The Gathandrian Trilogy 01 - The Gifting

sound, as if the wind were flowing through trees. Or an animal’s legs were running through grass.
    No.
    Turning around, the scribe cried out but this time there was no answer, no welcoming hand. He could see nothing above, no sign of movement or life. He was on his own. Sweat almost blinding him, he tried to reach out and pull himself upward somehow, in the way that Johan and Isabella had done, but his mouth felt dry and his stomach queasy. He could find no strength for the task, and besides could not see the holds they must have found. His fingers refused to grasp them.
    Behind, the scatter of gravel brought a scream to his throat, which faded away when he swung around to face the ledge again.
    The sun had now risen high enough to light the eastern side of the mountain. The blackness had changed to a soft grey in which nothing could be clearly seen but everything outlined. For a moment all was still, the only signs of life being the howling and the memory of gravel. Scattering just out of sight.
    Then, silence.
    A heartbeat later, Simon saw a rush of energy from behind the rock which marked the pathway, and then they were there. Creatures. Not wolves—at least, none like he had ever seen before—and not wild dogs, but something in between. Ten of them, maybe more. Sleek and mottled grey, standing almost to his knees, and long. A man’s length, lying down. Their fur bristled, dapples of light flowed over and through it; a light that came not from the sun but from another, internal source. Their eyes were red and fierce, and their teeth bared. Under their feet, shimmers of reeds and grass which should never exist on a mountain rose up and disappeared almost at once, over and over again.
    When they saw the scribe, they began to howl once more.
    For lack of any other option, he tried to run, but his feet refused to submit to the command and all he could do was stumble.
    He heard the roar of the creatures rising and then the clatter of claws on rock. They had found their prey.
    In the effort to escape, Simon fell and jabbed his hand on a dagger of rock jutting out from the sheer slope. As he struggled to release himself, the dagger grew and pierced through the fleshy part of his hand. He cursed and pulled away, trying to get up, but he had nowhere to go. The rock face above was un-climbable, a barrier he was unable to cross.
    The animals were closer now. He could feel the heat of their breath and the smell of raw meat and blood from their mouths. Once again, this wasn’t how he wanted to die.
    “ No ,” he yelled at the pursuing pack. The jolt of it cleared his vision and he could see another pathway. One he hadn’t noticed before. Around the mountain, narrow and dark, sloping upward with the curve of the rock.
    No time to think.
    As he took a step towards the path, the pack leader’s jaws clamped shut on the bottom of his robe. In less time than it took for him to gasp, the pack had surrounded him.
    Simon froze.
    A moment later and the lead beast’s teeth were at his boot, seeking flesh. He stumbled and fell. The rest of the dogs crouched down, encircling him, as if responding to an unknown signal. Trying to pull himself free but with nowhere to run if he did, and no strength to do it anyway, Simon could see their eyes, ten pairs of them, which glowed a fiercer red than they had before. Blood and saliva dripped from their jaws, and their foreheads had become streaked with black. As he continued to gaze, expecting each moment for the beasts to finish it, he realised their skins were shining metallic in the growing light of the sun. No, not metallic. The deeper shades of rock, or stone.
    “ No .” Picking up a handful of small stones from the path where he lay, Simon flung them outwards at his oppressors. They didn’t flinch. As the gravel hit them, instead of causing pain or falling back to the earth, the skin of the animals simply shimmered and absorbed his feeble weapon, pulsating more wildly in the thin dawn light.
    The pack leader snarled a warning, ripped the leather of his boot as if it had been nothing but silk, and fastened his teeth into Simon’s leg. He cried out and, turning, tried to beat the animal off with his fists. A moment more and the pack was upon him, their hot stale breath scorching his skin, their teeth tearing at clothes and hair, and their mouths baying for blood. Beyond them, the scribe glimpsed a figure in shadow, a flash of silver at his side. The enemy…
    Simon closed his eyes.