Dust of Dreams

untutored—’
    ‘There’s a chance,’ Faint insisted. ‘Beru’s black nipples, this
hurts
.’
    ‘She will attempt some healing, in a while,’ said Mappo. ‘It took all of her strength just to keep Jula alive.’
    Faint grunted and then gasped. Recovering, she said, ‘Guilt will do that.’
    Mappo nodded. The Bole brothers had followed Precious Thimble into this Guild, and she had joined on a whim, or, more likely, to see how far her twowould-be lovers would go in their pursuit of her. When love turned into a game, people got hurt, and Precious Thimble had finally begun to comprehend the truth of that.
You took them too far, didn’t you?
    At the same time without the Boles none of them here would be alive right now. Mappo still found it difficult to believe that a mortal man’s fists could do the damage he’d seen from Jula and Amby Bole. They had simply launched themselves on to the winged Che’Malle, and those oversized knuckles had struck with more power than Mappo’s own mace. He had heard bones crack beneath those blows, had heard the Che’Malle’s gasps of shock and pain. When it lashed out, it had been in frantic self-defence, a blind panic to dislodge its frenzied attackers. The creature’s talons, each one as long as a Semk scimitar, had plunged into Jula’s back, the four tips erupting from the man’s chest. It had flung the man away—and at that moment Amby’s lashing fists found the Che’Malle’s throat. Those impacts would have crushed the neck of a horse, and they proved damaging enough to force the Che’Malle into the air, wings thundering. A back-handed blow scraped Amby off and then the thing was lifting upward.
    Gruntle, who appeared to have been the Che’Malle’s original target—carried off in the first attack and presumed by the others to be dead—had then returned, an apparition engulfed in the rage of his god. Veered into the form of an enormous tiger, its shape strangely blurred and indistinct except for the barbs that writhed like tongues of black flame, he had launched himself into the air in an effort to drag down the Che’Malle. But it eluded him and then, wings hammering, it fled skyward.
    Mappo subsequently learned from Gruntle—once his fury was past, something like his human form returning—that his first battle with the thing had been a thousand reaches above the Wastelands, and when the Che’Malle failed to slay him, it had simply dropped him earthward. Gruntle had veered into his Soletaken form in mid-air. He now complained of bruised, throbbing joints, but Mappo knew it was a fall that should have killed him.
Trake intervened. No other possible explanation serves.
    He thought again about that horrifying creature, reiterating his own conviction that it was indeed some breed of K’Chain Che’Malle, though not one he had ever seen before, nor even heard of from those more intimate with the ancient race. It was twice the height of a K’ell Hunter, although gaunter. Its wingspan matched that of a middle-aged Eleint, yet where among dragons those wings served to aid speed and direct their manoeuvring in the air—with sorcery in effect carrying the dragon’s massive weight—for this Che’Malle all lift was produced by those wings. And its weight was but a fraction of an Eleint’s.
Gods, it was fast. And such strength!
In its second attack, after Gruntle was gone, the Che’Malle had simply lifted the entire carriage into the air, horses and all. If the carriage’s frame had not splintered in its grip, the beast would have carried them all skyward, until it reached a height from which a fall would be fatal. Simple and effective. The Che’Malle had attempted the tactic a few more times, before finally descending to do battle.
    To its regret.
    And, it must be admitted, ours as well.
Glanno Tarp was dead. So too Reccanto Ilk. And of course Master Quell. When Mappo had reached the carriage to pull Precious Thimble from the interior cabin, she had been hysterical—Quell had interposed himself between her and the attacking Che’Malle, and it had simply eviscerated him. If not for the Boles leaping on to its back, it would have slain her as well. Mappo still bore slashes on his hands and wrists from the woman’s blind terror.
    The carriage had proved beyond mundane repair. There had been no choice but to continue on foot, carrying away their wounded, with the threat of another attack ever looming over them.
    Still, I think the Boles hurt it.
    That