The SteelMaster of Indwallin, Book 2 of The Gods Within (36 page)

He kept to the road, pushed the old mare to her limits, and by virtue of her longer legs when compared to the short, stubby pegs on which the skree ran, she outdistanced them and their barking and yapping dwindled into the distance. But after a short while she began struggling for air and her gait grew uneven. He was forced to let her drop back to a walk, and after only a few minutes his ears again caught the sound of the pack on his trail: “. . . skree . . . skree . . . skree . . .”

Again he pushed the mare into a trot, and she struggled valiantly to obey, but there was just nothing left in her old bones to fight with. The sound of the skree grew louder and he could pick out individual voices in the pack now. There was no justice in making the old mare die with him, so he slid off her back, scratched her gently between the ears. “I’m sorry, old girl. I should have left you in your pasture. Perhaps some poor farmer will find you, feed you, and not work you too hard.”

Morgin swatted her on the rump as hard as he could. It startled her and she trotted up the road a short distance, then slowed to a walk.

He turned around and backtracked several hundred paces. There was no question the skree would catch him, but if he diverted them off the old mare’s trail far enough then she might live out her remaining years peacefully.

He turned off the road, began cutting across open fields, tried to run at a steady trot. But while he’d had a few days to recuperate from his treatment in Valso’s dungeon, he learned quickly it wasn’t enough as the pain from his injuries awoke, and his trot turned into a limping walk.

He didn’t want to die, and especially not that way, torn apart in a hundred tiny mouths filled with razor sharp teeth as the monstrous little netherbeasts swarmed over him. He tried to force that image out of his mind, and limped on paying little heed to his direction, concentrating only on the next step, and that it must be away from the cries of the pack. They were gaining on him, and he felt panic stirring within his heart.

He cut through a small woodland, then across a large open field to another woodland. But just before stepping beneath the leaves of the trees the cries of the skree took on a renewed urgency, and he stopped to look back.

He should have realized the old mare would follow him. She had no place else to go, and for the past few days it had been his hand that had fed her. In the distance, in the middle of a grassy field, she shambled toward him with a tired walk. But when she saw that he’d stopped, she stopped too and hesitated for a moment, and then the pack of skree broke from the trees on the opposite side of the field. They poured outward like a small, gray flood of water, and from that distance he could not distinguish individuals in the pack.

The old mare didn’t seem to know enough to fear them. She just stood there watching Morgin as the fastest members of the pack reached her first. She cried out as they bit into her ankles, tripped her up, forced her to her knees, brought her down so that when the body of the pack reached her it swarmed over her, and she disappeared completely from sight beneath a seething mass of small gray bodies, as if a gray blanket had been placed over the her body, with a lump in the middle as the only indication she was even there. But as Morgin looked on the lump slowly dwindled, and then finally it flattened completely, and for a moment the pack lost some of its frenzy. And when they moved on the only thing that remained of the old mare was a large red stain on the ground. They had devoured her, bones and hair and all.

The cries of the skree broke out anew as they swarmed toward Morgin.

He turned toward the trees, ran in among them, knew the skree would be upon him in seconds. He picked out an old oak tree, tossed his canvas cloak aside and began climbing. Beneath him the skree reached the base of the tree and went wild. He stopped and perched on a thick limb, looked down at the little monsters.

They swarmed over the base of the tree, screaming and yapping at him. All he saw were mouths full of teeth turned up toward him and snapping uncontrollably. They had even managed to climb a short distance, but they’d reached a point where the trunk was nearly vertical and that stopped them, though one of them broke away from the rest and struggled upward by burying its tiny claws in the bark. The little thing was awkward, and clumsy, and slow, but it managed to climb the height of its own body above its fellows, and once there it stopped and dug its claws into the bark even deeper. Then one of its fellows climbed over it easily, and just as clumsily struggled beyond it until it had gained one more body length higher, and there it stopped. Another skree climbed easily over the two, while others beneath it swarmed over them and reinforced them. They were slow and clumsy, struggling up a vertical wall of bark, but once in place they locked their claws into the bark to provide a ladder up which the rest of the pack swarmed with ease.

When they got within range of the limb on which Morgin crouched, he kicked down at the next one that tried to climb above the pack. He managed to dislodge several of them that way, but then one buried its teeth in his calf and his leg lit up with a fiery burn. He screamed out, grabbed the little monster behind its ears and pulled, but nothing would dislodge it.

The pain was horrendous. Blood poured down his ankle, and below him they’d almost reached his limb. He began edging his way farther out on the limb, but he stopped when it became too thin to support him. The one skree still had its teeth buried in his calf, and he was desperate enough now to ignore the pain, so he raised his leg and slammed the little beast against the limb. It took five such kicks to crack the little beast’s skull, and even then he had to forcefully pry its jaws open. But he managed it, and tossed its carcass aside just as the pack reached his limb.

He had nothing to lose now. There was another oak just near enough for a truly desperate man to delude himself into thinking he might jump across to it. So he stood up precariously on the limb, thinking even if he missed he was high enough to break his neck when he hit the ground, so at least they wouldn’t devour him alive.

He squatted down and sprang up into the air, and for a moment was free almost like a bird. But then his fingers touched the limb he was reaching for and he caught hold of it, though only near its tip, and it bent down heavily like a fishing pole with a large trout on the hook. Then it snapped loudly; he let go and grabbed at anything, bounced off a larger branch with his ribs, caught another and came to a stop hanging by his hands swinging back and forth.

He caught his breath for a moment, looked down. His feet dangled no more than head high off the ground. He could have easily dropped to the ground and walked away were it not for the swarm of skree gathered beneath him, snapping up at his ankles. They’d also begun bridging their way up the trunk of the tree he was hanging from, and his ribs hurt and he didn’t think he had the strength to pull himself up and start climbing again. He should have just let himself fall, should have let himself break his neck.

Without apparent reason the skree suddenly stopped yapping, stopped completely; stopped moving, stopped barking, stopped snapping at his ankles, and an incredible stillness settled over them, as if waiting for something, listening. Morgin listened too, though the pounding of his heart filled his ears.

Far in the distance, though not a distance measured in length, but rather in time and worlds and existence, a howl rose slowly above the stillness, a sound like the howl of a wolf, but with something more to it, something not of this life. It rose high on the air, reached a magnificent crescendo, then died as slowly as it had come.

The skree broke into a frenzy of cries. A few started snapping again at Morgin’s heels but most lost interest. Then the howl came again, but this time closer. It tore at Morgin’s soul, though it had an even greater effect on the skree. They abandoned their efforts to climb the tree he hung from, ran about wildly for a few moments, then gathered together and swarmed away as if they’d lost all interest in one poor, outlaw wizard hanging from a tree above them.

He could see nothing more of the skree, though in the distance he still heard their cries. Morgin hung from the tree, afraid to believe his eyes and ears. But then the howl came again, and he was just too tired to hold on longer, so he let go. He landed badly because of the wound in his leg and he fell to the ground.

He was sitting there like that, trying to gather the strength to stand and run, struggling to overcome sheer exhaustion, when the hellhound trotted up and towered over him. Morgin looked up at WolfDane, the hellhound king—he was easily the size of a horse. Morgin shook his head, struggled to hold onto consciousness. “You can’t be here,” he said. “Not in this time, this world, this life. You can’t be here. This isn’t a dream.”

“Nothing is a dream,” the hellhound growled. “And all things are dreams, fool, spawn of the Fallen One. I am here. That is all that matters. That is all that counts in the bargain I’ve made. Now come. We must be gone. The skree will soon realize I am alone and take up the hunt again.”

Morgin struggled to his feet, could barely manage a limp. “Can’t walk,” he said. “You’ll have to go on without me.”

“But I can’t, mortal. I’m stuck with you. Climb on my back. I’ll carry you, if I must, to fulfill this bargain.”

“What bargain?”

“Shut up and do as I say.” The hellhound curled its lips back, showed Morgin its anger by flashing enormous, yellow teeth.

Morgin struggled to climb onto the hellhound’s back. And once there the beast broke into a loping run that jarred Morgin’s ribs painfully. He lost track of time, knew only that WolfDane carried him further south, that they traveled without pause for two days and nights. Fatigue pulled at him, numbed him, dulled his senses.

He awoke lying on a sandy beach. The sun blazed in the sky high overhead and very hot. He sat up, looked to the horizon and saw nothing but sand. He turned about slowly, found WolfDane behind him standing on the bank of a wide, gently flowing river, his head bent to the water as he drank his fill. In the distance Morgin heard the cry of the skree.

Morgin turned about again and looked at the sand, a rolling sea of it that stretched to the horizon, and realization struck him: WolfDane had crossed the Ulbb and deposited him at the edge of the Great Munjarro Waste.

WolfDane’s voice startled him. “Yes, mortal. The Munjarro. You’re on your own now, and if you want to escape the skree then you’ll taste the sands of the Munjarro.”

Morgin looked at the hellhound. “But what’ll stop them from following me out there?”

“Their feet are too small. They sink into the sand and founder helplessly.”

Morgin looked out again over the sand. “But how can I stay alive in that.”

WolfDane shook his head. “I care not if or how you survive. My bargain is to deliver you from the skree, and you are delivered. And when next you meet the Fallen One, tell him I have done his bidding. Tell him this frees me of my debt to him, and never again will he bind me. Tell him the Dane King is finally free.” And with those words WolfDane turned his back on Morgin, crossed the river and loped away.

The yowling of the skree pack was a constant din growing ever closer. Morgin knew he would need water out on the Munjarro, but he had no way of carrying any, so he lay down on the bank of the river and drank until nearly bloated. Then he stood, turned toward the sand and began walking.

~~~

Rhianne sat on the northern bank of the Ulbb and watched the water drift lazily past. Above her the sun burned hot and high in the sky, while across the river a sea of sand and heat stretched to the horizon. She was tired and hungry and dirty, but none of that mattered for she was certain now Morgin was dead, and that left her empty beyond belief.

She had traveled hard for days, eating nothing, sleeping little. She had known the way, had followed the magical scent of the skree as if she had the nose of a hound. Eventually she had come to a field where some poor animal had been devoured, and for some moments she wondered at the red stain that covered a large patch of grass. But just beyond that, in a small forest, she came across the bit of cloth.

It lay in the dirt where it had been trampled by a thousand tiny paws, and she was drawn to it by instinct, knew it had been something of Morgin. When she picked it up her fingers recoiled at the touch of it. It was moist with the drool of the small netherhounds, and wet with blood.

She could no longer sense Morgin in her heart. With his magic so tightly compressed and wrapped about that of the blade, the thread of magic that had connected them had long since been severed. Since the battle at Csairne Glen, to have any sense of him she was wholly dependent upon her own magic and power.

She cast a spell of seeking, then opened her blouse and touched a dab of the blood to her breast just above her heart. An image of Morgin came to her. He was bloody, tattered, filthy and desperate. She heard the cries of the skree in the distance, and she tasted his fear. Her mind filled with a kaleidoscope of half formed images: Morgin cornered up a tree, the skree climbing clumsily after him, one of the little monsters with its teeth buried in his calf, his desperate leap for another branch, and his miss, and his fall, the skree everywhere. She sat down there in the dirt and sobbed openly, cried like a baby at the loss of the one man who had loved her without fail, the man she had scorned and failed to love back until too late.

Sitting there in the dirt she’d gone numb to the core of her soul. Eventually she stood, mounted her horse, and in a daze she let it take her south until she reached the Ulbb and looked out across it to the Munjarro. She wanted to walk out into the oven of sand and die, but that kind of ending was not for her. And there was no going back either, for she had failed. Elhiyne held nothing for her now, only the hateful old witch. Nor would she be welcome at Inetka.

She sat there for some hours watching the river, and came to the slow realization there was no place in this world for her. The one thing she could do was make sure the old witch would never find her. Young maidens were taught early on how to conceal their magic from others with power, a sometimes necessary defensive tactic. And under the tutelage if AnnaRail and the old witch her capabilities had grown immeasurably. She smothered any outward signs of her power; though to make it last for more than a few days she’d have to prepare a rather complicated spell-casting. She’d worry about that later.