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Chapter Nine
Kian's mount regarded him with calm, iridescent yellow eyes. He took a handful of the thick ebony mane in his gauntleted fist and lifted himself into the hand-tooled leather saddle that he'd ordered custom-crafted and adorned with jewels and silver oak leaves. Up ahead, the members of his party quietly debated, and white plumes of frosty breath streamed from between their lips.
Kian negotiated the quiet wood, tree trunks wet with snow on his left and right. The paws of the great noble lion made little noise as they splashed through small lakes that formed in the depressions of the forest floor.
The five-hundred pound minotaur came into sight.
"You only have to carry him a short while, old boy," Kian muttered to the giant cat, gently patting its side. "I know he's smells like cow shit. Not everyone can be lovely like me."
"What's that?" Tomoluk asked.
"Nothing," Kian lied, pulling up next to him. "You ready?"
Tomoluk growled and glared at Kian hatefully. But without further ado, the minotaur took Kian's proffered hand and pulled himself atop the noble beast. As tall as Tomoluk was, the lion was larger still. However, rather than grip Kian around the waist, Tomoluk hooked one paw around Kian's saddle horn while holding the axe aloft in the other.
"At least your mount is strong," Tomoluk said. "We may have a shot at success yet."
"Glad you approve," Kian uttered at the backhanded compliment. "Hold on. Cyrayalayeth travels very fast."
"Godspeed to you, Hunter," Ephram uttered. "We'll see both you and Tomoluk on the other side."
Kian seized the reins, spurred the lion, and it took off along a path that Kian plotted out by paying constant attention to the ever shifting landscape. In a few moments, they cleared the stark trees of the Forest of Silence.
Between Kian's lean thighs, Cyrayalayeth pounded forward with strength surging through every corded muscle. The noble lion responded to the minutest of Kian's course corrections and once clear of the dense canopy and out in the open, loud "caws" erupted from atop the Bone Wall. The murder of hell crows launched into the sunny sky, casting black shadows on the snow.
The noble lion leapt over two extremely narrow streams and scrambled up muddy slopes that sprouted thick in gorse. Overhead, the black birds trailed the lion lazily, kind of like a bird of prey does right before it strikes. It seemed like they followed Kian and Tomoluk, and this realization made him uncomfortable.
"That's the bridge there," Tomoluk said, pointing with his axe.
"I see it," Kian replied, leaning forward to decrease his profile on the back of Cyrayalayeth to hopefully pick up a little speed. It's a good thing too, because the birds had all started to dive toward them, and they were closing the gap between Cyrayaleyeth's haunches and their extended claws. In the distance, Kian heard the rumble of water. He tapped on his visor to use maximum zoom on the bridge and saw a waterfall just downstream. It looked like a drop of about ten feet, which wasn't much but might prove challenging if he needed to escape into the water underneath the bridge.
Kian felt Tomoluk lean in atop him, and the weight pressed him into the saddle making it a little harder for him to draw a breath.
You're crushing me you fat oaf, he wanted to say, but thought better of it.
"You sure are small," Tomoluk remarked. "If you are the disciple of a god, I've no idea why they'd choose a lad like you. When you're dead, I'm taking your cat."
"No chance of that happening," Kian replied. "Sorry to disappoint."
"Don't talk! Move!" Tomoluk yelled swinging his axe at the first bird. Feathers and blood sprayed down on them as he knicked the legs belonging to one.
Cyrayalayeth broke into a full sprint across the prairie. Kian felt the beasts heart pounding through the saddle, and kept the Bone Wall always on his right. Pressed so hard into the saddle by the huge minotaur, it was difficult to keep an eye on the bridge, so Kian headed for the general direction of the river.
Tomoluk screamed. Kian looked and saw his axe pointed at the sky. Above them, the huge hell birds had stopped circling and dove at them four at a time. Each of the things had a hideous pair of gargantuan claws that could easily circle a man around the arm. The first bird missed by a hair's breadth. At the last moment Cyrayalayeth ducked but lost his footing. He crashed and rolled to one side and smashed Kian into the muddy snow-covered soil, knocking the wind from his lungs.
He struggled to catch his breath. Directly to his right, the huge lion pushed itself to its feet and Kian heard Tomoluk scream again. He looked and saw that one of the birds had the minotaur in its claws and had started to lift him from off the ground.
Kian got to his feet, drew Bloodbane, teleported, and reappeared over the bird some twenty feet off the ground. He slammed his sword through the thing's neck. The hell bird shuddered and spiraled down into the earth and when it crashed, Kian landed awkwardly, and it pinned him to the ground. He struggled to teleport but couldn't because the bird still lived. Blood poured over the top of him as he ripped his sword from the wound. The hell bird spasmed, and its eyes darkened. The quantum sidestep never functioned if any part of his body became restrained by living flesh.
"Arrrggghh!" Kian yelled, trying desperately to thrust this huge thing off of his body. At long last, he kicked himself free, sheathed Bloodbane, and grabbed Tomoluk by the wrist. The minotaur acted dazed from the twenty foot fall and took a few seconds to get his bearings. Meanwhile, more than six hell crows bore down upon them and stood to arrive at any moment.
"Are you injured?" Kian asked as they ran. Inside his helmet, Kian's ears rang.
"No," Tomoluk replied. Quite suddenly, the minotaur dug his heels in and his eyes narrowed to pinpoints of evil.
What the fuck? Kian thought.
Tomoluk tightened his grip on Kian's arm, and flung the assassin in-between him and a descending crow. Kian screamed as the minotaur dislocated his shoulder. And even before Kian could react to the betrayal, claws crushed around his arms. Unable to teleport, the ground dropped away beneath him. Cyrayalayeth bellowed and the great lion followed Kian as best as it could out and over the huge stone bridge which spanned the river.
Tomoluk ran after the lion, trying to grab at the reins.
Fighting back tears from pain, Kian managed to twist his body and kicked at the bird with his boots. The grip on his arms loosened, and he pulled his right arm free. In one smooth movement, Kian drew his sword and gutted the bird. It dropped him from a dizzying height above the water. To escape the fall, he teleported onto the back of Cyrayalayeth, but the dying bird angled its body and slammed into the huge noble lion and knocked both mount and rider to the edge of the bridge.
Tomoluk rose up, axe in hand, and Kian saw the minotaur had turned into pure living stone the color of white granite. The warrior looked more powerful, somehow taller, and his muscles doubled in size.
"Fuck me," Kian cried out, voice desperate. He got ready to parry but at the last moment, his hands got tangled in the reins. "You're the traitor in our party!"
Tomoluk grinned and then struck Kian right in the face with his axe, throwing sparks in a six-foot cone. The vicious attack struck with such clout it cracked the visor to Kian's helmet and left him foggy and unresponsive. All the readouts, the magnifier function, and the buttons that controlled his killsuit weapons system stopped working. He couldn't deploy his cibrian cleats or the energy net on his right vambrace, the double blades on his left vambrace were affected too. Cold air from the outside dried the sweat on his face, and he felt nauseous as the most intense headache he'd experienced set in. Then his neck ached where his skull had slammed backward with the impact from the axe.
"Why are you doing this?" Kian asked weakly. For a moment, he lost all hearing and the world Kian saw transformed into a surreal thing in its silence.
"Because I hate you."
Black wings beat all around them and beaks and claws pecked at Kian and his lion. The beast bellowed horribly as it raked its claws along the stone bridge to try and prevent itself from going over. Cyrayalayeth's blood poured from many fresh wounds, yet it managed to kill one bird by biting deep into its neck.
Kian lashed out at Tomoluk with Bloodbane but missed, seeing double.
"Hahahaha!" The minotaur cackled in glee. Tomoluk gripped Kian around the throat with his free hand and squeezed so hard that the killsuit started to cave in. "I will rejoin Ephram, tell him you died bravely, and then lead them all to their doom. Kahket will make me rich beyond the dreams of avarice." Desperately, Kian gasped for breath. Strong and muscular and perhaps the most physically fit man alive, Kian still felt powerless in Tomoluk's stone grip. Then the minotaur hurled lion and rider from off the bridge.
Freezing water rushed in through Kian's open helmet, and he tried to pull free of Cyrayalayeth. But his foot lodged in the stirrup as the cat's mass pressed down upon him in the current. The huge animal struggled to right itself and flung Kian into a boulder that smashed the side of his head, further addling his thoughts. Air sprang from between his lips in a big bubble. A few seconds later, Kian and Cyrayalayeth disappeared over the falls.
Kian had gone over a waterfall before but never like this. Hopelessly entangled in his riding gear, Cyrayalayeth fell on top of him as they crashed into the frothing white pool at the bottom of the drop. A powerful whirlpool swept them both up and battered Kian against rocks so sharp they felt like the tips of cibrian swords. Long strands of seaweed and blocks of ice either tied him up or pelted him on all sides. The intense cold, shocking at first, numbed him plenty as he swept downstream.
Where's the light? Am I upside down? Kian struggled to make sense of the watery chaos. He strained to see but thick black hair waved in his face everywhere that he turned. Helplessly, he continued to jerk on his boot, but could not free himself. It's caught on something...I'm going to die. Fuck...not like this. Please...I can't die like this.
His lungs filled with a fire that a single breath of air could extinguish. Small capillaries in his eyes burst from the strain.
He tried to find his sword. Maybe I can cut my way free, he thought. A combination of Cyrayalayeth's black hair, the bubbles from the waterfall, and fresh water kelp made it almost impossible to tell what was holding his boot in the stirrup. He reached down with his fingers and could feel leather straps that wrapped thrice around his ankle. He tried to unwind himself but the struggling cat jerked him about like a rag doll.
He felt a sharp pain in his right leg. Then his foot suddenly came free in the water. However, his whole limb below the knee had no feeling in it. As best he could, Kian paddled toward the brightest light he could see with as much strength as he could muster. He almost blacked out by the time he broke the surface and gasped desperately for air. He swallowed some water and choked; his throat tightened as if squeezed by a vice. Kian spied the shore and quantum sidestepped. In a flash he landed in the muddy snow, surrounded in waist high dead grass and trees. His right leg crumpled under his weight, and he fell upon all fours on the beach sucking in big gulps of air while water poured from his cracked helmet. He popped the visor open. Blood dripped from Kian's nose, and his lungs crackled like wadded paper as he took huge distressed breaths. And then the dizziness overwhelmed him and he vomited his breakfast. Kian plopped into the mud and snow trying desperately to stay awake. But his eyes grew dark, and a blackness like death itself swallowed him whole.
Gotta love cliffhangers, right?
As usual, there's more on my website at http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/discussion-board-for.html under the label "Chapter Eight" if you care to read ahead. Please tell me about your favorite character on the forum; I might be persuaded to post another chapter mid-week.