Tiana watched him sail down into the seething witch’s cauldron of the storm.
Even though she was hard put just to survive, she realised that she would love to go down with him into the dark maw of the monster, to share the danger and the adventure. At first she had been in peril of falling through the storm into the lake at the forest’s edge, though Bandari had assured her that if she fell properly she could survive even that. But now they were higher, and passing over the rocky slopes of Erstand. Were she to fall now, she’d be but a red splotch on the rocks.
Nature would not leave her alone. A new attack came.
First a scattering of hailstones passed to her left — and then an avalanche of the little iceballs was upon her. It was as if an army of disembodied fists beat her. They rattled loudly on the leather wrappings with their shining coat of enamel. They and the helmet provided some protection, but the merciless assault felt as if she were being sledgehammered repeatedly. A red haze danced before Tiana’s eyes. She fought to retain consciousness and continuing control of her flight. Neither rising nor falling now, pinned in mid-air by up-driving wind and down-pelting hail, she started to slip into a spin. She corrected; she sailed, pelted. Now spearing darts of lightning struck all about her as if a corps of godly archers was loosing salvo after salvo. Each vivid, arrowing blast jarred her body, and rattled her brain. But an odd sensation in her ears prevented her hearing the sizzling cracks and roars.
How long Tiana fought the storm she never knew. The hail diminished. Slowly it pierced her mazed brain that her leather cocoon was being pierced by the cold. Abruptly without strength, her limbs scarcely responded to the demands of her will. Breathing had been difficult; now it was far worse. The trick Bandari had explained, using the wind to make one breathe, was no longer possible. The air was too thin. What little she could suck in cut her throat, burned her lungs. Her vision began to grey. Then for an instant it cleared, and she saw that she had been slipping downward. The powerful maelstrom that had carried her was dying. Tiana fought panic.
Had she reached her destination? If so, she might come down safely in the mountaintop lake; otherwise she was dead, for… she was… falling.
Through the fading, ragged thunderclouds she plummeted, into the rain. Desperately she willed herself to a limb-extended flatness. She had to wrest her eyes open. Relief was dizzying; she was directly above a shining little mirror of silver — the lake atop Mount Erstand.
A sudden insupportable thought clutched her brain. The lake! Far above the frost line, it must be frozen as hard as the silver it so resembled. And it was growing so rapidly, lengthening, broadening as she rushed down. Despite her new fear, she maintained the correct flat dive. The shining mirror grew and grew and grew until it was ALL THERE WAS… and then there was an explosion of pain and a million lights that were gulped by total blackness.
*
Tiana regained consciousness.
She was floating.
A burning taste assailed her mouth; salt! No wonder the lake hadn’t frozen; it was brine!
No longer cold, her limbs tingled and were filling with a glowing warmth. In new horror, she knew that was impossible; the icy brine was freezing her. Forcing movement only because her will was forged on some prenatal anvil, she swam. It was like propelling herself through flourbean soup, and that after having overeaten. She swam. She saw nothing. She swam. Then her gloved fingers were pawing wet stone — and then Bandari was helping her climb and slither and drag herself out of the mountaintop lake.
She tried to speak. She had no voice. No; she could not hear herself.
Squatting before her, Bandari pantomimed. Weakly, she rolled onto her back, forced herself to sit up. Her stomach’s muscles complained bitterly. She imitated Bandari: Tiana sucked in a great breath, the leather straps hurting her chest, and she swallowed. Again. Then, holding her nostrils well pinched, she tried hard to exhale through her nose. Pain assaulted her ears — but they did not pop. Resigned, she gritted her teeth and staggered up. Their leather-clad bodies clacked as she hugged Bandari. Her world remained shrouded in eerie silence.
Over his shoulder she saw the little cairn, just west of the lake. Soon they were there, and Bandari was tossing stones aside — all in silence. Just as she started to join him, Tiana saw that one flat white rock was inscribed. She dropped to her knees. The words were in three languages; Nevinian, and Narokan, and a third she could not identify:
Beneath these stones is imprisoned the right arm of the demon Derramal His soul is evil and reigns in evil beyond the silver plane. He cannot be slain save by a countless host of swords striking from beyond infinity. Leave the arm!
Studying the strange words thoughtfully, Tiana glanced over to see Bandari using a stone to smash the lock of a box of dull metal. He opened it. Within was a human arm, handless. Its hue was that of very old parchment. Unlike the hands, it showed no sign of outré life.
With a glance at Tiana, Bandari plucked it forth and without ceremony stuffed it into the sack in which he’d carried the salt bags.
Realisation struck Tiana then that she was atop unscalable old Erstand… with no idea as to how to get down. The storm was gone. They had no mountain-climbing equipment. She looked questioningly, in the silence she feared was total deafness but refused to think upon, at Bandari.
He mouthed a suggestion; she read it on his lips and smiled, but shook her head. With a shrug, he put carnal thoughts aside and led her to the mesa’s north cliff. He sat down with his legs dangling, motioned. Joining him, she saw that this northward face was as he’d said: a straight drop for at least half a mile. Below that, the flashing ice wall began to taper, seemingly smoothly, into a broad flat slope of snow, sparkling as if frosted with sugar. She looked at Bandari when he slid an arm around her, at the shoulder.
“Draw a deep breath,” he mouthed, and she did, and then he pushed the both of them over the edge of the cliff.
For a few seconds they plummeted past the vertical ice-walls, until there was jarring impact and they were sliding downward at an appalling pace. When the slope’s steepness lessened, their momentum pressed the adventurers harshly to the ice. Tiana first felt warmth in her leather-clad bottom, and it was pleasant — until it intensified to a definite burning. There was no way to relieve it. Side by side, seated like children, they rushed downward.
From above, this slope had appeared perfectly smooth. It was not.
As the incline grew less steep, boulders took shape. Several whisked by, well out of their path, before a great rock loomed directly before them. Hanging onto her shoulder, Bandari pulled hard. They swerved, whisked past the massive obstacle by a narrow margin. Immediately another boulder appeared, racing up at them. Bandari leaned hard against her. They appeared to be missing this one by a hair’s breadth. But as they hurtled past, Tiana felt a sharp jolt to the man’s body. His face writhed in pain, though the Cat’s strong will kept him alert and clutching her shoulder. Tiana had no indication as to how badly he was hurt.
Though now they sped over smooth clear ice, ahead loomed a formation of rearing boulders like the teeth of a lurking giant.
The grouping was far too wide to steer around, and so thickly pressed that going through would mean being crushed by those molars of stone. Closer they rushed, and Tiana knew they were death.
To have come through all this, she thought in anguish, to have flown, then fallen leagues — and now to die this way, like children on a toboggan! Must it be so… ignominious?
She strove to pull free, seeing that Bandari was aiming precisely at the largest of the blockading boulders. His arm and hand tightened. Tiana set about relaxing. He’s insane with pain, she thought. And I can’t escape anyhow. We die together then, Bandari — and I’m sorry I didn’t say yes up there.
The largest monster of rock rushed toward them, growing, growing, and she saw that it showed them a face packed with smooth, sloping ice. Even as she realised Bandari’s wild plan, they were there and that natural ramp was unde
r them and they raced upward and shot through clear cold air over the other clustering boulders.
Snow caught them. The impact was nonetheless a teeth-clacking one that wrenched them apart. They rolled, sprawled, somersaulted, crashed together into a huge obstruction that turned out to be a snow-covered evergreen bush. Grasping each other, they shot through it without so much as a scratch, in what had now become leathern armour hardened with enamel.
A snowbank appeared in the distance, grew, loomed. They ploughed into it.
Tiana lay motionless, enveloped in snow. We — we’ve made it!
Now for a nice long nap…
She had to talk and fight herself into moving, force herself to push her head to the surface. She stared downward. It was over! A group of highriders waved wildly, and she could see that they were shouting. As they came running and floundering to her and Bandari, Tiana allowed herself to collapse…
…and awoke under a great blanket of fur, in a candle-lit room. She turned her head.
There was another bed, another covering fur. Beneath it: Bandari. The fur moved; he breathed. He was alive. She was alive. They had the arm. Too, she was aware that her ears were functioning, though there was little to hear. She snorted, grinned. She heard it — though her ears felt afire.
Tiana took inventory of Tiana.
Her backside seemed to have been scorched, while that strange sensation in her hands and feet might well be frostbite. Though no bones seemed broken, every nerve twitched and every muscle ached from prolonged strain and exertion. Surely not one inch of her body but bore bruises. I’ll be as colourful as the streamers I wore! Her mouth burned from the brine. Her stomach was most unhappy.
I will live. I will be fine. I’m not crippled, and I can hear!
She blinked her eyes, and the girl Nadya was bent over her, smiling.
“You overblown pirate — you’re magnificent!”
Tiana grinned. “My thanks, Nadya Highrider!”
“I am naught but honest, Tiana Highrider!”
She savoured that. From Nadya, it was better than being called Captain. Hostility could not survive mutual respect. “And — Bandari?”
Nadya shook her head. “A cut where we sweet darling females should not discuss it — but he’ll be fine, and given to much standing rather than sitting.”
Tiana sighed. “It was glorious, Nadya! Promise me we’ll all go again tomorrow!” And her body, heeding her orders to be fine, put her to sleep.
7 Bird of Prey
Two days after Tiana Highrider’s departure from Stromvil, the solitude of Mount Erstand’s Mesa Longo was again disturbed. Three great Arctic hawks circled the summit briefly on black wings of preternatural spread. They landed, beside the scattered remnants of the cairn. They seemed to study it and the empty metal box for a moment, before drawing together for several seconds, as though mere birds could confer. Then they flapped again aloft.
Two of the outsize birds of prey continued in the high air, riding currents that would take them far to the west.
The third swooped down to glide above the forest, the broad-sweeping ragged edges of its wings nearly brushing the treetops. It flew in broad circles until it crossed the trail by which Tiana had left Stromvil.
Then the great hawk turned and began its pursuit.
Silver and pink and streaky with orpiment, this dawn found Tiana deep in Dark Forest. Windsong’s chestnut coat was nigh black among trees into whose press the sun had not yet fingered. The towering trees of this wood east of Erstand cast great pockets of deep shadow, magenta and indigo and jet. Already she had found the overturned wagon and the four skeletons beside it; a man, a woman, two small children. Dark Forest’s name held new meaning.
The Woodlings would surely never fare so far south and east, into Nevinia. These cruel murders were the work of the bandits who made the wood their own, so that sensible travellers wended wide of it, like ships in need of a canal where none existed. The appearance of the wagon and other shattered remains indicated that these victims had been poor — yet the bandits had slain them all. She had little doubt that they’d attack her if they saw or heard her “interloping” into “their” shadowed hunting ground. She was a mere novice at woodcraft, at least with the advantage, now, of knowing it. The murderous bandits would be more expert, if less so than the forest-bred Woodlings.
Much of woodcraft, she knew, lay in seeing things as they were, not as one expected them to be. And one must take nothing for granted.
Such as the sudden shrilling of birds all about her.
Squinting up through the trees, she saw that it was that enormous bird she’d seen afore. Now she recognised it as an Arctic hawk, far south of its normal demesne. A cold finger traced out her spine. The same bird…
It had passed over her earlier. It had turned, flown westward; ten or so leagues she now judged — and here it came back, as if to reaffirm my position? Birds of prey could be trained for the hunt — but to hunt humans? There was the feel of sorcery about such, and more than nervousness touched her.
I must be thrice wary.
Without sudden movements, she strung the long fine bow Bandari had given her. Bird-vision prevailed; ere she had an arrow nocked, the hawk was flapping away, — westward again, as if it knew precisely where it was going. Briefly her fingers curled into claws. Frowning, squinting up through the trees at the receding bird, she considered. Then she swung down and placed an ear to the ground.
Her hearing had not yet returned to its former keenness, but she’d surely be able to discern hoof-beats. She heard nothing. Well, she’d repeat the action again and again, hopefully to be ready if attack came. And she’d be mindful of the skies, too, and that outsized bird. If it returned yet again…
Tiana rode on along the well-defined trail in Dark Forest’s fragrant coolth — which had suddenly gone very dark and menacing indeed.
8 Incident in Dark Forest
Maltar of Banarizur in Collada fancied himself the lord of Dark Forest, and not without reason: he robbed and slew most who passed through it. The Lord of Dark Forest had no castle, nor even a tent. Yet he slept, under the trees, in the calm security denied a king enthroned. His security lay in the knowledge that the dozen men of his band were the finest cutthroats of five several lands. When danger arose, they warned him — or showed him the corpses in the morning.
Maltar the bandit slept well.
This night his slumber was interrupted by a tiny pain that persisted. He awoke, confused and annoyed, knowing only that something sharp was pressing at his throat. His eyes focused and his heart nearly stopped. A large yellow eye stared into his. On his chest perched an Arctic hawk of unusual size. Shock froze Maltar’s blasphemous tongue.
The pain left his throat; the bird balanced easily on one foot while it held up a long slim needle for Maltar’s inspection. Most of its length was shiny, reflecting the firelight. The point, however, was green.
Realising that the needle was smeared with poison, Maltar drew breath to call out to his men. The needle leaped forward and pressed so hard as almost to pierce his skin. Maltar fought for self-control. Forcing down his panic, he slowly and silently released his breath. The needle remained at his throat, but the pressure eased slightly.
Maltar whispered, “What do ye want?”
The needle moved back a fraction of an inch.
“Well, speak up.”
He felt the needle’s point once more.
“I… must guess.”
The pressure eased. That brightly golden avian eye stared into his.
“I’ll, uh, repent, change my ways…” He broke off at the needle’s advance. “I’ll… give ye all my horde — uh!”
Maltar realised that one more bad guess would surely finish him; the skin just to the left of his Adam’s apple was dented, creasing and stretching around the needle’s point. Xanthic eyes glared with human intelligence and Maltar was one to know that the hawk’s apparent cruel willingness to slay for failure to understand that whi
ch had not been stated, was truly human. A thousand worms seemed to crawl over the bandit’s flesh.
“There is… some service ye — want of me.” The needle was pulled away, just a little.
“Ye want… someone murdered?” Maltar asked hopefully, and the needle retreated, then advanced. “I’m… partially right,” he essayed, hoping for a free one. He received it, in the needle’s retreat.
“Ye want someone… robbed and murdered.” The needle drew back the more.
Maltar smiled. “It is my trade! Ye want something of his?” The slightest of retreat of the needle; an identical return. Maltar tried a different trail, sure he was close, now, safe and merely wanted for that at which he was not only expert but in which he took great joy.
“Ye’ll lead us to him?” The precise retreat and advance again. “Hmm — ye’ll lead us to them — uh! Ahh… her! Ye will lead us to her, whose death ye want and from whom ye want aught?”
The needle was drawn back, well back. Maltar expelled a deep breath. How to query whether she was young, worth a bit of sport as well as killing? Thinking of no way, he pursued a new trail.
“Of the loot, ye’ll take but what ye want and leave the rest to us.” Now the needle had left his throat entirely. “Our share will include… silver, gold?” That hopeful question was answered by the hawk’s putting away the needle so swiftly that Maltar saw not where the deadly sliver was tucked.
“Friend hawk, we be well met. All Nevinia — aye, and Zadok and Bashan, too — well know that Maltar un-Banarizur and his band would slit their own mother’s throats for a gold coin!”
With one silent rustling flip of its wings, the hawk departed his chest; whereupon Maltar sprang up. In the firelight he was a maleficent giant; eyes hard and black and glinting in cold opacity, his beard totally unkempt and equally black, his body tall and thick and dark with its fleecing of jet hair. But little of that great bulk was fat; most was hard muscle. Nearly as long and hairy as a Simdani gorilla’s were his legs and massive arms, and the latter soon clad him in a dull round helmet, mail-shirt over the filthy, discoloured leather leggings and haubergeon in which he slept. He buckled on the thick broad supple belt he’d got off a fine escort captain of Escallas years past. From it dangled a ridiculously effete jewelled dagger, slipped from the girdle of a merchant’s fat wife of Slee years agone, and a heavy Korese sword he’d brought with him from his native Collada a dozen and two years ago.
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