CHAPTER 60

E rlestoke hated the feeling of being stalked. For close to a week his team had moved through Sarengul. They had intended to keep as close as they could to the Aurolani forces, and if there was another Sarengul attack that created an opening, they wanted to break through the lines to what they hoped would be safety.

Their plan, however, had been predicated on what they thought of as logical behavior for a military force. The bulk of the Aurolani troops had continued to move south along the main route. They fought little skirmishes here and there, but the Saren attacks did not amount to much. The Aurolani forces pushed on, and Erlestoke followed them, ignoring side passages off the main line.

Then the Aurolani leader made a classic mistake and split one group off his main force to follow a sideline. Erlestoke’s people had missed the signs of that departure, but quickly became aware when that unit came back into the main route. They hunkered down, hoping the enemy would return to the main body of the Aurolani force, but they never did.

The main Aurolani force had started acting much more intelligently, too. Erlestoke’s group could find very little in the way of supplies left behind. What they did find was occasionally poisoned and often booby-trapped. For the first several days he had no reason to suspect the Aurolani were doing anything more than looking for urZrethi stragglers, but after four days, the hunting became more diligent and his people had been forced to flee into the byways and smaller passages.

Jullagh-tse had explained how villages and towns existed up and around the main routes, but Erlestoke had never quite grasped the idea until he moved into some of them. They could be built around a cylinder, with the doorways to corics opening onto that central circle, or as a maze of corics that were chopped into rock as miners followed the serpentine twists of an ore vein.

Erlestoke and his people were moving through an ore town. Its narrow roads broke off at odd angles. They rose, then curved and dipped sharply before coming to a broad stairway that slanted upward and cut to the right. Facing down that stairway were the empty black pits of windows, but at any moment archers or draconetteers could pop up and the stairs would offer his people nothing by way of cover. Worse, he couldn’t see the entrance to the building, so even if they got up there, getting in to kill the snipers would be difficult.

While he knew they were being pursued, he couldn’t be certain that some of the enemy hadn’t gotten in front of him to wait in ambush. The village’s abandonment only added to his sense of insecurity. The lack of any indications of a massacre was a good sign, but there could easily be a lot of blood splashed over stone walls before any of them got out.

If any of us get out.

Being pursued didn’t bother him as much as having the sensation that his pursuers knew what he was carrying. He would have expected any Aurolani troops cutting across his band’s trail to follow—that made sense. What would drive them on faster was knowing he had a piece of the Dragon Crown with him. He had been hoping, however, that the journey through the bowels of Fortress Draconis would have been enough to throw informed pursuit off.

It further disheartened him that their pursuers did not come after them pell-mell, but seemed to be moving deliberately. The gibberers should have used numbers to compensate for a lack of sense, but they hadn’t. While Erlestoke still felt that he and his people were making their own choices in terms of the path they were taking, the enemy force clearly was cutting off all avenues of retreat. They could only go forward and, at some point, the enemy would be there waiting for them.

Erlestoke crouched at the base of the stair, then turned and pointed Ryswin and Finnrisia to the stairs, indicating they should mount them. He then signaled for Jancis to come up so both of them could shoot into the windows if any targets showed themselves.

It was a desperate tactic that could have turned out badly in any number of ways. While the two elves could take cover at the base of the wall, avoiding easy shots by the snipers, it could be that off to the right there were more lurking who would catch them in a horrid trap. Still, there was no choice, so hefting their bows, the elves swept past him and sprinted up the stairs.

The stairs did not really rise that sharply, but the steps were just long enough to force a break in the elves’ stride. For urZrethi who could shift their legs to be any length, the steps wouldn’t prove a distraction, but they cost the elves time.

Erlestoke raised his quadnel and aimed it at the rightmost window. A sniper lurking there would have an easy shot at Finnrisia as she raced up the stairs. He strained his eyes, looking for any movement in the room. Was that something? Was that? He had to be certain because the sound of a shot would undoubtedly bring pursuit through the village maze.

He waited and waited. The smoke of the slow-match stung his eyes, but he dared not blink for fear he might miss something. In his mind he ran over what he would do if he saw someone in the window. He could see a gibberer archer drawing a bow. Erlestoke would steady the draconette, squeeze the trigger, and hope, after the weapon flashed and boomed and the smoke thinned, that he’d see Finnrisia, unhurt, at the top of the steps and a splash of black blood dripping from the window.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, the elves reached the top of the stairs. Without a moment’s hesitation the two of them cut right and sprinted away. Erlestoke listened for the sound of any fighting. When he heard nothing, he turned and waved the rest of the crew up the stairs. They raced past, leaving him and Jancis acting as rear guards.

And there, emerging from the darkness, he did see something. Something he remembered very well from the past. His chest ached as he swung his draconette to cover it. Without glancing at the meckanshii, he squeezed the trigger. The hammer fell, the priming flared white, then the quadnel roared and bucked, vomiting fire and metal.

With his left hand he snapped the cocking lever forward and back, rotating the barrels. He drew the hammer back, primed the new barrel, and sighted down it. There, twenty yards distant through thinning smoke, the huge cloaked figure of the creature that had hit him in the chest had dropped to one knee. It steadied itself with one hand on the roadway, while the other arm that had been held out for balance now appeared as only a stump beneath the cloak. Beyond it, a knot of gibberers had gathered, one flopping on the ground from Jancis’ shot.

Erlestoke shot again, then stood. His second ball had hit the cloaked figure and knocked it back onto its tail. The cloak flew open enough for him to see that, indeed, the right arm had been severed at the elbow. The left leg, also now exposed, appeared lighter in color than the rest of the creature’s body, and thinner, as if it had been withered because of an injury.

“Jancis, pull back.”

She stood and shot, then recocked her draconette. Her shot had crushed the skull of another gibberer. “That barrel always shoots high.”

“They don’t know that.”

They both withdrew up the stairs at a steady pace. Erlestoke brought his third barrel into position and primed it. He kept it trained down the stairs as he slowly backed his way up. One gibberer peered into the stairway and hooted, but pulled back before either one of them could shoot.

The meckanshii glanced over at him. “They’ll rush us now.”

“I know.” Erlestoke smiled as the howls rose from below, then the two of them turned and ran up the remaining stairs. At the top they stopped, and each snapped off a shot into the group. One gibberer went down, tripping up two others, but it did nothing to stem the onrushing tide.

Calmly they each cocked and reprimed. In a couple of heartbeats, they could thrust the muzzles of their quadnels into the faces of their targets. That would kill two or perhaps even more if a ball carried well, but before they would know the results of their efforts, longknives would have carved them into quivering slivers of flesh.

From above, through the windows, a rattling of shots blasted back down the stairs. Gibberers spun and jerked as holes opened in pelts and leather jerkins. Erlestoke did stab his weapon forward and pulled the trigger, flash-burning a face as the ball blew out the back of its head.

A gibberer also made it to Jancis, but she saved her last shot. Instead, she parried a weak lunge with her metal left arm, then stabbed stiffened steel fingers into the gibberer’s throat. It reeled back, choking, tripping over the bloody body of a comrade, then slid back down the steps.

Quickly she and Erlestoke cut into the passage to the right. It narrowed, then swung left and up, to a small courtyard. A door on the left led into the building with the windows. Three more shots rang out, and Ryswin announced, “They got it.”

Erlestoke ducked his head in through the doorway. “Don’t count on it staying down. I’ve shot it twice.”

The elf frowned. “What is it?”

“I think it’s the thing from Draconis, the thing that was guarding the fragment.”

“It’s still moving.” Verum raised his quadnel and triggered a shot. “It’s down. Again.”

Erlestoke turned to Jullagh-tse. “I have the feeling it wouldn’t have pressed us so closely except we’re being herded toward a trap. Do we have options other than to continue down this road?”

The urZrethi nodded. “It’s an ore town. We might. You won’t like it, though.”

Verum shot again. “It’s not steady, but it’s hearty.”

“Right now, there’s not much I won’t like if it includes putting distance between us and that thing.”

Jullagh-tse pointed up. “This village is fairly high up, so to get water, it’s going to have its own cisterns. This high up, we’re looking at a quarry where snow melts and flows down in. We have to find the internal reservoir here, where the trickling water will collect, then break into the flow tube. We crawl out and we’re on the outside.”

“How big a tube are we talking?”

She shrugged. “The thing chasing us won’t be able to follow.”

“But can the rest of us get through?”

“I don’t know, Highness.”

Erlestoke rubbed a hand over his mouth. “But you could shift your shape enough to get out, right? No question of that?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, here’s the plan. Let’s find this way out. If we can all make it, we do. If we can’t, the fragment is yours. Get as far away as you can.” Erlestoke laid his hands on her shoulders. “And none of this brave, ‘I don’t want to go.’ None of us want to go, but we’d all do it if we had to.”

“Yes, Highness, I know.”

“Good.”

Another shot sounded and Verum cursed. “Dammit, Nygal, give me your draconette.”

Erlestoke looked at the heavyset weapons-master. “Did you miss?”

The grizzled warrior shook his head. “No, I hit it dead center. Mistake I was making was giving it a chance to stand up before I shot again.” He raised the borrowed quadnel and triggered a shot.

“Got it. Broke its left leg, I’m sure of it.” Verum nodded. “It’s crawling away from the stairs.”

“Good, maybe that buys us some time.”

Jilandessa glanced at him. “Will it be enough?”

“Who knows. Right now I’ll just settle for more.” The Oriosan prince gave her a confident smile. “What we do with it will decide if it is enough or not.”