The bluff face wrinkled with her smile. “The pieces of the coin. It works both ways. When they started to glow brightly enough, I knew you were close. I heard something scrape and tear and came looking. The coins brought me here.”
“We got caught in the storm, and the Walker Boh struck a cluster of stone spikes. I was tied to the railing, but it tore away and took me with it.”
“Not a good time to be looking for anyone,” Seersha observed as she helped the Highland girl to her feet. “For either of us. We have to get out of here. This whole place is crawling with things that want to kill us.”
Although Mirai could stand, she could barely walk, her legs numb from being trussed up. Seersha had to support her, an arm wrapped around her waist as she helped her move away.
“Is the ship still flying? Or did it go down, too?”
“Still flying, so far as I know.” Mirai hobbled along as swiftly as she could, casting anxious glances over her shoulder in the direction the lizards had taken. “What’s happened?”
“Good question. I only know a little of it. Let’s save that for when we’re safe. Was it the coin that brought you?”
“It was.”
“Not very quickly, though.”
“The Rovers and I decided not to risk it at night. Too dangerous to try to maneuver a big airship. So we waited until this morning to set out.”
Seersha snorted. “Which didn’t turn out to be of much help, did it?”
“No. The storm just made things worse. I’m sorry.”
The Dwarf tightened her arm about Mirai’s waist in a brief hug. “Don’t be. I’m just glad you came at all.”
The hissing sound was back, suddenly right behind them. Without releasing her grip on Mirai, Seersha wheeled about, stretched out her free arm, fingers extended, and sent an explosion of blue fire into the creature that was reaching for them with open jaws. The lizard flew backward into the dark and disappeared.
“And that’s not even the worst of what’s here,” the Druid said, exhaling sharply.
They moved ahead as swiftly as they could, and slowly Mirai regained the feeling in her legs and her strength began to return. Twice more the lizards came at them, and each time Seersha used quick bursts of her Druid Fire to fling them away.
“Trouble is,” she said, panting for breath as they slogged through the mud and rain, “the more I use the magic, the more of them I attract.”
“How many are there?”
Seersha gave her a look that said it all.
Mirai was moving on her own now, stumbling a bit but able to support herself. Together they pushed on, making their way through a tangle of woods and heavy grasses and then clusters of boulders and empty flats. The lizards had been replaced by something that resembled Gnomes with lots of teeth. These new creatures were smaller, but attacked in packs. There seemed to be more of them gathering with every step.
“We have to climb that cliff just ahead,” Seersha said suddenly, pointing. “The others are up there.”
Somehow they made it to the base of the cliff and found the trail. Together they started up, clawing their way from handhold to foothold, the pursuers snapping at their heels and trying to pull them down again. The rain made their grip on the rock uncertain, and the gloom hid their attackers until they were almost on top of them. Mirai kicked out behind her as she climbed, trying to keep the creatures at bay, but they seemed able to scale even the sheerest of surfaces and came at her from both sides, grasping her arms in an effort to dislodge her.
Then brilliant light flooded the darkness from above, illuminating the climbers and their attackers. A surge of white fire swept across the face of the cliff, peeling the creatures off like bits of lichen and sending them tumbling away. Seersha and Mirai scrambled the rest of the way up and tumbled over the edge to safety.
Mirai lay on her back, gasping for breath. Dark figures clustered around, and one leaned close, a familiar smile on a familiar face.
“Took you long enough,” Railing Ohmsford said.