Chapter 64 - Nyal's Story part 13

The sun had passed the zenith of the heavens when they finally overtook the Foul Ones. It had begun its slow roll downhill, the shadows of the forest stretching toward the east like a thousand grasping hands. Gon arrested their punishing motion when they drew near. Ascending , he crept through the upper canopy of the forest, moving like a hunting cat, eyes locked onto his quarry. Nyal clung to his powerful shoulders as he glided from branch to branch, trying very hard not to cough and give them away. Below, just a little further down the hill, the Foul Ones marched their captives to their territory in the north.

Nyal counted nine of them. They advanced in a circular formation, their captives stumbling forward in a little clutch in the center of it. There were only four girls now, Nyal saw. One of them must have escaped. Or died. Death was more likely, though she didn't want to think on it. She tried to see if her granddaughters were among those who remained, but Gon shifted forward again, leaping soundlessly to the bough of another tree, and her vision was obscured by leaves.

Their voices drifted up from the forest floor, the harsh animal-speak of the Foul Ones, the keening of the children.

Nyal felt Gon pluck her from his body, and she shot him a protesting glare. She couldn't see from this vantage, she said with her eyes. She wanted to watch him punish their enemies.

Gon frowned faintly, then eased forward until she had an unobstructed view of the procession below. He settled her down on a thick bough, one she would have no trouble perching on, and crawled forward.

Nyal leaned to the left so she could see around his wagging butt. She still could not tell if her granddaughters were down there. Her lungs hitched and she clamped her palm over her mouth, trying to contain the cough. Her chest was burning fiercely, and she felt as if she could not take a full breath, though she wasn't sure if that was her injuries or her excitement.

Before she was quite prepared for it, Gon leapt.

He flew down at their adversaries with a snarl, moving so quickly she could barely follow him with her eyes. He didn't appear to travel so much as disappear in one place and reappear, an instant later, in another. It was much the way movements appear when lightning sparks the heavens at night, a rapid series of frozen poses, as if the strobing light arrested time in each blinking instant.

Blink, and he was at the rear of the procession, seizing two of the Foul Ones by the nape. Blink, and he had torn their heads from their shoulders, bright blood spraying in the air. Blink, and he had moved to the man standing beside them, lifting him over his head. Blink, and he had thrown the man into a tree before the first two men even fell.

Blink…blink…blink…

Nyal covered her mouth with her hand, eyes wide. Her heart felt like a fist inside her chest, squeezing. She had said she wanted to see Gon tear their enemies apart, but now that she had seen, she wished she could un-see it. It was too awful!

Gon killed most of the men before they even knew they were under attack. The last three barely registered his sudden appearance before he was at their throats. Gon dispatched the third man quickly. He simply punched through the man's chest. Nyal gaped at the sight of her husband's arm protruding from the Foul One's back, slick and red with his blood. Gon jerked his arm from his enemy's chest and turned to the second man, who was just now bringing his knife up to defend himself. Gon seized the man's arm in both hands and snapped the bones, then jerked the warrior to his mouth and ripped his throat out with his teeth. Gon spit the flesh from his mouth, then arched his spine, every muscle in his body taut and straining. He howled, and when the last of the Foul Ones turned to flee from him, Gon grabbed the man by the shawl and jerked him into his embrace.

I must have blood! Gon had said. And he had it.

As Nyal watched from the tree, too terrified to move, too horrified to even breath, Gon thrust his face into the crook of the Foul One's neck and bit down. The Foul One screamed, his teeth bright and pointy in his dark, mud-encrusted face. Gon repositioned his mouth and bit down again, and a torrent of blood cascaded down the Foul One's chest and abdomen. He fell, and Gon sank with him, still latched on.

The quartet of young women screamed and clutched one another in terror, eyeing Gon as they would an angry cave bear. They didn't run. They were too frightened to cross the ring of dead bodies that encircled them. They moved as far from their savior as they could, though, retreating from him without stepping across any of the dead men, but they did not flee.

Nyal leaned forward, wheezing and clutching her chest, and tried to identify the girls. She squinted, and then smiled in triumph.

Ganni! There is little Ganni!

She was filthy, her dark hair tangled, but she was alive! Alive and uninjured!

The other three girls had their backs to Nyal and wouldn't turn around.

The girls squealed again as Gon raised his head, blood drizzling from his mouth and chin. He stared at them blankly for a moment, the bridge of his nose furrowed, lips peeled back from curving, wolf-like fangs. For an instant he looked like he might throw himself upon them, savage them the way he had savaged their captors, and then his reason seemed to reassert itself. He shivered, blinking his glimmering eyes, and then wheeled away from the children in shame, hiding his face behind his hands.

"Don't look at me!" he choked.

"Girls!" Nyal shouted, but they couldn't hear her for their own wails and hysteric sobbing. The old woman slid her butt from the bough Gon had placed her on, dropping down to the next branch. "Girls, up here!" She wobbled, waved one hand at them, smiling in spite of her pain.

They heard her that time. All four children gazed up at her with teary, confused, miserable expressions—including Nyal's other granddaughter Korte-Anthe!

They both live! Nyal thought. They both live! Oh, thank you, ancestors, my granddaughters live!

"Don't be afraid, girls. It is only Gon. It is my husband, Thest-u'un-Mann. He has come to rescue you," Nyal called down. She looked below, hoping she might see a way to climb down to them. She wanted to pull her granddaughters into her arms, hug them tight. They would probably be as frightened of Nyal's hugs as they were their blood-soaked grandfather, but she didn't care. Let them be afraid! She was going to hug them anyway!

Her head swam as she looked down, and she tightened her grip on the branch above her head. She thought the dizziness would pass, that she was merely exhausted, but the faintness only grew worse. The world shrank to a tiny peephole in the center of her vision. She thought, Oh, Nyal! Don't let them see you fall from this tree and break your neck…

And then she fell.