With roars that sounded almost like shrieks, the gnolls turned and fled. Whitlock ignored them and stepped over the felled creature to get to Melann's side. Her foe, seeing him chase off the others, also ran into the darkness.
"Are you all right?" he asked, looking down at her bloody arm.
"I will be," she said in a half whisper, obviously exhausted. "I was lucky in that I got the opportunity to call on Chauntea. Her power allowed me to hold a few and blind one. That gave me time to grab a weapon and free myself."
"I feared you were…" Whitlock couldn't finish, perhaps because of her, but more likely because of himself. “I’m fine, really," she said more forcefully, more reassuringly. "I feared for you, too."
Whitlock turned, his sword held in front of him. His wounded shoulder could no longer support the weight of the shield on his arm, so he let it drop. The light began to fade. The blinded creature ran down the hill, its hands still clutched over its magically bedazzled eyes. The gnoll took the light with him as it fled. The thought of giving chase burned it Whitlock's heart, but his body begged him not to go. Every muscle screamed with exhaustion.
He turned toward the unmoving gnolls, standing like statues in the quickly fading light. Each was captured in a pose of savagery and fierce attack. He raised his sword, but Melann put a hand on his shoulder.
"No. Let's just go," she told him. "Let's just get out of here. We're alive and we're free. They left the horses tied up at the bottom of the hill. I think they were trying to decide whether to use them or eat them. I think that they were definitely planning on eating me. Luckily, they thought they'd hurt me more than they actually did. By the time they carried me here, I was able to call on Chauntea for aid. Praise Our Mother."
Whitlock noticed for the first time that a thin trickle of almost dried blood marked the side of his sister's face. They must have clubbed her in the camp and dragged her off, thinking she was dead or dying. "All right," he said, clasping his hand around hers. The light was completely gone again. "Let's go."
The unmoving gnolls, with their outstretched claws and snarling mouths, remained like standing stones at the top of the hill as Melann and Whitlock made their way slowly down the slope. They found their horses tied to a tree just as Melann had said.
Whitlock didn't even try to lead the horses or Melann back to their original camp. It would be difficult to find it now, but in the morning they could retrace their steps and gather up the equipment and food they'd left behind.
The two pushed themselves to move at least a mile away from the gnolls' camp on the bald hill, following the stream. At that point, Melann once again called on Chauntea's granted magic and healed her brother's wounded shoulder with a cool, soothing touch. He smiled in appreciation. When she finished with Whitlock she mended her own injured arm with magic, then her head wound, which still bled slightly.
Now that his head had cleared slightly, Whitlock realized he'd left his shield on the hill. "Damn," he said softly. No way were they going back. Always keep your wits about you, his father used to tell him. Damn.
"The gnolls had a small bag of green stones with them," she told him, still rubbing her arm. The leather armor had been cut away by a gnoll's weapon. "They seemed to really value them. The one next to the brute that carried me away from our camp kept checking the bag."
"What were they, gems?" Whitlock asked, distracted with thoughts of what to do next.
"No, I don't think so, but I’m not sure what they were."
"Well," he said after a moment, looking her in the eye, "I hope we never find out." Melann smiled and nodded.
Whitlock was more concerned with the practical matters at hand. It seemed that the gnolls would return. It was only a hunch, but somehow he felt they still watched from the darkness surrounding them. Behind every boulder or tree, in any hole or cranny, they might wait. They now knew he and Melann could defend themselves, but did that mean they would only return next time in greater numbers?
The fact that his shoulder now felt both pleas antly warm and cool at the same time, rather than stiff with an aching pain, renewed Whitlock Something within him begged for sleep, but he knew it would be better if they put even more distance between them and the gnolls. Once Melann had exhausted her power by healing the worst of her wounds, he put his arm around her for support, and grabbed the reins of both horses. He led all of them even farther away into the night. Less than four hours before dawn, they foundered into a dry gully near the stream. They lay down close to the horses, without a fire. Both collapsed into sleep almost immediately.
Chapter Nine
The horse was as swift as Vheod had hoped it would be. He sped through the wilderness and into the mountains. The horse's hooves and Vheod's heartbeat were the only sounds either heard for hours on end. Vheod focused only on speed, and it seemed his mount took, this as a sign to do likewise. He learned from his earlier experience with a horse that he should treat it well if he was to expect it to do as he wished. Here, unlike in the Abyss, it seemed that kindness could accomplish as much as cruelty or threats-perhaps more.
He followed drag's directions carefully, riding into the mountains toward the end of the first day. Ever with the steeper, rougher terrain, Vheod attempted to keep a steady, rapid pace. The horse didn't fight him, and they made good time. The Thunder Peaks rose high and jagged into the blue sky thick with a heat-born haze. Most of the time, no path offered itself to the rider and mount, and he charged headlong into thick, green brush full of flowering plants that had just passed their full bloom. Discarded, wilted petals scattered as they rode through the growth.
As the horse crested the top of a tall hill, Vheod brought it to a stop to give it a short rest and survey the landscape ahead of him. Orrag, it seemed so far, hadn't lied to him. Nevertheless, he couldn't help but feel as though something was wrong. It seemed as though he was being led rather than following his own path. Vheod spat on the ground and attempted to turn his attentions elsewhere.
The horse breathed heavily but already seemed ready to continue. Vheod leaned forward and patted his mount on its neck. The horse, it seemed, was strong as well as swift. Moreover, after only one day, he and it had already seemed to form a bond.
"I’ll call you Stonesong," Vheod whispered in its ear, "because you are both solid and graceful." He looked around at the wide open sky and the vast green and brown terrain stretching in all directions. "You do your world proud," he added before straightening again on Stonesong's back.
He inhaled deeply of the warm, dry air and smiled. His eyes glistened in the sun.
Just for a moment, Vheod considered that keeping Chare'en from wreaking havoc on this world might be a good thing all by itself, even if it didn't benefit him directly. What an odd thought. He tried to think of something else.
That night Vheod camped in the moonlight, enjoying a gentle, cool night breeze that rid him of the perspiration of the long day's ride in the summer heat. The truth was Vheod really hadn't noticed the heat much. In the Abyss, conditions varied from intolerably hot to deadly cold, and thus he developed a fair bit of immunity to such variances. His tanar'ri heritage helped in that regard as well. Vheod's flesh was thick and tough, resistant to things that would bother or even actually harm a mortal man.