by Dan Allen
Terith grabbed Kyet. “Get your dragon and get clear of the megalith.”
“Where do I go?”
“Fly to Erdal if you like. Just get out of here!”
Kyet nodded and raced ahead down the path.
Terith followed, leading a winded Mya by her arm as she struggled to keep up with his bounding paces.
Farther down the megalith, stone-lined paths filled with curious children climbing down from their tree forts and workers leaving forges.
“Sound the alarm again,” Terith urged. He stopped for a moment to let Mya catch her breath.
Mya closed her eyes and the air around her crackled with a burst of pure, awakened energy.
Terith clamped his hands over his ears and squeezed.
Mya’s opened mouth gave a second deafening shriek.
That was when the villagers jumped into action. Villagers coursed onto the bridges, laden with backpacks of emergency supplies, some carrying toddlers in their arms. Dragons lifted out of the keep one by one as the keepers released their locks.
A second burst of steam shot into the air, this one soaring hundreds of feet overhead. Rocks crumbled from the sides of the megalith as a great hissing issued from the center near the taproot.
“Get on my back,” Terith shouted.
Mya leaped onto his back and clung to his neck as he raced down the steep path, stopping only long enough to pry Tanna out of her workshop. “Run!” he cried, echoing the shouts of the villagers, but the bridges were already clogged with fleeing people.
“Werm!” Terith bellowed, turning toward the tinker’s assembly yard. “Werm, I need another bridge!”
“I’m on it!” the overweight thirty-something hollered from nearby.
“Good man,” Terith breathed, racing up a side path shaded by wide-leafed fruit trees to the complex stone-lobbing mechanism where Werm was already in action.
“Stand clear,” Werm warned. The heavyset and prematurely bald scholar grabbed his skull with both hands, as if to keep his brains in place. Behind him, an intricately lashed trebuchet assembly groaned against the force of its raised counterweight stone. Werm stroked his handlebar mustache for luck and called, “Launch.”
The release of the counterbalance heaved a massive anchor stone trailing guide ropes in a slow motion arc that ended with a crash in the trees on the other side of the canyon, a narrow span of only forty yards.
“Dead on,” Werm bragged to one of Terith’s foot soldiers. “I told you.”
“Get the ropes taut,” Terith shouted, as men joined up to haul in the lines. In seconds, pulleys were racing out along the new ropes towing a temporary bridge.
It filled almost immediately.
“Terith,” Werm called from the engineer’s seat of the wheeled catapult, “what about the southwest porch?”
“Seventh hell and a half,” Terith swore in frustration.
Mya released her death grip on his shoulders to cover her own ears.
“I forgot about that,” Terith said. “I don’t know if anybody is down there today. But get some archers to the south corner just in case.”
“What if it blows?”
“Just go!”
Terith turned back, heading for the keep. He lifted a whistle from under his tunic and blew twice.
No answer.
He redoubled his pace.
“Shall I make the call?” Mya volunteered.
Terith stopped, his lungs searing from the breakneck run. “Can you?”
Mya repeated the sound of the whistle exactly, but many times louder. Her cry was answered by a distant, “Reee-aaat!”
Terith smiled. “It looks like we’re going to make it off this rock after all.”
“How?”
“Have you ever ridden a dragon before?”
Mya eyes widened in terror.
Akara shot over the smaller clearing, pinwheeled like a kite on a string, and landed next to Terith. Proportioned for agility on air or land, Akara was the largest fruit dragon in the region, with a twenty-
foot wingspan, weighing a solid seven hundred pounds. She was a flagrant yellow with veins of red and green streaking her sides. The scintillating gold scales of an emergent queen flecked her short snouted head and neck.
Head held high and wingtip claws picking anxiously at the ground, Akara knew it was time to go.
“I’m not getting on that—”
Before Mya could protest further, Terith pulled a spare tether from a sidesaddle, whipped it around Mya who was still on his back, and tied it in front. “Just in case.”
“No!” she panicked, now tied to Terith’s back.
Terith climbed onto Akara and felt the jolt of her powerful legs as she leapt thirty feet straight up, before catching the wind with her forearm wings. Head and paddle tail bobbing in counter rhythm, she beat her winged forearms down hard to keep the extra weight airborne.
“I’m going to die!” Mya cried. “No, don’t go higher!”
Terith guided Akara in a wide loop around the megalith, inspecting for anyone left behind. From the air, he watched the three bridges drain. The megalith was nearly clear.
Terith urged Akara forward with cued whistles as the sounds of rocks cracking under pressure ripped the air, like Outlander cannon shots.
Akara spotted it first and picked up her stroke rhythm.
Ahead, on the southwest corner, Werm was in trouble. His generous mass was swayed on a second makeshift ropeway that the archers had set up on the south side. He and two of the bridge makers pulled their way along the loose, two-rope support. Just ahead of them on the ropes were a woman and two children.
“Move,” Terith urged, squeezing the words out through Mya’s persistent bear hug.
The hissing from the taproot stopped abruptly.
“It stopped,” Mya noted. “Is that good?”
“No!” Terith said in a panic. “Not now.”
“What’s happening?”
Terith cursed again, but this time Mya didn’t try to cover her ears. Her hands weren’t going to let go of Terith for anything.
“The root must have swelled in the heat and sealed the crack,” Terith said. “Now there’s no way to relieve the pressure, until the whole thing blows up.”
“The entire megalith?! But Terith, that’s our village.”
The muffled cries of the people still on the ropes intensified. The children were off first, reaching the safety of the far cliff, then the mother. Only Werm and the archers were remained on the ropes, hands on one rope, feet on the other. The swirling air from the steam venting had set both wires swinging so wildly that it was all they could do to hang on.
Terith snapped the reins to one side and bent low as Akara spiraled over into a breakneck dive, straight downward
Mya screamed into Terith’s ear. “What are you doing?”
“They aren’t going to make it. I have to cut the ropes.”
The swinging ropes rushed into view. Akara pulled up as Terith shifted his weight. In moments, the ropes would pass directly beneath him.
“Terith,” Mya said anxiously, “You can’t cut a rope that thick by just swinging a knife at it. It’s like trying to chop a small tree in half with a kitchen knife.”
“That’s why I’m going to cut it in the middle of a dive.” Terith yanked his signature saber-like, long knives from the sheaths on his calves and locked his heel hooks into the riding harness.
“Are you crazy?” Mya shouted into his ear. “If you crash into one of those ropes we’ll end up in the deep—I’ve never even heard of anyone trying this sort of crazy stunt. I don’t think you’ve thought this thr—” The rest of her rebuke choked off in a scream of terror.
Terith opened himself fully to the awakening.
The world slowed as the falling dragon plummeted through th
e sky toward the ropes. His dragon dove for the narrow gap between the two ropes. Akara threaded the harrowing obstacle in the blink of an eye while Terith sliced at the upper cord twice, one knife diving into the cut made by the other knife a half a heartbeat before.
As Akara pulled out of the dive, Terith looked back. The upper rope strained and then snapped, sending Werm and the archers plummeting toward the opposite cliff face, dangling from the line for their lives like fish on a stringer.
The air around Terith seemed to fill with light. Akara’s wings, soaked with the new strength, stroked twice as quickly, slowing their descent. Overhead, clinging to the rope like monkeys on a vine, Werm and the archers crashed into the foliage of the opposite cliff wall, disappearing under the cushion of the massive ivy leaves.
A moment later, the megalith detonated behind Terith in an inferno of steam and rock. The sound of the blast drowned out everything. The ropes, the cliff, and the sky disappeared in a cloud of dust. Akara was tossed into a spin by the force of the shock wave, darkness filled the air as steam and debris soared a thousand feet into the air, eclipsing the sun. Terith was helpless as the stunned dragon went limp and spiraled into a flat spin.
Seeing streaks of green shapes in the rain of rocks, Terith loosened his heel hooks and leapt for his life with Mya still tied to his back.
His hands ripped through ivy stems that rushed at him until his leg caught on a branch that held, flipping them both upside down.
Mya was unconscious as Terith struggled to right himself in the tangle of ivy that was rapidly turning gray as the dust of the explosion settled. The awakening waned. Pain returned and his unnatural strength finally ran out.
He was halfway or more into the deep, with no way up but climbing. Worse, he had no riding leathers to protect him from the buzzing scorpions.
Worst of all, his dragon was gone. It was as if he was suddenly missing half of his own body—exposed, undone, destroyed.
Terith’s inner drive to survive screamed at him through horror and the shock, until one thought pushed out all others.
Move.
In the dim light filtering through the cloud of steam and falling rocks, Terith spied what he hoped was the cliff top.
It was a long way up.
Weighted down by Mya’s still unconscious body and exhausted, he set his slim hopes on the longest climb of his life as his world rained down around him.
In the dark mist below, the deep opened its throat and waited.
Dizziness set in as Terith gripped the slippery vine and drew himself upward. The ivy was a hanging plant, so the vees where the stems branched all pointed downwards, giving no footholds. Forcing himself into motion, he drew his knife and notched the ivy cord twice for toeholds. He continued, notching the stem, stepping, and notching and stepping again. His hands and boots were quickly drenched in sticky sap. Sunlight made its way slowly into the swirling haze of darkness. As it did, the wildlife emerged. Here and there, the buzzing of scorpions grinding their legs and the anxious tapping of their stings against their carapaces sent chills into Terith’s spine.
The painful memory of previous stings made his hands sweat worse.
Coming to the top of another bed-sized leaf, he spied one of the large cliff-dwelling scorpions.
Mya stirred.
“Quiet, Mya,” Terith whispered.
She moaned. The scorpion angled toward the sound and leapt. Terith moved his arm to intercept the scorpion before it reached Mya. It struck him in the upper arm near his shoulder and drove its stinger deep. Terith swung his body against the cliff, smashing the scorpion against the rock and then flung the twisted exoskeleton of fist-sized beast into the deep.
The venom felt like a fire burning inside his arm.
Terith let out a sharp gasp of pain.
The poison spread quickly causing his muscles to tighten like a catapult winch. His arm bent and twisted abnormally as his breathing became quick and shallow. Leaning his head over the leaf, he struggled to keep from succumbing to shock.
Mya’s cries of fright roused him. Realizing he could still use his fingers on his stiffened arm, Terith proceeded to climb once again, leaning awkwardly to place his hand on the ivy and then loosening his grip as he stepped upwards to allow the hand to slide.
His elbow was frozen, and then his forearm began to cramp. After the next step up, the buzzing sounded again, then another scorpion joined, and a third.
“Mya?” Terith whispered. “I can do no more to save us.”
Mya screeched once with the voice of the pecking falcon and the looming scorpions scampered back into cracks in the rock.
A feeling of hope spread into Terith’s heart.
Then an ivy rope tumbled past them.
“Hey there, lazy. What took you so long?” called a voice from high overhead.
Only one person was that obnoxious.
“Tanna?”
“Grab hold of the rope. I’ve got your archers up here and your fat chemist. We’ll pull you up.”
“Who’s fat?” bellowed a familiar voice.
“Werm!” Terith shouted, as the chorus of buzzing sounded again.
“Move it, dragon boy,” Tanna called.
Scorpions gathered in clusters, emerging from their hives, sensing movement on the vines.
Terith leapt off the cliff face and caught the rope with his legs and good hand. Mya got her hands around the rope, allowing Terith to twist the rope around the heel hooks in his riding boots. The rope lurched upwards as a skull-sized scorpion leapt past them into the deep. The horde of buzzing scorpions raced upward along the cliff face, trying to keep pace, but the archers had tremendous strength because the rope accelerated, moving upward as if being pulled by a—
A boulder flashed past them, moving the other direction, tied to the other end of the rope.
“Whoa!” Terith shouted, as the vine hauled them upwards at a rapidly increasing speed.
Werm had evidently come up with a clever way to get them up quickly by tying the rope to a stone and looping it over an ivy stump, but Terith immediately doubted whether Werm had thought about how to stop the rope once he got it going.
Terith, with Mya tied to his back, soared headlong upward toward the woody stump of ivy root jutting out from the edge of the cliff top. Terith had to slow down or he and Mya would be smashed to bloody pulps by the collision.
Hoping his momentum would carry them the rest of the way, Terith let go of the rope with his hands, but the ivy rope was still tangled in his heel hooks and spun him upside down before he got free.
Terith slammed feet first into the bottom of the stump. “Ow!”
Mya on his back, Terith hung like a bat from the bottom of the stump that stretched out over the canyon.
He wasn’t falling. That was the interesting part.
The end of the rope lashed out over the stump and then snapped downward, disappearing into the mist.
“Heel hooks,” Tanna mused proudly. “Who thought to put those on your boots? Hmmm?”
“Yeah. Thanks, Tanna. I owe you.”
Werm leaned down, cut the tether and lifted Mya to safety.
The moment her feet were on the ground, she pointed to Terith. “He swore.”
Tanna looked at Terith with her sternest expression and shook her head.
“No I didn’t,” Terith lied as his face reddened from being upside down.
“Yes, you did,” Mya tattled. “You said ‘seventh hell and a half.’ My mother says if you speak of the dungeons then the devils there will bother you—and besides there’s no such thing as a ‘seventh-and-a-half dungeon.’”
Terith twisted, trying to find a way to get his heel hooks free of the stump and not fall back into the deep with one lame arm.
Werm reached out a hand and pulled Terith up by the back of his shirt.
Back on firm ground, Terith brushed himself off with his good arm. “Well, since it doesn’t exist, the demons there can’t bother me,” Terith said defensively.
Mya, on the verge of tears, pointed at the ruined megalith that had been their village and cried, “What do you think that was?”
“It wasn’t my fault,” Terith said. Then the bitterness of Akara’s fall struck him. She was gone.
Terith—feeling dizzy, nauseous, and shaking from the scorpion venom—put one knee down on the megalith. “It wasn’t my fault,” he said, his voice weighed down with grief.
“Is he doing penance?” Werm wondered aloud. “I’ve never seen him do that before.”
“I suppose,” Tanna admitted reluctantly. “Dungeons, what’s wrong with his arm?”
Hours later, Tanna leaned Terith’s sleeping, fever-ridden body against the bowing two-foot-wide stem of a thick succulent plant.
Werm moved into view from behind a twisting yaz tree trunk, watching the unconscious rider.
“Did you drug his flask?” Werm asked.
“Azastra blossom,” she confessed. “He wouldn’t have slept otherwise.”
Werm’s shoulders drooped, even more than usual. “He’s lost everything. He won’t stand a chance against Pert.” He ran his hand over his balding forehead and then rested his fist on a roll of fat over his suspendered trousers. “Wish I could do something.”
Tanna clutched her arms around her waist as if she were cold. She looked up at the cloud-covered sky as a light rain began to fall. The drops mingled with two large tears that welled in the corners of her eyes. “He hasn’t lost everything,” she said. “He still has us.”
“Tanna, the race is only two days away,” Werm argued in logical fashion. “It takes the better part of a day to get to Ferrin-tat. Meanwhile our villagers are still relocating to our place of resort. It’s an organizational nightmare.”
“It’s no different than a drill for an Outlander raid,” Tanna said dismissively. “We can’t give up on Terith just because—”
“Our homes, tools, workshops, and everything we own got blown into the Outlands,” Werm said bitterly.
