Hunting Gods by Ru Pringle

Author:Ru Pringle [Pringle, Ru]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-06-21T23:00:00+00:00

AT MASHINO’S REQUEST they circled round to hear the breathless Arliand’s story. He had flown to a great height, he said, heroically dodging enormous hawks and eagles and bat-like lizards four times his size. Flying in what he reckoned to be the direction Keyenti was taking them, he had eventually spotted the opening of a large cave, from which poured the small river whose valley they had earlier been following.

He had glided down to investigate.

He described statues inside that were taller than palace buildings. Some way beyond the entrance had been a blank wall: filthy, and the colour of tarnished steel, sealing off the cave from the floor to the roof, with no obvious way past it. Mashino fished the map from a pocket of his travel pack. The map had always been unimpressive. After weeks of travel it looked like something he might use to light a fire.

‘Is this it?’ the librarian asked, pointing to a cartoon denoting the temple. Orlis squinted at it. The image bore a resemblance to two opposing human figures, seated within a triangle. Orlis pulled a face.

‘An impressionist was he, your map maker?’

‘This is unhelpful,’ said Mashino with saintly patience. Murrin could have sworn he heard Tankentaer’s teeth grinding.

‘I do not understand what this silly triangle refers to. But the statues were all seated in rows, facing each other.’ Orlis described how he had been driven off before he could manage a detailed look by enormous and aggressive bats roosting in the cave, and had flown back as fast as he could to find the others.

It was then that he had seen the strangest sight. Perhaps two days’ march to the south was what he had thought at first to be a cloud.

He had flown towards it to investigate. Only when he had drawn much closer did he realise that the cloud was made of living things: birds, flying mammals and reptiles, and insects. All were fleeing the canopy of the jungle in a slowly advancing wave, like smoke before a brushfire.

‘We should go,’ said Tilmesh, slipping the sheath from the blade which formed the top half of his staff. Mashino was calmly screwing what Murrin at first took to be a stout knife to one end of his own, much thinner staff. Looking around wildly, Tankentaer drew his sword.

‘We can only hope this cave is the temple,’ he said grimly. ‘If not, we seem unlikely to find it in time.’ The Tysian conspicuously offered no speculation regarding who or what might be behind them.

No one argued. Mashino spoke briefly to Keyenti, who by now was clearly as frightened as the rest of them. Coll drew a knife and started tapping it urgently against his baldric. Somewhere nearby, Homollon clicked back at him. A vigorous exchange took place, Coll’s face tightening progressively. Then his features slackened a little, and he turned to the others.

‘Everyone on Homollon’s back,’ he ordered. ‘He has agreed to take us from here. Something is coming. Homollon feels it through the ground.

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