believe me!' groaned Mika.
Suddenly a series of sharp yapping barks burst on them, followed by a shrill ululation of victory. The gnolls!
So wrapped up had he been in the pain of his head and then the terrible discovery of the bodies, that he had actually forgotten why they were alone on the ridge and what they were supposed to be doing.
Sounds carried well in the cold clear air, and he sat there on the dank ground and hugged his knees as he listened in sick horror to the ravening cries of hyenas and gnolls running their luckless prey to earth.
There was a clash of steel on steel, a short fight, then desperate screams, both human and horse. Finally, there was only the sound of hyenas fighting over the scraps of flesh.
There was no way of telling how close the creatures were, but it was obvious that they were on the mountainside.
'Close, Tam,' whispered Mika. 'Too close. Maybe the next ridge over. We'd better get out of here before they find us, too.' And all the while he wondered who the gnolls had gotten, whether it was Hornsbuck or one of the others he had known and liked.
It hurt his head to bend over, but fear of the gnolls drove him on. He leaned over and slid his arms under the princess. He straightened up and the princess hung from his arms like a sack of stones. A pretty sack of stones.
'By the Great She Wolf, she's heavy,' grunted Mika as he began dragging the princess over to the horses. He tried to lift her up onto the roan, but she hung from his arms limply, without any stiffness in her backbone.
He took a deep breath and tried to heave her up over the saddle. She slid back down and lay in a heap at his feet.
Muttering more loudly now, Mika got down on his hands and knees and positioned the princess until she was sitting on his shoulder. He grabbed her wrists and held on tight. Then, slowly, he got to his knees with the princess wobbling on his shoulder like a drunken parrot. A heavy drunken parrot. He got to his feet and stood up slowly. Slowly, slowly, he allowed the princess to fall over the saddle. He placed a hand on her back to hold her steady. Then, just as he was reaching for his belt to tie her in place, she began to slide. Forward.
Mika made a grab, but the slippery silk just whispered through his fingers like wind through trees and the princess slid over the saddle and landed on the ground on the far side of the horse with a meaty thump.
Mika winced. 'I'm not the only one who's going to have a headache,' he said to Tam. 'She certainly will, too, if she ever wakes up. She's pretty, all right, but is she worth all this fuss? Damn, she's heavy!'
With gnolls and hyenas wailing inspirational music in the background, Mika was stirred to brilliance. Using his belt, he lashed the princess's wrists together and then tied Hary's scarf around the belt. Positioning himself on one side of the horse and the princess on the other side, he laboriously hauled her over the saddle and then, passing the scarf under the horse's belly, tied it round her ankles.
Mika stepped back, breathing hard, and examined his handiwork. The princess was secure, even if she did look like a pink silk sack of wheat. Tam began to whine nervously, his ears twitched forward, and he danced from one foot to the other.
'Gnolls, eh?' Mika asked, looking down the flank of the hill, following the direction of Tam's gaze.
'Then we'd best be going,' he said as he leaped onto the grey. 'We've been lucky to escape them this long. At least these two will buy us some time.'
The horses were nervous too. The whites of their eyes rolled and their ears were pasted flat to their heads. The grey tried to rear and, showing some of his old spunk, swung his head around and tried to bite Mika's leg. Mika yanked the reins hard, sawing the grey's head in the other direction. He slashed him hard on the flanks. Then he dug his heels into the horse's ribs and the grey bounded forward as though shot by an arrow.
Mika held the roan's reins in his hand, forcing it to follow his lead. Together they plunged up the steep hill, into the shadow of the trees, and with the cries of gnolls and hyenas echoing in their ears, raced for safety.
Chapter 15
The slopes rang with the screeching yowls of the gnolls and the horrible yapping of the hyenas. Mika could tell when they succeeded in cornering and ultimately dragging down some hapless human by the terrible cries of the victims. Wolf howls cascaded down the slopes periodically before they too ended abruptly, and Mika knew that wolves and nomads were dying.
He tried to close his ears to the horrible cries, knowing that people he knew and cared about were being killed. He said a prayer to the Great Wolf Mother that Hornsbuck was not among them and asked for guidance in setting his own course.
Several times, unable to bear the anguished cries, he had pulled the grey up hard, on the point of turning and riding to help, only to realize that it was useless. There was no way of telling where the battle was being fought, and by the time he found it, it would be too late. His misguided chivalry would only serve to endanger the princess, as well as himself. His mouth was set in grim concentration as he raced into the oncoming night, shying from every dark shadow as though it sheltered the enemy.
There seemed to be safety in no direction; the gnolls were closing in on him rapidly. Their ominous tramping could now be heard flanking him on either side.
Now the earth rose steeply on Mika's right, forcing him lower on the steep ridge. Mika knew that it would be death should they descend farther, and he pushed the horses on, fighting them at every turn, causing them to skitter and plunge across dangerous slopes they would never have attempted of their own volition in daylight.
The moon, tiny sliver that it was, rose over a cruel landscape. The trees were below them now, and a cold wind keened harshly across a barren vista of sharp rocks and sheer drops.
They rode along a narrow path, no real trail, but an eroded watercourse that flowed from the crest of the peak. The land was steeply pitched on either side, bare stone that caused the horses' hooves to clatter loudly, reverberating in the confines of the narrow defile.
Mika cursed to himself, wishing he had time to dismount and muffle the horses' hooves with cloth, fearful that the enemy would hear them. As though in answer to his fears, there came a demonic laugh, followed by the familiar cackling yap. Hyenas!
Looking behind him, Mika saw large round eyes glowing yellow in the cold moonlight. Their long sharp canines, so well adapted for ripping and tearing, gleamed white through the froth of spittle that drooled from their open mouths. Their backs humped forward between their shoulder blades, and their backsides sloped away into insignificant hindquarters that were shorter and far less powerful than their front legs.
The lead hyena spotted its quarry and stopped short. Lowering its massive bear-like head till it nearly touched the ground, it uttered a low mournful howl that was echoed by its three foul companions. The howling grew louder and louder as the pitch rose till it seemed to fill the narrow defile, bouncing from one side to the other. Then it broke off and became a demented cackle that caused the hair to rise all over Mika's body.
The grey reared, neighing hysterically, and lunged forward, nearly toppling Mika from the saddle. Mika gripped the pommel and hung on as the grey thundered up the trail, dragging the roan behind him.
The hyenas broke into their strange gait, moving the legs on one side of their bodies in opposition to the legs on the other side. Strange it might have been, and reminiscent of the gnolls' own shambling gait, but it got them where they wanted to go, and fast.
If it had been a matter of speed only, the hyenas might have caught them, but ironically their fearful din spurred the horses on. Mika added his cries to those of the hyenas and beat both horses with the flat of his sword. He had no desire to die in the jaws of such low creatures. Even Tam ran like the wind beside the horses; there was no honor in fighting carrion-eaters such as these.
The horses were breathing hard now, froth blowing from their nostrils, but they were breaking from the hyenas, pulling away steadily.
The peak was before them now, the saddle clearly outlined against the star-filled sky. Mika urged the horses on, driving them cruelly. Later, there would be time to rest. Later.
Then, clearly outlined against the starry sky, two hump-backed figures appeared on the ridge and stood waiting, one swinging a sharp-edged, double-headed axe and the other a four-foot-long two-handed sword.
