CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
An hour after he’d fed his captive rations laced with opiates, Druadaen crested a ridge several miles west of what he thought of as “The Pit” and reined in. As the first significant high ground since leaving the abominations’ den the day before, it was his first opportunity to scan for pursuers. Only once the horse—and its constant jostling—stopped did he detect the almost invisible rabble of abominations well behind him.
There was no mistaking them for any other kind of creature. Even at this range, the differences between their various speeds and gaits were unmistakable. Besides, they were following the precise path by which he’d retreated from their hills to the comparative safety of The Pit. And once they reached it, the scat from his overnight stop would tell them that they were still on the right track.
What was not clear was if these abominations were part of the same group he’d originally tracked. And if so, how had they become aware of his intrusion into their hills? Did they rove about, looking for prey scents or scat? Or did they remain in contact with each other, despite the considerable distances between their lairs? Or was there some other means whereby they knew what had befallen the ones Druadaen had trailed to their narrow cave?
All those were questions which he could not answer, and for which he had no time. He urged his horse over the ridgeline, but not so abruptly as to raise dust. That might attract any horizon-scanning eyes among them, which, once alerted, would not miss his silhouette atop this ridge or the next. And once the abominations could all see their prey, they would no longer need to wait upon those among them with superior senses of smell or tracking abilities. They would simply close the distance as rapidly as they could.
The back side of the ridge was rough, and the horse’s irregular gait elicited a comatose grunt from the small abomination across the saddle in front of him. Druadaen tugged the reins slightly, easing the horse into a slower, gentler descent. The longer the abomination was senseless, the better. It had started keening the moment it awakened and continued doing so until the breakfast opiate took effect. And since there was no way of knowing if one of the pursuers had extraordinarily keen hearing…
Druadaen kept his attention on easing his mount down the slope as quickly as he could.
Druadaen mopped his brow, sweaty despite the chill. Riding—or now, marching—across the Godbarrows on only a few hours of rest was not how he’d envisioned the final leg of his mission. The optimist in him admitted it was lucky he was still alive. Unfortunately, the voice of experience whispered that it was becoming less and less certain that he would remain that way.
For the second time in the past hour, Druadaen had heard the hoarse wail of a log horn well to the south. It was cheering that the sound was so distant; it suggested that his pursuers had spent many hours convinced he was still heading west, back toward the Sea of Hystzos. On the other hand, it confirmed that they now realized how he had misled them and were once again on his trail.
He would never have risked the ruse had it not been for the approach of more storm clouds from the north and the serendipity of approaching tracks in which he might conceal his own: those left by the S’Dyxoi when they’d turned north. The ruins where they’d done so had been almost abandoned by vultures, the carcasses stripped clean. However, tracks of various species—some familiar, some not—had accumulated over the past few days: creatures that had stopped by to help remove whatever had been left on the bones.
Druadaen had wasted no time. He left the carefully trussed abomination on a high, flat part of the ruins, and, as soon as it resumed snoring, he remounted and rode his horse hard into the west, the swift gallop leaving deep prints in the loam.
After a half mile, he reached what he’d been looking for: a much smaller, outlying ruin from which the remains of a slightly elevated irrigation system ran hundreds of yards to the south. He rode past it, then backtracked, dismounted, and guided his horse up to the flat stone channel and rode to its end. There, he guided the horse back down to the plain and kept it at a slow walk until he reentered the larger ruin, but from an entirely different point of the compass. He glanced behind; the horse’s walking, unburdened hoofprints were fainter—and likely to be washed away if the threatening clouds brought any significant rain.
Putting the startled abomination over the saddle, Druadaen led his horse north. He kept their tracks within the much larger ones left by the S’Dyxoi’s gigantic mounts wherever possible. Shortly after the downpour began, he swung around and was relieved to discover that the torrent was already erasing those tracks, rapidly washing and blending them into the much rougher and deeper prints left by the enslaved supragants. After walking another mile, he pushed the abomination further forward on the saddle, remounted and let his horse canter north at a leisurely pace.
Although creating a false extension of his path to the west had consumed considerable time, it paid the dividend he had hoped: they had obviously kept to the tracks which led in the same direction as those they’d been following, and continued to do so until they apparently ended just slightly beyond the smaller ruins and its waist-high aqueduct. By the time Druadaen heard their distant horns as he rode through the storming darkness, the abominations had obviously split into at least two groups, widening their search in an attempt to find the real trail. And because the pounding rain was washing his earlier tracks into rising mud, he was able to sleep despite the wet; his pursuers had little chance of rediscovering his trail before first light.
He was back in the saddle before dawn and, shortly after, heard their hoarse wood horns again. But they were still far apart, apparently resuming their efforts to rediscover their quarry’s tracks. Indeed, given the success of Druadaen’s ruse, only two things arose to dampen his spirits as the world started drying out.
Firstly, although the world was drying out, his saddle-blanket was dripping like a freshly dunked mop. Wringing did not make it dry enough to put on his already wet horse, so he jammed the blanket into his largest sack and resolved to start the day leading his mount, thereby giving its coat and the saddle both time to dry out. But that in turn meant Druadaen couldn’t keep his captive on the saddle in front of him, so the only reasonable solution was to strap the abomination over the horse. A workable solution but, for a few hours at least, they would not be traveling at the speed he’d hoped.
Secondly, after an hour of slow progress north, Druadaen was startled by a sudden flap of wings, almost directly overhead; it was the owl he had seen during his first arrival at the ruins. However, instead of continuing onward as it had on that occasion, it banked into a long lazy curve which ultimately became a wide circle centered on him. He watched it complete three circuits, his frown deepening with each one. Owls typically hunted by ambush, descending through foliage or other concealment until their talons reached forward to snatch their prey. He’d never heard of—let alone seen—one flying the way a hawk or vulture did when it was orienting itself to its target. But even if it had been such a bird, neither he, nor the horse, nor even the abomination were small enough for it to attack, making the pattern of its flight not merely uncharacteristic but pointless.
Unless it’s not choosing how it flies.
Druadaen felt a chill that had nothing to do with his still-damp clothes. What if the S’Dyxoi “priestess” had dominated it as she had numerous supragants? Might she have left it here as a sentinel of sorts, watching for pursuit or anything else of interest? It would certainly explain why it had remained on the plains. Owls typically preferred the cover of woods in which to both hide and hunt. It would also explain why it was flying in a pattern: although useless for its preferred mode of hunting, it was ideal for keeping an eye on him while also indicating his location to a distant observer.
At the end of its third circuit, it veered off to the southeast; not directly toward the abominations, but too close a heading to be comforting, either. Druadaen watched it go: another mystery that was pointless to ponder.
He clicked at the horse to lengthen its strides. Even if the owl was just an owl, it was still prudent to move as quickly as possible. And if it wasn’t just an owl…
Druadaen tugged at the reins and tried to ignore the distressing fact that he was traveling in the last known direction of the S’Dyxoi.
Three hours later, he decided that the only thing worse than traveling in the direction of the S’Dyxoi was being chased in that direction. Because the approaching and converging horns meant that the abominations had found his trail again. It defied explanation how they might be using the owl as a scout, but the fact remained that a few hours after it had spotted—and circled—Druadaen, his pursuers had discovered and corrected their error.
Neither he, nor the saddle, nor the horse were fully dry yet, but that precaution was now a luxury he could not afford. He led it down to the stream they’d been paralleling for the last half mile. A long drink before galloping wasn’t advisable either, but that couldn’t be helped. If there was a long chase before them, there might not be time to stop again.
Once his mount began to drink, Druadaen leaned down to pick out a rear hoof—and noticed that its belly seemed to have become larger since breaking camp. He hadn’t allowed it to overfeed and he did not know of any parasite—even on Hystzos—that became evident so rapidly. The only logical cause was that over that past few days, it had been feeding on grass that was too soggy or loamy.
Druadaen frowned. He’d kept careful watch over where and upon what it grazed; if his mount went down with colic, he’d go with it. The only exception was the relatively brief interval when he’d tethered it away from the cave of the abominations. But that was too long ago to be the cause; colic almost always appeared within a day and a half of eating bad grass.
Eating bad grass… ?
Druadaen’s spine straightened. What if, despite Aleasha’s assurances and Lorgan’s confirmation, Hystzos was not entirely without sourgrass? He’d wondered it before; just as ships and cargo unintentionally carry seeds between continents, could a traveler not do the same when stepping through a portal into another world?
He turned slowly, staring at the Godbarrows’ thick green carpet. But in his mind’s eye, he saw the sparse growth of the wintry plains of Gur Grehar. There, his inability to distinguish between sweetgrass and sourgrass had fated his horse to receive a final mercy from him. And because of that, he had been seconds away from a similar fate at the far less caring hands of urzh pursuers, had he not been rescued by Crown-Lord Darauf and his Teurond border cavalry.
He shook away the memories and forced himself to focus. He was missing something. Was there any other explanation? Was it credible that two such knowledgeable people as Lorgan and Aleasha—especially her—could be unaware of sourgrass if it existed on Hystzos? The only possibility was that it was extremely rare or no longer present in the settled areas. But Aleasha was from the Godbarrows, so surely she would have known of it. But she and Lorgan had also told him of its Death Lands, which legend described as being less hospitable to both man and beast, and not just those that lived there. He’d heard many stories of caravans found abandoned and traveling clans that had sickened and died after passing too close to those places, or after ascending the Cloudcaps to peer over into the Shuns.
Again, his mind froze in mid-thought: Wait: the Shuns?
The abominations had used the word “shun” to describe the Pit. But now, Druadaen wondered: when they said “shun,” had they meant the Shun, or was it their word for any place that was especially dangerous or mysteriously unhealthy?
He backed away from the horse. If it had grazed not only on sourgrass, but a mix, then sourgut might indeed take this long to show up. But once it did, it would not take much longer to kill the poor creature, particularly given the added exertion of carrying the captive.
One way or the other, the horse was not going to survive. It would not be able to keep a steady pace to remain ahead of the abominations, and if he pushed it into a sustained gallop, it would collapse that much sooner. And he’d die not long after.
Unless…
Druadaen started shaping a new plan as he approached the small abomination still strapped over the horse’s back. It was futile to carry the being any further. Even though Druadaen no longer had a chance to outrun his pursuers, he still needed time, and burdened with a lamed captive, he’d be swarmed in an hour or two. At most. So he’d failed the Vizierate’s contract; time to admit it.
He cut loose the abomination, which emitted a surprised grunt as it hit the ground. As Druadaen lifted the saddle, the grunting behind him became inchoate shouts of rage and hate—which stopped him in mid-motion:
The creature’s shouting? Through his gag?
Druadaen turned. The gag had not slipped; it had a hole where the creature’s mouth was, the polyps writhing in agitation at the edges of the cloth. A sharp acid smell emerged and a secretion leaked from them; more of the fabric dissolved. Stomach plummeting in both foreboding and revulsion, Druadaen dropped the saddle and moved to the far side of the horse.
A wide, bleeding sore was located where the abomination’s head had been hanging. And trailing down from that wound until they ran off its belly were bleached paths left by streams of drool. The acid had not only discolored the horse’s chestnut coat and seared away most of the hair, but the flesh beneath had been burned white. In some places, it had been burned through; small red lesions punctuated the white lines that ran toward the ground.
Druadaen stepped back. How many times can I be wrong or stupid in a single day? It wasn’t sourgrass that was going to kill his horse; it was whatever was dripping from the abomination’s polyps. And like many poisons, it probably had a numbing agent so that the horse, and therefore Druadaen, never had any warning that it was under slow, steady, fatal attack. Because even if the toxin couldn’t kill such a large animal outright, it had slowed the horse enough so that the pursuers would ultimately chase it down. Which was how they’d rediscovered their trail, too—because the drool dripping off its belly left a distinctive scent, and they’d been depositing it for several hours.
Still prone and now staring up at Druadaen between the horse’s legs, the abomination barked out a laugh, tried to speak, but couldn’t seem to form words. Whether the inability to do so was the result of mental or physical impediments was uncertain. However, its jeering dwindled when Druadaen began to move and started laughing himself, but silent and mirthless. As he came around the fated horse’s haunches, the creature’s expression changed to terror. But Druadaen wasn’t thinking about his captive. The only thought going through his mind, again and again, was:
All gone to wrack and ruin because of a sodden saddle-blanket.
Since childhood, he’d learned never to drape anything wet across a horse’s back. And from the first night in the pit, either rain, sweat, or both had kept the saddle-blanket from ever drying out. Accordingly, when it seemed like they’d lost their pursuers, Druadaen had decided to bag the blanket, lead the horse, and strap the abomination to its back. And in so doing, he’d unwittingly put his captive in just the right spot to do just the kind of damage that the blanket would have prevented or at least slowed.
The greater irony, Druadaen reflected as he drew his shortsword, was that he failed to fully understand the full import of the cautionary advice that the viziers had imparted—and Lorgan had confirmed—about abominations: “even the smallest ones often have unexpected, concealed, or disguised traits that make them difficult to control.”
He stood over his captive, which had cowered into as tight a ball as its tightly bound legs allowed. He presented the sword for its consideration, then sliced through one segment of the leather bindings that held its hands.
Stunned, it looked up at him, its misshapen mouth mumbling and mauling words that might have been questions or curses.
Druadaen picked up the now spliced length of rawhide, walked behind it toward his gear—but, as soon as it turned to study its unbound hands, he spun back and looped the thong into its mouth from behind. It spat and uttered what were certainly curses, rather than questions as three turns of the leather strap bound its mouth quite closed.
Druadaen returned to his kit, unbuckled the trail pack from the saddle, and tossed away everything except for his weapons, waterskin, food, unused sandals, and the numerous unusual objects that he had acquired or come across in his journeys. Happily, they were both few and light.
He gently tacked the horse and, after soothing it, swung up into the saddle. It made a sound more like a bleat than a whinny, but it was dramatically less of a reaction than if it had full feeling in its wounds. It was sad to think it could not be saved, but at least he might rely upon it for a last burst of speed, or as a means of leaving yet another false trail. And if he was lucky, maybe both.
Without a backward look at the gagged abomination, Druadaen spurred the horse into a northward canter.
An hour later, Druadaen heard the horns again; slightly fainter but now very close together; the scattered abominations had regathered, but the horse’s brisk pace had reopened the distance. However, if he did not come across more ruins soon, neither speed nor guile would save him. His pace on the horse and then his endurance on foot were both likely to dwindle long before his adversaries experienced a reduction in either.
Happily, just as he was considering that unpromising comparison, Druadaen spied what he’d been looking for: one of the many derelict complexes he’d seen at the limit of his vision during his journey from the coast. This set of ruins had been memorable, being particularly low and sprawling as they stretched across acre after acre.
He spurred the horse into a gallop.
Druadaen slowed the horse as he approached the vast stretch of natural and poured rock, much of which was now partially buried, erupting from the plains like flat, gray scabs. The horse had kept to a trot for longer than he had suspected, and in order to preserve its strength for the final part of his plan, he resolved to use the first of the hard expanses so it wouldn’t have to carry him any longer than necessary.
He swung his left foot out of its stirrup and slowed the animal to a walk. Standing in the other stirrup, he guided it toward the edge of what appeared to have been a ramp but was now merely an outcropping that never quite rose a yard above the grass. After gathering the minimum gear he’d prepared, he carefully raised his left leg to clear the saddle and he slid off to the right. That foot came down on the low, white, wind-scoured ruin.
The Sarmese had trained the mount well. Feeling the shift in weight, it tried to compensate to assist him. But Druadaen kept a hand pushing against its flank until he had his footing. With a quick step back, he undid his sword’s baldric and smacked the scabbarded weapon hard across the horse’s flank.
Startled, it leaped away, running a few steps.
Druadaen shouldered his gear and swapped his clean sandals for his dirty and scent-trailing boots. With a last look after the still-trotting horse, he began running along the ramp in the opposite direction, where it touched the edge of a much larger expanse of low ruins, many still joined, some separated by a step or a jump over the wild grasses between them.
With any luck, the horse’s continuing tracks would mislead his pursuers one last time.
Druadaen’s first startled reaction to the newly risen sun was amazement: he was still alive. His next was remembering, with disbelief, how far he had gone. Indeed, if he could have kept moving he would have; the dangers of traveling in the dark were as nothing compared to the certainty of his fate if caught.
But after two almost sleepless nights and a long, hard push before, he realized that continuing would have been a greater risk than stopping. Between traveling blind and being so groggy that he could not be certain of maintaining a straight line away from the flat ruins, he relented sometime after midnight. He had slept propped up in, and well concealed by, a tooth of rough stone sticking up from the ground. Druadaen rubbed his face, clenched a piece of jerky between his teeth, got his bearings and set out.
From what he’d heard as the prior day came to a close, his ruse of separating from the horse without leaving tracks had been successful. Late in the day, there was a frantic exchange of log-horn hoots: almost certainly, the sign that they had found the hobbled captive. As those who discovered him winded their horns to gather the searchers, he would have no doubt told his fellows—or somehow communicated—that the murderous human had mounted the horse and rode swiftly north: the same direction he’d been traveling ever since abandoning his westward push toward the coast. The frequent hooting afterward ended shortly before the first stars came out; the abominations had regathered and were following the tracks of the horse.
Either through lack of attentiveness or intelligence, it was a near certainty that they missed the point where Druadaen dismounted. Although some of them had keen senses, it did not seem that any of them had any nuanced tracking skills, and so had probably focused on visible tracks and the scent of the horse’s dripping wounds. They were also unlikely to have conjectured that the human could have dismounted without stopping the horse, and so, were further misled by the uninterrupted progression of its hoofprints. Otherwise, they would have overtaken him long before.
Instead, the resumption of hootings shortly after the small moons rose almost certainly signified that they had found the horse—dead or alive—and once again had to split their numbers into numerous search parties in order to find the human’s trail. Since then, the horns had sent their sonorous messages into the dark at odd intervals. But, particularly when the sun came up, it was only a matter of time before one of them would either notice that he had run on the open rock (unlikely), resumed traveling in grasslands wearing sandals (quite possible), or found where he had pulled on his boots and started leaving clear tracks once again (the most likely by far). But so far they had not found any of those telltale signs. With any luck, Druadaen began to hope that he just might be able to—
An urgent flurry of horns seemed to push the sun fully above the horizon. A bad sign, Druadaen allowed as he increased his pace. The only reason for that kind of exchange would be one of the groups trumpeting their discovery of the human’s trail and the others acknowledging that they were beginning to reconverge. At which point they would have no reason to wind their horns, and would refrain from doing so. Even creatures as simple as they would see no reason to reveal their location to elusive prey.
Sure enough, after one of two final hoots, the horns fell silent.
Now, there was nothing left to do but run for as long as he could, just like the last day upon the Gur Grehar. Except there, he’d had allies.
Here, he was truly alone.
As if things can’t get any worse, Druadaen thought as the owl returned, winging in from the north. But instead of orbiting him, it banked and flew rapidly to a point not far off his current heading. Then it flew straight up, as if it meant to bury itself in the low clouds.
Just as Druadaen was ready to wonder what this odd new behavior might portend, the owl leveled off at a great height. It hooted faintly, turned through three fast, tight circles, and then descended sharply to the east.
Druadaen frowned. Those final behaviors weren’t just odd; they defied any natural explanation. Nor was it plausible to impute it to careful training, for how would a handler communicate precisely where it wished a creature to go before performing such a complex set of actions? And only after—apparently—attracting the attention of a particular human on the ground. No, his suspicions were confirmed: the only reasonable explanation was mancery. And he knew of only one mantic who was apparently located in the northern reaches of the Godbarrows:
The S’Dyxan “priestess.”
But those convincing answers begat another, even more confounding question: Why would the S’Dyxoi send him an indication of where he should go—for that was clearly the message of the owl’s strange concluding acrobatics. Logically, they were his arch foes and would want him dead. And if they had observed any part of the life-and-death version of hide-and-seek involving Druadaen and the abominations, they surely knew that it would not end with him alive. So why not let the twisted creatures do their dirty work?
Unless it was more important to their ends to take Druadaen alive. Which, given their reputed abilities, they certainly seemed sure of achieving—just as sure as they were sure of killing him when and if he had served his purpose to their own plans. Still…
He shifted his steps to make for the area the owl had circled.
A moment before it had seemed suicidal, but now it seemed his only chance. Because it was a certainty now that the abominations would make an end of him. He could not outrun them, had no means left to outwit them, and had no way to best them in a fight. So if the S’Dyxoi wanted him alive, that gave him at least a little more time to seek a way out of that new predicament. Besides, it was unlikely that they, any more than anyone else, anticipated how his mere presence defused any attempt at mantic constructs. With that element of surprise, a few fortunate uses of the various compounds and philters in his pack, and an ocean full of luck, he just might live to see another day.
Removing one of his bowstrings from the small ready-pouches on his belt, Druadaen began to run to what might be a place of salvation or death.
Or, conceivably, both.