David Farland - Beyond the Gate

Maggie looked up at the giant bat. “Shut off the whistling already, damn you!” she shouted. “If any more of your black-hearted friends come around, we’ll give them just what we gave the others!”

The scout looked down at them in the moonlight, his eyes glowing golden. He growled, “You’ll pay for dessstroying the Wordsss.” He let his whistle dangle from a chain about his neck, glared at Maggie for a moment, rubbed his face with the little black hands at the joint of his wings, then hurled himself from the building, swooping just over their heads.

Orick wished that Maggie had been carrying a stick or something. One good knock on the head would have busted the creature’s skull open like an acorn.

“I am sorry that I got back so late,” the Bock told them, waving its arms emphatically. “When we reached the meadow, you had already left. We’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

Maggie shook her head. “No harm done,” she said, hefting her packs. “Let’s go.” They began hurrying north, but the Bock was striding along slowly. The giant walked ahead, leading the way, his huge sword in hand. He stopped at each side street, checking both ways.

“Can you hurry?” Maggie said, trying to help the Bock along by pulling at its arm. “I’m sorry,” the Bock said. “I have no energy after dark. There were huge clouds at sunset, and it slowed us. I should have found you long ago!” Orick looked at the creature-half man, half plant. They could not leave it behind, and they could hardly wait for the thing to move at its own pace. Maggie was sweating heartily from her fight, from her fear. She looked at Orick a moment. “Orick, could you have a go at giving him a ride?”

Orick considered. His ears were ringing, and he felt woozy from the bump on his head, but he could probably carry the man. Still, just because he had four legs, it didn’t mean he’d let people treat him like a pack mule. “All right,” he grumbled, “but it’s undignified.”

Maggie helped the creature on. Orick ran with Maggie at his tail, and they managed to make good time with the giant leading the way. They were running into the wind, and once Orick smelled the fresh scent of strangers ahead. Orick called to the giant, then turned aside, lurching off around several blocks, certain that he’d avoided an ambush. As if to prove his point, moments later he heard excited whistling behind him as the batlike scout realized what had happened. Just then, the giant had Orick duck into a little side alley that led to a warehouse, and within moments they were inside.

Maggie closed the door tight behind her, threw the bolt home, and sagged against it in the dark. There were no lanterns, no lights in the building at all, and the dark was utterly impenetrable. Orick half turned. He could smell her warm sweat, and she was breathing hard, as much from fright as from the exertion. He couldn’t smell any other people in the hall, though Gallen had passed here shortly. There would be no ambush waiting ahead of them.

“Orick?” Maggie said. “Where are you?”

“Here,” he grumbled.

“Come here, where I can touch you.”

Orick ambled to her, and Maggie petted his snout affectionately. It was one of the most intimate pettings she had ever given him, and he closed his eyes, relishing the way she scratched him. He groaned with pleasure, and Maggie bent down and kissed him full on the snout. “Thank you,” she said. “You’re welcome at my table anytime. You really saved me.”

And at those kind words, Orick’s heart warmed. He led Maggie, the giant, and the Bock down the maze of twisted halls in something of a blur, until he got to a door. He could see candlelight winking through the cracks, and the Bock called out softly for Gallen.

Gallen slid the bolt, pulled the door open, and at sight of the blood on Orick’s face he cried, “What happened to you?”

Maggie told them then of their skirmish with the servants of the Inhuman, and Ceravanne frowned and paced the room, then had Gallen and Rougaire check Orick and Maggie for neck wounds.

When she was satisfied, Ceravanne shook her head, plainly worried. “I had hoped to wait here for a few days so that we could provision our trip at our ease, receive counsel from the Lords in the City of Life. But we will have to leave first thing in the morning.”

“Why?” Orick asked.

“Their scout has your scent,” Ceravanne said. “It will call its fellows, and by dawn there may be a dozen or more of them hunting for you and Maggie. The Inhuman will not hold harmless those who have slain its members. We must flee at dawn.”

* * *

Zell’a Cree heard the shrill warning of the scout’s whistle from over a mile away, and rushed through the darkened streets until his infrared vision could make out the fiery forms of his men. He came upon the corpses of his men, pack brothers lying in pools of their own blood. Their bodies glowed like faint embers, and the blood still hot in their veins was like twisted rivers of light under their skin.

Besides the scout Ssaz, who sat nursing an injured wing from the stone gutters of a building, three other hunters from Zell’a Cree’s pack had gathered-two were unnamed Tekkars, swathed in black robes cut at the thighs, wearing tall leather boots tied above the knees. The Tekkars’ purple eyes gleamed darkly from their shadowed hoods. The third was a small man named Ewod who might have been human, except that he wore fur-lined winter robes on a balmy evening and his skin was pale yellow. He stared at the ruined corpses and shook, and Zell’a Cree watched him closely. He had seldom seen so much fear upon the face of a man.

Zell’a Cree felt calm himself. Fear had been bred out of his people thousands of years ago. He had never wakened with his heart thumping from a bad dream, had never felt an uneasy tingling at the sound of running feet in a dark alley. And now, looking at his brothers, he felt only sadness, a profound loss at such a waste.

He went to the corpses, closed the staring eyes. “The wheel turns, and we must now travel the road without you. Come to us when you can,” he whispered to the dead, bidding them to seek rebirth soon, then reached into his travel pouch and brought out wafers of bread and placed one in the mouth of each of his dead comrades to feed them on their spirit journeys.

Zell’a Cree was disturbed by the sounds of the little man, Ewod, crying, and Zell’a Cree also wanted to weep at the waste of life. But as leader of this hunting pack, he could not afford the luxury.

“Don’t dawdle,” the scout Ssaz hissed at them from its perch, its canines gleaming as gold as its eyes in the moonlight. Zell’a Cree could smell the sweet copper scent of its blood, but couldn’t immediately see the wound. “The humansss may return, hunting usss thisss time!”

“What happened?” Zell’a Cree spoke only in a hushed whisper. All of the men here had hearing far keener than any human.

Ewod said, “Me and my brothers chanced upon a bear and a young woman, and we thought they would make easy converts. The bear wounded himself trying to escape, but the girl came at us with a sword and slew my brothers before they could react.”

“Fools!” one of the Tekkar spat, his voice the sound of loose gravel shifting under one’s feet. Because the Tekkar did not name themselves, Zell’a Cree was forced to bestow names upon them in order to keep them straight. He called this one Red Hand, for the man had his right hand dyed red. “They should have taken more care. They deserved to die!”

“No one deserves death,” Zell’a Cree said.

“The humans who did this deserve to die!” Red Hand countered. “We must make an example of them, teach the humans to fear us.”