Miami Days and Truscan (19 page)

We reached a semi-clearing with more open ground than we had traversed for perhaps the last forty-five minutes or so, and I surreptitiously removed my feet from the stirrups and shifted my weight, abruptly and all at once, to the left, toward the Kabra that held Andromeda’s reins, falling completely and like a stone off her back. My fall startled the Kabra’s horse, just as I had intended that it should, and it jerked away from me. Its sudden movement, coupled with Andromeda’s abrupt halt as I fell, pulled the reins free, and I kicked out with my foot, hitting Andromeda’s leg. Faltons were
überhorses
, superior in intelligence, speed, and strength to ordinary horses; I hoped to
hell
she knew what I wanted, as both my hands were tied, and as the gag was still in place, preventing me from giving any vocal commands.

She did, bless her, and in the confusion offered by those few precious seconds, she wheeled. For a moment I was petrified she might try to rear and gore, offering a perfect target for the one of the Kabras’ swords, but she didn’t. She turned and she galloped. She didn’t just gallop; she
flew.
The noise of her flight sounded through the trees, and I wanted to laugh in my abductors’ faces. They would never catch her,
never,
not even if they had the time to attempt it, which I knew they didn’t.

The Truscan curses flew, but it was the Prian who dismounted and hauled me to my feet. He barked shortly at one of the Kabras, the one who held the reins of Toron’s horse, and he brought the mount closer to me.

The Prian jerked me around to face him. He was shorter than me, which was something of a novelty after the month I had spent with the towering Truscans, but he was immensely strong, and he put a great deal of that strength into the blow that nearly knocked my head off my shoulders.

I heard the sharp intake of breath from the Kabras; traitors they might be, but I was still the queen. He barked at them again.

“Shut up!”

Then he turned back to me and hissed in fury as he pushed me toward Toron’s horse. “Mount!”

I obeyed.

One of the Kabras protested; I
think
he was expressing the opinion that if I was this tricky, they would be better off if they mounted me with one of them, but the Prian cut them off.

“And slow the horses by making them carry double? Prias spare me from Truscan fools!”

I conceded to myself that he did have a point, and comforted myself by thoughts of Andromeda as she flew home, her hooves scarcely skimming the ground. I didn’t know how long she could handle her full speed, even riderless, but I hoped it was for a very long distance. I knew there were no stops in my foreseeable future, and I was quite right.

I don’t know precisely for how long we rode; I withdrew into a private reverie of how pleasant it would be, after the guards had tracked us and brought me back home, to watch Dalph slowly draw and quarter this kidnapping trio, with particular emphasis on the Prian. My face still tingled from the blow, and I knew the blood was settling from the broken veins, forming a huge bruise. Somehow, I didn’t think Dalph was going to like that very much. Actually, I didn’t know whether the Truscans did draw and quarter people, and I had never in my life suspected that I was so bloodthirsty. How quickly the savage can rise in us all.

We rode and we rode, on until sunset, and though I strained my ears to hear the sounds of my anticipated rescuers, I knew it was premature to expect any aid this early. Occasionally, we paused long enough at a passing stream to allow the horses to drink, but never for longer than two or three minutes.

The Truscan sun streamed its bloody rays through the forest trees as it sank lower and lower toward the horizon. At first, I had some hopes that the velvety Truscan night would force them to make camp, but such hope was short-lived. The Truscan moon was much stronger than the moon of Earth; it was a phenomenon I had noticed before. Soon after sunset, I observed moonrise, which spread its own reddish glow over the forest. It hung, low and swollen, right above the treetops, and gathered its strength to climb higher into the night sky. A full moon. Shit. Well, with my luck, what had I expected?

We rode and we rode. I suspected we must be nearing the Prian border. My hands, tied since early afternoon, felt like boards; they had long since ceased to have much feeling at all, and every muscle I had ached, braced as they were to keep me on the horse without benefit of free hands.

It had to be after midnight, though how far past midnight I could not guess, and still we rode. I began to lose the anger and thoughts of revenge that had sustained me through these interminable hours; suppose the guards did not find me? Suppose Dalph never had the chance to visit his wrath upon the three abductors? I cursed the pride which had initially kept us apart, and then I cursed my stupidity of the last week in not confiding in him. Suppose that last week was all I was ever intended to have?

So deeply was I enmeshed in my own self-pity that at first I didn’t sense the deepening tension among my captors. Gradually, though, it began to filter through that they were muttering under their breaths, glancing over their shoulders. I perked my ears up and listened, straining to hear the sounds of pursuing riders, of horses’ hooves pounding the ground behind us. But I heard nothing. Nothing except the night noises of the woods, and the distant sound of howling.

Wolves, far off in the distance. Not surprising; wolves were plentiful in Trusca, almost as though they were a protected species. They were a fact of life, and already I took the great packs which roamed the forests for granted.

But perhaps I shouldn’t? After all, this was their turf. My abductors were armed, but would that bother a wolfpack, on the prowl, at night, in their own territory? I suspected it wouldn’t. And the howls did seem to be coming closer, at an alarming rate of speed. Obviously, the howls had been ongoing for some time before I had noticed them, and was the cause of the mounting tension among the men. I supposed I would include the Prian in that category, though God knows, his looks were more porcine than humanoid.

Abruptly, the Prian reined in his horse and barked again at the Kabra. It was the first clear sentence one of them had spoken in some hours.

“Gather wood. We need fire.”

“We should not stop, the horses—”

“The horses are tired, fools! They cannot outrun a hungry pack!”

“But perhaps—”

“Obey me! They draw closer!!”

I bunched my leg muscles and waited for the chance to urge Toron’s horse to flee. It seemed that for the moment, they had forgotten about me, and I didn’t see that it would be much worse to run into a wolf pack than to land in Pria.

I’d undoubtedly be dead in any event, and the wolves probably wouldn’t take as long about it as the Prians would. But just when I thought I had the opportunity, one of the Kabras grabbed me and hauled me off the horse, pulled me over to a tree, and tied me firmly against it as the Prian and the other Kabra moved swiftly, locating fallen branches and dead leaves by feel in the semi-darkness, aided hugely by the radiant moonbeams.

The pile of kindling was assembled, and the Prian pulled a box out of his belt. Kneeling, he began to strike the flint against the stone until the sparks grew into a small blaze in the pile, devouring the dead leaves and smaller twigs hungrily, and taking hold. And in the woods, the sounds of the howls drew closer and closer still. The men watched the flames anxiously, waiting for the moment when the blaze would be great enough to add the bigger limbs which were piled near the fire. Still the howls drew closer.

The Prian grabbed a large branch and thrust it into the fire, pulling his sword free with his other hand. The Kabras followed suit, and all three of them swirled at the same time, facing away from the fire as the howls converged into a circle around us.

I saw the first dark shapes running through the trees. The wolves seemed to have no fear of the flames at all, and the dark, silent shapes encircled us. Dots of red glowed in the light of the fire, now quite substantial, as the flames caught the golden eyes of the wolves.

Then one wolf gave a howl that splintered the air and leaped, ignoring the burning brand in the hand of the Prian, and went straight for his throat. The brand fell uselessly from his hand, the sword swinging, but missing its target, and one of the Kabras leaped toward the Prian, swinging his own brand as he attempted to set the fur of the lead wolf on fire. His brand fell, useless, as well, as two other huge wolves knocked him to the ground. I heard the sounds of ripping flesh and spurting blood. The other Kabra was backing away, toward the woods, and sensing the flight of this prey, two other wolves circled, one coming toward him from the back and the other leaping for his throat.

The other wolves raced around the circle and converged with the attacking wolves around the fallen bodies. I heard claws tear flesh, and fangs crunch bones; I smelled the hot, metallic scent of blood. I shrank back against the tree, close to total paralysis, and near complete hysteria. I couldn’t even scream; the gag was still in place. I could only sit and feel the cold waves of terror spreading out from my stomach, tingling as they rushed over my body. Any moment now, any second, the wolves would raise their heads from their defeated prey and smell me, smell my still pumping blood. And gradually, the orgy of frenzied ripping sounds died down, and the wolves backed away from what was left of the bodies.

The moon-glow was quite adequate; in fact, I wished it were dimmer. Or I would have wished so, had I been capable of coherent thought, which I certainly wasn’t. As the wolves backed away, I saw the carnage, which was absolute. The two Kabras and the Prian were no more; there remained only dark lumps of flesh from which protruded white ends of bone. The ground was spotted with dark puddles of congealing blood. And the lead wolf, the one who had first leaped into the circle, lifted its great head. And saw me.

It started toward me, moving slowly, and I shrank as far back against the tree as possible, as though every millimeter I shrank offered some measure of protection. I heard my own moans through the gag and knew they would have been high, keening shrieks had they not been muffled by the cloth. The wolf stopped in front of me and appeared to scrutinize me carefully, as though debating with itself the best angle of approach. This would have puzzled me, had I been capable of any thought, as it had certainly had no hesitation as to the best means of approach when it leaped toward the Prian, but I was past thought, and there was no room for anything except the throbbing terror and the drumming of my own blood as it pounded in my ears, blocking any other sounds.

Perhaps my heart would burst of its own accord, unable to handle its trip-hammer beats, and I would not feel the fangs when they sank into my neck.

The wolf circled me slowly, edging around me, which was even worse than staring at it face to face. I heard a noise, something impossible, illogical. I heard the sounds of the wolf’s teeth gnawing on the rope that bound me to the tree, and which suddenly fell on the ground around me. My first impulse, of course, was to jump to my feet, which at least were not tied, and run. Like the wind
.

I would like to say that logical reasoning made me reach the conclusion that sudden movement, when faced with danger in the shape of wild animals, was not a wise move, and the proper course of action was to back away from any such wild animal, slowly and carefully, with no sudden moves, and never turning your back. Logical reasoning, however, was something I was absolutely incapable of at the moment, and what made me stay where I was, was the sight of three other huge wolves who had moved forward to encircle me. A wolf behind, one in front. One on the left, one on the right. Then another smaller, younger wolf slipped into the fray, flanking me close on the right. There being nowhere to go, I stayed where I was.

The wolf who had gnawed through the rope moved forward again, facing me. The leader of the pack, obviously. He came closer, and I could hear myself steadily moaning. I knew my eyes must be bulging and I also knew I must give new definition to the phrase “wide-eyed with terror.” He came closer now, and closer. He was about to spring for my neck, I knew it, though why in the hell he had bothered to chew through the rope, I couldn’t imagine. He lowered his head, dropping it almost into my lap, and I felt his teeth graze my hands. But my flesh wasn’t his target. I heard the now familiar sounds of teeth gnawing through rope.

This rope was wound more securely around my hands than the rope that had tied me to the tree, with several more turns taken, and it took him much longer. His teeth kept grazing and nicking the skin of my hands, and I could feel small trails of blood running from the shallow scratches, but it was clear that my flesh was not his primary target, and that any minor wound inflicted was not intentional.

I couldn’t fathom this behavior; I had no explanation at all, other than these were Truscan wolves, and perhaps they had their own agenda with the Prians. Perhaps there was a breed of wolf that was more intelligent than the ordinary packs that roamed the woods, in the same way that the faltons were more intelligent than ordinary horses. I knew nothing for certain except for one thing. This night had brought home to me one fact with more emphasis than I had felt since my first days in Trusca.
I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

I felt the last strands of rope drop away, and I raised my hands thankfully, or at least, I tried to. But they felt as dead as driftwood, bound as they had been these many hours, and I felt nothing at all for a few moments as I tried to flex my fingers. Then I felt the rushing agony of renewed circulation as the blood began to move at normal speed through my veins. I had ceased my moans of terror some minutes past, but now I moaned again, in a different tone, a moan of pain. I wanted my hands to return to normal so that I could rip the gag from my mouth and breathe freely again; I wanted that almost as badly as I had wanted my hands free.