The Children of the White Lions: Volume 02 - Prophecy (30 page)

Tiliah took a step closer to him.

“What do you—”

“Hush!” hissed Rhohn, still staring about the rise.

Tiliah glared at him and murmured, “Do
not
shush me! What is—” She cut off as, two dozen paces to the east, some sort of creature burst from the prairie, rising a dozen feet above the grass, and soared through the air toward them.

At first, Rhohn though it an animal, but realized quickly that the figure had two arms and legs like a person, only it was much smaller—at least a few feet shorter than him. It had a black, pinched face, and was covered from head to toe with long, sharp quills glistening black and emerald in the sunlight. As the creature reached the apex of its arc, the barbs along both forearms sprang to attention.

Rhohn’s eyes went wide. Without doubt, the creature flying toward them was a razorfiend. He had heard frequent descriptions, but this was the first he had ever seen one in person.

The moment Rhohn’s gaze locked onto its black, beady eyes, the fiend loosed a series of sharp chitterings and clicks, murdering the soft rustling of the grass and yanking Rhohn from his stupor. The mare began ripping her head back repeatedly, trying to free herself of her bond, its whinnying joining with the fiend’s shrieks. Rhohn dropped the sack of meat, reached out with his maimed right hand, and shoved Tiliah back and away while whipping his Dust Man blade from his scabbard.

Tiliah fell to the ground just as the razorfiend reached Rhohn, the blades along its forearms and hands aiming for his chest. Lashing out with his sword, Rhohn smacked the attack away while stepping to his right. His blade connected squarely with the quills of the fiend, bouncing along them in a series of quick, staccato clacks. Somehow, he managed to deflect the creature’s assault and push it aside.

Stumbling through the grass, Rhohn kept his eyes on the fiend as it tumbled to the ground, rolled once, and stopped near the stomping hooves of the panicked horse. He prayed the terrified horse might trample the fiend, but the creature nimbly dodged the hooves. The mare, eyes rolled back and white, gave one last frantic yank of her head, snapped the woodeater-laden branch off the tree, and bolted down the hill, dragging the shattered log behind it.

The fiend righted itself, turned its sharp-eyed gaze to Rhohn, and sneered, “Stazsla mirtinz!” The words were short and clipped, its voice loud and shrill,

Rhohn’s heart pounded in his chest, his mouth had a strange, almost metallic taste in it. Fiends were quick, agile, and vicious killers, their quills as hard as steel and sharp as a new-edged blade. While shorter and smaller than most men, they were thrice as deadly. Rhohn knew he was outmatched. He was lucky to have deflected the first attack.

Stealing a quick glimpse at Tiliah, he found the young woman half-sitting up in the grass, her gaze locked on the fiend.

“Tiliah! Run!”

She did not move and Rhohn did not have time to entreaty her to flee a second time as the fiend leapt again, straight for him. Only a dozen feet separated the pair, forcing Rhohn to react quicker than he thought possible, flailing with his sword to block another slashing onslaught. Quill met sword again, sending another strange, muted crack of fiend blade striking metal through the air. Rhohn’s arm shuddered. The fiend was small and wiry, but incredibly strong.

Hissing, the fiend attacked again, wildly swinging its left arm. Rhohn dropped his hand and twisted his wrist, barely catching the fiend’s longest blade against his hilt’s guard. Were he fighting any other creature, Rhohn would have lashed out with his foot to kick it away, but forethought overrode instinct. He would surely impale his leg or foot on the quills covering the fiend’s shins and thighs.

Instead, he spun his sword in a tight circle, shoving the bladed arm away, and leapt to his right. Backpedaling as quickly as he could away from the tree and down the slope, he tried to draw the fiend from Tiliah. He stayed close enough not to lose the creature in the dry shafts, but kept enough distance that he could react to the next, inevitable attack. Fifteen hurried paces backward, he lost sight of Tiliah, still crouched on the ground.

“Tiliah! Run!”

The fiend stood to its full height—still shorter than the grass tops—and glared at Rhohn. He forced himself to hold the creature’s glare while trying to ignore the throbbing arrow wound in his calf.

The razorfiend began to slink through the grass, like a lion stalking its prey. For the first time, Rhohn noticed the creature wore a pair of short breeches that stopped above its knees and a crisscrossing leather harness on its chest.

The creature clicked a few times before hissing, “You will periszzh, fleszzhling.”

Surprised the fiend could speak Argot, Rhohn nonetheless ignored the Sudashian and called out, “Run if you aren’t already, Tiliah! Stay low!”

His shout prompted the fiend to stop its advance and stare back in Tiliah’s direction. Rhohn immediately halted his retreat.

“Hey! Razorfiend! This way!”

The creature immediately spun around and sneered, “Sizzit clizick!” It crouched low to the ground, its hateful gaze locked on Rhohn’s face. With a shrill, chittering shriek, the fiend sprung into the air, shining in the last of the sun, the ominous gray rainstorm wall behind it.

Rhohn dropped to the ground, rolled to his right, and scurried to his knees just as the fiend landed, stabbing its arm-blades into the rain-softened ground. Rhohn thrust his sword forward quickly and managed to slip the point into the yielding, quill-less flesh just below the fiend’s rear.

With an ear-clawing shriek of pain, the razorfiend scooted forward, sliding off the sword, and twisting around, its right arm and quills extended. The fiend’s blades whistled through the air, cutting through the grass like a new scythe. Rhohn threw himself backward to avoid the wicked swipe, but felt a sharp pain along his right shoulder as the fiend’s blade caught him. Wincing in pain, he fell to the ground, losing his sword in the process.

Flipping over, he found the fiend already lording over him, emerald and black quills pointed at his chest, ready to plunge into him. Rhohn frantically, blindly ran his hand along the ground, seeking his blade. He was still searching when the fiend halted suddenly and began to turn around to its right just as Tiliah—her face a visage of rage—popped up behind it, a four-foot branch of bulboa tree in her hands, swinging toward the fiend’s head.

“Ahh!”

The wood, as thick as a healthy man’s forearm, crashed into the fiend’s ear and cheek. A hollow crack and burst of dust filled the air as the woodeater-ridden branch snapped in two, half twirling through the air while the other half remained clasped in Tiliah’s hands. The fiend staggered a step from the blow, but did not fall down. The fury on Tiliah’s face melted instantly into wide-eyed shock.

Rhohn’s hand brushed his sword. Finding the hilt, he grabbed it and, taking advantage of the distraction, hopped up to thrust again at the creature’s softer flesh. His blade again met its mark, but was as ineffective as it was the first time, eliciting only another sharp, shrill shriek and a vicious, spinning counter-attack.

Anticipating the response, Rhohn was already moving backward as the fiend’s quills sliced through the air. Its back to her again, Tiliah sprinted forward and unleashed a well-aimed kick, right against the fiend’s rear, knocking the creature off balance and thrusting it toward Rhohn.

Stepping to the side and dropping to a knee, Rhohn jammed the tip of his blade into the soft dirt and held the hilt high to trip up the stumbling fiend. As the razorfiend fell to the ground, Rhohn was already rising to his feet. Clasping the hilt of his sword with both hands, he screamed and drove the blade down with all the force he could muster, aiming for the bare spot just above the fiend’s waist.

The sword point sunk into the creature’s back, bounced off something hard inside, and continued on. Rhohn could feel it emerge from the fiend’s stomach and impale itself into the Borderlands’ earth, stopping a few inches into the ground. A bone-grating shriek burst from the creature. The fiend lashed out with its right arm, forcing Rhohn to jump straight up and over the swipe. Upon landing, he leapt backwards, leaving his blade in place. Blood bubbled from the wound, seeping out around the sword and sullying the emerald quills along its lower back.

Wanting to get closer to retrieve his sword, Rhohn started and stopped three times, but the flailing fiend was too dangerous to get near.

“Just leave it!” called Tiliah.

Glancing at her for only a moment, Rhohn said, “Why?”

She pointed at the fiend.

“It’s stuck.”

Rhohn looked back to the razorfiend and realized Tiliah was right. He had embedded his sword in the earth so deep that the razorfiend was pinned to the ground like a slaughtered goat against a bleeding rack. The creature attempted to push itself up twice, but stopped both times as the motion only made the wound worse as it slid along the blade. Collapsing to the ground, it futilely tried to reach around and grab the blade.

Rhohn lifted his gaze, searching the grass and wondering if more were near.

“Is it alone?” asked Tiliah. A glance to the young woman revealed her scanning the prairie as well.

“I don’t know,” muttered Rhohn. “I’m guessing so. I don’t think the others would sit around and listen to this.” The razorfiend’s shrieks, hisses, and clicks rang across the plains. “Even so, we should leave. Now.”

Tiliah nodded quickly.

“I agree.”

Their horse stood a quarter mile away, its head hung low to the ground. Guessing the broken bulboa branch had slowed the mare’s frenzied escape, Rhohn said a short prayer of thanks to Ketus for the one blessing of luck. Glancing back to the razorfiend as it thrashed about, spitting and screaming, he frowned.

“I can’t leave my sword.”

Tiliah came to stand beside him, her gaze never leaving the fiend, and said, “I don’t think you’ll have to. I think it’s dying.”

As the pair watched, the razorofiend’s chittering shrieks grew softer with each passing moment. Its flailing slowed until it was nothing more than random muscle twitches and then stopped completely, the quills along its arms going limp. The soft rustling of the grass in the wind returned, turning the Borderlands’ prairie peaceful once again. It was as if the attack had never occurred, an aberration to the plain’s tranquility.

When the razorfiend had not moved for a half-dozen heartbeats, Rhohn approached, extended a tentative foot, and gently kicked at the creature’s hand. There was no response. Stepping closer, he grabbed his sword’s hilt, and tugged upward. It took him four strong pulls to free the blade from the earth and fiend. He immediately stepped back and stared at the dead body.

Tiliah muttered, “What was it doing out here?”

Shrugging his shoulders, Rhohn answered, “I do not know.” He paused a moment before adding, “Nor do I much care. It is dead and we are alive.”

Tiliah was quiet for a moment before asking, “Your shoulder?”

Rhohn glanced down, pulled aside the slice in his shirt, and found nothing more than a deep scratch.

“Perhaps Ketus felt he owed me after the arrow,” said Rhohn. “I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“You are the healer,” answered Rhohn. “You tell me.”

She made to move toward him, but he pulled away, nodded in the direction of their horse, and said, “Come. We should be on our way quickly. You can attend to the cut once we are moving.” He began to move back to the tree in order to retrieve the bag of dried meat.

Tiliah lingered a moment longer, staring at the razorfiend corpse before following.

“Mud Man?”

Without looking back, Rhohn said, “Yes?”

“Do you think there will be more as we go?”

Rhohn found the burlap sack. Some of the meat had fallen out, along with the nobleman’s pouch. As he scooped everything back into the sack, he asked, “You prefer honesty, do you not?”

She stopped behind him and spoke in a firm tone, saying, “I do.”

Nodding once, he said, “Then, yes. Whether or not it’s those, oligurts, or mongrels…” He stood and turned to face her. “I expect more. At some point, we will be near their advance lines. Perhaps we are close now.”

Tiliah pressed her lips together. The skin around her eyes twitched. Without a hint of fear, she muttered, “Well, then let’s hurry and get past those blasted lines. I don’t want to fight any more of those things.”

With that, she strode past him, through the grass and toward the horse. Rhohn stared after her, wiping his blade on a handful of grass. After only a few quick swipes, he sheathed it and followed Tiliah, promising himself that he would clean his blade properly later.

Upon leaving Tinfiddle, Nundle and the White Lions meandered through a series of wheat fields, then bean, before descending a gentle slope and ducking behind a small, rocky ridge. Nundle scanned the wild vegetation around him, sparse and spindly, and concluded that the immediate terrain must be too rocky for cultivation. Slate-gray, striated boulders vastly outnumbered the oak trees. After the lush landscape of the tomble village, such a quick return to a rocky, spottily forested landscape was jarring.

Nundle glanced at the sky and frowned. Mu’s orb hovered just above the western horizon, coloring the clouds in the sky a soft red that reminded him of the light burgundy cherries that grew near Alewold. Dusk was quickly approaching. He wondered how much longer they were going to walk before stopping for the evening. Up to this point in his journey with Broedi, camp was already made by this time of day.

Nundle minded his footing as he ambled along, leading his horse behind him. When it had been just Broedi and he, the horse had been necessary. Now that Tobias was with them, that was no longer the case. The White Lion tomble had insisted on traveling on foot, limping along with the aid of his walking stick. Nundle had thrice offered the use of his horse, but Tobias had ignored him every time. In fact, neither he nor Broedi had said a word since leaving Tinfiddle.

Letting out a small sigh, he stared at Tobias’ back. He still could not believe what he was seeing.