Urav’s thrashing has shredded almost all the ice under the bridge; the chunk with Sigrud’s final fishing spear in it bobs up and down like the floater of a fishing pole. With a sigh, Sigrud dives into the water—the cold is like a hammer to his head—swims to it, pulls the spear free, and tugs on the rope until it pulls him to sturdier ice.
His limbs are numb; his hands and feet report that they no longer exist. Urav twists against the rope, opens its mouth to shriek; Sigrud doesn’t hesitate, and hurls the fishing spear into the roof of the creature’s mouth.
It wails in pain, twists, fights against its many bonds, exposing its soft, black, jelly-like underside.
Now.
He rushes forward with the halberd, dodges a tentacle, slides over on the ice, clambers to his feet. …
He is past the fence of swirling tentacles. He begins mercilessly hacking at the creature’s belly.
Urav howls, yammers, shrieks, struggles. Black blood rains on Sigrud in a torrent. His body reports either icy cold or boiling heat. He keeps slashing, keeps hacking.
He remembers burying the bones in his courtyard.
He brings the halberd down.
He remembers looking up in his jail cell and seeing a needle of sunlight poking through, and trying to cradle that tiny pinhole of light in his hands.
He brings the halberd down.
He remembers watching the shores of his homeland fade away from the deck of the Saypuri dreadnought.
He brings the halberd down. Eventually he realizes he is screaming.
I curse the world not for what was stolen from me, but for revealing it was never stolen long after the world had made me a different man.
Urav groans, whines. The tentacles go slack. The beast seems to deflate, slowly falling back like an enormous, black tree. The many ropes twang and whine with the weight, and Urav hangs in their net, defeated.
Sigrud is dimly aware of cheering up on the bridge. But he can still see the organs inside the creature pumping and churning. Not dead, not dead yet …
A bright gold eye surfaces from the sea of tentacles at his feet. It narrows, examining him.
Suddenly the limp tentacles are not limp: they fly up, grab the weakest leg of the bridge, and pull.
Sigrud is briefly aware of a dark shadow appearing on his right, and growing; then a huge stone pierces the ice mere yards away.
Sigrud says, “Shi—”
The ice below him tips up like a seesaw, and he is thrown forty feet at least. Then he knows nothing but the cold and the water.
He feels water beat on his nose and mouth. A stream worms its way into his sinuses, tickles his lungs, almost evoking a cough.
Do not drown.
Air burns inside of him. He turns over, looks up; the sky is molten crystal, impenetrable.
Do not drown.
He can see Urav above him, fighting against the ropes. Above the creature is a solid black arch: the bridge.
Sigrud kicks his legs, aims for a widening crack in the ice above.
The solid black arch of the bridge grows a little less … solid. Through the lens of the churning water and ice, it appears to vanish; then a stone ten feet across bursts into the dark water; ropes of bubbles twist and twirl around it; Sigrud darts away, and is buffeted up by its force.
Do not drown, he thinks, and do not be crushed.
More stones crash down, causing enormous concussions that push him up, up. …
The water surface is a membrane, keeping him trapped; he is not sure if he can break through.
He claws at it with his hands, opens his mouth, and tastes wintry air.
Sigrud hauls himself out of the water and onto the ice. This far from the bridge the ice is thankfully solid; he looks back and sees the bridge is not there at all: it is collapsing into the water, causing huge waves … and he cannot see Urav anywhere.
Sigrud, weak, shivering, kneels on the ice and looks for some sign of hope: a fire, a rope, a boat, anything. Yet all he can see is the orb of soft, yellow light slipping through the water toward him, shoving the chunks of ice aside as if they were tissue paper.
“Hm,” he says.
He looks at his hands and arms: the fat has been completely washed away during the fight, presumably taking away whatever protection Shara provided with it.
Then there is a swarm of tentacles around him, and a trembling, widening mouth—one that is missing many teeth—and then a soft push on his back, ushering him in.
*
Sigrud opens his eye.
He sits on a vast, black plain. The sky above him is just as black; he only knows that the plain is there because on its horizon is a huge, burning yellow eye that casts a faint yellow light across the black sands.
A voice says, “YOU WILL KNOW PAIN.”
Sigrud looks to his left and right; around him is a vast field of seated corpses, ashen and dry, as if all the moisture has been boiled out of them. One is dressed like a police officer; another holds a fishing trap. All the corpses are seated facing the burning eye, and each face, though desiccated and gray, bears a look of terrible suffering.
Then he sees that the chests of the corpses are moving, gently breathing.
Sigrud realizes: They are alive. …
The voice says, “YOU WILL KNOW PAIN, FOR YOU ARE FALLEN.”