The Temples Of Ayocan

Chapter 6

Again the basket frame swung sickeningly as the windlass crew began paying out the rope. Down the side of the cliff it went, down through the damp air. The seamed and scarred blue-gray stone of the cliff face flowed upward past Blade's eyes. Gradually he got used to the swaying, and looked over and down.

He almost wished he hadn't. Blade was no more afraid of heights than he was of anything else. And he had done an impressive amount of mountain climbing, both on missions and for his own amusement. But then he had always been holding on to the solid mountain, using his equipment and his skills against it. He had not been swaying in a basket in the middle of space, held up only by a rope that might break, payed out by men who might not keep their mind on their job. No, he didn't need to worry about lapses on the part of the crew of the windlass. He and Pterin together made too valuable a package for the men on the windlass to become careless. All he had to do was sit tight and wait-and perhaps worry about the oranki, whatever they were.

There was a good mile of empty air between the top of the cliff and the trees below. At the bottom the forest stretched away until it was lost in the fading light, endless miles of green broken only by the faraway glimmer of the river. Lights by the river shone a familiar yellow-orange, and smoke rose from the trees near those lights. Blade narrowed his eyes, trying to make out details. As he did so, a shrill whistling sounded from below, and he heard Pterin gasp and curse under his breath. Blade looked down.

Rising up out of the shadows on broad black wings was something-vast and hideous. It looked like nothing Blade had ever seen in nightmares, and in fact for a moment he could not even get a clear image of it. But then it swept up past the baskets, to swing outward in a great circle, wings stiff, gliding as it stared at its prey.

From wingtip to wingtip it spanned twenty feet, from beak to tail at least ten. Its skin was pebbled and grained like leather, and every inch of it shone as glossy black as if it had been oiled. It showed neither fur nor feathers nor scales. But as its long bony beak opened and shut, it did show a mass of jagged white teeth.

Blade now knew entirely too well why the warrior had predicted death for anyone who saw an orank. They were a thousand feet below the top of the cliff already. The men on top could neither drive away the creature nor haul them up in time for them to avoid its attack. And the only weapon he and Pterin had between them was the priest's ceremonial bronze knife, with a blade perhaps six inches long.

Pterin had that knife out now, and was holding it at arm's length while his lips moved in silent prayer. But Blade noticed that his eyes never left the orank as it swung about them in great circles. There was nothing wrong with Pterin's courage, at least.

The orank's circles were getting wider now. On each one the creature swept a little closer to the men in the baskets. Now Blade was watching it as intently as the priest was. Would it strike blindly, directly at the men? They had the remotest sort of fighting chance if it did that. Or would it have the wit to slash the rope apart, dropping the men helplessly to their death in the jungle below? They were doomed if it did that. They would plummet helplessly down to smash themselves to pulp on the ground, and the orank could feed at leisure on the remains.

At the outermost point of its widest circle, the creature suddenly turned. It turned so sharply that for a moment the great black wings were almost vertical. Above the toothed beak Blade saw two gigantic red eyes glaring at him. Then the orank leveled out and lunged in toward the men in the baskets.

As it turned, Blade braced himself as best he could and raised both hands. It was coming straight at him; beak open, eyes glaring. Now he could hear the beat of the wings and the creature's breathing, smell its breath, rank with filth and decay. It screamed again, and then it was on him.

As the beak drove forward, seeking to snatch his head from his shoulders in a single snap, Blade ducked. The beak swept past him, the savage teeth clicking shut on empty air. As the creature's neck came within range, Blade chopped down hard with the edges of his hands, right hand first, then left. He did not expect to break the foot-thick neck, but he knew the blow would startle a creature that must be expecting a sitting and helpless prey.

It did. The orank let out a scream of surprise and pain, and did a complete somersault in midair. It did not pull out of its dive until it was a hundred feet below the two men. By the time it had circled back for another attack, Blade was ready again. He noticed Pterin looking at him with interest.

The orank made its second lunge. Again Blade ducked, again his hands lashed out in a deadly double stroke with all his enormous strength behind it. The creature's tough hide bruised and scraped Blade's skin, but this time along with the scream Blade heard bone crack. Once more the creature flipped over in midair and dove away, and this time it fell almost five hundred feet before it could recover.

Perhaps he should try to grab the creature's neck the next time, strangle it or break the neck? No, it was too strong for that. It might pull him out of the basket in its final struggles even if he killed it. And then the orank was coming in for the third pass, and Blade crouched ready to meet it.

The orank was in a rage now, and also in pain. It shook its head from side to side as it came in. As the orank lunged, it misjudged the height of the still descending basket. Its darting head shot under the basket, striking it a tremendous blow that nearly jolted Blade over the side. But the shock also brought the orank to a dead stop in midair. For seconds it hung there, pressed hard against the basket.

Those seconds were all Blade needed. His left hand chopped down even harder than before against the vulnerable neck. His right lashed out sideways, against the wing thrust hard against the frame. The wing-bone was large, but like that of any flying creature, it was fragile. In both neck and wing Blade felt bone shatter under his blows.

The orank gave its most terrible scream yet, and dropped away, head twisting feebly on its crippled neck, the broken wing trailing as it frantically struggled to stay in the air with the good wing. It kept on dropping, with Blade watching to see if by some miracle it would recover again and return to the attack. It did not. It kept dropping, until it vanished in the mist that was beginning to gather below.

Blade was sitting back in the basket, gasping for breath, when he heard a sudden, unmistakable, crack of breaking wood. Moving very gently and cautiously, he turned to look at the frame.

«Damn,» he said.

Both of the poles of the frame were cracked where the orank's wing had struck them. In the fast-vanishing light Blade could not see how bad the breaks were, but he knew one thing. His life and Pterin's depended on their remaining motionless.

«Pterin,» he called across to the man in the other basket.

«Yes, warrior-indeed you are a strong spirit, and-«

«Never mind the compliments. The frame poles are cracked. Don't move. Don't even breathe deeply. How much farther down is it?»

There was a long silence from the other basket, as if Blade's words had struck Pterin dumb. Then the answer came softly, as if the priest were afraid speaking aloud might worsen the creaks. «We must be over halfway.»

Much good that will do us if the frames break now, thought Blade. When you are falling, a height of two thousand feet is no better than a height of a mile. He took a very shallow breath and gently shifted to a more comfortable position in the cramped basket. Then he settled down to wait. There was nothing else to do.

They were plunging downward at more than two hundred feet a minute. At that rate it would take another ten minutes or more for them to reach the bottom. Would the frame hold together that long? On the other hand, would going down faster increase the swinging motion, increase the strain, increase the risk of that final fatal break? Blade wished he knew. He also wished there was some way to get word up to the crew of the windlass now so far above.

Now they seemed to be going down faster. Had the windlass crew seen another orank, or were they just afraid of one? Well, so was Blade. Another attack was the last thing the battered frame could stand. And falling down through many hundreds of feet of damp twilight to go splat on the floor of a forest in some strange dimension seemed a silly way to go.

Less than a thousand feet to go now. They were definitely sinking faster. But the frame was swinging back and forth like a pendulum now, and the more rope above it the wider the swing. Blade found himself having to hold on to the frame to keep from being pitched out, listening to the ominous creakings, listening for the one final crack that would hurl him out into space and down.

It did not come. They passed five hundred feet, and Blade saw color returning to the priest's face. The pendulum motion was easing too. The sheer weight of the rope now payed out was beginning to hold them steady, perhaps. Blade hoped so. But his ears were still listening for that sound that would quite literally be the crack of doom.

Four hundred feet, three hundred, two hundred. Blade found he could breathe normally, and unclench hands that had been clamped to the frame like steel claws. Another minute or so, and they would be safe. The descent was slowing now as the windlass crew eased off in paying out the rope. Blade took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh.

Cr-r-raaaak!

Blade felt the basket lurch and sag. He did not need to look at the frame to know what had happened. Instead he looked down. In the darkness it was hard to be sure-but did he see water glimmering faintly below? He had barely time for a flash of hope, when the frames parted entirely and his basket plunged downward.

As it did so, it turned over, throwing Blade out. For a moment he was head down and certain he was going to fall into water. But would it be deep enough to break his fall from nearly two hundred feet up? As these thoughts flashed through his mind, his body was straightening itself. His only hope was to enter the water with his body absolutely straight. Legs went down, head went up, arms went still farther up until they were above his head. Now he was looking up at the sky as the air rushed past, the approaching water below, just enough time to wonder if the cloudy dark sky above would be the last sight in his life

He hit the water with an impact that seemed to break every bone in his body, dislocate every joint, and flay the skin off the dismantled skeleton. The water closed over him. As he sensed its chill, he realized that he was still alive. His body was still straight when it arrowed into the muddy bottom.

He went into the mud up to his knees and felt a terrible suction like an enormous mouth trying to draw him in deeper. He kicked with his feet, churned with his arms, felt foul-smelling debris float up past him from the muck below. Then he broke free. He had one moment of utter certainty that his lungs were going to burst before he reached the air-then his head broke surface.

His lungs filled in one convulsive gasp, and his vision slowly cleared. As it did so, the surface of the water suddenly lit up, as a dozen men with yellow-orange torches stepped out onto the bank of the pond. One of them shouted, and his arm shot out. Unmistakably, he was pointing at Blade. The others waved their swords and joined their shouts to the first man's.

Blade said «Damn!» a third time. If the banks of the pond had been unguarded, and the road into the forest clear. . Well, there was nothing to do now but once more await a better opportunity. Taking his own good time, he began to swim slowly toward the bank.