and Helm pulled away from him, releasing his lock on Nicholas's throat
and reaching down to grab his wrist with both hands.
Again they came to the surface close alongside the floating log, and
Nicholas realized that the current had taken hold of them again and was
carrying them away through the outlet of Taita's pool into the full
stream of the river. Nicholas released his grip on Helm's balls and with
his other hand aimed a punch at his face, but they were too close to
each other and the blow lacked power. It glanced off Helm's cheek, and
Nicholas tried to lock his extended arm around his neck, going for a
headlock himself Helm hunched his head down on his shoulders slipping
under the hold. Then suddenly he reached for-ward fast as a striking
adder and sank his teeth into Nicholas's chin.
The surprise was complete, and the pain was excruciating as his teeth
locked into the flesh. Nicholas shouted and clawed at Helm's face, going
for his eyes, trying to drive his fingernails through the lids. But Helm
squeezed his eyes tight closed and his teeth cut in ever deeper, so that
Nicholas's blood welled up and oozed from the corners of Helm's mouth.
The log was still floating beside them, inches from the back of Helm's
head. Nicholas seized his ears, one in each hand, and twisted him around
in the water. He could see over the top of Helm's head, while Helm's
vision was blocked. There was a nub of raw wood sticking out of the tree
trunk where an axe had hacked away a, ride branch.
The cut was at an angle, leaving a sharp spike. Through tears of agony
Nicholas lined up the spike with the back of Helm's head. He could feel
Helm's teeth almost meeting in the flesh of his face. They had cut
through the lower lip so that blood was starting to fill Nicholas's
mouth. Helm was worrying him like a pit'bull in the arena, wrenching his
head from side to side. Soon he would come away with a bloody mouthful
of Nicholas's flesh.
With all the strength of pain and desperation, Nicholas hurled himself
forward, and, using his upper body and his grip on the sides of Helm's
head, drove him on to the sharp wooden spike. The point found the joint
between the vertebrae of the spine and the base of Helm's skull, going
in like a nail and partially severing the spinal cord.
Helm's jaws sprang open as he went into spasm. Nicholas pulled away from
him with a flap of loose flesh hanging from his chin, and blood
streaming and spurting from the deep ragged wound.
Helm was impaled upon the spike, like a carcass on a butcher's hook. His
limbs twitched and the muscles of his face convulsed, his eyelids
shivered and jumped like those of an epileptic, and his eyeballs rolled
back into his skull so that only the whites showed, flashing grotesquely
in the gloom of the chasm.
Nicholas pulled himself up on to the tog beside the Texan's body, and
hung there panting and bleeding in gouts down his chin on to his chest.
Slowly the log revolved un er the eccentric weight distribution, and
Helm began to slide off the spike. His skin tore with a sound like silk
parting, and the vertebrae of his spine grated on wood.
Then the corpse, at last quiescent, flopped face down into the water and
began to sink.
