The SteelMaster of Indwallin, Book 2 of The Gods Within (13 page)

An instant later she was beside him. He clutched desperately at her saddle horn, managed to pull himself into the saddle, got his feet in the stirrups and slapped her rump with the flat of his sword. She trampled two Kulls and four jackals to death trying to get out of the camp, but was quickly surrounded by pike carrying jackal warriors cutting off all escape. And in that instant between life and death a sound rose above the noise of battle, a wolf howl that bore such hatred it gave even the Kulls pause. The howl was answered by another, then another, and the jackals panicked, yipping and yelling with fear as giant loping shapes bounded among them. Morddon could see almost nothing because of the clouds of smoke from the burning tents and dust stirred up by the battle, and so he was never quite sure of what he saw. But he remembered a glimpse of an enormous hound-like beast with a jackal in its teeth. It shook the jackal, snapping its spine and tossing it over one shoulder, then it disappeared into the smoke leaving behind a strong sent of magic. Morgin felt it flooding through him, inundating him, carrying him and Morddon and Mortiss with it, and for just that instant something opened within his soul, as if a doorway locked for millennia had burst under the pressure of a tidal wave of magic. For that one single moment he felt he understood it all, as if all the questions of his life had been answered, and then he was through the door, and it slammed shut behind him, and he struggled to hold on to the horse, his sword, and consciousness as well. And then the shadow of night settled about him, and Mortiss lengthened her stride and put the wind in his face.

She had returned them to the Mortal Plane, and he wondered about poor WindHollow and the female griffin. But the horse had carried him barely a league when she charged into a small clearing and came to an abrupt halt, and by the light of a full moon he saw the griffin waiting there, standing guard over WindHollow who lay curled upon the ground at her feet.

Morddon dismounted, sheathed his sword, leaned over the boy to check his wound, though by the dim moonlight his examination was more by touch than sight. The wound was a puncture just above the boy’s right hip. Morddon’s own wound, on the other hand, was nothing more than a shallow slice along his rib cage; painful, and dangerous if it festered, but nothing to fear beyond that.

A jackal howl in the distance told him the pursuit had begun. He looked at the griffin, and only then did he see the arrow protruding from the joint of her right wing. He tried to smile as he said, “We’re a sorry lot, aren’t we?”

The griffin threw her head back and laughed. “But not half as sorry as the bitch queen’s warriors, I’ll wager you. It felt good to fight again without chains hindering me. If only I could have gotten my talons into that slut of a she-dog!”

Morddon looked closely at the arrow in the griffin’s wing. “Well the opportunity is past. Now we run. I’ll remove the arrow. Will you be able to fly?”

The griffin shook her head. “If we can get to the top of a hill I might glide for a good distance, but flying is out of the question. If I hadn’t already gained good altitude before I caught this I wouldn’t have gotten this far. But I can run, faster than you might think, especially if the dark one there—” she nodded toward Mortiss “—can carry you and the boy.”

Morddon looked at Mortiss and nodded. “She can usually do far more than I would have thought possible.” He cut the shaft of the arrow in two with a knife, then removed the shaft carefully.

The griffin’s wound bled very little, but WindHollow was not so lucky. There was no time to do more than apply a quick bandage, then with the half-conscious boy seated in front of him on Mortiss’ saddle, they moved out at a quick pace that kept them well ahead of the jackal pack following them.

In a few hours they could no longer hear the pack behind them, but by mutual consent they traveled on. After several more hours the griffin was exhausted, and even Mortiss had begun to struggle. The sky was just showing the first hints of the coming day, so they stopped and Morddon set about properly treating their wounds; WindHollow first, then the griffin, and finally himself. He was thinking about a meal, and maybe some rest, when far in the distance a jackal howl broke the stillness of the forest dawn.

“They have our scent,” the griffin said, “and with that they can track us for days. The jackal pack is relentless when their prey is at hand.”

“Then we’ll have to keep going,” Morddon said. “Maybe they’ll tire eventually.”

The griffin shook her head. “They won’t tire, not before they catch us. But perhaps we can reach help before then.”

They continued on as the sun rose in front of them, a right and proper sun now. Morddon felt better knowing they’d left the netherworld behind, but they were still traveling when the sun set behind them and a dark, cold night descended upon the forest. They hadn’t heard the jackals for some time so they stopped to rest.

Morddon wrapped WindHollow in a blanket and tried to lay him in a comfortable position, then set Mortiss to graze, knowing she wouldn’t go far. For himself he sat on the ground with his back to a tree and tried to sleep sitting up, knowing Mortiss would rouse him if the jackals came near. But after only a short period of fitful dozing the wind woke him with the sound of a jackal howl, and again they fled on.

All through that night, and the next day, and the following night, they repeated that same scenario again and again: racing ahead of the packs until they could go no further, then resting for what few moments they had until the next jackal howl told them they must move on. But on the morning of the third day they found they could not gain enough distance to rid their ears of the howls of the packs, and there was no rest.

They were gaining altitude now, climbing into a range of low mountains, and through that day their pace slowed ever more as the howls of the packs grew closer with each passing league. By midday they moved their exhausted bodies at little more than a fast walk. The jackals were so close there was no stopping, and through the afternoon the howls of the various packs blended into a single, snarling entity, as if the packs behind them were converging in anticipation of the kill. The forest before them thinned out as their flight carried them above the tree line, and Morddon quickened their pace until in desperation they were running in headlong flight up a barren, rocky slope with no knowledge of what lay before them. Mortiss strained under the combined weight of Morddon and the young boy, while the griffin struggled along in front of them. But suddenly the griffin skidded to a halt, and when Morddon caught up with her he found that the trail before them ended in a sheer wall of stone that dropped unbroken into a mist shrouded valley far below.

Morddon looked right and left. If they tried to run parallel to the ridge in either direction the jackals would quickly intercept them, so he turned to the griffin. “You said you couldn’t fly, but if we reached a high hill you might glide for a good distance. Is this high enough, and can you carry a passenger or two?”

The griffin looked out over the valley. “It’s high enough, but I can’t carry both you and the boy.”

“Can you carry the boy alone?”

“Yes, but I won’t leave you behind.”

Morddon shook his head. “If you stay I die. And if you leave I die. But if you leave I’ve at least accomplished something, and if you stay your life is wasted, and the boy’s too.” Morddon leaned out over the edge of the cliff and looked down. It wasn’t truly vertical, and there were hand and foot holds. “Besides,” he added, “I can climb a lot better than those jackals.”

The griffin looked down the rock face and shook her head, then she looked at Mortiss. “And what of the dark one?”

Mortiss snorted at her derisively, as if to say she could take care of herself. It gave Morddon a twinge of satisfaction to learn her derision was not reserved exclusively for him, but then the braying of the jackal pack changed as it sensed its prey close at hand.

Morddon slid off Mortiss’ back, took the unconscious WindHollow in his arms and laid him at the griffin’s feet, turned back to Mortiss to tell her she was on her own. But the horse had vanished without waiting for word from him.

“You will be remembered for this,” the griffin said.

Morddon spun back toward her. “No!” he shouted. “Speak of this to no one. Keep my name out of it. You owe me that much.”

“If that is your wish?”

“You’re damn right that’s my wish.”

The griffin nodded. “Very well, my white faced friend, but then you must bear this,” and as she spoke she reared back on the hind legs of the lioness part of her body. The talons of one fore leg shot up with lightning speed, and before Morddon could react the tip of one talon nicked his left cheek just below the eye.

He staggered backward, clutching at the wound on his face, blood flowing freely between his fingers. “Why did you do that, you crazy halfbird? Why?”

The griffin ignored him for a moment, looked out over the valley, balanced her weight on her lioness hind legs and one taloned foot, lifted WindHollow gently with the other. She looked back at Morddon, said quickly, “Now you bear the mark of the House of the Thane. I am sorry I must repay you with such a heavy burden, but then in your ignorance you left me no choice.” And with that she launched herself over the edge of the cliff, dropped without flight for a desperate heartbeat, then unfolded her mighty wings and soared out away from the rocky face.

The din of the pack behind him reminded him he had no time to waste. He turned his back on the cliff, dropped to his hands and knees and learned in that moment just how badly his side had stiffened without care. He resolved to ignore the pain and started edging his way backward down the cliff. He moved downward with an almost careless abandon, taking chances he would not have considered under ordinary circumstances, knowing that if he didn’t put some distance between him and the top of the cliff by the time the jackals arrived, he’d be dangling at their mercy.

There was no time to plan his descent, no time to survey the face of the cliff and choose the safest or fastest route to the bottom, no time even to test the next hand or foothold before putting his weight upon it, only time to choose it and then take his chances. He lost all concept of distance as he became fully absorbed in the frantic descent, sometimes groping blindly for purchase, twice almost falling as an outcrop of rock gave beneath his weight. And not until the first rock—easily the size of his head—crashed against the cliff face only an arm’s length from him, not until then did he realize the jackal packs had arrived. He stopped moving, hugged the wall of rock tightly, looked up carefully to see how far he’d gotten.

The face of the cliff was slightly rounded, something not obvious from above, but from below he could no longer see the top. But then neither could the jackals see him, though a steady rain of clots of dirt and sod and small rocks told him they knew he was down there. It also told him there were few large rocks above, and that the jackals had already used them up in their haste to dislodge him. He remained still and after a time the rain of debris ended, and in the silence that followed he heard Magwa screaming something at her warriors, though he couldn’t make out what.

Occasionally a rock bounded past him, so he started down again, but this time with more care. He reached a point where the cliff face angled outward, losing some of its steepness but taking him out into view of his enemies above, and the rain of rocks began again. He never saw the rock that hit him as it clipped the side of his head painfully. There came an instant of vertigo during which he flailed wildly for anything to grasp, then he hit something hard, felt and heard several ribs crack, bounced and slid for a good distance until he came to an abrupt halt with his arm wedged between two rocks. Bent at an odd angle, it hurt like netherhell.

An arrow chinged against a nearby rock. He struggled to dislodge his arm, managed to accomplish at least that, but almost lost consciousness as each movement brought a sharp stabbing pain in his chest. He was huddled on a small ledge, and he could go no further in his present condition, so he curled up into a fetal position and waited to die.

Somewhere he thought he heard Mortiss laughing at him, and then massive wings obscured the sun, and he heard shouts and screaming high above. He saw the body of a jackal warrior tumble past him, and then talons the size of a man’s arm surrounded him. They closed about him, lifted him gently, though not at all comfortably, and he passed out.

~~~

He came to lying on the ground beside a road. When he opened his eyes he found a giant beak only inches from his own nose, and the night-black eyes above the beak stared at him curiously, examining him. The griffin standing over him backed away a step, and Morddon managed to prop himself up on one elbow.

“Where did you get that mark on your face?” the griffin demanded suspiciously.

Morddon touched the scar where the female griffin had nicked him with her talon. From the position of the sun in the sky she had cut him less than an hour ago, but in that time it had healed fully. “None of your damn business,” he growled at the halfbird, then struggled painfully to his feet, clutching his broken left arm to his side, trying to ignore his broken ribs.

A Benesh’ere war party burst from a copse of nearby trees, charged across a small glen to the road, then up the road toward Morddon and the griffin. The war party came to a halt in front of the griffin. Their leader opened his mouth to say something to the griffin but glanced for a moment at Morddon. Whatever he was about to say remained unsaid as his face turned into a mask of rage. He drew his saber and spurred his horse into a charge at Morddon. But as he passed the griffin the halfbird swept a wing outward, knocking the warrior from his mount into a dusty sprawl. The warrior came to his feet saber in hand, demanded of the griffin, “Why the hell did you do that? That’s the madman, don’t you see? He abandoned the Princess AnneRhianne in the middle of an empty road. He deserves to die.”

“Perhaps,” the griffin said. “But he is under the protection of the House of the Thane. So if you would kill him you must kill me first.”