Chapter Sixty-Eight. Into a Battle.
Sixty-Eight
Into a Battle.
We both look up at the same time—and see the shadow that’s affixed to the vertical slant of the spire on the right.
Except … it’s not a dark spot thrown by a cleave of the stone or a discoloration in the vein of rock.
It’s a creature that’s the size of a horse, with skin that has the texture of bark on a tree.
With its splayed hands and feet, it sits in place as if it’s on the ground, and as it shifts its position to stare down at us, a strange fluctuation in coloring makes it blend in perfectly with the bands of black and brown.
This is what I sensed, but did not see.
The predator has been with us all along, and as its black tongue comes out and licks around jagged black fangs, lunchtime appears to be nigh.
“Ogre,” Merc says softly. “I’ve heard about them. That skin is nearly impenetrable—but they’re slow.”
The beast’s flanks are puffing in and out, and though it’s hard to track the precise position because of the chromatic phenomenon, I think the back end of the thing is quivering. Like its muscles are engaging.
Because it’s going to jump on us.
“We need to go,” Merc warns. “Now—”
Just as he gives the order at a shout, the ogre goes airborne.
I have a brief impression of skin flaps puffing out, the way a flying squirrelle’s might—and then everything becomes a blur.
Lavante is not going to stand still as that thing tries to eat us.
The stallion bolts and Merc’s horse follows suit, right behind us.
As the wind streaks back my hair and I hear only a roar in my ears, I have to look over my shoulder.
I can’t see much of anything behind Merc, just the pale sandy dirt and the black-and-brown cliffs. Fates, if the ogre can camouflage itself, it’s nearly impossible to tell whether it’s on the ground chasing us or still on the vertical.
At thunderous speed, we jog left into a turn, flash to the right, then dodge straight through a smaller clearing. After that, it’s a blur of more curves and sharp corners. I lean into Lavante’s neck and do my best to follow his tilts, especially as the trail gets narrower and narrower—
A strange call, like nothing I’ve ever heard before, echoes around.
It’s like the howl of a wolf crossed with the cry of a bird of prey. As the sound ripples out—
“They’re closing in!” Merc yells over the din.
“‘They’re’?” So that wasn’t just an echo. There’s more than one chasing us. “Go, Lavante! Go!”
I give my heel, not that it matters. The stallion is flying as fast as he can in the increasingly cramped chute, given the number of directional changes and rerouting. But at last we finally hit a straightaway with a decent amount of width—
Lavante turns his head to the side and whinnies in fear, his great long legs suddenly surging. Taking his cue, I look up at the cliff wall.
One of the ogres is not only right by me, but getting ahead of the stallion.
“I thought you said they were slow!” I holler to Merc.
“Keep going!”
“Like I’m going to stop—”
Flames.
All at once the cliffs are gone as we thunder out of a turn and break into a red landscape that’s unlike anything I’ve seen before.
Bursts of blood-colored flame flare up out of fissures in the red dirt, the fires like burps from deep under Anathos’s surface.
Red, leafless trees with tangled branches and twisted trunks dot the flat plain, and immediately, Lavante surges around one.
Dodges a second. Leaps to the side to avoid getting burned as a blast of fire explodes.
I do what I can to stay in the saddle—
It happens so fast, I couldn’t have done anything, even if I’d known what was coming: An ogre lands in a crouch right in our path.
Lavante lets out a scream through his nostrils, his hindquarters digging in and kicking up the loose red dirt so that it splashes all around us. His lunge to the left is so violent, I feel myself go airborne, and as I tumble into a hard landing, I try to keep an eye on the ogre.
Its bark-like skin turns the exact red of the ground, only its beady red eyes showing.
And all those black teeth.
My breath gets sucked out of me, and I swallow dust that tastes like sulfur as I roll.
During one of the rotations, I catch a brief glimpse of Merc and his horse blasting out of the cliffs at a dead run, a rippling overhead as more ogres leap free of their rocky roads and sustain flight with their wings of flesh.
And then I hear the grunting call.
Scrambling onto all fours, I square off against the ogre that is lowering into a crouch in front of me. Its tail rises like a scorpion’s over its back, and the way the beast quivers just before it jumps tells me that I’m going to lose this ground fight.
Crescent moon, there isn’t even going to be a fight.
As the sound of pounding hooves is still too far away for Merc to help me, I brace myself for the attack while the ogre leaps into the air, front claws ready to finish what the skystalker’s talons started.
The image of it silhouetted against the sky is right out of nightmares, and I bring my arms up to cover my—
Flames. Everywhere.
Sure as if I conducted them to do so, two columns of fire explode up from the ground, and the pair of them cross, just as my arms did, at the exact moment the ogre’s trajectory carries it forward.
The creature lets out a shriek, and I smell burning meat. The next thing I know, the thing lands on top of me, one of its feet digging into my hip, another crashing into my shoulder. I hold on to my head and curl into a tight ball, expecting to be bitten.
But the beast has other problems.
Half of it is on fire, the red flames spitting and hissing as it paddles with its squat legs and changes colors randomly, black, brown, red, yellow—abruptly, it stumbles off me.
Drops to its side. Shrieks again. As the stench of burning flesh mixes with that sulfuric odor, I, too, have other things to worry about.
Merc is weaving around the base of the mountain, and he has a stream of the ogres behind him, all of them transitioning from black and brown to the red—
Another shriek.
I wrench around on the ground. There’s a second ogre flying at me, those wings that aren’t wings out to guide its trajectory, the angle perfect to land on me, the black teeth bared, the black tongue lolling out as if it can already taste me.
But I put out my hands, palms forward.
And I call to the flames, an intentional command borne out of what unintentionally happened first with the lantern and then with the hearth at Lena’s.
There are three nearby holes in the ground, like sockets, and as if the fire is something I can pull like a rope, I yank at the air—
Flames explode to life, sure as if I conjured them, and I throw my hands forward, pushing the blast of heat at the ogre in the air. It’s the lantern’s attraction to me amplified a thousand times, not the little glow of a wick seeking me, but so much, so very much, more.
I don’t understand what I’m doing, or how, and in this it’s just as I battle death.
But I do it.
The shriek stings my ears as I fall back and brace myself for another fiery trampling. The thing stomps over me, roaring in pain, that cooked-meat stench all that’s left behind as it tears off for a length and then drops to the red dirt. I don’t waste time tracking its death writhing.
Jumping to my feet, I search Merc out. He’s making a circle and heading for me from the west, as if he intends on picking me up off the ground.
Behind him is an army.
The camouflaged bodies of the ogres ripple over the ground like a heat wave, and there is a sea of them—that are closing the distance.
And that’s when I see the second lot explode out of another chute in the cliffs, the color shift to red happening as they fly off their perches.
I start yelling. It’s a waste of effort, but the rage in me won’t be tempered—and as if I am conducting musicians, I wave my arms wide and then bring them in again, calling the fire to attention.
And command it to do my bidding.
A wall of flames appears in a semicircle, and I hear the screeching on the far side, a couple of the ogres spinning up into the air as they burst into heat and smoke.
But then in horror, I realize what I’ve done. I’m protected. Merc and his steed are shut out—
Like a wraith, he jumps through the line of red fire, his horse’s wild eyes and flaring nostrils nothing I can track, for I only have eyes for him.
With his black leather–clad body and his flowing black hair, he is vengeance with that broadsword in his hand, the inferno parting for him only long enough for him to get through before it recloses.
As he and his steed land, he thunders right for me, smoke rising from his surcoat, the backlight of flickering red and roaring heat like he’s come out of the very depths of evil.
And then he thunders past.
Spinning around, I see for the first time the ogre that was coming up on my rear.
If there had been so much as a delay of just a moment or two, I would have been dead.
But Merc takes care of me. He lets out a battle cry, reins his horse into an interception, and then leans so far out of the saddle to the side that he nearly takes the steed to the ground.
With a fluid stab, he drives the broadsword’s vicious tip into the head of the ogre that’s two lengths away from jumping on top of me.
The creature starts to spin around, faster and faster, tighter and tighter, until it yells in pain and spasms into a contorted, color-changing curl.
Yanking my head over my shoulder, I measure the wall of flames. I still want it to be up, and for no reason that makes any sense, I feel like it will stay there as long as I need it to.
This can’t be happening.
“Thank fates it is,” I hiss as I look around frantically.
Merc is yanking his horse into a circle and doubling back to the dead ogre. As he leans down and puts out his hand, I know he’s going to reclaim his weapon.
Where’s Lavante?
From out of nowhere, I hear a whistle—and then realize I’m making the call sound—
The answering whinny comes from the left, and there my stallion is, careening around a stand of red trees, barreling across the lengths that separate us, leaping over a sprout of flame that I have nothing to do with.
He’s going fast as the wind, the flickering light making his beautiful golden coloring glow like the sunset, his white mane and tail flowing pink from the wall of fire’s unholy illumination. And in spite of the heat and the creatures, he’s coming for me.
I sink down low.
Just as he sets upon me, he digs his hooves into the red dirt and sinks into a halt—and as if we have done the move a thousand times, I leap back into the saddle with perfect coordination, throwing my leg over the packs that are still tied on.
The instant my butt lands, I grab fistfuls of that mane, because I know what’s coming.
Just as Merc locks a hold on his broadsword’s hilt and rips it free of the dead ogre, Lavante surges forward with so much power, I feel like I leave a couple of my teeth behind.
The stallion is impossibly fast and monstrously strong, his head extending straight out from his surging body, his spine becoming a rope that runs from the tip of his nose to the last strand of his tail.
As if he’d been waiting all along for me to signal for my pickup so he could do his part.
Flattening myself on the side of his neck, trusting him to pilot us through the holes that spit fire, I can only pray that Merc and his steed are staying with us.
That wall of fire can’t last forever—and even if it did, those ogres are smart enough to find a way around the length of it.
We are not safe.
This battle is not over.