"Rushwood elementals!" Sisay shouted. "They are formed out of the leaves and boughs of the forest!" Takara whispered sardonically, "What now?" "What else?" Gerrard replied, feeling his fear turn to anger, and his anger to hatred. "We fight." "That's what I like to hear."
"Hang on!" Gerrard kicked the flanks of his Jhovall. The tiger-creature snarled and leaped toward one of the looming shadows. Overhead, a club dropped with an awful roar. Gerrard drove the cat upward. The Jhovall leaped. Claws sank into the moldy mass of the elemental's thigh. A vague roar came. The massive club descended toward Jhovall and riders.
"Get up!" Gerrard shouted at his mount. The Jhovall bounded again.
The club struck. A shriek came, inhuman anguish. The elemental staggered. Its thigh-stones and sticks-had shattered beneath the blow of the club.
Rising still, the Jhovall sank its claws in the monster's arm and hurled itself higher.
"Good work," Takara shouted.
But the elemental was not maimed for long. It pressed its club against the shattered thigh. The wood fused with its leg, solidifying it.
"Not good enough," Gerrard hissed.
The jhovall leaped from the elemental's shoulder toward its face. Feline claws sank into the elemental's skull. Standing in the saddle, Gerrard drove his sword into one of the titan's silver-glowing eyes. Takara rammed hers into the other. Mercurial flames danced out along the blades and burned their sleeves. Gerrard and Takara shouted in unison pain.
But the agonized shriek of the elemental overtopped their cries. Silver fire guttered and failed in its eyes. They went dark. The wailing ceased. The elemental died. With terrific and terrible motion, its corpse began to slump. Boughs and humus and rocks separated. No longer joined in a titanic body, the multifarious vines and mosses tumbled free of each other.
Growling, Gerrard drove heels into his Jhovall's side. "Jump!"
The tiger-creature did, flinging itself across the wheeling heights. It bounded from the head of a dying elemental toward the shoulders of a living one. Trees flashed past in a dizzy spectacle. The Jhovall extended its forepaws to grasp the next titan.
The elemental turned. Its club whirled about and struck the six-legged tiger in midair.
A whuff of breath exploded from the cat. With it came the snap of ribs. Blood boiled out of the creature's face. Broken, the Jhovall spun through the air.
Gerrard and Takara clung miserably to its inert bulk. Trees whirled.
They struck one. The dead cat caught the brunt of the blow, but Takara was flung away. She fell toward the forest floor, landing atop a root-cluster and sprawling brokenly.
Gerrard meanwhile smacked up against rough bark. Something shattered in his chest, but he clung to the dead cat. It sloughed off the side of the tree and plunged beneath him. Cursing, Gerrard clawed atop the falling Jhovall. It struck ground.
The impact was horrible. It drove the breath from Gerrard. He crumpled off the Jhovall's corpse and flailed on the ground. He rolled across his torch. The wet fabric of his riding cloak-it was a flask of rye spirits that had shattered in his chest pocket-flared with sudden fire.
Gerrard staggered up and shucked the burning jacket. He flung it furiously away. The cloak wrapped itself around the elemental's leg.
Flame leaped to wood and dry moss. Fire spread up the looming titan. It shrieked, pounding the blaze. Flames roared onto its hands and arms. In moments, the elemental was engulfed-a living column of fire. It thrashed horribly among the boles, shying away from the trees lest it set them ablaze. Its screams were terrifying.
Gerrard could only grin grimly. He drew a hissing breath through gritted teeth and shouted, "Burn them! Burn every last one! Burn them!"
Even as the elemental fell to the ground, writhing in death throes, more fires awoke among the others.
A slim hand touched Gerrard's shoulder. "That was well done."
He turned, astonished. "Takara! How did you survive that fall? Your spine was broken."
"No. Hatred is my spine," she said, smiling a bloody smile. "As long as I keep it at the core of my being, I survive."
"Yes," Gerrard said, staring at her. "I've begun to see the definite benefits." There were four elementals burning now, their wails like music in the night. Gerrard cupped hands about his mouth and shouted through the chorus of moans. "Caterans to the fore! Clear a corridor! Kill anything that stands between us and Weatherlight.'"
Chapter 9
The stillness of the wood was broken by shouts.
Orim rose, dropping the herbs she had been washing in the lagoon. She ran frantically, her mouth open in wordless horror. Even as she fled across the mossy forest floor, she saw hellish figures break through the surrounding trees.
On scaly legs they bounded forward. Claws ate up the ground. Bloody arms grasped villagers. Fangs sank into sides, shoulders, and heads. More blood painted the inhuman monsters.
"Mercadians!" Orim shouted. "Bar your doors! The Mercadians have come!"
More beasts arrived, monstrosities with boar heads, scorpion tails, and snake teeth. They rode horrific, sixlegged tigers and bore swords and crossbows. As they filed into the clearing, the brutes hoisted their wicked bows.
"Left wing, pivot. Archers, loose!"
The battle commands, familiar and yet remote in Orim's memory, made her freeze. There was a whir from the line of beasts. Shafts streaked through the air to punch with deadly precision among the crowd of Cho-Arrim. The front ranks staggered and fell in disorderly rows. Tribesmen behind turned with a shout and hauled forth weapons, only to fall to a second volley of quarrels. Then came a third hail of deadly missiles.
Dimly, Orim heard Is-Shada shout something and run toward her.
Several of the crossbowmen pivoted toward the motion, bows at the ready.
Orim threw herself to the ground and felt the volley pass over her head.
Is-Shada ran across the clearing. Several of her playmates kept pace. She had almost reached Orim when an angry hiss sounded. Is-Shada stopped suddenly, staring at Orim. Two black-feathered shafts protruded from her chest and shoulder. She looked stupidly at them for a moment, and then fell face forward. Companions on either side caught her as she fell. One of them twisted and screamed in agony as a quarrel sprouted from her knee. She staggered and dropped Is-Shada, whose body bumped against Orim.
Orim wrapped the girl in her arms. The breath was already gone from Is-Shada's punctured lungs, the blood from her pierced heart.
Hands seized Orim and drew her away. She heard a voice shrieking and realized with astonishment that it was her own. Her lungs felt raw, her cheeks wet with tears.
"Is-Shada," Orim sobbed out, "O-reem 'stva o'meer. IsShada., O-reem 'stva o'meer."
Ta-Karnst's firm hand was on her elbow, and he pulled her rapidly back toward the lagoon and the complex of huts that extended over the water. Wordlessly, the two healers ran up the causeway. The wickerwork strained beneath their pounding feet.
Another volley of quarrels whizzed overhead. Orim looked up and caught her breath. Before her, a wrinkled old woman slowly sank to the wooden platform. Three quarrels bristled from her chest, and another had pierced her leg.
The healers reached her. "Don't move," Orim commanded harshly. "We'll get those things out of you."
The old woman's fierce brown eyes, seemingly all dark pupils, glared at her. "Svascho.' Traitor! You have betrayed us all! Rot forever in the Nine Circles!"
"No," whispered Orim. Then louder she cried, "No!"
The dying woman's face wrinkled up into a terrifying rictus meant as a smile. "You will never win, Svascho. We are Cho-Arrim. We are…" Her voice was drowned out by a stream of blood gushing from her mouth. Her old eyes clouded. Her head slipped sideways from Orim's lap.