The movement of a few Silver brightbloods into the circle caused several on the Shadows side to rush forward in reaction. Which opened the floodgates on both sides as the Silver and Shadows brightbloods poured into the circle, charging at each other.
A wall of vines erupted out of the ground between the two clans. Several Silver brightbloods ran into it and were lifted up and flung back as the wall continued to explode upwards. I looked around for the source of the wall, and realized Silene must have created it as she was carried away. She had acted to save her clan before herself. I doubted Kaminari would give her a chance to do more.
Sal, Challa, and Dunngo ran after Kaminari and Silene. I thought I’d seen Waerjerk, Minerva, and the redcap angling in that direction, too, before the wall went up. I snatched up my backpack and began to follow.
“Retreat!” Don Faun shouted from the tree line behind us. “Back to your defensive positions! We’ll cover you!”
Frak. I fumbled at my backpack, struggling with the zippers in my haste, and almost dropped the plastic Taser with my sweat-slicked hand. I snatched up the baton with my other hand.
The tangled wall before me rustled as something attempted to plow through it. At the same time, a scorpion-like form scrabbled up onto the top of the wall, and a bulldog the size of a small bull careened around the far end, almost losing its footing as it turned sharply to lope at the gathered Silver brightblood. I paused, uncertain which direction was safest.
The Silvers ran, hopped, and galloped for the tree line. Arrows and crossbow bolts whispered through the air to shtik! into shadowbrights and the vine wall. One bolt punched into the charging bulldog. Battle cries and screams turned the campground into a war zone.
All ways were chaos. I continued running in the direction Kaminari had taken Silene. Pete and Vee fell in on either side of me. Pete hefted the silver sword, and his eyes flashed wolf blue. Vee whipped Zeke’s backup baton to full extension, while at the same time a giant squirrel tail sprang up from her lower back, pushing up the back of her shirt and rising behind her head like a samurai’s Sashimono banner.
The Shadows brightbloods swarmed through, over and around Silene’s wall, and chased after the retreating Silvers. A pair of ghouls angled off from the main pack to intercept us, their Mumm-Ra–looking bodies transforming into hyena as they ran.
“Keep going!” Pete shouted at me, then, like blockers guarding a runner in football, he and Vee broke off to stop the ghouls.
I hesitated, unwilling to just leave them.
Pete swung his sword at the first ghoul-hyena, who slid in the grass and scrambled to avoid the blow.
The other ghoul began to angle toward me. I raised the Taser, but Vee made a chittering sound and shook her giant, fluffy tail in a rapid quivering motion. The ghoul’s steps slowed, and a confused expression settled on his hyena face as his attention fixed on her tail. Vee charged at him and swung the glowing baton in an arc that hit the beast’s head with a bright flash, knocking the ghoul-hyena to the ground.
The first ghoul recovered from its slide and stalked Pete again with more caution. I swung the Taser around to target it, but Pete was in the way of a clear shot.
“Go!” Vee shouted at me. “We’ve got this!” She moved to back up Pete.
“Silene!” I heard Sal’s voice roar in the distance.
Damn it.
I continued chasing after Kaminari.
I reached the tree line and had to focus on where I was running as I followed the narrow dirt trail. I heard shouts ahead, mixed with distant screams and vicious animal sounds behind me and somewhere off to my left. I kept jerking around at sounds real and imagined in the forest behind and beside me, expecting some Shadows creature to ambush me from behind a cedar tree or the thick cover of ferns and holly.
I was so focused on spotting large monsters that I almost missed the spriggan that stood waiting on the path as I rounded a bend. A short, gnarled-looking creature with mottled brown skin and leaves growing out of it, it was easy to miss in the dappled evening light. The creature hissed at me and began to grow rapidly in size.
I fired the Taser at it. Two darts shot out, one hitting the creature and the other plunking into the dirt, wire trailing behind them to the gun.
The spriggan yelped, then fell to the dirt, convulsing and smoking as electricity coursed through its tiny body.
I ran up and swung the baton in an underhand swing that sent the creature flying back into the undergrowth. “Out of the way, Peck!”
The Taser wires tangled in a holly tree.
“Damn it.” I dropped the Taser after a couple of frustrated tugs, and continued running along the path.
I broke out onto the main service way to the Elwha Dam, a gravel road with a chain-link fence on the far side that protected against a sharp drop to the Elwha River. A large section of the fence had been torn open and bent aside, by a crazed jorōgumo I was willing to bet.
In front of the gap a battle raged.
Sal lay on the ground with Waerjerk in wolf form on top of him. Sal held the beast by the throat, keeping its snapping jaws from his face while Waerjerk’s claws tried to scrape at Sal’s furless and vulnerable chest and stomach. Sal already bled freely from a number of nasty-looking bites and scratches. Thankfully, already being a brightblood, he couldn’t be infected with the waer curse even if Waerjerk were unfettered, but that wouldn’t mean much if he bled to death.
Sal swung both arms in an arc to the side, which would have smashed Waerjerk’s head against the ground. But the wolf managed to twist free, tumbling across the gravel only to spring right back up and run at Sal as the sasquatch pushed to his feet.
Challa and wolf-Minerva appeared to be in a standoff, the sandy-colored waerwolf not strong enough to get past Challa’s armor, and Challa not fast enough to hit the wolf with her full strength. Minerva growled and stalked around Challa, probably trying to get to her back.
Closest to the fence’s gap danced Willem the redcap and Dunngo. The dwarf punched and hurled stones at Willem, while Willem cackled and spun his staff, knocking aside most of the attacks. Willem returned blows with his staff that sent chunks of Dunngo flying off into the night, but Dunngo swept up gravel and dirt from the path to replace whatever was lost. They were evenly matched, but the actions drained both of them—Willem of the blood that fueled his strength and healing, Dunngo of the magic required to regenerate. Soon, one would run out and the other would have the advantage.
Dunngo’s head spun around like an owl’s to face me, and he shouted, “Save Silene!” He swept over Willem then like an avalanche. Willem scrambled back, swinging furiously at Dunngo, but the momentum carried them both through the gap and over the cliff edge.
Challa, alerted by Dunngo, spotted me and shouted, “Hurry!” then pressed her attack on Minerva, moving the wolf away from the gap.
I ran for the gap in the fence, skidding on the gravel as I neared it, and grabbed at a length of chain-link that hung like a lolling tongue over the edge, barely stopping myself.
Dirt crumbled from beneath my toes to fall through the air, and I scrambled back to press against the fence beside the gap.
The cliff edge was a deceptive layer of leaves and ferns and ivy that hid where the actual solid ground ended. Beyond, a row of moss-covered maple trees rose up and entwined branches as though inspired by the chain-link fence to create an interweaving barrier of their own, joined by the occasional cedar tree spaced out like fence posts.
I held onto the length of chain-link and eased my way out to the edge again, probing with my foot for the edge of the cliff. I leaned out and looked down, flinching at each blow and shout behind me, acutely aware that a waerwolf might leap on me at any second.
The river bent its way back and forth through a narrow ravine with walls gray and soft and crumbling. Dunngo had landed in the river, and clung to a rock as his body washed away from him bit by torturous bit. The redcap must have been swept away, along with the blood that kept him alive.
A narrow band of coarse grass ran along the near edge of the river. Kaminari held Silene standing on that grassy ledge, legs bound in webbing. The pigtailed terror slapped Silene and screamed words that were incoherent between their madness and the white noise of the river.
I tried to see a clear path down to the pair, but the slope was too steep and I was no spider.
Kaminari snapped Silene’s arm back at the elbow so that it bent at an unnatural angle, and Silene’s scream echoed down the river, sending a murder of crows flapping out of the nearby trees.
I took a deep breath.
“Prepare for ludicrous speed,” I muttered.
*No, don’t!* Alynon said. *It’s suici—*
I went over the edge.
35
(I Just) Died in Your Arms
The cliff face held just enough slant that maybe two out of ten linguists would agree the word “slide” could be acceptably used instead of “plummet” to describe my descent toward the Elwha River. And even then, it would only be the two linguists who got kickbacks from the National Slides Are Awesome Council.
I aimed for rock outcroppings and tree trunks to slow my descent, and instead seemed to find every opportunity for back scraping, elbow knocking, and groin impaling on the way down.
I hit the ledge hard enough that my leg crumpled out from beneath me in a sharp explosion of pain, and I tumbled to the wet grass and moss.
“Ahh! Fuck!” My leg writhed with the pain, which some part of my brain deeply buried beneath all the “Ow ow OW!” said was a good thing if I could move it at all. No bones were sticking through my skin, either, which also seemed a good thing. But it still hurt like hell.
“Oh, look who’s come to play,” Kaminari said with childlike glee, and began clapping her hands in rhythm. “Two murderers, each to flay.” She began skipping around in a circle on her little-girl legs, her spider legs pulling in so that they poked out of her back like the skeletal remains of wings. “One a tree whore, here to stay. One arcana, now my prey. My sister’s death I’ll soon repay!”
Her skipping circle brought her close to me, and she lashed out with a kick to my face. I made a grab for her leg, but she moved far too quickly. I grabbed air, and her foot hit my face with the force of, well, a kick to the face.
I fell back to the grass, my eyes instantly watering and my face feeling in desperate need of an ice pack filled with oh-my-god-I-want-to-be-anywhere-else-right-now.
As I blinked away the tears, I saw that Dunngo had been reduced to little more than a baby-sized lump of his former self, the rushing river still washing away bits of dirt and rock as it splashed over the small boulder on which he sat, trapped.
Kaminari skipped back to Silene. “Broken girl, broken girl, let’s crack you open and find the pearl.”
*Drop into the river!* Alynon said. *Let it carry you away. At least you might survive!*
Unless you have real advice, shut up, I snapped back. Alynon’s voice did not help with the head pain. Yet I found myself actually looking downriver for a second where a fallen tree spanned the water. I considered the possibility that I could, in fact, survive and escape if I just jumped.
No.
I began crawling toward Kaminari, biting back a cry of pain with each movement of my leg.
Kaminari slapped Silene, whose eyes fluttered closed.
“No no no, no sleeping yet.” Kaminari spread her hands apart, producing a rope of webbing like a magic trick. “Not until you pay your debt.”
She began skipping rope, moving in a circle around Silene. “One, two, three, four, what flows in a tree whore? Is it blood? Is it sap? Or is it stinky sticky crap!” She lashed out with her web, snapping it like a whip and cutting a slash across Silene’s cheek.
She scurried forward and leaned upward to lick the wound. She gave a little shudder of delight like a child tasting sugar for the first time, her eyes closed.
I was halfway to her. If she remained distracted—
Kaminari’s hand shot out past Silene to point right at me, though she still stood with her eyes closed. “No more crawling, at least not yet, soon enough you’ll be my pet.”
That stopped me, and I felt a cold revulsion creep through me.
Did she intend to make me her slave, the way Brad the enforcer had become enslaved to Hiromi? Even though she could take the form of a grown woman at will, I somehow doubted she would make me her love slave. I didn’t want to think what other sadistic ways she might use to “condition” me to obey her, or what being enthralled to a psychopathic demon child would be like.
The sound of crashing earth and cracking tree limbs came from the cliff, and Sal plummeted to the grass between Silene and me amid an avalanche of leaves and dirt. He fell to his knees, but pushed himself back up quickly, one of the metal fence posts gripped in his massive fist. He swayed slightly when he stood, but then steadied. His entire body was a maze of cuts that covered his gray-tan skin in dark blood. He looked terrifying.
He spat in Kaminari’s direction, and I saw something glittering arc through the air to land at Silene’s feet.
Waerjerk’s earring. With a bit of wolf ear still attached.
“Leave, or I kill youself,” Sal said. He leaned down and picked up a small log with his free hand, holding it by a branch so that it hung along his arm like a shield.
“Scary scary, when you’re all hairy,” Kaminari said, the fury in her tone rising as she looked at the earring. “But now I’ll crush you like a berry.”
Kaminari took a couple steps back from Silene, and her spider legs extended, lifting her off of the ground.
Sal raised the fence pole. “Come, badfool darkbright. Think youself tougher than Hiromi, or youself’s five cousins I pulp-smashed on the way here?”
Kaminari took another step back and hissed.
I felt useless. I had a baton and my necromancy, both of which required me to get within touching distance of Kaminari. At most I might distract her by getting trampled between her and Sal.
“Help!” Dunngo shouted.
I looked over at the dwarf, now a basketball-sized collection of crystalline stones held together with a thin mortar of dirt. A couple more minutes and he would be dead.
I watched the river’s flowing water for a minute with growing dread. All of my choices felt equally hopeless, equally likely to end in death.
I limped to the edge of the grassy ledge as far upstream from Dunngo as I could get before a wall of rock cut me off.
My knees felt too weak to hold me upright, and I broke out into a cold sweat as I looked at the river flowing swiftly below me. I grabbed at the rock wall with a trembling hand. I counted to three, and—shivered.
*Do not psych yourself out,* Alynon said. *Just do it!*
I’m trying!
I must not fear drowning. Fear is the mind killer. Fear—
*JUMP! NOW!*
I closed my eyes and jumped into the river, trying to pretend I only hopped off of a curb because otherwise I feared I would delay just long enough that Dunngo would be gone and the need to jump also gone.
The pretending ended pretty damn quick.
Jumping into a mountain river in Washington State is like brain freeze, except all over your body. As my injured leg first screamed in pain and then went numb along with the rest of my skin, I wondered how snowmelt could possibly be colder than snow. The freezing, silty water swirled over my head and carried me along with the current.
And then my brain recovered from the shock and realized that I was completely immersed in water. I could not breathe. I panicked.
I splashed, and turned in the current, as rocks knocked into my arms and legs and ribs. I somehow found my way to the surface just in time to see Dunngo’s rock rushing toward me.
I swam as hard as I could using only my arms, and managed to slam into his rock. I grabbed hold of it and hung on for dear life. The act caused a wave of water to wash over the smooth boulder, carrying more of Dunngo away. I tried to adjust
, to find a way to block the water with my body, but it just flowed around me.
Dunngo’s eyes shifted to me, two pieces of obsidian in a pile too small for him to even form a mouth now.
“I’m sorry!” I said, wishing I’d had time to think this through. “I … I don’t think I can save you. I could try to throw you to shore?”
His eyes shifted side to side frantically, the closest he could come to shaking his head.
“Right.” He’d just scatter. And I’d probably dump half of him in the water. My teeth began to chatter, and my whole body shook from the cold.
I looked to the shore. Kaminari had tried to web Sal, but he’d used the log shield to block it and threw the log now at Kaminari. She screeched and dodged it. Sal charged and swung at her with the fence pole, but she easily skittered back out of range. From the looks of Sal, the longer the fight lasted the weaker an opponent he’d be. I just hoped Kaminari wasn’t sane enough to realize that.
The metal corners of the spirit trap amulet pressed painfully into my chest as I hugged the rock.
“Wait, Dunngo,” I said. “When you die, I can at least capture your spirit, and take what I can of your body. If I can get you to shore quickly enough, maybe I can find a way to bring you back.” Like reviving someone who’d drowned in freezing water, an analogy that came very easily to mind for some odd reason. “If not, you’ll at least get to say your good-byes, and I’ll make sure you get the proper rituals.”
Dirt closed over Dunngo’s polished black eyes, then opened again. There probably wasn’t much to say even if he could talk.
I lifted the spirit trap in a shaking hand, and laid it on the edge of what remained of Dunngo.
“M-may your spirit f-find p-peace,” I stuttered. “M-may your energy b-bring light to the d-darkness.”
Dunngo looked up at me as a splash of water carried away yet another piece of him. And whatever light or life had made his eyes glow, it faded and went dull.
I placed my hand on the spirit trap and reached out with my will, with my magic, through the artifact and pulled Dunngo’s spirit into it.
Bigfootloose and Finn Fancy Free Page 39