Saint Elm's Deep (The Legend of Vanx Malic) (21 page)

The gargan men spent a long time admiring Chelda’s fangs, and after some prodding from Gallarael and Brody, Vanx took out his xuitar and played a few songs. Before long, a few other rim riders came in from their ranging. They all seemed to enjoy the performance a great deal. Reluctantly, others left to take up watch posts and do their various duties, until eventually the lodge’s common room, turned tavern hall, was cleared.

Riggaton Manix had the pine plank tables moved aside and the floor swept so that the group would have a place to lay out their bedrolls for the night. He apologized to Chelda for the crude lodgings, and Chelda relayed back to the group that all of the bunk houses and private rooms had been filled with men since the sightings started.

Logs were heaped on the hearth fire and the lamps snuffed. When the group finally found themselves alone, Vanx gave Brody a look and a gesture, indicating that he would take the first watch. Brody acknowledged that he understood and went quickly to sleep. The others were already in their bedrolls and drifting off.

Vanx stared into the flames while absently scratching the scruff of Poops’s neck and enjoyed the rich, woodsy smell of all the worked cedar, pine and range oak around him. Chelda’s soft, rhythmic snores filled what silence the crackling fire didn’t. Poops had his bone about worried through, but it still held his full attention. The dog only stopped gnawing when Vanx probed the sore spot on his rump. Then the soft glow of Vanx’s healing magic filled the room for a short time. After that, Poops gave Vanx a wet slurp then curled up in the blankets next to him and drifted off.

There had been a new quality to the pull inside Vanx most of the day. A warning maybe, or a sense of proximity that he didn’t understand. Of course, it had been forgotten entirely when Sir Poopsalot’s painful emotions had come flooding into him, but now, as he watched over his friends, he tried to recall the feeling so he might mull it over. Oddly, though, he found this new aspect had vanished. The insistent draw toward their deep mountain destination was still there. It was strong and constant and a somewhat desperate feeling now, but it wasn’t quite enough to worry over anymore this night. Other concerns found a place in his mind soon enough, and they did their best to take root.

The idea that the very friends he was watching over were following him blindly into the unknown made him marvel a bit. He didn’t want to imagine anything terrible happening to them, but his dreams were usually full of such notions, and in stark, vivid clarity. He was beginning to fear sleep, lest the dreams come and terrorize him. The first night in the forest had been his last good rest. Exhaustion was beginning to take its toll. He reminded himself that his companions had chosen to come on this quest, not so much for him, but for the glory of finding the fabled palace of Rimehold.

What they planned to do after they found the place hadn’t really been part of the conversation. Vanx wasn’t even sure what he was going to do, or what awaited them there. All he knew was that he had to get there, if only to quell the gnawing feeling inside.

His mind drifted to Gallarael. She was a different matter. She was running from something more than seeking anything. She had proven herself over the last harsh weeks, but even though he didn’t doubt her abilities, or her other self’s ability, to defend herself, he doubted she had the knowledge or experience to survive the Bitterpeaks on her own. She didn’t know the first bit of woods lore, and he’d noticed that her sense of direction wasn’t all that honed. Under sunny skies, she might be able to tell north from south and east from west, but out here there was seldom a time when the sky wasn’t low and cloudy and the air full of confusing flurries and driving winds. He had a responsibility to his friends, King Oakarm and Prince Russet, to look out for her. He didn’t like to admit it, but he had a responsibility to the Duchess of Highlake as well. It was only due to this duty that he finally decided to wake Brody so that he might try to get a few hours’ sleep. He couldn’t look out for Gallarael with his head full of cobwebs.

Maybe it was the warmth of the hearth fire, or possibly the potency of the comforting tree smells that filled his nose. Whatever it was, he slept well that night, and the only dreams that were forced upon him were those he was unknowingly sharing with Sir Poopsalot: the fear of a fleeing rabbit through a snowy forest, baying in a half-moon sky and the feeling of nuzzling in slumber with the pack. He found the smell of a salty sea island there in those dreams, and busy wispwhites, all sparkly and frolicking around a tree that was growing out of a pool of quicksilver.

These sleepy visions were shattered when a blast of cold air hit him. Gargan men came bursting in, yelling commands at the men who slept in the bunk rooms around them. They were excited and concerned, and in such a rush that they narrowly avoided tripping over the rousing group on the floor. Then, from somewhere outside, a loud bell began to clang.

Brody stepped into the group’s startled midst and assured them that all was well, at least in the immediate sense. He’d been outside and was radiating the chill he’d brought back in with him.

“Another village was attacked,” he told them. “Not far from here, to the south.”

“What village?” Chelda asked sharply. “What did they call it?”

All around them, men and a few women, in various stages of wakefulness and dress, prepared to go fulfill their duties.

“Auchard? Orchard, maybe?”

Chelda closed her eyes. “Orchard is the way you’d say it down in Orendyn. It’s not so much a village as a remote part of Great Vale. My mother was born there. I’ve got kin there.” She stopped talking, took in a deep breath and sighed. “How bad was it?”

“The rider who came was a relay, I think. I could barely make out what was being said. There were rim riders on watch, and they engaged the beast. You were right, Vanx. It came from the sky. I only understood that part because the rider was holding up his arms and flapping them to explain what he was reporting.”

“I’d better go and ask someone.” Chelda didn’t even bother to put her furs on before bursting out into the cold, predawn air to gather information.

“Do they have to keep running in and out?” Xavian asked. He shivered and pulled the thick, wool hat that had taken the place of his polished steel skullcap over his stubble-haired head.

“Go over by the fire and warm yourself,” Gallarael said. “Once you get your blood flowing and your belly full, you’ll feel better.”

“Oh, I forgot, there is a huge pot of hot, honeyed oats hanging over a fire by the other bunk house,” Brody said. “I guess it makes it easier to get up and face the weather if your morning meal is served outside in it.”

Chelda returned but didn’t have much more to offer. She said that they should get up, get a bowl of the offered food, and start on down into the village. “The sun is breaking the horizon as we speak.” She didn’t seem to be disturbed by the bitter air she’d just been out in.

Vanx reminded himself that her father, who blamed his wife’s death on Chelda, still lived down there. Her sharp mood seemed almost gentle, considering that.

Riggaton Manix ordered a pair of his younger men to escort the party down into the village. Chelda told them that it was a high honor to be escorted anywhere by the rim riders.

The way was clearer going down. The heavily used path was worn, and all the steeper portions of the slope were worked into wide switchbacks to lessen the gradient.

For the first time, they saw the gargans up close on their mounts, for their escorts rode curl-horned ramma. The beasts carried the riders with sure-hoofed ease but seemed to have a bit of disdain for all but their kind. The riders wore uniforms of tan cloaks over pumpkin-colored vests. Neither of the two spoke as they rode; Vanx could tell that was only because they were young and shy.

They passed a shepherd who was tending a flock of strange-looking, furred animals. The herd was busy eating fallen pine needles and bright canary berries from a bushy growth that pushed up through the snow. All of them, save for Chelda and the rim riders, ogled the creatures as they passed. They were pig-like but covered in curly wool, like a sheep, and they had startlingly intelligent-looking eyes. The shepherd, in turn, ogled Poops in his thick fur vest. He shook his staff when the dog got too close to his herd and earned a shout from the rim rider escorting them. The shepherd went muttering and cursing his way farther off the road.

It was a road now, Vanx decided. All but the slightest bit of slope was behind them. They were in the bottom of the valley. Houses and fenced plots of snow-blanketed land bordered by drystone boundary walls and crude wooden railings were scattered about them. The smell of wood smoke and bacon fat was in the air. Two men were arguing in the distance, and a woman’s cackling laugh cut over them. All of this, along with the chirping, buzzing and cawing of a dozen different forms of wildlife, found Vanx’s ears from the world beyond the road.

Above, the sky wasn’t clear, but it wasn’t all gray and blustery yet, either. It was as if the day were deciding which way to go with itself.

A lopsided triangle formation of piebald geese came flapping by, and Vanx watched them shift and reposition in the air as they went.

Up ahead, a commotion of pounding hooves and worried shouts erupted. Just before Vanx pulled his eyes from above, the flock scattered across the sky in all directions, like grain-bin roaches under sudden torchlight. The feeling that filled him in that moment was the same he’d felt yesterday. Something was near, and it was dangerous and evil.

“The beast is upon us,” the approaching rim rider called. His mount looked like it was charging to ram them. “Beware! The Shangelak was seen in the sky only moments ago.” The man wasn’t yelling for their benefit alone, he was calling out so that all could hear him. His pumpkin-colored vest marked him as a rim rider, but he barely slowed his mount to repeat the warning to his fellows as he thundered by. Vanx supposed he was headed up the road to warn those in the lodge.

Just then, a roar split the morning wide open. In the distance, Vanx saw it coming at them in a streaking glide, like an eagle swooping on a fish.

“It comes for us!” Vanx yelled and began shedding his gear to get at his bow.

Brody was doing the same and cursing for not having a weapon in hand, while both Chelda and Xavian spoke swift words to Gallarael to keep her from shifting forms.

The young rim riders had their bows up and were already loosing by the time Vanx had his bow unbundled. Their shots were hurried and way off the mark, and their mounts wouldn’t sit still. Vanx couldn’t blame them.

Vanx knew that he’d never get his bow strung in time, but he didn’t stop trying. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Chelda, still burdened with her pack full of saber fangs, striding out with her ancient sword drawn, as if to take on the swiftly swooping creature all by herself. It sent a chill through him like he’d never felt before. What happened next was as unbelievable as it was horrifying.

Xavian sent a streaking ray of lavender energy sizzling through the air at the beast, but with only the slightest twitch of its wings, the creature tilted and avoided the string-straight stream of energy.

The rim riders loosed again, but even when they hit, their short range arrows didn’t have enough behind them to penetrate the thing’s hide. Then Brody stepped forward and put a crossbow bolt into the gray, flying-cat-beast’s shoulder. At the same instant, Chelda leapt up, and made a startlingly agile swipe across the creature’s underbelly.

Vanx felt, more than heard or saw, Poops suddenly ducking and diving to avoid a grasping talon, but when he brought his eyes up, hot black blood from the wound Chelda had opened up splattered across his face and blinded him.

There was a thumping of wing beats over them, then a man’s scream erupted. It was frantic and desperate, and then Gallarael’s scream cut over it. Vanx got his eyes clear of blood just in time to see Brody flailing wildly in the creature’s claws. He was beating at it with his crossbow, as if it were a club. It was a futile effort, for already the thing had carried the old Parydonian archer up into the sky and out of bow range. Even if he managed to get it to turn him loose, Vanx saw, he’d only fall to his death.

Vanx wondered sadly if that might not be a better fate than what the beast would do to him when they set down somewhere.

Then he was fighting for breath as Gallarael clutched him into a savage hug.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Three pints of stout I bought her
and then she quenched my loins.
But when I said I love you dear,
she ran off with my coins.
-- Parydon Cobbles