City of Hawks

The lions stood still, Smokemane’s tail showing jerky twitches of uncertainty. Gord, meanwhile, took his dagger and went to work on the hard and polished stone with which the cylindrical hole was faced. He needed but scant niches for fingertips and toes. The work was simple, and soon indeed he was high above the upturned heads of the lions, legs disappearing over the pit’s rim.

He had pretended confidence at his ability to release his companions, but Gord was deeply worried that he would not be able to do so. The males weighed six or seven hundred pounds each, conservatively. The females were only slightly smaller. How could he ever manage to get such massive cats out of a well that was more than twenty feet deep?

A narrow walkway circled the pit. Opposite the place where the victims were precipitated into its depths by the smooth-floored chute, there was an arched opening, a tu

The lock of the iron grating was easily dealt with, and in no time at all Gord was dragging a thick-timbered ladder back along the way he had just come. He slid the thing over the lip of the well, guided its end to the floor below, and then ran back up the tu

“I have placed these two ladders at as gentle an angle as possible,” Gord said to Smokemane. “You and your mates must use them to get out of this place, placing half of your weight on each. Go up the incline, and when the uppermost portion of the ladder is reached, it will be necessary to use your forepaws to draw yourselves over the rim. Don’t worry-the stone there is rough and cracked.” Gord looked into first Smokemane’s big eyes, then Hotbreath’s. “Can you and the lionesses do that?”

Before either male could growl in reply, a sleek female shot past them, leaped upon the pair of sloped ladders, and clambered up. “Yes,” she growled, and then gave a scrabbling leap and was atop the pit’s edge, peering down with feline hauteur. While Gord watched, all the remainder of the lionesses then climbed upward and out. The great males followed, with the wood groaning and bending under their weight, but not breaking despite the strain each of them placed upon the timbers. Finally Gord scampered up, doing so as easily as if he were serenely ascending a flight of broad steps.

“It might be beneficial to be a changeling, going from decent form to that of a hairless ape whenever the need arose,” the first lioness to climb free of the pit growled in droll, feline fashion as Gord sprang nimbly atop the well’s edge. He made no reply, but thought how nice it would be if he could become a great cat at will!

Soon enough the party of man and lions reached the terminus of the passage. A foul stench warned them of something ahead, and in the square chamber at the end of the passage was the source of the terrible odor-a dozen huge yeth hounds, lying almost dormant.

This place was certainly more than a Snuffdark lain it must be Imprimus’ main headquarters. Its pack of watchdogs, the yeth, were by no means active now, however. Snuffdark had brought all to a languid and torpid state. Under other circumstances, these creatures probably would have been roaming the tu

The sound made Cord’s hair stand on end, and he almost dropped his sword and dagger. At the first baying the lions responded with a chorus of coughing roars. The deep roars reverberated and echoed deafeningly in the enclosed, underground environment. In fact, the lions’ challenge to the monstrous yeth was so loud that the canines instantly left off their howling and attacked with bared fangs.

While the big cats were weakened by Snuffdark, they were not so reliant on shadowy light as were the mastifflike yeth. The dogs never had a chance because of this. While Gord fought for his life, fending off a pair of male yeth nearly as high at the shoulder as Gord was tall, the ten lions literally tore up the remainder of the evil pack of night-black monsters.

“I owe you for that,” Gord said, panting. Hotbreath had just taken care of the last yeth as the hound had been about to close its massive jaws on the young thief’s throat. The short sword and dagger were good blades, but definitely not the best things to use against these huge dogs.

“And you, lord, brought all of us safely from the pit,” the big male said, cleaning the dark blood from his paws and jowl. “Ferragh!” the lion growled in disgust. “There is no debt for my service in killing the yeth-you owe me a fat kill so I can get the vile taste of hounds’ blood from my mouth.”

“Consider it done! I will find some source of light for us, and then we must press on. The hidey-hole of Imprimus must be near.” Hotbreath went to the others to pass along the information, and Gord began a search of the large, square chamber. His light-vision was continuing to fade, and soon they would be in utter blackness again unless he could do something.

Three doors led from the ke

“Now, friend lions, I shall have to rely upon you entirely for my defense,” he said to the cats as he held the flame aloft. “With this torch now our only source of light, there will be little I can do but hold fast to it.” The thing cast only a dull illumination. In the realm of shadow, flames normally burned with a pearly, dove-gray radiance. During this season of absolute blackness, the oppression of Snuffdark caused even the hottest of fires to burn a drab and pallid gray. The sooty smoke of the torch rose from flame of dun, and a penumbral circle of light barely made visible objects that were but a dozen feet distant.

“We understand,” Smokemane answered for all. “Lead us to the way we’re to take, and leave the rest to us…” The huge male’s growled reply came loudly in the chamber, the last part trailing off into a snarl that indicated just how the lion contemplated handling his share of the expedition.

“There,” Gord responded, pointing to the left of the passage that led to the pit. His keen eyes had seen the dingy hair of the yeth hounds on and around the right-hand portal. That indicated a high probability that behind was nothing more than a storage room, the place the dead hounds’ food had been kept in all likelihood, and in any event a way seldom if ever used by the masters of the place. Otherwise, no accumulation of the beasts’ shed coats would be there. Similarly, the center door showed minute traces of corrosion on ring and hinges. These, and the fact that it was the only one of the three portals that opened outward, made Gord highly suspicious of it. He was willing to wager that it was a cleverly trapped device to catch and slay unwary intruders. “We go through that way. It is the only portal which sees regular use.” he added u