Brother Thief (Song of the Aura, Book One) (23 page)

  
The animals were dead. Slaughtered wholesale.

  
He almost fell back off the wall in shock. Lauro might be a pig-head, but Gribly
knew
the prince would never do something like this. Cautiously he eased himself up and over the wall, dropping down into the soft grass to get a closer look.

  
Byorne’s own white stallion he’d claimed to have raised from a foal was lying twisted on a broken stone, its throat cut and scarlet blood seeping in ugly trails all over its pale neck. The other animals had fared even worse- sides punctured and manes torn apart, bloody holes perforating every part of their corpses.

  
Shaken with fear but held by a strange, morbid desire to know what had happened, Gribly stooped forward to examine one of the marks. Without knowing why, he found their origin easy to guess.

  
“Teeth.” He breathed.
What kind of animal kills thirteen steeds and lets one escape, all without making a single sound?
If there
had
been a sound, he hadn’t heard it, and neither had… “Lauro, blast it all!” he swore under his breath, straightening. Was the prince dead? Or had he run away like a- no, he wouldn’t have. He hadn’t run from a hell-dog, he wouldn’t run from whatever this was.

  
Nothing prepared Gribly for what was about to happen.

  
A stealthy hand reached out over his shoulder from behind and clamped over his mouth. In half a second he was pulled into the shadow of the corner, gagged and held crushingly tight around the gut. A hoarse voice that seemed about to scream- or cry- spat quietly in his ear.

  
“Don’t move a scraping’ muscle, Grib. Another one’s coming.” It was Lauro. He was white-faced and grim as death. Letting go of Gribly slowly he put one gloved finger to his mouth, then pointed to the door-less arch across from them with the other. It was bathed in moonlight and both lads could clearly see what was beyond.

  
A shadow passed outside; a loathsome mouth and fangs dripping with blood swung and breathed harshly just beyond the entrance. A huge head swayed back and forth; a huge, ugly nose with more nostrils than should have been there sniffed for prey.

  
At first glance Gribly thought it was a bear, only far, far too large. Then he decided it was a wolf or direwolf, such as he’d only heard about in ghost stories and legends. Finally he decided it was neither. Hair covered its face and neck, two bulbous red eyes protruded from its head, lidless and glowing with malice. Its lower jaw jutted out like a reptile’s and its tongue lolled out hideously long, like a dragon’s. A dragon-wolf-bear, then? It was so large that only its head and hairy shoulders were all that was visible.

  
Drool hung from its cracked, bony lips, and slime oozed from its blank eyes. A gleam of something caught Gribly’s attention away to the space just below its gnashing jaw- metal: rusty and old, but tough enough to shine a little, still. It was bolted to the monstrous beast’s throat and chest as far as the frightened thief could see. He shuddered, wondering what kind of abomination had skin of iron.

  
The hideous thing caught the movement, slight as it was, rearing its ugly head higher and staring at the pair hidden in the shadows. Both boys tensed, holding their breaths. A low growl, a sort of demented purr, broke from the monster’s throat. Its eyes seemed to grow redder and fill with blood as it tried to see them.

  
Aura of the Creator,
Gribly thought in the deepest part of himself he could find,
deliver me.

  
The hellish creature turned and lumbered away, content that there was nothing in the ruined chamber but dead horses and their stench.
Thank the Creator for that awful smell
, Gribly thought.
It’s masking our scent.
As the monster passed, he caught glimpses of more metal, a gear and chain or two, and several wicked iron spikes. It was terrifying.

  
The prince and the thief stayed still for a long minute after the thing had gone. Finally Lauro let out a quick breath and turned to Gribly.

  
“We need to get back to camp,” he hissed as silently as possible. “Warn the others.” Gribly raised an eyebrow, as if to ask where he’d been if not at his post. “Came when I heard the mule,” the wind strider explained. “It was the only one. Blasted draik got the rest. Disappeared when I came. Blast’d things can do that.”

  
“Draik?” whispered Gribly as they crept over to the doorway.

  
“Monster. Breathes fire. Comes from pits. Lots of them on the border wars. Part of our problem.”

  
No more was said as they shuffled stealthily by empty back-ways and came back to the paved circle where the camp was held.

  
Lauro behind him, Gribly peeked out of a dwarf-sized hole in one of the walls.

  
“Scrapped. There’s someone
there
, Lauro.”

  
The wind strider followed the direction of his cautiously pointing finger. Out in the clear lay Byorne and the ten black-skinned silverguard, wrapped in various blankets and traveling cloaks, their weapons close at hand. Two encounters with bandits in Blast had taught them that. The cook-fire Byorne had put out was dead and ashy. No one snored or even moved.

  
But out of the shadows cast at the far side of the colonnade stepped a slim figure in black robes tinged with scarlet. A hood was thrown over its head, obscuring its face, but Gribly knew instantly who- or at least
what
- it was: the Pit Strider who’d murdered Old Murie.

  
“Blast you…” Gribly snarled in a low tone. His fingers gripped the chalky edge of the hole in the wall, whitening the knuckles with the force of his anger.

  
“Is that…?” whispered the prince behind him. He nodded, curses forming in his mind for this specter who’d ruined what little life he had before and was trying to do it again. “Let’s-” began Lauro, but before he could continue the Pit Strider stepped up to the cold fire ring and snapped his fingers.

  
The dead embers blazed and fire leaped up from the ring. The flames gnawed at the air as if they were at war with the wind, twisting and reforming in a hundred meaningless shapes. And then, as if the Pit Strider was molding them with his mind… they began to resolve into the shape of a creature… a large vampire bat, or some similar horror.

  
The firebat shrieked and skittered out of the flames that had formed it, fluttering its fiery wings and swaying on its fiery haunches. The noise woke Byorne, who sat up not five feet from the Pit Strider, blinking and scrabbling for his sword.

  
“Who’s that?” he called angrily. Gribly saw what was about to happen and tried to warn the ranger.

  
“Byorne!” he yelled, but it was too late. With inhuman speed the Pit Strider leaped the distance to the old half-breed, unsheathing a glittering white blade and plunging it into Byorne’s body. With a guttural scream the ranger writhed under the strike; the Pit Strider kicked him off the blade and spun to meet his enemies.

  
Gribly vaulted through the hole in the wall and charged at the murderer who’d taken everything away from him twice. It took Lauro a few seconds longer to climb through, but soon he was up and racing forward, his bronze stabbing-sword drawn. The Sand Strider raced across the open space towards the interlopers; as he did, he conjured his allied element from the ground as he attacked, lifting it up in a whirlwind and throwing it forward. The Pit Strider’s firebat leaped into the air with a shriek and was sucked back down again by the vortex.

  
Using the grains beneath his feet as a springboard, Gribly somersaulted over the whirlwind and kicked out at his enemy as he fell to the earth. The man couldn’t raise his blade in time; the thief’s feet connected solidly with his shoulders and threw him violently to the stones. Gribly tumbled into another somersault and rolled away from his foe- despite his speed, the Pit Strider had kicked up his legs and leaped to his feet fast enough to attack him the next second.

  
With his concentration shaken, Gribly let his conjured sandstorm fall apart, leaving nothing behind of the firebat except a pile of ashes. Lauro crushed it underfoot as he charged to engage the Pit Strider, rescuing his weaponless friend. The black-robed fighter whipped up his pale sword and parried the prince’s blow, then returned with one- two- three of his own. It was a deadly duel, during which neither combatants seemed to find the spare energy to Stride.

  
At the sound of clashing swords, the sleeping silverguard seemed to wake, each one rolling up and shaking off drowsiness with varying degrees of success.

  
“Wake up! Wake up, guards!” the Sand Strider screamed at them. “We’re being attacked!” Glancing frantically around for a weapon, he spied Byorne’s sword, still sheathed by his side. Reaching for it, he heard the wounded man gasp in pain.
He’s still alive! The Pit Strider didn’t kill him!
“I’ll be back for you,” Gribly told him, drawing the ranger’s sword with a glittering
shiiing
. Then he turned to fight, shouting for one of the guards to help their guide.

  
Lauro seemed almost exactly matched with the mysterious attacker.
Clang!
The metal in the prince’s sword was a kind of tempered surebronze that could hold up against any steel. Grunting and gasping for breath the two warriors strove against each other, spinning and slashing and meeting each other sword for stroke for sword.

  
Gribly watched from not far off for a few seconds, then lunged forward with the heavy longsword he’d taken from Byorne. The Pit Strider merely turned slightly, knocked away the attempt, and turned back to the duel. Again and again the well-meaning but clueless lad tried to intervene and help his friend, but each time it was no use.
I’m just in the way,
he grumbled sourly to himself.

  
That was when he heard the roar. Retreating and looking around, he found that all the noise had attracted the draik they’d forgotten about in the fray. Out of nowhere the metal-and-hide beast charged onto the paved circle, clipping the edge of one of the pillars in a spray of stone-dust.

  
By now most of the silverguard had stumbled to their feet. Their quickest had dragged Byorne’s expiring body out of the way, while their slowest was still crawling out from under his blanket. With an unearthly howl the draik leaped on the man and bit off his head before he could react. Chomping heavily down on the decapitated body, it shook it violently before flinging it off to the side, where it smacked against another pillar and spun off into the shadows.

  
“What in the crimming blazes is
that
???” burst one of the serious-faced soldiers. It was the first and last time Gribly had heard him speak on their journey. The draik pounced on him as he screamed piteously and vainly hacked at its metal-plated foreleg with his elegant silver scimitar.

Chapter Eighteen:
The Stuff of Heroes

  
Three of the men fled- Gribly didn’t blame them. Five stayed, brandishing shields, four swords and a halberd.

  
“Prince Lauro!” one shouted in his deep accent. “What do we do?”

  
“Fight!” the embattled prince called over his shoulder. Spinning wildly, he managed to wind-stride up in the air to come crashing down on his opponent, scoring a blow to the man’s shoulder and forcing him back. “Gribly!” he yelled as he fought, “Lead them!”