Chapter 38 Battle-Roar
Battle-Roar
She screamed as she went in, a hopeless trailing cry yanking on his every nerve. The stone mouth swallowed her without a murmur, and Erik turned back to the door, his free hand blurring for a gun. He’d bottle them, and wait for the Flame to spark in the oneiros, answering his lirai’s need.
You stupid asshole. She’s going to die.
He met the first creature at the opening with a shattering jolt, sweeping the knife under its strike.
The blade bit deep, unseaming the lun’nyie’s guts, and its wounded cry was a brazen trumpet stripping his filthy hair back, digging into his staring eyes, striping his cheeks and shoulders with tiny razor cuts.
You killed her. She’ll fall, she’ll hit, the Flame won’t come, you have failed.
A gleeful, lipless voice caroled inside his skull, and now Erik understood why his training had been so unforgiving.
His body knew what to do even if his mind was cracking under a separate assault, clawed fingers sinking into his head like a metal pick digging the meat from a walnut’s shell, a fraction of attention spared by an old, foul, insanely powerful thing draped in ancient jeweled cerements, howling with glee.
Just give in. Let go. All you must do is pause, just for a moment.
He was not the only one the Mad God was focusing on, but even a microscopic sliver of that being’s notice was more than mortal sanity could stand.
Good thing I’m crazy then, huh? The gun spoke; he batted aside the first lun’nyie’s dying-weak strike and found out he was growling, a low buzzing in his chest and another of the tall, pale four-armed things with their wide, horribly beautiful blue eyes looming on the stairs above, its slender body taut-bent backward as it held thin leashes of golden leather in each six-fingered, extra-knuckled hand.
The moon-runners weren’t the biggest danger at the moment.
It was the hounds, bigger than the sarnaki’s fellow hunters.
These were hulking, slavering, dirty ivory-colored things with golden collars, rubies dripping from their harnesses and their serrated teeth foaming with disease.
The spiral staircase rang with activity; these were just the quickest pursuers.
Spray, before the wave.
They had the high ground, but he could stack the dead in the doorway and buy himself a little more time. A lirai was only partially immune to the moon-dogs’ bite; the viral venom would drive a Son into killing rage.
Good. Come on, bite me. The growl caged in his ribs spiraled up; he popped two shots into the leash-holder. If he could get it down and tangle the dogs up, he’d have a chance.
Until the next wave came.
The battle-roar filled his throat, but he throttled it. Better he should choke, better that more spear-claws should pincushion his body and the hounds splinter-chew his bones while he denied them the pleasure of screaming. Better he should die than give voice to that massive, world-wrecking howl.
After all, he had no right to speak her name. Not now.
Erik lunged, his right-hand knife finding unclean flesh, and was too busy to prepare himself for the inevitable.