David Farland - Beyond the Gate

Yet when they were a hundred yards away, Gallen shouted at them. “Siisum, gasht! Gasht!”

The Derrits stopped, and stood gazing at Gallen and Orick. The ones in front would not move forward, but those in the back came inching up, shoving the others aside to get a look at the prey.

“Siisum s gasht! Ooongu s gasht!” Gallen shouted, and his voice was a snarling roar that mimicked that of the Derrits.

One of the Derrits called out to Gallen quizzically, a sound of grunts and snarls, yet Orick was sure that he heard words mingled in that growling.

“I told them to stop or die,” Gallen said. “But their leader says that we are warriors of great power, and they want to eat us, to gain our power, so that even in our deaths our power will live on in them. He says that he will not be hungry for me, however, if I only give him you and a woman to eat.”

Orick snarled and stood up on his hind feet. “Siisum a gasht!” he growled.

The Derrits lurched forward a step, as if angered, and Gallen fired his last shot into the pack. The plasma arced up into the night, then dropped in a spray. The whole side of the cliff lit up like noonday, and some of the Derrits screamed and toppled off the road in their haste to escape while others roared and lurched, trying to brush the flaming magma from them. In the light, their yellow hides were suddenly revealed, the white flashing of their fangs.

“Gasht!” Gallen roared, and he held his rifle up menacingly.

Those Derrits who could rushed backward down the hill at full speed, but four of the tribe were either killed outright by the blast, or were burning slowly, or had already toppled over the cliff.

Orick and Gallen turned and headed back toward Farra Kuur, and by the wavering light of the plasma fires, Orick could now see the great stone bridge spanning the chasm ahead, with its ancient guard posts still intact.

Orick started to hurry up the road, but Gallen whispered savagely, “Don’t run! Don’t let the Derrits see you run, or they’ll know we’re afraid, and they’ll try to hunt us again.”

And so they walked slowly up the road, and Orick felt as if a great weight had been lifted. With so many of the Derrits in flames, Gallen seemed confident that the others would not dare to attack again.

They could see the light up ahead, shining from within the walls of Farra Kuur on the far side of the bridge. Maggie and Ceravanne had gone deeper into the fortress, and the light shone from an archway far back along the northern wall.

As Orick approached the bridge, he could hear the sound of water rushing over rocks in the gorge below, could smell the faint vapors of water-and he caught a strange scent, something smoky and oily, a scent he recognized just barely. He was about to shout a warning, when suddenly a dark shadow detached from a comer and stood on the far side of the bridge, a man dressed in the dark, hooded robes of the Tekkar, which went down almost to his knees. And he wore tall black boots.

He held out a strange metallic device pointed at Gallen, and Gallen drew a startled breath at the sight of it. Orick could only guess that it was some type of gun, but it had an odd stock, one that required its user to hold the weapon forward with one hand on a trigger, the other on the stock.

“Well done, Lord Protector.” The Tekkar’s voice was soft, almost a hiss. In the dim light, Orick could see that the man’s face was all a tattoo-of a pale yellow skull. “We’ve been waiting. You’ve saved us from an inconvenience with the Derrits, and for that, we owe you. Now, throw down your weapons, or we’ll execute the women.”

Orick’s heart pounded in his chest, and he considered what to do. He wanted desperately to rush forward and tear off this man’s limbs.

But the Tekkar nodded, and from the archway where the lights shone, seven more Tekkar came out in a tight knot, holding Ceravanne and Maggie. One of the Tekkar held a gun to Maggie’s head.

* * *

Orick growled and paced back and forth, as if at any moment he would lunge ahead, and Maggie stood with the gun to her temple, her head cocked painfully to one side under the Tekkar’s rough grip, unable to move. She remembered some of the basic kicks and punches that Gallen’s mantle had taught her two nights before, but three of the Tekkar had her. She knew nothing that could help her now.

“Don’t,” Gallen warned Orick, to keep the bear from charging, and Maggie’s heart went out to poor Orick. “Those are dronon pulp pistols, made to pierce a dronon’s exoskeleton. You don’t want to see what kind of damage they do.”

Orick stood up on his hind legs and bawled, his claws raking the air, obviously confused. Maggie could see how much he wanted to save her, and she feared he would charge now to his own death.

“Please, Orick, stay back!” she called, and the bear roared loudly, got back down on all fours.

“Quite sensible,” the Lord of the Tekkar hissed. “Now, Lord Protector, take off your mantle and throw it at my feet. Then drop your rifle belt, sword, and knives.”

Gallen looked up once to the towering images of giants overhead, and he stood with eyes closed, as if meditating for a long moment, considering his chances if he should choose to fight, but at last he did not resist, simply threw his mantle down.

Maggie realized that the Tekkar couldn’t know that Gallen’s rifle was empty. If she fled now, the Tekkar might not chase her, since they wouldn’t want to turn their backs on Gallen. She wondered if she could twist away, run through the dark tunnels of Farra Kuur to escape, but she knew that the Tekkar were terribly fast and Gallen had said that they could see in the dark, that to their eyes the heat from her own body glowed. She could not hope to escape them.

Gallen unbuckled his sword belt and knife sheaths, put them down on the ground, then kicked them forward with his foot and backed away. For one final second, Maggie almost hoped he would pull his sword and fight, but she knew that resistance would be futile. He was outgunned.

Gallen raised his hand out to the Tekkar’s Lord, made a pulling gesture, as if summoning him, and Maggie recognized it as the same gesture he’d made days ago to Zell’a Cree. But the Tekkar ignored the Inhuman hand signal, kept their weapons trained on Gallen.

Only when Gallen had backed well away did the Tekkar Lord stride forward, watching Gallen as he carefully picked up the mantle.

Once he had it in hand, his men came to his side, and one held a dronon pulp gun and kept Gallen and Orick covered while their Lord placed Gallen’s mantle into the pocket of his robe.

The Tekkar Lord ordered Gallen to turn around, and two of his men went forward, pulled back Gallen’s hands and began to bind him.

“What is this, my brothers?” Gallen said, addressing the Tekkar. “This isn’t necessary. I was bringing the Tharrin to Moree-a goal that both she and the Harvester shared, though with different ends. I planned to deliver her into the Inhuman’s hands.”

And in the farthest recesses of her mind, Maggie worried that Gallen might be telling the Tekkar the truth. Perhaps in all of this journey he had been the unwitting accomplice of the Inhuman. At the very least, Maggie had felt his distance during the past week. The Inhuman had formed a barrier between them.

“And for bringing them here, I thank you,” the Tekkar Lord answered Gallen.

When Gallen’s bands were tight, one of the Tekkar reached up, pulled the hair back from Gallen’s neck, and said, “My brothers, he does bear the mark of the Word!”

Ceravanne had the presence of mind to gasp and to look around in astonishment. “No!” she cried, as if horrified at the news. And because Ceravanne had been studying how to manipulate humans for nearly four thousand years, her performance carried a sense of conviction that few others could match.