Is that what I think it is?
She frowned with concentration, and motioned to Tad to remain where he was so she could hear without distraction. There was something in the distance, underneath the chatter of the four-legged canopy creatures, and the steady patter of debris from a tree where some of the birds were eating green fruit—a sound—
Tad shifted his weight impatiently. “Shouldn’t we—” he began.
“Hush a moment,” she interrupted, and closed her eyes to concentrate better. Was that really what she thought it was? She began to isolate it mentally from the rain of bits of leaf, twig, and half-eaten fruit.
“I think I hear running water,” she said at last. “Come on!”
She abandoned all attempts at secrecy, trotting as quickly as she could through the tangle of underbrush, with Tad hot on her heels. If that was the long-sought river she heard, then their safety lay more surely in reaching it than in trying to hide themselves or their trail. Above them, a few canopy creatures barked or chattered a warning, but most of them seemed to regard her and Tad as harmless.
Well, they would. Now we’re running openly, not stalking. We can’t be hunting, so we’re not a danger to them directly. The sounds above kept on, and the fruit eaters didn’t even pause in their gluttony. That was comforting; it meant there was nothing else around that aroused the tree dwellers’ alarm. If there had been something trailing them closely, when they broke cover, it would have had to do the same to a certain extent, just to keep up with them. And if that had happened, the treetops should have erupted with alarm or once again gone silent, or both.
There was sunlight pouring down through a huge gap in the trees, off in the distance; it shone green-gold through the leaves, white between the trunks of the trees. The closer they got, the clearer the sound of water running rapidly over rocks became.
They literally burst through the luxuriant curtain of brush at the river’s edge, teetering on the rocks lining the banks. She wanted to cheer, but confined herself to pounding on Tad’s shoulder enthusiastically.
The river at their feet was wide, but so far as she could tell, it was deep only in the middle. More to the point, across the river lay the cliff they had been looking for, with a wide beach made of rocks and mud lying between the rock cliff face and the river.
Caves, waterfalls—even a crevice that we can fortify. Any of those will do very nicely just now!
“Let’s get across,” Tad urged. “If they’re following us, we’ll be able to see them, and there’s going to be water between them and us.”
Water between them and us. Right now, that was the best protection she could imagine. Tad was right; with an open space of water between their enemy and themselves, they would certainly be able to see the mysterious hunters coming. We can look for a cave as soon as we‘re across.
For the first time in four days,, they should be able to find a safe and secure place to wait for rescue, a place too difficult to dig them out of, with walls of rock instead of flimsy canvas.
And they might be able to actually see the creatures that were following them—assuming that the shadow-hunters were bold enough to go this far. They might give up. She wasn’t going to count on it, but they might. This was certainly more trouble than most predators wanted to go through for a meal.
Now she grinned, and it was heartfelt. “Let’s go get wet,” she said. “We both need a bath anyway!”
Seven
Blade peered through the curtain of rain, looking a few lengths ahead to see if there was anything like a cave in sight, then looking back down at her feet to pick out her footing among the slippery mud and river rocks. Here, out in the open, the rain came down in sheets, making footing doubly treacherous. More rain sluiced down the cliff face, washing across the rocks at her feet. This time, they hadn’t gone to ground when the rains came; they didn’t even look for a shelter. Instead, they continued to make their way along the cliff-side bank of the river. For one thing, the only shelter from the rain lay back on the other side of the river, and she didn’t really want to take her chances back there. For another, every moment they spent in huddling away from the rain was a moment that they could not spend in looking for real cover, the protection of a place from which they could not be extracted by force.
By now poor Tad was a wet, sodden mess, and after this, she was certainly going to have to figure out what they could spare to make him a new bandage for his wing. The bandages he wore were soaked and coming loose, and wouldn’t be any good until after they had been rinsed clean and dried. Sacrifice some clothing, maybe, if we don’t have enough bandages. I could shorten the legs of my trews for cloth, since they don’t seem to be much protection against the bugs. That and some rope might make a decent sling.
She was going to have to get him dried out before they slept; allowing a gryphon to go to sleep wet was a sure prescription for illness.
We need a cave, or at worst, a cleft. This rain is going to go on until nightfall, and we won’t be able to see anything then.
The water level in the river didn’t seem to be rising much, if any, which suggested that it was probably as high now as it ever got, except in the occasional flood. And I hope we don’t happen to be in the midst of flood season! There was evidence aplenty for a flood, in the form of flotsam, mostly wood, washed up and wedged among the rocks. It would make admirable firewood, if they could ever find a place where they could build a fire!
It would be just our luck to have pinned our hopes on finding this cliff only to discover that there is less shelter here than there was in the forest. If they didn’t find a place to hole up before dark, they might have to spend the night exposed on this rocky shore, where they would have the grim choice of lighting a fire and attracting attention or shivering, cold and damp, wrapped up in wet blankets all night.
The gods, or fate, were not to be so unkind, however. After a few more furlongs of picking their way across the rocks and sliding through the mud, the cliff receded somewhat to her left and the river opened up before her. A white, roaring wall loomed up out of the rain, as if someone had torn a hole in the clouds and let all the water out at once. After a moment of blinking and trying to get her dripping hair out of her eyes, she realized that she was not staring at a torrent in the midst of the downpour, she was looking at a waterfall, and just on their side of the waterfall, there was a series of darker holes in the cliff wall that must be caves.
Tad spotted them at the same time, and shouted into her ear. “If any of these are deep enough, this is where we should stop! We may not be able to hear anything coming, but whatever tries to come at us from ahead won’t be able to get past the falls! We’ll only have to guard in one direction!”
She winced at the bellowing, since she was right beside the excited gryphon, but saw at once that he was right. That overcame her misgiving at camping in a place where the sound of an enemy approaching would be covered by the roar of the water. And as if to emphasize just what a good spot this was, a stunned fish came floating to their very feet to lodge among the rocks, flapping feebly. It had obviously been knocked silly by going over the falls, and Tad, who was probably starving, was on it in a heartbeat. Two gulps, and it was gone, and Tad had a very satisfied look on his face.