The Night of the Swarm (Chathrand Voyage 4) by Robert V.S. Redick

the deeds. If there be war, you’ll fight.
    ‘There are riders with them!’ cried Taliktrum. ‘Seven riders! Olik, you must go faster! On that plateau they’ll run you down!’
    I’m not one for fighting, Mother; I’ve told you I can’t stand the blood.
    ‘Prince Olik!’ Taliktrum was shouting in his ear.
    I know that about you, darling. That’s why you’ll matter, when the world looks back. Others will be bloody-minded; you’ll fight to bring us to our senses.’
    If he had wings sewn to his arms he would spread them now, and lift like a falcon from this wounded earth. But instead there came a quietness, and a change in the light. The
nuhzat
had
begun.
    Thank you, Mother. Thank you for easing this pain.
    For his raw throat, the burning in his chest, the ache of his bitten arm: gone. Nothing hurt any more, and yet his senses were rarefied and keen. And he was running faster, much faster. Already
the buildings were flying by.
    ‘That’s it! Don’t stop!’
    They were ruins. Not ancient, merely old. He was sprinting down the centre of a wide, dead street, his own dogs barely matching his pace. Then he remembered:
Ved Oomin. Human Settlement.
The words in pale red ink upon his map. This was a township, wiped out in the mind-plague and never settled again.
    Sudden snarling behind him. He could not look back; he was a running spirit, an idea of speed. Taliktrum shouted that the first
athymars
were catching up with his pack. Olik clenched his
teeth and ran faster. The village was ending. A ruined wall crossed his path. Olik cleared it in one bound.
    Steel horseshoes on cobblestones. The riders were behind him. ‘They have bows,’ said Taliktrum. ‘Never mind, they’re not using them; it’s still the dogs
you’ve got to outrun.’
    Tombstones. Human graves lost in brambles and weeds. Names melting with the years, souls fallen like raindrops in this silent land.
    Another wall, another leap. And now he was in forest, wet and tangled. He slashed through vines and cabbage palm and tall soaked ferns. Bad luck. The forest would slow him more than the
dogs.
    Then the ground began to drop, steeply. At last, he thought, the descent.
    ‘There’s the blessed river!’ cried Taliktrum, ‘but Prince, they’re too close! You must push one more time, a little faster, do you hear? Olik,
you will not make
it at this speed.
’
    Half a mile, less. Then came an explosion of canine fury. On his right, two dogs were rolling, a coil of fur, claws, teeth. Olik shouted to the rest of his pack:
Go free, disband, leave the
fight and turn home.
But there was Nyrex, keeping pace with him, disobedient again. She caught his eye. So much trust in that creature, so much unwarranted faith.
    Taliktrum was screaming: ‘Faster, faster!
Hérid aj,
man, you’re almost there!’
    A quarter mile. The final stretch looked terribly steep. An arrow flew past him, wildly off the mark. His pursuers were desperate; they could see the river too.
    A last scramble before him. Maybe a leap from the high green banks. ‘Pitfire, you’re doing it!’ cried Taliktrum, almost laughing in his amazement. ‘You’re losing
them, man, you’re the royal leopard incarnate!’
    Of course he was; he was Bali Adro. There was no stopping his family. Given time they would conquer the sun.
    Then an
athymar
caught his heel.
    It was a nip, not a bone-crushing bite, and yet it was enough to send him sprawling. Any semblance of control was gone; the world spun madly. But the
athymar
had fallen, too. Nyrex had
pounced on it, and the three of them and half a ton of loose jungle soil were rushing for the river; it was a landslide with heads and limbs, his boots fending off the
athymar
, its four
fangs seeking him, Nyrex tearing at the larger dog’s hindquarters and—
    Freefall.
    The banks were high, all right. They plummeted in their squall of mud and debris, revolving helplessly, and then they struck and it was done.
    Olik was in the water, and Nyrex surfaced