The weakened ice breaks apart underneath him immediately, and he plummets through into the icy water.
Urav—as Shara called it—darts back, surprised by this intrusion. Sigrud is tiny before its huge, swarming bulk, a swallow flying against a black thundercloud.
Sigrud sees a mass of waving arms, a huge, black-veined bright eye, and below that a mouth six feet wide … but it is not yet open.
He whips the fishing spear forward. The barbed blade sinks deep into Urav’s black flesh, mere inches beside its huge eye.
Urav’s mouth snaps open, but in pain rather than attack. Its eye rolls to focus on Sigrud, who swings the halberd forward and cracks the creature in the mouth. Glittering teeth go spinning through the water like fireworks.
Urav writhes in pain and rage. Its tentacles snap out, grip Sigrud’s legs, but the thick layer of fat makes it impossible to find a grip … and more so, the tentacles withdraw suddenly as if the fat itself burns them: Sigrud can see the black skin bubbling where they touched him.
If Shara finds out her gambit worked, he thinks, there’ll be no living with her.
The water is churning about him. He feels another tentacle try to grip his ankle; this too slips off. Urav marshals all its attention to him, the countless limbs swirling around, preparing to strike.
Out, out now, he thinks, and he reaches up with his left hand, finds the sailing rope—it holds fast—and lifts himself up and out of the water, onto the ice.
His body is partially in shock from the temperature change, but he forces himself to forget about it, and instead focuses on sprinting to the fishing spear on the right. He hears ice shattering behind him, glances back to see Urav struggling against the sailing line, cracking through the ice around it—but the line holds fast.
Enraged, the creature bursts up onto the ice, its thousands of arms dragging its bulbous head forward. One tentacle pops forward and grasps Sigrud’s left arm; its claw digs a hole in the skin of his bicep; he trips forward and feels himself being dragged back.
He struggles against it; the tentacle maintains its grip, even though he can see it is sizzling where it touches him. Urav growls in pain and fury, gnaws at the ice, chopping it into coarse snow, No. No, I will not let you go.
Sigrud hacks at the tentacle once, twice with the halberd. This proves enough to weaken its grip, and with a low pop, Sigrud squirts free.
Praise the seas, thinks Sigrud as he runs, for cows with rich diets. …
“Shoot!” shouts Nesrhev from up above. “Pepper the damn thing!”
Bolts whiz through the air, plunk into the ice. Many bite into Urav’s hide; it screeches wildly, thrashes against the sailing line, which thrums like a guitar string.
Sigrud reaches the second fishing spear, but Urav is now focused on the men on the bridge. Its tentacles rise like a swarm of cobras and strike at the bridge above. There is a chorus of shrieks; two bodies twirl through the air, falling from the far side of the bridge. Please, thinks Sigrud, do not be Shara.
One tentacle curls down, a struggling police officer clutched in its grip, and stuffs the man into Urav’s gaping mouth. A huge crack as the ice begins to protest against the battle.
This, thinks Sigrud, is not what I wanted.
He runs forward, halberd clutched under one arm, and throws the second fishing spear. He very nearly misses as the creature thrashes against the rope, but the spear finds it way deep into Urav’s back. Urav howls again and whips around. The yellow eye glares at him. Sigrud catches the quickest glimpse of a tentacle speeding at him like a tree trunk rushing down a river; then the world explodes in stars and lights and he goes sliding across the ice.
He expects another attack: it doesn’t come. Groaning, he lifts his head and sees that Urav has turned in the ropes and is now tangled; the sailing rope from the first spear he threw, however, has snapped, so the tangle is not permanent.
Sigrud growls, shakes his head, tests his limbs: they work, more or less. The halberd is beside him, but it has snapped, making it more like a short axe. He picks it up and trots toward the third and final fishing spear.
Get it tangled, he thinks. Let it wear itself out, then beat it to death. Hack at its lungs until it drowns, drowns in its own blood. …
Stones begin to plummet from the Solda Bridge.
Unless, he thinks, it tears the bridge apart. …
He watches as Urav strikes the bridge over and over again. More small stones tumble into the water.
He wishes Nesrhev had never given the command to fire. He wishes Urav had stayed focused on him, only him.
This is why I hate being helped.