Page 53 of Chained Knight

“Allalai!” Majan yelled, and his mount gave a high shrill shriek. “’Ware, they come!”

The things boiled out of the forest, and a scream tore from Ari’s throat.

The worst wasn’t the smell, overpowering as the stink of the Blood Mere but hitting the nose differently, sending atavistic pin-prickles over her skin—every living being knows death when they scent it. Nor was it the hanging flesh overgrown with metallic excrescences and widening, weeping sores, though the sight was far more terrible than any Last Judgment painting or special effect on a high-definition screen. Nor the way they moved, twitch-jerking, sometimes dropping to run on all fours, slim moving pistons and tiny sharp-edged gearwheels tearing at flayed muscles.

No, the worst thing about the Bright King’s other servants was their rolling, empty, cobweb-filmed eyes, bulging with horror. And the sounds.

Palms and soles swollen, fingers and toes receding, they made soft slapping noises while running crabwise; their jaws worked endlessly, champing and dripping yellowish foam. Little piping cries issued from shredded throats, whistles and chuffs when they were moving at speed. And they moaned, too—like damned souls, those terrible, chilling cries she’d heard while huddling among Jazarl’s men.

Ari’s mount screamed as well, Hannixe’s rearing. Jazarl gave a short sharp shout which might have been an obscenity. Naithor’s equine lashed out with a back hoof, catching one of the things in the chest and flinging it against a swiftly growing tree with a wet, sickening thud.

The things massed like flies, swarming, and no few turned their heads blindly in Ari’s direction as her equine stood trembling and sweating. The chained man said something, a low imperative command; dull-black metal snakes shot in every direction, finding their targets unerringly. The splorches were deeply nauseating, and the way rotten flesh exploded into metal-starred chunks even worse. Alzarien avoided a splatter, leaning back in the saddle, and the flash of disgust married to a moment of fear on his sharp-featured face spoke volumes.

Another scream—Leshe, huddled before Sarle in the saddle as his rapier swung, lopping off an undead creature’s bumbling, questing hand. The chains sang, snaking through cringing air, and Ari’s mount decided enough was enough.

The white equine bolted. For a terrifying moment the world was cockeye and Ari knew she was going to fall, tumbling over frantically working hindquarters. But her hands were tangled in the reins and her knees clamped, stirrups pinching slipper-clad feet unmercifully. She managed to hunch forward, cowering against the massive creature’s neck.

Bugling in terror, the equine shot into the forest. All a rider could do was hold on, and hope for the best.

30

UP TO THE TASK

Clinging to leather straps,flying mane stinging her face and hands, Ari was too busy to scream, pray, faint,orwonder. The equine bunched and released under her, a giant spring pulsing in terrified rhythm, and she no sooner reached some kind of equilibrium than the beast shifted direction with a jolt that threatened to send her tumbling. A gathering, a sudden weightlessness, and they were airborne, the creature floating over a half-seen fallen log.

I hope you know what you’re doing, honey. The poor animal had endured enough, and frankly so had she.

Grasping fog-fingers receded, shafts of red sunlight piercing the canopy and strobe-flickering to either side. The equine’s gallop smoothed, though the creature plainly had no intention of stopping, and Ari found she could cling to the reins a little more firmly, leaning into a rhythm now bearing less panic and more purpose.

Zombies. Jesus. But the metal lodged inside their muscles, pistons and gearwheels working in dead flesh,thatwas a newone. Were they mutating into the big golden robots, or failed experiments?

This Ternek guy’s probably real fun at parties. His name sent a shiver down her back, or maybe that was just the current situation shaking her like a small stuffed toy in a dog’s jaws. The Bright King had strangled a woman in order to take a throne, and he somehow created murderous supersize robots as well as ambulatory corpses.

The chained man, though terrifying in his own right, was looking better all the time. Certainly far more restrained.

Trees flashed by on either side. Undergrowth waved as they passed. The forest was settling, the bright warnings ofhi, I’m poisonousbecoming far fewer and eventually rare indeed. Straight grey trunk-columns mixed with pale-barked, crimson-leaved trees, a sprinkling of evergreens thickened, and the equine settled into a canter.

Well,settledwas a relative term. Ari’s heart pounded nearly in time to hoofbeats, breath thick in her throat, and she felt like a violently shaken soda can. Stealing quick glances left and right, she decided they were indeed out of the Poisonwood, but didn’t dare risk attempting to stop the poor beast.

It seemed to take forever before the equine slowed further. Craggy hills reared on either side, hemming them in, the forest rioting upslope and down. A moving glitter to Ari’s left was a stream, glimpsed and gone. Her back was sore, the feeling attempting to break through a screen of analgesic from magic pondwater, and she wondered again if the liquid merely masked sensation instead of doing any real healing.

But it had made her bruises and cuts shrink, hadn’t it? Her legs were numb; she didn’t even want to think about getting out of the saddle.

The white equine’s canter melded into a trot, its hooves no longer throwing up great clods of earth. Then a walk, plodding,its ears pointed forward and Ari able to move cautiously, looking around in more than small sipping glances.

Thinning trees, hills now higher but also drawing away. The shrubs and ferns were half-familiar, more closely akin to those around the Keep. The rock was dark grey instead of black with mica speckles, great rounded lichen-clad boulders thrusting through the earth’s skin. The white equine was working downhill; Ari glimpsed ochre and amber in the near distance, more undulating grassland in yellow tones instead of green.

Maybe that would be good for her mount, even if its teeth weren’t that of a grazing critter. And Ari had to think about the saddle now; she’d watched the guys strap tack on the horselike beasts more than once. Maybe she could reverse the process.

She didn’t think it possible that anyone had followed their wild career. Her heart pounded in her ears so hard she wouldn’t have heard if they had; her throat was full of thin hot sourness. If she was now on her own, she could at least unsaddle the white beast tonight, hoping it wouldn’t take a chunk out of her with those sharp carnivore fangs.

But then what? Walk? She doubted she could get a saddle backonthe big animal, especially if it took exception to the process. Should she try to find this Blight or Mirrored City, hope that the chained man or Jazarl’s guys could track her? Cast around for a ‘door’ to the mortal realm, hop through, and see what the hell? Of course, she had no idea what any doorway would look like, since she’d been knocked out by landslide on her way here.

Or maybe she was dead in her own world, and would start to rot the moment she passed through? Nowtherewas a wonderful thought. She didn’t know nearly enough about the terms and conditions of this bullshit. The reflex of planning ahead, thinking through contingencies, trying to cover every angle hadgotten her through living in the house on Hardison Hill, but in the end she’d still been surprised by Mike’s…

What on God’s green earth had set him off? Her brain was leaping around like a ferret on crack, Jesus and gin. She had tothink.

The white equine stopped, ears flicking. Ari swayed, cessation of motion nearly knocking her from the saddle as all the shakes and jolts had failed to; the Carcanet was warm, nestling against her skin like a small frightened animal. She freed a cramped, trembling hand, red marks creasing her palm and fingers, and patted her mount’s lathered neck. “Easy,” she managed, in a trembling approximation of their rolling, beautiful language. “Easy, big fella. Or are you a missus?” English words salted her croon; she didn’t have to worry about being overheard.

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