3
A Leopard Hunt
13 Modobrin 941
He heard the dogs behind him at midday, while he rested near the mountain’s peak. He had the telescope out and trained on the inlet. When the baying started he swung the instrument back down the mountain in the direction of the city, and swore.
‘Are they hers, Prince?’ asked the ixchel man on his shoulder.
‘Oh yes, they’re Macadra’s.’
That ancient sound, the war-bay, the summons to their masters: here is the blood you want. He could see five dogs on the mountain, huge and lean and red. They were racing up the dry ridge like furies, cutting the switchbacks, tearing through brush. Their deep chests heaved like bellows. Their wide paws gripped and pulled. Athymar eight-fangs, bred for murder, the dogs that bit and never let go.
‘They have our scent,’ said the ixchel.
‘My scent, Lord Taliktrum,’ said the prince. ‘I doubt they would know what to make of your own.’
Prince Olik Bali Adro, rebel and fugitive and distant cousin to the Emperor, allowed himself a last glance at Masalym below the mountain: her layer-cake loveliness, her waterfalls, the River Mai winding through her like a sapphire braid. City of marvels, and of fear, with its wealthy households squeezed together like a rosebud at the apex, and the poor adrift in the crumbling labyrinth below. He had ruled Masalym for something less than a week. This morning, he had barely escaped it with his life.
Five dogs, five athymars. He did not want to fight them. He did not, in truth, want them to exist. Dogs had a beauty and a purity no dlomu ever matched. They would work or fight as their keepers required, go through battle and flames and savage landscapes that bloodied their paws. They would serve until their bodies broke, or their hearts. And they would kill him regardless of Imperial law.
‘She has branded them on their hindquarters,’ he said. ‘That seems a senseless act. Who would be fool enough to try to steal those monsters, I ask you?’
‘Prince?’ said Taliktrum.
‘Hmm, yes?’
‘Put that scope away and run.’
The prince lowered the telescope, considered the dogs without it, the distance they had travelled in the last few minutes alone. ‘Quite right,’ he said, and let the instrument fall from his hands.
He ran west along the summit trail, through the hyssop and giant rosettes. No cover, nothing to climb. He saw his own dogs loping parallel to him, dispersed as he’d ordered them to be. The nearest were keeping him in sight; those further out watched their companions. All nine could be called in with a gesture to help him fight. But his dogs were smaller creatures, a mixed pack of hunters and scouts. They could fight, certainly: they had been trained by the Masalym Watch. But the slaughter, the maimed animals — no, this was not the place to make a stand. What he needed now was distance from Masalym, and the servants of Macadra Hyndrascorm that streamed from it in all directions.
Prince Olik had already killed once that morning. Barely an hour up the Rim Trail, with the huge cliffs called the Jaws of Masalym open beneath him and the thunder of the great falls reverberating in his bones, a pair of riders had suddenly rounded a bend and spotted him, and the one in the lead had charged. The prince could not help but feel a moment’s fright. He had lived so long in safety, protected by his face and name: a face it was every citizen’s duty to know; a name that meant death to anyone who touched him. When he fled beyond the Empire they had made him a target, but here, all his life, they had accustomed him to invulnerability. Each time he met a citizen who feared Macadra more than the ancient law, it was as if a crack had opened in the bedrock of the earth.
Still, the prince had not hesitated. He had killed them, those men who had been his subjects only the day before: the first as he tried to run Olik down with his spear, the second as he raised a bugle that would have sealed his fate. Lucky kills, both of them. Yet he had no luck with the horses, which bolted riderless back down the ridge.
Two hours later the sun was fully risen, and the prince stood atop the headland, wild rosemary about him and Taliktrum on a stone nearby, looking down at the Kirisang, the Death’s Head, Macadra’s hideous ship. ‘Why, it’s almost a twin of the Chathrand!’ the ixchel had exclaimed. And of course that was true: though much older and heaped with strange Plazic weaponry, the Kirisang was a Segral-class ship like the one the humans had arrived in. Olik turned away from the sight: he knew that Macadra herself was on that ship, unless she had gone ashore to look for him. The sorceress had not stirred from Bali Adro City in thirty years, but lust for the Nilstone had drawn her out.
Then the prince had raised his eyes and looked north, through the gap in the Sandwall where the Chathrand had sailed five days before. ‘I wonder if they are truly out there, waiting for an all-clear signal, so that they might return and collect their missing crew. Rose’s eyes were shifty when he promised to do so. And that bloodthirsty Mr Ott never left him alone. “Stath Balfyr, Captain; our goal is Stath Balfyr.” He was in a fever to reach that isle.’
‘He should not have been,’ Taliktrum had replied. ‘If they ever do reach Stath Balfyr, it will be the end of the voyage for them all.’
‘You sound quite sure of that.’
‘I am,’ said Taliktrum, ‘but ask me no more about it, Sire. There are some oaths even an exile must keep.’
He was a cipher, this tiny lord who’d saved his life. The prince knew almost nothing about ixchel. They had suffered under the Platazcra, but their own habits of secrecy disguised the extent of their persecution. They were found occasionally aboard boats plying the Island Wilderness, and were said to be tolerated by the people of Nemmoc and other lands west of Bali Adro. Yet Taliktrum had given him the impression that the Northern ixchel who had come with the Chathrand were of a very different sort: rigidly communal, even indivisible in their clan structure and ethos of ‘us’ before ‘me’. Which made Taliktrum’s own defection rather startling. On the headland, with as much delicacy as he could muster, Olik had asked Taliktrum if he regretted leaving his people behind. Taliktrum had stared hard at the sea.
‘I left myself no choice,’ he said. ‘I am like the hunter who falls into his own snare. I could blame my father, of course: he persuaded us all to go hunting to begin with. But I took up the horn and blew until my face was red. And when my father became frail I named myself not just the master of the hunt, but its guardian spirit, a visionary, a prophet.’
‘You do not strike me as so proud.’
Taliktrum laughed. ‘I might have before,’ he said, ‘but even that would have been an illusion. Pride did not lead me on, though at the time even I thought it had. No, I named myself a prophet as an act of rebellion. I lacked the courage to turn from my father’s path, so I tried to escape another way: by going too far. Unfortunately, my own people called my bluff.’
‘By believing in you?’
Taliktrum had nodded. ‘And trapping me, thereby. I could not deliver what I promised them, and so I fled. And when I had been gone a little while, free from their needy eyes, my mind cleared and I saw my own need at last. But before I could return and claim her, I saw her vanish into this wilderness, joining you giants in the hunt for the Nilstone, abandoning the comfort of the clan. She was the one of vision. I was the blind fool who never saw her until she was gone.’
They raced on up the slope. The prince was vaguely disgusted with himself: a mere five hours and he was winded, and the path had not been that steep. He should have started earlier; he should have spent the night on this mountain.
‘The hounds are closing already,’ said Taliktrum. ‘Mother Sky, but they’re fast.’
‘Wait until they reach level ground,’ said Olik.
‘I’d rather we didn’t, Sire.’
If he had started at dusk yesterday he would have reached the Sarimayat River by now, and could have sent the dogs safely home. Now look at him: desperate, pretending to a calm he didn’t feel, hoping for a miracle, or the kind of strength he’d not felt in a
decade.
Your strength, for example, he thought, glancing at Taliktrum out of the corner of his eye. If an ixchel stood six feet tall, and his strength were raised proportionally, well, the prince wasn’t quite sure what that would mean, but something astonishing. Taliktrum stood eight inches tall and could leap forty from a standstill.
There were rocks by the sea cliff, however. Tall rocks, and many. On an impulse, the prince dived from the trail and ran among them. He had rope. Perhaps there was a way down the cliff where they could not follow, or even a path along the shore.
Or no path. They are almost upon you. Best be ready for an ocean swim.
But a swim to where? Last night in Masalym he had studied maps, traced his possible avenues of escape. He’d known Macadra was coming, bearing down on the city in the Death’s Head, knew she thought the Nilstone might still be there and would commit any atrocity to obtain it. The Stone was not there, of course — but was Arunis? Olik had sworn not to abandon the city until he could swear to its citizens that the sorcerer had fled. At last Hercol Stanapeth’s fire-signal from the mountains let him do so. But by then Macadra’s ship was already in the harbour, and Olik had barely managed to slip away.
The river, he thought. The Sarimayat. You can lose them there, hide your scent, crawl out after sunset on the nether shore. Gain that river and you live.
‘Prince, you must abandon these rocks,’ said Taliktrum. ‘They can trap you here. This was a mistake.’
The ixchel was right again: he should have crossed the summit at a dead run and simply hurled himself down the western slope. Or called his pack in to fight at his side. The prince had no illusions about his talents. He was a passable swordsman, nothing more than that. His strength was archery, but he had no bow. What he did have were nine kryshoks: steel disc-blades, each the width of his palm, and bulging slightly at the centre with the weight of lead. They were less accurate than arrows, but no less deadly when they found their mark.
‘A vantage,’ he said to Taliktrum. ‘Find me a vantage point, an outlying rock. Some of them will follow their noses in here. I want to be waiting where they emerge.’
Taliktrum nodded, seeing the plan. He crouched tight as the prince grabbed him bodily. Olik threw him high, like a ball, and at the zenith of his ascent Taliktrum spread his arms, thrust deep into the gauntlets of the swallow-feather suit, and soared west over the rocks.
Behind him, the athymars suddenly bayed: a deeply chilling sound. They were on the summit. Olik dashed, slipping and squeezing through tight places in the rocks. Macadra would not use athymars if she meant to take me alive. They will devour me, probably, devour the evidence. And she will still have them slaughtered and cremated, lest their stomachs be opened by the Platazcra Inspectorate, looking for fragments of a missing prince.
Taliktrum returned, alighted on his shoulder. ‘That way, run,’ he gasped. ‘It is far, but no other place will serve.’
The prince ran where he was told. The dogs’ howls echoed among the rocks. If they caught him here, with no throwing-room, no room even to swing a sword. .
Grey fur: the prince wheeled, groping for his dagger. But it was only Nyrex, his pack leader, a great rockhound with the tented ears of a fox. Her mouth was foamy with exhaustion and her tongue lolled like a skinned eel, but her eyes still begged for orders.
‘Out of these boulders, out! Scatter!’ Olik flung his arm, and the dog sprang away like a hare. Then the prince emerged from the rocks, and Taliktrum pointed to the one that stood apart. Flat-crested: fine luck. He raced the sixty feet and vaulted onto the stone. Eight feet: tall enough. But the rear of the boulder had a shelf halfway up its side. Bad luck. He lay flat at the centre of the stone.
‘Circle me at dog-height,’ he told Taliktrum. ‘Can you see me? Quickly, pray!’
Taliktrum flew low about the stone, arms working furiously. He landed, rolling, by the prince’s arm. ‘You’re hidden from view,’ he said. ‘But Prince, their noses-’
‘Yes,’ Olik whispered. ‘I’m counting on it. When I toss you again, Lord Taliktrum, you must fly off shouting — and not return until the killing’s done.’
‘I’ve fought dogs before, Olik.’
‘No you haven’t. Not like these.’
He slid his hand into the leather pouch that held the kryshoks, dealt out four upon the stone, as though preparing for a round of cards.
Taliktrum shook his head, frowning. ‘If they wait at a distance, for the rest of the pack-’
‘Silence,’ said the prince, ‘they are here.’
He caught the sound of their panting, the low huffs they directed at one another. Olik tried not to breathe. Four kryshoks beside him; one in each hand, three left in the pouch.
Wait.
A sharp yip: that was Nyrex. The brave creature was still on the mountaintop, somewhere, trying to draw them off. The athymars growled at her, but they were not really tempted. Sweat was running into Olik’s eyes. The panting drew nearer. It was on both sides of his rock.
Wait.
Three were here for certain, probably four. They were trotting in small circles now, orbiting him, the scent always returning them to this spot. He drew a finger along the knife-edge of the kryshok. Sniff, step, pant, sniff again. He could feel the pulse of his own blood. Then, all in the same moment, the pack grew still as stone.
Olik hurled Taliktrum skyward. The ixchel man shot away like a living, screaming arrow. The dogs’ heads turned — and Olik rose and struck.
A kryshok could pierce welded plate, cut through chain mail like straw. Olik flung his arms out, snapped his wrists, making himself want to kill them. One. Two. The third so near it sprayed his legs with blood. The fourth was airborne before he could draw another kryshok, but only its forelegs reached the rock, and he sent it tumbling with a kick. He whirled, drawing his sword, and plunged it into the chest of the fifth dog in mid-spring. It knocked him flat; it had found the ledge and used it. Even as it died the creature bit him, and he screamed with pain. Four fangs locked on his arm. Never mind, where was the other? Where was the dog he’d kicked?
Then he knew. He rolled over, in agony, and lifted the eighty-pound corpse. Its eyes still on him, he smashed forward, and caught the last dog as it leaped. But it was wiser now. It snarled and clawed and soon Olik was retreating, still parrying with the dead dog’s body, still trying to free his sword.
The dog came on, a burning fuse. There was no more room to retreat. Then suddenly the athymar whirled in place and there were two dogs, fighting, falling, dropping from the stone. It was Nyrex, fearless Nyrex, a dog he had purchased barely a week ago, a dog about to give her life. They rolled, cyclonic, a single entity at war with itself.
He couldn’t wait. Nyrex would be shredded; the athymar could not possibly lose. He drew a kryshok and hurled it blind into the tangle of limbs with all his might.
A death-howl soared above the bedlam for an instant. Then silence. Olik found that his eyes were pinched shut. He forced them open: Nyrex stood over the athymar, dripping blood. The kryshok had severed the spine of the larger dog.
The prince slid down the back of the rock, dragging the corpse of the dog whose jaws had locked. He inspected Nyrex: she had scratches and a torn ear. ‘A torn ear!’ he shouted aloud. ‘Finest beast, that’s a mark of honour! But you’re a disobedient bitch — I told you to stay clear of this fight.’
‘Just as well she had other ideas,’ said Taliktrum, landing on the rock once more.
Prying open the jaws of the dead athymar was a foul business. When at last the prince succeeded, he groped for his tiny medical kit and washed out the four fang wounds with spirits of copperwood, then bound his arm with gauze. He called Nyrex and began to clean her ear. She whined and turned her head sharply.
‘Those were fine kills,’ said Taliktrum gruffly.
‘They should never have happened,’ said Olik. ‘I should have seen to my own horse yesterday, not obliged a servant to do it for me. You can’t blame the man for disappe
aring with his steeds. Law or no law, Macadra’s wrath could fall on anyone who aids me.’
‘You are most forgiving of betrayal,’ said Taliktrum.
‘I prefer to see myself as pleasantly surprised by loyalty,’ said Olik. ‘My mistake was betting my life on it.’ He glanced up at the ixchel. ‘At the river I will disperse the pack entirely, except for Nyrex here. She will bear you until we take to land again. Hold still, girl! I’m almost done.’
The dog was squirming, pulling away from him. She had grown abruptly tense, gazing back the way they had come. Olik stilled his hand. He rose, and motioned Taliktrum to be silent.
There it was. More baying. More athymars. A dozen more, at least.
Olik dug the kryshoks from the corpses, wiped them hastily on their fur. He tore his shirt, gave the pieces to his own dogs, sent out in a fan shape across the mountain. Then he ran as he had not run in ages. His jacket chafed, but Taliktrum needed something to grip. Olik was lightheaded from the loss of blood. The ruse with his shirt-scraps might buy him a few minutes. And it might buy him none at all.
The trail returned to the cliffside. They had descended from the summit, but not very far; there were miles of high country yet. And the sea? It boiled and foamed below them — so very far below. If it came to that he would dive; Taliktrum could fly to some crevasse in the cliffs and hide until the athymars withdrew. Every healthy dlomu was a diver; and every Bali Adro prince leaped from the Hyrod Cliffs before his thirteenth year. But this jump would be from twice that height or more, threading a needle between rocks, and the wind gusts could toss him anywhere, or turn him sidelong at impact, which would be death. It was a leap Imperial champions would shy from. A very last resort.
He counted his blessings. Good shoes, good footing. Enemies who announced that they were coming to kill you while still far away. Taliktrum, this gruff comrade-in-arms. And the dogs, with their flawless loyalty, of the kind that worked so much evil between men.
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