Part 26 (2/2)

'No . . . intention,' gasped Ben, but he was weakening quickly.

'So much more to teach you, Ben. Don't let go now, don't let go.'

Yron's legs struck the bottom. Reacting instantly, he plunged his feet to the bed of the river and stood upright, dragging Ben with him. He forced his way through the stomach-deep water, feeling the press of the fish around him, their incessant probing, feeling the brush of teeth and the tearing of cloth.

With Ben practically under one arm and barely able to stand, he scrambled up the mud at the edge of the river and pushed Ben ahead of him, the boy stumbling through the shallows and falling forward onto the gra.s.s. His right leg was a b.l.o.o.d.y mess, his trousers shredded; one of his boots hung by its laces and his jerkin was ripped and torn around the waist.

'Don't stop, Ben.' He heaved in a breath. 'Not safe.'

Ben tried to get to his feet, made it to a crawling position and dragged himself up the slope of the bank. Behind Yron the water boiled. A crocodile erupted from the river, hammering at them with extraordinary speed. Yron slipped on the bank, fell onto his backside and pushed himself backwards, his back against Ben's floundering body.

The crocodile came on, head still, running at its intended prey. Behind it, others fought each other in the shallows but it ignored them. Its jaws snapped once, missing Yron's foot by a hair. The captain lashed out with his boot, catching it across the snout. It hesitated then came on. He kicked again, another good contact. The crocodile stopped and hissed.

'Ben, go!' he yelled. 'Go!'

Below him, the huge reptile shook its head from side to side, gave Yron one last malevolent look and retreated into the water. He looked down on it from the top of the bank, stood and dragged Ben further into the forest and under cover. He laid the boy down and stared at his wounds.

'd.a.m.n you, boy,' he said, though his tone carried no anger. 'You were cut, weren't you?'

Ben nodded feebly then slumped back to lie prostrate. He was a mess. Ignoring the scratches and bites on his own body, Yron a.s.sessed his charge. Blood poured from Ben's ravaged right leg, and oozed from more other places than he could count. Flesh had been ripped from bones, which showed through where the piranhas had got to work. Back home the leg would have been amputated; here it had to be patched up.

One thing was clear. If Yron didn't bathe and dress the wounds with the right herbs, the boy was going to die.

Auum led his Tai along the banks of the River Shorth, his frustration growing. These men he'd ignored near the temple had proved to be difficult prey, and within his frustration there was a sense of grudging respect. A respect, though, that didn't lessen the outrage at the crime for which the strangers would pay.

They had followed the easy trail north and then east to the banks of the river. Footsteps had dragged down to the sh.o.r.e and there the trail had gone cold. It was clear they had gone downriver but how far was currently not known. Duele had found a disturbed pile of driftwood just upstream and it was then that Auum had to confess his surprise. The tributary was quick, with rocks not far under the surface. Even with driftwood to cling to, the chances of injury were very high, and where the flow eased, the predators ma.s.sed.

They moved on at speed, never more than five yards apart in a line that gave them a view across the river and deep into the forest eastwards.

'Thoughts,' he asked of them.

'The ClawBound has sensed nothing of them north to Shorth's Teeth rapids,' said Duele. 'I suggest they are back on land upstream of the rapids, possibly on the opposite bank.'

'They moved quickly to the river yesterday,' said Evunn. 'They have direction and they are unharmed. They may have reversed, leaving a false trail.'

It had to be considered, but Auum dismissed it. 'Not that good,' he said. 'But quick, yes. I suspect one of them knows of us.'

'So he would take great risk to escape,' said Duele.

'Speed is nothing without guile. We will always be faster,' countered Evunn.

'To a stranger, distance is safety. They chase the goal of escape,' said Auum. 'We should alert the ClawBound west of the river. These strangers must not escape.'

A roar lifted above the buzz of the forest. It was echoed at greater distance. The Tai stopped, waited. It was communication. A series of calls circled out, some elven, some animal. Growls, whistles, wails, grunts and barks. Auum understood none of it. Despite the closeness of their alliance, the ClawBound never revealed any of their secrets. The TaiGethen would know what was relevant soon enough.

The discordant messaging went on, silencing the forest denizens. This was noise at odds, noise that meant trouble and the determination to find a cure. None of Tual's creatures would interfere. Most would be scared by what they heard; an instinctive memory cowed them where they stood, caused them to land on the nearest perch or hold themselves still in the water or high in the canopy.

The moment it died away, the forest buzzed once more and a ClawBound pair emerged from the shadows to Auum's left. The panther trotted in and stood in Auum's path, its eyes glistening, asking him to stop.

'Tai,' said Auum and they came to him.

The ClawBound elf, very tall, his face impa.s.sive beneath his paint, bowed his head and spoke, the voice unused to speech.

'We have one group. Two trails are new. The fourth is west. The fifth group has crossed the Shorth. They are hurt. We will follow.'

He turned to go. Auum's question stopped him.

'Where are they running to?'

'Verendii Tual,' said the ClawBound. 'Many strangers wait. We watch.'

He turned and walked away into the forest, the panther sniffing the Tai's scent on the air before growling low and trotting after him.

'Verendii Tual,' said Auum. 'We haven't much time. The ClawBound will not lose them as I did. We'll wait for them at the estuary.'

His Tai knew better than to question him and they followed him away from the tributary, which would soon carve away west to join the Shorth, the combined river flowing on to its mouth at Verendii Tual, the staggering high-cliffed inlet that bit deep into the forest.

All the groups were tracked and one would be down by dawn tomorrow. The net was closing.

Chapter 25.

Just before dawn, Erys had woken experiencing a dread fear. Barely a day and a half out from the temple and the calming influence of Captain Yron and, while the group weren't lost, their minds were full of the terrors of the forest and their thinking wasn't straight. He'd tried to bring them back to themselves time and again in their ill-disciplined march towards the coast. He'd reminded them that Yron had trusted them to escape and had bought them time by sacrificing his own life.

And it had worked, brought them all back to what they had sworn to do. For an hour, maybe. Time was so difficult to judge. And then the bickering had started again. The backbiting and the fights about who was to lead. Erys had kept out of it. Let the egos of the other three battle it out. He gave up trying to reason with them and consoled himself by reflecting that it was he who carried the vital cargo. When it came to it, only he had to survive. Everyone else was expendable. He hoped they all went to h.e.l.l.

It had been the previous dawn that they realised they were being followed. Tracked. There was nothing they could point to. No evidence. But it was there all the same, the indefinable feeling that they were being watched. Perhaps it was a change in the quality of a shadow; perhaps a branch cracked at a quiet moment in the din that was the forest day, or maybe the call of a bird didn't ring true. Whatever it was, it had destroyed any semblance of order and the day had been little more than a blind rush north.

Heedless of where they had run, they had suffered cut, bruise and sprain. Only Erys, who had seen their charge for what it was, had kept a reasonable pace, kept up with them easily and so avoided injury. The G.o.ds only knew how they had escaped broken bones or snakebite. And worse than it all had been the unearthly chorus of growls, barks, grunts and calls that had echoed from all around them, dimming the rest of the forest din for what seemed like an age. None of them had spoken of it, too scared at what it represented to give voice.

The night had been unbearably tense, but despite the determination of everyone to stay awake because they didn't trust each other, Erys had slumped into an exhausted sleep. But now he was awake and his heart was thundering in his chest. He tried to quiet his breathing, lay completely silent in his hammock and listened. He turned his head slowly from side to side and in the thin light he could see one of the soldiers lying asleep. From where he was, Erys couldn't see the other two. He couldn't hear anything out of the ordinary.

But something had woken him. He was sure it hadn't been a dream. Erys shuffled out of his hammock, slipping on the wet ground under his feet. A quick look round and he shuddered. There was no one on duty. An eerie quality lay over the camp. Walking quickly towards the nearest of his colleagues, Erys genuinely didn't know if any of them was still alive, such was his feeling of impending dread.

He shook the soldier's shoulder and was rewarded with a grunt. He shook it again.

'Wake up,' he hissed. 'Can't you feel it?'

'What?' muttered the soldier, a surly young individual called Awin.

'Just get ready. We've got to go now,' said Erys.

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