The two caped assassins sat just behind the long necks of the morggunts, feet pointed forward, bodies arched over the heads of their mounts. Long silvery teeth protruded above and below the lip line from narrow, crooked jaws. Membranous wings caught the rising air of the gorge, imparting profound maneuverability to the nocturnal fliers. Tripartite black tails whipped the clouds, and nostrils flared. Like all morggunts, they had no eyes.
Clinging more tightly to the third monster was the quoll. No flier he, the airborne assault was less to his liking than that of his companions. Nevertheless, he clung gamely to his terrible steed, relying on its teeth and claws to do all necessary work.
The morggunts were big enough to pose a real threat even to Samm, Oskar reflected as he fought to unsheathe his sword. Assuming a defensive pose, he found himself lamenting the absence of an archer among them. Not that arrows or bolts would have done much more than irritate a diving morggunt. What they really needed was a cannon.
In lieu of artillery, Taj shouted at them from behind. 'Here, this way! I think I've found something!'
Ordinarily, Cezer would never have been so quick to follow the songster's lead. But with only seconds to go before the morggunts and their riders were in among them, Taj's disdainful companion was the first to follow his suggestion. Mamakitty and Cocoa followed close behind. Samm unleashed one swing of his colossal axe, forcing the morggunt carrying Quoll to back air. The eyeless demon struck with its snakelike neck, and teeth ripped the giant's cloak. A sound testimonial, the frantic Oskar reflected, for wearing loose-fitting attire in time of battle.
Demonstrating remarkable agility for one so large, Samm stumbled backward along the route taken by his companions, covering their flight. Oskar remembered swinging his sword two or three times. The wild blows did not make contact, but they kept Quoll's own rapier at bay. By the time the three morggunts had landed and were massing fang and claw for an overwhelming attack, their quarry had vanished.
Vanished? Vanished where? Oskar found himself wondering. That they had vanished could not be denied. Or maybe it was the world around them that had vanished. One minute he was swinging his sword wildly when his guts told him to leap and bite—and the next, he was drowning in color. Seeing color, breathing color, hearing and smelling color. Samm was right about the latter—it was hot.
The moonbow, he realized. They had not stumbled through the moonbow, but into it. As if trapped in a powerful stream, he felt himself caught up and swept toward the top of the arc. Color roared blue in his ears and burned yellow against his eyes. Then he was falling, falling, down through hue after warm dampish hue. Purple cushioned his plunge. Tiny moon-bows sparkled in his eyes as he steeled himself to make contact with the rocks on the far side of the river.
When he finally did hit, the shock blew the little moon-bows away from the inside of his eyes. The roaring blue left his ears. The ground beneath him was hard, but it did not feel like water-slicked rock. For one thing, it was sandy. For another, it was dry. But that was impossible. Here at the bottom of the gorge, at the base of the falls, everything existed in a state of perpetual clamminess.
As the last of the miniature moonbows faded from sight, he saw that not only was it no longer damp—it was no longer night. In front of him, in broad daylight, his friends were spreading out, forming a small circle as they marveled at their wholly unexpected if timely transposition.
Broad daylight.
They had gone through the moonbow and come out on the other side. The only problem was, the other side was not just the other side. It was another side entirely.
Another world. Or at the very least, another place.
Collecting himself to examine his new surroundings, Oskar exulted silently in the realization that if he was confused, their pursuers must be even more so. Because wherever they were now, there was absolutely no sign of morggunts, black-clad riders, or the red-eyed, maniacal Quoll.
That individual was presently feeling even more surly than usual. Dismounting from his morggunt, he strode quickly to the base of the moonbow. Around him, the river Shalouan crashed and bounced over the jumble of boulders that formed the base of the falls. Behind, he could hear his bemused comrades puzzling over the abrupt disappearance of their seemingly cornered prey.
'Where did they go?' Ratha slid lithely from the neck of her mount. 'I saw no flash of necromancer's light, heard no outbreak of sorcery.'
'There wasn't any.' Black cape billowing in the damp wind from the falls, Ruut moved forward to stand alongside the stockier Quoll. 'They all stumbled backward, and went away.'
Murderous red eyes glared up at him, and the shorter man's nose twitched. A quoll's nose was always twitching, always searching, but in this instance it smelled nothing but water. Even their quarry's odor had vanished with them.
'Is that what you want to tell the Mundurucu?'
What little color there was drained from Ruut's pale countenance. 'No, but what else can we do?' Long, spiderlike fingers gestured fruitlessly. 'They have gone.'
'Then we must follow. Somehow.' A deliberate hand held out before him, Quoll slowly advanced on the moonbow. His fingers made contact, sensed a slight tackiness, and continued to penetrate. Taking one step at a time, Quoll walked completely through the moonbow's edge. Pivoting, he repeated the exercise, until he was once more standing alongside his two gaunt comrades.
'They have gone through the rainbow. For them, it was a door. For us, it is nothing more than light reflecting from droplets of water. Something turned it, for them, from a phenomenon of the natural world into a means of escape.' Bushy eyebrows shadowed those icy, penetrating eyes. 'Or someone.'
'Someone?' Ruut exchanged a glance with his equally mystified mate. 'But the wizard Evyndd is dead, slain by the glorious Mundurucu at the battle for Kyll-Bar-Bennid.' He indicated the place of disappearance. 'You saw how they fled from us.'
'I also smelled their fear, which was strong enough to rise above this accursed dampness. There is no sorcerer among them. The wizard Evyndd has not risen from the dead to save them.' Sitting down on a rock and tucking his legs beneath him, a thoughtful Quoll sat as still as he was able and contemplated the enigmatic moonbow. 'They truly smell of cat and dog, as the informant insisted. Apropos of that, sorcerers and witches of different stripe often have certain elements in common. Familiars, for example. Working with a necromancer, alongside one, such creatures are known to sometimes pick up shards and fragments of their master's skills.'
Ratha nodded slowly. She would have been truly beautiful had she not worn unsheathed savagery like eye shadow. 'So you think the wizard Evyndd's familiar may be among those we pursue, and that it has worked some strange alchemy to preserve them?'
'Do you think they crossed a bridge over this river where none exists? Did they transform themselves into puffs of cloud and drift away downstream?' Quoll's lips parted, exposing teeth shaped and pointed like white needles. 'Please to realize that there is impressive thaumaturgy at work here.' Rising, he headed deliberately toward his quietly salivating, waiting mount.
'I will take it upon myself to return to Kyll-Bar-Bennid. When it flies level with the ground, the morggunt flies slowly, but it will still be far faster than walking. I will describe to the Mundurucu the events we just witnessed.'
The terrible-visaged Ruut was impressed. 'Are you not afraid?'
Pausing with one leg half-raised as he prepared to mount, Quoll glared back at him. 'My kind are afraid of nothing—not even the Mundurucu. We live to kill, and so deal daily with death. I know the Mundurucu can do worse, but the keen ones among them think before they slay. They want dead those whom we hunt; not me and thee. I think I will return with most of my limbs intact, together with the means for following our bumbling but opportune pilgrims. When we identify the one who is the familiar that travels among them, we will deal with it first. Once that individual has been slain, the others will quickly submit or perish.'
Swinging his leg over the narrow neck of the morggunt, he whispered into its upthrust, spike-fringed ear a word that must go unmentioned. Snapping at the dank air of the canyon, the demon of the night sky lifted its head and spread its wings.
'Until I return, you must keep watch. Perhaps there is no air where they went, or food, and they will be forced
