“But better than open ground. Isn’t it?”
Is it? “Yeah.” He forced the words out. “A little.”
Think, Vryce, think. There’s got to be a way out of this mess.
“Can we get across?” Jenseny asked.
“Can’t jump,” he muttered.
“What about the trees?” Hesseth asked. Pointing to one particularly stout specimen that was rooted several feet back from the chasm’s lip.
He saw what she was driving at, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like the thought of even going near one of those things again, much less cutting it down and manhandling it into position, and then trusting his life to it as they inched along its twisted trunk, over God alone knew how much empty space . . . but it might work. God damn it. It might save them, if they could get across before the animals reached them and then cast off their makeshift bridge, down into the chasm’s depths.
He took a deep breath—a very deep breath—and started off toward the stocky tree. As he took his first step, a noise sounded to the north of them: a thin, wailing shriek that might have been the wind. Or a scream of pain. Or a hunting cry, voiced by an animal that had finally sighted its prey.
God, he prayed, just give us time. That’s all I ask. A few extra minutes to work with, so we can get ourselves out of here. Please, God. Just that.
The tree Hesseth had spotted was tall and straight and its base was nearly as thick around as his thigh. He tried not to think about what manner of victim had nurtured it into such healthy growth, tried not to look for the bones that must surely be scattered about its base. Those things were irrelevant now. He reached for a nearby branch and bent it down, fighting the sickness that welled up inside him at the mere thought of touching the thing. But it might have been a normal tree for all that it affected him now, and the resiliency he noted as he tested its branch spoke well for the strength of its wood. Which was a damned good thing, he thought. Because twenty feet up it wasn’t all that thick around, and he’d hate for it to break beneath their weight just when safety was within sight.
“All right!” he called back. “We’ll try it.”
He could hear the baying of the beasts now, the triumphant howls of hunters who were closing in on their prey. With a pounding heart he knelt down by the base of the tree and prepared himself for Working. No time for finesse now, or the delicate manipulations of a Knowing; he needed brute force, wielded with the Hunter’s killing power. And he would summon that force for them here and now, if he had to draw on Tarrant’s own power to do it.
Too determined to be afraid—at least for the moment—Damien plunged his will into the living wood. The shock of contact was almost unbearable, and it took all his strength and all his courage not to withdraw from it, not to try to save himself. If the tree’s power had lapped at his conscousness before, now he was wholly immersed in it, and he shook body and soul as he fought to maintain control. The tree sucked him in, deep into its soul, deep into the source of its power, and even as he struggled with it he could sense the slender roots growing toward him, hairs so fine that the porous rock was hardly an obstacle, thin white fingers of death that were even now licking at the surface beneath his feet. It took a monumental effort not to think about them, not to back off and defend himself—but if he failed now, with this tree, then he might as well just give himself over to the pack and have it done with. And that knowledge gave him fresh strength, if not added courage.
He took hold of its substance, cell by cell. He insinuated his will into the very fibers of its being, in much the same way he would for a Healing. Then, instead of forcing the tree to grow, he forced it to die; instead of forcing the cells to bind tighter together, he ripped apart the very structure that bound them. It was a perfect reversal of the Healer’s art: an un-Healing, an anti-Healing, an act that he would have found wholly repulsive had he not required it for survival. And the wood responded. Cells died, choked off by his power. Cell walls shattered and gave way, loosening their hold on their neighbors. Inch by inch he worked his way through the trunk of the white tree, cell by cell by endless cell . . .
And then it was done. He drew back, gasping for breath, and regarded his handiwork. The damage was barely visible on the outside of the trunk, but his Worked senses could see the wound scything through the living wood like a sword cut. Good enough. Now if he could only get the thing to fall right . . .
“They’re coming,” Hesseth warned.
He didn’t look. He couldn’t afford to. If he couldn’t get the tree in place by the time the pack attacked, then they were all doomed, and so he refused to spare the few seconds that looking would entail. Instead he moved to the north side of the tree and gathered all his power—not in the way he had been taught to do but the way that Tarrant did it, using the raw force of the currents to split the tree apart—and he pushed, he pushed for his life, he pushed with all the force of the earth-fae behind him, forcing the tree into a fall that would place it cleanly across the chasm and then using the earth-fae to see that it didn’t break, it didn’t bounce, it didn’t skitter off to one side or the other and go plunging down into the depths. His whole body shook as the power surged through him, using his will as its focus. And then the tree began to fall. Slowly at first, as if fighting the fatal drop. Then smoothly, almost gracefully, its topmost branches sketching an arc through the air as it hurtled toward the ground. Damien found himself praying as he watched it fall, knowing that if even one of his Workings failed this might all be wasted effort.
The tree struck with a resounding crash, and all the ground around them shook. He could sense the force of the impact coalescing in the trunk, could feel it fighting to tear the wood apart. But it held. God be praised, it held. It shuddered once or twice and then settled into place, spanning the gap perfectly.
He looked back toward Hesseth—and saw movement in the distance, the glint of white light on ivory teeth, obsidian scales. “Go!” he told her. “Take the girl.” He saw that she had taken her shoes off so that her sharp claws might help her keep her balance. “Now!”
“What about you—”
He glanced at the narrow bridge, felt fear tighten its grip on his heart. It was too thin, too thin; had he ever dreamed it would support him? “If it’s going to break, it’ll do so under my weight. You get across first, then I’ll follow.” When she hesitated, he snapped at her, “Do it!”
She grabbed the girl’s wrist and ran to the edge of the chasm. There she caught the girl up and scrambled to the upper side of the trunk. For a moment Damien’s heart was in his throat as he watched, and then—as he witnessed the perfection of her rakhene balance, the anchoring power of those long, unsheathed talons—he knew she was going to make it. The rakh were designed for such excursions.
Not like humans, he thought grimly.
With a quick glance behind him to see how close the hunters were, he bolted for the makeshift bridge. He could hear claws clattering on the hard earth as the animals rushed to close in on him, could hear their growls of hunger and exultation as they ran those last few yards to claim their dinner. And then he was up on the trunk and he was moving south, out over the chasm’s yawning mouth, trying not to look down or look back or, worst of all, think about the fact that any moment the trunk might crack and sent him plummeting down into those black, hungry depths . . . the tree shook beneath his feet as the animals grabbed hold of it and he realized with sudden terror that their claws would give them perfect purchase, that they could move along the twisted trunk as easily as Hesseth had, while he dared not slip so much as an inch. Don’t think about that. Don’t. He felt his hand go for his sword, but he forced himself to use it for balance instead. One step and then another, quickly but oh so carefully managed. There had been a kink halfway up the tree and he glanced down long enough to locate it, taking care that it didn’t trip him. The wood was shaking beneath his feet; it seemed he could feel the animals’ hot breath on his heels. His every instinct screamed for him to draw his sword, a knife, anything—but he knew that if the animals attacked him here, he had no hope of survival, none at all, and so he put all his energy into speed, into care, into hoping desperately that the slender end of the trunk would bear his weight . . .