Avenger, page 24
part #2 of Swords and Skulls Series
“We could make for that ledge,” suggested Balir.
“We could,” said Vetra. They could climb up the iron bars like monkeys, he thought, except for Balir. Dapi of course, could fly, and they would all be ripped to pieces.
“Well, nothing to do, except get up there,” Vetra grunted.
Balir’s eyes glowed in surprise. In all practicality the other two should have left him behind.
Sheathing their swords, the three craned their necks up to stare at the height they must ascend. Laskar ensured his crossbow was snug in his baldric. Balir secured the knives and sword at his hip. They left the stubs of torches burning on the loose gravel at their feet.
Vetra and Laskar took to the gate, heaving their bulks up. Cold to the touch, the heavy iron rattled and creaked like a castle’s rusty portcullis.
Some feet up, the two paused to hang with one strong hand on the mesh while grabbing Balir’s arm and pulling him up, while he clung awkwardly with one hand.
Balir muttered resentful words at their assistance, but his pride gave way. Panting and sweating, he secured his footholds and pulled his weight up with his good arm, hooking his elbow over the higher bars. Vetra saw the man’s injured hand trembling. “Keep steady,” he said.
Many painstaking efforts later, Vetra saw the ledge grow smaller underneath them. Smoke stole through the canyon like cloud mist below. Ritual fires glared, like fireflies of doom.
Laskar hissed at Vetra, “Should we rely on luck and try to climb higher, over the top of the mesh, or should we go for the ledge within sight on this side?”
Vetra peered down at a struggling form of Balir and the distant glare of torches. “Take the ledge,” he said. “No time for climbing higher. I can hear that hellish flapping not too far away. I intuit that beast is within killing radius. How its cawing haunts me! We may have a chance to lose it in the tunnel.”
Laskar grunted acknowledgement of the plan. He pulled himself higher.
Barely were they arm-lengths from the ledge when, as Vetra had predicted, the sweep of frenzied wings came slashing at the air like a miniature dragon’s. Terrible croaking echoed down the valley.
Laskar choked out a strangled gasp. Vetra jerked his head around and discerned a gruesome shape set vaguely against the moon. It was coming straight at them. The thing had obviously made bait of many more victims, judging from the blood and flesh on its beak.
Laskar gained the stony ledge and crouched there with breathless dread. Fingers fumbled to arm his crossbow. The beast came angling in on him.
Balir howled, steeling himself for death. He jerked sideways and slipped down several rungs. But the action saved his life.
The bird smashed into the iron bars inches from where Balir’s head had been. The fingers of his right hand caught the bars, saving him from plummeting to his doom on the sharp rocks below.
Dapi circled the air above, dripping in blood and with a tumultuous screech thick in its throat. It fluttered in a wide loop then swooped down for another pass. A stir came from the priests far below. Vetra swung down like some spry monkey to pull Balir up.
Balir hung from a quaking hand and shrieked in his ear. “Leave me!...And curse you, Vetra, let me die—and you, you wretched falcon ghoul! Die, why don’t you just die?”
Vetra winced. He cursed their folly at not climbing the iron gate faster when they had the chance. The bird had caught them in plain pecking distance out in the open.
Laskar hung over the lip of the ledge. Frantically, he reached on his belly for Balir’s palm. Fingers met fingers. Laskar gave a mighty heave.
With a savage cry, Vetra pushed his shoulders up on Balir’s behind from below. Balir rolled like a bear over the ledge. The rogue was up!
Dapi attacked from the air, swooping and cawing in expectant petulance. Laskar pushed away from Balir, rolling on his side. At the same time, he loosed a bolt. Dapi, whose wings were beating the air in menace, had looped in for a second strike and the iron missile clattered harmlessly off its wing. The bird swerved, targeted Laskar, and dove headlong toward him, eyes glaring.
Laskar abandoned his weapon and rolled away down the path. The bird crashed into the cliff face behind him, shattering flakes of rock. A jagged crack grew in the surface.
Vetra grimaced; he gained the ledge and stumbled with awkward haste toward Laskar, pulling him roughly to his feet. “Get away from the thing. Move! Down the ledge!” He staggered again, grabbed Balir by the arm and they scrabbled in a crouching shamble to safety, while the stone bird hopped in groggy frustration behind them. Its claws slipped on the rubble of loose chips it had created.
The bird sprang at them in flying hops and bounds, snapping its beak in an attempt to gore them. Vetra flailed blindly. The ancient blade caught an edge of Dapi’s wing and grazed crown and neck to knock the bird back. The god glared in surprise, crouching back on its short legs. Its princely features were stretched in a ghastly leer. For the moment it was stunned by Vetra’s assault.
Vetra croaked out a laugh. He swiped loops at the bird, inspired to new confidence by the blade’s power. The god-bird hopped sideways, wings outstretched in a cloud of wrath. On clumsy impulse, it leaped, missed. Vetra ducked and the menace spilled drunkenly over the edge into empty space down the cliff.
Vetra swore in triumph. So, the fiend could be hurt—or at least stunned. A cascading wave of hope lifted his spirits. His blade had somehow disoriented the thing, as had the crash against the cliff face.
The three ran helter-skelter across the ledge, not daring to look back or down. They scrambled toward a dark, arch-shaped entrance into a protective overhang of rock. The burrow would offer some protection at least from the airborne menace—for now.
The men lurched under the overhang. Plunged into momentary darkness, they gained some respite. But an oval shaft of moonlight appeared before them, and the rocky canopy petered out and Vetra saw that they would be left in the open again. He cursed. They would be exposed on the ledge to assault from above.
He gritted his teeth. They couldn’t linger here. The bird would just follow them in. But what hope was there ahead?
Down the narrow path they stumbled. He saw more dark openings and caves gaping out of the cliff. He turned with wild ferocity on his face to his haggard fellows. “We’ve got to make a run for it! I’ll stay back, keep Dapi at bay. Quick. Let’s muster a charge!”
Under the moonlight the three staggered, clenching swords and knives, for what little good it did them. Far below, on the deep drop at their side, the shale-flaked ledge wound. Farther down, priests ran like stricken ants. Dapi’s calls drifted like distant, forlorn warnings in the air.
A small bend appeared in the trail. With pebbles crunching under their feet and rattling over the side, they fled past a cave with iron-gridded gate. This one was man-high, held with lighter chains and an ancient lock that opened into the cliff face.
Vetra hissed the others to a halt. He was struck by a sudden idea. “Swiftly! Strike down the lock. We can lure the fiend in and close the gate on him.”
Balir yelled, “And if we can’t?”
“Do it!”
Like barbarians they hacked at the chains, swinging with all their might. Sweat dripped from their naked brows. They took turns raining blows while glaring in a grim ring. It became clear those chains were not going to give without a fight...
Balir’s scimitar arced along the iron loops. The fingers under his blood-caked bandage clenched like claws. Some links splintered and a segment of chain fell away, but not sufficient to allow Vetra to pull open the gate.
Vetra cursed. “Can the day be full of any more ill luck?” He drew back a pace and smote the lock a gargantuan blow. The ancient sword’s impact had the valley ringing with its clangour.
The iron held, but sparks flew from the metal and more links spread in submission. The air seemed to whine with a mystical hum of the sword’s every stroke.
Dapi had gained the air again and soared abreast the canyon, momentarily confused. Its ghastly prince-like head swung to and fro, wondering where its charges had disappeared. To their dismay, the bird-god had heard the clangour of blade on metal and came vaulting over the overhang, searching for them. Its falconish eyes burned and it loosed a vengeful shriek, then came pelting down at them with a blood-gored beak.
Balir roared a bitter curse. “Better do something with that fancy sword of yours, Vetra. Now! Or we are doomed.”
Vetra muttered between parted lips, “Everyone must die sometime, Balir.” With fanatic force, he hewed at the lock. The sword’s hilt burned in his hand. Laskar bashed with the blunt end of his crossbow. Only through the providence of gods did Vetra’s magical blade strike through the last loop. He loosed a gasp of triumph as he pulled the chain free. Eager hands seized the bars and wrenched open the gate.
The rusty gate creaked inward. With glorious shouts they tumbled into the cave. Like prisoners freed from a dungeon they scrambled with relish. The bird-god pressed its awful weight against the bars and beat its way in before they could swing the heavy door shut.
“Get out!” cried Balir in panic. “The thing will rip us to shreds!” He ducked, howling, side-swiped by Dapi’s sharp wing against the bare skin of his arm. The creature was inside the cave, somewhat of a lofty tunnel, flapping around with violent confusion, creating a fearful din.
Vetra thundered, “Back through the gate! We can trap it in here.”
Like madmen, they scrambled past the open mesh and clapped the gate shut.
Balir and Laskar leaned their full weight against it, digging heels in the loose shale, struggling to keep it from bulging outward. Vetra fumbled to wrap chain link around the bars. The bird rammed beak and talons through the metal, almost mashing Vetra’s fingers in the process. He pulled his bloody hand away, wincing, amazed he hadn’t broken any fingers. The last loop he coiled held it and the beast smashed vainly against the gate.
Frustration and hate radiated from that gargoyle-carven thing. Between the bars its rictus took on a perverse cast, a stone-falconish demon gobbed with the flesh of dozens of victims. The beak thrust through the bars, questing for souls. The thing was hungry for flesh. The horn-hard bill reeked of blood and offal, and the death and sorrow of the dozens of souls it had sucked weighed heavily on the air about it. The bloodthirsty tales of the prince were confirmed in the presence of this brute. The avian face had changed—from a stone carving of a beast to one of living, manlike proportions. Vetra saw an aristocratic nose, piercing eyes with black bushy brows, a philosopher’s chin. But for the unruly beak it would be a strong-featured prince, the princely Dapi of old. But its croaking roar echoed vaguely human speech:
‘God bearers, die!’ came its ultimatum, and then a rasp of reeking breath fouled the air.
Whether it was the face and voice of the prince Dapi of long ago, Vetra could not say. In all its soul-feeding, the great god had started to become possibly more of the man it once was.
Dapi hovered there like some perverse spectre in between its aggressive smashes on the rungs. Vetra paled. The thing was getting larger, as if the very stone were soaking up the soul flesh it sucked. A foot higher and its shadowy form rose over them, bigger and more menacing than when they had lugged it as a stone idol.
The beast could not drive its weight through the bars. Though it crashed against the gate, denting iron and leaving gobs of blood and flesh stuck on the metal, the iron bars held, and the three hobbled away down the narrow ledge in a stitch of dazed apathy. Benevolent spirits had favoured them that day.
The bars would hold, Vetra told himself. He felt a wave of relief wash over his aching skull. Clenching his fists in exhaustion, he stumbled down the crumbled path with Laskar and Balir at his heels. His black hair was damp with sweat and his chest heaved.
He chanced a look back. The bird was contained behind the grate, yet it seemed to study him with a malevolent interest. Up and down his spine chills crept, the crawling sensation of being watched by a fiend not of this world. And yet, a thought struck him. What was to stop the bird from backtracking, discovering a way back through the tunnels, catching them by surprise in the open ground?
He shivered and thrust the grim worry from his mind. Wrapping an arm around Balir’s shoulders, he steered him down the ledge. The bird was restrained. For now.
V
The fugitives wandered for what seemed hours through the dimness. The ledge dead-ended in a tunnel carved in the cliff face which fanned out to a network of tunnels. Vetra and his crew tried to keep a straight path parallel to the cross canyon, but this was not easy. Many winding side passages veered up in silent defiance of their efforts and their senses were soon disoriented by insufficient markers. They groped their way in complete darkness—inching along for fear of some lurking horror. At times the rock would open up to expose a gash of night sky, admitting cold, glistening moonlight playing down on a swath of carven rock.
Who had made these pathways? The priests? It seemed doubtful. The tunnels looked hewn by savage forces—even some of the cuts hewn by sharp teeth. The chipped shale at their feet and rough-hewn walls seemed evidence of it. Carved by some power older still? Vetra gave up guessing.
The bones of rats crunched underfoot. Bats flitted overhead. All the while booms and sinister thuds caught their ears, the sounds of distant activity: the ceremonial beat of a priest’s mallet on a deerskin drum, the faraway screams of fighting men, monotone chanting. Whether Dapi’s work or some other frightful rite, Vetra shuddered to speculate. The trickling purl of water came to his ears. They forged their way along, and Vetra held out his hand to feel cool water strike his fingers as it spilled down a rough, cold wall.
A glow appeared in the tunnel ahead: a soft moonlit oval. The tunnel wound down to a ledge, presumably the one they had quit long before. Vetra was grateful to see the end of this lightless passage. He breathed a gust of fresh air and took to the narrow path. The moon was a gargantuan orb on its downward arc; the stars wheeled above in shimmering profusion. Commotion reigned in the canyon below: voices of excited priests, doomful drumbeats, flaring torches, the hectic scrambling of figures who wore curious masks—bear, rat and bison—but mostly buzzard visages or the garish plumage of parrots.
Vetra guessed they worshipped Wausulo, the great buzzard god of the Four Winds, seen in obscure temples on the little-trod streets in Lausern.
Priests moved in and out of arched doorways and colonnaded terraces in the canyon below—like ghosts, conducting their dark rituals. Vetra felt a crawling chill. The unearthly terror that had struck in the dead of the night, had inspired these men. They knew that terrible and unnatural things were about in the air—omens of foul breeding. Thus signalled times of change, shifts of power...So the priests and their priest-lords chanted their dirges and mumbled their hymns, then to consult their star charts, and heed the wisdom of black shamans who told them to pay dark tribute to their patron gods.
Vetra’s face twisted in a wry grimace. A stir of fierce hope struck him as his eyes drank in a familiar sight. Fires burned in the great crenellated stone watchtowers at either end of the wide avenue stretching below...the Way of Temples. The way out. The battlements atop the blackstone walls flickered with torchlight. Men stalked those summits; whether they held bows or such weapons, he did not know. The canyon was up in arms, and furred, masked and robed figures prowled below like beetles bringing food to nest.
“There seems to be a stir amongst our buzzard men,” remarked Balir. The fire was alive in his eyes. He seemed numbed to whatever pain he had suffered from his past mutilation. Vetra saw the remaining fingers wrapped under the bloody cloth with reckless anticipation.
The ledge veered down at a steep angle toward the busy avenue and the canyon floor.
Vetra beckoned his men. They would have to expose themselves to danger. But there was no other way to get to the watchtower.
Acolytes moved in stolid groups down these ways in their buzzard garb. Their masks were embellished with curved beaks, their waists and torsos pasted with bristling feathers while thighs gleamed nakedly in the torchlight, feet outfitted with claw-tipped boots dipped in oil and blood. These devotees melted back into patches of gloom and eerily-lit cones of light from the fires. Some chattered excitedly amongst themselves in disquieting priest-tongues.
The three fugitives did their best to keep to the shadows, hiding behind the priestly garb they had accumulated as disguise. Balir and Vetra wrapped the clam-cult capes around their bodies, Laskar held the broken clam-cult mask to his face. But even as they did so, a priest clad in a bear mask strode up the ledge straight at them. Curious priestly eyes took in their company. No time to turn. They could take the man, Vetra thought, but if the bear-mask cried out and alerted others...
Laskar ducked back in the shadows readying his weapon. He tossed Balir his mask. Balir hastily snatched it up and donned it. Feigning an easy manner, he lifted his hand in salute as the priest approached, the same as Iokru had done, placing a proprietary grip on Vetra’s shoulder, as if escorting the mercenary as an outland prisoner. The acolyte passed by with stern acknowledgement. But he stopped, wearing an expression of suspicion. He thrust out an accusing finger. His throat gurgled with the beginnings of a cry.
Before the priest could react, Vetra plunged his dagger in the cleric’s throat, silencing that warning cry. The victim slumped to his knees, uttering a last strangled gasp. They hid the body in the shadows where Laskar waited with his crossbow. He stalked forth, weapon trained, frowning at the bleeding corpse.
Vetra crouched, listening for pursuit. He donned the dead man’s bear mask and set his own helm down next to the corpse. The man’s gasp had gone unnoticed, thankfully, and thus the priests below remained absorbed in a ritual debasement farther up the canyon. He was reluctant to discard his own helm. He gazed at it with reverence. It had saved him many a time. But if its absence could fool a few priests at a distance... Two disparate masks, one clam, the other bear and Laskar with his clam-cape, moved with stealth up the path. Probably not an entirely believable scenario, but it would have to do.
