Cython was going to war, a war they must have been planning for a very long time, and they now held the advantage. Hightspall occupied the Cythonians’ ancestral land of Cythe; their maps showed every inch of it and they could swarm out through secret tunnels anywhere, any time.
Hightspall, however, knew nothing about Cython, for no Hightspaller had ever been allowed inside the underground realm. Its few entrances were defended by a maze of traps, dead ends and killing rooms for any enemy who broke through.
Unless Hightspall was prepared for war in eleven days, it would not have a chance.
CHAPTER 20
Rix’s lungs were burning, but he could never run fast enough to escape what was behind them. Or what lay ahead.
As the caitsthe went up on its toes, Tobry let out a shuddery moan and Rix knew their lives hung from a cobweb. If Tobry cracked they would both fall.
‘Keep going,’ he panted. ‘Better a hundred shifters than that uncanny wrythen.’
‘Easy for you to say,’ Tobry said hoarsely. ‘You’ve got an enchanted sword.’
‘If we get through, I’ll take the shifter.’
‘Damned if — ’
Another bolt of tormented sound screamed overhead, struck the fissured roof further along and, crack-crack, began to pick the stone apart. Rix looked back and a scream bubbled up his throat — the wrythen was like something out of his night horrors.
The broken rock formed a rubble waterfall and diving through it was a lottery, their survival a matter of chance. But chance was better than the certainty if they were trapped with the thing behind them.
‘Go!’ Rix cried, and they dived together.
Rock was falling on the left and right sides of the gap, dust billowing out to obscure what little light there was. The roof gave an almighty groan and he knew that it was all coming down. His ankle shrieked as he soared over the rubble, small rocks whacked him on the back and buttocks, then the mountain fell in.
Broken stone was flying everywhere, bouncing off the walls, raprapping down his backbone, stinging his left ear. He hit the floor hard, skinning both elbows, rolled over and raised his sword in the one movement. Where was the caitsthe?
Until the dust settled, the creature would be impossible to see while it stood still, no more than a shadow when it moved. Though no doubt it could scent him. Rix suppressed a sneeze, put his back to the wall and probed with the blade. Despite the exertion, he was freezing — the depths of the tunnel seemed to be breathing up cold. Where was it? It could strike from anywhere and he would not see it until it was too late.
He could not see Tobry, either. ‘Tobe?’ he whispered.
No reply. Rix swept the flat of his sword around like a paddle but it did not touch flesh. Tobry was either unconscious or dead. Rix was on his own with one enemy before him and another at his back, and if they attacked together he would die.
Why was the caitsthe here, anyway? What was it guarding? What didn’t the wrythen want him to see?
He couldn’t see it now, but he could feel it coming as an icy ache in places where he had never felt anything before — inside his arm and leg bones, in the marrow — and a creeping and crawling of the skin on the back of his thighs. Whatever it was, it was no honest, natural creature. Why didn’t it attack? What was it waiting for? Was it driving them towards the caitsthe … or was the caitsthe penning them in for the wrythen?
Their survival depended on the answer.
‘Tobe?’ he repeated.
Nothing.
Something grated on stone, low to his left. It might have been Tobry, twitching on the floor, but Rix did not think so. Tobry’s presence wouldn’t make the little hairs on the back of Rix’s neck stand up.
He caught a faint exhalation, the snick of a set of massive jaws closing, a liquid sound in a long throat. What was the caitsthe up to? He turned slowly, the hilt slipping in his sweaty palm, his eyes struggling to penetrate the dust. Where was it? Those weren’t the sounds made by a beast preparing to attack. Caitsthes took the easy prey first. It was going for Tobry and he didn’t know where either of them were. And Tobry was unconscious, helpless. All it had to do was close its jaws around his throat …
Rix had to make the beast go for him. Picking up a handful of small rocks, he flung them horizontally, one after another, turning as he did. The fourth rock made a faint thud, as if hitting flesh. The caitsthe drew a sharp breath and he knew where it was.
Then it went for him.
Rix fought best when he relied on instinct and he allowed it to take over, angling his sword to the right as if planning a swinging blow while surreptitiously freeing the knife on his left hip. It would not be easy to fight with such different-sized weapons at once, nor was it a defence he’d ever practised. And if his hunch proved wrong …
His only warning was the hiss of exhaled breath, foul as a jackal that fed on carrion. Rix swung the sword, deliberately leaving his front and left side exposed. If his guess about either the caitsthe’s position or mode of attack was wrong, it would gut him.
‘Re-ven-ge,’ it said in a halting purr. As if, even in human form, its throat struggled to shape words.
Was it parroting something its master had taught it, or was a cunning mind at work inside the caitsthe? If it was truly intelligent his strategy would fail.
And where was the wrythen? Rix glanced over his shoulder. The cold was getting closer. Was its plan to attack from behind as the caitsthe came at him from the front? To his left the air flurried and faint, swirling red lines appeared there. Caitsthe magery? Rix was glad of his enchanted blade now.
He caught the blur of movement as it sprang and more swirls of red, but before he could strike the beast had him by the shoulders, digging its claws in and holding his sword arm so tightly that he could not use the weapon. It could have torn his throat out with a snap of those teeth. The fact that it did not suggested it had other plans, and the toothy smile confirmed it.
It’ll be planning to attack you where you hurt it.
The urge to protect his groin was almost irresistible. It took all Rix’s will to follow his instinct and wait for the one second when he would have a chance.
The caitsthe arched its back, opened its maw and began to lower its head. To divert his true intentions, he drove a knee up at its belly where the twin livers would be. The glancing blow had too little power to do serious damage, yet the caitsthe groaned and threw its head back.
No time to wonder why. He jerked his unnoticed knife out and up at the caitsthe’s belly at the same instant as it went for him. The knife encountered unexpected resistance — the woven belts of belly muscle were taut as wire. Rix swayed backwards and its snapping teeth grazed his chin, its foul breath blasting up his nostrils. His right forearm hit the side of its head but his sword was now behind the caitsthe and at the wrong angle to strike.
There was only one chance and he used it, forcing the knife through its belly muscles to the hilt then dragging it sideways. The caitsthe’s grip relaxed fractionally. He brought his knee up into its groin this time, putting all his weight behind it, and the shifter must not have been completely healed there, for it howled.
Rix slammed up again, gave the knife another twitch then put one foot against its crotch and shoved the creature backwards, tearing its claws from his shoulders.
The caitsthe slid off the knife and he lost sight of it as it hit the floor, though he could hear it panting and the oily squelch of intestines in its opened abdominal cavity. Any other creature would be dying from such an injury but the shifter seemed more troubled by the battering its groin had taken. He was safe for a minute or two until it healed itself — safe from it, at least — and had Rix been by himself he would have bolted.