Elvenborn (63 page)

So. That was one weakness. No, two!

:Ifyou took dragon-form—: she hardly dared suggest it, and Keman would need time to take the form—but in dragon-form Keman was just as big as the monster was. Could he be a match for it?

.7 could leap onto its back and keep it occupied,: Keman

replied firmly. -.Then you get to Kyrtian, and both of you get into the tunnel. I'll follow once you're gone. I'll be right on your heels.:

.But—: she protested—she hadn't intended that at all!

:You might as well, since I'm going to do what I want to any¬way.: And he closed his mind off to her.

Damn him! she thought with a flare of anger—and shook that off, too. No time, there was no time for anything now but action.

She sensed where Kyrtian was, and waited.

"Ha!" the Elvenlord shouted hoarsely, and made his move. She did the same as soon as the monster was out of sight, plan¬ning her run to end near his.

The monster came to a halt almost directly between them, and she froze, holding her breath. Light swept over her hiding-place. Once. Twice.

Did it guess? Were dim senses waking up, becoming keener as its movements grew surer? Instinct shrieked at her to shrink back, further into hiding; sense told her to keep absolutely still.

"Ho!" Keman shouted, and the thing lurched off. Before Kyrtian had a chance to move, Shana did, diving under the wheeled vehicle that concealed him.

She found herself nose-to-nose with the Elvenlord, whose white face held an expression of utter shock at seeing her. "We need to get it to turn as soon as it's on top of Keman," she whis¬pered without preamble. "He's going to take dragon-form and jump on it from behind."

"And do what?" Kyrtian asked, aghast.

"How should I know?" she snapped. "He's decided that's what he's going to do so we can get out the way your two men did. He says he's going to follow—"

"Well I think I can drain that thing if he can get it immobi¬lized—" Kyrtian began, and the crashing footsteps stopped.

Before Kyrtian could do anything, Shana rolled out from un¬derneath the construct and stood up."Hey!" she screamed, waving her arms this time. "Hey! Stupid! Over here!"

35

Barking his elbows on the stone floor in his haste to get out, Kyrtian scrambled from under the construct just in time to see the monster turn towards them.

It was not an encouraging sight. And it got rapidly worse.

Shana just stood there, waving her arms at it, and the two bright spots—far too much like glaring, angry eyes—on its square, flat front panned over the space between them and pinned her in a circle of white light.

His mouth went dry, and fear ran down his backbone like a trickle of icy water. The thing emitted an angry whine, and lurched forward.

But before it had taken more than a single step, something moved in the darkness behind it, a shadowy form he barely made out against the glare, that wavered and surged upwards all in an instant—and then lunged.

Keman!

Monster of flesh against monster of metal. The dragon landed squarely on the construct's back, claws shrieking against its sides. The monster's legs buckled beneath the dragon's weight as Kyrtian stared in frozen fascination—

And that was all he had time to see, as Shana grabbed his wrist and wrenched him around, pulling at him. "Run!" she shouted, showing her heels as a good example, and he didn't need a second invitation. The monster might be encumbered, but it certainly wasn't defeated, and behind them the sounds of it thrashing about and Keman's claws scrabbling to take hold were proof enough of that.

Fear gave him a new burst of energy. They sprinted across the cave floor with Shana slightly in the lead—not because Kyrtian was playing the gentleman, either. The girl must have

spent her childhood scrambling across rough ground like this; where he stumbled, she skimmed over obstacles like a fright¬ened deer.

She must have a separate set of eyes in her feet.. . .

Behind them, crashes and earth-shuddering impacts testified that Keman was still in the fight. Ancestors bless you, dragon. But get yourself out of it as soon as we're clear!

She reached the ledge first and vaulted up onto it like an ex¬pert acrobat, turning just in time to offer her hand to help him scramble up beside her. Her hand was hard and tough, with sur¬prising strength in it.

Keman— A quick glance over his shoulder showed him that the dragon still clung tenaciously to the back of the construct-monster, and nothing the monster could do was shaking him off.

He grabbed Shana's hand and hauled himself up beside her, turning immediately to face the fight, hoping that Keman had somehow gotten clever enough to outwit the thing.

And his heart leapt. Although the monster's "arms" flailed desperately, it couldn't reach the dragon with them, and those pincers were, next to its feet and weight, its best weapons. Ke¬man had his hind claws lodged firmly all over the thing's back half, and his foreclaws clamped over the front edge. Kyrtian felt a smile as he saw what the dragon had done—wisely, he was not making any further offensive moves. Instead, he was content to let the monster wreak further damage on itself as it blundered about, trying to dislodge him. Keman had his tail curled tightly between his legs and out of harm's way, his wings folded tightly across his back, and his legs all tucked in so that the construct couldn't scrape him off without first scrap¬ing protruding sections of itself off as well.

The lights on the front swiveled independently as it tried and failed to illuminate the dragon on its back. It threw itself re¬peatedly against the walls, and bucked like a green horse, but couldn't get rid of him. It hadn't yet thought to roll over on its back—but maybe it couldn't. Keman was winning just by virtue of sticking on it like a burr.

In fact, it had taken some visible damage, not only from the walls of the cave, but from all of the other constructs it had

blundered into. The right leg had a sort of hitch in its move¬ment, now, and the sides were scarred where it had bashed its skin against the rock. Kyrtian winced as it flung itself intQ the wall of the cave, crashing into another construct in the process, and wondered how Keman managed to stay wedged onto the thing. What made the battle all the more uncanny was that aside from the crash of metal on rock and metal on metal, and an un¬derlying, angry whir or hum, the entire battle was taking place in silence. It felt as if one or both of them ought to be giving tongue to terrible battle-roars.

He felt Shana tense up beside him. Then, suddenly, Keman made a move.

While the monster was still off-balance, he let go with his foreclaws and stabbed them down viciously at the lights. He caught them. With a grinding shriek as if the metal itself screamed, he wrenched first one, then the other, off the front. Metal and wire snapped and tore, and Keman tossed the lights aside, like a cruel boy pulling the legs off a beetle.

If the monster was ever going to display a voice, it should have then—

The lights went out as they fell, leaving only the lanterns he and his men had lit as illumination for the cave, and huge shad¬ows sprang up behind the construct and its draconic burden, writhing and twisting as the thing thrashed and Keman took a new position on its back.

Now what—

"Run!" Shana shouted again, and as he turned to do so, he saw Keman fling himself off the monster's back at last, half running, half flying, straight for the cave-mouth where they stood.

That's what!

He didn't wait to see if the monster was going to follow, or if by taking its lights Keman had also blinded it. He ignored his aching side and put everything he had into a flat-out dash for the main cave. Within moments, they were fleeing through the darkness, with nothing more than the grey light at the end of the series of demi-caves to tell them where their goal was.

A scrabbling noise behind him made the hair on the back of

his neck stand straight up, and somewhere deep inside him he found another burst of speed—

It was inside the tunnel.

It was closing the gap between them!

It was right on top of him!

Something grabbed him, closing around his waist and spin¬ning him over on his side as it carried him forward! Air rushed past him as his captor picked up speed. He flailed at it with fists and heels—

"Shto thai" said a muffled and indignant voice at the back of his neck. "Ish ee!"

Keman ?

Teeth shrank away from him even as he realized they were sticking into him, and as Keman ran, his jaws formed them¬selves around Kyrtian's body.

Keman made greater speed than any smaller, two-legged creature possibly could; from his inverted position in the dark¬ness, Kyrtian couldn't see much, but when he twisted his head, the dim, round light that represented the place where the last set of small caves met the entrance cave was getting bigger. And it was doing so a lot faster than it had when he was run¬ning.

He couldn't tell where Shana was, but Keman wouldn't have left her behind, so she must be with them. Probably she'd been able to catch hold of his neck on the run and vault herself into place like a trick-rider.

Behind—

A metallic crash that deafened him for a moment and shook small rocks loose to rain down onto their heads proved that the monster wasn't blind—and was still coming for them. From behind came the scrape and groan of protesting metal, and more crashes as the monster forced itself into the opening.

Keman found more speed somewhere; hot, metallic breath panted in and out over Kyrtian's body, and Kyrtian pulled in his arms and legs and tucked his head in to keep as much of him¬self inside Keman's mouth as he could.

"Anks," Keman said shortly.

The noise from behind wasn't falling away. Either the thing was still trying to follow them, or it had succeeded in getting in and was on their heels.

A violent impact—a dust-storm—Keman burst through what was left of the barrier of tangled carts and bones and relics, and out into the main cave—

And suddenly tossed his head up in a slewing, sideways mo¬tion, letting go of Kyrtian as he did so.

"Aiiiiiiiii!"

Kyrtian screamed as he flew through the air, and screamed again as something snatched him out of it as easily as a child catches a ball, then slammed him down on a bony, scaly surface that inexplicably had a saddle on it.

He clutched the leather, dazed, and even as his eyes took in the improbable sight of a dragon neck and head stretching away in front of him, strange and skeletal in the dim light, the dragon lurched into a run.

Ancestors! More of them?

Ahead of him—Keman, with Shana clinging to his neck; he must not have paused for a single stride as he tossed his burden of Elvenlord to the other. Keman scrabbled up the rock-pile at the entrance first, with no regard for niceties, dislodging any¬thing that was loose in his haste to get out. As they followed, lurching and slipping while rocks went tumbling beneath and around them, Kyrtian ducked as more rocks showered down on them, and the dragon he rode cupped its wings forward to de¬flect some of the falling debris from him. His heart pounded, and his fingers were clamped so tightly to the saddle that they hurt, and all the while he heard the screech of protesting metal echoing behind them, coming, coming—

Then they were at the top, miraculously widened—then out—

Kyrtian gasped instead of screamed, as the dragon threw it¬self into empty space.

It glided heavily down the slope, wings wide-spread around him, and skidded into an abrupt landing at the bottom.

Kyrtian wasn't ready for that. He lost his grip, and tumbled

awkwardly over the dragon's shoulder and down to the ground. The dragon spun around on its hind legs, nimble as a goat, and raced back up the slope to join the others, three of them, who were all clustered around the opening.

Kyrtian looked for Shana—and found her in the embrace of another wizard, shaking like a leaf, and whispering what sounded like a name. The wizard, who looked vaguely famil¬iar, stroked her hair comfortingly, but spoke straight to Kyrt¬ian.

"I hope you don't want to get back in there. Ever. The drag¬ons are sealing the entrance."

Shana relaxed against the support of Lorryn's shoulder and cra¬dled the wineskin in both hands; she didn't usually drink much wine but after today—

If anyone deserves a drink, I do.

She had never been so glad to see anyone in her life as Lor-ryn—in fact, she hadn't realized that the other dragons were there until they were all out of the caves.

Keman, Alara, Dora, and Kalamadea had sealed the en¬trance past anything other than another dragon getting through. They'd brought down half the mountain, it seemed, then fused the rocks together until they were exhausted and limp, their bright colors gone pale, their scales dull. The work had been urgent enough; they'd only just brought the rocks down when something began attacking the pile from inside the mountain, audible even down below. That was when they'd begun fusing the rocks together, and the moment that the monster contrivance encountered the fused section, the blockage was obvious even to an idiot—or a construct—for it began bashing something—itself? its claws?—against the rock-fall. But if it intended to loosen those rocks, it was going to meet with failure.

The dragons worked the pile from the top down, creating a plug of rock that was not going to move. The only way to get out now was to blow out the top of the mountain, or tunnel out at another place.

There was no way—they hoped—that the construct was go¬ing to get at them now.

The sound of battering still came from within the pile, but it was weaker now, and slower. Maybe—hopefully—it was run¬ning out of magical energy, and would relapse into its quiescent state.

Whatever; we're not going to wait around here to find out.

She took another pull on the wineskin, and closed her eyes. Lorryn. Oh, thank you, Lorryn. Thank you for thinking, for be¬ing here. It was perhaps at that moment that she really, truly re¬alized how much she cared for him.