Tahvo lifted her head. “It turns the earth against him,” she whispered. “It will kill…”
Rhenna didn’t wait for her to finish. She grabbed Cian’s arms and pulled. The earth engulfed his shoulder, pressing him flat to the ground. Immeghar and the Ará Odò hunters seized whatever part of Cian they could reach. Their efforts were useless. The earth devoured Cian bit by bit, taking chest and hip and legs until only his head and one arm remained free.
Rhenna clutched his hand in both of hers. His eyes met Rhenna’s, stripped of anything but pain. The soil heaved. Her arms were nearly wrenched from their sockets. She lost her grip and fell. When she gained her feet again, Cian was gone.
Frantically she scraped at the earth with broken nails, pounding the unyielding soil with her fists until her flesh was bruised and her bones threatened to snap. The world blurred through a haze of tears. She jumped up, snatched at the nearest blade and charged the hedge. Iron slammed into wood and bounced away as if she had attacked the wall with a feather.
Tahvo clutched her sleeve and would not let go. “I hear him,” she said.
Rhenna scrubbed her face with the back of her hand. “He…he’s alive?”
Tahvo tilted her head. “He hurts, but—” She exhaled slowly. “He is on the other side. I think he has found a weak place in the wall.”
“Praise the gods,” Nyx said. “Can you show us, Tahvo?”
The healer began to walk along the hedge, pausing now and again to listen. She continued perhaps a hundred paces and stopped.
“Here,” she said.
Rhenna pressed as close to the hedge as she could without touching the thorns. “I can’t hear him.”
Tahvo sat on the ground, crossed her legs and rested her hands on her knees. She chanted softly in her mother tongue. Rhenna stood back with the others and prayed that Tahvo’s spirits would listen.
The forest, already silent, took on a new pall of unreality. All the moisture went out of the air, sucked away as if by a harsh desert wind. The Imaziren gasped. Abidemi jumped with a cry of surprise and pointed at the ground under his feet. Water trickled and pooled where he stood, streaming out of the darkness from an unseen source.
“Stand aside,” Tahvo said.
Acting more out of instinct than understanding, the hunters and Imaziren scattered away from the growing flood. Rhenna helped Nyx to her feet. She moved just in time. With the roar of an angry beast, a river burst from among the trees, surging toward Tahvo and the hedge.
“Tahvo!” Rhenna shouted. The water reared up before her and swept over the healer, exploding against the wall in a shower of spray. Thorny branches shot like arrows in every direction. The river bent back on itself, spitting and foaming, and abruptly receded, sinking into the ground.
Tahvo sat in the same position, skin and clothing untouched by the flood that had swallowed her. Before her gaped a hole in the hedge, large enough for a horse to enter. Rhenna raced to Tahvo’s side.
“Quickly,” the healer said. “It will grow again.”
Rhenna gathered the others and urged them through the gap. She and Tahvo were last. They had just reached the other side of the hedge when its branches began to thrust into the opening, stabbing with an overgrowth of thorns as if it hoped to catch some victim in its snapping jaws. By the time Rhenna had taken twenty steps away from the wall, it had closed completely.
The forest within the hedge was as still as that outside it, but the trees seemed lit from within, glowing with a faint green luminescence that picked out the piles of human skulls and the numerous tracks pressed into the soil. Cabh’a laughed uneasily and poked at one of the skulls with the tip of her knife. Enitan bent to examine the prints and spoke to Nyx.
“These are the tracks of many great cats,” Nyx said, chafing her arms though the night was still thick with heat. “Some are old, but some were left within the past hour, as were the footprints of a man.”
“Cian,” Rhenna said. “Where is he, Tahvo?”
“I do not know.” Her fingers brushed the earth, outlining the depressions made by the feet of man and beasts. She turned to Nyx. “These tracks are like those of the Ailuri. Cian spoke to me of your ancestress. He said that your people believed others of her breed still live in the forest.”
“Her ancestress?” Rhenna said. “What is this, Nyx?”
The Southern woman glanced at her fellow villagers and lifted one shoulder. “My clan is descended from a panther woman who came out of the forest long ago and chose one of the village men to be her mate. It was she who gave us the powers of Earth.”
Rhenna stared at the tracks, too weary for shock. “Why did you never mention this before?”
“We of the Clan have not seen another like our ancestress in many generations.”
But Cian knew, Rhenna thought. Why did he fear to tell me? She kicked at the dirt. “Female Ailuri…”
“That is not possible,” Cabh’a said. “Our legends of the Guardians say nothing of this.”
“Nor do the Ailuris’,” Rhenna said. “They believed no females of their race existed. But perhaps Cian has already met these impossible kin, if kin they are.”
Enitan spoke. “He sees no sign of struggle,” Nyx said, uncharacteristically subdued. Enitan set off toward the trees, bent close to the ground. Nyx followed to interpret his words. “Cian and the great cats went into the forest together.”
Numb with foreboding, Rhenna clutched the familiar solidity of the knife at her waist. “He would not have gone willingly without leaving some message for us,” she said. “Something—or someone—used powerful magic to try to keep us from this place. We must assume that these creatures are hostile.”
“Our ancestress was not evil,” Nyx protested.
Rhenna gestured at the skulls. “These were obviously left as a warning.”
“But there is no proof that the panther folk did the killing. Perhaps they agreed to help Cian. It may be that he meant to go on without us.”
“Then he was mistaken in his judgment.” Rhenna squinted toward the spectral green glow of the trees. “There is enough light to follow, and that is what I intend to do.”
Nyx lifted her chin. “I have never suggested otherwise.”
“We will all go,” Immeghar said.
Rhenna strode after Enitan, who waited near the border of the forest. In his hands he held a bundle of much-worn, familiar clothes.
“Cian’s,” Rhenna said. “He left them for us to find.”
“Enitan says that the human prints stop here,” Nyx said, “and there is a new set of panther tracks.”
Rhenna nodded grimly. Tahvo, Nyx and the others bunched close, drawn together by the strangeness of the viridescent twilight. The trees closed in around them. The panthers’ tracks made an easily visible trail over the forest floor, tracing a nearly straight line toward the center of the valley.
In spite of the constant threat of an unseen enemy, no danger emerged from the canopy or the shadows beneath. After a time Rhenna heard a bird call, and then another—hoots and warbles she remembered from the woods near Nyx’s village. Small creatures skittered in the underbrush. The return of ordinary sounds restored a calming sense of near normality. The travelers began to straggle from their tight circle, Immeghar falling behind to take up the rear guard.
Rhenna was too far ahead to hear the first scream. It was Tahvo who called a halt and turned back down the path. She had gone two steps when the hoarse cry came again. Rhenna passed Tahvo at a run, the villagers and Imaziren at her heels.
Immeghar lay submerged up to his chest in a liquid soup of mud where the ground had been firm only moments before. He flailed with his brawny arms, seeking purchase, but only barren earth lay within his reach, and the harder he fought the deeper he sank.
Cabh’a, Tamallat and Mezwar ran to the edge of the mud-hole, shouting to Immeghar in their tongue. He looked up at them, face contorted with terror, and warned them away. Cabh’a and Mezwar stretched their arms to him, and Cabh�
�a’s foot plunged into the mud. Only Mezwar’s grasp kept her from sliding in with Immeghar.
Rhenna flung herself on her belly and crawled until she felt the solid ground turn to mire. Cabh’a grabbed her feet and anchored Rhenna in place as she extended her arms above her head. Stifling ooze coated Rhenna’s face and filled her mouth.
“Immeghar!” she cried. “Take my hands!”
He struggled to obey, only his shoulders above the deceptively quiet surface. His fingers brushed Rhenna’s and slipped free. The mud swallowed his arms. Rhenna strained every muscle in her body and felt the sludge give way beneath her weight.
She met Immeghar’s eyes. They had been glazed with fear, but now they cleared, and in them Rhenna saw his acceptance of his own death. His lips curved in the ghost of a smile.
“It seems that I will not be in the heros’ tales after all,” he croaked.
“You’re wrong, Immeghar,” Rhenna said. “Your courage will never be forgotten.”
He tried to laugh and spat out a mouthful of mud. “You were a worthy companion, warrior. Find the Guardian and bring him home.” He looked beyond her to his fellow tribesfolk and spoke to them in the measured tones of ritual before the mire made further speech impossible. For a handful of heartbeats Rhenna saw only his eyes, and then they, too, vanished.
The others pulled Rhenna back from the brink. She lay still, mute with grief and rage. The Imaziren collapsed beside her, Cabh’a openly weeping, Mezwar and Tamallat holding each other in a hard embrace.
Tears ran from Tahvo’s silver eyes. She whispered some death chant, propitiating the cruel or negligent spirits that had permitted such a horror.
“Another attack,” Rhenna said, “like the insects and the rain…”
“They will continue,” Tahvo said, “as long as we search for the Hammer.”
“I won’t turn back. Not without Cian.”
“Immeghar would want us to go on,” Cabh’a said. Tamallat and Mezwar nodded fiercely. “We—”
Nyx came upon them at a breathless run, Enitan right behind. “Abidemi has disappeared,” she gasped.
Rhenna rolled to her knees and cast one final look at Immeghar’s grave. Ooze had become solid earth once more.
Farewell, my friend.
“We’d better find Abidemi,” she said.
They gathered close again and followed the hunter’s fresh footprints. His path broke off from the panthers’ trail and cut into the densest underbrush, which parted all too readily before Rhenna could touch a single plant with her blade.
She smelled the perfume just as she broke into the little clearing. The scent was indescribable, honeyed and alluring, and it set Rhenna’s head spinning with sensuous thoughts of physical pleasure and the sating of every unspoken desire. She stopped, fighting the pull of the fragrance, and recognized its source: hundreds of flowers draped on every bush and tree, swaying gently in a nonexistent breeze. Each vibrant red and purple blossom was the size of a woman’s head, plump petals full and ripe as a courtesan’s lips.
Abidemi stood before one of the flowers, his hands stroking its velvet skin as he would the body of a lover, his face pressed deep into its center. Nyx and Enitan pushed past Rhenna, stricken as she was by the flowers’ unearthly beauty.
“There is evil here,” Nyx said. “We must stop him.” She took a hesitant step into the clearing. The nearest blossoms rustled invitingly. She smiled.
“Do not let her go,” Tahvo said.
Rhenna took Nyx’s arm and dragged her back. Cabh’a grabbed Enitan. Across the clearing, Abidemi lifted his head, pollen gilding his face like a mask.
Then the insects came. They arrived at first in small numbers, buzzing about the flowers like eager suitors. But more appeared, and the few became a swarm, clumping at the center of the clearing until they had formed an opaque, black sphere of segmented bodies and whirring wings.
“It is too late,” Tahvo whispered.
Rhenna watched in horror as the sphere of insects elongated into a spear’s point and dived at Abidemi. He barely looked up in time to raise his hands as the first tiny creatures struck his face. In an instant the insects had covered him. His screams were lost in the roar of their wings, his body a grotesque and clumsy child’s sculpture of a human shape with only stubs for limbs and head. The figure flailed for a moment and then fell, jerking and shuddering.
When the insects rose from his body, nothing remained of the hunter but his bones.
Someone gagged. Enitan wailed in grief. Nyx’s dark skin was ashen gray. She and Rhenna pushed the others back the way they had come, shoving blindly through the trees. They huddled on the main path, coughing and retching to expel the foul perfume from their mouths.
“They will not…follow us here,” Tahvo said, wiping her lips.
Rhenna hardly heard her. She stared up at the glowing trees and raised clenched fists.
“Who are you?” she shouted. “Are you so afraid that you must send your servants to threaten us? Show yourself, coward!”
The forest answered. A sleek black shape skimmed along the ground past Rhenna’s feet and leaped on Mezwar, claws bared to kill. Tamallat shrieked. She drew her knife and hurled herself at Mezwar’s attacker, stabbing at ebony fur. Blood spattered her face. Rhenna, Cabh’a, Nyx and Enitan converged on the battle, but the blended forms of woman and beast thrashed too wildly to be stopped.
The panther wrestled free of Tamallat’s grip and jumped out of her reach, its teeth crimson slashes against the gaping void of its mouth. Mezwar lay still. Tamallat fell on his body and wept, careless of her own life.
Rhenna set herself between women and beast. “I know what you are,” she spat in the tongue of the Free People. “Come fight me, Ailu.”
The beast sank down on its haunches, shook out its fur—and changed.
Chapter Nineteen
A dark-skinned woman stood in the panther’s place, slender and savage, her golden eyes narrowed to slits in a cruel and beautiful face. She raised her voice in an ululating call. A dozen more women emerged from the woods, each bearing a long spear and knives curved like fangs. They advanced on Enitan, weapons ready to impale him.
Tamallat scrambled up with a growl of rage and rushed the panther woman, who pivoted and slashed at the Amazi. Nyx ran forward, pushed Tamallat aside and addressed the Ailuri in the Ará Odò tongue. The females stared at her, listening to her urgent words, but their faces showed neither recognition nor mercy.
“If these are the kin of your ancestress,” Rhenna said grimly, “they seem not to acknowledge the connection.”
Nyx carefully backed out of the range of the spears. “They do not understand me.” She cast a desperate glance at Enitan. “I think they will kill Enitan as they did Mezwar if we do not stop them.”
“I think they plan to kill all of us,” Rhenna said.
“They will pay dearly,” Tamallat said, her face streaked with tears. Cabh’a held her back.
“Tahvo,” Rhenna said. “Can you speak to them?”
But Tahvo was silent, and when Rhenna glanced behind she saw the healer crouched beside Mezwar, deaf as well as blind, lost in some inner world that not even the threat of death could penetrate. Rhenna gestured to Nyx, and they fell in beside Tamallat and Cabh’a. The women locked gazes, knowing full well that the battle was hopeless. Rhenna chose one of the female Ailuri and tightened her muscles to charge.
A second panther, larger than the first, leaped over the Ailuri females and skidded to a halt before Rhenna.
“Cian!” she cried.
He changed, making his naked body a shield. Save for a few scratches and bruises, he seemed unhurt.
“Enitan,” he said. “Come to me.”
Enitan began to move, but the female Ailuri intercepted him. Cian spoke harshly to the panther women in a language Rhenna recognized with a jolt of shock. The Ailuri answered in mocking voices, mouths curled in contempt. Enitan took advantage of their distraction to reach the dubious safety of his companions
’ tiny circle. The females snarled in unison and lifted their spears.
“You seem to be in some difficulty,” a woman’s low voice said in perfect Hellenish. She strolled casually among the female Ailuri as if she ruled them, her naked skin as pale as Tahvo’s and her eyes panther-yellow. She paused before Cian, glanced at him without interest, and met Rhenna’s gaze.
“So,” she said. “You are the seekers of the Hammer.”
Rhenna knew without questioning her certainty that this woman was a far greater threat than all the Ailuri females together. “Who are you?” she demanded. “Are you the one who killed our friends?”
The woman looked past Rhenna at Mezwar’s torn body. “I fear I cannot take credit for that,” she said. “The Alu slaughter all males who enter their territory.” She addressed the females in the same arcane tongue Cian had used, and several of the panther women laughed. “I see that one has managed to survive.”
“Two,” Cian said. He stared at the woman with nothing short of hatred. “And they won’t have either of us.”
“You have little chance of escape…though they may allow your females to live if you do exactly as I tell you.”
“These Ailuri took you prisoner?” Rhenna asked Cian.
“I managed to fight my way through the Earth to the other side of the hedge,” he said, “and they were waiting.” He dropped his gaze. “Nyx spoke of a panther ancestress, but I didn’t believe such a race truly existed.”
“Yet you did know of one female Ailu before ever you came to the South,” the pale-skinned woman said. She clucked her tongue. “You never told them about me?” She leaned closer to Rhenna and smiled. “I should be offended, but so many mortal females suffer the weakness of common jealousy. Was he so afraid to lose your affection?”
“I don’t understand you,” Rhenna said.
“Her name…is Yseul,” Cian said. “She was unnaturally created from the flesh and blood of my people by Baalshillek to do his bidding.”
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