The Darkangel (15 page)

she wondered aloud. "What virtue is there in this hoof now?"

"Come, child," said the Pendarlon, with another glance to the western north. "The duarough will know."

Aeriel opened the mouth of her black velvet bag and slid the hoof inside. She drew the mouth closed and let the pouch drop limp and empty-seeming against her breast beneath her smock. Solstar blazed down. Taking her walking stick in hand once more, she turned to the lyon and mounted his back. He wheeled swift as lightning and sprang away in a lithe leap over the dunes. They rose into the air and touched down, rose and touched down. The lyon ran in long, tireless strides, and soon they had left the equustel far behind.

Aeriel and the lyon set off across the sand, traveling southward, away from the center of the world and toward the border of the plain. But it seemed to Aeriel, as she sat or lay along the leosol's back, ate or slept or gazed at the endless dunes beneath the stars, that a subtle difference was present now. Some aspect of the lyon's stride, or breath, or the flexing of muscles along his back betrayed tension. Though the Pendarlon said never a word, Aeriel found herself now and again glancing back to scan the dunes behind, marked by the lyon's trail of pawprints over the sand.

They were little more than halfway to the borderland when Aeriel spotted their pursuers.

Solstar had declined midway toward the east horizon. What she saw were then no more than white specks far, a very long way behind them and loping eastward out of the western north. At first Aeriel thought nothing of them, guessing whatever they were—be it loping dogs or deer or long-legged running birds—would cross her and the lyon's trail far back, at a slant, and continue on to the east. Then she saw one of the creatures—still no more than a pale dot—stop dead behind them over the lyon's tracks and heard it sing out a strange, savage-sweet cry, as if calling its fellows to trail.

Even from afar, the cry reached faintly, clearly to Aeriel's ears. She felt the lyon suddenly tense; he jerked his head around. "Odds," she heard him rumble, "I was afraid of that—

that those two might be to their mistress and back before I could get you safely to the plain."

"Back?" said Aeriel. She could not remember having seen such a pack of creatures before. And there were more than two, at least a dozen of them fallen in behind the leading pair and coursing down the trail. They were still too far for her to make out clearly what they were. "Pendarlon, what are they?"

But the lyon only said, "Hold tight, daughter, and let me save my breath for running.

Happily, if we can lose them, you will not need to know."

His answer puzzled her, frightened her. Aeriel buried her forearms in the leosol's fiery mane, tightened her knees as the sunlion launched into a faster pace. The wind whipped at her. Aeriel pressed herself against the Pendarlon, glanced back. Their pursuers had gained a little, were near enough now for Aeriel to see they were four-footed and smaller than the great cat by several times. She turned back to the lyon.

"But why do we flee, then?" she cried in his ear. "Are you not Pendarlon, and every natural denizen of this region your ally?"

She heard the leosol laugh, a hard-edged laugh with no humor in it. "Ah, these are no natural creatures, daughter. They belong to the white witch of the lake."

"The lake?" said Aeriel slowly, more to herself than to him. Memory stirred. "A still, dead lake in the middle of a canyon—at desert's western edge?" She remembered the story Dirna had told her, the last tale she had told the darkangel. "But what business has this witch with you?"

"She seeks to rule my ward," replied the lyon, panting, "as the icarus now rules Avaric."

Despite his shortness of breath, his tone was low and measured. "She has dwelt in that lake since before my making and cannot be driven out, but though she herself is confined to its waters, she sends her spials and catspaws out over my desert, working her mischief—I kill them when I can."

Aeriel let out her own breath then, realized she had been holding it. She felt cold, leaned closer to the sunlion's warmth.

"But now," the Pendarlon was saying, "I think I would rather outrun these than fight. I have you to look after—and your prize."

Aeriel eased her grip on the lyon just long enough to touch the little black velvet bag that hung, still empty-seeming, from the thong about her neck. Her heavy-knobbed walking stick lay slung from her wrist, tapping against her leg and side as the leosol sped. Aeriel turned again to look behind her, and her heart recoiled. Gradually, steadily, the witch's creatures were lessening the space between themselves and their quarry. Solstar had traveled three times its own diameter farther toward horizon's edge when they drew close enough for Aeriel to make out clearly what they were.

They looked to her like long-legged dogs, with great upright ears, massy, humping shoulders, and whisk-hair tails. They were pale, very pale in color, a ghostly hue that shone like dim earth-shine. And they were spotted, their backs and sides covered with broken rosettes like those of pards—blots the blackness of an ermine's eye, or a starless night, or a darkangel's wings. Aeriel shivered suddenly, realizing she had seen two such creatures before, from a distance, as the lyon had borne her to the equustel.

They ran in two long lines of a half-dozen each, these dogs, flanking the leosol's trail.

The lines alternately lengthened and bunched—never stable, never steady. Their members constantly sprang sideways, over each other's backs as they ran, changing places, like gazelles. The luminous pallor of their coats hung like haze before Aeriel's vision; the darkness of their spots seemed to shimmer and shift. She found .she could watch them only in glances, or her head began to ache and her stomach stir uneasily.

They were singing a song as they came, a crooning that soared and dropped suddenly down scales with never a pause for breath. It made Aeriel's ears ring. But it was only when they had drawn even closer that Aeriel noticed their eyes. Intense and angry red as carbuncles they glowed —eyes with neither iris, nor pupil, nor lid.

Aeriel shrank away from them against the lyon. Seeing her, their pursuers yipped and yapped with laughter, slavering and snapping their jaws. "Jackals," Aeriel whispered.

"Jackals, jackals."

"Aye, daughter," the lyon nodded. His breath was coming shorter now. "The witch's dogs."

"Can we go no faster?" Aeriel cried, clutching him. "They are fairly nipping at your heels."

The pale, bounding jackals gave another bark of glee, and Aeriel realized dieir great, pricked ears must be able to hear even her tight-throated whisper.

The leosol turned his head. "Not, I fear, and keep you aboard," he told her quietly. Aeriel felt her desperation rising. Her limbs already ached with the strain of resisting the wind.

The Pendar-lon eyed the gaining dogs, then Solstar, then the stars. "Daughter, I had hoped to get you safe across the border," he rumbled at last. "These creatures take great mastery to wield at any distance from the witch's mere, and her might is much weakened by desert's edge___But pah," he

snorted angrily, "I think we shall have to face them now."

Aeriel felt herself pale. The jackals hooted and snatched at the air with their teeth. The leosol growled.

"But hold fast to me first," he bade her. "If face them we must, let us at least choose our own ground."

With that, he sprang away suddenly in such an unaccustomed burst of speed that Aeriel was dizzied. She locked her arms, her legs about him. Behind them the jackals sent up a wild yell—not of dismay but as of triumph. Their hunting song grew suddenly bolder, fiercer. Turning, Aeriel saw the double line of red-eyed dogs dashing in pursuit.

The wind buffeting her was so intense Aeriel could scarcely breathe. She felt her hands slipping on the lyon's hot, silk mane, her knees dragging along his side as the rush of air shoved her back from his shoulders. Gritting her teeth and clenching her eyes, she clasped him as hard as she could. Even that was not enough. She felt herself beginning to slip___

The lyon stopped—smoothly, without jolt, but instantly. Aeriel clung to him, dazed. Her body felt numb in the sudden cessation of wind. She gasped for breath. "Quick, daughter," the great cat was crying, shrugging his shoulders to help her off, "to the ground. We must stand ready."

Aeriel tumbled to the sand, knelt a moment on hands and knees, winded. The leosol had brought them partway up the steep lee side of a dune. The lee slope slanted sharply away in front of them, toward the oncoming jackals. Behind her Aeriel saw the top of the same slope recurving to hang above her and the Pendarlon like the crest of a frozen wave—

preventing attack from the rear. Aeriel scrambled to her feet and pulled her walking stick from her wrist. The lyon had already faced about toward the double line of jackals coursing up the slope.

"Remember, daughter," the lyon said as she took her place beside him. "Stand flank to flank with me and do not let them part us. Odds," he growled in undertone, seemingly more to himself than to her, "a pair or even four of them would be no hard task to dispatch—but so many! I have never seen the like." Aeriel stood breathing fast and deeply, to steady herself. Gripping her staff, she gazed at the swiftly approaching pack.

Beside her the Pendarlon snorted, shook his head. "Faith," he murmured, "their mistress's might must be growing vast."

The witch's dogs loped to within ten paces of the leosol and halted. The two leaders came a few paces farther, then sat, regarding their quarry with hot, deep red eyes while the rest of the pack milled and trotted behind them, leaping over one another in a disturbing confusion of light and dark. Aeriel turned her eyes from them, studied the leaders instead.

The one on the left, nearest the leosol, was slimmer, a female; her brawnier companion across from Aeriel, a male.

They licked their lips and panted, waiting. Aeriel fingered her walking stick nervously, wondered which end might make the better weapon: the knotted head or the pointed heel.

All the while, the weaving pack never gave up their high, humming song. Then the shaggy jackal spoke to the Pendarlon, ignoring Aeriel.

"So, lyon," he said, grinning. "So." Gloating made his voice thick. His white-dark coat shimmered eerily. Behind him, the witch's pack-dogs prowled; half were heavy-shouldered like himself, the others slighter, like the brach beside him. "Give up your rider to us, lyon," the jackal said. "Our mistress wants her."

Aeriel's eyes widened. They wanted
her?
She had thought they pursued the Pendarlon.

She heard the leosol rumbling deep in his throat. "By our lady Ravenna," he answered, low and dangerous, "I am unaccustomed to obeying
your
commands." Aeriel racked her wits. What could the water witch of that desert lake want with her? The Pendarlon growled at the dogs, "I kill your kind."

The jackal cut him off. "Ah, but that is all in the past, now, lyonling, when you came upon us singly, or in pairs. Now we in a pack have run you down, and you know very well you cannot stand against us." He rose and arched his back lazily, stretching. "Still, it is riot you we want today. Only your passenger. Give her up to us, or we'll take her."

The rumble in the Pendarlon's throat grew darker, halfway between a purr and a growl, sounded to Aeriel like the dull thunder of approaching hooves. An answering growl arose from the jackal's throat. He lowered his head. Aeriel tensed. But then the other jackal, the brach, slunk forward a pace or two.

"But softly now," she mused. Behind her the others wove and leapfrogged. Above their hunting song, they whined impatiently, licked their teeth. "Why always conflict," said the brach, "when simple persuasion may suffice?" Her round, lidless eyes gleamed red and cunning. "Come, cat," she murmured to the Pendarlon, "why resist? Hand over your prize willingly and you will earn our lady's gratitude. Join us!" Her voice grew softer still, even more winning. "Our mistress can grant you whatever you desire...."

"The one thing I desire, jackal-brach," the lyon roared, "is to see your mistress overthrown!"

All the jackals fell back snarling. Aeriel herself flinched at the force of the Pendarlon's words. "Fool," hissed the witch's dog; her companions gathered themselves. "Cat. Fool."

Then, of a sudden, the jackals sprang. Half lunged for the leosol, half for Aeriel. Catching up her walking stick near the pointed base, Aeriel swung its heavy knobbed crown in a wide arc almost before she had time to think. The witch's dogs ducked, fell back, and sprang again. Again Aeriel swung and once more the jackals shied just out of reach.

To the side of her Aeriel heard the lyon fending off his own attackers with savage growls and swipes of his paw. Aeriel kept her eyes on the pack before her. As they regrouped, still humming above the snarls, still bounding, weaving, and staring at her with their carbuncle eyes, she realized how they had bunched themselves.

The quick, slender braches all dodged and darted about the lyon, ducking under his guard one at a time to worry him with their teeth. Casting a brief glance in his direction, Aeriel saw golden blood streaking the whiteness of his coat. The slower, more powerful dog-jackals faced Aeriel.

She gripped her walking staff, watching them intently, trying to follow their movements despite the confusing shimmer of light and dark. Her clenched fingers hurt. Then suddenly, almost before she could react, one of the jackals lunged at her. Aeriel cried out, stumbled back, jabbed with her walking stick—too slowly. A scream escaped her throat as the jackal's jaws closed over her wrist.

She felt no pain, no crunch of bone, nothing. Aeriel stared. The jackal's teeth met, passed through her like vapor. Her staff, as she thrust it, met no resistance, glided through her attacker's chest and shoulders as through empty air. She heard the dog-jackals' yipping, snarling laughter. The one before her fell back grinning, growling. Aeriel stood as if knocked breathless, staring at her whole, unwounded wrist.