The Lord of the Plains (99 page)

And they fired again.

This time the creature flung itself out of
the way. It recovered quickly. The humans fired again. Riley could
not get close to the advancing ehlkrid without endangering
herself.

‘Stop!’ Riley called to them.

The ehlkrid was almost upon them.

There was another flash of light. The
ehlkrid reared up, less than an arm’s length from the humans. And
the caves.

There was no time to be cautious. The gemeng
warriors were fighting all around her. Riley moved behind the
ehlkrid. It was reaching for the humans. She slashed. The creature
roared. She stabbed again, again. The cry trailed off. It crashed
to the ground. The humans jumped back, their equipment crushed
beneath the creature.

‘Get back inside!’ Riley commanded. She
turned back to the fighting, the humans now gone from her mind.

When next she looked that way, they were
gone.

When she finally left the surface, the sun
rising above the horizon, they approached her again.

‘We would like to take the ehlkrid back to
Astar.’ Said the woman in charge of the mission.

Riley, tired, stared at her. She could think
of no reason to say no. ‘Fine. Just make sure you burn the body
when you’re done with it. Ehlkrid eat each other and get stronger
by doing so.’

The tour she gave the humans was short. She
was tired. She had other things to do.

Still, Riley chose the route through the
caves carefully. Should the humans attack, she didn’t want to
regret this tour.

The humans looked around very carefully, but
silently. Riley had the distinct feeling they were going to compare
their mental notes in private. She didn’t like that one bit.

The next day the humans left the same way
they had arrived, by Predators and Carriers carefully hidden within
the Plains.

Chapter 84

The night was overcast. There were no stars
or moon to lighten the blackness. Riley was accustomed to the
darkness, and it did not bother her.

The night proceeded as usual. Despite the
threat the ehlkrid posed to the humans and gemengs, despite the
wounds and deaths done to her people, a part of Riley enjoyed these
nights. A big part.

Where the creature came from, and how it hid
its light, Riley didn’t know. One moment the night was dark and
then something that emitted an eerie blue light was floating up the
mountainside.

Riley observed it intently, an uneasy
feeling growing. All the other ehlkrid were darkly coloured,
camouflaged for fighting in the night.

If this thing wasn’t…

It looked very much like a jellyfish. A
jellyfish with a body as wide across as Riley was tall. Tentacles
hung down from the edge of the body, on the ends were dangerous
looking hooks. They moved around in a wild, savage dance. It
jiggled and wobbled as it floated up the mountain, the end of its
tentacles perhaps a hands width above the ground. The light seemed
to come from inside the body, as if a candle was inside, lighting
the creature from within.

The other ehlkrid avoided it. She had not
seen them behave that way before. It merely confirmed what its glow
had already told her.

It was extremely dangerous.

Riley called out to her gemengs in a voice
that carried across the cool mountain slope, ‘stay away from the
glowing ehlkrid! I will deal with it!’

For a time Riley just watched it move. She
watched the way it killed and began eating an ehlkrid that didn’t
get out of the way fast enough. The body was likely too high for
her to reach easily, especially with those tentacles. But from
inside?

Riley watched. It kept moving as it ate. The
pieces of the other ehlkrid floated in the body and began
dissolving.

Riley moved. She had seen enough. The
creature was distracted. What better time would there be?

She moved fast, faster than she ever had
before. She sliced the tentacles, moving and dodging between
them.

The gooey appendages dropped to the ground.
Quickly, new ones began growing. But she was already within the
curtain of tentacles.

Above was the now unprotected centre. She
stabbed and dragged her sword raggedly through the creature.

Goo poured from the wound. Riley was already
moving away. The tentacles flailed wildly.

Karesh saw the jellyfish monster the same
time everyone else did. It filled him with a sense of unease none
of the other ehlkrid ever had. Inside something whispered,
run
as another part said,
you cannot run fast
enough.

When he heard Riley say to stay away from
it, when he saw her sizing it up, he was sickly relieved.

The other ehlkrid were not fighting as much
now, they were trying to get away. The gemengs did not really try
and stop them, unless they headed for the caves. And so it was not
so hard for Karesh to watch. He did not want to leave the jellyfish
monster at his back.

With astonishing ease Riley was past the
tentacles. In rising awe he saw her stab the creature. It began
shaking and jiggling wildly. The pattern of the tentacles changed.
The pattern was gone, the creature was dying, the tentacles flailed
madly.

As Riley was making her escape one of those
jagged hooks caught her. She was outside the curtain of tentacles,
on the opposite side of the creature to him. Karesh stared in
rising horror and disbelief as she crumpled face first to the
ground, the creature behind her.

It was dying, yet not dead. He could almost
feel its intent.

He did not remember making the decision. He
flew, over the monstrous creature. It was not high. She was below.
He landed, made to pick her up.

Pain so intense that everything went white
smashed into him. Somewhere, someone was screaming.

Aerlid looked up as another two people were
rushed into his cave which functioned as a hospital.

He saw Riley first, unconscious and carried
by three gemengs. She was bleeding heavily, a ragged rip in the
clothes of her stomach.

‘Aerlid,’ the gemengs were saying,
‘quickly!’

But his eyes were not on her. He pushed past
the gemengs roughly. Karesh was supported by three gemengs. His
back…

‘No.’ Aerlid shouted brusquely. ‘No, take
her to the back. The others can deal with her. Bring Karesh to me.
Now.’

The sight of Karesh’s back was enough to
make him sick, but he had no time to think about that. Precious
seconds were being wasted as the acid ate away at his skin, muscle
and bone.

Riley stirred. She opened her eyes to
Aerlid’s haggard face above her.

Her body felt thick and numb. The memory of
pain was almost too much for her. She wanted to vomit.

‘You’re alright.’ Aerlid sighed. ‘It was an
uncomplicated wound, though in a bad area. My apprentices did a
decent job.’

Riley did not feel alright. She felt like
she ought to be dead. But she wasn’t, so she forced herself to sit
up. Her head cleared as she looked around. As she looked down at
her stomach she was surprised to find it was still there, and that
she had stitches.

‘I had to fix it a bit of course, but they
were able to keep you with us while I dealt with Karesh.’

‘Karesh?’

Aerlid nodded. ‘Yes.’ He sighed and rubbed
his eyes. ‘Yes. He’s alive. I don’t know if he’ll ever fly again…
I’m too tired to do more than I have. But he’ll live.’

Riley was about to ask what happened and
then she stopped. ‘Aerlid, go get some sleep.’

For once, he did not argue. Instead he just
nodded and stood. Riley watched him shuffle away. Seeing his bent
form, Riley, not for the first time, wondered how long he could
keep it up. It was an unpleasant thought, without Aerlid, so many
more of the injured would die, and the ones that survived would
have to spend more time too hurt to fight, recovering naturally
from their wounds. Even with his apprentices’ help, he was tiring.
It occurred to her she would need to have him use his power less;
focusing mostly on keeping people from death, and let nature do the
rest of the work. She wondered if they could survive allowing the
gemengs time to heal naturally from their wounds. It was not, she
concluded, something she could decide on her own. She would have to
discuss the issue with Aerlid.

She looked down at her stomach again. She
could not really remember what happened. The pain had been too
much, everything had gone blank when it hit her. She shuddered then
at the thought of what could do this to her. For a moment that
thought hung in her mind. Never before had she suffered more than a
superficial cut.

But she seemed alright now, so she shook
those thoughts from her mind and stood. She found she could stand
without much difficulty. The tiredness and feeling of heaviness was
still there. Her stomach ached a bit, that was all. She’d never had
actual
stitches
before, though the wound looked old and
mostly healed now, and the stitches mostly superficial at this
point.