The Long War (The Wild Trilogy Book 2), page 15
Blood seeped from Kit’s wound. It ran down his arm and dripped from his fingers. He scooped up his sword anyway, and looked for Lehe. He glimpsed her as an arowl carried her away, disappearing with her into the pack.
Marshal was still on the other side of the hall when he heard Kit suddenly screaming, “They have Lehe! Stop them! Stop them!”
A strange wailing howl rose from the throat of a single beast. Some kind of signal. All across the hall, the surviving arowl abandoned the melee. They ran with knuckles against the ground, converging on the door of the keep.
To Marshal’s shock, the beasts understood the mechanism of the bolt. They got the door open and flooded outside. He glimpsed Lehe among them. She was not killed. Not yet. Her fists pounded her captor, but she could not match the beast’s strength—and she could not speak a spell, because the arowl carried her with her face crushed against its chest. She surely could not breathe.
Kit too saw Lehe being carried out the door. He stumbled into the courtyard after her, searching for her among darting nightmare figures tinged blue by the gleam of a witch lamp.
The arowl did not bother to attack him. They had spread out, exploring the courtyard, as if looking for a way out—but enchantments guarded the tunnel and they could not see it.
Instead, they were drawn by the starlight glittering in through the cavern windows. It took them only moments to discover the notch ladder to the ledge. One climbed, the others followed, gliding up the notches as easily as a man could walk.
◆
Lanyon had remained on the ledge beside the window, held there by Zavoy’s command. It took the shocking sight of the arowl, swarming from the keep, to restore her to motion. She raised her bow and quickly expended her three arrows. The beasts hardly noticed. They gathered at the foot of the ledge, and then one found the notch ladder. Using its long arms, it climbed with stunning speed. Others followed immediately behind it.
Lanyon had no more arrows. She started to call the fire spell, but before the name of the spell was complete, the face of the first arowl appeared at the top of the ladder. White slashes marked its cheeks. This was Édan’s beast, come at last to find her.
Then she saw Lehe. The girl hung draped like a limp doll over the beast’s left arm. Lanyon couldn’t tell if Lehe still lived, but if there was any chance, she could not risk her falling three stories to the cavern floor.
Lanyon released the half-formed fire spell, sending it back to the Mere. At the same time, she moved back into shadow.
The arowl scurried onto the ledge, its foot scuffing against stone with the same sound she’d heard from outside the window. Édan’s arowl had been on the cliff! But they’d been invisible to her, as if they’d worn the Hunter’s Veil . . . and somehow they had gotten in.
No time now to make it out. She moved forward again, charging the beast, jabbing at its eyes with the bow, then whacking at its ears, trying to get it to drop Lehe. It drew up in shocked surprise at this assault. And then an arrow from below pierced its neck. Lanyon rushed in to grab Lehe, but too late. The slumping arowl collapsed across the girl’s limp and lifeless body, pinning her beneath it.
Lanyon dropped the bow. She went to her knees, struggling to push the beast aside. But more arowl had swarmed up the ladder. They swarmed around her. One seized her from behind, clapping a massive hand over her mouth so that she could not speak any spell, and could not breathe. She struggled madly, the long shaft of the talisman grinding into her back. Wondering, even in her desperation, why the beast didn’t kill her. Never had she heard of arowl carrying living prisoners away.
Or perhaps they had only found a new way to kill their victims . . .
With the beast’s hand hard over her nose and mouth, her lungs burned for lack of air. She fought harder as life began to leave her.
A starlit window loomed in her vision.
An arrow struck the stone beside it.
She could not get a breath.
Then somehow she was through the window. A void opened below her. Deep darkness rose up from it, enwrapping her. Vision faded, and she could hear only the distant, failing rhythm of her heart.
◆
From the courtyard, Zavoy looked up to see Lanyon carried away. He caught his breath in astonishment as the beast that held her slipped out of sight through one of the narrow windows.
Had it just thrown itself to its death? The cliff was sheer. It could not be climbed. And the drop was deadly. Even so, the other arowl—that small fraction of the pack that still survived—followed the lead of the first one, slipping out through the windows. The ledge quickly emptied.
Any arowl late to the notch ladder fell to an extended volley of arrows, opening the way for Zavoy. He scrambled up to the ledge. Kit followed right behind him despite a bloody shoulder, and Marshal came up next.
“Lanyon!” Zavoy screamed, as the last of the arowl slipped out through a window. “Lehe! Lehe, where are you?”
“Lehe’s here,” Kit said. He’d seen her fall. He shoved aside the body of a dead arowl, then dropped to his knees beside the girl. Shaking her gently, he called her name, “Lehe! Lehe, wake up.”
Luven and Halméd came running across the bridge. Halméd went straight to his sister. “She lives,” Kit told him. “She’s waking.”
Zavoy went to the nearest window. Luven joined him. “They took Lanyon,” she said. “I saw it. They took her through the window.”
“I saw it, too.”
Zavoy leaned out to look. The beasts had not fallen. Darkness shrouded the cliff. He could not see them, but he heard their scuffing grunts as they climbed down the unclimbable cliff face. “They have not escaped yet,” he told Luven.
He summoned a spell of light, sending a dim, eerie blue glow spilling down the cliff, revealing the descending arowl. He counted them—just twelve—but he could not see Lanyon among them.
Beyond the cliff lay the snow-covered meadow, bright under starlight. More arowl there, fleeing for the trees. But Zavoy had no bow with which to shoot.
◆
Pantheren saw the arowl escaping through the high windows. He called to Jakurian, “To the tunnel! We’ll meet them outside.”
Gonly heard him, and came with Penrik to help. The four of them burst from the tunnel to find the cliff lit up by the blue glow of Zavoy’s spell—but they came too late. The last of the arowl had already left the cliff to flee across the meadow. Arrows fired from above pursued them. Pantheren looked for Lanyon among the beasts, but did not see her. The arowl must have already carried her beneath the trees.
Seconds later, the storm of arrows ceased. All grew still. Seven arowl lay dead in the snow, but at least twice that many had escaped into the night.
Pantheren went back inside to gather his weapons and saddle his horse.
◆
Watching from the window, Zavoy saw Gonly and Penrik start off after the arowl. He called out to them, “Come back inside!”
“We can’t let them go!” Gonly argued.
“We won’t.”
Next he turned to Halméd and Marshal. “You two have the watch.”
“No,” Marshal said. “Find someone else for the task. It’s my duty to help Lanyon.”
Zavoy corrected him. “It’s your duty to guard the keep and to see that my sister is safe. You will stay here.” And such was the force of the spell behind his voice that Marshal stepped back and made no more objections.
But Luven looked at him in shock. “Zavoy!” She had been tending Lehe and Kit, but now she arose. “Do you dare now to command the very thoughts of men?”
“You may chastise me later, Luven, should I return. For now, see that these men have arrows enough for our defense!”
Gonly had just come back into the courtyard. Zavoy shouted down to him, “Gonly, my cousin! I put it on you to fortify our defenses. Get up to the smithy. I have no doubt the arowl came in there through the high windows that we have always believed unreachable. See to it that it can never happen again!”
“As you say, Zavoy!” Gonly took Penrik with him and hurried inside.
Zavoy crossed the bridge into the keep. Quickly he pulled on winter boots and a heavy coat and gathered his weapons. Then he ran downstairs.
He found Pantheren and Jakurian busy saddling the four surviving horses. “I will go with you,” he announced.
“And what of Kit and Marshal?” Jakurian asked.
“Kit is wounded, and Marshal is needed here.”
Pantheren gave him a cold look. “She is likely dead. It’s the talisman we ride after.”
“You do not believe that,” Zavoy answered softly. “They did not kill Lehe. Unless they are very clumsy, they will not kill Lanyon. These are a new kind of arowl, and it seems to me they came on purpose to find a certain woman. They thought this woman might be Lehe . . . until they discovered Lanyon herself.”
“You believe Édan sent these arowl,” Pantheren said.
“They have the white slash on the cheek—his mark. So yes, I think he created them, trained them, sent them—because he is wounded and broken and would rather gamble with Lanyon’s life than risk Siddél’s wrath himself.”
◆
Pantheren decided to take along the spare horse, on the chance they found Lanyon alive. The arowl had left tracks in the snow, easy to follow even by starlight, so at first he pushed the horses, riding fast, hoping to quickly catch up with the beasts.
But the poor horses were underfed and unaccustomed to exercise. They could not run for long. Pantheren had to let them walk, but he did not let them rest.
The tracks of the beasts led at last to the edge of the forest. The sky had lightened to a cold, cold gray. Pantheren looked out onto a rolling plain, its frosting of snow unmarred except for a beeline path left by the fleeing arowl. They were running east, toward a line of ominous dark clouds that promised more snow to come.
“We need to catch them,” Pantheren said. “Before that storm erases their tracks.”
“Look how dark the clouds are,” Jakurian observed. “This is dangerous weather. We need to find Lanyon and be back among the trees before the storm reaches us. ”
They set off at a trot, but only a few minutes later Zavoy cried out as if in pain. “Oh! Lanyon! We are too late!”
“What are you saying?” Pantheren demanded. “What do you know?”
Zavoy looked grim. “The talisman is gone. All this time I have felt its evil presence, but now it is gone. It has left the world. She has taken it away. Again.”
“No,” Pantheren said. “No, you’re wrong. I do not believe it. Lanyon would not leave the world again.” Yet even as he denied it, doubt came over him. Might it be true? Had she given up hope of rescue and made her own escape, through time?
He shook his head. “I must see the evidence for myself, whatever is left behind. And even if it is true, I will not allow any of these arowl to return to their master.”
Without waiting for the consent of Jakurian or Zavoy, he pushed his horse to a canter, pulling the spare horse on its lead—and sooner than he expected he caught sight of the arowl. They ran in a loose group, gray shadows against the snow, while Siddél’s thunder drew closer.
It took Pantheren a few moments to realize the arowl were no longer running east. “They’ve turned around!” he called out. “They’re running away from the storm.”
They were coming back down the trail they had made in the snow.
Pantheren got out his spear.
The beasts had been running head-down. But as they drew near, one looked up, saw the horsemen, and wailed a warning. The pack scattered.
But such long-armed arowl had not been made for combat in the open against mounted warriors. One by one they fell, but Lanyon was not among them.
Zavoy called out that they should capture the last arowl alive. With Jakurian’s help, he questioned it in the way Renthian had taught him. A noisy, nerve-grating chore. It tested Pantheren’s patience. He had witnessed such sessions many times, but had never grasped the language, comprehending only a word here and there.
After a minute, two passing crows settled nearby with a rattle of stiff feathers. Pantheren eyed them as they walked about on the snow. No doubt they were hungry. But though the blood scent might attract them, no bird would eat the blasphemous flesh of such beasts.
He returned his attention to the captive arowl, listening again to its tortured cries. “Does it speak of its master?” he asked.
“It does,” Jakurian said as the shrieks receded to a plaintive mewling. “How much did you understand?”
“I heard the name of Siddél.”
“That was a denial of Siddél. It will not acknowledge him as its master.”
“So it is Édan, then?” Pantheren asked. “Or should I say ‘Aidin’?”
At mention of this second name, the beast chattered in wistful longing.
“Aidin,” Zavoy said. “That is how they know him, but these beasts serve Édan. He sent them to look for a woman of the people—a simple enough task! Édan must believe there is only one woman in Samokea. So he commanded his beasts to find her and fetch her back, along with all she carries.”
“How can that be?” Pantheren demanded. “How could he trust Lanyon to these arowl? How could he believe they would endure her presence for untold days without bringing harm to her?”
Jakurian shifted his grip on the bloody knife he held. The arowl saw him and writhed in the snow, chattering to itself. He gestured at it. “It says this same thing again and again, ‘To defy him is torment. To obey him is bliss.’ That is how I make it. Édan has offered some pleasure greater even than the flesh of the people. Perhaps that is how he persuaded the arowl to help him escape from Siddél’s pits.”
Again the dying beast chattered its ugly litany. Pantheren glared at it. “What of Lanyon? How did they lose her?”
“They were not able to keep her silent,” Zavoy said. “She spoke her spell of time, and she was gone.”
The crows, silent up to that point, suddenly muttered and croaked to one another. Then they took to the air with a rustle of black feathers, and sped away to the south.
“Cut its throat,” Pantheren ordered. “We’re going on, at least to the point where the arowl turned around.”
“That storm is coming fast,” Jakurian warned.
“Yes, and I need to look for some sign of Lanyon before it hits.”
They rode on into an icy wind, and soon there came the howling of an arowl pack, first to the north, and then the southeast. The exhausted horses shuddered and tried to bolt, but Pantheren pushed on and before long they found a wide swath of trampled snow. No tracks could be seen beyond it.
They walked around, searching the ground. Pantheren found a stinking cloth tied in a loop. Strands of Lanyon’s hair were caught within the knot and he guessed it had been used to gag her.
He turned to show it to the others, but then noticed Zavoy standing downcast, transfixed by an object in his hand. He signaled Jakurian, and they both went to see what Zavoy had found.
The young chieftain looked up at their approach. “It is the right hand,” he said, holding up a glove for them to see. “This is one of the gloves I gave her only a few hours ago. She was wearing them when the arowl took her.”
“May I see it?” Pantheren asked.
Zavoy handed it to him. “It’s my fault she was taken.”
Jakurian scoffed. “There is no way you could have known—”
“No! I misjudged it. I thought the danger was in the keep, so I commanded her to stay by the windows. She would have been safe if I had let her come inside.”
“It’s not without reason she was wary of your voice,” Pantheren said coldly. But then he found something in the glove. A scrap of sturdy leather, folded over and rolled up tight. When he laid it flat, it was only a little bigger than his palm.
Neat writing had been burned into it as if with a hot pick. But his eyes skipped over this, fixing instead on a scrawl, written over the rest, in an ink that glinted red in the dreary light. The lines were uneven, the writing poorly formed, but as he puzzled over it, he understood Lanyon had written him a message:
War Father I am gone ahead. Flee the prairie. Do not wait here for me.
The storm loomed. Siddél’s vague mutters grew louder, clearer. Pantheren realized he could make out words within the rumbling thunder. What he heard was a chant of triumph:
“. . . spoken! . . . the One has spoken! The talisman of evil is gone! Gone, gone, gone from the Wild! And gone will the people be! The One has made her will known! She has spoken.”
Pantheren shoved both the glove and the message into his pocket. “Come, before Siddél finds us in the open.”
Chapter 15
Bennek wakened in the night to an onslaught of fear—not his own fear—it came to him from afar, from out of the north, a terror too faint for words, brushing the edge of his senses and sending his heart into hammering panic.
Lanyon, Lanyon.
Not for a moment did he doubt it was her.
Has Édan found you?
Bennek suspected it was so. Jahallon had not yet launched his promised war against the sorcerer. He could not do it—not when all of Habaddon’s warriors were needed to defend the Protected Lands against Siddél’s unending assaults.
Bennek arose in the dark and dressed.
There was nothing he could do to help her.
Yet he needed to do something.
He took up his bow and quiver of arrows, and he slipped into the courtyard.
It was the night of the Solstice. A misty rain fell from clouds that locked away the starlight. He could see nothing, but Kina was there, nuzzling his palm. She led him to the courtyard gate.
Rain pattered and trickled on the cobbles as he passed through the street. He climbed the steep stairway to the curtain wall. A sentry met him, shivering within her coat. Opening her lantern, she allowed candlelight to fall briefly on Bennek’s face. “Bennek of Samokea! What news? Has Jahallon sent you?”
