The sound went right through Darian’s head like a white-hot lance. He dropped to his knees, involuntarily clapping his hands to his ears.
Then Darian lost control of his magic; the birds shot away up into the sky, and Kel floundered out of harm’s way, landing heavily onto his side, behind their lines. The dyheli fled, though Karles stood his ground; all the humans cupped their hands over their ears; the scream went on and on, a sound that ripped through the head and stabbed into the brain.
We hadn’t - counted on - this! Darian thought with difficulty, his eyes watering with pain. The cold-drake clawed desperately at its nose, and finally dislodged the arrow; the screaming stopped, replaced by a whimper, as the monster dropped its head down on the ground and rubbed its wounded nostril against the earth. Steam curled up around the drake, and its body plates dripped with melted ice.
“That’s enough!” Keisha shouted in anguish. She stood up and staggered, unsure of each step, but seemed to have a purpose. She half-screamed again, “That is enough!” and marched toward the drake, her hands curled into fists. Darian stumbled to his feet and ran after her, but she paid no attention to him. She concentrated on the cold-drake, and the cold-drake was so preoccupied with its wounded nose that it ignored this small and insignificant morsel of prey marching toward it. But suddenly its head jerked up, and it stared at Keisha with eyes blank and widened. Bright red blood smeared down its snout, and ran freely from the wound in the nostril. The drake raised one claw, then curled it under its chest, staring at Keisha, yet somehow unable to focus upon her.
Darian felt a growing illness in his belly, adding queasiness to fatigue and the pounding headache. Ahead of him, Keisha was within easy striking distance of the cold-drake, and from his point of view, her small body was entirely framed by the red-spattered white mass of the cold-drake. Her feet were ankle-deep in the water runoff, both from the drake’s newly lost ice layer and the nearby landscape. Darian’s limbs seemed to move far too slowly, as he tried to gain on her, and the terror rose up inside him - was he about to see his Keisha die? But Keisha wasn’t affected by the eyes the way they all had been the last time. Could it be that Keisha was doing something to the drake?
“Yes!” Shandi shouted from behind him, and ran to join her sister, shoving Darian aside. The two women came to within striking range of the drake and stood there, staring at it. They were too close for Darian to dare shooting at the thing - especially with its ... head down?
Then it not only blankly stared at the duo, it raised its head to the fullest extent, and its eyes were widened and completely dilated. If Darian had not seen the cold-drake’s next move with his own eyes, he would never have believed it. It reared up and back - but not as if to strike. It bobbed its head and seemed to be cowering away from them, as if they were the most dangerous and threatening things it had ever seen. Its whimpers changed to a whine, and it slowly backed away from them, scrabbling backward across the rocks, claws slipping on the smooth, slick surface, without ever taking its eyes off them, moving up and out of the ravine and then down past the openly stunned Steelmind, and more rapidly down to the edge of the clearing.
It reached the edge of the forest, still walking awkwardly backwards, its tail actually between its legs at one point. Its own bulk made the progress painfully slow. Then, just as a large branch it had pushed aside snapped back into place, obscuring for a moment its sight of the two young women, it turned and ran - ran off into the forest, crashing through brush and briar and making an incredible amount of noise.
What did they - !
“Now! Let’s get past!” Shandi shouted, as Karles raced up beside her. She mounted; the dyheli each sought out a rider - no matter which one, they’d sort out the baggage later.
They raced up the pass at breakneck speed, following Shandi, who was in the lead. Kel kept watch behind, the birds in front. There was no one watching the flanks, but at the speed they were traveling now, they’d be past anyone on their flanks in short order.
Darian wouldn’t have thought the dyheli could maintain this pace uphill, but evidently fear was spurring them on; as he leaned down over the outstretched neck of his mount, there was no slackening of their speed as they reentered the forest, charged headlong through it, and exited again, higher up the slope. Now there was nothing between them and the pass -
Then they were up to the pass itself, and over it, and if anything, their pace increased as they charged downhill again. They were out in the sunlight at last; the air was considerably warmer, and the hordes of birds and small creatures that startled and fled before their headlong rush testified that the cold-drake didn’t hunt on this side of the mountain.
Darian got a brief glimpse of something shining off to the west - it might have been water, but he didn’t get a good enough look to tell for certain. Then they plunged into the forest shadows again.
The dyheli kept running for a good candlemark, and only when their flanks were soaked with sweat and their sides heaving did they finally slow and stop beside a trickle of a stream.
Darian was off his mount in a heartbeat, as were the rest. Snatching up handfuls of coarse grass, they began wiping their mounts down. They pulled off the tack and did what they could, then the dyheli themselves walked off to cool down and take occasional sips of water.
Only then did Darian turn to Keisha. “You got into its mind? What was it that you two used? Fear?” he asked.
She nodded. “Fear. But I guarantee you, it is not in a way you would have expected.”
Steelmind commented, somewhat amusedly, “These two’ve certainly scared me before, so I can understand that. I thought it had to be something more. I didn’t think my arrow was that effective.”
Keisha grinned. “Effective enough. When you hurt it, that was the first time anything had ever touched it since it had left its mother and been on its own in the wilds. Literally it had never felt pain since the last time its mother disciplined it. And do you know how drakes discipline their babies?”
Darian shook his head dumbly.
“They bite the baby’s nose!” She laughed breathlessly.
Steelmind knit his brow, and shook his head slightly. “I still do not understand. You two are just humans, not the cold-drake’s mother.”
Shandi stepped over, her sweat-scraper and curry-brush still in hand, after tending briefly to Karles. “I’ll try to explain. The warmth Darian summoned was making it delirious and disoriented. It became more and more unfocused mentally, it felt more vulnerable as its armor’s ice layer melted, and its eyesight clouded, too, much like a developing infant’s. It thought about the last time it felt that way - when it was just a pup. So instinctively, even though we were just snacks for it, when that nose wound hurt so sharply, the drake felt as if we were bigger and more powerful than it for just a moment.”
Keisha picked up the explanation from there. “It’s like with a pony, if you pick it up off the ground as a foal, even when it’s full grown, it will think you can still do that. Lessons learned early in life stay just as big in any creature’s mind, and when someone is in pain they tend to act more childlike - that’s something we Healers know and use. That wound-scream jarred me out of my own fear and my Healing knowledge sort of welled up, and I remembered where I’d sensed that sort of reaction - from other wounded animals, and some badly injured people. The cold-drake didn’t know what was happening to it, and its instincts made it think of dear old mama. We just pushed more fear at it, using what we sensed its own memories of an angry mother were. I don’t know if I could have driven it off by myself, but when Shandi and I joined, there was enough to push it over the edge.”