He closed his eyes again, fighting back against the stabs of pain that lanced through his head. He still felt disoriented and weak, and it was all he could do to keep from passing out again. He forced his eyes open, made himself look outside the cage to find the heaving, straining bodies of the massive horned creatures pulling it. He caught sight of movement next to where he rode and found a wolfish creature pacing the cage, its huge, lean body covered in thick gray fur. When it saw him looking, it opened its jaws wide and revealed rows of blackened teeth.
Redden slumped against the bars of his cage and tried to calm himself. They’d been lured into a trap, snared and rendered unconscious, then imprisoned. He had no idea who was responsible, but his first thought was of Tesla Dart.
He tried to reason it through, but everything fell apart when he looked through the bars at the back of the cage and saw Pleysia’s head impaled on the butt of a spear embedded in the cart’s wooden bed.
8
Still trapped on the plateau with the others waiting for Khyber Elessedil, Railing Ohmsford levered himself up on one arm and tried to get to his feet. Seersha had announced that they had to get out of there before nightfall to avoid an impending attack, and he wasn’t about to waste time doing so. Broken leg or not, he wasn’t going to let those sharp-clawed creatures in the deep woods below get to him again.
“Here, here!” The Druid was bearing him back down again, her grip surprisingly strong. Her rough face pressed close, her good eye fixing on him. “I said we had to move to safer ground. I didn’t say you had to walk there.”
He started to make a retort, but then thought better of it and simply nodded. “Don’t forget,” she added, “you have the use of magic. You can protect yourself better than most. Stay calm. I will likely need your help when they come for us.”
She turned away, all business now. He felt better knowing she depended on him, that she expected him to do more than lie there helplessly. For a moment, he had panicked. Redden wouldn’t have allowed that to happen. His brother would have pulled himself together and prepared for a fight. So Railing would do the same.
Nevertheless, he couldn’t try to pretend their situation wasn’t desperate. They were trapped on this ledge somewhere in the middle of the Fangs, too far away from their airship to make a run for it, the surrounding countryside awash with creatures waiting for a chance to tear them apart. There were few enough of them left as it was—Seersha, Skint, Farshaun Req, the Speakman, a handful of Trolls, and himself. Everyone was still recovering from the last attack, and there was every reason to think another would be mounted soon enough—likely right after it got dark. The Ard Rhys and those who had gone with her had left only hours ago, but it seemed like days.
Railing tried not to think about how vulnerable his broken leg would render him when the next attack came.
“Skint!” Seersha called. The Gnome Tracker, who had returned by now, came over at once. “Go back up into those rocks and look around until you find a place where we can make a stand. Make sure those creatures can’t get to us once we’re in place. Don’t rush. There’s plenty of time. They’ll wait until dark to attack.”
Skint left without a word, heading into the woods behind them, back toward the cliffs where Redden and the others had gone earlier. How long had it been now? Railing tracked the sun—what little of it he could distinguish—across the gray, hazy sky, a whitish blur sliding westward. When night fell they would be left in complete blackness unless the moon broke through. Farshaun Req came over and knelt beside him. “How is the leg doing, boy? Is it giving you much trouble?”
Railing snorted. “Only if I try to walk on it. Which I’d better learn to do fast if I want to get out of this. I can’t just lie around hoping someone can carry me everywhere.”