Chasing the Lantern (33 page)

She didn't get far before the jungle thickened. The sparse ferns grew more common, appearing in clumps of twos and threes. Before long Lina was pushing her way through the things, their long and feathery leaves catching at her clothing and chafing her skin. Spores from the plants filled the air, and Lina found herself sneezing wildly. When she finished, she stood back up straight, sniffling, her eyes watering and red.

She wasn't alone.

One of the pygmy lizard-men, the Draykin, stood before her. Its scales were a soft green, and its maw was filled with dozens of needle teeth. It wore a loincloth and carried a spear tipped with a gleaming bronze point. It held a weighted cord in its other hand.

Lina started, then she relaxed. The Draykin was strange, but that was normal, right? There were still sightings of ogres back on Edrus, and all the tales talked about the bizarre things that lived on this strange continent. "Rastalak, right? You scared me."

"
Yamana
!" it growled in reply. "
Cobar hastracki
!"

"You are not Rastalak," she said. Too late, she remembered the fine 'mask' of green scales that the other lizard-creature bore. Lina realized that she had just made a terrible mistake.

The creature hissed, long, low, threateningly. Lina turned and ran. She only had one dagger, the Draykin had a spear. And though smaller than a man, the Draykin wasn't far from her size. She pressed through the ferns at a flat run, her boots pounding the earth beneath her feet. Behind, she heard the Draykin cry out and give chase.

She struck out at random and regretted it almost immediately. The ferns thickened, keeping her from running all out. The tall trees grew more closely together this way, spreading thick roots across the jungle floor that threatened to trip and doom her. Vines dangled. Still, Lina ducked, dodged and leapt as best she could to avoid these obstacles, driven on by the bloodthirsty cries of the savage creature behind her, and by the hammering of her heart in her throat.

Something whistled past her head. Lina had the impression of a dark shape whipping only inches past to crack against a tree just up ahead. Three stones connected by thin cord fell down out of sight, having dented the bark.

Lina paled. It was
throwing things
at her! She ran more desperately, ducking under a thick clumps of hanging vines and dodging to put the big trees behind her as soon as she'd cleared them. The Draykin howled in frustration and anger.

She made for a heavy banyan tree, with root-branches growing to a thick maze. Some of the paths would easily hide her, or give her the advantage for a moment. Something sailed past her to impact the nearest root-entrance and stuck, quivering. The hunter's spear now blocked her way. Lina cursed and dove left into another thick bunch of ferns.

The canopy ahead opened wide. Lina took it in at a glance, getting the impression of a towering pile of stones open to the sky. The ferns parted and she found herself at the cusp of a clearing past a thick tree. A temple ruin dominated the space. It was a stair-stepped pyramid, crumbling in places and vine-shrouded. Light underbrush surrounded it.

A wide and slick stretch of very flat earth was the only thing between the underbrush of the clearing and Lina. Instinctively, she didn't trust it. She pulled a great breath into her already tortured lungs and leapt from the highest root before her. Lina sailed over the bare patch, arms flailing like a windmill. She landed roughly, tumbling to the ground just beyond it.

A wet splash sounded just behind her as she came to a stop, and the outraged howls of the Draykin hunter. Lina glanced back to see the creature floundering in the bare space, the small bog revealed for what it was.

She thought to draw her knife, take the advantage.
No.
The Draykin thrashed in the muddy earth, but it was only surprised. Soon enough it would be back on its feet, and it looked both stronger and faster than she was. She turned her attention back to the ruin and looked for an escape.

The structure rose several stories high. Weird carvings of strange creatures and peoples covered the bare flat surfaces. Most were too eroded or hidden by foliage to easily make out. Up above, about the third story, large cracks and openings appeared. There was no other entrance on this face.

Her lungs were burned raw from the chase. She had to go to ground. Lina scrabbled to her feet and sprinted for the ruin. She climbed from one step to another, glancing back to spy the Draykin free of the muck and preparing to give chase again. As it crossed the clearing she made it to the third level of the ruin, where a crack maybe just large enough to fit through was hidden by the jungle vines.

She was desperate. Lina pulled the foliage aside, revealing the space a little more. It was small. A dog might fit, but just barely.
Nothing for it then
. Giving up a heartfelt prayer to the Goddess, Lina threw herself at it and crawled within. The rough stone caught her shoulders, brushed her hair. But barely, just barely, she fit. Before her the crack continued, a small crawlspace going deeper into the ruin. She wriggled, writhed, and scrabbled. Head, shoulders, then chest and waist, she pulled inside. Her floundering hand felt an edge ahead, where the passage opened into something wider. Lina pulled an arm through, felt a shelf or some other surface a few inches below the lip. Her head poked into the space, then she pulled her other arm through.

The Draykin caught her foot.

It howled triumphantly on the outside of the structure. Its voice was weirdly muffled, but the terror Lina felt was clear. She cried out, then kicked and scrabbled and fought. Her head, chest, arms and shoulders were all inside the temple, in an open space too dimly lit to make out the details. Her legs were trapped by the close confines, too small to even bend them all the way.

The creature yanked at her, and Lina slid back deeper into the crawlspace. Her chest brushed painfully against the stone of the lip. She cried out fearfully. The she grit her teeth, growled, and kicked her boots down against the stone. The Draykin outside yowled. She did it again, and again. The creature fought, though, yanking and pulling in turn.

Abruptly she was free. Her boot, the same she'd lost in the canopy, slipped off. Lina reacted instantly, pulling and heaving with her arms, kicking and pushing with her legs until she was out of the small passage and fully within the temple. Outside, the Draykin hunter roared in frustration.

Lina drew her knife and waited. Sunlight through the crawlspace was a white glow, impeded by the clutching arm of the Draykin. Thankfully, it could not reach her now. Lina's pursuer snarled and hissed and spit. It growled at her in its language. Lina kept her dagger ready, waiting to strike should it reach in far enough.

The Draykin pulled back. Sunlight illuminated the crawlspace. Then there was a rumble and the space went dark but for a few thin cracks of light.
It blocked the space with a stone
.
I'm trapped.
Lina turned around to stare at the interior of her prison.

The ruin was mostly hollow, she realized as her eyes adjusted. Its stair-step pyramid shape was visible from within, continuing another two dozen feet to a point above. The ceiling had fallen in there, and diffuse morning sunlight shone in through the vines and creepers that covered that opening. Lina lay on a wide ledge about halfway up the space, looking down onto a floor strewn with rubble and debris. Statues of strange, half-formed things adorned the ledge, like squat fat children carved of heavy stone. Sunlight shone onto the floor of the ruin from the near end, where the wall was carved open to form an entryway high enough for a man.

Lina let out a sigh of relief.
Not trapped, then
. Opposite from her, the vines in the ceiling had grown down to wreathe the statues, then continued a short way to the floor. She rose to hands and knees and crept that way, moving quickly.

The Draykin hunter appeared in the entryway. Lina froze. It crept within, long muzzle casting about, hunched and ready to spring. It did not carry its spear, but the long talons on its outstretched fingers were more than enough to rip her to pieces.

The creature peered up at the ledge she was on. Evidently it did not see her, yet. Lina shrank back until the stone of the ruin pressed against her shoulder blades.

"
Hastrack
i," said the Draykin. "
Muweilo guyvalla
."

It crept forward into the open. Lina hefted the dagger in her hands and thought about throwing it. She thought better.
There has to be something I can do
. Then her eye caught on one of the nearby idols.

The Draykin crept about the floor again. It called out to her in its gibberish language, softly, menacingly. The words were opaque to her, but the intent was clear. Lina pulled off her other boot, positioned herself, and then dropped it to the floor of the ruin.

It landed with a thump, overloud, it seemed, in the roomy space. The Draykin twitched at the sound and leapt forward, running and landing on the rubble where her boot had fallen. It peered about, looking for somewhere nearby Lina could be hiding. Then it looked up.

Lina put her back to the idol and shoved with her legs. It was lighter than she thought it would be and fell free from the ledge with a loud scrape. Lina caught herself from going over the edge and rolled back. There was the crunch of an impact, and a wet thud.

She peered over the ledge. Her pursuer was crumbled in a heap on the rubble of the floor. Its head was a ruined mess. The idol lay nearby, bloodied.

Lina sighed in relief. She spent a few moments getting her breath back, then crawled over to the vines and made her way down. She threw a few rocks to make sure the bloodthirsty Draykin was dead, then retrieved her boot. Shielding her eyes from the light, she left the ruin through the ground entrance.

The valley yawned wide before her. This face of the pyramid opened onto the cliff only a dozen paces from its edge. Ruined flagstones led along the face, back around to the jungle and the clearing she'd run into. A short distance away, a switchback stair was carved into the cliff face, one of many leading down. Below her the city rose, massive and strange in its architecture.

Completely coincidentally, she'd gotten where she wanted to go.
Maybe someone heard my prayers after all?

Movement down below caught her attention. She moved to the ledge and peered downward. It was Draykin, hundreds of them, moving in a massive procession toward the large pyramid at the center of the city. Their raucous cries echoed back up to her, and as they moved it seemed that those in the middle were carrying something. Or someone.

A light glinted from the middle of the crowd. Like a monocle just catching the sun.

Lina cursed. The more she watched the more she was certain. Captain Fengel was caught, him and some others, tied together and being marched through the city of bloodthirsty lizard-men.

She cast about above, looking for the
Dawnhawk
. There. It circled to the west, following the lip of the valley. The
Copper Queen
drifted a distance away. A full cargo net hung from the bow by a long cable.

Lina closed her eyes. Lucian had lost. Thankfully though, it looked like Natasha had left them alive again.

She took a deep breath. Nothing for it, then. It looked like it was all up to her to rescue her crewmates, and her captain. But first, she had to go find her boot. And maybe check its laces.

Chapter Twenty

Fengel swung from a wooden pole. It was really rather uncomfortable.

He was tied by his hands and feet, like a pig caught during a hunt. Four of the Draykin carried him, two in front and two from behind. Their diminutive height was a problem; when they stumbled, he was drug along the ground. To his left Sarah Lome hung similarly, though her eight carriers struggled more than a little. On his right hung Maxim. Fengel was worried about the aetherite. He'd taken a hard knock to the head during the battle, and had yet to awaken.

"Henry," Fengel called. "Are the others still alive back there?"

"Yes," replied his steward. Henry Smalls hung from a pole somewhere behind him, just out of sight. Fengel had been worried at first, but the thrown spear had only gouged his man's shoulder. And not
too
deeply.

"Excellent," he said. "Well then. We're doing a lot better than I expected. Capital."

"Yes, sir," replied his steward after a moment.

The ambush had gone poorly for the pirates. Fengel had his men put up a ferocious defense, and for a moment it looked as if they might win out. Lome was ferocious, hacking the lizard-pygmies to pieces, and laying them out with one blow from her free hand. Maxim exhausted his remaining Workings, calling up caustic fire to wield against the Draykin. Fengel fought over Henry while the little steward recovered, and his other crew had made a similarly spirited show.

There were too many, however. They were outnumbered at least six to one. Fengel wondered, as he was tackled to the ground, how long Rastalak's people had been following them. He wondered, as well, if their guide was responsible for the current strife. It had disappeared during the struggle, and he did not see it among their captors.

Ferociously subdued, they were, all of them, bound. The Draykin saw to their own wounded and then moved with their new prisoners down one of the long stairways carved into the valley wall. His memory of the trip was imprecise; a blow to the head had left him groggy. By the time he fully recovered, they were down at the base of the steps, being carried by their captors through the streets of an alien city.

The sun hung at high noon, casting no shadows and illuminating the structures about them brilliantly. Past the bodies and serpentine faces of the Draykin, Fengel spied spiraling towers and weird ziggurats. Their angles were odd, curving and swooping like the shells of a sea-creature, yet obviously cut of crafted stone. Creeping vines wrapped them, all the way to their cracked and crumbling tops. Some of the buildings held balconies, archways, and windows. Others were smooth monoliths unblemished by any visible openings. Both of these towered over cruder, squat stair-step pyramids, lacking the artistry of their neighbors. These were covered in bas-reliefs and stone idols. It was as if two peoples inhabited Yrinium. An older race, and a much younger, more primitive one attempting to ape its grandeur.