“Maybe a bit too thirsty?”
Snaugenhutt’s voice was uncharacteristically muted. “Maybe. I don’t have that much. There must’ve been something in it.” Buncan had to admit as he continued to strum the duar that the rhino did not sound drunk.
The music and conversation alerted a startled guard who was sleepy but not asleep. Hie ground squirrel barked a challenge in Viz’s direction. Viz ignored him as he spoke to the merchant.
“Hey, Gragelouth! You can help here.” The sloth waddled over and began applying the blade of his larger knife to the rhino’s bindings.
By this time the agitated guard was yelling for help. Sleepy, half-clad figures came stumbling out of nearby tents. Buncan and the otters ignored them. A lambent, silvery mist now all but obscured his busy fingers.
Chi-churog emerged from a large tent opposite the recumbent Snaugenhutt. The First Rider of the Xi-Murogg reached back as someone within handed him a curved sword. He waved it over his head as he started toward the escapees.
“You have ruined the timing and dishonored the Ceremony! Now we will have to wait another day.”
Viz rose and darted at the meerkat, easily avoiding the sword stroke aimed in his direction. “Sorry, rat-face. We’re out of here.”
Chi-churog paused as armed males gathered around him. “Am I to be moved by your serenade? Your story did not impress me. I, Chi-churog of the Xi-Murogg, am not one to be frightened by the desperate warbling of inept troubadours.”
“Who’s inept?” Buncan shouted challengingly. The otters were no less irate.
“Stomp ‘em in the ground, cut ‘em to pieces
Kick ‘em in the ‘ead, make ‘em all dead
Grind ‘em into powder so their fields can be fed
With their own blood, hey
Turn it to a flood, say
Turn the ground to mud, yea
Let Snaugenhutt trample
Everyone who tries to flee ,
Start with that one as a bleedin’ example!”
But Snaugenhutt’s thongs didn’t fray and dissolve. No invisible, impenetrable wall materialized to protect them from the now fully awake and furious villagers. No enraged dragon or other powerful defender appeared to challenge their approaching captors.
As Chi-churog and his mob of heavily armed villagers lurched forward, long snouts twitching, eyes full of murder, Buncan began to feel concern. Playing faster did nothing to alter the status quo, nor did the most violent imprecations the otters could improvise.
“For this outrage,” Chi-churog declared, “the traditional butchering will proceed simultaneous with the collection of blood. This so that you may see for yourselves as you die with what skill our females wield the ceremonial knives. Consider it a special honor which . . .”
That’s when the ground began to shake.
Well, not to shake, really, but to tremble, as if the earth itself had been agitated by the otters’ lyrics. Buncan considered slowing the music, but he had to keep up with Squill and Neena, who were spinning insults and threats as fast as they could think of them. Maybe, he thought, he should have been paying more attention to the content of their rap than to the approaching Xi-Murogg. How dangerous a condition could they conjure? He wailed away grimly at the duar.
By now the surface was shaking sufficient to bring Chi-churog and his people to a halt. A poorly posted tent collapsed nearby, sending its dazed occupants stumbling out into the night. An apprehensive Gragelouth plied his knife as fast as he could. Snaugenhutt’s front legs were free, and he and Viz were working frantically on the back pair.
The tickbird kept glancing worriedly in all directions. “Hurry up, merchant. Something’s happening.”
“I am as aware as you.” Gragelouth sawed at a stubborn thong.
“This spellsinging?” Viz fluttered above bis friend. “They have it under control, don’t they? They know what they’re doing, don’t they?”
“More or less.”
“More or less?”
“It seems to be something of a hit-or-miss proposition. The sorcery always works. It is the results that are unpredictable.”
As if to punctuate the merchant’s observation, the earth promptiy gave a thunderous belch, tossing the sloth to the ground. Feet freed, adrenaline pumping, Snaugenhutt rolled forcefully to his left, ripping the pegs that held the thongs across his belly out of the dirt. He stood erect, shaking himself like a dog after a swim. His iron scutes clanged violently, sounding the bells of the Church of the Contumacious Rhinoceros.
More furious than frightened, Chi-churog made an effort to advance over the quivering ground. His people followed reluctantly, then- initial enthusiasm waning fast. They’d advanced several paces when they halted in then’ tracks.
Buncan turned to look over his shoulder. The sun was lightening the eastern sky, but it wasn’t the sun that rooted Chi-churog’s followers in place. It was something that had appeared between the village and the sun.
Two towering buttes looked down into the box canyon. Both were shuddering violently, enormous boulders and slabs of sandstone sloughing from their sides. Buncan remembered how as they’d progressed through the Tamas he and his friends had made a game of finding shapes and outlines and faces in the cold rock.
It was apparent now that they hadn’t imagined those creations.
As more and more stone slid from its shoulders, the outline of a gigantic armored ape became visible. Spikes and blades projected from its burnished armor and a fringed helmet adorned the low-browed skull. Slowly, ponderously, it uncoiled from the crouching position in which it had been trapped for untold eons. An ax the size of a small town dangled from one immense hand.
The second butte collapsed to reveal a great cat of unidentifiable lineage. Its armor differed dramatically from that of the ape but was no less awe-inspiring. As one huge paw thrust a short sword skyward to pierce a low-hanging cloud, the liberated giant let out a roar that reverberated like thunder across the canyon.
Not only was the sight sufficient to send Chi-churog and the rest of the Xi-Murogg fleeing in panic, it was plenty impressive enough to intimidate Buncan as well. Not having enough sense to be afraid, the otters sang on.
Buncan removed his fingers from the duar and waved at them. “Hey, guys, I think maybe that’s enough.” The otters ignored him, utterly focused on their rap. Beyond the sheer sandstone walls, monstrous ape and gargantuan cat were turning curious, unnatural eyes toward the fault sounds emanating from the bottom of the box canyon.
Buncan slung his duar across his back and grabbed each otter by the neck, using force instead of reason to choke off their singing. “I said that’s enough.” He indicated the two titanic figures. “Let’s go.”
Clutching its ax, the ape was leaning over the canyon wall for a better look. As the edge crumbled beneath immense hands boulders crashed into the fields below, smashing fruit trees and threatening to bounce into the village itself. Wailing Xi-Murogg dashed in all directions, not knowing what to do. The riders who moments earlier had been intent on spitting Buncan and his friends were now desperately trying to control their spooked mounts.
“Whoa,” said Squill as Buncan dragged him and his sister toward the waiting Snaugenhutt, “I told you those rocks looked like a monkey.”
“You did not,” Neena objected vociferously.
“Not now.” Buncan shoved them halfway up the rhino’s capacious back. As soon as he followed them and before he was even settled in his seat, Viz chirped into the hairy ear he was holding.
“Now, Snaug! Let’s move!”
With a nod and a snort the rhino turned and rumbled out of the village, heading at an inspired gallop for the cleft in the canyon walls. No one tried to stop him. Once he got up to speed, nothing short of a natural disaster could.
Only a terrified and completely frustrated Chi-churog took a swipe at them with his sword as they hurtled past. The blade shattered on Snaugenhutt’s armor. Their last view of the First Rider saw him hopping up and down amidst the confusion of his panicked village, hurling imprecations in their wake.