Quite frankly, at this point, Darian was in accord with the dyheli. Things had been difficult enough without having to calm hysterics and panic. They needed Kel’s help, and needed to be able to have him come and go openly.
According to Kel, their detour might have been a good thing in a tactical sense. There were no wide meadows between here and the pass, nothing but thick forest. At least the group on the ground would have cover the entire way.
Yes, but so will any Wolverine raiding parties.
Hardly a comforting thought.
:Excuse me,: Neta said politely into Darian’s mind, :but there is something rather badly wrong in these woods. I don’t know what, precisely, but it’s too quiet.:
:I agree,: Hashi spoke up. :There doesn’t seem to be anything around here bigger than a tree-hare, and even the tree-hares are staying high up. I haven’t scented anything of a decent size since we crossed that last big stream.:
Darian didn’t like the way the forest felt either. The trees were a little farther apart here, letting plenty of sunlight through, and it should have been correspondingly more cheerful. But it wasn’t; the forest felt empty, hollow, like that deserted village they had encountered.
Could Wolverine have hunted this place out? he wondered. That might be the explanation, and yet it didn’t feel right. For one thing, there wasn’t any sign of humans hunting - the broken undergrowth, trail marker ties, remains of camps, that sort of thing. For another, he didn’t think that even a tribe like Wolverine would hunt an area bare.
They had been climbing steadily all day; they had managed to journey over all the territory between Red Fox and this final pass without crossing paths with any more raiding parties. There shouldn’t be any reason why they wouldn’t be on the other side of the mountains by tonight. Then, provided the information they had was correct, they would be within touching distance of Raven. And my parents?
The shadow of the mountain fell across their path; it wasn’t just cool here, it was cold. Darian shivered, and out of the corner of his eye saw Shandi pulling her cloak closer. I’ll be glad when we get across, into the sunlight. Who would have thought it could be this cold at the beginning of summer? Small wonder that the Ghost Cat villagers had not been prepared for the summer heat in Valdemar. He was just glad that for once it wasn’t raining. In this cold, rain would feel like drops of ice.
There was another small clearing coming up ahead of them, one with a brush-filled ravine running along the left side. As they cautiously entered the clearing, Hashi and Neta were running flank guard, Kelvren was high above, Kuari was running tail guard, and the other two birds were in front. It was better to have the birds in front and behind; they could cover more ground than Neta and Hashi. It’s too bad they don’t have a way to pick up scent, but -
There was a flash of motion. Out of nowhere, something huge and white reared up from the ravine, stretching up and up, and Darian froze. He couldn’t move; all he could do was stare upward, at the strange eyes that whirled and pulsed in the snakelike head two stories above the ground. . . .
. . . . how . . . incredible. . . .
Was there someone calling him? Well, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but those eyes. He forgot everything, even his name; all he wanted to do was to stare into those eyes forever. They were beautiful. He’d have thought his Clan, his Knighthood, and his quest were all useless if he’d even been able to think of them. The eyes were all that mattered. All else narrowed to them, or rather - yes, the eyes engulfed him. There was nothing above or below or around him that was of consequence, or was even noticed as missing, for that matter. There was only those eyes.
Just as abruptly as the drake’s appearance, his mount went from immobile to active in a heartbeat. The dyheli spun in place, wrenching his attention from those hypnotic eyes, lurched into a run, and fled back down the way they had come. Greenery and stone flashed past at incredible speed, making even the view through Kuari’s eyes when they were linked seem plodding by comparison. Holding on for dear life, Darian’s dyheli caromed off the side of another one laden with supplies, which went down into the underbrush. Darian’s knee and shin hurt immediately from the crushing blow against the dyheli’s ribs, but the fallen dyheli was nowhere to be seen now. He looked around desperately. The noise of cracking branches and clattering gear mixed with a climbing whine behind him - a shrill one he had never heard before, much like the death cry of a rabbit, but forced from larger lungs. The dyheli he had crunched against struggled to get back up and then vanished into a pillar of white - the cold-drake’s open jaws crushed down upon the flailing dyheli and there were three swift thrashing bites. The dyheli was dead, somewhere back there, but the scenery blurred past and the line of sight was gone. He wasn’t alone; all of the dyhelis were stampeding back down the path, with Karles and Shandi in the lead. He shook off his pain and hung on like a leech as his mount lurched down the slope just a breath away from a disastrous stumble.
That was a cold-drake. Oh, gods, that was a cold-drake! Now that he wasn’t under the creature’s spell, he knew the danger of what it was, and could put a name on it. He knew what must have saved them, too - Neta, out there free and not under the cold-drake’s mesmerizing gaze. She had exercised her own Gift and had taken over the minds of every other dyheli and probably Karles, too. Then she had made them all stampede away from the danger zone; the cold-drake wasn’t swift enough to keep up with them.
The dyheli traveled across the forest floor in huge bounds, snapping Darian’s head back and forth until he got into the same rhythm as his mount. The dyheli didn’t usually break into this “stampede gait” when mounted, and he could only thank his luck that there was a saddle between him and that knobby dyheli backbone. As it was, his neck muscles hurt, and so did his head.
As abruptly as they began their run, they ended it, bouncing in three or four steps to a halt a safe distance down the pass. The others came to a stop beside him, with the dyhelis shaking their heads so hard their ears flapped as Neta let their minds loose. Last to stop was Karles, and it seemed to Darian that as the Companion walked toward them, his expression was decidedly sheepish.
Now it hit him - how close they had all been to a distinctly unpleasant death - and he began to shake with reaction, the sour taste of fear in his mouth. One more heartbeat, and we’d all have been dinner. Oh, gods.
Keisha looked puzzled; Shandi still confused. “We lost - we lost Gacher. What happened?” Keisha blurted. “What was that? Why did the dyheli all run?”
:Gacher has died. The herd ran because I made them,: came Neta’s mind-voice. :As for what that was, I do not know; only that it was dangerous. It had you all spell-trapped with its eyes and mind.: