it was the woman who’d been there the day the Zeikas captured me near Tez. Arak and Jonaal had spoken of a princess when Rekala had made the other carthorses flee in the rain. There had been a woman’s voice asking to see me… and it had sounded exactly like this one—shrill, pitiless and commanding.

The possibilities whirled in my mind—too many to process all at once.

‘We can’t let him get away,’ the Zeika replied testily.

There was the sound of someone stamping their foot. The shrill female voice said obstinately, ‘He will come for me.’

I ran back into the dark hole, passing Sarlice who was ambling along very slowly. At the end I continued to shred the dirt away. I tried to stay focused on digging, but when there was no sign of Sarlice behind me, I had to stop. My little heart raced with exertion and worry.

What if she couldn’t go any further? What if she’d dropped back into human form and caused the other end of the tunnel to collapse? She would be dead. The Zeikas must have thought we were not capable of this.
Are we?

There was a sound in my head like thunder—the pulsing of my own blood. I wondered if I had been in rabbit form too long. Then I wondered why I was wondering. One minute I forgot why I was in this situation, the next, I remembered. Through it all, my instinct for escape remained.

I dug faster, working myself into frenzy. What if the Zeikas had decided to let the hounds down into the hole?
Escape!
Were Rekala and Kestric still alive? My mind was so clouded, I couldn’t access the waves to check. Even Tiaro was silent, bobbing somewhere on the waves far away.

Within moments I forgot who Rekala and Kestric were. Then I remembered again. I raked at the tunnel until my paws stung, wondering where Sarlice was. I forgot who Sarlice was. I wondered who I was. I remembered for an instant only.

I sniffed the air for some sign—beyond the earth and waste smells was the sour tang of rabid canine. It didn’t smell right. Another rabbit came slowly down the tunnel, hurrying as best it could, its eyes wide with terror. I watched it go, automatically thumping my back foot in warning.

I remembered the demon dogs—a flash of fang, the scent of old blood. I forgot again, but knew I was in danger.
My flock is in danger!
When the other rabbit reached the end of the tunnel, I ran my nose over its neck in comfort and caught the smell of rabbit mingled with human blood. I remembered Sarlice. In rabbit form, the wound was a deep pin prick. The thumping in my head decreased.

‘I am Talon!’
I shouted, suddenly regaining access to the waves.

My mind lurched with fear and the realisation I was losing myself. I suppressed compelling urges to regain my original form.

‘Lightmaker be with us,’
Tiaro called. Although she was physically in the waves at that moment, she was still with me spiritually, sensing everything I sensed. I was simply losing my sense of self.

‘Help me, Tiaro,’
I said.
‘I can’t hold on much longer.’

Her prayers in strange languages took on an echoing quality in my mind and faded into the background noises of the deep earth. Part of me realised that Tiaro was shoring up my spirit.

Like the sandbags one piled around their house to prevent the flood waters from reaching it, Tiaro surrounded my mind with light. She reminded me of things about myself that I hadn’t thought of for years, tender moments with my mother when I had been very young, sacrifices I’d made for my grief-stricken father after her death, quiet times alone in the mountains. There were flashes of Jaria’s Rada-kin, running to greet me and beg for scraps of their favourite foods. Then there was my own precious Rada-kin.
Rekala!
Thinking of her gave me an anchor to reality, and her voice found purchase in my thoughts.

‘Hurry dear one,’
she called, fighting her own battle of escape.
‘Dig!’

I sniffed around me. There was Sarlice-rabbit. The smell of blood was strong. I fussed over Sarlice’s injury, but she pushed me away weakly to encourage me to keep digging. The smell of the demon dogs increased and I dug with all my might.

My body trembled with fatigue. The tunnel shuddered and I heard scuffling in the distance. The dog smell became overpowering, so I drove my teeth into the dirt to help my splintered claws. A root barred my way. I scoured around it and chewed at it frantically. Sarlice did what she could to help, but her strength was fading fast. Panic engulfed me.

The tunnel echoed with roars. A beast scrabbled at the dirt behind me, larger than the tunnel I had dug. I bit down through the root until my jaw felt like it was breaking. The dog nipped at my tail. I drove powerful hind legs into its eyes. I drew blood, but the dog gave no reaction. I broke through the root in front and pushed Sarlice into the light ahead. The dog’s claws struck my back.

Sarlice fell before me as part of the wall we had just dug through collapsed into an enormous dimly-lit rabbit warren. The central area of the warren was ablaze with hundreds of eyes. Sarlice was nowhere to be seen and tunnels stretched away in every direction. The demon dog wrenched a tuft of hair from my tail as I dived into the rabbit haven.

I could sense the hostility and fear of the other rabbits. The bravest of the crowd sniffed at me warily and hissed in admonishment—I was a foreigner to the burrow and therefore not welcome. I found my body quite out of control, hair standing on end as I took on an offensive stance. Behind me the demon dog’s nose poked through the gap, causing the other rabbits to freeze in silent fright.

Then, as the mongrel scented its prey, it rapidly began widening the hole with its forefeet. The rabbits broke into hysteria, rushing into numerous tunnels. I was forgotten by all but the hound.

‘Fight back!’
This thought came from Rekala.
‘You are not prey!’

My body shifted and stretched into the form of a fox. I snapped at the monster’s paws and sunk razor-sharp teeth into its snout as it tried to squeeze through the collapsed part of the wall, but it seemed oblivious to pain. The mongrel had almost made enough room to squeeze its entire head through. Once its powerful shoulders were behind the loosened dirt it could easily push through.

I spun, scented something delectable and chose a tunnel. It came to an end almost straight away. Inside was a huddle of terrified young rabbits, at the mercy of my fangs.

I paused. My body screamed
‘Hunt, kill!’
. My mind hesitated. A steady beat had started up again, distracting me from my purpose, which a small voice told me was to
‘Flee, escape!’
. Animal hunger competed with blind fear. Something else was in the tunnels.