Bruce Bethke - Maverick

“Where’s WhiteTail?” LifeCrier asked between gasps.

“She wasn’t with you?”

“We got separated. ” LifeCrier broke running form long enough to raise his head and take his bearings. “We’ve got to regroup the pack. Make a stand!”

“We can regroup when we’re back in PackHome. ” Maverick closed his mouth as they ploughed into a patch of blooming stinkweed.

“You don’t understand. Three sharpfangs! This must be a test of our faith. SilverSides will protect us!” A limestone outcropping loomed in front of them. “Left! Trust me!” LifeCrier dropped back to cross Maverick’s tail and turn down the slope, parallel to the base of the bluff.

Maverick hesitated a fraction of a second and then followed. “Funny thing,” he called after LifeCrier. “My sire always used to say,” a boulder appeared in his path, but he managed to gauge his lead-in correctly and land on his right leg, “the OldMother helps those who help themselves!”

LifeCrier rounded the foot of the bluff and skidded to a stop. “Drat! We’re here? I thought we were… ”

Maverick followed him around the corner and slammed on the brakes as well.

To their left, the gully he’d crossed earlier broadened out into a marshy delta. Directly in front, there were a few scrubby little nut trees and about a twenty-foot drop into the swamp. Vast, dim shapes moved in the distance, dipping their long necks into the floating mats of vegetation.

To their right, a narrow path skirted the base of the cliff and teetered on the brink of falling into the swamp.

LifeCrier stood at the edge of the drop, sniffing at the water twenty feet below. “I suppose we could swim. ”

“Idiot! There are things in that swamp that eat sharpfangs!”

“ Well, perhaps we could-”

A sharpfang roared and rocks came bouncing down the slope behind them, accompanied by the sound of massive talons skidding on loose gravel.

“Right!” Maverick decided. He lit off on the path at a pace that would have scared the scent out of him were he not already terrified. LifeCrier followed two trots behind.

“Do you think they’ll give up?” LifeCrier shouted.

More roars behind them; the thud of heavy bodies colliding and the sharp crack of a nut tree being broken in two, followed by a massive splash. Maverick looked over his shoulder long enough to see one sharpfang slogging along in the mud at the base of the cliff while the other two cautiously, almost comically, slid down the embankment on their hindquarters and tails.

“No!” he shouted back. The path rounded a little outcropping and dipped down to water level. Great! Now they won ’ t even have to jump to get us! But on the other side of a clump of giant grazertail plants, the path intersected a broad, flat path that led back into a gap in the cliff face. “This is it!” he shouted at LifeCrier. Skidding a little on the marshmuck, he cut a sharp right turn and darted in.

By the time they realized that it was a box canyon, the three sharpfangs were out of the water and thudding up the path behind them.

Maverick’s breath was coming in short, ragged gasps now, and his heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was going to burst his ribcage. “Is there a way out?” he said between gasps.

“Not that I can see,” LifeCrier wheezed. “Perhaps around-around that bend there. ” They both staggered in the direction in which he was looking.

“Still think-SilverSides-is gonna save us?”

“I’m sure-” LifeCrier licked his lips. “I’m sure she has a reason for all this. ”

“It’s just that-if she’s planning to save us-this’d be a real good time, y’know?” They rounded the bend.

LifeCrier stopped in his tracks and gasped, “Mother have mercy!” Then he dropped on his belly and began whining like a pup. Maverick looked where LifeCrier had been looking.

He saw the four WalkingStones.

Oh, Mother, did 1 figure these things wrong!

The WalkingStones were tall; as tall as sharpfangs, almost, and black as a starless night. They stood firmly on their hind legs, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and sported broad chests and massive forelegs that looked as if they could uproot trees. In place of eyes they had narrow slits filled with a flickering, hellish light, and in place of forepaws they had great hooks like a fliptail’s pincers.

“LifeCrier!” Maverick whispered urgently. “Are those male WalkingStones?!”

LifeCrier peeked out between his fingers, and then covered his eyes again and went back to whimpering. “Yes, yes, that’s them!”

“They’re raising their right forelegs. Their paws-they’re hanging funny. They’ve got some kind of extra bone extruding from their wrists. Is that how they throw lightning?”

“Yes!” LifeCrier clamped his paws down harder, as if trying to push his face through the ground.

“LifeCrier, there’s some kind of glow forming around-”

CRACK! Lightning split the air and echoed off the sides of the box canyon. The brilliant flash dazzled Maverick’s eyes; for half a minute, all he could see were searing blue afterimages.

About the time that his vision cleared and his ears stopped ringing, the scent of blood and burnt flesh reached his nose, and he noticed that he was still alive. And he could no longer hear the sharpfangs. He turned around to see how close they were.

The sharpfangs were close, but they would get no closer. Where once they had heads, they now had smoking stumps. One WalkingStone stood by the corpses, inspecting them with his red, fiery eyes, his lightning-thrower extended and ready.

Another was walking toward the kin. Maverick put a paw on LifeCrier’s shoulder and tried to jostle him out of his terrified cringe. LifeCrier peeked out just long enough to mutter, “Off the spit and into the fire. ”

The WalkingStone halted. “Be you well, Master LifeCrier?” Its inflection was odd, and it spoke in a garbled mix of HuntTongue and KinSpeech, but it was understandable.

The words were what finally got LifeCrier to uncover his face. “You-you know my name?”

“Oh, certainly, master. As you are he whom we were sent to serve. ”

“Serve? Serve me?” LifeCrier’s ears went up.

“Such is our mission. Have you been served well by the demise of yon sharpfangs?”

LifeCrier got to his feet and took a hesitant step toward the WalkingStone. “Y-yes, very well. But-” He paused, and looked sharply at the WalkingStone. “Were you sent by SilverSides?”

“We are sent to protect you. ”

“By SilverSides? Have you seen her? Did she give you any words for us?”

The WalkingStone tilted its head slightly, as if looking over LifeCrier’s head. “We have seen the one you know as SilverSides. And we bring you this message: You are to go to the Hill of Stars. ”

“What?”

The WalkingStone shifted into a deep, stentorian voice. “You are to return to your den and gather your followers. Instruct them to gather their females and their offspring; gather their possessions and all that they would take with them, and follow you into the Hill of Stars. There a place has been prepared for you to dwell, and you shall never know hunger nor want again!”

LifeCrier’s mouth dropped open, and he sat down heavily on his haunches. “Well, I’ll be!” He looked at Maverick, smiled, and shook his head. “I expected a miracle, but not this soon!” He looked at the WalkingStone and shook his head again. “We’ll live in the Hill of Stars and have all our needs provided for?”

“You will be served and protected,” the WalkingStone said.

LifeCrier nodded. “Yes. Yes, I understand now. How soon?”