From Across the Clouded Range

by H. Nathan Wilcox

  #

  The cramp in his side finally drove Dasen to stop. He bent over with his hand clenched on his ribs while he recovered his breath. The distraction of Teth’s kiss and the leaves she had given him had kept him going longer than he had previously managed, but the debilitating cramp was eventually too much.

  He chomped the sweet leaves between breaths and felt their juice calming him. The leaves tasted fresh and minty with just enough sourness to make his mouth water and expel his overpowering thirst. His whole mouth tingled, and he felt as if everything were amplified, as if the leaves had unlocked strength he never knew he had. The leaves made his mind jumpy as well, but mostly it landed on Teth. Try as he might, he could not figure her. One minute she acted like she hated him, the next she was kissing him. He certainly did not mind the change, but it was utterly confounding.

  "Dasen, come on!” brought him from his crouch. “You can’t stop now. We're almost there, but they’re getting close!” Teth was barely visible, but the urgency in her voice did not need to be seen. Dasen signaled her to go, pulled himself up, and, with one more deep breath, resumed his trot.

  He cursed himself for his timing. This was the first time he had seen her since the kiss, and he had been running every second until then. At least we’re close, he told himself, but it was little consolation as the first sounds of snapping branches, rustling leaves, and hammering feet echoed through the trees behind him. Initially, he thought the sounds were his imagination, but they built until they reverberated through the forest, each sound a cold wave crashing through him. Howls, screams, and murmuring voices soon added to that cacophony to create a maddening murmur of evil intent more dreadful than anything Dasen had ever imagined.

  He was running for all he was worth, imagining the creatures inches behind, when Teth appeared. She looked back. He tried to yell a warning but could not find the breath required. Teth nodded. "I know.” She was calm but unusually breathless. “Trust me. We can make it if you keep running, but don’t look back, and do exactly as I say.” She did not wait for acknowledgement as she darted out of sight.

  The sounds grew after that, like the roar of the ocean closing on him with the same inevitability of the tide. Dasen's imagination played a thousand horrible images of what he would see behind him, and it took all the will he could muster to keep his eyes from confirming them. He could only guess at the demonic shapes boiling out of the forest behind him, could only guess at how long it would be until they claimed him.

  "Dasen, drop now!"

  He did not even think as he flopped onto his belly in the middle of the path. There was a whoosh above him. The air snapped where his head had been a second before. Something had just missed him, but he did not dwell on it. As soon as the sound was past, he jumped to his feet.

  The creature was not so lucky. It shook then, failing to rise, careened into one of the trees along the path nearly uprooting the spruce with the force of the impact. Its body sprawled across the path, its spiked tail still thrashing. Dasen was overawed by the creature’s violent death – it was the first one they had seen – but he did not allow it to slow him. He did not even pause to avoid the expanse of its tail. He hurdled the wriggling thing, glancing back just long enough to notice the shaft of an arrow planted to the fletching in its huge right eye.

  He ran with all his might after that but did not know how much longer he would last. His body was pumped with fear – the roar of the creatures had grown so close that he expected something to reach out and grab him – but it was not enough. His legs felt like noodles that had been cooked too long, his breath was coming in pained gasps, and his hand was permanently clamped at his side to keep the stitch there from overpowering him. He was sure that he would collapse at any second and not rise again.

  That was until he heard the voices. They started as the soft hiss of a single voice, but it rang in his ears over the deafening clamor behind him. "We are almost there, little one. A few more strides and my claws will reach your throat. A few more strides and my teeth will taste your blood. You cannot outrun us. Only a few more strides.”

  That first voice was joined by others each describing the way that he would die when the chase was over. “Pain . . . ripping your flesh . . . break your bones . . . misery . . . blood! Death! BLOOD! DEATH!” The threats grew in number until they all chanted together for his death in a unanimous roar.

  The taunts, Dasen knew, were meant to break him, but he allowed them to push him instead. Words can only hurt you as much as you let them, his father had always said, and Dasen did not let these touch him. He would not give these creatures the satisfaction of seeing him crumble, so he forgot his miseries and ran, ran for all he was worth.

  The voices were building to another hideous crescendo when the first arrow hummed past his face, over his shoulder and ended in a scream just behind – too close behind. Other bolts followed in a steady progression as Teth covered him, but she was only delaying the inevitable. His run was stumbling at best; it was only a matter of time before his legs gave out completely. The creatures were on top of him. It was only a matter of time before not even Teth could keep them at bay.

  Then it happened. The arrows stopped. Dasen could hear the footsteps of the creature that would take him. He could hear it whispering in his ear, could almost feel its breath on his neck, smell the rankness of it. It was on top of him. Nothing could save him.

  He did not bother to pray. He mustered what little energy remained, gathered it from every corner of his body, and unleashed it in a cry of desperation. It echoed through the forest, drowning out the pounding feet and whispered threats. It pulsed through his legs, giving them just enough power for a final lunge. He exploded through the last line of trees as the scream died and stumbled toward a chasm.

  Dasen could only stare at the line a few feet in front of him where the earth ended and plunged fifty feet into seething rocks and white-capped water. That line drew in on him. He begged his legs to stop. They could not hope to respond, but it hardly mattered. His body was hopelessly in front of his legs. Even if they stopped, the rest of him would never manage it. He was destined for the rocks.

  The earth spun around him. He was no longer looking at the chasm. He was turning away from it, back toward the forest. Someone, something had a hold of his arm, was swinging him away from the drop. He spun until he was parallel to the ledge and the hand released him like a rock from a sling. He stumbled for two steps before his legs could no longer keep up with his momentum. His hands came up just in time to keep his face from taking the brunt of the fall, and he slid for several feet across the soft ground on his palms and belly.

  A scream pierced the night, falling in timbre as it faded down the gorge. The thing that had been following him, Dasen thought. The scream was followed by others but not enough. Not all of the creatures would find their way to the chasm. Eventually, they would stop. Eventually, they would find him lying only a few feet away.

  The pack on his back might as well have been a boulder, but Dasen somehow brought his knees under him – he had not come all this way to die on his belly. From there, strong hands grasped the pack and pulled him up. He helped them little, but they managed. He was on his feet, but he was not sure for how long. He wobbled precariously as Teth led him to a rope bridge two impossible steps away.

  The bridge was nothing more than four stout ropes. Two of them were held off the ground at waist level by crude supports to act as handles while the other two were lined with weathered boards held in place by simple lashings. Teth bounded across those boards like it was a forest path. She barely touched the upper ropes and did not seem to notice the way the bridge swung as each step landed on its shaking surface.

  Dasen followed. He was not sure how, but he followed. He was past the point of fear, and that was the only thing that saved him. He ran across the boards not knowing how his feet managed to land on
the swinging walkway, expecting that each step would be the one that buckled his knees and sent him to the gorge. A few more shapes were silhouetted as they plunged to the river. They were distorted, unimaginable shapes that the kind moon transformed into things that were almost believable. Screams and curses faded to oblivion as they disappeared and were lost to the rocks.

  A second later, the shaking of other feet hitting the bridge pulsed through Dasen’s legs. His knee gave out as his foot reached the bridge before he had expected. He pitched forward on the swinging walkway and saw only rocks before him. His heart caught at the same moment his hand found a miraculous guideline and his other foot found the path. They compensated for the lost step and allowed him to bring his eyes back to the swinging planks. The other side was steps away, but the path would not stay still; there were too many feet affecting its swing. His quivering legs would not recover from another miss, but he struggled on, one foot in front of the other, until he heard the material of his pack ripping under the assault of clawed hands. It was all the encouragement he needed. He leapt the final boards not caring if his feet hit them or not. The claws swiped again at the place where his throat had been a moment before. He dove away from them and felt his hands dig into welcome mud.

  He wanted to pass out, but Teth's curse-laden battle cry kept him conscious. He rolled out from under the weight of the pack and looked at the bridge. Teth’s back dominated his vision. She was standing at the end of the ropes fighting to keep a short lizard-like creature on the bridge. She held a long knife in one hand, her bow in the other, and stood so that nothing could get off the bridge without going through her. Her shirt and pants were already torn and marked with blood. A glance to the sides revealed deep gouges in three of the ropes that held the bridge, but Teth had been waiting until he was across to finish them. Those ropes strained under the weight of a solid row of creatures stretching across their expanse but held, waiting for those and countless of their brethren to cross.

  Dasen had to help, had to do something. He unbuckled the belt that held him to the pack and squirmed from of the straps. Released from the burden, he nearly jumped to his feet. He did not know what he could do, but he grabbed the first thing he saw and turned to the bridge.

  The lizard creature was thrashing in the air as another fiend lifted it above its head and threw it over the side. The act of betrayal earned the seven-foot creature, with a hairless but perfectly muscled body and three eyes, a dagger in the stomach. Teth was about to slash the blade across its stomach when another hand inexplicably sprouted from the thing’s chest and grabbed her wrist in a powerful grip. Teth gasped and released her knife. The creature smiled as it reached to her throat with one of its original hands and toward the huge sword on its back with the other.

  The cast-iron pot smashed into the creature’s head, cracking its skull like an egg. It had disregarded Dasen, and he had struck without thinking. The hand holding Teth went limp. She jerked it away, retrieving her dagger as she did, and spun to the side.

  The creature wavered with blood splattered across the side of its brutish face, but Dasen did not wait for it to recover. He brought the pot around again, aiming at the same spot. The weapon shattered what was left of the creature’s head, knocking it into its fellows. The shear bulk of the thing snapped one of the guide ropes and sent a wave of creatures into the gap.

  Dasen looked for Teth – they had bought some time but was it enough? She was hard at work with her knife and almost through the first of the ropes that held the bridge, but the rope was strong, weathered hemp that did not cut easily. He watched her progress for a second then brought his eyes back to the bridge where the creatures had already recovered their footing. He glanced at Teth again and did a quick calculation. She would never make it. He was going to have to face another of the creatures. Without the benefit of surprise, he did not like his odds.

  He held out the pot ready to strike and was captivated by what he saw. A sleekly muscled woman was standing in the middle of the bridge with flame-red hair flying around her body as if she were walking against a gale. She was magnificent, perfectly proportioned, fair-skinned, and barely dressed. She swung her hips seductively as she sauntered across the bridge with no regard for the turbulence of the walkway.

  Dasen could not help but watch doe-eyed as she closed on him. He knew that he should do something to stop her, but he was trapped in her dark eyes and could not make his arms move to swing the pot that hung by his side. His heart thundered from longing, not fear. The pot fell from his limp fingers – how could he ever think of striking something so beautiful? The woman smiled at the sight of the pot falling and brought her hands out from where they were hidden behind her. Dasen thought she was preparing to wrap her arms around him and give him everything that her walk promised. He was ready to receive her. He held his arms out.

  His heart stopped. The seductress’ hands slid out from behind her as long, distorted fingers ending in razor points. The skin on her face drew back tight until her nose was a bat-like point, her eyes were leering slits, and her mouth was a gaping sneer of ragged fangs. The sudden change released Dasen from his mesmerism, and he recovered just in time to dodge to the side as the first pass of the creature’s claws slashed toward his chest. The claws were followed by a diving strike from the snarling fangs that sent him stumbling to the ground just out of reach.

  His eyes clamped shut when he hit the ground and bounced open immediately, expecting to see the blow that would finish him. Instead, they were burnt by a burst of flame that sent him scampering from the bridge with his arm over his face. When he looked up again, the woman on the bridge was a thrashing ball of fire, and a creature was circling in the sky above with flames licking from its blackened lips.

  It had been aiming for him, Dasen realized, and would have had him if he had not been forced to the ground. The monster on the bridge had been hit instead, and its flaming body now acted as the perfect barrier.

  He rolled along the ground away from the burning creature as Teth finished cutting the rope to collapse one side of the bridge. Without the walkway for support, most of the black shapes tumbled to the rocks. The few that held to one of the remaining ropes tried to move hand over hand toward whichever side was closest, but the already frayed ropes were too weak, and it was only a matter of seconds before they too collapsed under the strain.

  Dasen did not watch the creatures fall. He remembered the thing flying above just in time to leap away from a fountain of fire that formed where he had been crouched. The heat from the flames encompassed his body. He smelled his hair crisp, but he rolled away with his arms over his head until the heat had died.

  The creature unleashed a scream of frustration and made a loop in the sky preparing for another pass. This time it did not leave anything to chance. It opened its alligator mouth to blow fire and prepared its four sets of stubby claws to finish whatever escaped the flames.

  Dasen tried to predict where the attack would focus, but the creature was not giving anything away. He was about to jump to the right in an attempt to make the nearby trees when a sliver of light caught his eye. It flashed through the darkness like a shooting star and ended in the joint of the creature’s bat wing. The creature did not seem to notice, but when that wing came down to carry it the final distance to its prey, it buckled. The creature lost control of its rapid descent, careened to the side, and unleashed a column of flame into the night until it was cut short by the chasm wall.

  Dasen exhaled sharply, but there was no time to relax. At least a dozen other creatures were circling above, waiting their turn. He found Teth crouched near the bridge with the bow still clutched in her hand. The quiver over her shoulder was empty; they could not fight any longer. As one, they sprinted for the cover of the trees and staggered through the brush, their night just beginning.

  Chapter 21