The Crystal Chalice (Book 1) (36 page)

 The others had by this
time seen the danger and were on their feet again. Elorin took Triana’s pack
from her.

 “I’ll take this for a
while,” she said kindly, “because you are going to have to summon up your best
speed again.” But the Prince, seeing the gesture, insisted on relieving Elorin
of the extra burden.

 Once again they set
out, running for short distances, then dropping to a walk for a while before
running again. Much to Celedorn’s surprise, Triana managed to keep going for
quite a long time, but in the heat of mid-afternoon he suddenly felt his arm
caught by Elorin.

 “Triana has fallen
behind,” she panted. “Don’t be angry with her. She has really tried her best.”

 As he turned back
towards Triana, her faltering footsteps ceased and she sank to the ground,
gasping for breath, her forehead damp with perspiration.

 She looked up nervously
as he approached, expecting to be berated for her failure but instead she found
herself ruthlessly scooped up into his arms.

 “You cannot carry me,
Celedorn,” she protested. “I’m too heavy.”

 “You weigh nothing,” he
responded. “Now, if I had to carry Elorin, that would be a different matter.”

 She gave an astonished
gasp of laughter. “Elorin is very slender.”

 “Yes, but there is a
lot more of her than you in the vertical sense.”

 Her smile faded.
“Forgive me.”

 He looked surprised.
“You did your best, besides we are close to the escarpment now. There will be
no more running once we reach it.”

 To avoid staring at his
scars, now so close to her, Triana glanced back over his shoulder. “They are
gaining on us. They are only about a mile behind us now. They are packed so
closely together that I still can’t distinguish their numbers, but there are
many of them.” She peered intently for a moment, then said: “There is something
different about them, I mean, different to the ordinary Turog. They are taller,
straighter, definitely there is something different.”

 By the time they
reached the foot of the escarpment, Triana insisted on being set on her feet
again, clearly impressed that Celedorn had experienced no difficulty in keeping
up with the others, though heavily burdened. Their pursuers, however, were
steadily gaining. A faint yell of triumph echoed across the silent plain, which
seemed to suggest that the Turog considered their quarry to be trapped by the
escarpment.

 It seemed as if they
were right. The brown walls rose out of the lapping grass, smooth, ledgeless
and unscalable.

 The Prince leaned
backwards, scanning the rock face in despair. “Now what?” he asked. “I take it
we must fight them. Ah well, we had worse odds in the forest, after all.”

 “These are Red Turog,”
Celedorn objected.

 “Red Turog?”

 “You have not come
across them? They are a different  breed; red skinned, taller than the
average Turog, more manlike and the devil of a sight more cunning when it comes
to a fight.”

 “I have not heard of
Red Turog.”

 “Possibly not. There
are not many of them, and as far as I know, they have never crossed the Harnor.
I have encountered them only once, during one of my rare excursions across the
river. Beware of them in a fight, for they do not have the limited intelligence
of the common Turog. Treat them as if you were fighting a man.” He looked up at
the forbidding cliff face. “There must surely be some way of getting up this
damned wall. We will try further east. You go on ahead to see what you can
find. I’ll bring up the rear.”

 The others needed no
urging. While Triana and Relisar tried to keep up with Andarion, Elorin
lingered behind, an arrow fitted to her bow, ready to give cover to Celedorn.

 Just as the light was
beginning to fail, Andarion rounded a mighty buttress of stone to finally find
what he was looking for. A waterfall, spilling over the lip of the plateau, had
cut a sharp ‘V’-like cleft deeply angled into the rock face. By virtue of the
fact that it was summer and the weather had been dry, the stream had completely
dried, leaving behind it the damp stair-like crevasse it had hewn over the
centuries.

 Triana and Relisar
close behind him, found themselves ruthlessly propelled up the cleft by the
normally courteous Prince. Once he saw them begin the ascent, he dropped down
from the rocks in search of Celedorn and Elorin. He reached the buttress just
as they came flying round it, scrambling over the rocks in their haste.

 “Elorin brought down
two of them with her bow,” Celedorn informed him tersely, “but the rest are
close behind us, as angry as a swarm of hornets.”

 “I’ve found a way up,”
Andarion interrupted, wasting no words, and swiftly led them to the cleft.

 Triana and Relisar were
far above them now, climbing the almost step-like ledges of the dried-up
waterfall. Pushing Elorin and the Prince before him, Celedorn immediately
sprang up the rocks.

 “Quickly!” he
commanded. “We must gain height.”

 Just as the sun began
to abandon them in a welter of saffron glory, the band of Turog rounded the
buttress, tightly packed together and going at the double.

 The company, deep in
the dark cleft untouched by the sun, all froze into immobility as if of one
accord.

 Relisar and Triana were
quite high up the cleft and had an excellent view downwards towards the others
crouched some distance below them, and beyond to the plain.

 The Turog remained
tightly grouped and wary following their encounter with Elorin’s bow. Clearly
they were expecting an ambush. At first they did not see the figures poised
above them in the dark fissure, but having rounded the far pier of rock, which
yielded an extensive view along the next stretch of escarpment, they realised
that their prey had somehow given them the slip. They came back, suspicious and
snarling.

 They were close enough
now for their brick-red skins and yellow eyes to be clearly seen. They stood
straighter than the common Turog and their legs were less bowed, but this
rather manlike impression was instantly dispelled when they dropped on all
fours, in typical Turog fashion, and began to sniff the air. One quested
forward eagerly, obviously having picked up a scent. The others followed in a
ravening pack, moving directly towards the cleft. When they reached the cliff
foot, they stood upright again and tilted their heads back. From the gloom of the
deep crack, Elorin could see the last of the fading light glinting on their
yellow, slanted eyes and the sharp fangs filling their wide mouths.

 Suddenly, one of them
yelled something in their ugly language and pointed upwards.

 They had been seen.

 Elorin stood up,
bracing her feet on a ledge and fitted an arrow to her bow. She had only six
left in her quiver.

 The Turog drew their
curved knives and holding them in their teeth, began to climb, scrambling
upwards on all fours with terrifying speed.

 As Elorin drew back the
string to her shoulder, Celedorn’s voice spoke quietly in her ear.

 “Steady now. Let them
come a little closer.”

 A cruel face appeared
above one of the rock ledges.

 “
Now
!” commanded
Celedorn.

 An arrow sprang from
the bow with such force that it almost unbalanced her, but her aim was true and
the arrow thudded into the creature’s forehead between the eyes. It looked
mildly surprised for a moment, before toppling backwards past its comrades.

 Andarion and Celedorn
had by now picked up any loose rocks that came to hand, and were hurling a
barrage down on their struggling foe. Yet still they climbed with tiresome
persistence. Andarion hit one full in the face with a heavy stone and watched
in satisfaction as it fell, but their supply of loose stones had run out and
Elorin’s arrows were all exhausted.

 Celedorn drew his
knife. “This will be close work,” he called to Andarion, who had done likewise.
“No room for swords up here. Elorin, climb above us.”

 She had barely passed
the men, when the Turog launched their attack. There was neither the time nor
the room, within the precarious confines of the steep cleft, for tactics or
finesse. This was a bitter hand-to-hand struggle for survival. One of the Turog,
climbing up to attack Celedorn, received his boot in its face. He did not wear
heavy, nailed boots like the Turog, only light riding ones, but the blow was
delivered with all the force of a powerful thigh behind it. It connected with
the bones of its face with a revolting crunch. It screamed with pain but
somehow prevented itself from falling, and tried to stab Celedorn in the leg.
He was not disconcerted, but swept the wickedly-sharp blade of his hunting
knife under its helmet, slicing through an artery with clinical efficiency.

 The Prince, too, had
buried the long blade of his knife in the guts of an opponent and was twisting
mercilessly. The Turog, knowing that it was doomed, tried to pull him down off
the cliff face along with it. It clutched his arm and swung outwards with all
of its considerable weight. Andarion snatched his knife free and grabbed a
handhold in the rock just as his balance tipped outwards. The two hung forwards
over the void, precariously held by Andarion’s single-handed grip on the rock.
Still the creature hung on, its weight dragging the Prince downwards, until
with an ominous ripping sound, the sleeve of the Prince’s shirt tore right out
of its shoulder and the Turog fell, clutching its worthless prize.

 Elorin, tensely
watching the fight from above, unexpectedly found Triana at her elbow. She was
carefully holding up the tail of her shirt in which were several large rocks.

 Elorin grinned in
triumph. “Excellent,” she declared, helping herself to ammunition.

 She took careful aim, anxious
to avoid the two men still in the thick of the fight, and succeeded in knocking
two of the creatures right off the cliff. One wedged in the cleft as it fell,
and they could distinctly hear the sound of its neck breaking, even above the
noise of the fight.

 The few remaining,
decided they had suffered enough and began to retreat, but the men were not
content to let them go and pursued them down the cleft. The creatures, happier
on all fours than the men, descended faster and slipped away like mist into the
gathering night.

 “Damn!” swore Andarion
when he located Celedorn in the darkness. “They know that we’re here now!”

 Celedorn peered at him
in the gloom. “What happened to you?” he asked, indicating Andarion’s exposed
arm.

 “Put it this way, if
this shirt had been a little better made, I would have gone over the cliff
along with my sleeve.”

 “Are you hurt?”

 “Just a scratch. Those
animals have sharp claws.”

 “We’ll attend to it
when we get to the top. Turog scratches often turn bad. You shouldn’t neglect
it.”

 The climb up the cleft
in the darkness was slow and difficult. There was no moon and the darkness was
complete, making it necessary for them to climb relying almost exclusively on
their sense of touch. The only one who was glad of the darkness was Elorin, who
had no wish to see the void below. At long last they reached the top and sank
down on the grass, exhausted.

 Triana began to bathe
the long scratch on the Prince’s forearm with water from a flask, but soon
found herself replaced by Celedorn.

 “Water will not clean
such a scratch. I have a little Sirkrisian spirit here, which will help prevent
infection but will hurt like the devil.” He took the stopper out of a small
bottle and poured the liquid over the scratch. Despite the warning, the Prince
gasped with pain. Celedorn winced with unexpected sympathy. “Hold fast, the
pain will subside in a moment. The wound must be cleaned. Even so, it will
probably leave a scar. Such wounds never heal well.” He nodded towards Triana
hovering nearby. “You can bind it up now. Then get a few hours sleep. I’ll
guard the top of the cleft. At least it is an impeccable defensive position.”

 Morning brought with it
not the Turog, but grey skies and rain. The clouds wept a steady, soaking,
drizzle that soon had their hooded cloaks dripping.  The golden days of
the grasslands were behind them. The plateau was in reality a heather-covered
heath, much riven by sudden valleys carved by exuberant peaty-brown streams.
Through the rain-blurred air to the south, a line of jagged mountains could be
distinguished, not quite of the height and majesty of the Westrin Mountains but
still constituting a formidable barrier. The only comfort was that the
drenching rain would confuse their scent and make the business of tracking them
more difficult. In order to further confuse pursuit, they turned eastwards
rather than following the more predictable route to the south. The rain turned
the heathland into a nightmare of bogs and marshy ground, concealed by
innocent-looking mosses and lichen into which the unwary could plunge
knee-deep. Relisar, who never possessed much presence of mind, paid for his
inattention by twice having to be hauled out of peaty morasses which left him
shivering, dirty and soaked to the skin. The others were in little better
state. The drizzle found its way through every layer of clothing, until they
hadn’t a dry stitch between them. Water poured in rivulets off every rock and
down every hollow. The streams in the abrupt, tree-filled ravines became
roaring torrents which were perilous to cross. The Prince, who was leading,
tried to avoid descending into these glens, as it inevitably meant a rushing
stream to ford. He was leading the company along the rim of one of these
valleys, trying to find a way around it, when without the slightest warning,
the earth at the edge of the valley, weakened by so much rain, gave way. The
Prince and Elorin, who had been walking behind him, found the ground
disappearing from beneath their feet and tumbled helplessly down into the valley
complete with soil, ferns and a small hawthorn tree. It wasn’t such a bad fall,
more of a tumble, for the valley sides were not as steep as usual at that
point, and the Prince soon picked himself up. However, Elorin had fallen
further and had been brought up with a clearly audible thud against the bole of
a tree. When she didn’t instantly arise, Andarion slithered down the slope to
her in some concern. As he bent over her, he suddenly found himself rudely
thrust aside. He turned to Celedorn, a sharp rebuke on his lips, but the words
died unborn as he saw the look of anxiety on his face. Celedorn knelt beside
Elorin, trying to shield her from the rain. Instantly she opened her eyes and
gave a soft groan. “Oh, my head hurts. What hit me?”