The Journey to Karrith

by Ted Neill

  Storn.

  Their guide, or whatever he was, squared off with his own brethren before they both charged, tangling and growling like wild dogs in a fight for dominance. The elk made a second foray into the ranks lined up around the table. Some resisted. Others fled. A path opened to the girl and Haille dashed into it, leaping on the table and taking aim at the blue-black leader standing astride her. At the last moment, he sensed Haille’s swing and jumped away, quick as a frog, dropping his sword to clatter on the table behind him. Haille lost his footing and fell down on the frame holding the girl. Their forehead’s collided.

  “Quick! My hands!” she yelled.

  Haille scrambled for his sword, feeling clumsy and foolish. When he got to his feet, a green beast was taking a swipe at him with spread claws—a cat in an alley, grown to prodigious proportions. Haille stabbed at the thing, but missed again. The girl screamed.

  “My hands!”

  Her right hand bent upwards like some bound bird. Haille cut the bindings. She reached over and before he could even step over her to cut her other hand loose, she was sitting upright, both hands free. Another beast jumped up to the table and this one Haille caught solidly in the chest with his sword. He heard the girl’s voice again, a tone of command: “Unfoist.” Was she talking to him? He looked over his shoulder to see her bent over her foot, which was now free, vine bindings falling from it like untied bootlaces as she stood. The creature Haille had impaled writhed as he stepped on it and pulled the sword out with a sickening slurp. Two more came charging at him. He swung. One he cut deeply across the neck but the other he barely caught with the point of his sword. The impact knocked Haille to his knees. Now three more came running up the table, their claws digging in, throwing up bits of rotten wood. He could hear Storn struggling with other attackers behind him, Val, Cody, and Katlyn were too far to help. This was the end. He had overreached.

  Then the girl jumped back between them, armed with the sword the blue-black leader had discarded. She swung and caught one attacker square on the head, another with a slice across the neck, and the third she kicked in the face. She turned to Haille. He was staring, without words. She had to yell at him to turn around where he caught another approaching beast on the end of Elk Heart. He turned and, now with more confidence, caught the next attack. The three of them, Haille, the girl, and Storn, formed a triangle on the table, their backs to each other. Katlyn, Cody, and Val formed another on the floor, while the elk crashed through the monsters’ numbers, his antlers bloodier than any of their swords, the jays circling above and diving like darts for the eyes of the creatures.

  Claws reached for Haille’s sword, but he hacked at them, his blade making a singing noise as the black nails went flying loose. Soon, more of the hideous things began dropping in from branches above. The clearing was filled with more monsters than there had been in the original horde. Haille guessed that the ones they had seen sleeping had now awakened and joined the fray. He was looking for a way to flee but it was a solid sea of leather skin around them.

  Confusion and surprise, Haille realized, was the only reason he and the others had not been torn to shreds . . . yet. The beasts had rushed at them haphazardly, with no reason or logic in their attack, but more like animals moved only by the instinct to defend and kill. But that had changed: a line of grays reformed ranks on the periphery of the chamber and then moved to attack. A thud on the table behind Haille caused him to turn. To his horror, one of the grays had landed just behind him and was already swinging a pole ax at his head. No time to parry, Haille could only duck. Then the creature fell with a gasp. The girl had smote him. Haille went to rise but he suddenly felt a great compression on his shoulder. The girl was standing on him. Then her weight was gone. Haille looked up only to see another gray thing descending upon him, his wings beating furiously, his eyes fixed upon Haille’s neck.

  But then the shape of the girl flew in front of him. Her arms jerked the sword across the beast and his narrow eyes widened. There was a sudden rain of hot, black blood. Drops obscured Haille’s vision and he cried out. The stuff burned like acid. He knew others would see this as an opportunity to attack so he forced his eyes open and spun around. A charging creature impaled itself on the end of Elk Heart. He fended off two more before he could take a chance to wipe his eyes with his sleeve.

  The girl had landed at the far end of the table. Another gray was descending between them. The glance upwards burned Haille’s eyes anew, but before they involuntarily clenched shut he saw the girl rise into the air with all the grace of a dancer. Haille felt the thud of the dead thing on the table. The girl was beside him suddenly, landing without sound. He felt her touch his shoulder.

  “It’s the blood. I can’t see.”

  He sensed her turn and strike something. He heard the screech of one of the monsters.

  “You will have to,” she said.

  He listened as she spat into her hands then pressed them to his eyes. Her saliva was hot and soothing. He forced his lids open. By now the rhythm of the battle was in him and he turned to catch the expected attack from behind. He spun back to her. She was kicking two beasts off Storn. Haille’s left eye was fogged with tears, casting everything in a halo of light. He thought he would go blind from the burning sensation. His right eye flickered open and shut and still the beasts came running. He forgot all training. He was swinging without thought, without technique, only to survive.

  The tide had shifted, now he and his friends were those without a plan, without order. He felt as if he was running out of air. There was no relief. He killed few beasts. Mostly he mauled them horribly and then they came charging back at him, terrible visages, mangled by his own fear and a blade he could barely control. Gaping maws, red throats, snarling voices, it was like being a piece of meat among rabid dogs. He swung, wholly sure that a creature would get past him on his blind side or simply from straight ahead of him. This was nothing like the stories of battles he had heard of in songs.

  But, inexplicably, a lull came. Haille rubbed his eyes again, some of the rings of gold about the torches disappeared and the fluttering of his right eye slowed. He saw that the clearing was full of dead monsters, or wounded ones clambering on stumps.

  What have we done?

  He thought of Storn. The creature was still there on the table, cut and bleeding, but alive. So was the girl. He performed an inventory of the rest of his friends. Val and Cody were back to back, Katlyn, bent over and winded between them. The elk chased a screaming green imp into the trees.

  But the woods were not still. They could all hear the clatter of arms and the commotion of voices. The things were regrouping. Haille knew he and his friends had to flee now. They had no chance otherwise. The ground, the table, the trees were slippery with blood. He tried to find a spot on his hand that was not covered with the oily stuff so he could wipe his eyes once more. Val came up alongside them.

  “We have to go.”

  The girl, unmoved by his tone of command replied, “Wait.”

  “Are you mad?” Val asked.

  “I’m nearly blind!” Haille said.

  She turned her eyes on him. Her cheek wounds were bright with her own fresh blood weeping down her face and neck. Her hair was matted with the stuff.

  “And you are wounded as well, we cannot last,” Haille added, trying to add a note of pleading to his voice, but he suspected it sounded more like desperation.

  As if she just remembered her wound, her hand went protectively to her cheek. Her whole demeanor changed as she did so: her shoulders slouched a bit, the blade of her sword dipped, and her eyes grew sad and doubtful. She winced as she moved her jaw but Haille could see her pain fuse back into anger. The stature of a warrioress returned and she shook her sword. He knew then there was no dissuading her.

  “Wait,” she said again, an unmistakable command. Haille could not refuse, but he climbed down off the table and gathered with his friends, putting an arm around Katlyn and pulling her close to his chest.<
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  The noises of the horde massed at one end of the clearing. The sound of tramping feet synchronized into a drumbeat of marching. Haille wiped his eyes, his tears narrowing his vision to a tunnel of clarity surrounded by blobs of cloudy light. He had to whip his head all about just to see what was around him. What he could see was that the gaps between trees were dark with moving figures. Some played the part of beasts, crawling along the trunks and swinging up into the boughs. Others played the part of men, mostly the gray ones, filing in, wisdom and ken in their eyes, armed now with bow and arrows. A few shots flew by the girl’s head, but for the most part the creatures restrained themselves. There was order to this attack. More grays began dropping in from above. These were fresh to the fight. Wings beat and clapped. Haille kept looking over his shoulder. A spot of clear woods he had previously eyed as their avenue of escape was growing smaller. Still, the girl was standing, her sword at the ready and her legs spread wide as if the table she stood upon was a ship rocking at sea.

  A change swept over the beasts. They scraped at the ground with their claws and snorted through their porcine noses. Their mouths worked open and close, their mess of teeth overlapping and interlocking at odd angles. Did the girl not realize that they were organizing a new attack? How could they afford to remain here? He looked at Val, who was sheathing his sword. “If the fool doesn’t move I’ll carry her out—”

  Then the trees darkened, branches snapped apart, and a gargantuan nightmare came tearing into the clearing. It flailed arms wrapped in spiked iron bangles, ran on legs covered in a coat of bristling black hair, and swung a head crowned by two massive yellow horns. This thing charging, this dervish of snarling, hissing, and extended claws, was like the other creatures, but ever so much larger. Its teeth were gold, its eyes black, its skin a bright heart-of-the-furnace red. Its wings were huge and flailing like black sails. In place of one eye a gray scar ran down its face and into its maw of golden teeth, and it veered its head in wide arcs from left to right to take in the entire scene with its good eye. Haille felt the breeze from its wings and could smell the creature’s stench, something akin to a dead cow rotting in a tar pit. It had all the mass and exaggerated size of a statue cut from stone and its red skin looked just as impervious. But unlike a statue, this perversion of reality, this horror come to life could move, and with the alacrity of a raging bear it trampled over the other beasts in its path and made straight for the girl.

  The other creatures’ voices rose up in a ravenous chorus, even the larger grays looked like little imps in comparison to the monstrosity. But the others held their ground, they were but spectators to this attack. The red thing clutched a whip, the end of which shone with metal studs. As Haille followed the path of the whip he saw its ends pass over the head of the blue-black creature, the leader with the braided golden crown, newly armed with a gold scimitar.

  The red beast bent forward, one arm smashing the end of the table, the other swinging the whip at the girl. Like a dancer, she snapped her body in a backflip, heels-over-head, landing out of reach of the whip, leaving its studs to rake the empty air. Her feet settled on the uneven table and found an animal skull which she kicked into the face of the beast. It growled and readied its whip once more.

  Haille realized that all that had come before in the forest, the noises, the vines, the mysterious whispering shadows, all had only been prelude to this. These monsters were the true curse of Sidon. Better they had been left undisturbed. He was no stronger than those that had built Cadrae within Night’s Reach. Like them, he had tempted the fates of the forests, stirred its mysteries, challenged these monsters, and now he and his friends would be punished.

  Then there was the girl standing athwart the table that had been intended as the place of her dismemberment. And as improbable as it was, she was staring down the beast which closed the distance between them in two easy steps, its whip shooting out again, its mouth gaping in a wet, golden grin, its nails hanging like curved swords. The girl did not back away nor did she jump. This time she ducked as if this was all a dance and she knew the steps beforehand. The beast coiled the whip back, gathering it in the air over its shoulder for another strike.

  To Haille’s surprise the girl closed in on the creature. The studded thongs changed direction and moved to meet her, but halfway she flung her own sword end over end from above her head. She cried out with the effort, locks of her hair flying. The sword made a deep hum as it wheeled and a clang like a ruined bell as it sliced off one of the nails of the great beast. The girl’s momentum flung her forward and she landed, skidding to a stop, her arms outstretched just a finger’s length from the thing’s legs. Haille was sure now that she was beyond help, but the throw had been accurate, and the force deadly. The sword was lodged— handle swaying—in the remaining eye of the blinded beast. A fountain of tar was streaming forth, raining on her. The giant made no noise. At first Haille thought it was stunned for it stood still, its mouth open, teeth frozen in mid-gasp, claws in mid-grasp. Then Haille realized its stillness was more than being stunned. It was dead.

  It dropped slowly backwards, as if it took a long time for its dead weight to build the momentum, or make the decision, to fall. When it did, the other creatures let out a shocked and panicked wail. They scrambled out of the way, but they had not expected the beast to fall and there were too many of them gathered in its shadow. Many did not escape, and as it crashed down onto the forest floor it pinned a tangled mass of beasts beneath it.

  The girl was running back now, dancing lightly between the gore on the table, somersaulting down to the level ground alongside Haille and the others and breaking for a gap in the trees, the bone grit grinding under her feet as she stopped and turned to them.

  “Now we run!”

  Chapter 12

  Flight to the Gillithwaine

  Storn led down pathways among the trees, loping along on his stubby legs. When Cody began to overtake the creature, he let out a curse, picked Storn up, and threw him over his shoulders. From there Storn hissed and pointed the way, Cody gasping, “I’ll be damned if this smell ever comes off me!”

  They ran, the noise of the horde ever at their backs. The girl followed Cody. Haille tossed her his extra dagger so she wasn’t weaponless. It was none too soon for they came across a stray green imp when they turned around the trunk of a tree. He raised his hackles, barred his teeth, and swiped at them, but the girl set upon him and opened his throat with the efficiency of a butcher long inured to the nature of slaughter. Katlyn followed close to the girl, Val and Haille behind her, the elk bringing up the rear. Occasionally, he would fall back and they would hear the clash of weapons on antlers. Screams and howls would echo through the trees—each time Haille waited in suspense to see if the elk would return—each time he did, black blood running down his antlers into his face.

  They sprinted down a long corridor that brought to mind a castle hall with trees taking the place of columns. The uniformity was broken where one tree lay uprooted. Storn indicated they should turn there and they clambered over the upturned roots. Thick undergrowth waited for them on the other side but Cody hacked through it with his sword and they found themselves standing on a brick pathway, an ancient paved road. Grass grew in the spaces between the paving stones, and roots snaking beneath made the surface uneven.

  The girl was heartened. “I know where we are. This way!” she said, indicating to their right. They continued, Haille looking back over his shoulder to see the elk leaping through the brush behind them to gallop down the road, the horde breaking through like a pack of hunting dogs just behind him. The road turned, bending around blind corners until eventually the trees to one side disappeared altogether, replaced by a long drop into a river of black water. Around another bend the ruins of a stone bridge stretched halfway across the water. It was like the gorge in the Badlands where Victor Twenge had waited for them, except this bridge was shattered. The girl ran right to its base and climbed the stairs up onto its walkway. Tree branches
had grown down low over it, their lengths hung with the familiar choking black vines. The girl dodged between them, hacking at them when there was no way around.

  “Come on!” she cried as they followed too slowly for her liking. Haille and Val, however, were of the same mind: they both waited at the base of the bridge for the elk to catch up to them. When he did, the horde was just behind. Val fought off a few of the leading imps as the elk climbed the stairs alongside them then began to slash his own way through the branches and vines blocking their path. They came to the end of the bridge where the stones fell away into the dark waters below and the others stood waiting.

  “It’s the Gillithwaine,” the girl said. “They can’t cross it.”

  Haille felt an unexpected rush. Where had he heard that word before? Why did he feel an association of safety along with it?

  There was no time to think, the girl was leaning over the edge, peering down into the water.

  “We’ll have to jump and swim to the far bank,” she said waving her arms about Storn. “I’ll spell him so he can cross.”

  “No, swimming. We’ll swing,” Haille said, slapping the flat of his sword into the black vines. As before, they shivered and went limp. The girl did not move to touch them but Haille did, reaching out to grab one, drawing it back and handing it to Katlyn.

  “You first.”

  She took it, pulled it back as far as it would go, set her feet while taking a deep breath, then released herself to swing. At the apogee of her path she loosened her grip, slid down the length of the vine, and dropped with a tumble onto the opposite bank. Cody pulled a vine close for Storn next and sent him over with a shove. He landed with an unceremonious bump. A few of the vines began to jerk and curl around Val’s chest while he waited. Haille slapped at them with Elk Heart.