Diplomats and Fugitives (The Emperor's Edge Book 9) (48 page)

Amaranthe didn’t respond, simply raising her own weapon to aim. A few trees stood between the makarovi and their ledge, but they could see it clearly—and smell its musky stench as if it were inches away instead of meters. Unfortunately, they were to its side, so they couldn’t target the eyes. Ashara lifted her bow, the grip awkward with two fingers held straight with a splint. Her aim would be awful, but maybe she could draw its attention, so the others could strike for the eyes.

She shot first, loosing an arrow that glanced off the boulders beside its head. It didn’t even turn toward them. She cursed the abysmal aim and tore off the splint and bandages with her teeth. She would rather deal with the pain than poor aim.

By now, Maldynado and Amaranthe were firing. Their bullets thudded into the creature’s thick fur, but it gave no indication of being hurt or even that the projectiles were piercing its hide. Surprisingly, spatters of blood marked the grass and rocks beneath its feet. Had they been there all along? Was the makarovi doing bodily damage to itself by clawing at the granite?

Amaranthe struck the creature in the ear. For the first time, it spun toward them, snarling as it waved its paws in the air and looked about until it spotted them. Ashara loosed an arrow, aiming for its eye, a dark, bloodshot eye that stared right at her. It almost seemed as if the creature recognized her, and there was a cold intelligence glittering in there that chilled her to the core.

Her arrow whizzed past its head without doing any damage. For the first time, she noticed blood dripping onto the rocks underneath the makarovi. A long gash had been cut through the fur of its torso, and there might have been other injuries too. The dark, thick fur made it difficult to tell.

“It’s already injured,” Amaranthe said.

“Wish I could say I did that,” Maldynado said as his rifle cracked again. Smoke hazed the air around them, and the smell of gunpowder almost overrode the pervading musk stench.

“It must have been the Kendorian soldiers,” Ashara guessed, grimacing as another arrow went astray, bouncing harmlessly off the makarovi’s leg. “My aim is lizard dung. Shoot for that big cut. Maybe it’ll be more vulnerable there.”

Before the others could comply, the makarovi dropped to all four legs.

“Maybe it heard our plan,” Amaranthe said, “and doesn’t approve.”

The creature left its spot in front of the cave and raced toward the slope that Ashara and the others had come up.

“Or maybe it just wants to eat us.” Maldynado grabbed his spare bullets and jumped to his feet. “Mahliki,” he yelled, “if you’re in there, now’s your chance to escape.”

“Escape where? She’s in a safer place than we are.” Amaranthe glanced toward the trees, none of which were that stout, then pointed farther along the ledge. “Maybe we can go down the other way, join her in there.”

“Uh.” Maldynado’s upper lip wrinkled, showing what he thought of the idea of trapping himself in a cave.

Ashara didn’t think much of it, either, but she doubted she could climb a tree with her injuries. The cave might be their best bet. They could continue to shoot at the creature through the narrow entrance.

A small tree snapped, knocked to the ground as the makarovi charged up the slope. There was no time left to plot strategies. Ashara joined the others in running for the far side of the cliff. She hadn’t scouted in that direction and hoped there was a place to climb down. An image of being trapped, her back to a drop-off, flashed through her mind.

They pushed through a canebrake. Ashara hoped the dense growth would slow down the makarovi, but it might mow right through.

Amaranthe outpaced them and called back with a quick, “Hurry! Over here.”

Ashara’s battered body did not want to hurry, but the fear coursing through her veins gave her the strength to ignore the pain. She pushed and squeezed through the dense canes and almost tripped over a hidden log. Maldynado, who had stayed behind her, caught her and righted her. She gritted her teeth and reminded herself this was not the time to be annoyed that she needed help.

Amaranthe had found a way down, but it was much steeper than the slope they had used to come up. Roots dangled over the edge of a rock face.

The snarling breaths and crashes of heavy feet tramping the canebrake not that far behind encouraged Ashara to drop to her belly and squirm over the edge without comment. Amaranthe did the same, while Maldynado fired a couple of shots.

“Don’t hesitate, Mal,” Amaranthe said, not slowing. Like Ashara, her hands found holds quickly, and they descended so rapidly that rocks flew free. They almost lost their grips more than once. “It might jump down.”

“
I
might jump down too.” As Maldynado slung his rife on his back and slithered over the side, dozens of small rocks pelted Ashara and Amaranthe on the heads. “You’ll catch me, right?”

Focused on climbing, Amaranthe did not answer. Ashara did not, either, taking a moment to glance down. Another ten feet. Any other time, she would jump that, but she did not want to risk hurting herself further. They had to run twenty-five meters to reach the pile of boulders.

An ear-splitting roar came from the top of the ledge. Something hot spattered Ashara’s face. Blood? Saliva? She didn’t check. She only descended more quickly.

True to his suggestion, Maldynado leaped from his perch up above them, risking the fifteen-foot drop. Amaranthe jumped down, too, and they landed together, both swinging their rifles up to shoot.

Ashara skimmed down the last eight feet and turned, racing for the boulders. She hated leaving the others but knew they could run faster than she could right now. Besides, her bow was even more useless than their rifles.

“It’s jumping,” Maldynado yelled.

“Move,” Amaranthe barked.

From the sounds of their footsteps, Ashara knew they were catching up with her. So long as the makarovi wasn’t. She ran around the base of the rock pile, the jumble of the massive boulders reaching far over her head. She slowed down when she reached the torn up ground and rock litter that the creature had left. Where was the cave? She squinted at the uneven rock formation. From the ground, she couldn’t see it, but it had to be up there.

Another roar came from the cliff, this one sounding pained as well as enraged.

“It hurt itself,” Maldynado said.

“Enough to slow it down?”

“Uh, doesn’t look like it. Go, go.”

“I’m going.” Amaranthe raced past Ashara and leaped onto the rock face, climbing like a monkey. “Mahliki?” she called as she ascended. “Are you in there? Don’t shoot. We’re coming in.”

Ashara did not point out that Mahliki hadn’t been shooting anything even when the makarovi had been trying to come in. The eyes of the forest had told her Mahliki was in there, but Ashara worried she was hurt, maybe unconscious.

Above her, Amaranthe slithered through a crevice. It looked more like a slender fissure than a cave. As Ashara continued to climb, she worried that whatever gap lay between the rocks wouldn’t be large enough for all three—four—of them to hide in. What then?

From the rocks below her, Maldynado cried out, something between an exclamation of alarm and a curse. It turned to a yelp of pain. Injured or not, the makarovi had caught up with them.

It reared up, its head as high as Ashara, but Maldynado was its target. It had clawed a gash in his calf and was pulling its arm back for a swing at a more vital target. Maldynado was trying to hold the rifle, using it as a club to deflect those swipes, even as he clung to the rock face. The makarovi knocked the weapon aside with so much power that it flew all the way back to the cliff.

Hanging onto the side of the rocks below the crevice, Ashara could not use her bow to help. Though she feared it was a waste, she pulled out her knife and threw that, aiming for the creature’s eye. The blade hit but not before the makarovi squinted its heavy lids shut. They proved as thick and impenetrable as the rest of its hide, and the dagger fell away. But her attack, feeble as it was, gave Maldynado the few seconds he needed to scramble up the rocks.

He gave her an unexpected boost on his way up, and Ashara nearly tumbled through the crevice and into the shadows beyond it. Though she had to sacrifice more skin wriggling through the narrow passage, she hurried to crawl inside and get out of the way. Maldynado nearly tumbled in on top of her. A little sunlight had been slanting inside, but the appearance of the makarovi’s shaggy head at the entrance blocked it out. Ashara groped her way deeper, finding a larger cave than she had guessed.

“Mahliki?” Amaranthe asked from farther inside. “Are you…?”

“I’m here, yes.” A pained sigh came from the back. “I’m not sure there’s room, but you’ll have to come in.”

“Good to see you too,” Amaranthe said.

“There’s plenty of room,” Maldynado said. One of those huge claws stabbed through the entrance, swiping for him again. He scooted farther inside, bumping into Ashara. “Maybe not
plenty
.”

“I have a trap up there,” Mahliki said. She sounded tired and frustrated. “If you stay there, tons of rock will drop on your head when I trigger it.”

“That probably won’t feel good.”

“It’s not designed to, no.”

Ashara crawled back, banging her knee on the lumpy ground and scraping her elbows on the jagged sides of the crevice. “We’ll be safe back here?”

Mahliki did not answer. Rock cracked, and Ashara glanced over her shoulder in time to see the makarovi sheer away a head-sized chunk from the entrance. Already, the opening was tall enough for the creature to enter; all it needed to do was widen it.

“Mahliki?” Amaranthe asked. “I’d like to know the answer to that question too.”

“Me too. Because I’m not seeing a back door here.” Maldynado bumped against Ashara in his effort to put more space between himself and the entrance. The makarovi kept sweeping in with its arm, trying to snag someone.

Mahliki sighed again. “There’s not a back door. I didn’t have much of the explosive mixture I made, so I could only apply it to the rocks in the ceiling over the entrance. Also, someone’s standing on my fuse. If that thing makes its way in here, I have to be able to light that and hope I’ve listened to enough of my brother’s engineering lectures to have made my trap correctly.”

“And hope it crushes the makarovi without crushing us?” Amaranthe asked.

“That’s the goal, yes.”

“Are the odds of that good?”

Mahliki’s hesitation did not fill Ashara with hope. “You shouldn’t have come for me. Not so soon, anyway. I wasn’t expecting anyone else when I designed this. I thought maybe I would be able to hide in the back and survive the crash… and that someone would figure out what happened and be able to dig me out before I ran out of air.”

Ashara leaned her head against the cool rock beside her, trying not to think about the way the makarovi kept chiseling away at the entrance and trying not to think about how there would now be four people inhaling that limited air.
If
they survived the dropping of however many tons of rock into the tiny cave. Ashara did not like their odds.

• • • • •

“Over here,” Sicarius said from behind Basilard and to the left of the tracks they were following.

Basilard paused. He had been leading the way, following the makarovi prints that were trampling all over Mahliki’s prints, with Jomrik and most of the Mangdorians trailing behind. Now and then, some of the hunters had jogged off to the side, often to identify another fallen Kendorian soldier. They had never gone far. They kept wiping their palms and watching the woods uneasily. Hykur’s face remained graver than a lost harvest, but he had yet to share whatever thoughts were swirling through his mind.

The makarovi went this way.
Basilard pointed along the route he had been following, trying to direct Sicarius back toward it.
As did Mahliki.

“A fight happened over here.” Sicarius pointed at mangled bunchberry plants and disturbed dirt. “I believe these are the shaman’s prints, heading in that direction.” He nodded toward a stand of evergreens.

It’s more important to find Mahliki. Besides, how would you know which moccasins belong to the shaman?

“He runs with a strange lope, almost as if he’s emulating a wolf.” Sicarius strode farther from the trail.

Basilard was tempted to sign that he would continue on and Sicarius could catch up to him, but Hykur, frowning deeply, jogged off the path too.

“Someone’s out there,” he said. “Alive. I think…” He bit his lip, looking young as he turned uncertain eyes toward the trees around them.

Even though Basilard wanted to continue, the rest of the group was following Sicarius. Reluctantly, Basilard followed too. If whoever was alive out there was close enough for Hykur to sense, they should not have to travel far to find him.

After only a few more steps, Sicarius stepped around an ancient cedar and stared at something near the base. It only took Basilard a few seconds to reach him, but Sicarius had already taken out his black dagger. He strode toward what turned out to be a man lying on the ground, his long gray hair spread on the earth, his eyes closed.

“It’s the shaman,” Hykur said. “He’s alive.”

Wait
, Basilard signed and lunged for Sicarius.

Had Sicarius already decided on killing the man, Basilard never would have caught him in time, but he was able to grip Sicarius’s forearm. Sicarius did not react. His gaze was darting about, as if he sought traps in the undergrowth. Basilard immediately did the same. Finding the shaman unconscious and defenseless was too easy. It
had
to be a trap.

“Mahliki was here.” Sicarius pointed at a faint print in the dirt and pine needles near the shaman, then knelt, touching his finger to a grayish powder.

Did she do something to him?
Basilard asked.

“Perhaps.” Sicarius vigorously shook the powder off his finger as soon as he’d had a sniff.

He stepped away from Basilard and bent over the shaman, the blade in his hand, his intent clear.

To let the man wake up would be foolish, but Basilard winced at the idea of killing someone in cold blood, even an enemy.
Wait, we should question him.