Shyshax shook his head. “No.”
“Yes.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does. They’ll kill you for it.”
“Laylan won’t let them. I don’t want any part of Filinia. I don’t want to sit on your precious council. Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I know the Mergers were innocent.”
Shyshax stared at her. Then he spat, “You knew that—? And said nothing? You watched while—?” He looked for a moment into her beautifully lined eyes and thought he might pick her up and snap her back with one shake.
Cleo took a step away from him. “Yes, I knew. Liliana did it. She hoped to upset the succession and give the lions an opportunity to step into the gap.”
Cleo watched Shyshax. He was trembling with rage, with the bitter pain that he so rarely thought about—a lifetime of loneliness and isolation. “Are you going to kill me before I finish?” she asked.
“Tell me you were blackmailed—” he said between clenched teeth.
“I wasn’t.”
“Then why?”
“Because I thought Liliana might be better for Filinia than Demitri. I thought she might end the wars with the shelts, might not—” Cleo’s eyes dropped. “When the plan went wrong, I stood by while the cheetahs took the punishment for it, hoping there would be another chance.” Her eyes rose. “But I was wrong. Lexis was not like his father. Demitri left him a high and dangerous path to walk, but Lexis walked it with grace and skill, and he walked to peace.”
“Lexis is dead?” cut in Shyshax. “This...this individual you sold my whole family for?”
“To kill him, I sold them,” corrected Cleo. “Lexis is hard to kill, but I have little hope for him now. There were centaurs in the party that attacked us. Only three, but centaurs in battle dress are more than a match for one tiger. I didn’t follow the centaurs. I followed Liliana here. She came with a force of swamp fauns. When I picked up your scent, I knew she would try to kill you. She was already murmuring about you in Danda-lay. The cheetahs share a home-range with the lions—one more rival she won’t risk.”
“Hush,” interrupted Shyshax. His ears were twitching.
They were standing in a passage lined with yawning doorways. Shyshax moved to the nearest door, looked once more up and down the hall, and entered. Cleo followed. They were in a long, dark room with no other exit. Shyshax changed his mind immediately and turned to go back into the hall, but a crushing weight landed on his back and blotted out the light. As he fought, he heard Cleo yowl and felt a sharp pain in his back. Shyshax stopped struggling, pinned beneath the bulk of a male lion. The lion shifted, and he was able to see again.
Cleo lay on her side under the paws of a black leopard. Blood was spreading on the floor around her, but she continued to pedal her back paws and bite at his legs. Shyshax caught sight of Liliana, sneering down at Cleo. “Stupid little mouse-catcher. What are you doing here?”
“I made a mistake five years ago,” panted Cleo, “I came to correct it.”
“How tragic,” murmured Liliana. “You came too late.” She turned to face a swamp faun in the doorway. “This is the bounty hunter’s mount and one of Lexis’s stray officers. I will deal with them.”
The faun nodded. “I will tell his lordship.” He hesitated. “Don’t tear them. Daren wants the pelts.” He disappeared down the passage.
Liliana nodded at the black leopard. “Kill her.” The larger animal gripped Cleo by the scruff, rose, and shook her. He ended with a twist that sent her high in the air.
Cleo came down heavily, and Shyshax thought she was dead. However, a second later she stirred and tried to rise. The leopard crouched, tail twitching. Shyshax had played the game hundreds of times with squirrels. It had only one ending. At that moment he sensed the lion’s weight shift, his attention focusing on the entertainment.
Shyshax exploded from under his capturer, reached Cleo in one bound, and lifted her in his mouth. Unable to get through the door, he fled to the far end of the room.
“Bravo,” purred Liliana. “The fleet one will give us some sport. Your face-spots are familiar. I think I may have played this game with your mother.”
Shyshax retreated, looking for an opening, until he felt the grill of the huge fireplace beneath his back paws.
“Put her down,” murmured Liliana. “Put her down, little dog-cat. We both know your claws aren’t sharp. What fun will you be if you don’t even use your teeth?”
Then several things happened at once. First Cleo came to life in Shyshax’s jaws and tried to fling herself at Liliana. The lioness sprang, and Shyshax leapt back further, pulling Cleo with him. In doing so, he touched something with his paw—something that gave. A grinding noise ripped through the old building, and the floor surged. Shyshax lost his balance, dropped Cleo, and fell headfirst into the ancient soot. Then everything quieted. Shyshax raised his head and opened his eyes. To his astonishment the room was empty.
Chapter 10. Ambush
Who are you that stand tiny, weak as the white cliff flower?
We are fawns of the fauns. We are descendants of power.
Who are you to look proudly? What right so boldly to claim?
We are descendants of kings. We stand upon names upon names.
What can you know of battle? What glorious charge have you led?
We are the lips that are silent. We are the arms that are dead.
And what has become of your captors?
Ahh, they have fled, they have fled!
—ancient chant sung by cliff faun children across the roof tops of Danda-lay
Corry was dreaming again. In the dream, he had returned to Danda-lay at Lupricasia. The city was subtly different—smaller perhaps, or cleaner. He was standing in the plaza with a great crowd of shelts and animals before the huge statue of golden wings. He caught sight of pegasus in the crowd—unmaimed, with wings of royal purple and scarlet, and they had shelt riders, with feathery legs and tails. He saw a unicorn, its slender horn a translucent gold, like the gem in the handle of Fenrah’s dagger. He saw bears with their shelts, and little rat shelts, no taller than children, with dainty hands and little clawed feet. He saw cat shelts—little ones with slitted eyes, standing with bobcats and lynx and ocelots, taller ones with round eyes, standing with lions and tigers and leopards. Altogether, they made a splendid sea of color. Their beauty had a knife-like quality. It hurt him; he could feel tears in his eyes.
They were watching the golden Monument. Corry felt that he ought to know what was about to happen, but he couldn’t remember. Then something reared behind the Monument—milk-white, reflecting prism rainbows where the light touched it. The thing was a dragon.
* * * *
For several moments, neither Shyshax nor Cleo moved. Finally the ocelot groaned and raised her head. “What happened?”
“I don’t know.” They were lying in the fireplace in a room very like the one they had just left, yet the smell was different. Shyshax scrambled to his feet. “The fireplace moves!” No sooner had he said it, than the cats felt the floor rush upward and watched as the chamber vanished from the top down. The fireplace stopped in another crumbling room. Shyshax could see through a large window that they were several stories up.
“Like a water wheel,” murmured Cleo. “Lots of fireplaces that rotate in a circle like buckets. Why did it shift again?”
“Liliana must have found the trigger. Come on; the higher we go, the fewer choices we’ll have about where to run.” He ran to the windowsill, then glanced back at the fireplace.
“You go,” Cleo said. “They’ll be more confused if we split up. She was still lying where Shyshax had dropped her. They looked at each other. Fool, he told himself, fool to bother about her. She’s as bad as the others. Besides, no healer can save her if that lion broke her back.
He came anyway, and just as he reached her the fireplace began to move. Shyshax lifted her like a kitten, but he noticed that she did not curl her back end
reflexively like a kitten. Cleo’s hind legs smacked dully against the stone as he landed on the windowsill. Then, as the fireplace disappeared completely, he sprang for the neighboring roof.
It was not a long jump, but the sun was in his eyes, and Cleo was an awkward deadweight in his mouth. Shyshax barely caught the crumbling lip of stone, but as he scrambled up, he congratulated himself. Then, without even a shudder of warning the entire roof collapsed.
* * * *
When Daren left his prisoners, he traveled back through the maze of tunnels to the surface. He was giving orders about the encampment of the army, when several cats broke through the fauns. “We have an emergency,” growled Liliana.
Daren finished what he was saying, then turned to her slowly. “Where are my pelts?”
“The cheetah escaped,” snapped Liliana. “He was warned by one of Lexis’s officers, who seems to have slipped through your hands—an ocelot named Cleo. You told me the other cats with Lexis were killed!”
Daren’s eyebrows rose.
“The cheetah fled through a mechanical device of the wizards,” continued Liliana, “a fireplace that moved between rooms. We tried to follow him, but he leapt through an upper window onto a neighboring roof, which fell.”
Daren frowned. “Does he still live?”
“I don’t know. He may have died in the collapse of the roof, but listen: this is more important!”
“You do not have my pelts?”
“Hang your pelts!” Liliana pushed past him and began to pace. “When we reached the ground and tried to follow them into the building, we crossed fresh tracks. I know the print and the smell. It was Ounce!”
She made a low hiss. “You promised me, Daren. You told me Ounce was dead! Do you know what this means? It means no one is safe. I’m not sure the four of us could kill him.”
“Did you even look for the cheetah’s body?” asked Daren coldly.
“The cheetah? With Ounce on the prowl? I thought it more important to inform you. Send thirty fauns after him at once. You’ll regret it if you don’t. Go now while the trail is fresh.”
She continued to pace and talk, but Daren turned away. Calmly he took a bow from the hands of a nearby soldier. He fitted an arrow to the string and drew back the shaft as far as it would go. His movements were so casual and the other fauns so unexcited that the cats hardly realized what was happening until it was too late.
The shaft buried itself up to the feathers in the side of Liliana’s chest. She staggered and hit the earth. The lioness convulsed briefly, blood welling from her nose and mouth.
The male lion leapt to his feet with a roar, but instantly, a dozen swords hovered at his head, and slowly he sat back down. “Skin her,” said Daren to the soldier whose bow he had borrowed. “If I can’t have a cheetah pelt, a lion’s will have to do. You, leopard, come here.”
One of the black leopards stepped forward with only the hint of a tremor in his paws.
“What is your name?”
“Nolfee.”
“Very well, Nolfee. I want you to find and bring back that cheetah. I promised his pelt to Laylan. I trust you will not make a liar of me.”
The leopard bowed his head.
Daren smiled. “You will bring back the snow leopard as well. If you don’t, I may get a craving for black furs. Remember: I will soon control the bounty laws in this wood. Desert me, and I will make you a fugitive from every hunter this side of the Snow Mountains. Serve me well, and no creature will dare to raise a hand or a paw against you. Now go.”
* * * *
When Daren gave orders to Melcross to put a hunting party on Hualien’s trail, the swamp faun took ten archers and started after his quarry. They brought a dog and tracked Hualien without difficulty over piles of debris, down the long, winding castle corridors, through a tunnel beneath the triple castle wall, and at last into the streets of the city. The trail stopped at the entrance to a tower. The wolfling had gone inside, but Melcross doubted he had had time to come out. He left two archers and the dog hiding near the doorway and went in.
As he started up the steps, he heard the thin note of a horn. Up and up they went, round and round the inner tower, and all the time the horn sounded above their heads. At last they came to an iron door. Melcross pushed, and the ancient hinges cried a warning.
The sound of the horn stopped as the soldiers burst into the tower chamber. Bits of furniture leaned drunkenly around the room, and piles of rusty sword hilts, broken arrowheads, and old bones had been stacked along the walls. In front of the single window the fauns saw their quarry, hunched against the faint glow of the departed sun. The figure stood rigid, looking at them over his shoulder and clutching an instrument of heat-crafted horn.
Melcross ran forward. Hualien made a dive, not away from the fauns, but toward them. Bending low, he caught the handle of a trap door in the center of the floor and descended, but not before Melcross’s hand closed around his tail.
A jerk. A frantic scuffling.
Then the astonished faun stood with the tail in his hand. Clever, desperate little beast!
He wondered even as he flung the tail aside why there was no spray of blood, but he hadn’t time to examine it. Down he went with the archers on his heels. While the previous stairs had led around the outside wall of the tower, these led down the center in a tight corkscrew. The passage was completely black, the descent far steeper than the previous staircase. The air was fetid and stank of rodent droppings, yet Melcross was encouraged by the sound of the wolfling’s footfalls just below him. At last the tunnel widened a little, but something was bothering Melcross. He was almost certain they had reached the bottom of the tower and were still descending. If the wolfling leaves by another exit, he will escape the dog and the archers in hiding. There are probably other wolflings in these ruins. Could he be leading us into an ambush of his own?
In the path ahead he saw a patch of light: a grating. Melcross began to relax. They were only just beneath the street. A wall of stone loomed in front of them and against it crouched the wolfling. Evidently he could not loosen the iron bars of the grate and had trapped himself.
Melcross advanced with his sword up. His soldiers fanned out to either side. They had re-slung their bows and brought out the long knives that swamp faun archers carried for close combat. As Melcross came nearer, he saw what looked like a thin tail on the wolfling. But that’s impossible. He left his tail in my hand; he cut it off.
The wolfling hissed and kicked off his boots, crouching against the wall, legs spread, hands up, ready to fight. His nails looked unusually long in the shadows, and his paws... Melcross blinked hard. In the dim light, Hualien’s feet looked skeletal, and there was something rippling and crawling around them. The hair along Melcross’s neck rose, and a visceral sense of disgust made him suddenly queasy. One of the soldiers gasped and then cursed. “They’re rats!”
Rats! Of course. Melcross’s brain was scrambling for something that made sense. The things on the floor are rats, and his feet are just, just—
Several of his archers yelled at once. Melcross felt hot pain in his leg. He shook the rat loose, but his hoof came down on moving bodies. They were like ants; they were everywhere. His fauns broke suddenly in every direction. They slashed with their knives, trying to clear a path to the stairs. Melcross swung his sword, flinging rats off his legs with his free hand. One escaped his fumbling grip. When it reached his throat, he lost control, fell, and began to scream.
Chapter 11. Ounce
Cats love only their mates and their masters.
—Demitri of Alainya
Water. Shyshax smelled earth and trees. And water. He opened his eyes, but could see very little. The gurgle of a stream sent him nearly wild, but he held still. His body ached, promising something worse if he tried to move. Without raising his head, Shyshax began to make out the outlines of branches against starlight. Thirst clawed at him, and at last he rallied himself to stand. It hurt even worse than he had anticipated, every
breath drawing fire through his chest. He thought his tail might be broken. He could not lift it properly.
Shyshax crawled from the underbrush and looked around. He tried to remember how he had come into the forest. He looked back and noticed that branches had been pressed down and draped about his resting place. Someone hid me.
Groggily, he remembered Cleo and Liliana, the leopards. Did I walk here? Did Cleo drag me? A scent in the air made him uneasy, but he was too disoriented to place it. All that mattered was the stream, just within sight through the trees. Limping, Shyshax made his way to the water. He thought it was the sweetest thing he had ever tasted. He was considering wading in and lying down in the shallow flow, when he heard a soft noise—something between a trill and a growl. At the same instant, he smelled blood.
Shyshax raised his head quickly enough to send a dart of pain through his bruised shoulders. A few paces upstream on the opposite side stood a cat. He looked huge in the starlight, three times Shyshax’s size, and he had a shelt’s body in his mouth. The head dangled by a flap of skin, dribbling blood into the water. Shyshax thought he might be sick. The next second, he saw the hooves and knew the shelt was not Laylan.
The cat dropped its kill when he saw Shyshax. The body landed with a plop, sprawling in the stream. One leg was gone. Shyshax thought the fur might be black, but it was hard to tell.
I’m done, thought Shyshax. He knew he could not run any more. He felt oddly calm, satisfied that he’d done everything he could, both for Laylan and himself. Then he saw the cat, really looked at him for the first time, and his fear rose again. Ounce. Shyshax remembered the times they’d exchanged insults and wondered what Ounce was going to do to him. You’ll not grovel, he commanded himself. Die on your feet!
But his legs seemed to fold of their own accord as the snow leopard came towards him until his belly was flat against the ground. Shyshax’s ears pressed tight against his head, his eyes rolling up until the whites showed. His broken tail tried to tuck beneath him, but only sent a stab of pain through his rump to his flanks.
The Prophet of Panamindorah - Complete Trilogy Page 23
