Wings Over Talera - Charles Allen Gramlich [46]
“Diken,” I said to him the next morning, as he moved to mount his sabrun for the continuation of our journey.
He glanced back at me, his eyes haunted and raw. Then he proved my guess correct as he suddenly blurted, “I’m sorry.”
I shook my head at him. “The fault is Vohanna’s,” I said. “And in no way yours. You have been a good companion. I have ridden with a few as good. Not any that were better.”
His eyes remained locked with mine for long moments. He smiled then, slightly, though still with a touch of sadness, and we bestrode our saddle birds and took to the air, leaving our doubts of each other behind in the dust of Elul.
* * * * * * *
Amid the thick shadows of late evening, we reached the outskirts of lost Vohan and landed along what must have been, at one time, a major thoroughfare leading into the city. It was a roadway of glimmering black, of some kind of cement, cracked and broken in many places, elsewhere buried beneath layers of fertile soil through which grass and bushes stabbed.
When I had heard of the “ruins” of Vohan I’d assumed we would see gigantic blocks of stone piled on top of each other, and shattered buildings half standing, with spider-webbed statues and dry fountains decaying around them. What we found was more the memory of ruins, devoured in what could only be described as a jungle.
Across the north-central plains of Nyshphal the land was mostly tall grass prairies broken by copses of trees, with here and there a stream running near full from spring rains. But where Vohan had stood there now grew a tropical forest. Only patches of the oily black stone peeked through among the verdure, and there were vague outlines within the green that were more regular than nature liked.
Lush blooms of scarlet, lavender, and saffron dripped sweetly putrid odors along narrow beast-trails in the undergrowth. Trees soared above, most of which were completely unfamiliar to me, and all the forest—from gnarled giants to fallen, half rotted logs—was woven together by vines. The only animals were tiny silver and black birds that darted about like dragonflies. There were no bigger creatures to be seen, which left me wondering what had made the trails.
It intrigued me to find such tropical growth in what should have been a temperate climate, but for the moment I pushed that curiosity aside. Eric had indicated that Vohanna’s stronghold was located below the surface here. The question was how to find an entrance, and the jungle made that task more daunting than I had hoped it would be.
“Well...we can’t take the sabruns with us in there,” Diken Graye said, gesturing at the forest.
I nodded. “Agreed. But leaving them tied up out here would only provide food for the prairie ghyres.”
“Then what?” Graye asked.
“We release them and walk,” I said. “If Eric is right and the attacks on Nyshphal have been supplied from here, then somewhere below this jungle is a place big enough to hide a near army of birds and riders. We’ll steal what we need when we get ready to leave again.”
Graye chuckled. “I rather like that idea,” he said, as he began to strip the two birds of their saddles and gear.
I glanced up at the quickly darkening sky and a new thought occurred to me.
“I believe,” I said to Graye, “that the sabruns may yet serve us in another way.”
“And that would be?” the mercenary asked, lifting an eyebrow.
“They’re domesticated,” I said. “When it comes time to go to roost they’ll seek a warm mew among their own kind.”
“So?”
I let him think on it for a moment. Then a smile curled his lips and the scar on his chin tightened, shining whitely through his dark stubble of beard.
“Perhaps they’ll lead us to the entrance we need,” he said.
“Aye. If they can sense their cousins in or below this jungle.”
“Tis worth a try, at least.”
“My thoughts as well,