Beyond the Gate

Chapter 13

Zell’a Cree heard the shrill warning of the scout’s whistle from over a mile away, and rushed through the darkened streets until his infrared vision could make out the fiery forms of his men. He came upon the corpses of his men, pack brothers lying in pools of their own blood. Their bodies glowed like faint embers, and the blood still hot in their veins was like twisted rivers of light under their skin.

Besides the scout Ssaz, who sat nursing an injured wing from the stone gutters of a building, three other hunters from Zell’a Cree’s pack had gathered-two were unnamed Tekkars, swathed in black robes cut at the thighs, wearing tall leather boots tied above the knees. The Tekkars’ purple eyes gleamed darkly from their shadowed hoods. The third was a small man named Ewod who might have been human, except that he wore fur-lined winter robes on a balmy evening and his skin was pale yellow. He stared at the ruined corpses and shook, and Zell’a Cree watched him closely. He had seldom seen so much fear upon the face of a man.

Zell’a Cree felt calm himself. Fear had been bred out of his people thousands of years ago. He had never wakened with his heart thumping from a bad dream, had never felt an uneasy tingling at the sound of running feet in a dark alley. And now, looking at his brothers, he felt only sadness, a profound loss at such a waste.

He went to the corpses, closed the staring eyes. “The wheel turns, and we must now travel the road without you. Come to us when you can,” he whispered to the dead, bidding them to seek rebirth soon, then reached into his travel pouch and brought out wafers of bread and placed one in the mouth of each of his dead comrades to feed them on their spirit journeys.

Zell’a Cree was disturbed by the sounds of the little man, Ewod, crying, and Zell’a Cree also wanted to weep at the waste of life. But as leader of this hunting pack, he could not afford the luxury.

“Don’t dawdle,” the scout Ssaz hissed at them from its perch, its canines gleaming as gold as its eyes in the moonlight. Zell’a Cree could smell the sweet copper scent of its blood, but couldn’t immediately see the wound. “The humansss may return, hunting usss thisss time!”

“What happened?” Zell’a Cree spoke only in a hushed whisper. All of the men here had hearing far keener than any human.

Ewod said, “Me and my brothers chanced upon a bear and a young woman, and we thought they would make easy converts. The bear wounded himself trying to escape, but the girl came at us with a sword and slew my brothers before they could react.”

“Fools!” one of the Tekkar spat, his voice the sound of loose gravel shifting under one’s feet. Because the Tekkar did not name themselves, Zell’a Cree was forced to bestow names upon them in order to keep them straight. He called this one Red Hand, for the man had his right hand dyed red. “They should have taken more care. They deserved to die!”

“No one deserves death,” Zell’a Cree said.

“The humans who did this deserve to die!” Red Hand countered. “We must make an example of them, teach the humans to fear us.”

Zell’a Cree knew that the humans no longer walked abroad at night because they were afraid of his hunting pack, and it was only that fear that made it possible for his people to penetrate so deeply into the human lands. If the humans banded together and went abroad in the dark, his hunters would be no match for them. But the humans did not know this, and so fear protected Zell’a Cree’s men. He could not gainsay Red Hand’s argument, no matter how repulsive he might find it.

“What do the rest of you think?” Zell’a Cree asked, hoping that the imaginative Ewod might be able to find a reason to extend mercy.

The second Tekkar, whom Zell’a Cree called Garrote because the man always kept a garrote wrapped at his waist to use as a belt, said, “If an Inhuman kills a human, the humans send their assassins to take vengeance. We should do no less.”

“And if we kill these humans, will we not be lowering ourselves to their standards?” Zell’a Cree said. “The way of the Inhuman is a way to peace.”

“Yes,” Ewod said nervously. “I tried to tell the humans that. But they feared the Word.”

Zell’a Cree glanced at his men. “The Inhuman does not seek vengeance, it seeks converts above all. Yet justice must also be done. We shall hunt this woman and offer her a choice: she may accept the Word, or lose her life.”

Zell’a Cree held his breath a moment, and his men grunted their assent. The Tekkar immediately raised their heads, trying to catch the woman’s scent, but whereas their night vision was stronger than Zell’a Cree’s, his sense of smell far outmatched theirs. He could smell the woman now, the subtle aroma of strange perfumes about her, like nothing he’d ever come across before. And he could smell the bear, its heavy fur.

He rushed down the street, under the cover of darkness, his men flitting behind him like shadows. For nearly an hour he tracked them through the streets. It was a difficult task, even for Zell’a Cree, for it was not long past dusk, and the odors of thousands of travelers were still fresh on the night air.

Their scout flew ahead, and once he spotted the humans and they tried to set a hasty ambush, but the humans turned aside from their course.

Still, it was not hard to pick up their trail again. Zell’a Cree held to the exotic scent of the woman, a scent utterly alien, until at last he came to a warehouse that covered most of a block. It was an old stone building that had once been a great covered market, but now the huge arched doorways had been filled with new brick, leaving but one small opening under a portico.

Bending near the door, Zell’a Cree tasted the scent-and discovered the earthy vegetable odor of Bock. He inhaled deeply, closing his eyes, so that he would remember those smells, recognize their owners as if they were old friends.

Zell’a Cree pulled on the door, but it was barred inside, as he’d expected. He backed up, looked at the building from outside. The old warehouse had two high windows that were barred. Ssaz was already at the bars, tugging on them. But the batlike creature didn’t have the strength in his hands to pull the bars loose.

“We could pry open the door,” one of the Tekkar suggested, breathing down Zell’a Cree’s neck. The Tekkar’s voice was annoyingly loud to Zell’a Cree’s sensitive ears.

“We don’t know if they’re in there,” Zell’a Cree said. “They may have left another way. Besides, if they remained within, they may have accomplices. I can smell several people who have entered here recently.”

He nodded toward the Tekkar. “Each of you circle the building, checking for other doors. If you catch the woman’s scent there, call us. Do not try to fight this woman alone. I will go up on the roof and listen for them, see if I can hear them inside.”

He only hoped that the Tekkar would follow his orders. The Tekkar had been bred for life on a violent world, and were prone to viciousness. Both of the men were likely to kill their prey without notice. And given their skill in battle, their blinding speed, the woman would not stand a chance against them.

Zell’a Cree’s ancestors were designed for life on a world where the air hung so heavy it would choke humans, and the gravity would make the blood pool in a human’s legs till the vessels burst. It was a dark world, swathed in eternal mists, and so Zell’a Cree’s ancestors had been gifted by the Immortals with compensations-eyes that could see in the dark, a sense of smell as keen as a wolf’s, hearing as sharp as an owl’s.

Zell’a Cree looked more human than any of his companions, but even now, the sensitive hairs in his ears twitched, and he listened for the sounds of voices.

“Ssaz, fly up and make certain that our prey does not leave the building,” Zell’a Cree whispered. “Ewod, you hide in the shadows and watch this door. I’ll try to find them inside.”

The scout unfurled his wings and leapt into the air, swooping down and then flapping madly. Zell’a Cree grasped the rough stone walls of the building with his fingertips, finding chinks in the stone with his fingers and toes, then climbed up quickly two stories to the roof, crawling over the moss-covered slate tiles, listening, trying to catch a scent.

In moments his knees were wet and bore cuts from the slate roof, but he hardly noticed, he was so intent. Several times he heard the sounds of rats in the rooms below him, their shrieking voices and feet padding over the wooden floors, but Zell’a Cree passed them by, straining to hear above the softly gusting wind, until at last he heard voices echoing in a room beneath him, and he stopped.

The night was nearly silent, and the humans below him, with their dull senses, were utterly unaware. “… The Inhuman will not hold harmless those who have slain its members.” A girl was speaking, or a young woman, more likely. He imagined that it was the swordswoman speaking. She had a commanding voice, which was at the same time soft and mellifluous. “We must flee at dawn.”

“Are you sure you want to come with us?” a young man asked. “It will be a long trip, and if I’m to protect you, it seems to me that the best way to do that is to leave you here.”

“I need to come,” the young woman replied. “Many servants of the Inhuman respect the Tharrin. You will need their help in finding the Harvester. You’ll get that easier with me around. Besides, we requested a Lord Protector simply because I can no longer trust anyone here. The number of those who have been converted by the Inhuman is growing. I would not count myself safer here than in your presence.”

“What of the giant, Rougaire? He seems trustworthy.”

The woman lowered her voice, and by this Zell’a Cree guessed that the giant must still be in the building, and the woman did not want him to hear her words. “Trustworthy, yes, but he is not your match as a warrior. In battle he is both as graceful and as dangerous as a dancing elephant. Still, he has a great heart. But if we are to win through to Moree, we will require stealth, and Rougaire lacks that capacity.”

“And will the Bock be coming?”

“No,” the Tharrin said. “He’s ill-suited to travel and is incapable of defending himself in an attack.” She hesitated. “And what of you? You say the High Judge sent you here. How did you earn her trust?”

“Maggie and I killed the Lords of the Swarm, and Maggie banished the dronon from the human worlds.”

There was a pause, and Zell’a Cree sat openmouthed at his good fortune. To find a Tharrin and the new human Lords of the Swarm both at once-it was incredible. “You did that?” the Tharrin asked.

“Aye,” the young man said, and his voice was weary. As if to change the subject, he said, “You said the servants of the Inhuman will be hunting us. Will they attack tonight?”

“That is doubtful,” the Tharrin said. “Maggie killed several of them, so they will respect her for that. And now she has reinforcements, while the hosts of the Inhuman are scattered in their hunting packs. No, I think it more likely that they will band in larger numbers-then try to hunt her down. That should give us time to escape.”

“How can we manage to escape them undetected?”

“Our best hope is to travel quickly, over water,” the Tharrin said. “The scouts have keen noses, but they are blind in the daytime. We can flee at dawn, but we cannot leave our scent on any road leaving town. With luck, they will search the buildings here in town for a couple of days before they realize that we are gone. I think we should leave in the morning, on the first ship that sails with the tide.”

Another feminine voice broke in, a young woman, “Gallen, the beds are made up.…”

Zell’a Cree inched away from the room, taking immeasurable care not to make a sound. The rainwater trapped in the moss had wet his tunic so that he shivered with the cold, but when he was well away from his prey, he merely turned on his back and looked up at the stars and three small golden moons that whirled dreamily through the sky like juggler’s balls. He breathed the sharp air, and considered. A Tharrin, a Lord Protector with his woman-the newly proclaimed Lords of the Swarm-all heading toward Moree to do battle with the Inhuman.

What better converts could he desire?

Zell’a Cree thought furiously, considering his resources. Here on the frontier he had nearly run out of his copies of the Word. And Zell’a Cree wondered if even the vicious Tekkar would be a match for a Lord Protector. Here, Zell’a Cree lacked the necessary resources for a confrontation, both in technology and in manpower. But if the humans were heading toward Moree …

“When you reach the Harvester’s throne,” Zell’a Cree whispered, “you will bow before it.”

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