Edging along the trees, moving swiftly and carefully as possible, we were taken aback by the sudden appearance of half a dozen beasts with men mounted on them. My fear had been realized. They spotted us.
The beasts they were riding looked remarkably like horses, if horses could have horns and were shorter and wider with red-and-white stripes. They were guided in a way similar to horses as well, bits and bridles, long, thin reins. The riders were seated in high-set saddles, and as they came closer it became apparent they were not human at all.
Humans have flesh, but these things had something else. Their skin was yellow like Jerrel’s skin, but it was coarse and gave one the impression of alligator hide. They had flaring scales around their necks. Their features were generally human-like, but their noses were flat as a coin, little more than two small holes. Their foreheads slanted and the tops of their heads peaked. Their mouths were wide and packed with stained teeth and their round eyes were red and full of fiery licks of light. They were carrying long lances tipped with bright tips of metal. Short swords with bone handles bounced in scabbards at their hips. Closer yet, I saw there were little glowing parasites flowing over their skin like minnows in a creek.
Jerrel said, “Galminions. They are eaters of human flesh. Robbers. They run in packs. And they smell.”
They came ever closer. Jerrel was right. They did smell, like something dead left under a house.
“Ah,” said the foremost rider, reining his mount directly in front of us. The others sat in a row behind him, smiling their filthy teeth. “Travelers. And such a good day for it.”
“It is,” Jerrel said. “We thought a stroll would be nice.”
The one who had spoken laughed. The laugh sounded like ice cracking. He had a peculiar way of turning his head from side to side, as if one eye were bad. When the sunlight shifted I saw that was exactly the problem. He was blind in that eye; no red flecks there. It was white as the first drifts of snow in the Rockies.
“How is your stroll?” said Dead Eye.
“It’s been warm, and it’s quite the hike,” Jerrel said, “but it has been amusing. It has been so good to speak to you. We must be on our way. We wish you good day.”
“Do you now?” said Dead Eye. He turned in his saddle and looked back at his companions. “They wish us good day.”
The companions laughed that similar laugh, the one that sounded like ice cracking, then made leathery shifts in their saddles.
“It’s good to see we’re all in a cheery mood,” Jerrel said.
When Dead Eye turned back to us, he said, “I am cheery because we are going to kill you and eat you and take your swords. But mainly we’re going to kill you and eat you. Maybe we’ll start eating you while you’re alive. Of course we will. That’s how we like it. The screams are loud and the blood is hot.”
“You will dance on the tip of my sword,” I said. “That is what you will do.”
“And what are you exactly?” said Dead Eye.
“A black man.”
“I can see that. Were you burned?”
“By the fires of hell. Perhaps you would like a taste of hell itself.”
“What is hell?”
I had wasted my wit. “Never mind,” I said. “Let us pass, or—”
“I will dance on the tip of your sword,” Dead Eye said.
“Exactly,” I said.
“What about the rest of us,” he said. “Shall they dance as well?”
“I suppose that between our two swords there will be dancing partners for all of you.”
This really got a laugh.
“He is not joking,” said Jerrel.
“We will be the judge of that,” Dead Eye said. “For we are not jokesters either.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “You look pretty funny to me.”
My comment was like the starter shot.
They came as one in a wild charge. Jerrel and I worked as one. We seemed to understand the other’s next move. We dodged into the trees, and the Galminions followed. The trees made it difficult for them to maneuver their beasts, but we moved easily. I sprang high in the air and came down on the rider nearest me with a slash of my sword, severing his head, spurting warm blood from his body like the gush from a fountain.
Jerrel lunged from behind a tree, and avoiding the ducking horned head of one of the mounts, stuck it in the chest. With a bleating sound it stumbled and fell, rolled about kicking its legs, tumbling over the fallen rider, crushing him with a snap of bone and a crackle of bumpy skin.
That was when Dead Eye swung off his steed and came for me, driving his lance directly at my chest. I moved to the side, parried his lance with my sword. The tip of his weapon stuck deep in a tree, and the impact caused him to lose his footing. When he fell, it was never to rise again. I bounded to him and drove my sword deep in his throat. He squirmed like a bug stuck through by a pin. His white eye widened. He half spun on my sword, spat a geyser of blood, shook and lay still.
The others fled like deer.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“I am, and believe it or not,” I said, “fortune has smiled on us.”
For Jerrel riding one of the beasts was uncomfortable and she rode awkwardly. For me it was like being back in the cavalry. I felt in control. The creatures handled very similar to horses though they seemed smarter. That said, they had a gait similar to mules, making for a less smooth ride.
“You call this fortune?” Jerrel said.
“If your uncle is on foot, yes,” I said.
As we rode on, in front of us the clearing went away and a mountain range rose before us. It was at first a bump, then a hump, and finally we could see it for what it was. The mountain was covered in dark clouds and flashes of lightning, all of it seen to the sound of rumbling thunder. The patches of forest that climbed up the mountain were blacker than the trees that gave the Black Hills of the Dakotas their name.
The day moved along, the sun shifted, and so did the shadows. They fell out of the forests and grew longer, thicker, cooler, and darker. A few of the shiny bugs came out. We shifted into the woods, found a spot where old wood had fallen, and made a kind of hut of trees and limbs. We dismounted and led our animals inside through a gap. I found some deadwood and pulled it in front of the opening. I chopped a lean but strong limb off a tree with my sword and used it to stretch from one side of our haven to the other. On one side of it I placed our mounts, the limb serving as a kind of corral. After removing their saddles and bridles, I used bits of rope from the bag of supplies we had brought from the wreck of the sled to hobble them, a trick Jerrel had never seen before.
Finally we stretched out on our side of the barrier with our cloaks as our beds. We lay there and talked, and you would have thought we had known each other forever. In time the Night Wings were out. They flew down low and we could hear their wings sweeping past where we were holed up. Many of the bugs outside slipped in between the gaps of fallen wood and made our little room, such as it was, glow with shimmering light.
Jerrel and I came together at some point, and anything beyond that is not for a gentleman to tell. I will say this, and excuse the dimenovel feel to it. My soul soared like a hawk.
Next morning we were up early, just after the Night Wings and the glowing bugs abandoned the sky. We saddled up and rode on out. From time to time I got down off my critter and checked the ground, found signs of our quarry’s tracks, remounted, and we continued. By the middle of the day we had reached the mountain and were climbing up, riding a narrow trail between the great dark trees.
The weather had shifted. The dark clouds, the lightning and thunder had flown. As we rode from time to time I saw strange beasts watching us from the shadows of the forest, but we were not bothered and continued on.
Late in the day I got down and looked at our man’s tracks, and they were fresh. Our mounts were giving us the final edge on his head start.