Alara Unbroken - Doug Beyer [47]
“Knight-Captain!”
She wouldn’t let that happen. No more planeswalking. None of the dark multiverse’s claws would reach the little bright world of Bant. She would protect its innocence for it. She, who first planeswalked from her birth-world as a mere child; she, who endured years of torture in the clutches of the worst the multiverse had to offer; she would stand between all that pain and Bant, personally.
“Elspeth!”
She turned. “What is it?” she demanded.
The knights were pointing to a small hill. Elspeth could see a large creature—a person, but a person who appeared to be covered in light-colored fur—lying prone on the grass.
“Someone has just … appeared,” said Knight Mardis.
No, thought Elspeth. “Get your pikes,” she said.
Ajani had no destination in mind for his planeswalk. He had no sense of aim or control; he didn’t know if he was even capable of consciously influencing where he traveled, or whether some strange laws within or without him governed the entire experience. Perhaps the power would take him to Zaliki, who could mend his wounds. Or perhaps it would take him to the world of volcanoes, where he could perish in fire. Either way, he knew he would die if he just lay next to the cliff. So he willed his mind, his broken body, and his soul to go.
The sensation was like being shoved through a plate of glass, except that the splinters tore at the inside of his skin instead of the outside. His heart tried to pound, but it didn’t know which direction to expand into, so it squeezed painfully in on itself instead. Ajani’s lungs burned, and he wasn’t sure if he was breathing in something awful or failing to breathe anything at all. His sense of up and down betrayed him, and he had the sensation of being flung end over end without moving at all.
The sense of movement was incredible. He knew that because of the sudden jolt when it stopped upon his arrival. He was slammed into something—a gently sloped hill—as if at extreme velocity. He waited, moment after sickening moment, for the residual sensation of motion to finally pass.
The air smelled strange. It was the lack of moisture in the air, he decided. And different plants. And the grass was softer, sweeter.
He rolled roughly onto his side, allowing the sky to rotate into view. It was impossibly bright—a blue canopy patched with small, scudding clouds, and lit by the blinding disk of a sun. The air was brisk, but that sun warmed him. Whatever world it was, its beauty was effortless, sweeping, and welcoming.
Ajani was sick on the grass.
Elspeth couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Neither could her fellow knights, judging by their panicked reactions.
“You there, whatever you are, don’t move,” said Knight Mardis, pointing a spear directly at the cat-man. “You so much as twitch a muscle, and we’ll run you through.”
The cat-man who lay on the grass before them was easily two feet taller than Elspeth or the other knights, covered in a coat of fine, golden-white fur, streaked with soot and blood. His face was like a leotau, the noble beasts ridden by knights, but with an expression of pained intelligence, framed by a regal mane. Large pieces of curving bronze armor covered his shoulders, and he wore a simple jerkin of rough green cloth. He had a tail.
Elspeth hadn’t seen a leonin before, but she had heard of such creatures in her travels. They were bigger than she had expected. And whiter of fur.
Of course, there were no leonin on Bant.
“D—Demon!” said one of the knights.
The other knights pointed their pikes right at the cat-man’s face.
“Stay those weapons,” ordered Elspeth.
The cat-man turned