The Deavys (21 page)

XIX

It was early evening when they reached the place where the paved walkway that bordered the south reaches of the Reservoir intersected the main bridle path. All manner and kinds of trees lined the heavily forested route, which was much wider than any of the merely pedestrian walkways they had encountered since entering the park. Though covered only with gravel and hard-packed earth, it was expansive enough to accommodate a truck. Except for park maintenance vehicles, however, no machines were allowed on the path. Only horses, riders, and pedestrians.

Simwan's map showed the path winding its way along most of the length of the park all the way from south to north. Snaking its way between the west side of the Reservoir and Central Park West, it seemed to offer easy access to the park's northernmost reaches. As they stood studying the route, a couple of Ord joggers came boinking past, their faces frozen in the familiar grimace common to all such creatures whose chosen activity is mistakenly marketed as fun. Watching them labor past, heading south, Amber shuddered at the prospect.

“Ever see one of those things smiling?” she commented.

Rose shook her head sadly. “Not once. Not ever.” Glancing skyward, she stepped out onto the path. The cloud cover that had been present all day made it hard to judge the time by the movement of the heavily obscured sun. So she dispensed with tradition, and checked her watch. “We'd best hurry.”

“Okay,” agreed N/Ice, “but no matter how late it is, I'm not jogging.”

Omnipresent fallen leaves crunched like stale potato chips beneath their feet as they set out on the path. Gold, brown, and every shade in between, they formed a colorful carpet beneath the children as they made their way northward. They encountered no more joggers. Simwan was not surprised at the absence of riders. Even to a non-equestrian like himself, horseback riding in the rain didn't seem like it would be much fun.

They had progressed maybe halfway around the Reservoir when Pithfwid came to a stop. Surrounded by fallen and falling leaves, the cat had halted in the middle of the path. Now he was lying prone, stretched out full-length on his right side on the hard, wet ground. Hands on hips, a disapproving Amber frowned down at him.

“I know cats need a lot of sleep, Pithfwid, but this really isn't the time or the place for a catnap.”

“Shut up,” he hissed curtly.

The sharpness of his retort stunned everyone. Pithfwid could be brusque, he could be aloof, but he was rarely impolite. It suggested that he was really irritated—or that something ominous was afoot.

That was when Simwan noticed that in addition to being sprawled full-length on the ground, Pithfwid's head was firmly pressed to the earth. He was listening to something not only with his right ear, but with his entire body. Trying to divide his attention between cat and path, Simwan knelt beside him and whispered.

“What do you hear, Pithfwid? What do you feel?”

A pause, then: “Vibrations. Coming toward us. Growing stronger.”

The girls had gathered around to gaze down at the cat. “Horses and riders?” Amber finally asked.

“Yes—but not what you think.” Springing sharply to his feet, Pithfwid whirled and sprang forward—back the way they had come. It was the first time since they had entered the park that the cat had retreated so much as a step. “
Run!
”

Reflexively, everyone looked north, up the bridle path, even as they complied. From infancy, they had each and every one of them learned to pay attention whenever the cat said “jump.” He never did so unless there was a good reason for it, such as the time baby Rose had been caught prodding a wasps' nest to try and coax out the pretty-colored creatures dwelling within, or when a curious four-year-old Simwan had tried to stick his fingers into one of the wall sockets in the Deavy house. There were no wasps' nests visible on the bridle path, or open sockets, but Simwan knew that something serious had alarmed the cat, and that was enough to persuade him to break into a worried sprint.

N/Ice had declared that she wouldn't jog—but she had voiced no such compunction about taking flight. They raced back the way they had come, following Pithfwid, occasionally looking back over their shoulders. Nothing was to be seen behind them for several minutes.

That did not mean there was nothing to be heard.

The grunts that came out of the increasingly dark mist were low and terse, loud and deep. They suggested the approach of something large and powerful, and more than one of whatever it was. Above the rhythmic grunting could be heard high-pitched speech of a kind that was alien to Simwan. It sounded at once familiar and yet completely foreign: the sounds guttural and the words unintelligible, as if someone was reciting a half-known language backward and upside down. Both grunting and growling were closing quickly. He tried to run faster. The girls kept up with him (who knew that all that soccer practice would have a practical payoff?), while Pithfwid had to slow his pace to keep from leaving them behind.

The bridle path was reserved for the use of pedestrians, joggers, and horses and riders. Listening to the earth, Pithfwid had acknowledged the approach of the latter—“but not what you think.”Straining to see back through the gloom and the mist, Simwan's eyes widened as the reason for the cat's cryptic comment finally thundered into view.

The mounts were goliaths of their kind, but there was nothing equine about their features. They were true giants. Naked of body and blunt of face, they came pounding heavily down the bridle path on all fours, chomping on metal bits forged to fit mouths not equine, but human. Their hands and feet were oversize and callused from running, and they galloped with a ferocious dullness in their eyes that shouted their lack of intelligence.

This was in direct and incontestable contrast to those astride the saddles that straddled the broad human backs. Hoofs jammed into stirrups, eyes blazing, long snouts exhaling streaks of condensation in the chill air, the five riders held their respective seats despite the heavy, damascened, silver-hued armor they wore. They carried swords and lances, and their manes and tails snapped in the wind.

“
Madoon!
” Pithfwid yelled back as he led his humans onward. “Among their kind, the horses ride the people instead of the other way around!”

This bizarre recognition inspired a number of questions in Simwan, but when a spear plunged into the earth off to his left and entirely too close, he decided to save them for later. Right now he needed all the air his lungs could gather just for running.

Then Rose stumbled.

She didn't make a sound, though she went down hard. Her sisters and brother were at her side in an instant, helping her up. Gravel and dirt fell from her recently cleansed clothes as she struggled to resume running. But despite her best efforts, the most she could manage was a fast limp. Simwan didn't think anything was broken, but a sprain would be almost as incapacitating. It didn't appear serious, but it did not have to be. It did not have to stop them, all it had to do was slow them down.

The intersection where they had stepped off the paved walkway and onto the bridle path loomed just ahead. If not for Rose's injury, they would already be there. Helping his sister along, Simwan felt as if he could feel the fetid, sour breath of one of the Madoon's mounts warming the back of his neck. He expected to be cut by a sword or pierced by a lance at any minute. He couldn't afford the time to look back. Grimacing in pain, Rose limped along as best she could between him and N/Ice. He heard Pithfwid yowl: a mixture of alarm and defiance.

The screams of the mounted Madoon split the mist-filled air. To Simwan, they sounded like shouts of anger and frustration, not triumph. Despite struggling with the burden that was his sister, he risked a look back.

Amber had halted directly in front of the onrushing giants and their mutant equine riders. She could have cast a spell, if she'd had enough time. She might have laid down a challenge to their pursuers, if she'd known what language to use. She could even have tried to delay them by fighting (all the Deavy children had received schooling in the martial as well as the magical arts), if only she'd had access to a weapon. But she had neither enough time, nor the right words, nor anything more lethal than a nail file in her possession. Yet despite every deficiency, and Simwan's initial fear that she would be trampled underfoot by the onrushing giants, she had somehow managed to stop them in their tracks.

That was why the Madoon were screaming at their suddenly contrary, balking mounts. These had abruptly come to a standstill. Instead of continuing the pursuit to finish off their intended prey, they were picking and grabbing at the ground. Sharp whips and harsh words had no effect on the saddled giants. Ignoring their Madoon masters, two of them had started fighting with each other. Encompassing Madoon and mounts alike, general confusion now held sway.

Supporting Rose between them, an exhausted Simwan and N/Ice reached the intersection and turned off back onto the paved walkway that marked the southern border of the Reservoir. Pithfwid was already there. By the time one of the Madoon finally managed to regain control of its mount and resume the chase, Amber had succeeded in rejoining her siblings.

“Keep running!” Simwan yelled as he started to lift Rose from where she had taken a seat on a park bench, not even bothering to dry it first this time.

Pithfwid forestalled him. “It's all right, Simwan. Just as the bridle path is intended for the use of riders and mounts, so pedestrian walkways are forbidden to them.” Tail bottled, ears flared forward, the Deavy cat defiantly held his ground.

Instinctively, Simwan positioned himself between his injured sister and the charging Madoon. Red eyes opened wide, nostrils flaring, it glared down at him as the giant it was riding turned sharply leftward—and reared up on its legs, pawing at the air with both heavy, unshod hands. As it dropped back down, the Madoon thrust its sword threateningly in Simwan's direction—but that was the extent of its approach. Pithfwid was right: The Madoon and their mounts were restricted to the use of the bridle path, and could not leave it. With a furious whinny of rage, the horse-faced rider yanked on the reins it held in its other hoof and whirled around, galloping back to rejoin its equally frustrated companions.

Breathing hard, Simwan wiped sweat and rain from his face as he watched the quintet of bloodthirsty Madoon retreat northward, back the way they had come, until the monstrous and unnatural shapes of both human mounts and their equine riders had once more been swallowed up by fog and drizzle. Turning, he found Amber.

“How did you get them to stop? What did you use?” He shook his head in undisguised admiration. “I never saw anyone in the family, not even Grandpa Morregon Deavy, work an enchantment so fast.”

“That's because it wasn't an enchantment.” Amber looked slightly embarrassed. “I didn't have time to speak one even if I could've come up with something appropriate. I just happened to have something in my purse that I thought might work, so I threw it at them.”

Pithfwid frowned. “‘Threw it at them'? What in the name of all the Ten Lives did you have in your purse that was capable of halting a posse of Madoon in its tracks?”

Amber essayed a shy smile. “Candy. Lemon drops, and cherry drops, and lime and grape. I had just enough time to whisper a few words, a quick and simple enhancing spell. I thought if the candy colors were flashy enough, they might distract the Madoon for a moment or two. But what happened was that the giants saw them, and they went right for the candy. Just like horses after sugar cubes.” She turned thoughtful. “Have to remember that the next time I'm troubled by pesky giants. Who knows? Maybe it would work on trolls, too.”

N/Ice came toward her sister. Anticipating that one Deavy sibling was about to deliver a compliment to another who had just saved all their lives, it was evident that Simwan had momentarily put aside what he knew of his little sisters. N/Ice's face as she spoke was flushed, and not from the cold.

“
You
had
lemon
drops and you didn't share them with
us
?”

Amber was immediately both defensive and defiant. “Hey, I was gonna! I was just waiting for the right time, that's all.”

“Oh yeah,
sure
you were,” N/Ice shot back, looking like she wanted to take a poke at her sister. “Like, maybe
never
.”

“Knock it off, you two!” Simwan turned back to his one sister who was not participating in the spat. Seeing where their brother's attention was directed, Amber and N/Ice set aside their argument as speedily as it had flared and moved to help attend to the third member of the coubet. Rose had rolled up the left leg of her jeans. Drawing near, N/Ice and Amber bent to examine and gently feel all around the edge of the very visible bruise on the bare, pale flesh.

“It's not broken,” N/Ice observed, confirming Simwan's hasty original diagnosis.

“Wrong
time
for a sprain,” Amber decided.

Rose was fighting back tears as she leaned forward to inspect the injury. “Well, all I know is that it hurts like crazy.”

“We can do something about that.” Digging into her purse, N/Ice brought forth several small containers. Selecting one, she put the rest back and opened the cap on the tube she had chosen. Squeezing it from its base, she forced about two inches of what appeared to be glowing gingery dust out onto her sister's injured leg. While she recapped the tube and tucked it back into her purse, Amber began tenderly rubbing the dust into the bruise. She had to work fast because a breeze threatened to catch the dust and swirl it into the air where it would disperse. Simwan eyed N/Ice questioningly.

“Oxide of orangeium,” she informed him. “I remember Mom using it on me when I fell off my bike and banged up my right ankle.”

Amber looked up at her sister. “You wouldn't have banged it up so bad if you hadn't been riding ten feet off the ground.”