The Ring of Five Dragons, page 15
part #1 of The Pearl Series
As they broke out of a particularly dense section of the wood, he abruptly stopped his mount, waved Eleana back. They retreated into the forest just as two hoverpods, filled with Khagggun, bristling with weaponry, came into view. He groaned inwardly. Too late. They would never find Giyan now.
“They always hunt in pairs,” he said to Eleana. “The Khagggun are methodical and merciless in their work.” Then his blood ran cold, for he saw the insignia on the side of the leading hoverpod: three crossed fists looking like a horrid mailed flower. “N’Luuura take it!” he breathed.
“What is it?” she asked, guiding her cthauros close beside him.
“Pack-Commander Rekkk Hacilar.” Annon did not take his eyes off the hoverpods as they slowly approached. They were coming in over the tops of the trees, their view hampered by the foliage. “He is one of the bravest Khagggun. Also, one of the most ruthless. He has killed many hundreds of enemies. I have heard that his battle helm is carved out of a Krael skull.”
“Is that one of your animals?”
He laughed without humor. “Oh, no. The Krael are one of the many races we conquered.”
He looked into her eyes for a moment. But only for a moment. The hoverpods were close enough so that they could make out the heavily armored uniforms of the men—articulated purple-blue titanium slabs topped by high helms sporting Hacilar’s crest. These helmets, Annon knew, were filled with sophisticated systems that enhanced the Kha-gggun’s senses and also linked them into a single pack entity so that the individual soldier was lost within the matrix of the hunting whole. This was a palpable example of the V’ornn Modality: one multiheaded creature bent on his destruction.
As they watched, mesmerized in terror, a thin spear of blue energy sliced down from the lead hoverpod, incinerating a swath of trees. There was an odd, clicking sound. The Khagggun were laughing.
“I have never heard of him,” she said. “His pack does not hunt anywhere near here. Why is he here now?”
“There is only one reason I can think of.” Annon pulled her back from the edge of the woods. “How in N’Luuura did they find me?”
She gave him a sharp, startled look. “Are you a criminal?”
“That depends on whom you ask.”
She briefly squeezed his hand. “I’ve never met a V’ornn criminal before.”
He smiled grimly. “To be honest, neither have I.”
“What are we going to do?” she asked.
“The only thing I know how to do,” he told her. “Keep out of their direct line of sight. Otherwise, they’ll find us and use that ion cannon on us.”
Feeling helpless, he watched the cold blue light dance blindingly as it lanced downward into another section of the forest. Pines and am-monwood exploded, hissing like snakes as they hit the waterlogged ground. He could sense Eleana flinch beside him.
“Hunters, you said. They’re trying to flush us out.” She dug her heels into her mount’s flanks. “Come on! I have an idea!”
He took off after her. For the first few hundred meters they more or less paralleled the hoverpods, until Eleana abruptly turned them away. An enormous felled tree lay in their path. They bent low over the cthauros’ backs and urged them upward. Eleana’s cthauros leapt over the trunk, coming down within millimeters of its blackened, peeling bark. But Annon was riding Giyan’s mount, and its lame hoof was enough to prevent it from getting the lift it needed. It came down with its hindquarters squarely across the tree. It screamed as its hind legs fractured. The stub of a broken branch pierced its belly. It thrashed and screamed again, turning on its side to free itself, pinning Annon beneath as he tried to scramble away. His eyes bulged in pain, and he arched back as Eleana wheeled her cthauros around and galloped back.
“I can’t get freer’ he panted. The cthauros continued to scream, but more weakly.
He could see that if the beast rolled any farther, it would crush his chest. He was terribly afraid.
“Hold on!” She dismounted, ran toward him. She pulled out her knife, slit the dying cthauros’ throat, jumped back in time to avoid the huge gout of blood. The beast looked at her for an instant as if in relief, then its eyes rolled up and filmed over.
She tried to pull Annon free, and he almost passed out with the pain.
“It’s no use,” he said. “You can’t free me that way.”
“I won’t leave you,” she said.
He pulled out the curved scalpel he had kept with him from the interrogation room in the caverns beneath the regent’s palace and held it out to her. “Use this. It has a longer blade.”
“What do you want me to do with that?”
“My only chance is if you cut me out,” he said.
She looked dubious. “I don’t know.”
“Eleana,” he whispered, wide-eyed. “I cannot feel my legs.”
She took the scalpel from him.
“Do you know what to do?” he asked.
She was concentrating on the animal. “Keep very still.”
She could see that one leg was pinned between the side of the cthauros and the fallen tree. Thank Müna he had missed the broken branch. Using the curved blade, she cut into the soft belly of the beast, gave a stifled cry at the stench of released gases, the quick ooze of intestines that came slithering forth. She rubbed under her nose, continued her incision all the way up the side, praying she could free him before she encountered the first of the beast’s thirty-seven ribs. If the densely boned rib cage was on the V’ornn, she would never be able to free him.
Blood was everywhere, but Eleana did not cry out or weep. She kept her eyes firmly on her task while he concentrated on breathing deeply.
At last, she threw aside the scalpel, grabbed his shoulders. He used the heels of his hands against the rough tree bark to help her as best he could, and slowly she slid him out from under the dead cthauros.
She held him awkwardly up. They were both covered in blood and pale green, ribboned tissue. “Can you stand?” she asked him.
She shrieked as a focused beam of dazzling blue light sliced through leaves, branches, tree trunks to slit open the forest floor not three meters from where they stood. Half of the cthauros corpse was incinerated before they had a chance to react.
“The pack!” Annon hissed. “It’s tracked our body heat!”
“Müna protect us!” she whispered, as she backed them away, his leg dragging uselessly through the muck of the forest floor.
“Your Great Goddess can’t help us now,” he said with a groan of pain. “Not against their weaponry.”
As if to underscore his words, the forest exploded again in light and agitated energy. The fallen tree disintegrated, along with the rest of the dead cthauros. Annon reached up, dragging his cthauros back by its mane. It stamped and snorted, but as if aware of the danger, was otherwise silent.
“We’ve got to get out of here before they home in on us.” Eleana swung up onto the cthauros.
Annon looked up at her with pain-racked eyes. He held himself on his good leg only by grabbing handfuls of the beast’s mane. “I’ll never make it.”
“Sure you will,” she said, bending down. Ignoring the bit of bone she saw protruding from his torn pant leg, she gathered him around his waist and launched him up behind her. All the breath went out of him as pain exploded, and for an instant he swung dizzily, about to pass out. Then she brought his arms around her slender waist, locked his fingers together over her sternum. “Here we go,” she whispered back at him. “Hold on tight.”
She felt the press of his chest against her back, the weight of his head on her shoulder as she urged the cthauros away from the next burst of ion-cannon fire.
“Where can we go?” he said to her. His voice was slurry, and she prayed to Müna that he would not lose consciousness.
“There is a place I know, a hidden place. But you must tell no one about it.”
She did not wait for his reply, but galloped down the incline and into the long gully hidden by a dense stand of ancient, towering Marre pines. Above them, the cathedral of the forest hid the gathering morn- ing sunlight, immersing them in deep emerald light. Behind them, another explosion detonated as Eleana guided the cthauros on down the gully. Standing water from last night’s storm hampered them, as the cthauros had to pick its way blindly down the spine of the gully.
The ground began to rise, the ammonwood and feathery white mountain pines giving way entirely to the huge Marre pines. The air smelled sweetly of pine and pitch until another blast of the ion cannon sent acrid fumes whirling at them. A Marre pine fell on the spot they had been in a moment before. Annon felt the brush of one long branch across his back.
“It is no use,” he whispered. “They have our scent; we cannot outrun them.”
“Have faith,” she replied, as she navigated the cthauros through the deeper water.
“Faith,” he whispered. “What is faith?”
The water here was dark, tea-colored, without reflection. Snakes wriggled out of their way, but she kept an eye out for the large predators she knew to inhabit the depths of the Marre pine forest. Huge boulders added to the gloom, but for once she felt comforted by the hulking presence.
“How are you?” she whispered. She had become afraid of speaking in a normal tone.
“Fine,” he replied, but she felt the convulsive shiver run through him.
She wondered how badly his leg was mangled. The image of his protruding bone haunted her. His leg was fractured or worse, if the bone had been irreparably crushed. With an effort, she turned her mind away from those gruesome possibilities and continued giving gentle but firm guidance to the cthauros.
They had entered the upper reaches of the Marre pine forest, the part she knew best. The cthauros was laboring a bit as it struggled up the increasingly steep incline. Stones and bits of shale flew from beneath its pounding hooves. She was worried about one short stretch they needed to cover to get to her hiding place. It was a ridge of blue-green rock where even the hardy Marre pines could not put down roots. They would be exposed for at least a couple of minutes. Desperately, she thought of alternative routes, but there were none. They had to cross the ridge.
She pulled the cthauros up just at the edge of the trees. Before her loomed the ridge. The open space between where they were and the straggling line of Marre pines on the upper side of the ridge could not have been more than three or four hundred meters, but to her it looked like a couple of kilometers.
Annon’s clasped hands were white, rigid, and cold. She whispered to him. When he did not respond, she put her warm hand over his and squeezed. “Hold on, Teyjattt,” she whispered. “Just a little longer. We’re almost there.”
With her free hand, she stroked the cthauros’ neck. Its sides rose and fell like a bellows pulling air, and its nostrils flared. She steadied it, calmed it, kept it quiet while her ears pricked up for the slightest aural sign of the hovercraft. She heard no hum, but there were no bird sounds, either. Sweat stood out on her forehead as she concentrated. Should she go or stay? She did not know what to do. Neither seemed the right decision. She remembered all the times she had sneaked away here on foot, delighting in the beauty and the solitude. Now this secret place might be the only thing standing between them and incineration. They could not remain here at the verge of the forest, she knew, but she panicked at the thought of crossing the bald expanse of rock.
As if to make up her mind, a swath of Marre pines disintegrated into cinders, riding a column of blue flame that scythed through the wood. She bit her lip to keep from screaming, dug her heels into the cthauros’ flanks, almost stood up in her effort to urge the beast forward. They burst out of the sanctuary of the Marre pine forest, and the glare of brilliant sunlight made Eleana’s eyes water. She dared not look to her left, where the ridge abruptly fell off into an almost sheer drop of five hundred meters or more. Cooler air swirled up from the chasm, eddying like the dangerous currents of a whirlpool. The cthauros’ hooves sparked and clattered over the blue-green stone. She winced with every sound they made. She could feel herself panting with each labored breath of her mount.
Up ahead, she could see the line of Marre pines where the densest part of the forest began. Beyond them was a series of caves impossible to detect unless you were specifically looking for them. She herself had passed them by many times when she had come this way, until late one afternoon she had slid on a dry patch of loose shale, lost her balance, and slid into them. But right now they seemed like an eternity away.
The ridge continued to rise to the crest. She was bent low, her cheek against the whipping mane of her mount. She kept squeezing Annon’s clasped hands, hoping to keep him conscious. Then the air just above her right shoulder sizzled, and something exploded so near them she gave a little yelp. The cthauros ducked its head and whinnied. Eleana dug her heels into its flanks to keep it going, but another blast struck it dead on and it went down beneath them.
Eleana deftly rolled them out of the way of the cthauros’ still-twitching legs. There was an awful stench coming from the smoking hole in its side. She turned to look behind them, saw an armored Kha-gggun scrambling methodically over the rocks toward them. He held a portable ion cannon. Fear seized her in its mailed fist. She thought about running, but remembered that Annon was crippled. Besides, the V’ornn was too close. The ion cannon was at the ready; he would not miss if they turned to flee.
Eleana pulled her knife, but it was a useless gesture—foolish, even. The Khagggun would never give her an opportunity to use it. And even, if by some chance, she got close enough to him, she knew her blade would shatter against the armor.
“Teyjattt,” she whispered.
“I am here,” Annon answered. “I’m sorry I brought you into this.”
She squeezed his hand by way of reply.
His head felt light, his body weighed down with waves of pain and numbness. Even so, seeing the Khagggun come on, he could not believe that it would end like this, all his dreams of avenging his family’s slaughter dying so quickly, so finally. Stogggul had won, and the worst of it was he hadn’t even put up a fight.
The Khagggun strode quickly to within two paces of them. The ion cannon was pointed directly at them. This was it, he thought, awaiting death.
But, inexplicably, the Khagggun’s gaze swept past them without recognition.
“What is—“
The Khagggun’s head swiveled in the direction of Eleana’s voice and Annon clamped a hand over her mouth, shook his head when she looked at him, letting her know that she shouldn’t make a sound.
The Khagggun stood as still as a statue. It appeared as if he were scarcely breathing. Annon looked around, and there she was: Giyan. Still cloaked in her Tuskugggun robes, her sifeyn concealing the upper part of her face, she came from behind the immobile Khagggun, moving across the rocky ridge as if it were the palace floor.
She placed a forefinger across her grimly set lips. She turned her gaze toward the fallen cthauros. For a moment, nothing happened. Then Annon felt a wave of energy brush by him and the corpse slid toward the edge of the ridge. It dangled at the precipice for an instant, then vanished over the side.
While Annon’s and Eleana’s mouths were still agape, Giyan went to where they lay, stooped, grabbing Annon under his arms. He could see that Eleana was stunned. Nevertheless, she rose, took up position on his other side, and put her arm around him.
They began to make their painstaking way across the rocky scree. Once, Eleana turned her head, worried that the Khagggun had come out of his eerie trance.
“Don’t look back!” Giyan said softly but sharply. “Keep going!”
Eleana turned back, swallowed hard, and nodded. “I know where we can hide,” she whispered, looking furtively at the robed woman. Her eyes opened wide when she saw that Giyan was Kundalan.
Giyan nodded, and they moved on. The simple act of walking exhausted Annon. Once or twice, his mangled leg dragged on the ground, and it was all he could do not to cry out. The pain was almost overwhelming; all he wanted to do was lie down and rest, but the two women on either side of him would not allow that. They crossed the remaining expanse of the ridge. Just as they passed within the deep shadows of the Marre pines on the north side, the air began to hum, crackling and sparking behind them. Hidden, they turned, watched a brace of hoverpods appearing over the tops of the Marre pines south of the ridge. They were startlingly, frighteningly close. So close, in fact, that they could see the imposing figure of Pack-Commander Hacilar, his head covered by the pale grey ridged skull of a male Krael. A slender man with the insignia of First-Captain on his armor stood at Hacilar’s shoulder, relaying his commands to the pack.
“That is Olnnn Rydddlin,” Annon whispered. “He is Hacilar’s second-in-command.”
Rekkk Hacilar was directing Olnnn Rydddlin’s gaze to the sentrylike figure of the lone Khagggun Giyan had immobilized. He barked an order.
“We’ve got to get to the caves,” Eleana whispered urgently.
“In a moment.” Giyan was staring fixedly at the Khagggun. “Hacilar is trying to access his Khagggun’s telemetry.” She was vibrating as if she were a tuning fork. Annon became aware of a kind of resistance, as if he were in the ocean, swimming against the tide. It was as if concentric circles of energy pulsed out from her. They did not hurt him, but they made him even more tired than he had been. Colors sparked and twinkled all around him, the blues and greens and browns of the world seeming more vivid than he had ever remembered them. Then something went through him, like an eel through deep water, and he shivered.
As the hoverpods came abreast of him, the Khagggun who had killed their cthauros lurched into movement. They could see Rekkk Hacilar shouting orders that the Khagggun apparently could not hear. Instead, he walked, stiff-legged to the edge of the precipice. He stood there for a moment before losing his balance and tumbling over the edge.
Giyan turned back to them. “That will keep them occupied.” She turned her most charming smile on Eleana. “Now. How do we get to these caves of yours?” you have drawn blood against your own.”
