Oh no, boy. Morradin’s implacable command brought him to his feet. We have orders, don’t forget.
Sirus brought the rifle to his shoulder, aiming at the dim shape of the rock where the Shaman King sat, and fired. The maelstrom died immediately, the raised water transformed into a brief but heavy deluge, the weight of water enough to force Sirus to his knees. He shook the moisture from his face and looked up, finding the Shaman King on his feet now, staring at Sirus with a strangely sympathetic smile on his lips. Blood leaked from a bloody hole in his shoulder, though he gave no sign of pain.
Sirus worked the bolt on his rifle then reached into his ammunition pouch for another round. The rifle flew from his grip with a hard jerk then spun around, the butt striking Sirus on the side of the head. He fell, stunned and blinded by pain, scrabbling on the ground until his vision returned, and when it did it was to regard the sight of a large boulder lifting from the pool. Water trailed from its sides as it drifted closer, coming to a halt directly above where Sirus lay. The wonderful fear lurched anew, growing with every second he stared up at the hovering stone. He decided later that it was the fear that saved him, overcoming his pain and confusion to birth a final instinctive lurch to the side as the boulder fell.
He rolled upright as the rock slammed into the earth, whirling to see the Shaman King regarding him with what could only be described as amused respect. The small man sighed and crouched to retrieve a drinking-horn from the surface of the rock, pausing to utter something in his own language before drinking deep. He staggered as he finished, letting the horn fall from his grip, then straightened, his former humour vanished as he fixed Sirus with a dark, purposeful glare and the air around him began to shimmer with heat.
Red, Sirus realised, casting around for another weapon, hoping one of his unfortunate comrades had dropped a rifle near by, but there was nothing. His reborn fear compelled him to flee into the trees but he knew he would be burned to cinders before he made it. So he stood, watching the Shaman King summon the heat that would kill him, gratitude warring with fear in his heart.
A piercing cry sounded from above and a crimson streak descended onto the Shaman King in a blur of folding wings and flashing talons. The small man had no time to redirect his fire, barely managing to glance up before Katarias bore him down, claws pinning him to the rock. The huge Red gave a brief, triumphal screech and lowered its head to feed.
Sirus, finding he had no desire to witness this, turned away and walked off into the trees. The fear still thrummed in his chest, though it was lessened now. He clung to it, nurtured it with visions of recent horrors, for it was a precious thing he might have need of later.
CHAPTER 24
Clay
Clay screamed again as the dwarf Green worried at his leg, feeling teeth grind on his shin-bone. His finger closed convulsively on his revolver’s trigger, blasting a hole in the earth a foot wide of the attacking drake. He tried to draw back the hammer for another shot, then spasmed as the Green clamped its jaws tighter still and a wave of the purest agony ripped through him from head to toe.
Sigoral’s carbine gave a loud crack and blood exploded from a large hole in the Green’s back. It jerked in response, tail thrashing and thick blood spurting from its wound, but still its jaws held tight.
“The head!” Loriabeth yelled, her words part drowned by a sudden cacophony of Greens crying out in challenge as they rushed from the surrounding trees. Clay heard her revolvers blast out a rapid salvo followed by a chorus of screams.
Sigoral crouched and jammed the muzzle of his carbine barrel into the corner of the drake’s mouth, drawing another scream from Clay as the metal slid over his raw flesh. The carbine gave a muffled crack and the back of the Green’s head dissolved in a blossom of gore and shattered bone. Clay gaped at the red ruin of his leg, fascinated by the sight of his exposed bone and the blood leaking in rivulets from severed veins.
Loriabeth’s guns fell silent and Sigoral whirled away from him, bringing the carbine to his shoulder to loose off a rapid volley. Clay’s gaze swung towards the Corvantine, blinking away a flood of sweat to watch him blast a Green’s head apart in mid air as it leapt towards him. The sound of the shot was oddly dull, like a distant echo, and Clay’s vision suddenly seemed to be bleached of colour, as if he were watching a moving photostat.
His head lolled as a great weariness descended, the world dimming further into a vague mélange of shifting grey. He would have passed out if a fresh flare of agony hadn’t exploded in his leg, returning him to consciousness in time to catch sight of another dwarf Green clambering nimbly through the branches directly above. His reaction was purely instinctive and he later doubted he could have made the shot if he had tried. His gun hand came up in a smooth unhurried arc as his finger closed on the trigger, sending the bullet clean through the drake’s head as it crouched to launch itself down at Loriabeth.
“Up . . .” he croaked, head swivelling towards his companions, who were now preoccupied with feverishly reloading their guns. “Look up!” Clay shouted, loosing another shot into the forest canopy.
Loriabeth was the first to react, her wide-eyed gaze turning to murderous fury as she raised it to take in the sight of a dozen or more Greens swarming through the branches overhead. She started firing as another wave of exhaustion swept through Clay, this time too overwhelming for any amount of pain to resist. His last glimpse before his vision slipped into utter blackness was of Loriabeth and Sigoral standing above him, guns blazing as they fired into the trees and Green after Green fell around them like over-ripe fruit.
? ? ?
A deep, persistent throb dragged him from the void, leaving him floating close to the surface of consciousness. He drifted in a fog of pain and confusion, wincing at the sound of distant thunder that he slowly realised were voices.
“Aren’t we supposed to dilute it first?”
“He once drank the raw blood of a White and lived. I think he can handle this.”
A burn on his lips, then his tongue, the taste familiar but also far more intense and acrid than he was used to. It invaded his mouth then burned its way down his throat as he gave a reflexive gulp. The pain lessened immediately, the throb subsiding into a slow, muted pulse that felt rather like being punched through a thick blanket.
“Cuz?” a faint voice asked from the far end of a long tunnel. “You hear me?”
Clay tried to open his eyes but still full awareness escaped him. He groaned instead.