Wings Over Talera - Charles Allen Gramlich [49]
I reversed the dagger in my hand, hurled it down into an open muzzle full of gleaming, saw-edged teeth. The beast shrieked, fell back into a roiling mass of its fellows. I heard it shriek again as the other howlers tore at it.
I hacked at vines with my sword. The blade sliced through, sending more furry bodies plummeting. But there were too many vines, too many beasts. One reached the limb upon which I stood. I cut that creature down. Another hurled its body at me, using its legs to drive it. I backhanded it, sent it flying. A single talon raked along my sleeve, rending the cloth, stinging through to the skin beneath.
Turning, I took two running steps along the broad back of the tree limb, leaped outward. On a second tree, a shadowy branch loomed flat and wide. My boots slapped down upon it but skidded on the smooth bark. I stumbled, caught the trunk and held on as my body swayed out over the ground.
The red-eyed howlers swamped the limb where I’d been, filled it, with muzzles turning, snuffling. They saw me. The small fire was dying below. It was growing too dark for me to see. I didn’t think that would be a problem for my hunters. With such eyes as theirs they were surely nocturnal.
I shoved the rapier in my belt, grabbed a hanging vine as thick as my arm and started to drag myself up it. Behind me I heard leaping, thudding bodies—and howling, like goblin bells ringing.
Something grabbed my heel. Even through the good leather I felt the clasp of teeth. I kicked it away, climbed faster. The vine shuddered in my hands as another beast replaced the first. I kicked again, felt teeth and cartilage crunch. Hardened nails skittered on my jeans, fell away. I heard the creatures in the trees all around as they tried to out climb me. But their hypertrophied claws made it difficult for them. They must have been ground hunters, not used to the heights.
I dropped onto a foot-wide limb, raced along it, leaped into a third tree. Climbed. Now, a smattering of light filtered down through the canopy to help me. Nimeru had risen, the first and smallest Taleran moon, known as “the dreamer.”
A burst of howling exploded in front of me. Three of the beasts came hurtling along the branch on which I moved. They might have had me if they’d remained silent. I whipped my sword free, spitted one creature like an overripe fruit, slung it away. A second beast leaped at my face. I ducked aside. It missed, dropped into darkness.
The third struck me in the knees, sent me teetering backward on a limb that was narrow at this height. My left hand barely snatched a hold on a thin side-branch, but in the instant it took to keep myself from falling I felt teeth and a sharp, sharp pain in my left leg.
I slashed downward with the sword, cutting completely through the muzzle of the creature. Gore sprayed. It screeched, turned tornado on the limb in front of me, whirling madly in its pain, claws lashing. I spun the rapier, locking both hands around the pommel as I dropped to one knee. The good steel stabbed deep, pinning the monster to the branch. It shuddered, went still.
I rose, jerked the blade free with a steel-on-bone rasp. My breathing came with a sandpaper rawness. My heart drummed too fast. The warmth of blood ran down my leg. But there was no time to rest. All around me I heard scurrying movements in the trees. And no howling now.
I lifted the rapier, bit down on the blade to taste the wicked copper of blood. With both hands free I leaped upward, caught a limb, pulled myself up. Then did it again. And again. Sullen red eyes glittered from a dozen limbs below me. They climbed with me.
But they didn’t attack!
Bark and moss came free beneath my fingers, showered down my collar. My boots crushed scorpions, ants, phosphorescent grubs as I climbed. Sharp twigs ripped tatters in my shirt. My lungs were a bellows; the tissues of them felt torn.
Why didn’t the creatures attack? Did they fear my sword?
I