By the time he gathered his wits, Zera was there, pulling him to his feet. They made several more jumps in quick succession, until they had gone as far as they could.
Zera hunkered down, gazing into the depths of a wide breach created by a crossing street. Nothing stirred, but the calls of the beasts that hunted them sounded nearer.
“They have found our scent,” she announced. “We have time only until they reach the first rooftop. After that, they will be upon us.”
Leitos did not need her to explain the ease and speed with which the loathsome creatures would follow. He scanned ahead, struggling to separate merged shadows, until he found what had to be the southernmost portion of the city wall. It was not very far now.
“We must go down.”
Zera searched around. “There,” she said with a measure of relief, and strode to a pair of thick vertical rails joined by a rung, jutting a foot above the building’s rear side.
Leitos gave the ladder a critical appraisal, then made to climb onto the uppermost rung. Zera stopped him.
“Due caution does not make you a coward,” she said gently, and eased him aside.
Taking the vertical rails in hand, she heaved against them. Heavily rusted cleats affixed to the building held them in place. The ladder rattled, but seemed sound. Next she tested her weight on the top three rungs. They creaked, but held.
“This will not hold us both at the same time,” Zera warned. “Come at my signal.” Then she was gone.
Leitos leaned over to watch her descend. The cleats groaned in their settings, and a rung gave way with a dusty crunch, momentarily leaving Zera dangling by one hand.
“Hold on!” Leitos hissed.
“I’m fine,” she answered, regaining a secure hold. She scrambled farther down and jumped clear. With her back pressed against the building, she looked first one way then the other, head cocked to catch the slightest sound. Only then did she motion him to follow.
He mounted the ladder, and in doing so caught sight of a pack of Alon’mahk’lar on the first rooftop. They gathered too far away to make out individual characteristics, but without question they sought the scent of their prey. Suddenly one of the beasts raised its muzzle skyward, baying. The others turned, silvery eyes glimmering like dull stars. As Leitos started down, the first one bounded across to the next rooftop.
Leitos flew down the ladder. Splinters gouged his palms, rungs cracked, and the by the time he was halfway to Zera, several cleats had given way. The ladder’s upper length sprang loose from the wall, swaying like a tree caught in a high wind. A loud popping noise heralded the ladder’s demise, and while still ten feet up, Leitos flung himself clear, landing with a pained grunt. The ruined ladder crashed down around him and burst into a cloud of dust and bits of flying wood.
“Time to run,” Zera said, again with that disturbing, overeager light in her eyes.
Leitos did not wait for her to take the first step.
Chapter 17
The road out of the bone-town rose steep and winding for a mile or more, then crested a hilly plateau home only to rock, stiff thorn bushes, and sand. The familiar barrenness could not temper Leitos’s joy at escaping, but Zera’s words did.
“They follow,” she said in grim tones, head cocked in a listening posture. Leitos heard only the wind rattling through the nearby brush, the gentle hiss of sand swirling against itself. Nevertheless, he believed her. Not only could she see well in darkness, she also seemed to hear better than anyone he had ever known.
“I can still run,” he said, but worried about how long he could continue. As far as he could tell, Zera suffered no ill-effects from the chase.
They set out at a brisker pace than before. The road carried them south over low hills, and brought them to a wall of overhanging cliffs. The roadway passed through a narrow gorge. In the night it had the aspect of a bottomless chasm opening onto Geh’shinnom’atar itself. Leitos peered into that darkness. What waits down there?
“Maybe we can go around,” Leitos suggested.
Zera disagreed. “The cliffs are high and wide. We will make our stand here. Rather, I will make a stand. You continue on until I catch up. This is no fight for you.” Not a hint of doubt or fear lived in her voice.
“You cannot face these things alone. I can fight,” he added, unwilling to leave her behind. He was no warrior, but he was done bowing to the fear in his breast. If their fate was to face the enemy and perish, at least he would go to his grave with a clear conscience.
“Do not be a fool,” Zera chided gently. “If I must defend you and myself, at the same time, we will both die. Go, now, before it is too late. Run and do not halt … no matter what you hear.” It was not an invitation, or a plea, but a command.
Leitos looked back along the road they had run, its length indistinguishable from the rest of the landscape after a few paces. He could now make out the braying calls of the Alon’mahk’lar.
His lips parted to protest, but Zera held up a hand. “Go, Leitos,” she ordered, a lithe silhouette, sword bared, framed by an aura of night and stars. “Go, and do not look back!”
Leitos ran just far enough to escape Zera’s exceptional sight and hearing. Lost in the gorge’s deep shadows, he slowed to a halt. Where the racket of the Alon’mahk’lar had grown louder the closer they came, now an abrupt silence held sway. Unnatural, oppressive, full of dire portent, it seemed to smother the land.
He drew his knife and headed into the litter of boulders beneath the gorge’s towering walls. He lost himself amid the fallen slabs, creeping and climbing his way back toward Zera.
A shriek, inhuman and swollen with fury, ripped apart the tense stillness, reverberated back through the gorge, crashing over Leitos. He froze. Gods good and wise, what creature could have made such a cry? Zera could not face such a terror alone.
He scrabbled over the boulders, flung himself from one to another, bruising and scraping his flesh in his haste. He had made it most of the way back when he drew up short, perched atop a massive stone block.
Distorted shapes leaped and careened in a maddened frenzy at the feet of a towering, winged creature of swirling mists. Even as he watched, the thing changed, grew larger, humped of back, thick of limb. It lashed out at its foes, and howls of pain followed. The winged creature swept a knotted arm at an attacking Alon’mahk’lar, colliding with the sound of snapping bones. It sprawled in motionless silence. Another Alon’mahk’lar fared worse, seemingly torn in half amid a shower of vile blood. Instead of giving pause, the sudden destruction riled the attackers to greater frenzy.
They have turned on each other, Leitos thought, momentarily pleased, until he remembered that Zera was caught in that madness!
He slithered down the rock and dashed toward the enemy, knife held before him as though it were a weapon of mystic lethality. As he reached the edge of the fray a great, yielding mass buffeted him to one side with a leathery slap. He tumbled over sand and jutting rocks, and fetched up against a thorny bush.
“Run!” Zera cried from very near the winged creature, her voice throaty and strained from the labors of battle. Head spinning, Leitos bounced unsteadily to his feet.
“Damn your foolish hide, flee!” Zera commanded, sounding nearer. Then he saw her, just a hazed shape amid the swirling mists of the winged creature. Her sword slashed and stabbed, a fury of motion driving back the Alon’mahk’lar. As soon as he saw her, she was lost from sight, and the winged creature screamed into the face of the night. As that eye-watering cry raced over the desert, Leitos heard Zera once more. “LEAVE!”