Excerpt:  Heroes Arise

Excerpt from uncorrected proof

Chapter Four
An Appropriate Greeting

Torchlight flickered in the darkness.  The odor of mountain krens grew strong, smelling like putrid fat on a hot day.  Gundack stood atop the high foundation stone of the taller monolith, his back pressed against cold, smooth rock.  Tarr’s advance guards would be in range soon.  Tension curled Gundack’s tail into a tight coil.  He clasped the hilt of his silver dagger and inhaled short, quiet breaths.  Surely Sem had reached the sentinel stone on the opposite side of the path.  Gundack did not dare step from his hiding place to check.  Raiders might detect him.  There would be little time to select his target and aim, even less time to hurl the knife downward.  He must hold the blade just right.

“Death to the desert krens,” voices said.  “Victory to Tarr.” 

The chants of the raiders rose.  These advance guards knew they would be the first in line to face knives, spears and slashing claws.  They sounded confident.  Did they believe their numbers protected them?  Perhaps they feared what Tarr could do to their families.  Gundack fingered the cold knife.  Yellow torchlight illuminated the rock to his right.  His skin tingled.  Now was the moment.  He stepped from behind the sentinel.  The hazy outline of a raider kren’s back passed below.  Gundack launched his knife on its journey.  The thief lurched forward and groaned.  Gundack moved back behind the monolith.

“The vermin got my brother,” a kren shouted.

“Ambush,” another said.

Feet scuffled in loose dirt and gravel.  A weapon meant for Gundack clanked against nearby stone.  A clatter of wood and metal reverberated, as though hailstones pelted a metal bowl.  Gundack pressed his back against a recess of curved rock.  His muscles tensed.  The base of his tail throbbed.  Torchlight swelled.  Then the pained cry of a kren pierced the night, and a yellow light disappeared.  Sem.  He must have felled a torchbearer.

“I’ll rip out your hearts,” a mountain kren shouted.

No.  Sem’s three brothers-in-law would do the ripping.  Gundack moistened his lips.  The owner of that voice would soon encounter claws.  Now he needed additional weapons.  He heard tapping from his left, five raps of a claw against rock.  A desert kren’s signal.  Gundack reached into the darkness and fingered several elongated wooden shafts.  Elar had retrieved the raiders’ errant spears and set them on top of the foundation boulder.  All was going well.  Another pool of light illuminated the far edge of the monolith.  Feet crunched gravel.  More of Tarr’s krens approached, no longer chanting. 

The odor of stinkwood oil again became strong.  Gundack grasped one of the spears.  The wooden shaft felt rough in his hand.  He stepped from behind the monolith, hurled the weapon and leaped back to safety.  Spear tips clattered against nearby rock.  He smelled blood.  His ears rose.  The night brought a medley of throaty rasps and gurgles.  He had hit a raider in the windpipe. 

A ragged hue edged the night.  A hazy, pale pink streak lined the horizon.  Dawn approached.  Dawn would bring the sun to warm his lizards.  Yet it would also permit some of the raiders to climb the back side of Jular Steeps and attack Gundack’s camp from a second direction.  How many of the enemy remained?  At least six or seven had passed by already.  Seventy or more krens might be massed on this path.  But the odor did not seem strong enough for seventy.  Because of shifting wind direction?  No, they had already divided their force, sending many to the Steeps.

Yellow light swelled.  He grasped another spear and bent his raised battle arm, clenched claw hand angled back over his shoulder.  Bright illumination stung his eyes and surrounded the bearer with haze.  His protective membranes closed, then he launched the spear.  A weapon sped by Gundack, less than an arm’s length away.  He ducked behind the monolith.  That had been close.  He must move faster next time. 

His ears searched for sounds.  Nothing.  The raiders knew where he and Sem waited and were holding their positions.  Yes, with hazy daylight lining the horizon, most of Tarr’s krens would be working their way toward the Steeps.  Time for Elar to take charge of Gundack’s defense post.

Gundack clicked a signal.  A shadowy outline of two claw hands gripped a sheltered section of the foundation’s narrow table.  Elar’s thick battle arms pulled him upward and onto the ledge.  Early daylight framed Elar’s broad face and gave his crimson and green head scales a polished luster.  Gundack clasped Elar’s friendship hands and felt the warmth of loyalty.  The driver’s golden eyes smoldered with hate for Tarr’s krens.

“It’s a stand-off here,” Gundack said, with soft clicks and rasps.  “Hold back those sons of pus worms if they try to advance.  I’m heading for the Steeps.”

Gundack lowered himself down the back side of the foundation boulder, his chest against rock.  His toes found a niche, and he shifted his weight.  Sem also would have ordered another comrade to cover his post.  He and Sem needed to make their way to the cliffs together.  Gundack’s ears flattened.  He pointed them upward to hear.  A soft, distant growl increased in intensity.  Growls turned to roars.  Gundack’s sandship lizards sounded the alarm.  The first of Tarr’s krens must have reached the crest of Jular Steeps, readying themselves for the downward swoop to Gundack’s camp.  Cold air numbed Gundack’s friendship hands.  It was still so early.  Zel’s legs would remain lethargic until after the sun fully rose.  Gundack and his drivers must thwart the attackers. 

All of the sandship lizards bellowed now, each one trying to sound more menacing than the others.  Zel probably had prodded the other lizards into a semicircle by now, a deadly wall of teeth and claws.  Fine gravel scratched the webbing between Gundack’s toes.  He had reached the bottom of the monolith’s foundation.  Those animals had vulnerable throats, though.  A strong throwing arm with a spear could bring a sandship lizard down.  He ran down a side path toward the echoing din.  Gundack needed to strike while the thieves descended Jular Steeps, but he had no spear or dagger. 

Gundack scrambled over uneven rocks, his tail shifting, then he squeezed through a narrow passageway between boulders.  Gritty dust coated his mouth.  Saliva dripped on his robe and wet the top of his tunic underneath.  All manner of weapons were now scarce.  Earlier, he had prayed for victory.  He should have prayed for a landquake.  He headed up an incline.  A clicking noise came from behind him.  He stopped and wheeled around, battle arms spread wide.  A familiar kren with hexagonal red and green head scales and thin spotted lips grinned.  Sem.

“There are clumps of brush,” Sem said.  He panted hard.  “At the bottom of the Steeps.  We’ve got to set them afire.”

The Steeps had two side-by-side bluffs, joined from their bases to their halfway points.  Both cliffs towered over the terrain, though one stood a little shorter.  Wait.  Didn’t blue cragweed thrive in crevices above the split between the two cliffs?  Gundack’s tongue rimmed his lips.  Where cragweed did well, golden mottleflower could usually be found.  Smoke from burning mottleflower was potent enough to confuse minds and bodies, make eyes see strange things.  What an appropriate way to greet Tarr’s krens as they crawled on their bellies down Jular Steeps.

“We must ignite the crevice weeds,” Gundack said, an arm’s length behind Sem, “as well as the bottom brush.  If I can approach the ledge line from the side with a torch, wind will carry the flames along.  I will hold my breath once patches of cragweed ignite.  Long enough to escape the mottleflower smoke.”

“Could Rheemar help?”  Early morning sun glistened on Sem’s crusty head scales. 

“Maybe.” 

Gundack edged between more tall boulders, continuing toward the Steeps.  Pink streaks lined the sky.  Something about Rheemar tickled his mind.  A thought he couldn’t reach.  Rheemar had left his tent in the middle of the night and come to their sleeping circle without warning.  A dangerous thing to do.  He had asked for a loyalty pack, then claimed a merchant had tried to poison him.  Might he somehow have learned about the planned burning of the encampment?  Had he escaped to save his own hide?  Had he then been horrified upon seeing the camp ablaze?

Or the human’s actions could have been less innocent.  Tarr often gained cooperation through coercion.  His krens could have threatened to kill Rheemar’s sister if he didn’t arrange the fire.  A sick feeling washed through Gundack.  Rheemar might know the location of Tarr’s winter hiding cave because the two were allies.  Rheemar might have come to Gundack’s camp to betray him to the raiders.

Gundack emerged from the passageway between boulders and looked up to the towering blackened stone faces of the Steeps to his left.  Spires of jagged rock bordered the Steeps’ flat cliff-tops, like spines on a lizard-bird’s head.  Figures wearing yellow and brown robes stood behind some of those spires.  Already mountain krens—Tarr’s krens—controlled the nearest cliff of the Steeps.  Did Rheemar lie in wait for Gundack and his drivers at the base of that promontory?

Sem clicked his tongue and crouched in dawn’s shadows.  Gundack dropped to his hands and knees and moved beside him.  Wind fluttered the edges of Sem’s linen robe.  Irregular furrows lined his blotchy tan and pale green face.

“What bothers you?” Sem asked.

“Rheemar,” Gundack said.  “If hidden truths can nip at an ankle, they are apt to also leap for the throat.”

“How fast can you get that mottleflower burning?” Sem asked.

Sem had caught on to his idea.  Tarr’s krens might do so, too.  Yet he and Sem had to try something.  Gundack grunted.

© 2008 Laurel Anne Hill, All Rights Reserved

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