D. MacHale - The Soldiers of Halla

I stopped worrying about the tang and locked my eyes on the tree to figure out the quickest climbing route. I knew I’d only have a few seconds to climb high enough to be out of reach. Most tangs were about seven feet tall. They stood on two legs, but their arms weren’t all that long. I figured I needed to climb at least ten feet before I’d be out of snapping distance.

Only a few more yards to go. I knew I’d get to the tree before the tang got to me, but could I climb fast enough? There was no room for caution. I had to pick a route and more or less run up the tree. If I stopped to search for the next best hand- or foothold, I’d be done. I had to climb without thinking. With one last burst of energy, I jumped the last few feet and landed with my right foot on one of the curls of vine. It was thick and already had a shell of bark. That was good-it meant that it was solid and wouldn’t give way. I scrambled up the tree, climbing the swirling vine like a living ladder.

The tang bellowed. Angrily. I kept expecting to feel the sting of its jaws as they clamped on to my foot. I wondered if I should imagine my feet turning to smoke the way I had when Saint Dane attacked me with the silver weapon. How would that work? If my feet disappeared, would I tumble down into tang teeth? Then again, if I waited too long, the tang might chew off my feet anyway. In the end, I stopped thinking and kept climbing. The tree shook as the tang hit it. I nearly lost my grip, but that didn’t stop me from groping my way higher. I heard the scratch of claws on bark. I figured the tang must be desperately raking at the tree. I had the fleeting thought that maybe tangs had learned how to climb since I’d been there. But since I felt no pain from an attack, I was confident that its feet were still on the ground

… and mine were safe.

I finally got to a horizontal branch where I could stop safely. Clutching the trunk, I looked down to see the enraged tang jumping and swiping its talons, trying to get me. It was futile. I was out of reach. Strings of slobber flew from its mouth as it whipped its head back and forth angrily. Poor guy must have had his heart all set on some Bobby-burger. I stood on that branch, spent, trying to catch my breath. I had dodged being eviscerated, but to what end? I was stuck up in a tree. If the tang thought it through for a couple of seconds, he’d realize that all he had to do was relax and hang out. I’d have to come down eventually. I felt I had done the right thing, but if I couldn’t get down from that tree, it was all for nothing. I looked higher, hoping to see some way of crawling along branches to another tree. I remembered the elaborate, intertwining tree system that I’d seen in other parts of Eelong, but this tree wasn’t part of that. As I said, it was in the middle of a clearing. The only place to go from there was down. Down wasn’t a good option. Not with Toothy waiting for me.

As I looked at the monster, wondering how the heck I was going to get past that thing, another creature emerged from the jungle. I expected to see another tang or two showing up for the picnic. That would have clinched it. I would have to leave the territory and hope that when I came back, I wouldn’t land in the middle of team tang again. But it wasn’t another tang. It was a gar. A human-looking guy. His hair was long, and he was dressed in roughly cut leathers. I’m not exactly sure how to describe this, but as much as he looked rough around the edges, he wasn’t as primitive looking as the gars I had seen in the jungle on my last visit. The leather clothes he wore seemed to be made better than that. And though his hair was long, it wasn’t all crazy like some wild jungle guy.

Still, he was a gar. Tangs ate gars. I wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t want to let the tang know that he had another option for lunch. The gar had come out of the jungle on the opposite side of the tree from the tang and was walking straight for it. He had no clue what was on the other side. I figured I had to take the chance.

“Hey!” I called out. “Run! There’s a tang down there!”

The guy looked up at me and jumped with surprise. I guess he didn’t expect to see a gar up in the tree, wearing a red outfit. But I wasn’t his problem. He had a lot more to worry about on the ground.

“There’s a tang down there!” I called.

The guy stared at me like I was some freak giant red bird.

“Don’t you understand?” I called. “There’s a tang! Get out of here!”

The guy didn’t seem worried at all. While keeping his eyes on me, he reached to his neck and grabbed something that was on a leather strap. He raised it to his lips and blew. A high-pitched, almost inaudible whistle followed. What was this guy doing? If anything, he was only going to let the tang know that somebody was around. I had the brief hope that the tang would react to the whistle the same way the quigs did on Denduron, and fall over in brain-drilling pain. A quick look back to the tang showed me something else entirely.

The beast wasn’t in pain. Far from it. A second before, it had been leaping and grabbing at the air, desperate to get at me. Now it was totally relaxed and sitting down on its bottom like an obedient dog. Its entire attitude had changed. It went from sixty to zero in the time it took for the sound of the whistle to reach its ears. Or whatever it was it heard through.

The gar put away the whistle and rounded the tree toward the tang. I thought that as soon as the tang caught sight of the guy, he’d get all slobbered and bothered again.

“Look out!” I screamed at the guy.

He ignored me and walked around the tree. I cringed, waiting for the bloodbath. But the gar walked right up to the tang and petted him on its long snout… like a dog. I knew that when I came back to Eelong I was going to see changes, but I never imagined this one. Tangs were the scourge of the jungle. They were feared by both the klees and the gars. They were mindless, predatory beasts. But here a gar was petting a tang as casually as if it were, well, a pet. I half expected the gar to give him a “Good boy!” and throw him a treat. Of course, the only treat a tang would like is somebody’s foot, so I didn’t think that would happen. At least, I hoped it wouldn’t.

As I stood there with my mouth open in shock, the gar looked up to me and called, “Who are you?”

I didn’t get the chance to answer. A loud snarl echoed through the jungle. There was a klee around. The gar didn’t wait for my answer. No sooner did he hear the snarl than he took off running. As he went, he blew on his whistle again. The tang trotted after him obediently. What the hell? Things had definitely changed since I had been to Eelong.

I was now faced with another challenge. Klees ate gars too. I was a gar. I knew they had upheld Edict Forty-six, which forbids klees to hunt and eat gars, but after seeing the change in the whole tang and gar relationship, I didn’t want to assume anything about what the relationship between klees and gars had become. But what was I supposed to do? I was stuck up in a freakin’ tree. I could have climbed down, but there was no way I could outrun a cat. I stood there, frozen, hoping that the klee was more interested in the gar on the ground than the gar in the tree. Me.

1 felt the tree shake, as if something had jumped onto a branch above me. Something big. I heard the sound of claws skittering across the bark, gouging into the tree as it made its way along. That was it. I couldn’t take it anymore. I was out of there. I pictured Solara in my head and was about to take a step when…

“Pendragon?” came a voice from above.

1 stopped and looked up. Standing on a thick branch not five feet from my head was a huge black cat. A panther. A klee. Kasha.

“What are you doing in this tree?” she asked in such a surprised voice that I actually felt kind of foolish standing there.