Vengeance

CHAPTER 20

Rix’s lungs were burning, but he could never run fast enough to escape what was behind them. Or what lay ahead.

As the caitsthe went up on its toes, Tobry let out a shuddery moan and Rix knew their lives hung from a cobweb. If Tobry cracked they would both fall.

‘Keep going,’ he panted. ‘Better a hundred shifters than that uncanny wrythen.’

‘Easy for you to say,’ Tobry said hoarsely. ‘You’ve got an enchanted sword.’

‘If we get through, I’ll take the shifter.’

‘Damned if — ’

Another bolt of tormented sound screamed overhead, struck the fissured roof further along and, crack-crack, began to pick the stone apart. Rix looked back and a scream bubbled up his throat — the wrythen was like something out of his night horrors.

The broken rock formed a rubble waterfall and diving through it was a lottery, their survival a matter of chance. But chance was better than the certainty if they were trapped with the thing behind them.

‘Go!’ Rix cried, and they dived together.

Rock was falling on the left and right sides of the gap, dust billowing out to obscure what little light there was. The roof gave an almighty groan and he knew that it was all coming down. His ankle shrieked as he soared over the rubble, small rocks whacked him on the back and buttocks, then the mountain fell in.

Broken stone was flying everywhere, bouncing off the walls, raprapping down his backbone, stinging his left ear. He hit the floor hard, skinning both elbows, rolled over and raised his sword in the one movement. Where was the caitsthe?

Until the dust settled, the creature would be impossible to see while it stood still, no more than a shadow when it moved. Though no doubt it could scent him. Rix suppressed a sneeze, put his back to the wall and probed with the blade. Despite the exertion, he was freezing — the depths of the tunnel seemed to be breathing up cold. Where was it? It could strike from anywhere and he would not see it until it was too late.

He could not see Tobry, either. ‘Tobe?’ he whispered.

No reply. Rix swept the flat of his sword around like a paddle but it did not touch flesh. Tobry was either unconscious or dead. Rix was on his own with one enemy before him and another at his back, and if they attacked together he would die.

Why was the caitsthe here, anyway? What was it guarding? What didn’t the wrythen want him to see?

He couldn’t see it now, but he could feel it coming as an icy ache in places where he had never felt anything before — inside his arm and leg bones, in the marrow — and a creeping and crawling of the skin on the back of his thighs. Whatever it was, it was no honest, natural creature. Why didn’t it attack? What was it waiting for? Was it driving them towards the caitsthe … or was the caitsthe penning them in for the wrythen?

Their survival depended on the answer.

‘Tobe?’ he repeated.

Nothing.

Something grated on stone, low to his left. It might have been Tobry, twitching on the floor, but Rix did not think so. Tobry’s presence wouldn’t make the little hairs on the back of Rix’s neck stand up.

He caught a faint exhalation, the snick of a set of massive jaws closing, a liquid sound in a long throat. What was the caitsthe up to? He turned slowly, the hilt slipping in his sweaty palm, his eyes struggling to penetrate the dust. Where was it? Those weren’t the sounds made by a beast preparing to attack. Caitsthes took the easy prey first. It was going for Tobry and he didn’t know where either of them were. And Tobry was unconscious, helpless. All it had to do was close its jaws around his throat …

Rix had to make the beast go for him. Picking up a handful of small rocks, he flung them horizontally, one after another, turning as he did. The fourth rock made a faint thud, as if hitting flesh. The caitsthe drew a sharp breath and he knew where it was.

Then it went for him.

Rix fought best when he relied on instinct and he allowed it to take over, angling his sword to the right as if planning a swinging blow while surreptitiously freeing the knife on his left hip. It would not be easy to fight with such different-sized weapons at once, nor was it a defence he’d ever practised. And if his hunch proved wrong …

His only warning was the hiss of exhaled breath, foul as a jackal that fed on carrion. Rix swung the sword, deliberately leaving his front and left side exposed. If his guess about either the caitsthe’s position or mode of attack was wrong, it would gut him.

‘Re-ven-ge,’ it said in a halting purr. As if, even in human form, its throat struggled to shape words.

Was it parroting something its master had taught it, or was a cunning mind at work inside the caitsthe? If it was truly intelligent his strategy would fail.

And where was the wrythen? Rix glanced over his shoulder. The cold was getting closer. Was its plan to attack from behind as the caitsthe came at him from the front? To his left the air flurried and faint, swirling red lines appeared there. Caitsthe magery? Rix was glad of his enchanted blade now.

He caught the blur of movement as it sprang and more swirls of red, but before he could strike the beast had him by the shoulders, digging its claws in and holding his sword arm so tightly that he could not use the weapon. It could have torn his throat out with a snap of those teeth. The fact that it did not suggested it had other plans, and the toothy smile confirmed it.

It’ll be planning to attack you where you hurt it.

The urge to protect his groin was almost irresistible. It took all Rix’s will to follow his instinct and wait for the one second when he would have a chance.

The caitsthe arched its back, opened its maw and began to lower its head. To divert his true intentions, he drove a knee up at its belly where the twin livers would be. The glancing blow had too little power to do serious damage, yet the caitsthe groaned and threw its head back.

No time to wonder why. He jerked his unnoticed knife out and up at the caitsthe’s belly at the same instant as it went for him. The knife encountered unexpected resistance — the woven belts of belly muscle were taut as wire. Rix swayed backwards and its snapping teeth grazed his chin, its foul breath blasting up his nostrils. His right forearm hit the side of its head but his sword was now behind the caitsthe and at the wrong angle to strike.

There was only one chance and he used it, forcing the knife through its belly muscles to the hilt then dragging it sideways. The caitsthe’s grip relaxed fractionally. He brought his knee up into its groin this time, putting all his weight behind it, and the shifter must not have been completely healed there, for it howled.

Rix slammed up again, gave the knife another twitch then put one foot against its crotch and shoved the creature backwards, tearing its claws from his shoulders.

The caitsthe slid off the knife and he lost sight of it as it hit the floor, though he could hear it panting and the oily squelch of intestines in its opened abdominal cavity. Any other creature would be dying from such an injury but the shifter seemed more troubled by the battering its groin had taken. He was safe for a minute or two until it healed itself — safe from it, at least — and had Rix been by himself he would have bolted.

Blood ran down his upper arms from his shoulders, each gouge throbbing as if a nail had been dragged through his flesh. He cleaned the caitsthe’s blood off his knife, very carefully, then scanned the air for the wrythen, the floor for Tobry. There was no sign of either.

Rix sheathed the knife but kept the sword out and, using his free hand, groped along the piled rubble. ‘Tobe, where are you?’

He had always taken Tobry for granted, had not realised how much he mattered to him or relied on him. His mocking, believe-in-nothing friend could not be dead. ‘Tobe, speak to me. I need you.’

He could not be far away. They had been side by side before they jumped, but if Tobry was under two feet of rubble there would be no helping him.

‘Tobe, if you’re conscious, I need light badly.’

The irony did not escape Rix, but his phobia about the uncanny had to take a back seat now. He was moving along the face of the rock fall when he realised that he could no longer hear the squelch of intestines. He couldn’t hear anything from the place where the caitsthe had fallen. Had it healed itself already?

A faint bluish glow lit the tunnel from behind. Tobry had come through; he was alive! But as Rix spun around, his smile died. The wrythen was hovering a yard above the ground on the other side of the rubble, blocking his retreat. Even if by some miracle he beat the caitsthe, he must next face an opponent he had no means of fighting.

Out of nowhere, the caitsthe launched itself head-first at his groin and there wasn’t time to raise the sword. Rix jammed its tip against the floor and wriggled the blade from side to side, pathetically trying to protect himself with the narrow blade.

The caitsthe’s jaws snapped, trying to close around him, but the blade cut across its mouth. It yelped, withdrew, then dived at him. Rix braced himself and jerked the edge of the blade into its path.

It twisted its head out of the way, losing only an ear, but momentum drove it hard onto the blade, which sliced a hand-span deep down the side of its neck and through its inner shoulder. The arm went limp but the caitsthe’s other hand came curling around behind Rix to wrench his feet from under him.

He lost his grip on the sword, then landed so hard on the rubble that he went numb from the waist down. The caitsthe was snapping and snarling, blood pouring from the terrible wound in its shoulder. It attempted a lunge to finish him off but the sword blade was caught on bone and the lunge only drove it deeper. Nothing else could have saved him.

It lurched backwards, reaching across with its good arm to pull the sword free, then jerked away as though the hilt had burnt it. The enchantment was the only thing protecting Rix now.

Yellow-brown fluid squirted from glands behind the caitsthe’s ears onto the wound; froth foamed up to cover it. The creature’s eyes glazed and it made several uncoordinated snapping motions with its teeth.

Rix’s numbness was fading but the smell of the glandular fluid made his nose drip and his stomach heave. As he tried to get up, the strength drained from him; the warmth fled from his body and was replaced with ice. His limbs might have been weighed down with rubble — he could barely move them. What was the caitsthe doing to him?

A convulsive blow sent the sword clattering across the rubble. Rix managed to rise to his hands and knees, though there were pins and needles in his feet and his shoulders had an unpleasant, jelly-like quality. The caitsthe was temporarily incapacitated as it shifted the tissues and bone to heal itself. Was it drawing on his strength for that purpose? Could it do such a thing?

It let out a groan; its free hand skimmed its stomach and it winced. Rix’s knife gouge was no longer visible but its belly bulged like a melon above its livers and the sweat running down its front was steaming there. What if the twin livers were involved in shapeshifting or healing? Were they painful because they had been so overworked, forced to heal by shifting again and again?

He groped behind him for a chunk of rock, then flung it at the bulge. The caitsthe screamed and convulsed, flinging its arms up and out repeatedly like a grotesque mechanical toy.

The cold and the weakness eased suddenly. Rix staggered forwards, fumbling for his knife, knowing that this was his last chance to finish the beast but not sure his legs would hold him up. If he had guessed wrong about the caitsthe it would tear his head off.

He swayed on his feet, the icy numbness creeping up his bones again. Should he try to cut the twin livers out? Rix wasn’t sure he was up to it. The caitsthe struck at him feebly. A feint intended to draw him in? He had to take the risk.

It struck again, at his head this time. Rix ducked but it was too much for his shaky knees, which collapsed under him. He landed on his kneecaps, scrabbled forwards and hacked upwards with the knife.

His aim was true and the caitsthe’s severed gonads went flying across the tunnel. It screamed shrilly, clutched at its groin and every gland on its body squirted pungent fluids, fogging the air around it. It let out an echoing howl, the same cry it had made when it had first changed to man-form, and its dim outline began shifting again, turning back to the huge cat that was its natural form. Was shifting a quick way of healing itself?

Rix crawled across to his sword and, using it as a crutch, forced himself to his feet. He had never fought anything this tough before. He swayed back and forth, trying to will strength into his limbs for the next battle. His last. He could not take on a healed caitsthe and win, not now that he was being drained again. So cold; so very cold. He tried to lift the sword but his arm had the weight of an iron ingot. How was the caitsthe doing that?

Mother will be furious, he thought oddly. My death is going to ruin all her plans. It would also leave House Ricinus vulnerable and its people unprotected, and Rix regretted that far more. Why hadn’t he given thought to his responsibilities before he came up here?

He realised that he had been standing still for minutes, watching the outline through the yellow fog. Now it dispersed, revealing the caitsthe still in man-form save for the tufted ears and furry tail — the shifting had not gone to completion. He could feel heat radiating off it. The shifter was as hot as he was cold, far hotter than any live creature should be. It seemed thinner and its formerly taut skin was baggy, as though it had burnt a lot of weight in a short time.

Its glands dribbled, though not enough to form the fog. Again it howled and tried to shift to cat-form but the howl died away in a frustrated yelp. After another series of dribbles it snapped weakly at its injured shoulder and in the direction of its groin. Steam hissed from its mouth, ending in a series of puffs like smoke rings. Its head lolled.

‘Kirikay, Kirikay,’ it gasped, reaching out towards the wrythen. The caitsthe tried to stand up, made it halfway then crashed to the floor and did not move.

Rix suspected another trick, though this did not look like one. The creature’s body seemed to shrink as it cooled, the skin sagging like a deflated balloon, and its limbs had the limpness of death. Could it be dead? If it was, how had he done it without cutting out its livers?

Rix felt the draining again, the creeping cold and heaviness of his arms and legs, but this time instinct prompted him to look over his shoulder. The hovering wrythen had no feet, its lower legs terminating in stumps of shattered bone. His gaze travelled upwards and he saw that its right arm was extended towards him. A pale blue thread of light connected them. The draining had not come from the caitsthe at all.

The wrythen was attacking him with the one thing he had no defence against — magery. It made a swirling motion with one hand, as if snapping a length of string, and the blue thread broke.

All light in the cavern was extinguished.