Wings Over Talera - Charles Allen Gramlich [79]
Only, there was nothing to step back on.
I saw the creature’s facial expression change, saw the pupils and nostrils flare. He gave a cry that was half angry bellow, half plaintive mewl. He thrust out the hammer for balance, but it wasn’t enough. And I watched as he toppled backward into the brightly lit void of the air. I rose to my knees, chest heaving, and saw my enemy spin into a black top until finally, far below, he joined with the jungle.
But there was no time to relax. The speed of this...ship began to increase beneath me. In moments her cannon would be brought to bear on the Nyshphalian armada. I forced myself to my feet, glanced up to the apex of the pyramid. Somewhere up there, I assumed, Vohanna would have her control room—in a place with an unobstructed view.
If I were wrong.... I shook my head. If I were wrong then all would be lost. There’d be no second chance.
The path to the top twined between cannon ports and no one could pass among them unseen. Yet, it would take too long to return inside and try to find an interior route. Besides, the rest of Vohanna’s hybrids would still be hunting me there.
Maybe there was another way.
The wall of the pyramid was sloped and not completely smooth. Here and there were incised symbols of moons, milkstones, and monsters. Elsewhere stood out bas-reliefs depicting scenes of conflict and carnage. Sorry now that I’d thrown my sword sheath away in a show of bravado when I’d faced Bryce below, I slid my blade into my belt and snapped one of the scabbard-hooks through the ornate guard. Then I wedged a boot among stone carvings of Bacchanalia and pushed myself up to lie flat against the wall.
From there my fingers found holds and I began to work my way up the side, moving as quickly as I dared with a mile-long fall behind me. With my back to the sky, I expected at any moment to feel the thud of crossbow quarrels striking me. It would take only one glance from one being among Vohanna’s bird riders to make me a target. Somehow that did not happen. I suppose their attention was focused outward on those who were coming to kill them.
Fifty feet from the pyramid’s apex I reached a ledge wider than any I’d seen before, with a balustrade of shaped and polished iron. I leaned far out from the wall where my body wanted to cling, and let the fingers of my right hand curl over the top of the ledge. The stone felt dusty and slick there. I bit at my lip, closed my eyes with my heart pounding, and tried to convince myself I could let go with my left hand and pull myself up to safety.
My feet slipped, came free of the knob of worked stone upon which they had perched. I didn’t let go with my left hand; that grip was torn free as my legs swung out over naked, hungry sky. That sky seemed to grab at me. My right hand slid, clenched, slid. I flailed upward with my other hand, clawed at the railing there. My feet dangled, my boots dragging at me.
Then my left hand caught an iron bar and locked in a death grip. My right hand followed. I pulled myself up and over the rail, collapsed to all fours on the ledge. Sweat iced my body. My lungs seemed torn as I gulped for air.
A broad metal door stood before me, sculpted basilisks to either side and a porthole just above filled with beveled glass through which pulses of light strobed. It was toir’in-or light, milkstone light...Vohanna’s kind of light. There were no more openings above. This had to be the way to reach the witch.
I forced myself up, staggered toward the closed door hoping I could get it open, and the pyramid shudder-jumped beneath me. Grabbing desperately at one of the stone dragon heads, I hung on as a hammer of sound slammed into me like a physical blow. It was the bull-roar of the cannons being turned loose.
With a wild glance into the sky I saw